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I want to make a video in response to an argument that I've seen made from time to time about repentance using the scripture. John 644. And so folks who make this argument that the scripture in the King, James, it reads, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me, draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. So the people who use this verse, they argue that this is evidence that we can't come to God unless God pulls us to him. Now, this this argument is, is usually used uh in a, in a larger set of, of ideas that maybe you could group under the heading of a question, an answer to a question. Maybe the question would be something like who's in charge of changing our hearts. So when you, we talk about repentance, we're turning to God, we're learning to submit to God, we're becoming submissive to God. Maybe it's better said that way. The question is who acts most of the Christian world would probably say that there's a mixture of choice between us and God. And I want to um I want to chime in on that. I don't disagree that parts of this change come from God, but I strongly disagree with how others envision this. I've said a lot of things about repentance. I wrote a book called Repentance. Though the entire thing is available for free is a professionally recorded audio book on this channel under a playlist that, that says, uh, repentance. And, um, there's a, I've made many videos about the topic. There's a playlist called You can stop sinning that already tells you where this is going. Um But I'm going to just try to briefly address this tiny slice of the disagreement I have with almost all Christians on this because what they believe is that some portion of your failure to repent is God's fault. Now, none of them would describe it that way. But when you hear people bring up this argument that God draws us to him and that's how repentance happens. At least implicitly. They're, they're, they're showing that they at least implicitly believe that some piece of their failure to repent is because God hasn't done what devolves upon him to do that, that He can change your heart against your will. Basically, and I, I proclaim to you as solemnly as I can that God will never ever change your mind about anything against your will that flies in the face of the entire purpose for which we're here so much has been done up to and including the sacrifice of the life of Jesus Christ in order to purchase for us the opportunity to choose, to freely choose to follow God to whatever level we're willing to. That is the the purpose of life in, in one uh in one of many possible phrasings. So what then is this business that we read about in John 644? Which of course, this is not the only verse people with his perspective will use. But this is the one I wanna focus on for this video. No man can come to me except the father which hath sent me, draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. That seems pretty cut and dry. Right? Well, let me, let me share with you a few tips to understanding the scriptures better. One is to read the verse in context. You see if Jesus is answering a question and you want to understand what he's saying, you probably need to know the question he was answering. And in this case, there's a literal question he was asked or a comment he was responding to by saying this and you probably don't know it. Even if you quote the scripture, the question is, do you, do you know the one that, that generated it? The uh the thing to which Jesus was responding? Uh It, it happens to be quite important now you might say but, but why do we need to know that? Because no scripture is of private interpretation. Right. Yes. But that doesn't mean that your interpretation of it is going to be the, the one that God has. That, that scripture doesn't mean that people don't have interpretations of scripture. Everyone does. Any language is fundamentally flawed in the sense that it's only ever an approximation of the idea. It, it addresses ideas are spirit. They don't, they, they're not bounded by our words, they're approximated by our words. It's like it's like painting a picture of a bird and then pretending that's the bird. It's not the bird, it's a picture of a bird. And so anything you take out of that picture, you anything you get from that picture, you have to think actively about how it relates to the, to the thing it came from the thing, it represents the living thing it represents and, and the scriptures contain the word of God, but they are not the word of God. Well, that sounds like a contradiction. No, it's not. Jesus is the word. He's a living being, he's real. He's a living being. You can talk with him, you can see him, you can touch him, he's alive. The words he says are less than that. They're less than him. John himself said that books could not contain him. I think he knows whether that's the case or not better than you do, right? So we should probably take his word for that. Speaking of words. So one limitation in scripture is the fact that in, in the case of the New Testament, we are reading in English or whatever our primary language is, something that was written in Greek and something that wasn't spoken in Greek. So we've already gone through two translations. Now. I don't know if you're fluent in another language. I was at least fluent in Spanish at one point and anyone who is at least Multilingual, uh at least bilingual, I'm sorry, anyone who is Multilingual will tell you if, if they got to fluency, they'll tell you that there are things, there's a whole lot of things you can say in one language that can be fully and adequately translated into another. However, there are an awful lot of things that just can't really be clearly translated. It's clunky at best and with uh each piece of clunkiness comes a potential for misunderstanding on the, on the part of a person that's going to read it later, right? And so it's very helpful to go to Bible hub or any other of these resources out there Bible hubs free. It's, it's decent that show you what the Greek is and then you can think about it and you can use this as a tool to have conversations with God to more clearly understand Him. The key is if you find something that confuses you, you ask him about it and you study it out and then if you find something that seems like an apparent contradiction . Oh, that's pay dirt. You wanna dig any time you see a, a potential contradiction. So um let's dig in here. So, so people who don't do that, who just repeat things they've heard from other folks? And they, they kind of presume that it's already been figured out. And surely if most Christians believe this, it must be true. Well, Jesus said in John 717 that those who do what he says will know that it's from the father when it comes to repentance. Should you be seeking the opinions of people who have not repented or should you seek out someone who has it doesn't mean that they'll be right. But it, if someone hasn't repented either, they don't know the truth or they don't live it, but they certainly can't testify of it because they haven't figured it out yet. They have not fulfilled John 717. Jesus said in John three, he said we speak what we know. This is what he said to Nicodemus. We speak what we know in the letters that John wrote. He said he was in, in opening those letters. He says, why people should listen to what he has to say about Jesus. He says we have handled him. We were with him when he did all of these things. We were there, we knew him, we were with him, we touched him, he touched us. That's we were there. We know what we're talking about. And we live these things, we know it's true because we do it. So if, if there is no person who is repented of their sins, then sure, the best thing we can do is all just guess what that might mean. And if it hasn't happened for us, maybe it's because God hasn't done his part. But I'm here to tell you, that's not true. I have repented of my sins and I'm not the only person in the world, although there are surprisingly few, you don't have to live in sin. And as far as the part that God has to has to do, he did it, he already did it. The father sent the son, the son died for our sins. He's been resurrected, he's alive. He already did his part. What's incumbent upon us is to believe Him. That's what it takes. That's all it takes when you believe Jesus, you have to believe that obeying Him is a better idea than anything else you could do. It's impossible to sin when you truly believe that because you'll always want to do what you believe He would do in your place. You'll want that more than anything and therefore you won't succumb to temptation. And if you do it's because you don't yet believe that He is as good as uh every, everyone who knows Him says He is, you don't believe that he, everything He does is in your best interest. You don't believe that He knows better than you. What will lead to your greatest joy. And that's what sin is. It's a, it's a, it's an incorrect valuation. It's choosing what is not the greatest, the best. When you believe in God, you will always choose what you believe is the greatest is the most beneficial and not just for yourself, for everyone. That's what it means to believe in Jesus because that's what he would do in your place is that which benefits the most he came to the world because he loved the world . He gave his life, not just in death, but he lived his entire life without sin for us. It wasn't easier for him if anything, it was much harder. But the fact that he did, it proves that because of him, we can do the same. That's what repentance is now. Getting back to this John 644. Um What, what was the situation here if we go to the text and we just start reading right before this? So that was verse 44. So we'll pick up, let's see, probably verse 42. So let's start from verse 41. Um Well, jeez, let's just keep going back. It's all good. It's hard to draw a line and say we're not going to read what comes before this. Let's start in 38. He said, for Jesus said, for I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the father's will which hath sent me that of all which he hath given me. I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day . And this is the will of him that sent me that every everyone which seeth the sun and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother, we know how is it then that he saith I came down from heaven. That's the question that Jesus was answering. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man could come to me except the Father which hath sent me, draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. Now I'm gonna keep reading. It is written in the prophets and they shall be all taught of God, every man. Therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the Father save He, which is of God. He hath seen the Father verily verily , I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. So what's actually being taught here by the Lord? It's not that God busts into your heart like the kool aid man and takes you hostage to heaven. He's the bread of life, but he, he does. His angels don't pin you down and shove it in your mouth. You choose to eat it, you choose to eat it. Now, a lot of what Jesus taught has layers of information embedded into it. That's for a reason. He explains elsewhere. You know, he says things like let, let him who has ears to hear, let him hear. And he says to his apostles, apart from the crowds , he said, I said this to the crowds. But now I'm gonna tell you even more because it's not given unto them to know these things, but it is given to you and he lays it out at a deeper level. There are deeper levels in this little passage that I read in the short passage. One of them is he's talking about what happened before we were born. He's referring to that at least at least laterally people on this earth right now, all of us existed before we were born. There are plenty of scriptures in the Bible that talk about that. We did not all have equal experiences with God. Those experiences that we had that were uneven, produce a difference in how well each of us knows the father. It's different. Jesus knows the father more than anyone else. He came here to demonstrate more of the father to us. One of the central reasons all of this exists is to provide an environment where we can learn more about the father than we could in whatever there was before. This is what he means when he says every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the father cometh unto me. It's a piece of what he say. Another big piece is that as in, in the part we read before he's saying I'm coming to demonstrate or I have come to demonstrate the father and anyone that that follows me, no man can come to me. Anyone that follows me will necessarily learn more about the father. And so it's true that being drawn by or drawn to Jesus is the same as being drawn to the father. You know, the, the verse that says no one knows the father except the son reveals him to him. And so it's all funneled through him in this life. Everything we know about the father here comes through Jesus similarly because these two are indistinguishable to us in character, they're one. So if, if, if there were two rooms and in one room was , was the son and in one room was the father. And somehow you could go into each of these rooms, say blindfolded, someone leads you into the room and you get to talk with that being for an hour and then they switch rooms, you would not be able to tell the difference. There'd be nothing about that where you could tell the difference between the two. So if you learn more about Jesus, you also learn more about the father. If you learn more about the father, you also learn more about the son. You can't separate the those two. This is why he said to the apostle uh Nathaniel, he said you because Nathaniel said, show us the father. And he said, you've known me this whole time and you asked me to show you the father. He was, he was explaining very plainly. If you've seen me, you've seen the father because they're the same being. No, but because they're, they're indistinguishable by all of us to all of us , to all of us. They're indistinguishable. That's one of the main purposes for which he came here anyway. I'm, I'm probably going deeper into this than I need to. But let's get back, let's tie this back to this idea of what, what does this tell us about repentance? Your desire for God. Yes, it comes from God, but it comes from your experiences with Him before you were born. God doesn't cause certain people to desire him more in some arbitrary way during this life. If you knew Him better before you were born, you will desire him more here than people who didn't know Him that well, there, the extent to which we are like him. It's like a tractor beam that pulls us toward him. And that's how we can change that desire while we're here, we can increase that or turn it down by turning towards or away from the Lord, the more like him you become, the more you will desire him. It's not the other way around . It's not the other way around. And, and why is this so important to understand if you haven't repented? There's only one reason for that. And that's because you haven't chosen to, if you're expecting in any way for something to change on the Lord's end, you're, you're going to die waiting and you're going to die in your sins and you're going to go to hell. The Lord offers so much to us in this life and almost all of it lies on the other side of repentance. That's the gate to reconcile ourselves fully to the Lord. As far as we understand him to be, most Christians are not through that gate and they will never go through that gate because they think they already are. They're not going to make the sacrifice, which for those who understand what's really going on, it's not a sacrifice at all. It's a gift, but they'll never pay the price to turn to the Lord and let go of the things in their life that don't align with their understanding of what he would do in their place. Why would they, because they already think they have everything you can have from that but ask them, do you still sin? And they'll pull up scriptures like this and say yes, but that's ok. They'll say nobody's perfect. Well, Jesus was perfect. Yeah, but we can't be like him then. Why did he command us to be like him? Why did he say be perfect? Didn't he say that we are meant to follow him? How can you follow him and also disobey him? You know the word follow. That's another word that's worth looking up in Greek. It's much deeper than the English word, but even the English words deeper than our common use of it. It, and that's really tragic is when in, in Christianity, we have double definitions of words. So you can't follow someone in the, in the, in the uh temporal wor world in the secular world. You can't follow a person without actually following them. If I said, hey, I'm going to the store and you say I've never been to this store. I said it's OK. Just follow me. Are you just gonna sit at home and say, well, I'm following Rob to the store right now. When someone walks in, like, what are you doing? Because you're pretending to drive on the couch, you say, well, I'm following Rob to the store right now. Uh No, you're not. You're sitting on the couch pretending you're driving. What would it take to really follow a person? You'd have to go in the same path they're going and do the same things they do. If they turn right and you turn left in the same place you're not following them, right? So why, why do you say you're following Jesus when you turn left and he turns right? And you say, well, I'm still in the car. I'm doing better than the guy on the couch. Great. And you're going in the opposite direction. He went. Do you see how simple this is? Even a little kid can understand this. But Christian churches are filled with people who cannot understand this, who, who are so close to what actually matters. Their, their mouths are full of the word of God. But their hearts are empty because they don't desire what Jesus desires because they don't desire Jesus. They desire something less. They say that what they have is everything he can give God has everything friends. He has everything He is everything, nothing in this world is worth being away from the Lord. And if you don't believe that you don't believe him, so think about this and think about your life, think about anything in your life that you do that you don't sincerely believe Jesus would do in your place and flip it around. And as you walk through your day, focus it on the things you believe He would do no matter how different that is from what you would do. Follow Him. And as you do that, every step of the way, you'll also be following the father. He will draw you to him. But you have to, to hear him and you have to obey him. You know, with all of that, I forgot to say a very important piece of this, that word in John 644 that's translated as draw, that's uh strong's Greek 1670. And like many of the ancient language, they, the these words have many definitions and it's true that definitions of this word include to drag, to draw, to pull. But another meaning of the word is to persuade, to persuade, you can't repent of your sins without first becoming convinced that what God wants you to do or not do is better than what you would otherwise do. You can't follow Him with your heart. And unless you also follow him with your mind in one of the prime ways that the father draws us to him is through modifying our understanding. They're teaching us more about the true value of things, which is going to include new value that we didn't know about and also changes to things we already thought we understood. And so you think that this one sin is good, he's going to show you negative consequences that exceed what you pre previously understood about the negative consequences of that thing. You uh there's something that he wants you to do. And so it's a good thing that you're not presently doing or you're not doing as much whereas intensely, and he's gonna show you positive outcomes about that, that far exceed what you thought before, you know, you might drag your feet about reading the scriptures because it's boring to you. Well, he can show you that it has much more value than you thought before. You might stumble in sin because you, you lie all the time. You lie about yourself all the time because you wanna feel better about yourself and you're not a very good person . Well, he can show you the damage that, that does more clearly than you currently understand. But none of these things are done through force. You have to ask, seek and knock. You have to look, you have to pay attention. You have to think he's not gonna force you to be honest about it. If you touch a hot stove and your hand gets burned, no one forces you to not touch it again. If you want to, you can ignore that that happened and touch it again. So, persuasion is a choice, the information is there and it, it's available and it comes from God. The mechanism is a gift from God. All of our understanding is a gift from Him, but your choice remains yours to make. He will not make it for you. And when it comes down to it, every sin, every sin is the result of bad choice. It's a choice to do it or not to do it. It's also a choice to learn what you need to know that you don't presently know or to correct what you already think. You know, that's a choice. How do you show that choice? You spend your time looking into more, you try to learn more, you try to seek out people who claim to know something that you don't and you test it and you hold fast to what is true. As Paul said, you choose to be honest . Every, every minute of your life is a choice of whether you're going to be honest or not, whether you're going to live in accordance with the things that you know, or whether you're going to turn away from that. And so this is also a very important piece of the meaning of what it means for the father to draw us to him.