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Pastor David Mitchell
It's every other time, I do it the same way every time, but it's funny how that is. All right, well, everybody knows where we are. We're in Romans chapter 8, 28 through 30. When we finish verse 30, which it has taken some time because we've parked there and gone all out through the scripture, looking at the four things mentioned in that passage.
They start before time. Two of them happen in time, which is the calling and the justification. And then it goes out the other side of time and the glorification is there. We have to remember that in the Hebrew, it's all in present tense, which means from God, the Father's viewpoint, it's all already happened.
He sees us as glorified. Isn't that wonderful? And I've always wondered how our friends that believe you can lose your salvation, how does that work? The Father already sees his sheep glorified. You're going to get them unglorified and you're going to unsee them?
I don't think so. Because God doesn't change. He's immutable. He doesn't change his mind. He's omniscient. He doesn't change his love. He has foreknowledge. And we've studied what that means, right? That's the affection that he has for his own people.
So none of that changes either, right? So it's a wonderful, amazing four words that are found in the passage. Those whom he foreknew, he also predestinated. All the same group throughout these aspects of time.
Those who he foreknew before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1 says, and Romans 8 says, before the foundation of the world, he knew you with a loving relationship. That's what the Bible word no means.
It doesn't mean to have knowledge of a person. That would be omniscience. We're talking about foreknowledge, which is a loving relationship God had with his own children that he saw and knew with that love by name before he made anything.
Then those who he loved and he knew, he also predestinated. All that happened before time began. So it's not in sequence. It just is. It just is. God is I am, and it just is. We have always been with God.
Always. And then time begins, and our lifetime comes along, and two things happen in verse 30. We're called, and those who are called are justified. The calling of the Holy Spirit is not talked about nearly enough in this day and time in the church, but no one is saved without it.
There are two types of calling. We've discussed all this. There's a general call, which is the gospel going out to the world, and there's the effectual call, and you can tell that by the context of the passage where it's found, and that is when the Holy Spirit lights on a specific person and opens their eyes and their ears and gives them a new heart and regenerates that person because he knows they belong to the Father, and the Father is right now in time giving that person to Jesus Christ as a love gift.
Out of a fallen race that deserves hell, that person is plucked out as a firebrand, a remnant. That person and the others, remnants from a fallen race, redeemed, ransomed, saved from the fire for Jesus' sake by the Father, and the Holy Spirit did the work.
It's called the calling, and at the calling, the regeneration takes place and 33 other things. So we've talked about that quite a bit, and then it says those who are called are justified. That's one of the 33 other things, and let's take a look at what that means.
It means to be rendered righteous. It's in the passive in Greek, which means someone greater than us. God has to do it to us, so he renders us righteous, and this is by definition, theologically, speaking of what we call positional righteousness, which we're going to finish talking about today, I believe, hopefully.
So justified, to be made just as if I had never sinned in God's eyes, the Father, that is, the Father's eyes. Jesus sees us when we sin and spanks us for it. The Father does not see our sin because of what Christ has done for us.
The Father sees us glorified right now. Think about that. We don't feel perfect, do we? But positionally, we are righteous because he rendered us righteous. Remember, we studied the doctrine of imputation.
He imputed Jesus's righteousness to us, and that's beautiful. So that's what justified means, and that's wonderful, and that's what we're studying. Whom he called, he also justified, but notice no one is justified who wasn't predestinated and foreknown.
People don't like to talk about that nowadays. You go back 150 years ago when Charles Spurgeon was alive, the prince of preachers, the greatest Baptist preacher maybe that ever lived, and he believed this.
He believed that Jesus died only for the elect. I believe that. Do you? If you don't, you might want to study it. You might want to look into it because does it make any sense to you that if Jesus shed his blood for every human, that they're not all saved?
That doesn't make sense to me. Is this blood insufficient? That makes no sense. If he ransomed everyone, why isn't everyone going to heaven? So apparently he ransomed many, as Isaiah says. He doesn't say all in Isaiah.
He says many, and in the New Testament, many times, even Jesus himself said many. Many can't mean all, ladies and gentlemen, so Charles Spurgeon was correct. All of 95 of Baptists in the 1600s, 1700s were particular Baptists, which means they believed Jesus died for a particular group of people.
They were correct, and we're correct today because they didn't invent it. Calvin didn't invent it. Augustine didn't invent it 14 years earlier than that. Paul didn't invent it. Jesus taught it to him out in the desert one day, so it came from Christ.
So it's just how it works. It's God's plan. There it is. Before God started anything or made anything, he loved his own children and knew them and predestinated that they would be adopted into his family.
And then when time began, he called those same people and made them right with God. That's what justified means. He rendered them right with God because of what Jesus did for us. He gave his blood to make that happen.
He ransomed us. And then going out the other side of time, verse 31, and maybe the end of verse 30 actually, it says that same group are glorified. We haven't got to that part yet. So we've been studying justified, haven't we?
We pointed out that there are about seven things that we need to know to understand what it means to be justified. And if you don't know these seven things, you will get it wrong every time. You'll think you did it.
You'll think the church did it. You'll think some little prayer formula did it. You'll think some human aspect of some human institution or human book or creed did it. You'll think that's what justified you if you don't know these seven things.
We've already studied four of them. That is the depravity of man. Number two, the true definition in Bible meaning of grace, which means it's free. You can't buy it. You can't earn it. Number three, propitiation is that it's Jesus' blood that made his death pay the sin debt for God's people.
And God is right and satisfied with that. And then we talked about imputation, which is where God the father took our sins and placed them on Jesus' body on the tree and took his righteousness and placed that on us.
And that brings us to the fifth one, which is positional righteousness. And we've been talking about that the last Sunday or so. And there are two more we'll get to, but this today, we're going to finish out this positional righteousness.
If you don't understand positional righteousness, you can't understand justification because justification is the act of God making us positionally righteous. So you have to understand this. Now remember last time we pointed out positional righteousness is part of the cause of your salvation.
There's another group of scriptures in the Bible. And you hear again, you can only tell by the context, the Greek word is often similar or the same, but there's another group of passages in scripture that talk about what we call experiential righteousness.
And that's just living right, trying to be a good person, doing good works for the Lord because we want to. And that's called experiential righteousness. And it has to do with the effect of salvation, not the cause.
And people get that backwards. Churches, whole groups, whole denominations get that backwards. But when you look at experiential righteousness, they come and go. Just like human faith, you believe one minute and you doubt God the next.
None of that can save us. None of that's the cause of our salvation. You go do a good work today and tomorrow you do something bad. None of that can save us. So experiential righteousness is if you ever get that right, which we do, we often do good works.
Ephesians 2 .10 says we're foreordained to do good works. So when we do get it right, God gets the glory. But it's an effect of our salvation. In other words, our salvation caused it. The fact that God foreknew us, predestinated us, called us, and justified us and 33 other things he did for us when he saved us, that was the cause.
And once we were born again, the effect is we try to live right. You see? So you have to divide those. But we're talking about positional righteousness the remainder of today. Review just a little bit.
We talked about last time Romans 3 .26. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness. That is one of the key factors of positional righteousness and how you know by the context it's talking about that is when it says it's his righteousness, not ours.
So it's Jesus' righteousness given to us. That's positional. I'm going to share with you what positional means in more detail in a second. 2 Corinthians 5 .21. For he has made Jesus to be sin for us. He put our sins.
This is imputation. We've already discussed it. That was number four up here. We've already discussed that. So God the Father made Jesus to have our sins on his body while he was on the tree. Why? So that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ.
Now notice that's not our righteousness. Whose is it? God's righteousness, but we are made that. So this is something that has to be done to us. We are justified by someone greater than us. We are rendered righteous because he gives us Jesus' righteousness.
And that is positional. What you do tomorrow or don't do cannot change it. What you do or don't do can't change it. It's positional. It's a gift. It's free. And it's already been given to you at the moment you were born again.
So in first review a little bit more towards the end of last Sunday in 1 Peter 2, we saw this interesting verse down there in verse 25. For you were... Well, I like... Let me just review all of it. Look at 21.
You see there where it talks about the calling? For even here unto were you called? You see that's the effectual call. That's the call that when you get called that way, you flat get saved because the Holy Spirit regenerates you.
And that is the cause of salvation. And everything else that happens after that is an effect. The cause of it is the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ and the work of God the Father.
We receive the benefit. And we have many effects because he saves us because it changes us, doesn't it? But none of that causes our salvation. So many denominations get that wrong. So we were called because Jesus suffered for us, not for everybody.
You have to look in 1 Peter. Look at the first chapter, first few verses. See who it's written to. It's written to born-again people. It's not written to the whole world. He suffered for us. That's the fifth point of Calvinism, which I hate to even call it that because I'm not a Calvinist.
I'm a Pauline today. I'm going to pick that one. Paul taught this. And so we were called because Jesus died for us. Now let's just play this out. Before the foundation of the world, God knew you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you.
And knew you were his child. Then you were born into this world, weren't you? He had already predestinated before the world began that you would be saved and that you would be his, and that you would be adopted into his family.
Then your life starts, clicks along, and you're a lost sheep, and you run with the goats. You don't know the difference. They don't know the difference. And all of a sudden, one day, the Holy Spirit lights on you and calls you and wakes you up, opens your eyes and your ears and changes your heart and says, look at Jesus.
There's your shepherd, your sheep, you're hungry. He's got the food. What will you do with him? And the effect of that is that you say, I will take him. I receive him as my personal Lord and Savior and my shepherd.
That's an effect of it, isn't it? But every person this side of the cross that ends up in heaven will have done that. But it's an effect. The cause was when the Holy Spirit opened your eyes. Now think about that.
If you don't agree with me, just go study it. I know you didn't hear it in your church. But if you'd have lived 150 years ago and walked into Charles Spurgeon's church, you'd have heard it. If you'd have heard Whitefield preach, you would have heard it.
Right? You can go back. Go all the way back. All the great preachers, you would have heard it. Modern preachers, Jesus said in times, we'll have many false prophets. That's why you don't hear it. Don't think just because the dude's got a suit and tie on and he looks good and he's nice, that he's not a false prophet.
If he's not teaching the pure gospel of the Bible, he's a false prophet. If he's teaching some little gospel where it says, now Jesus died for you and here's the gift, you come down here and you'll determine your eternal destiny by deciding on your own whether you'll take that gift or not.
Now decide, will you take it? That's not the true gospel. Is that what Jesus told the woman at the well? I don't hear him saying that. The gospel is, to put it in Jesus' word, listen, if you knew who you're talking to, this is pretending I'm Jesus talking to the woman at the well.
Jesus said, if you knew who you're talking to, you would ask me for water. And if you drink that water, you will never thirst again. It will bubble up into you as everlasting pool of water, stream of water, fountain of water in your heart.
Go get, you know, she says, I get my husband. He says, wait a minute, you got like five of them. Wasn't that right? How'd you know that? She started thinking right there, didn't she? So the Holy Spirit called her.
She went and brought the whole city and many of them were saved because of her, because she got saved. There's nowhere in there Jesus said, pray this little prayer after me. Nowhere in there. Nowhere in there where he said, well, I'm offering you a gift.
It's up to you to decide. Why wouldn't he preach it that way? Because he knew the scriptures. He knew that in the old Testament and in the future, in the new Testament, it would say, there's none that seeketh after God, not one.
She did not have the equipment to make that decision until after the Holy Spirit called her. So he just gave her the gospel. That's what we're supposed to do. We're just supposed to tell him the truth.
Jesus is the water. He's living water. If you receive him, you'll have water into life, everlasting life. There he is, look at him. And it's up to the Holy Spirit to call him and to regenerate him. He'll use the water of the word.
That's why Jesus Christ said, it takes two things for any human to get saved, the water and the spirit. The water is us giving them the word of God and the spirits, the Holy Spirit calling them. It's all right here in what we're studying, but here's what we got to last time.
To his own self, bear our sins in his body on the tree. That's imputation. God took our sins, put them on Jesus. And he paid the sin debt for God's people. And verse 25 is what was amazing. We talked about it last time.
Why did he put our sins on Jesus? Number one, because Jesus suffered for us. And the Holy Spirit called everyone that Jesus died for. Do you see it? It's simple. The Holy Spirit's job was to go to the father and find out who he had foreknown and predestinated to be Jesus's brothers and sisters, and then to go call them one by one because Jesus died for them.
And he applies that blood to them individually at the moment he calls them. Wow, that's amazing to think about. And why did he do all that? Look at verse 25. Because we were as sheep going astray. That was when we were thinking we were out on our own.
That's what sheep do when they're on their own. But when they have a shepherd, everything changes, especially when it's the great shepherd. But are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of our souls.
And we looked at that word return, which in the Greek means returned. Okay. Well, now you can't return something if it hadn't already been there. So doesn't that speak of foreknowledge? That before God made anything, he already knew you as his sheep.
He knew you as his wheat. He knew you as his child adopted into the family. And then when you were born, you went the wrong way. No man seeketh after God in our natural state. We all go our own way, the scripture says.
And then when the Holy Spirit calls us, guess what? We return to the bishop of our soul. Isn't that beautiful? So we talked about that a little bit last week. You see the concept of it in Romans 8, 29, and 30.
And you see it in Ephesians 1, 4 through 6. Talked about those in detail. And so last time we sort of ended up with the fact that Jesus made it very plain. There's two groups of people in the world. You got sheep and Jesus says, I'm the good shepherd.
I know my sheep and they know me. The goats will never know him. Right? They just won't know him. They'll never be saved. Jesus knows they won't be saved. We talked about them too, the goats. We looked in John 8, 21 through 24.
Then said Jesus unto them, I go my way. You'll seek me, but you'll die in your sins. Whether I go, you cannot come. He didn't say you won't decide to come like someone offers you this gift and you got to decide do you want it or not.
He didn't say you just choose not to. He said, you can't come there. They're not in the right group. Jesus didn't die for them. They're goats. And he further said to these goats who were Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, the same people that would kill Jesus today if he came probably, many of the religious leaders of the day and the politicians, you know, we have the same enemies that Jesus had.
I believe Trump has the same enemies Jesus had. The scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees. Think about the scribes as the news in the media. The scribes were the ones that gave all the news and wrote down, and that's the media.
Same enemy. The Pharisees are the religious leaders that think they know everything, especially the liberals in this country who follow, you know, liberal politics as well. Including abortion. And then the third are the Sadducees.
Those are people who don't believe anything. They don't believe in miracles. That's your scientific community. It's the same enemies. And poor President Trump, he had them all against him, and I'm not sure spiritually he's equipped to handle that, but he had a lot of us with him that are equipped, and we've been praying.
We're still praying, aren't we? You think about Jesus as the groom and we're the bride. How many? At least 70-something million of his bride are saying, Jesus, here's what we want. Husband, we want President Trump to be elected.
Please give us that. We're still asking him, aren't we? He doesn't have to say yes. He knows best. He'll give his bride what's best. But I know what the bride wants. The bride wants the Supreme Court to overrule these mail-in votes, which is a fraud on the entire nation of America.
It's never happened like this in history. If it gets by this time, it will happen every time after this. It'll be the end of democracy as we know it, the end of the republic as we know it. So anyway, I say it will.
That's my opinion. I don't know if it will. But look at Jesus. Uh-oh. I don't know what happened there. Hmm. That's very odd. Hmm. I wonder who did that. All right, so devil, we'll just keep talking about you.
I don't think you can keep that off if the Lord wants it on. Jesus then said to this same group, and he said unto them, You are from beneath. I am from above. You see, two groups of people. Now listen, that's not what's taught in churches today.
They're taught God loves everybody. Jesus died for everybody. Everybody can get saved if you just tell them the gospel. Jesus said, no, there's a huge group of people that won't get saved and can't get saved because they're from below.
And Jesus said, when he told the parable, he said, I didn't put the tares on the earth. Satan did. Go figure that out. I know you may not agree with me. Go study. Study. Figure that one out. It's in the scripture.
Jesus didn't put them here. Satan put them here. The vast majority of humans, Satan put them here somehow. Go find out. We think we found in scripture how, but I'm not going to go there. I'll let you think about it and find it on your own.
I'll give you a hint. It's in the book of Genesis, the answer. So Jesus pointed out these people. He said, you're from beneath. I'm from above. You're from this world. I am not of this world. And we're the same.
We're not of this world. America, we can love her and the history of her, but we can't over love her because we're not of her. We're of the heavenly world. Just like Jesus. And what that tells you is this world will hate you and me because it hated our savior and our leader.
I said, therefore, you will die in your sins for, if you believe not that I am, he said to these Jewish religious leaders, if you don't believe I'm the, I am, you will die in your sins. And he just got through telling them, but you don't believe because you can't and you won't because you're not from above.
Wow. So that talked about that last time, two groups of people. Now, how does that have a bearing on positional righteousness? Because you're not saved by good stuff. You do as a human. And the law sheep cannot any better than the goat do good works that are righteous and a Holy God's eyes enough for him to save you.
So the law sheep had to become saved sheep because of what Jesus did for them, which he was a ransom. And he gave his blood and he took their sins upon his body on the tree. And he died in their place as a substitute.
And then God gave his righteousness to the sheep and they became saved sheep in time when the Holy spirit called him and informed them of it. When he opened their eyes and informed them that that's who you are, that's when they were saved.
And so that's how it works. So it's positional righteousness. If you don't understand the two groups, you'll just think it was a human decision that caused you to be saved. Won't you? But then when you understand that the goats will never make that decision and the law sheep can't make it because none of them are seeking it, then it comes down to the Holy spirit to do the work of calling and awakening, not the human.
It's the Holy spirit that does the calling and the awakening. The human then wakes up and everything else is in effect. Isn't that cool? God does the same thing though. So how much of the glory does he get?
80%, 90%. What do you think? No one. Okay. I was going to say no one's answering here. What do you guys think? But someone said a hundred percent. He gets a hundred percent. The father, son, the Holy spirit get a hundred percent of the glory for the salvation of one soul, let alone all the saints of all time.
Isn't that amazing? All right. So there's even more evidence concerning this positional righteousness. Now let's think about this a minute. Position. What does that mean? What if you say, well, my position is I'm president United States means you got elected, right?
It's your position. You didn't cause it. Did you? The voters caused it. The election caused it. It's who you are now because it's your office. It's your position. And it's not something you did that caused it.
It was bestowed upon you. Isn't that true? Pretty good definition. Could you also say it's very similar to the word standing. It's your standing in the world. Another way to look at that is instead of president United States, why would you say this?
I'm a child of the king. Now, if I'm born into the, let's say we don't, let's go back in history when you didn't have a democracy. All you had was kings for thousands of years of human history. And if I'm the first born son of that king, what's my standing?
I'm going to be the king, right? Did I do anything to deserve that? Did I do anything to get that? Did I do any work to achieve that? No, it's, it's a free gift. It's my standing. So when we talk about positional righteousness, it's something God did to you and me, and it gives us a standing that what we do can't change it.
We have to understand this, or we'll never understand justification because justification is the bestowing of positional righteousness. It's a position. It's a standing. Isn't that cool stuff? What do we have?
Oh, I should say this. Why do we have it? Well, it could be any number of things. Let's ask. Do you think it's because of imputations, the reason we have it? If you just took a cursory look, you might say, yeah, that's it.
Because God took his righteousness and put it in our account. So that's what caused it. But something had to happen to make imputation righteous and possible and just. So that's not what caused it. Would it be redemption that you got set free by paying a price?
That would come closer to the cause, wouldn't it? But that doesn't happen to every human, does it? So why did it happen to you? So that can't be the cause. I want you to think about everything I'm saying.
What about substitutional death? Substitutionary death should have said it that way. It's not the right word. Substitutionary death. That's a good word too, but that's not the theological term. It's a typo.
Substitutionary death. Did that cause the positional righteousness for you to have that? Well, not really because he died for you 2000 years ago and you lived a lot of your life unsaved. Didn't you? You didn't have positional righteousness for a long time.
I didn't have it till I was 24 years old. So I don't guess that was the cause. What about the ransom? Same thing. You would think these things are what caused it. All of these things were necessary for it to exist, but they didn't cause it.
What about propitiation? All these things we've studied. God being satisfied that the death of his son is a just payment for our sin debt. Is that why we have positional righteousness? Well, there again, that's something that happened 2000 years ago and you lived, I lived 24 years and didn't have positional righteousness.
So apparently that didn't cause it. So what about that one? That's the closest. The fact that now you got to go back and you guys out there, if you didn't hear this, or if you're sitting here and you didn't hear my sermon on foreknowledge where I mentioned it two or three Sundays in a row, probably mentioned it 10 Sundays.
It doesn't mean what it sounds like. It means, it sounds like it means omniscience that God just knows everything. Doesn't it? Sounds like he looks out and sees events taking place and he just knows stuff.
That's not what foreknowledge is in the Bible. Sounds like it in English, but in the Hebrew Bible, it's not what it is, nor in the Greek new Testament. You would be thinking of omniscience there for that, but that's not what we're talking about here.
Foreknowledge. What is it? It is a loving relationship with a person. So foreknowledge is never about events. It's always about specific people known as the elect, those who God loves. So God loved a small remnant.
Of the human race that hated him, that cursed him, that disobeyed him, and that fell into sin and degradation and wrath. He loved a small remnant of those and saved them from that fallen race for his son's sake.
He knew them before he made anything. Jesus died for them. The book of Revelation says before God made anything, Jesus put his hand up and said, I'll die for him. I'll give my blood to make it righteous for you to save him.
Because right now, it's not righteous for you to save him because they sinned. But he said, I'll die in their place and then it'll be just for me to save them. And the Godhead said, yes, this is the plan.
And that all happened before God made one thing, and before time even began. Well, that could be debated. Brother Bill had to leave early today, or I'd ask our physics man to have a trinity. Do you have to have time?
I don't think so. But to have heaven, you do. So where did they at Trinity have the meeting? I don't know. Maybe they had it before there was a space. Point is, before time began, this happened and the decision was made and you were foreknown.
You were foreknown. That's why this kind of righteousness is positional. It's not something you had anything to do. It's a free gift you received. Because God loved you as his own little baby. I've had the privilege the last yesterday and during Sunday school today to spend a lot of time holding Fern, my youngest of nine grandbabies, and just holding her and looking, making eye contact and her little eyes looking right into my eyes and me, just melting.
All right. So I'm a picture of the father, God, the father, she's a picture of you. Now you think about that, except he loves you so much more than I can love her. I don't have the equipment God has. I've got a lot of equipment.
I love five children and nine grandbabies. And the next one, if I have a 10th, I'll love that one too. So my, my love gets bigger and bigger, right? But it's not infinite like God's and that's how much God loves us.
We can't even understand it. But I know this. I know that he made you righteous because he had to, because he loved you so much. And he would have lost you if he hadn't, because you don't have enough righteousness to get to heaven.
And neither do I. So that is tied in with positional righteousness. I don't know that I've ever seen it tied in, in a theology book. And I've read quite a few. I've never seen theologians tie this in with positional righteousness, but I think it's the root of it.
And so let's take a look at a little bit more this morning who hadn't seen yet. And let's go into the old Testament because last time we looked at new Testament verses that had to do with positional righteousness.
Let's look at this and see if this has to do with it. Look at Isaiah 43, written some 2 ,600 years ago. Isaiah 43 in verse one. But now thus saith the Lord that created you, O Jacob, and he that formed you, O Israel, fear not.
Now let's just suppose logically for a moment that God says twice in the new Testament. We don't have to suppose this. We know it's a fact. Twice in the new Testament that everything that was written before time, which means the old Testament, everything in the old Testament was written as an in sample for those of us who live in the end times so that we can understand the spiritual truths of God.
So everything you read in the old Testament is an example. It's even stronger than that. It's an in sample. Don't have time to go in the Hebrew word there or the Greek word in the new Testament. But it's just leave it like examples good enough for now.
It is an example or an allegory or a way for God to teach us a spiritual truth by looking at the lives of these people. So I dare say that gives us the permission to count Israel, Jacob and Israel here are the Jewish people, God's people as a type or a picture of individuals that belong to God.
I mean, the whole nation can picture you as an individual if you belong to God, because the nation of Israel belonged to God and was supposed to be the witness to the world. And who are you as an individual Christian supposed to be?
You belong to God and you're the witness to the world. So Israel can picture you. So things that God says about Israel can be true of you and me. And that's based on the scriptures in the new Testament.
Two of them that mentioned that all of this is written for us to understand what's spiritually true for us. All of it. That's why the old Testament is so fascinating. It gives way more colors and depths of meanings of the new Testament doctrines than the new Testament gives.
New Testament basically names them, gives you some definition. The old Testament gives you the depth of the definitions and the colors of the meanings. So let's look at this with regard to God's foreknowledge and that being the root cause of positional righteousness, the reason we have it because of God's love for us.
And let's see if we see it here. But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not for I have redeemed thee. Would all of that be true of you as an individual Christian?
It would, wouldn't it? Because it's a picture of you. God wrote, God gave these people life and had their life recorded as an example for what it's like for you, your relationship with God spiritually.
So don't have fear, said the God who formed us. I have bought you with a price and that's the blood of Jesus. And I have set you free from the world, the flesh, and the devil. That's what redeemed means all in one word.
So don't fear because I've redeemed you. Now look what else he says. I have called you by your name. You are mine. Do you think that's true of an individual Christian? Well, the New Testament says it is.
We are elect. We are foreknown. We're predestinated. The same group are called and justified and glorified. We are seated in the heavenlies with Christ right now. Spiritually, aren't we? That helps when we look at this stupid election.
I had to stick my head up around and breathe celestial air for a while just to make it right, just to exist. I have called thee by thy name. You are mine. So when the Holy Spirit came into time and called you, he was the instrument of the Father and of the Son and he is God.
He's part of the Godhead. And that is the means by which God called those of us who he knew by name because we were always his. You see, he had to make you righteous or you'd have gone to hell, which is impossible because he already knew you.
You're not going to hell. He's going to say, Jesus said, no man can come to me unless the Father draw him and of them I will lose nothing. So you're going to go to heaven, but you had to get called. And so he called us.
But when he called us, the regeneration took place. And part of that was the imputation where he gave us Jesus's righteousness. Part of that called upon the finished work of Jesus, where he gave his blood as payment and ransom and redeemed us unto the Father from sin, from the devil unto God.
All of this works together, but it all stems back to foreknowledge. It all stems back to the fact that he called us not as a group, but as an individual child by name, just as when he birthed us spiritually, he gave us a name.
Don't you know, the Bible says he's given us a new name. When we get to heaven, it's a name you don't know yet, but it's you. It's the name he gave you the day you got born the second time. You'll learn that name when you meet Jesus.
Mine will be Patience. That'll be my new name. Right, Charlotte? She says, no, it'll be Grumpy. Maybe. Only till 10 in the morning though, right? All right, now let's keep going here. See, do you see how this ties in with our study on foreknowledge and election and the calling?
All of that is alluded to there, isn't it? In the Old Testament. Look at verse two. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. Now, what is it like to go through the Red Sea if God didn't part them?
What would that be like? Trouble, wouldn't it? Death, maybe. So when we go through trouble, like right now, coronavirus. Seemingly wrong dude has more votes than the right dude, seemingly, to us. Right?
We're going through trouble. But what does he say about us as his own sheep? I will be with you. And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. You may find yourself in a river of trouble with your head sticking up trying to breathe, and it's not going to get to here.
God just promised it's not. He's going to keep your head above it, and you're going to swim out of it with his help, because I am with you. And he said, I knew you by name before I made the worlds. And because of that, I saved you.
And so now when the rivers of waters overflow you, don't fear. I'm not going to let them totally overtake you. When you walk through the fire, you won't be burned. Think about that. Fire is a strong picture of tribulation, and also persecution.
Look at the history of the Christian church. The first person to print the Bible in English was burned at the stake for making the Bible available to the common language, you know, by the Roman, well, I would say Roman Catholics.
Probably it was the Church of England that did it. I don't remember. Probably. Let me think about that. It was Tyndall. So when did that happen? Probably the Church of England, wasn't it? So either way, it was a group of people that believed in salvation by works and a religious system.
And this man was saying, no, if I just give the word of God to people, they'll read it. They don't need you anymore. They can just go off in the woods with this Bible and read it and have a relationship with God.
So they burned him, right? So there you have it. But you know what? While he was burning, God was with him. And you and I don't know what that was like. We can imagine. Satan makes us think what it was like.
But God says it's different. God said, I will be with you through the fire, through the water, through whatever you have to go through in your span of time. I'll be with you. When you walk through the fire, you won't be burned.
You know why that's true? The new you can't die. The new man or woman. It cannot be sick. It cannot die. Because Jesus healed it with his stripes. Think about that. Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for a ransom, Ethiopia, and Saba for thee. Now we see that we're saved because of who God is. He is our Savior. So he is the reason he saves us, not us.
But also, since he's got love more than a grandpa, he was going to save us because we were his kids. But you see the word for there in verse 3? That's saying this is the reason why verse 1 and 2 are true.
The fact that he called us by name, the fact that he saves us through the tribulation in this world, all of that happens because he is our God. It's all for his sake. It's all because of him and who he is.
Not because of who we are, because we don't live right all the time, do we? I am your Savior. I gave these as a ransom. All the things, listen, the nations of the world do what they do for our sakes. We may not see that, but it all has to do with the Lord coming back.
And who's he coming back for? Me and for you, isn't he? Come quickly, Lord Jesus. All of the movements of the nations of all the world and the presidents and leaders and all of that is together for the timing of the rapture where he comes back for his church.
In verse 4, since thou were precious in my sight, here's where we see foreknowledge. See, that's a definition of foreknowledge. Foreknowledge is not a very good English word for what this word means. Maybe forelove would be better.
The love of us before time began would be a better translation than foreknowledge is now because that word just doesn't quite mean that in English to us. The before time began love that God had for us is what this is talking about.
We call it foreknowledge scripturally. Since because you were precious in my sight, when were we precious in his sight? Ephesians 1, Romans 8, all the rest of the scripture, before the foundation of the world, before he made anything, we were precious in his sight and because we were precious in his sight, look at this, you have been honorable and I have loved you.
You see, that's positional righteousness. Are you really honorable in and of yourselves? What do you say? Not every minute of every day, are we? But in the father's eyes, are we? Why are we? Because we've been made honorable.
We've been made righteous. That ladies and gentlemen is positional righteousness. I believe I can rest my case here that is directly tied into the fact that we were always precious in his sight even before time began.
Not every human, but every elect human, every child of God. So we are made righteous because we were precious in his sight. In other words, he knew us with love as verse four says, isn't that cool? So now it ties all this in with positional righteousness.
The passage continues. It says, fear not, for I am with thee. How many times is he going to say fear not? Why does he need to say that to us when we're in this world still so much? Because it's a pretty dangerous place.
It's a very dangerous place we're living in. Behind enemy lines. We're not from here. We're their enemy. We were sent here to be salt and light behind enemy lines and fulfill God's purpose. And that's dangerous.
So fear not. I will bring thy seed. Now look at this. From the east. And I will gather the seed from the west. And I will say to the north, give it up. I will say to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.
That's prophetic. Because ladies and gentlemen, that's talking about the rapture. And the second coming. And I put that out of order. It's the second coming and the rapture. Which happens at the second coming.
As the second coming happens, it's part of it. Even everyone that is called by my name. There's the calling. The effectual calling that we've already studied. For I have created him for my glory. Now what does Romans 8, 28, 29, 30 say?
Those who he foreknew. He also predestinated. And those he predestinated, he also what? Called. And then those he justified, right? So look. Even everyone that's called by my name. I have created him for my glory.
I formed him. Yea, I made him. And those are the ones that are going to be at the rapture. Now you'll have to tell me if you think verse 5 and 6 sounds like the rapture. Because I'm about to read you what the rapture is.
We'll see if that sounds like it. God sends his angels to the east, the west, the north, and the south and gathers all of his children. That's what that says in verses 5 and 6. He gathers everyone that's called by his name.
Not every human. Not every man, woman, boy, and girl in the whole history of the world. Only those that are called. And who's called? The ones who were predestinated and the ones who were foreknown. These are the ones he gathers.
They were also justified and glorified. These are the ones he gathers. Now this is in Isaiah. Written at least 600 years before Jesus was born. 2 ,600 years ago. And it sounds like the New Testament. Doesn't it?
Reads like the New Testament. Yes, it was created to read like, to explain the New Testament to us. Oh, absolutely. These people were created for what the Bible calls the redemption of the body. For glorification.
Isn't that amazing? Bring forth, and for God's glory, is what you meant, Brother Dave, I think. For God's glory. But for our glorification, too. And to be in that state. Wow. That's a position, isn't it?
That's a standing. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes. Who's that? What were you the second before the Holy Spirit called you? Blind. Bring forth the deaf that have ears now. When did you get the ears?
To hear with understanding. At the moment you were called by the Holy Spirit, not a moment before it, and you didn't do a thing to get called. You were walking as a lost, dead person. And he quickened us while we were still in our sins.
Boy, so few people understand that that is salvation. It's totally of God, and we didn't do a thing in it, other than receive the benefit from it, and have lots of effects that changes how we live because of it.
But none of that is the cause. Those are the effects. Let all nations. Now, you see, when the Apostle Paul or any of the New Testament writers say that Jesus died for all men, it doesn't mean all individuals, because that would contradict Scripture, where it says he died for many.
Many can never mean all. So it doesn't mean all individuals. It means some people from all people groups. Some people will be saved from every ethnic group. And if you look up the word nations, at least in the New Testament, it means ethnos, which is ethnic group.
I'm not sure. I should have looked up the Hebrew word for you, but I didn't. Somebody can look it up with their phone. What does it mean in English, if you see it? Probably just means a nation. So people group.
It means a people group, basically. It's more like the Greek ethnos. So it's a people group. So let every kind of people group be gathered together and let the people be assembled. There will be some saved out of all groups.
And in that sense, Jesus died for all, because he died for the Jew and the Gentile, not just the Jew. And that's what Paul was trying to tell his Jewish believer friends and the lost sheep in the group and the goats when he was preaching.
Now, let's take a look at verse 5 and 6. I will bring my people out of the north, the south, the east, and the west. And let's look in the New Testament at Matthew 24. And by the way, if it's new to you to hear that the rapture happens after the second coming or as part of it, then I would just ask you what a friend of mine asked me many years ago.
David, would you at least count Jesus' chronology of the end times as more important than the books you've read that told you what you think it means? Would you count his chronology of how he said it happens and the order it happens in to be more authoritative than the human books?
And I said, of course I would. Well, I knew right then that my view was about to change because I already had some doubts. I had some doubts about the pre-trib rapture theory. I never taught it in good conscience, even though it's what I was taught to believe.
I knew it didn't all add up. But when I just studied Isaiah 24, because my friend asked me to, guess when I did it? That night I went home and did it. I said, man, there's something wrong here. Something wrong with the fake news I'd been given about it, the fake doctrine I'd been taught, because Jesus didn't say it that way.
But anyway, this is in this passage. In this passage, it says immediately after the tribulation of those days. Now, the pre-tribulation rapture says the rapture happens before the tribulation of those days.
Jesus said, after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.
This is the second coming, right? And then shall all tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and glory. And Jesus said very clearly, that's the only way I ever come.
I don't come in secret, he said. So this idea of a secret rapture seven years before he comes is false. Jesus said, people will teach that. He said, they're going to teach that I've already come out in the desert, that I'm in some inner room.
He said, don't believe them, because he said, when I come, it'll be like the lightning from the east to the west, and every eye shall see me. You see, that right there shoots down the theory. But anyway, we're not talking about that theory today, so that's just rabbit trails for you.
They're free, okay. So in this passage, we see that we're talking about the end of the age and the second coming, are we not? And that this occurrence is happening after the tribulation. And verse 31 says, and then he will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet.
That's the seventh trump. So the same friend that asked me to consider Matthew 24 as authoritative, he also asked me, little brother, he said, how many last trumps can there be? I said, okay, okay, I'll promise you I'll look into it.
Because I didn't want to debate him, because I knew where he was headed with that. I knew I couldn't beat him, because I didn't know enough about my fake theory. So that started a two-year study for me that is still ongoing, but I no longer believe what I grew up believing.
I have to go with what Jesus said, what Daniel said, the same chronology, by the way, and so did Paul. But I don't have time to get into that today, but it's in our archives and sermons I've preached in the past at parkmeadowschurch .com if you want to check it out.
Matthew 24, 31. After the tribulation of those days in verse 29, then verse 31 happens. After the tribulation, he will then send his angels with a great sound of the last trump. We know that's true from other scripture.
And they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now look up at Isaiah 43, 5, and 6. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east.
I will bring them from the west, the north, and the south. That's the four winds. Same event, 2 ,600 years apart. His two different prophets, Isaiah and Jesus Christ, prophesied these events. And they match perfectly.
And the Lord will send his angels with the great sound of a trumpet and gather together his elect. People say, Brother David, do you really believe in election? I mean, there it is, right? Jesus talks about it.
This would be red letters if you had a red letter Bible, by the way. This is Jesus saying there is the elect. The elect exists, and that's who I'm going to gather. I'm not going to gather everybody. I'm going to gather those people.
So yeah, I do believe in it, just like Charles Spurgeon believed in it. And going all the way back to Augustine, 1 ,400 years before him, believed in it. And Paul, going back all the way to the beginning of the church age, believed in it, and Jesus taught it to him.
Yeah, I believe in it. So I'm going to gather the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now let's go back to our Isaiah passage. Isn't that interesting? So we just see that that event is foretold by Isaiah 2 ,600 years ago.
Yea, before the day was, I am. Now didn't Jesus say that to the Pharisees in the preview a while ago, or the review from last time? He said, look, you will die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins.
Same person, it's Jehovah. That's Jesus. Yea, before the day was, I am, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. I will work, and who will stop it? The old English word in 1600s, let, meant the opposite of what it means now.
Satan changes living languages. He changes them on purpose to bring confusion. That's why God chose to write the Bible in Hebrew and Greek, where at the time they were written, they were both dead languages.
Now Hebrew has been revived since then, but it's still sort of cemented, and so is Greek. So they're like math. English is not that way. Let used to mean to stop something. Now it means to allow something.
Isn't that funny? The exact opposite. So you have to understand the old meanings. You can look it up in an old Webster's dictionary, the old unabridged dictionary. You'll see that the archaic meaning, the beginning of the meaning of the word years ago in English, was to stop something.
So yea, before the world was, I am, and there is none that can deliver anything out of my hand, God says, because he is sovereign, and I will work, and no one will stop it. Who will stop what I put into play?
Which is everything. God does not allow things. He causes things. Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake have I sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.
You see, all some of these things that Israel thought were bad things, were actually done for their sake. There's a lesson in that for us. They didn't like the Babylonians. They didn't like being led with a hook through their chest, tied to the person in the front of them, and led down through the desert to get to this place.
They didn't like, and then made slaves for their natural life. They didn't like that, but God says he did it for their sakes. Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, God says.
Now it shall spring forth, and shall you not know it? Won't I help you understand it when I'm going to do it? Yeah, obviously I will. You're my people. I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, and that is a picture of salvation by grace, not by works.
That's what that's a picture of, and it's a new thing. It's the New Testament, not the Old Testament. This people, look at this. This people have I formed for myself. God is using an allegory here. He's using the nation of Israel to be a picture of the elect individuals, us, that he formed for himself.
The rest of the human race, Jesus said, I didn't even put them there. Check it out, that's what he said in the parable, the parable of the sower. I didn't put them there, Satan put them there, but the ones I put there, the wheat, I love them, and I'm going to put them in bundles, and bring them into my barn someday, and that picture's the second coming in the rapture, and he says, this people have I formed for myself.
They shall show forth my praise. That's our purpose, isn't it? That's what Dave said a minute ago. But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, but you have been worried of me, O Israel, and I want to ask you what this picture is.
I told you that previously, 18 and 19 pictured grace, salvation by grace, that we didn't deserve it, we can't earn it, it's a free gift. What is this picture? The very people he says he saved and called, those very people are not praying enough.
Do you see it? They're not calling on my name. They're not praying enough. Those same people have grown tired of God. Wow, does that sound like the church in America right now? Someone asked earlier, is maybe this punishment?
Well, yeah, maybe. It could be punishment for the church. If you take the church at large in America, the mega churches include all of that stuff that's going on. They're not all bad, but a lot of them are.
Lots of tens of hundreds of thousands of people that are worshiping in man's way, not God's way. Could they be weary of the true God and be inventing a different God? Could they be weary of Jesus, and so they invent their own Jesus, a Jesus who loves everybody and died for everybody rather than Jesus in the Bible who said he knew a remnant, a small group of people out of the whole race, and he ransomed them?
Maybe they've invented a false Jesus because they're weary of the true one. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings, neither hast thou honored me with your sacrifices. You have not caused thee to serve with an offering.
I have not caused you to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. These people are not living right, but they're still saved. So what is this picturing? Salvation by works or salvation by grace?
Grace, undeserved. He loves them because he loves them, not because they're lovable. Think about that. That's what agape love is. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money. We haven't brought gifts to our husband if we're the bride.
We haven't brought him gifts. We're just taking advantage of him. We're just ignoring that he's there, and he'll always take care of us. We're not bringing gifts to Jesus. Neither hast thou filled me with the fat of your sacrifices.
We're not letting our bodies be a sacrifice unto the Lord, the living God, like we should. Thou hast wearied me with our sins. You're still sinning. The cause of salvation has happened, and the effect is supposed to be be holy as I am holy, but what I'm seeing is you're not holy.
You see, look. He's still talking to the ones he knew from the beginning of time by name and saved. That's grace. I, even I, am he that blotted out your transgression. Why? For my sake, God said, not for yours, and I will not remember your sins.
That is positional. That's not something you and I did right. That's the stuff we did wrong. And he saved us anyway. It's positional. And it's because he loves us a thousand times more, a million times more than I can love my own grandbabies when I look him in the eyes.
Millions of times more. Who knows what infinite love is like. But that's why he blotted out our transgressions, because for his sake, he wanted some grandbabies. He wanted us. He didn't have to have us.
I could have been happy with my five kids, but I sure like those nine grandbabies. Well, God has all of us and is happy with all of us, not because we're perfect, but because we're his. And he loves us.
This is positional righteousness. Nothing we do or do not do can cause this. It is our position and our standing in Christ the righteous. So let's stop here this morning. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for showing us these truths in both the New Testament and the Old Testament by your spirit and by the word, the water of the word.
Thank you for showing us that we own this positional righteousness. You've made us as if we've never sinned, because you knew us and loved us before the foundation of the world. And for your sake, you made us righteous.
Now we know, Lord, that we're supposed to try to live right, and we'll see that in scripture in days to come. But this part is what you have done to us and for us and for yourself. You have made us to be your bride in white apparel.
And thank you so much. It's all because of the blood of Jesus. You get all the glory for all of this. And we ask you to go with us now into our time of fellowship and bless the meal we're about to have in Jesus' name.
Amen. All right. We hope all you guys visiting online, maybe come down, drive down to, of course, Kenneth, worship with us, have lunch with us. You can't do that on Zoom. It's all homemade. If you do come, bring a dessert.
Okay, that's the deal.