Thank you for joining us for this conversation on the Sword and the Trowel. Today, Pastor Tom and I get into

chapter 9 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession on the free will. Yes, Calvinists do believe in a free will,

although maybe somewhat differently than what others believe. I hope it's a helpful conversation for you.

Take a listen. Welcome to The Sword and the Trowel. The Sword and the Trial is a podcast of founders' ministries and founders

exist for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches. I'm Graham Gundin.

I'm Tom Ashkel. Today's episode is brought to you by Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center and Yonder Child,

who does all the production and recording for this podcast. We're very grateful for

their work. Today, Pastor Tom

and I want to get into the

confession back into chapter nine.

Actually, we haven't been in chapter nine. We're getting into

chapter nine. Chapter eight took us a long time,

but now we have finally made it out to the other side.

And chapter nine is on the issue of the will, the human will, free will.

Specifically free will. And so I know some of you are out there thinking, well, this should be a

very short podcast, right? What is the Bible say about free will? But there's none.

Yeah, you know, it depends. And Calvinists are accused often of not believing in free will.

And of course, we don't believe in free will the way that many people, maybe most people,

refer to it, obviously not the way our Armenian friends refer to it, which is a libertarian type of free will.

That is a will that is not encumbered by anything that it can accomplish anything that any will at any time can

accomplish in a human being. And that's a simplistic and unbiblical view of things. So in one sense,

our wills are bound. And I think the most important book that was written in the 16th century was

...