Understanding God's Sovereignty in Election (Part 3)

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Understanding God's Sovereignty in Election (Part 4)

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But tonight we are going to be looking at the subject that is usually referred to in theological jargon as the effectual call or the effectual calling.
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And this is on the heels, of course, of our larger examination of Romans chapter eight, verses twenty eight through thirty.
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So if you want to open up your Bible, we're going to read that passage again just to remind ourselves where we are, what it is we're discussing.
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So in the eighth chapter of the book of Romans, we come to verse twenty eight and it says the following, it says, And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew.
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He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and those whom he predestined.
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He also called and those whom he called, he also justified and those whom he justified, he also glorified.
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Father, as we examine the text of scripture tonight, I pray that you would first and foremost open our hearts to a better understanding of scripture, that you would keep me from error as the instructor, Lord, knowing, oh, God, that I am a fallible man and capable of being an error.
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I pray that as we examine the text tonight, that you would keep us focused intently on what we're learning.
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Remind us always of the tenacity of scripture and the importance of it and that we are to believe not just part of scripture, but that we are to believe all of scripture.
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For Jesus himself taught us that not even an iota will pass away from this word.
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So we ask, oh, Lord, now that you give us this opportunity to study together in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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All right.
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When we talk about calling, distinctions have to be made.
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When we talk about calling, there are two ways which theologians identify calling in scripture.
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The first way is what we would call the external call.
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OK, the other way obviously would be what we would call the internal call.
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Another way of saying this and it has been said this way, some we call the outward call.
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We call the inward call.
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We call the universal call and then we call the effectual call.
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So there's there's different ways of saying this.
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But I think that the the easiest way to express it is simply that there is the external call of the gospel and then there is the internal call of God which enables someone to receive the gospel.
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So let me give you that definition again.
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The external is the call of the gospel.
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That is what we hear when someone preaches the gospel.
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We hear the external call of God.
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But when we talk about the internal call, we are talking about God's enabling of an individual to receive the external call.
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This is happening outside.
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This is happening inside.
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Now, we have to, again, look to scripture.
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As I said Sunday, I said we believe in something called false faith.
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Remember that on Sunday morning we talked about false faith.
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And what did I say? I say, don't believe it just because I say it.
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But we look to the scripture to see if such a thing actually is found there.
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And that's what we did on Sunday.
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And that's what we're going to do here tonight.
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And the reason why I have two podiums full of notes is because these two podiums are filled with scriptures that we're going to look at and giving me information that I'm going to need sort of on the fly as we address these issues.
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The first place that I want us to go, rather than starting in Romans 8, is actually I want us to start from a simple look at a simple word.
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OK, and that word is the word church.
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All right.
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We're going to start tonight by looking at the word church.
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OK, what is the church? It's believers.
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OK, that's good.
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All right.
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Because some people will say it's the building we're sitting in, you know, and that's often how we identify the church.
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We identify the church as the place.
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If I say, hey, I'm getting up this morning, I'm going to the church.
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Normally, I'm not talking about I'm going to the people.
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I'm saying I'm going to a building and we call ourselves Forest Christian Church.
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And that's because we've identified this place as being a church.
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However, we know biblically that is not the way the word church is expressed.
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What way is the word church expressed? It is expressed as believers.
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But it's a little bit more than even just saying believers.
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The word church comes from a Greek word, which is ekklesia.
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Now, I wrote that in English, if you want me to write in Greek, I will, but I figured I would make it a little bit easier.
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OK, it looks very similar in Greek.
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You have the epsilon, kappa, kappa, lambda, epsilon, sigma, iota and alpha.
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So there, that's the way I look in Greek.
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But it's the same.
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OK, well, yes, I see you want to write in Greek.
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Yeah, that's what it looks like.
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OK, the word ekklesia.
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Now, the word ekklesia or ekklesia is translated in English as the where we get the word ekklesiastical.
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OK, what do I mean when I say ekklesiastical? I mean, pertaining to the church.
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If I say we have an ecclesiastical order here, that means we have a specific order by which we do church.
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All churches do.
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Even the most wildest, most wildest, double scrolling.
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Let's go.
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Even the wildest churches have an order.
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OK, they have an ecclesiastical structure.
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OK, they have a pastor.
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They have deacons.
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They have members.
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That's an ecclesiastical structure.
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OK, however, the word ecclesiastical or ekklesia doesn't refer to a structure.
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That's how English has sort of changed what the word means.
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The word is actually from two specific Greek words.
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The first one is the word ek.
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That word means out of.
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OK, you've heard me talk about exegesis, right? What is the word exegesis mean? It means to take out of the scripture what is there rather than exegesis, which means to read into the scripture something that's not there.
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Exegesis exit where we get the word exit from comes from the word ek, the foundation, which means to go out of.
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OK, so that's the foundation or the actually that's the prefix here.
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Ek means out of.
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Then you come to the word kaleo.
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All right.
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Kaleo means to call.
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OK, so literally the word church means those who have been called out.
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All right.
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The very foundation of the word church means those who have been called out, called out of what? Called out of the world, called out of sin, have been called out from being dead to being alive.
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Those people who are the call.
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OK, so even in the very foundation word that we use for church, we have a word that uses the concept of calling.
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OK, church is made up of people who have been called out.
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In fact, all I said was called out people been made up of people because I just I just used a redundant statement.
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Does everybody have this? Can I erase it now? Good.
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All right.
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All right.
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That was my first point, because the word church is used multiple times in Scripture.
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We know this.
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You look up your Bible and you will see Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica.
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He writes to the church at Philippi, writes to the church at Corinth.
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And then in Revelation, there are seven churches, the church of Sardis, the church of Philadelphia and all the different churches that are written to by the apostle John.
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So the word church is very important, but it simply is a statement of people who are called out.
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All right.
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That didn't prove anything.
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That just made a point that the idea of calling is inherent in who we are.
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It's inherent in what we are.
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We are the church.
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We are the called out ones.
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OK, so when we talk about being called, are we talking specifically about, well, everybody received a call or are we talking specifically about God called us with an internal calling that allowed us, that enabled us to come? Well, let's look now at a few passages that actually deal with this particularly.
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The first one is 1st Corinthians chapter one, 1st Corinthians chapter one, verse twenty two.
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And I'm looking at 2nd Corinthians, so that really can confuse everybody.
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So let me go to 1st Corinthians, 1st Corinthians chapter one, verse twenty two.
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Paul is writing here, he's writing about Christ being the wisdom and power of God.
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And in 1st Corinthians, I see some of you still turning.
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I want you to see this.
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So I'll give you a second to get there.
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He says in verse twenty two, for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.
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Verse twenty three, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
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Now, let's just break that down kind of in a simple way.
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First of all, when he says when we preach Christ crucified, he said this to the Jews is scandal on.
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OK, that's the word that he uses there in English.
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It's translated stumbling block.
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OK, what is what do you think of when you say this? This person just went through a scandal means they fell from their position.
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They were in a position of high and lofty, and now they've stumbled and they've fallen.
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That's what a scandal means.
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That's where we come from, comes from the Greek word scandal on.
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And that's what he's saying here.
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He says to the Jews, Jesus Christ's crucifixion was something that knocked them down.
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It was something that they tripped over.
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They could not get over that hurdle.
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You ever see somebody run hurdles in this one? That's the picture Paul is describing.
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He's saying he's saying this is the one place they couldn't go over.
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OK, this is the thing that knocked them down.
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He said to the Jews, it was scandal on.
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It was a stumbling block.
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But to the Greeks, it was more on us more on us.
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Yeah, I know what that means.
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Right.
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To the Greeks, it's moronic.
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Why do you believe your God was killed by Roman soldiers nailed to a cross where he bled and died for six hours? You believe that that's moronic is what the is what the Greek would say, because that's not that's not human wisdom.
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The Bible says God did it a certain way because it actually was the antithesis of human wisdom.
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It was the antithesis of what we thought it should be.
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He says to the Jew, it knocks them over.
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To the Greek, it's stupidity, foolishness, it's moronic.
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But to the call, notice the phrase to those who are the call, and it says it there, it says to those who are called.
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Beloved, I submit to you, if that is just saying the external calling, if that's all that is referencing, then it is nonsensical because the call of the gospel had went out to many Jews and the call of the gospel when it went out to the Jews, it was the stumbling block that he was just talking about.
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The call of the gospel had went out to many Greeks and to them it was the moronic thing that he was just talking about.
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So they had heard the external gospel and to them it was something that they fell over, to them it was something they thought was moronic.
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But to the call here, it must be referring to a different type of calling.
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It's talking about a specific type of calling, what we would call the effectual calling.
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Effectual simply means it produces the effect that it intended.
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All right, the calling of God, the internal calling of God, he says to the call, both Jews and Greeks.
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I love Paul because one of the things he does is he ties up loose ends because here's what someone could have done.
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Someone could have said, well, yeah, the Jews and the Greeks, but here Paul produces a third category.
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He says the called is a third category.
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No, he says the called are of the Jews and of the Greeks.
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There are Jews who are called and there are Greeks who are called and of them Christ is no longer moronic.
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Christ is no longer a stumbling block.
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Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God.
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You see the difference where it was moronic before it's now wisdom, Christ crucifixion.
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It goes from moronic to wisdom, from folly or something that makes you fall down to something that gives you empowerment, the wisdom of God and the power of God.
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It's an exact antithesis for the called person.
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Christ is the antithesis to what he is for the person who is not called.
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All right, so right there we see a specific reference to the phrase called and how that word is used.
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Now, I want to show you again, I said we're going to be doing somewhat of a Bible saying that going through different verses.
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Are there any questions on first Corinthians before we move forward? Sir, yes, yes, yes, sir.
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All right.
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I want to take you to somewhere else.
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I want to take you to the book of Hebrews.
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Now, those of you who've been with me on Sunday morning, you all know we've been going through Hebrews.
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I want to show you something in Hebrews that I did not mention when I preached through it, because I've been through Hebrews chapter nine already.
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We're in the Hebrews chapter 11.
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But when I was preaching through Hebrews chapter nine, I intentionally did not make reference to this particular thing in such a bold manner, not as to hide the truth or to not exegete the truth, but because I knew this message was coming and I wanted to focus on this verse in this context to show it in the more broader context of the fact that when we talk about calling, we need to understand it in its fullness.
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And I look at this verse when we were looking at it in context in the book of Hebrews.
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I looked at it in context, the other verses.
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But tonight I want to just focus on the word calling.
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So go to Hebrews nine, verse 15.
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Now, I went through tonight and I put together I have I don't it doesn't it doesn't matter to me what translation you brought.
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I got them all.
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I went through specifically because this verse, I think, is so, so dreadfully important.
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All right.
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Hebrews nine, 15.
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I'm going to turn in my Bible, too.
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So I don't know where you guys are, but hopefully you're there.
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Hebrews nine, verse 15.
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I read from the ESV first.
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Therefore, he being Jesus Christ is the mediator of a new covenant.
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All right.
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So that those who are called.
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May receive the promised eternal inheritance.
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Since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
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All right.
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Let's just let's break it down.
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Well, first of all, if you're reading the King James Version, it's in a different order and it sounds different.
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If you're reading the NASB, it's in a different order.
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The NASB goes like this.
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It says that for this reason, he is the meter of a new covenant in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
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The the the the persons being acted upon, those who have been called is closer to the end of the sentence.
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So those of you who are reading the NASB, just look further down the sentence.
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It's still in there.
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Those who are called is specifically referenced in this passage just later for you guys.
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So Christ is the mediator of a new covenant.
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He is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
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Christ's mediation of the new covenant makes way for the call to be able to receive the promised eternal inheritance since or because a death has occurred.
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What death is being referred to there? The death of Christ.
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That's obvious.
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His death is what's in view.
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A death has occurred that redeemed them.
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Who is the them? The them is the call in this passage, in this particular instance, the them is the call.
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OK, so what he has done here is he has said specifically the called is a group because he uses the pronoun them to reference the antecedent, which is the call.
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The called is the antecedent of them.
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That's important because when you're looking at the sentence that way, it identifies this as a group.
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Remember, if you go to the external call, you now have looked at a universal thing, even though not everyone's heard the gospel.
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We know that not everybody in China, not everybody even in America has heard the gospel.
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You still are talking about something that goes out as a blanket thing.
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It does not.
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The call of the gospel is heard by believers and unbelievers.
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It goes out universally.
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But this is not talking about a universal calling.
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This is talking about a group called them who are the called.
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The called are the ones that, according to this verse, the transgressions have been redeemed or their transgressions have been redeemed or they have been redeemed from their transgressions.
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Rather, this is referring to the internal call.
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It must be because if this were an external call, if the called refers to all people who've ever heard the gospel, just put it in that context.
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If the called refers to everybody who's ever heard the gospel and everybody who's ever heard the gospel is the them, then what we would have to say then is that them have had their sins paid for and forgiven, which we know that if someone has rejected the gospel, their sins have not been paid for, have not been forgiven.
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Their sins are still on them.
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They will still suffer and die and go to hell because.
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So this particularly references for us a group which we call the called.
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All right, so that's Hebrews chapter nine and verse 15.
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Now, another place that I think is very important, I told you we're going to look at a lot tonight.
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Another place that I think is very important is Second Peter one ten, because Peter, Peter makes reference.
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He makes the reference of connecting two very important terms.
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Second, Peter, not trying to jump in there.
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I just heard you.
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All right.
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Second, Peter, one in one of my favorite verses in contact in the context of discussing reformed theology, because Peter uses the word calling in the word election in the same sentence.
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And he uses them somewhat synonymously.
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OK, he says, therefore, brothers.
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Who is he talking to? Don't the believers, you talk to brethren talking to Christians.
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That's important.
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He identifies, therefore, brothers.
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Be all the more diligent.
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To make your calling and election sure.
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For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail.
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These qualities being the one he had mentioned just preceding the verse before.
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He's telling them how to come to just like I talked about on Sunday, how to know you're a believer, how to how to live with confidence.
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And he says, therefore, make your calling and election.
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Sure.
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How do we do that? We do that by being steadfast in the faith and being confident in what we believe, knowing that it's the truth being, you know, that part of part of our sanctification is bringing about the robustness of our internal assurance.
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OK, that's part of the process of sanctification.
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Now, I just want to make mention calling and election are not exactly the same thing.
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However, they are being used by Peter here in a synonymous way.
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He's saying that if you're called, you're elect and if you're elect, you're called because he's saying if you're making one sure at the same time, you're making the other sure.
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If you're if you're sitting here making this sure you're making your calling and election sure by what you're doing.
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OK, now let's just very quickly.
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The calling we've already determined is the internal calling.
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Again, let me ask you a question.
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Would this make any sense if this were talking about a universal call? Because the universal call is going out to everybody.
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It's gone only to the ears.
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It's only something that they've heard.
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If this is the universal call that he's talking about here, how do you make the universal call? Sure, you can't because you weren't the one who I mean, all you can say is, well, I heard the gospel.
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It would be nonsensical if that were referring to the universal call.
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It couldn't be.
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If it were, it would be a nonsensical or it would be a nonsensical statement to say, make your external call.
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Sure.
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OK, I know I heard the gospel.
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I got that part down.
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Now let's talk about election.
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Well, if I did that, it would throw this whole it would throw the symmetry of the verse out of the water.
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But if this is referring to the internal call and the internal call is part of the election of God, because by calling me internally, God is opening up my heart to believe and demonstrating that I am among the elect, then these two do work together.
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If this is the universal external call, it makes no sense to be in the same sentence with this.
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And the two are not at all synonymous.
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However, if this is the internal call of God, these two work synonymously and the sentence goes back to being coherent.
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Makes sense.
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Now, for some of you, I'm going real fast and I hope that I haven't lost you, but I'm just trying to make the point of the three verses that we've looked over so far.
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None of those three verses could have been referring to the external call and remain sensical.
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To say that everyone is called, everybody receives a call, and that's the call that's being referred to here.
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It doesn't make sense and would not work.
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All right.
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Now, Acts two, as I said, I wasn't sure where I was going tonight, but every time I look at the paper, I see a new verse I want to go to.
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Acts two.
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Now, Acts two thirty eight is one of those verses that that creates a lot of contention, particularly those that teach baptismal regeneration.
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We're not going to deal with that tonight.
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That's a subject for another time.
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I dealt with that for a whole summer last year when we talked about different denominations.
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We went over Acts two thirty eight and we identified its meaning.
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But Acts two thirty nine.
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Wait a minute.
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Yeah, OK.
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I was looking at verse twenty.
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I was like, is my Bible wrong or am I wrong? It was it's me.
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OK.
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All right.
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Acts two thirty nine.
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This is right after Peter has made a proclamation of the gospel.
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He says for the promise, talking about the promise of the gospel.
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The promise is for you and for your children.
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OK, he's talking to his audience.
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He's making a very blanket statement.
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This promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off.
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Everyone whom the Lord, our God, calls to him.
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So I only ask you to think of it in terms of external versus internal.
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Is God's call in that passage? Is that simply an external blanket call or is that something that this passage is specifically saying is in reference to those whom God calls? Doesn't that indicate in the very language? Huh? External.
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Those whom God calls to himself.
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I read it again.
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It says it says for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord, our God, calls now right there.
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If you say everyone whom that makes a distinction that saying everyone whom God calls.
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OK, doesn't that by nature say that there will be those God does not call? Well, that's fine.
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And that promise is for everyone whom God calls.
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That's the point that the point is that whom God calls, not the promise necessarily isn't for anyone in particular.
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But the issue is the whom God calls.
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And the question is, is that call is God calling universal or is God calling particular? And in that statement, I think it's a particularity is being.
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All right.
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Now we have looked at second Peter one.
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We've looked at first Corinthians one.
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We've looked at Acts two.
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We've looked at Hebrews nine.
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Oh, boy, let's see.
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I don't I don't really want to go over John six again because I've gone over it so many times.
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But John six does speak to this issue where Jesus says particularly he says all the father gives me will come to me.
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That's a reference of God's specific giving from the father to the son.
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We've talked about that many times, but there is something I do want us to look at.
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There are times where called and chosen, chosen is simply another word for this, OK? If you want to hear if you want to say election is chosen, I wouldn't I mean, wouldn't everyone agree that to elect means to make a choice? That's what the definition of elect is.
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It means to make a choice or chosen there in first Peter or the second Peter passes second Peter one.
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These two are used synonymously calling an election.
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He says, be sure to make your call or be diligent to make your calling election.
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Sure.
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However, there is another place where they are used to be the opposite of one another, where the word called is given, but the word chosen is shown as being something different because there's a verse.
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And I know most of you probably heard this.
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Many are called, but few are chosen.
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Right.
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Let's look at.
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Yeah, this would definitely be a reference to the internals or the external call.
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But let's just look at it real quick at that verse.
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The many are called fewer chosen passage that is in Matthew 22, because I want to show you the context of Matthew 22, just for your own benefit.
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If your Bible has red words like mine does, it's hard to read.
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The red words tend to bleed.
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Ha, they bleed, did you? OK, give me a second.
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All right.
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It says there, it says, for many are called, but few are chosen.
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Twenty two, fourteen.
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So in 2nd Peter, I guess it was 110, wasn't it? 2nd Peter 110, the words calling an election, which is synonymous with chosen, the words calling an election are used synonymously.
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However, in Matthew.
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Chapter 22, verse 14.
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They are used as an antithesis.
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One is one thing, one is the other.
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And in reference here, this is the story.
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Jesus said the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.
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A picture of what we've been talking about forever, what I have been preaching for years, that when the gospel goes out, apart from God's awakening, God's opening of the heart, people do not come.
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OK, but that's just in reference there again.
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He sent other saying, tell those who are invited.
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See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything is ready.
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Come to the wedding feast.
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But they paid no attention and went off one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest sees the servants treated them shamefully and killed them.
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The king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murders and burned their city.
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Then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.
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Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you can find.
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And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.
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So the wedding hall was filled with guests.
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But with the gang and then it goes on to the story about the king coming in, looking at the one who had the garment that was not right.
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And the reference there, I think, is clear to false faith that that's one that I often make a reference to a person who who is who is among the people of God, but is not in Christ.
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Because what do we put on the Bible says, put on Jesus Christ.
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You know, the garment here, I think, is a very visual statement.
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This person is among God's people, but is not one of God's people.
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And this is when he says, for many are called, but fewer chosen.
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And this, I think the reference is clear that it's referring to the external call of God, that call by which all people here who hear the gospel proclaim.
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Here's the thing.
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When you are in church every Sunday, you are sitting with people who are many of which are believers.
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But there are times when and it could be every Sunday we could be sitting in the midst of unbelievers.
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We don't know who is a believer and who's not.
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We can't walk up and pull up some a shirt tail and see a big E for elect tattooed to their back.
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Smaller back is what Charles Spurgeon said.
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Can't can't lift up a shirt tail and see an E tattooed to him.
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So we don't know.
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But we do know the fruit in the Bible says, you know, that by their fruits in either regard, when they when I stand up and I say that Jesus Christ died on the cross, a substitutionary death, and that all who believe in him will have eternal life.
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When I say that, that is the external call of the gospel, and many are called in that respect.
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Many people hear that.
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However, notice he doesn't say this.
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Notice he doesn't say many are called, but few receive the call.
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He said many are called and he uses the word.
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The same word that we would normally use, why is it and I used to this used to this used to really.
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I had an ongoing conversation went on for about two years with an individual on this subject, never did really make any headway.
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But I felt that just I kept answering questions, answering questions, but the one question that this person could never answer for me was this, because he said, I received Jesus.
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That was my decision.
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And he always made that he always wanted to focus on what he did.
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And to an angry, you know, to the point of anger, I did it, you know.
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And what I always asked, I said, brother.
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I said.
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If you had been sitting in a church.
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Next to someone else and you both started going to church on the same Sunday and you both both both, you both had.
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Sat under the preaching of the gospel for a year's time, both of you had heard the equal number of sermons, both of you had heard the gospel enunciated the same amount of times and in the same way.
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But you received the gospel and he remained a person who objected and denied and rejected the gospel.
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I said, are you telling me that the difference between you and him is that somehow you were better, that your heart was more malleable or that you were more intelligent than him, that you were more spiritually sensitive? Huh? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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No, but but seriously, that's and that's the part.
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Well, no, I'm not saying I was more than what you're saying is that in some way God did something.
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God intervened.
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And, you know, we pray that way all the time.
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I people get mad at me, I say everybody prays like a Calvinist.
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Because everybody prays, God open his heart to believe God saved my son, God saved my my daughter, God saved my friend.
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And if the Armenians are right, God's up in heaven going, I'm doing the best I can.
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Seriously, he's out there going, what else can I do? It's up to them, you know, I mean, that's the that's the thing that's really the dividing line.
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Is it all about what you did, that guy who kept saying it was me, it was me, it was me? Or did God call you with a holy calling? Yeah.
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Did you deserve it? And and that's the thing I asked him, I used to ask him, did you deserve it more than your friend? Were you really better? I love the story of Jacob and Esau, and I love the passage that says, Jacob, I loved and Esau, I hated.
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People have trouble with that passage.
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We're going to study that in a few weeks when we get to Romans 9, people hate it because they say, man, I can't believe God hated Esau.
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I said, man, I can't believe God loved Jacob because Jacob was a scoundrel.
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I don't have any trouble with him hating Esau, I don't have any trouble with him hating me either.
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Because I deserve it, what I don't deserve is grace, and that bothers me every day.
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How hard is it to live in grace? It's real hard when you really think about how bad you are, if you really go home at night and think, I'm a pretty good person, I deserve to be saved, you need to examine your heart.
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It's not just being boastful, it's wrong, but yeah, you're right.
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Yeah, I know I went off, I knew I would eventually shoot off my nose, but that story always, always reminds me every time I think about it was me, I did it.
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I just I shudder to think about.
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What was really in that person's heart, sir, who gave you the will Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
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Yeah.
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And I never disagreed that he had received Christ.
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My question was, why did he have the ability to do that outside of God's enabling? Yeah.
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Yes, sir.
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Now, all of this was a precursor to the actual lesson.
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And I got seven minutes.
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How do you like that? No, I promise I'm rolling towards the end.
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I'm rolling towards the end, but I'd like a semi tractor truck in the mountains.
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I got that road.
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If the truck's coming too fast, he's got to stop.
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I need a stop road sometime because I'll get rolling and it's dangerous.
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Thank you, Alex.
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So I'm about to kill myself.
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OK, let's now go back to where we started this evening, Romans chapter eight, because Romans chapter eight, if I wanted to make a case for effectual calling, I could have done it from Romans chapter eight by itself.
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However, I wanted to show you how this is not something that is alone in Scripture in one spot.
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I wanted to show you that in Scripture we see it all around being referred to as the call.
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But Romans eight leads to me, leaves very little up for discussion because we're going to talk tonight about what's called the order salutis, order of salvation, is what that means, the order of salvation.
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Now, we're not going to go through the whole order of salutis, because then we could get into a discussion about superlapsarianism and infralapsarianism, and that would just take a long time.
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We would really, but that would be a very long debate over that.
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But we're talking about order salutis here.
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It gives us a very simple breakdown.
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It says forenew, predestined, called, justified, glorified.
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I ran out of space, but we spent all last week talking about foreknew, but just to remind you.
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Yes.
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Yeah, God is doing it.
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Yep.
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Yep.
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So and God is doing all these actions.
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God is the one foreknowing.
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God is the one predestined.
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God is the one calling.
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God is the one justifying.
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God is the one glorifying.
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We know that because of whom he foreknew, he predestined, whom he predestined, he called, whom he called, he justified, whom he justified, he glorified.
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The word he there is referring to God in action.
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All these are action verbs.
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These are all actions on which God, on behalf of God, these are actions that he is doing.
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So we know what foreknew meant.
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We discussed it last week.
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We talked about what predestined means, that it's assigning an end from the beginning, assigning a destination.
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And something to make clear is that predestination and providence are two doctrines that have to be considered.
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Predestination and the doctrine of providence.
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Predestination deals with God's assuring that the destination is predetermined and that his glory is going to be done.
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Providence is how he sees to it.
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One night I was out with James Harper and he had his keys and he dangled them in front of me.
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And he said, he said, and he dropped them.
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He said, now, did God predestine the keys to hit the ground? I said, no, now we're dealing with providence.
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A whole other conversation.
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No, no, no.
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And I mean, it was a long thing to go through.
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It's a little bit more involved when you start talking about how God manages his.
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Huh? It's just gravity.
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Actually, my answer was, did you learn anything tonight? Then it was predestined, but I had a purpose.
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Anyway, but the point is, if you look at these as saying one precedes the other in action.
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And I think that you can make that argument that the text does not necessarily demand it.
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But I think that the argument is that foreknowing causes the predestination.
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God, you know, when we talk about foreknowing means love and for choosing.
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So we could say the choice determines the predestination.
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The predestination determines the calling.
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The calling determines the justification.
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Justification determines the glorification.
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In time, God doesn't exist in time, but in time from how we would examine something, it's expressing it.
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Whom he foreknew, he predestined.
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This came, this came, this came, this came, this came.
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It came in and from our perspective, it came in steps.
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If that is the case, I'm going to change colors here to get ready.
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Changing colors.
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Calling came after the determination.
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Why is that important? Because those who deny the doctrine of predestination election, they say God looked.
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Can you remember this? They say God looked down the corridor of time and he saw who was going to receive the call and those who were going to receive the call he chose.
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However, this says he foreknew and he predestined before the call and the justification and the glorification are wrapped up in.
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If this came before this came, this cannot be predicated on that.
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No, it's a it's a it's a verb.
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It's an action.
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And if the calling here is the universal external call, if it is that, then we run into universalism.
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Because if everyone who has ever heard the gospel, it says whom he called, he justified, if everyone who has been called externally is justified, then guess what happens? It doesn't matter if they received it or not, because it said if they were called, if this is talking about an external call, it leads to universalism.
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So this must be referring to an internal call.
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That was a lot.
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We went through a lot tonight.
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Whom he foreknew, he predestined and whom he predestined, he called, which means whom he did not predestine, he did not call.
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Father, as we come to a conclusion tonight, come to a close.
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I do pray that this lesson on a factual calling will will be one that we seek to sink our teeth into over time and not try to simply just force our mind into a mold.
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It is it is a very intricate subject, though, God, and is one that requires focus and time for us to to investigate.
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I do pray, Lord, that what has been said has been meaningful and will spur deeper study.
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We love you, we praise you, oh, God.
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And we thank you in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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Grant me one more minute, because as I was praying, something got laid on my heart.
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Don't leave.
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This has come to me.
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Abraham was called by God.
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Moses was called by God.
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Paul was called by God.
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No one would argue ever that those were factual callings, special callings, different callings than anybody else ever.
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So we cannot at all debate that God does effectually call that there is a special calling.
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The question is, are we also recipients of that call? And I think the answer is yes, because we are called in scripture the call.
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All right.
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All right.
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Now that lesson's over a little electronic recorder off.