spoken by Paul Washer to a young man with questions at a conference
If he is—if he is truly dead in his sins, if he truly hates God, if all men are equally evil (and they are), then the question is, how are you standing here right now believing in God while some of your friends, who are more moral than you, still hate him?
If you say, "Well, I opened up my heart," I will say, "No you did not." The Bible says that God opened up Lydia's heart.
If you say, "Well, I repented," repentance is an evangelical grace in all the confessions. That means it comes from God as a gift.
If you say, "Well, I believe,"... Ephesians 2. It is also a gift.
The Bible says that no man can come to God unless he is drawn by God.
You ask, "Is the offer of salvation for all men, or did God sit back in eternity and say 'It is for you, you, you, and you, but you, you, you, and you are going to hell'?"
Let us assume that there is no election. Let us say that men really are radically depraved and that no man can come to God unless God draws him. So God comes down to every man and says, "Anyone who will bow the knee to Me, anyone who will accept My Son as their Saviour, will be saved." Since every man is radically depraved, they all hate God. They all blaspheme Him, turn around, walk away and go straight to hell. The whole world goes to hell. Is that God's fault?
If the Bible is true, and men hate God that much, who is going to get saved? Absolutely no one! If God saves no one because everyone is evil and rejects Him, is God wrong in doing that? No.
That is what you have without election. You have the whole world hating God and going to hell.
The other option is this: among these evil men, for His own glory, and to demonstrate His own kindness before the foundation of the world, He chooses a group of people out of there to demonstrate His glory in them. Is that wrong? Did He rip the other men off? What did He do?
You have two choices: God saves a group of people by His own sovereignty or everybody goes to hell. Everybody! Because men are that evil.
What you need to realize is this: if God, right now, were to throw open the door to hell and say, "Everyone who wants out of hell, the only thing you have to do is bow your knee to Me and recognize My Lordship," they will slam the door and stay in hell.
What you do not realize, because of the humanistic "Christianity" in America, is that men are really evil. They really are evil. That is your problem. You do not think men are. Men really are evil. Men really deserve hell.
Men cannot come to God because they will not come to God. They will not come to God because they hate Him, and therefore they are responsible.
Men are evil. God is good. Men hate God, they hate His law, they hate everything about Him. That is why no man will ever come to God. If God comes down and says, "Alright, everyone make their choice;" no one is coming to God. Why? Because they hate Him. That is why they are judged for their inability to come. Their inability is moral. They really hate God.
You have a whole human race—every one of them is fallen, everyone of them hates God; God comes down and says, "Who wants to be saved?" Everybody blasphemes the name of God, walks into hell and slams the door. Everybody. Because men really are evil.
If God says, "For My own glory, I am going to redeem a people and give them to My Son, by My own choice, by My own sovereign election," He's done wrong to no one.
If you are spiritually dead prior to conversion, then how do you come to Christ? If you are spiritually blind, how do you see Him? You say, "He draws me unto Him." You are a dead man. If some of it has to do with you, you are a dead man. If God calls your name, you hate Him. You are not going to come, you are going to run farther away from Him. That is why in all the old Christian confessions they said you had to be born again in order to believe in Jesus. You have been raised that you have to believe in order to be born again. You see the difference?
If I tell a dead man, "Look, you are dead, but there is a hospital just over here that can put some electrodes on you, just get up and follow me over to the hospital," it is nonsensical. He is dead. If he can get up, he does not need to go to a hospital.
When Jesus looked at Lazarus and said, "Lazarus, come forth," Lazarus cannot hear the command because he is dead. The command was not only given, but Lazarus was also resurrected just to be able to even hear the command and respond. That is why people can sit in church Sunday after Sunday and hear the gospel preached time and time again and nothing happens in their life. But one day the gospel is preached and, whoosh!, the blinders are taken off and you want Him.
Some people say that God draws us to a certain point and then allows us to decide. If God only illuminates the mind of the sinner, then the more the sinner sees God, the more he is going to hate Him. God not only illuminates the mind, He also changes the heart. With a new heart, for the first time you want Jesus and you say, "I love Him and I am irresistibly drawn to Him. I want Him more than anything."
-The above taken from Paul Washer
Every man, woman, and child on the face of this earth is dead in trespasses and sins. Every man, woman, and child is like the valley of dry bones. They cannot come to life on their own, and if God calls to them and tells them to repent and believe, they cannot do so. Why? Because they are dead! Without God first making them alive, changing their heart (see Lydia in Acts) so that when they hear (because faith comes by hearing) they will respond in repentance and faith, they will never respond because they are spiritually dead. There are all sorts of commands in the Bible to repent and believe, and there are many passages that say men cannot repent and believe, but there is not a single verse that says men can repent and believe. Without God granting it to them, they cannot and will not ever do it. They will reject God every time!