Rev. Ron Hanko’s Rebuttal of Rev. David Silversides’ defense of Common Grace!

[From a public debate between Ron Hanko and David Silversides which took place over two evenings on 3rd & 4th February 1995 in Belfast]

[Transcribed accurately and edited by Mike Jeshurun for the blessing of God’s Elect]

What the Debate is about!

I am thankful for the opportunity to be here this evening. I would agree with David Silverside that the subject is certainly worthy of our attention, that there are some extremely important issues that we are talking about here and I hope to lay before you the truth of the Word of God concerning those issues as we go about our business. Mostly glad for the opportunity this evening because it gives me the opportunity to correct some misconceptions and misrepresentations. Some of them you have heard this evening, some you have not heard. But Mr. Silverside has spoken and written against our views in number of different occasions around the United Kingdom and in doing that he has in a number of different ways misconstrued, misrepresented and misquoted us. And I hope to set some of those things straight. I would want to say at the beginning, I want to agree with him on a couple of things and we’ll go on to the disagreements.

First of all, I have no quarrel with the fact that when we are speaking of Common Grace, we are also speaking of Common Love, Common Mercy, Common Goodness, Common Long Suffering, they all go together. They cannot be separated; I am not going to argue just against a Common Grace this evening but against a Common Love, Common Mercy, Common benevolence, Common Goodness, common Long Suffering. I agree with him at that point that they all stand or fall together. I also agree with him on the fact that the issue is whether or not God has a favorable disposition to the wicked in this life. We don’t disagree about God’s eternal wrath against the wicked in hell, we don’t disagree about the fact that the love of God in Election is only for God’s people. The question is

whether there is a love or grace of God for the reprobate wicked in this life and only in this life.

Rev Herman Hoeksema vindicated. Justification takes place in ‘time’ not Eternity!

With that in mind, I want to begin this evening by clarifying some things. Want to say just a little bit first of all a little bit about that matter of justification. That’s not really the issue this evening but Mr. Siversides made quite a thing of it. Want to make it absolutely clear that for myself at least justification is something takes place in time when we believed on Jesus Christ and that we are justified only then. I believe that God decreed the justification of His people from eternity, but I whole heartedly agree with the Westminster standards which say that we are not actually justified until we believe. And I think Mr. Silversides even misrepresented Herman Hoeksema at that point. If he had read just a little bit further from the quote that he gave. He would have seen first of all that Rev. Hoeksema calls ‘Justification by Faith’ Actual justification. That says something. He would have also seen that Rev. Hoeksema did not believe that justification by faith is just simply a matter of learning that you are justified or that you are being assured that you are justified. He believed, and he says that from the same chapter from which Mr. Silversides quoted, that faith is imputed to us as righteousness and that is in that way we are justified and made righteous before God.

God’s Elect can experience God’s Wrath but not Hatred!

I also want to clarify another misrepresentation. I think that Mr. Silversides has made quite an error there. He says that we don’t believe (he used the example of John Bunyan) that God’s people are ever under the wrath of God. That simply is not true. If John Bunyan and as he says experienced the wrath of God, then I believe that he meant what he said. And I think that everyone of God’s people experiences that wrath of God. But that’s not the question! The point is and that’s the thing I would like you to remember, that there’s a difference between wrath and hatred. Mr. Silversides has confused the two. I don’t believe that the Elect are ever hated by God. But I certainly believe that they can be under the judicial wrath of God. And that they often are under the judicial wrath of God even after they are brought to salvation! That they can experience the heavy hand of God

against them in their sins, as David did when he sinned with Bathsheba. He records his experience of the wrath of God against his sins in Psalm 32. I don’t have any problem with that. But there’s a difference you see between wrath and hatred. I can be very wrathful with my children, but that doesn’t mean that I hate them! I’d certainly had not better hate them in being wrathful with them. In fact my wrath with them is an expression of my love for them. At least it should be and by the grace of God I hope it is. But you see what I’m saying, there is quite a difference between wrath and hatred. God certainly can be angry with His people, and when He comes to them to save them then He saves them from wrath, and from that deep sense of condemnation that’s part of the wrath of God to give them peace through His grace. But that does not mean that He hates them. His wrath against them is not a wrath which is rooted in hatred for them but a wrath which is rooted in His eternal and unchangeable love for them. Even after they’ve been saved when He reveals His wrath He reveals it in order to turn them from their sins and to bring them back to Himself. Maybe we’ll have opportunity to come back to that. But remember that there’s a difference between wrath and hatred and I by no means deny that God’s people can be under the wrath of God. Wrath and hatred are not the same.

What theologians mean while using the term ‘Common Grace’

But I want to go back now. I think we need to clarify a little bit what Common Grace is. We read about Common Grace in a lot of different writers, they don’t all mean the same thing. That’s something that needs to be clear. I have friends who say that they believe in Common Grace and when we discuss that together it becomes obvious that there really is no difference between us. It’s just a matter of terminology, just a matter of words. And I’m not going to fight about words. On the other hand the differences I think that was clear this evening between Mr. Silverside and myself are more than words. So he means something quite different from Common Grace than those friends that I was talking about. And those differences between Mr. Silverside and myself touch on such important things as the very nature of God Himself, and the nature of Gospel preaching and the truth of Calvinism, and the Sovereignty of God! I believe that that’s true in spite of his efforts to show that it was not the case that his views conflict with the sovereignty of God and with some of the five points of Calvinism. That’s important too for your reading, to remember that there are these differences. You’ll find Common

Grace mentioned in many many Reformed writers and theologians. You may not simply take it for granted that they all mean the same thing when they talk about Common Grace. You certainly may not take it for granted that they mean by Common Grace what Mr. Silverside means by Common Grace. In many cases the older Reformed writers when they speak of Common Grace mean nothing more than what I mean when I talk about a Common Providence of God. And if you read them in the context you’ll be able to see that.

Three different views of Common grace basically. There are three different things that people mean by Common Grace. Some mean as I just indicated just a Common Providence of God. If you read the older Reformed writers, I think you’ll find that’s what they usually mean. Calvin, Owen, Thornwell and so on. There was an article in ‘Reformation Today’ not so long ago, in which the man (one of the writers, the editors of Reformation Today) quoted, Calvin Turretin, Owen, Gill, Thornwell, Murray and Berkhof in proof of a common love of God. I looked up all of those quotes, and with the exception of Berkof and Murray all the other writers in their refrences to a common love of God were referring to nothing, nothing but a Common Providence. My differences with people who mean by Common Grace a Common Providence is nothing more than a matter of terminology. Maybe I should explain that a little more.

The purpose of God in providence concerning the Reprobate wicked!

I believe for example that God in His providence gives good gifts to the wicked. I don’t think you can deny that on the basis of Scripture. I only deny that in giving them those good gifts His motive is to bless them, or be merciful to them, or that He does that out of love for them. It is possible you know to give someone a good gift without loving them, without giving them that gift for a good motive. Think of a farmer as he goes about his business on his farm. He takes care of all the animals. When one of them gets sick, he calls for the veterinarian to come and give whatever medication is necessary to that sick animal so that it can be healed. He feeds the animals, he keeps them from hurting each other (they often do that if left to themselves) he does all of those things for those animals, not out of love for them! He’s only raising them for slaughter. But he does all of those good things (Picture of the providential operations of God) out of love for himself, for his own family, for his own earthly wellbeing. His motive in giving them all of those good

things is not love for them. Especially not in view of the fact that he’s raising them for slaughter.

I believe in common operations of the Spirit. Mr. Silverside said he didn’t know what I believed. Now he does. I believe in common operations of the Spirit. That the Spirit works with and in the reprobate wicked as well as in the elect. And I believe that that’s part of God’s providence with respect to all men. I only disagree that that’s in any way a gracious operation of God’s Spirit, or an operation that does them any good; any spiritual good at least. In fact I believe that leaves them even more worthy of the damnation of God, and in view of that can hardly be called grace or love or mercy. Whatever those operations are it leaves them all the more worthy of God’s Judgments. I find it very difficult even to think of that as grace. I don’t deny that by His providence that God restrains sin. He does. He restrained sin at the Tower of Babel when He changed the languages of those who were building the Tower. But in all of that God is not making them less wicked, nor is he showing any goodness, favor, love or grace to them. What He’s doing is a little bit like what you do when you put a muzzle on a rabid dog. All you’re doing is keeping the dog from biting. Not changing the dog at all; not changing the nature of the dog; all you’re doing is keeping it from biting people. Operations of God’s providence do that with respect to the wicked. Nothing of a love, or grace, or mercy of God in it.

God delays Judgment on the Reprobate for the Elect’s sake!

I believe too that God delays His judgment with respect to those who will finally come under His wrath. But not for their sakes, He does it for the sake of His people, His beloved people. I believe that’s what Peter means when he says in 2Peter 3:9, that the Lord is longsuffering to usward. Not willing that any of us (that’s the implication) should perish but that all of us should come to repentance. That’s why He delays the sending of Christ in the Day of Judgment when His wrath will break forth in all its fury against the workers of iniquity.

Common providence, that’s all many mean when they speak of Common Grace. And there are those who go a step further. There are those who not only talk about a Common Providence but see in those common providences of God a favorable disposition of God to the reprobate wicked, or to all men if you prefer. They see in

the restraint of sin in common operations of the Spirit, in the good gifts of rain, sunshine, health, food and shelter and all of the rest a favorable disposition of God towards all men. But these people totally divorce that common grace from salvation. It has nothing to do with salvation. That was the position of the well known Dutch Theologian Abraham Kuyper. He believed in Common Grace, he wrote three volumes on it. But he insisted that that Common grace had absolutely nothing to do with salvation. And he was so insistent on that that he even used two different words to describe the grace that brings salvation which is only for the elect and grace that’s shown in natural gifts, rain and sunshine, common operations of the Spirit, restraint of sin etc. He said that they are two entirely different things.

Mr. Silversides’ position of Common Grace defined

Now that’s not the position of Mr. Silversides. He has a common grace that does have something to do with salvation. I want to make that clear. This Common Grace is not just a Common grace which involves gifts of food and drink, it’s not a Common grace which just has to do with the restraint of sin, but a Common Grace which wants to save all men. A Common Grace which offers salvation to all men. A Common Grace which sincerely desires the salvation of all men. When you talk about the preaching of the gospel, and say that God in the preaching of the gospel offers Christ in all His fullness to all men; you are not talking about a Common Grace anymore that is limited just to providence, but you are talking about a Common Grace that has to do with salvation. And that’s the third position on Common Grace too. There are those like Mr. Silverside whose Common grace is not just in natural things, the things of this life but is involved with salvation, mixed up with the grace by which we actually receive salvation from God.

Now there are all different (in that third position) shades of opinion. Some like Mr. Silversides will say that grace isn’t rooted in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Others will say it is. Erroll Hulse the editor of Reformation Today says without any qualification that that grace that desires the salvation of all men, that wants to save all men, is rooted in the Cross. He understands I guess that it has to come from somewhere. In that respect he is more consistent I think than Mr. Silversides. He understands that if God is offering salvation to all men, He has to have something to offer. Something that Christ purchased. Or if there is this grace for all men that wants to save them, it has to be purchased somewhere. You can’t have Christ less

grace! If it’s involved with salvation especially. So there are those who go a step further than Mr. Silversides does and root this grace in the Cross of Jesus Christ, then there are those who go way beyond that and say that this Common grace makes it possible for all men to exercise their free will and choose whether or not they are going to be saved. It makes it possible for them to actually make the first steps in being saved and so on. Different shades of opinion. But the thing I want you to understand is that the Common grace that Mr. Silversides is talking about is inseparably involved with salvation. It offers salvation to all men. It expresses a desire of God to save them. Might ask yourself at this point where you stand.

I think it’s evident now, perhaps a little bit more evident where Mr. Silversides and I stand. He stands at one end of the spectrum and I stand at the other. In fact I prefer not to call God’s common providence grace at all! I’m not going to quarrel about words with those who do, but I think it’s better not even to call it grace. Because there is no love, no favorable disposition of God in those things to the wicked.

Why do I believe that? Well I don’t believe it because I am a student of Herman Hoeksema or of my father who David Silversides quoted. I believe that because I believe it is the clear teaching of the Word of God. I want you to remember at this point that love, grace, mercy, lovingkindness and goodness are really all the same thing (not quite the same thing) but they are all related to one another. I want you to remember that. And I’d like you to check to what I say in a good concordance when you get home.

The words ‘love’ and ‘grace’ never used in Scripture with reference to the reprobate wicked!

First of all the word ‘love’. Now let’s use the word grace first, ‘cause that’s the one we are talking about. The word grace (this is why I don’t believe in Common Grace) is used over 300 times in the Bible, about 200 times it’s actually translated grace. Never, never once in the Bible is it used with reference to the reprobate wicked. Never once! Go home and check! The word ‘love’ is the same, it is used over 500 times in the Bible, and I’ll let you use passages like John three verse sixteen which off course are closed to the Calvinist (can’t use those to prove a general love of God). I’ll let you use passages like John three verse sixteen, the

word ‘love’ is never used either in reference to the reprobate wicked. Never once! You can check it in a concordance.

Some of the other things we are talking about –mercy, goodness. When you talk about those words then the whole argument for a common mercy or a common goodness of God rests on two or three passages – Psalm 145:9, Matthew 5:43-48, and the parallel passage in Luke 6:27-36. The whole argument (understand that there are no other passages) in Scripture that clearly use the words mercy and goodness in relation to the reprobate wicked except perhaps those three and I am going to talk about those three. Same is true of the word longsuffering. There are possibly three passages that could be used to prove a general longsuffering of God, and they are the ones Mr. Silversides referred to – Romans 2:4, Romans 9:22, 2Peter 3:9.

God’s disposition towards the Reprobate is one of unremitting and unchangeable hatred!

So in defense of the doctrine of Common Grace over against all the passages that talk about God’s love, grace, mercy, loving kindness and all of the rest, we have a total of five or six passages that seem to teach a common love of God. And that’s a rather formidable argument in my opinion. Especially with respect to the word grace and the word love; that those important words are never, never used in reference to the reprobate wicked. Never! Maybe you didn’t notice that even Matthew 5:43-48 does not actually say that God loves the reprobate wicked. He doesn’t use the word in reference to God there. You have to come to the conclusions that Mr. Silversides came to by implication. It does not say in so many words: God loves every person in giving them rain and sunshine and all of the rest. But that’s not my only basis for rejecting the doctrine of Common Grace. I believe that the Scriptures teach clearly that God’s attitude toward those who are not elect is an attitude of unchanging hatred; His disposition (let’s use that word) is one of hatred. Not denying now that he gives them good gifts, not denying that there are common operations of the Spirit, but that in all of it His disposition towards them is one of unremitting and unchangeable hatred.

Psalm five. We don’t the time to look at all the passages this evening. Remember though that I said that there are no passages that say in so many words that God loves the reprobate wicked even in His providential dealings with them. Over

against those you can set many passages that speak of a hatred of God for the non elect. Psalm 5:4-6 “Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man”. I want you to notice too that that is not a reference to wicked men in general, but to the wicked who are non elect. These are the wicked who will not stand in God’s sight. These are the wicked that God is going to destroy, according to the words of that text.

Psalm 11:5 even separates people into two groups: the righteous and the wicked and tells us “The LORD trieth the righteous (Psalm 11:5): but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth”. And notice too that that hatred of the Lord is something that He manifests in His dealings with them. You can’t make the distinction that Mr. Silversides made and say that God can hate someone as far as His disposition towards them is concerned, but love them as far as His dealings are concerned. Psalm 11:5 says because He hates them He also rains snares fire and brimstone and a horrible tempest. This, the psalm says shall be the portion of their cup. That’s their portion. The portion which God gives them, i.e. a hatred which manifests in snares fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest.

God’s hatred towards the reprobate in His dealings towards them!

Other passages too that speak of the fact that God doesn’t just hate them as far His disposition is concerned, but that He hates them as far as His dealings are concerned too. (Malachi one). Now I understand that this is hard doctrine to talk about God hating people, hating them unchangeably. I don’t have time this evening to argue for Calvinism and for Sovereign Double Predestination. I hope that even if you don’t agree with it that you understand that that is what Calvinists believe; that God eternally loves some and God eternally hates some as well. I am arguing for the point this evening that that hatred of God, that eternal hatred is also manifest in His dealings toward those who are not elect. Malachi 1:2,3 has in it the words that are quoted in Romans 9:13 in proof of double predestination. “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau”. Notice what follows. In His hatred for Esau, God says He lays his mountains and his heritage waste to the dragons of the wilderness. And when Edom says, “We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places, thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.

Another passage Proverbs 3:33. This one is especially important. It doesn’t actually speak of the Lord’s hatred but it speaks of His curse and I think you understand that a curse is an expression of hatred. But it tells us that the curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked! Think about that for a moment. In his house he has his family, the family that God gave him. In his house he eats the food that God gives him, the good food that God gives him. In that house he enjoys sleep which the Bible says also comes from the Lord. In all of those things, as he goes about all of those things in his house; Proverbs 3:33 says the ‘curse of the Lord’ is there! Where is grace? Where is the room for grace in that? Where is there room for love in that? Where is there room for longsuffering in that? That curse goes with him when he crawls under his blankets at night. That curse is with him at the table when he eats his food. That curse is in his cupboards. That curse is with him in all his dealings with his family. That’s what the Bible says about the Lord’s disposition and dealing in time with those who are not elect. And notice too that the Bible itself there makes a distinction between the just and the wicked. It divides human beings up into two groups. God blesses the habitation of the just, the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked. It remains there.

There are other passages too however which explain in somewhat more detail God’s dealings with the wicked, explain why He gives them good things; why there are these common operations of the Spirit; why He delays His judgment in all of the rest. I want to call your attention especially to three:

The reason why God gives good things to the reprobate

Psalm 92:5-7 Here again notice that the wicked are the reprobate wicked who are going to be destroyed. “O Lord” the Psalmist says, “how great are Thy works and Thy thoughts are very deep, A brutish man knoweth not neither does a fool understand them, When the wicked spring up as grass and when all the workers of iniquity flourish” is it because God loves them? Because God is being gracious to them? No!”It is that they shall be destroyed forever”.

Psalm 69:22 and following. Try to fit Common Grace in here. Even as far as good gifts of food and drink and clothing and health and all of those things are concerned; try to fit that in to these verses. Here Christ prays, “Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, (which should have been for their welfare) let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let Thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents. And if there is any doubt

about it that this speaking of the non-elect then you have to just read a little further – “Add iniquity unto their iniquity” verse 27 “and let them not come into Thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the Book of the living, and not be written with the righteous”.

One more Psalm, Concentrating in the Psalms not because this is the only book of the Bible that teaches these things, but because there are such clear passages in some of these Psalms that’s understandable because they speak of our experiences. Psalm 73 is the third Psalm. Here (really should but don’t have time to read the whole Psalm this evening) Asaph’s problem was in the first part of the Psalm, that he believed in Common Grace. He thought that the prosperity of the wicked was an evidence that God was blessing them, and that caused him all sorts of trouble. “How’, he says in the first part of the Psalm, “can God be good to them when I am having all these problems and troubles”. (That’s the other side of it by the way; I want to come back to that) If you believe that rain and sunshine are in themselves blessings and grace, then the other side of that is that sickness and pain and affliction are curses. You’d have to come to the same conclusion that Asaf did: You are not prosperous; you are not receiving blessings. If you’re not in trouble as these wicked men that Asaf was looking at then you can conclude that God is being gracious. But what about if you are in trouble? What if you have a full cup of suffering wrung out to you (verse 10) what you can conclude is that God isn’t giving you blessings, doesn’t love you isn’t gracious.

So Asaf’s problem in Psalm 73 was that he believed in Common Grace. “Until” he says in verse 17, until he went into the sanctuary of God; then he says “I understood their end” He says I learned that you have to look at God’s dealings with people in view of what’s going to happen to them. Surely God gives good gifts to the wicked, but that doesn’t mean He blesses them; you have to look at their end. And Asaf says when I understood where they are going, then I could see that there was no grace, no blessings in these things for them. And he explains that in verses 18 and 19. Those are for our purposes this evening the most important verses in the Psalm. “God” he says was using that prosperity to set them in slippery places, and to cast them down into destruction. Now you may call that grace or mercy, but that’s the strangest kind of grace or mercy that I ever heard of. A grace that sets people in slippery places and casts them down to destruction. When God gives all these good things to the wicked what do they do with it? They use it to sin all the more against Him. And the result is that they bring down upon themselves heavier condemnation. That’s what Asaf is talking about here. “Yes” he says “now I see that God made them prosperous but it was only to destroy them all the more quickly; to set them in slippery places and to cast them down into destruction. And

then he understood too God’s dealings with him. He understood then that it is not the thing itself that determines whether you are blessed or cursed. Whether you receive rain or drought isn’t the way you determine whether you’re blessed or cursed. But all things Asaf really says at the last part of this psalm, All things really work together for good to those who love God. Nothing is a curse to them. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. I am continually with Thee, even in all of these sufferings, Thou art holding me by my right hand.

Perhaps we can sum that all up by the words of the Prophet Malachi. You are going to have the same problem that Asaf did, if like him (at least in the beginning of that Psalm) you believe in a Common Grace. People of God according to Malachi 3:15 had spoken stout words against God. They had said it is vain to serve God and so forth. Verse 15: they had also said that the proud are happy and I would remind you the word happy is the same as the word blessed in the Old Testament. Happy, blessed are the same words. They called the proud blessed, and they that work in wickedness are setup. Those were the stout words they were speaking against God; and if you say those same words then you too are speaking against Him. God is not a God who has pleasure in wickedness. He is a God who hates unchangeably those whom He has determined to destruction, and reveals His wrath against them in all his dealings with them. I’m not denying now that He reveals His wrath also against the Elect, but with them even that revelation of wrath is for their good, for their salvation. Just ask yourself thinking back to the time when the Lord began to work in your heart, why did He give you such deep apprehensions of His judgments? Was it because He hated you? No. That was the beginning of the grace that actually brought salvation to you. The first manifestation of the eternal and unchangeable love of God in your life; even though you didn’t see that then.

Mr. Silversides’ Barthianism and Neo Orthodoxy!

Want to say a word too, about that idea of Mr. Silversides that God can hate and love a person at the same time. I believe that is simply nonsense. Try telling your wife or your husband that. “Dear, I love you. My disposition toward you is a loving disposition, but from now on all of my actions toward you are going to be or going to seem to you like hatred”. Or “Dear, my disposition toward you is a loving disposition, but the words I speak are going to be full of hatred. You’ve got to understand that; you’ve got to understand that as it is possible for God to love and hate someone at the same time so it is for me to love and hate you at the same time. To love you as far as my disposition is concerned or to hate you as far as my

disposition is concerned but to speak nicely to you”. Try telling your wife or husband that you can love and hate them at the same time. Probably you won’t have a wife or a husband very long if you do.

That teaching that God can do contradictory things is something called Neo-Orthodoxy. Some of you may have heard of it. You may have heard of a man named Karl Barth. He believed that kind of thing, that God can be contradictory, that He can do contradictory things; that He can love a person and hate a person at the same time. That’s why Barth taught that God elected Esau and then reprobated Esau. He loved Jacob, elected Jacob and reprobated Jacob. Love him and hated him at the same time. That’s the kind of thing (that Barthianism) that Mr. Silversides is teaching.

To add just one more verse to all of that. (got to get on, I don’t want to keep you too much longer). We call your attention to Ecclesiastes 1:1. If you are at all inclined to think that rain and sunshine, food and shelter, health and all of the rest are in themselves blessings, read Ecclesiastes 1:2, “Vanity of vanity saith the preacher, all is vanity”. That’s what earthly things are in themselves. And the word vanity means as you probably know: empty. They’re empty. In themselves they’re empty. There is no blessing in them, there’s no curse in them either as they are in themselves. It’s only the attitude of God that makes the difference. The reason why God gives them that makes the difference. He can give the same thing to two different people for entirely different reasons and with an entirely different disposition. He can send sickness to His people, and send it to them in such a way that they say, “Affliction has been for my profit”. He can send prosperity to the wicked and set them by it in slippery places. The things in themselves are not grace and blessing. The restraint of sin, the good gifts, and common operations of the Spirit are not in themselves either blessings or curses. And the Scripture says as far as the attitude of God is concerned, that God loves His people and hates the workers of iniquity.

Psalm 145:9 correctly interpreted

What about those verses that which Mr. Silversides brought up? Probably have the time to deal with only a couple of them. If we don’t finish this evening we’ll go on tomorrow night. Psalm 145:9. Mr. Silversides indicated and I’ve heard him on tape say as much, that we misuse the Scriptures; that we come to the Scriptures with all sorts of preconceived ideas and force them on the Bible. I want you to look at Psalm 145:9 and see that is exactly what he did. Psalm 145:9 says ‘the Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works’. And he simply

assumed that the word ‘all’ there meant ‘all men’. I don’t know whether you noticed that, but that was the assumption he made, that all means all men. Now that’s a rather dangerous assumption for a Calvinist to make in any case; to assume that the word ‘all’ in any Scripture passage means ‘all men’. John 3:16 is a good example. But if you look at the verse, you’ll see that ‘all’ doesn’t refer to all men’. The characteristics of the Psalms is what is called parallelism. Two statements that explain each other, (sometimes three) but these parallel statements that explain each other. All is explained in the second phrase by all His works. Not all men, the Lord is not good to all men the verse doesn’t say but the Lord is good to all His works. Oh what does that mean, that He is good to all His works and that His tender mercies are over all His works? Well, if you look at that in the context, you don’t even have to go out of Psalm 45, you find out what that means. All His works here isn’t a reference to men at all. It’s a reference to all His other creatures. Verse ten makes that clear, and the rest of the Psalm too. But verse ten separates God’s creatures into two groups: all other things and His people.

And then the rest of the Psalm goes on to explain how He is good to all His works and how He is good to His saints; how he is good to all His creatures and how He is good to all His saints. It says nothing about Him being merciful to all men. Rest of the Psalm beginning for example with verse 15, talks about how He is good to all and how His tender mercies are over all His works. The eyes of all wait upon Thee and Thou givest them meat in due season. Thou openest Thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. And then the Psalm goes back to His people and how the Lord is good to them. The Lord is righteous in all His ways, holy in all His works, Nigh unto them that call upon Him, fulfilling the desire of them that fear Him; hearing their cry and saving them; preserving all them that love Him. And then David remembers that there’s a group that he hasn’t talked about – the wicked, or as is clear from what that 20th verse says the non-elect wicked. All the wicked will He destroy! Why? Well you can go back a little bit in the Psalm. The Lord is righteous too in all His ways and holy in all His works. But I want you to notice especially that Psalm 145:9 does not identify ‘all’ as ‘all men’ but all His works. If you look that word up in Scripture you’ll find that it most often refers to His works in the creation. The beasts and the birds the trees and the flowers, the plants the sun moon and stars in their courses. Those are what are commonly called the ‘works’ of the Lord. That’s what psalm 145 is talking about. He reveals His goodness and His mercy there too towards them, He also reveals it toward His people (that’s another part of the Psalm).

Dr. Silversides and his erroneous assumptions!

Let me give you a couple of preliminary considerations (we wont go any further than these verses, I think it’s getting too late) Just a couple of things about Mathew 5 and Luke 6; you can come back tomorrow evening perhaps with these things in your mind. Again, Mr. Silversides has made all sorts of assumptions about this verse. You might notice first of all that it has nothing to do with the overtures of grace in the gospel. If it proves anything it only proves a common love of God or grace of God in providence. It has nothing to do with overtures of grace. Even John Murray admits that though he goes on to use it as proof for the ‘well meant offer of the gospel’. No proof here for a love that desires the salvation of men. Mr. Silversides assumes first of all, that the verse which says that God makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust means that God loves them and is gracious to them. Notice the verse doesn’t say that. If you are going to get it out of there you are going to have to get it out by implication. He assumes that love (and its mentioned only in connection with us, we have to love them that love us) but he assumes that love means that you have a loving gracious disposition towards people. But the verse doesn’t say that either. The only kind of love that verse talks about is a love that revealed in doing good. It doesn’t say anything about our disposition. It talks about loving in deed as 1John says. He assumes and this is a major assumption that in order to love our enemies, we have to love the same people that God does. We are to love all men and that must mean that God loves all men or if we are to love our enemies and some of them are reprobate and that means that God loves all reprobates or some reprobates. But that is an entirely unwarranted assumption.

Again as an example: as a father I am required to love and provide for my children. As a minister I do that and as an example in the congregation as well. Does the fact that I am example for my children in the congregation mean that the members in the congregation have to love the same children that I do? That’s what Mr. Silversides says that the verse means. It doesn’t mean that at all. In fact it does not mean as Mr. Silversides assumes that we have to love exactly the same persons. He also assumes and that too is a major assumption, when it talks about (this is in Luke 6 now) about God being (parallel passage) kind and merciful to His enemies, that the text says He is kind and merciful to all His enemies. The verse doesn’t say that. And in light of other Scripture passages, all the other passages can’t mean that. We’ll talk more about that verse tomorrow evening, God willing. But I hope you can see that what Mr. Silversides is going to accuse us of doing tomorrow evening is exactly what he has been doing with these passages; making all sorts of assumptions, because he comes to these passages with preconceived notions about the love, mercy, grace and kindness of God. And with the exception of these

passages as I pointed out earlier there are no passages of the Word of God that use those words in reference to the non-elect,

The doctrine of Common Grace a Lie that saddens the hearts of God’s elect!

We have to quit however. I want to leave you with a verse from the prophecy of Ezekiel. We talked abut Psalm 73 and pointed out the fact that if temporal things are in themselves blessings, that means that sickness, disease and suffering and pain are curses; and that they reveal a certain hatred of God against His people. Maybe Mr. Silversides dares to tell the members of his congregation that. I don’t! When they come to me I would not dare to tell them that the fact that they are suffering or sick maybe an indication of God’s hatred for them. But God’s blessing and grace are not in that sense. That’s the whole point of Psalm 73. And it was only when Asaf got that straightened out that he found peace with God. And that among other things is one of the criticisms I have of the doctrine Common Grace, that in speaking of a love and grace of God for those who are not elect; it takes away the foundation of all comfort for God’s people. It says that it is possible for God to love someone and that person may not be saved. It’s possible for the Lord to be gracious to someone and he never attained to glory in heaven. It’s possible for the Lord to show loving kindness to him and that person never even had the hope of eternal life. And it would seem to me that the cry of every believing heart would be that, “what about me, how can I be sure that the love of God and the grace of God to me are real”? “How can I ever be sure then that the grace and love which I’ve experienced will not end in the same condemnation, as it ended for these”?

It’s in that connection that I call your attention to Ezekiel 13. Now I want you to remember too that Mr. Silversides applies Common Grace to the gospel. God can want the salvation of someone, God can seek the salvation of someone in the gospel, God can earnestly desire their salvation and still go lost; even promise them eternal life in the gospel, without them ever receiving it. In Ezekiel 13:22 both with respect to Common Grace and that whole idea of a ‘well meant offer of grace in the gospel the Word of God says, “with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad”. The lie of Common Grace does that. It makes “the hearts of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad and strengtheneth the hands of the wicked, that he should not turn from his wicked way, by promising him life”!