Keep sharing good news without ads.
Pastor David Mitchell
It is a beautiful day, white snowy day in Texas and that white snow pictures how clean we are once we have the blood of Jesus applied to our lives, totally covers all the sin, does it not? And so, good to have you.
I'm going to try to go ahead and switch right on in here to my PowerPoint right quick here. Let's see. You'll have to help me make sure I've got it correct. I think I do this time. May have to switch the screen though.
Does that look all right, Dave? Sure does. All right, good. Got it right the first time for a change. All right, everybody. Hope you guys can hear me loud and clear. Is my volume good, Dave? Yeah, I can hear you loud and clear.
All right. Well, that was a great Sunday School lesson, Brother Bill, in case you guys were listening to the adult class this morning. And I don't know, I struggle with what's the best book in the Bible that if you were stranded on a desert island with one book, which would you pick?
And Hebrews might be the one I would pick. I don't know, that or Romans. So Bill's covering Hebrews and Sunday School, I'm covering Romans now. So that's the that doesn't get much better than that. But who knows?
It's usually whichever one I'm reading and studying in is the one I would pick in my mind. Right. But I don't know. Hebrews is so powerful. And talking about the early heretical view that angels were as high as Jesus.
And then the writer of Hebrews corrected that and said, no, that's not the case. Jesus created everything, including the angels. And so, you know, it's amazing. We've had heretical teaching since the first century, 2000 years out.
We still have all winds of doctrine, don't we? But that is the role of your local church is to be the pillar of the truth. And that's what we want to do at Park Meadows. And welcome, everyone, all of our folks there in Corsicana.
Glad you can be on without us having to drive because we don't know how to drive in the snow and ice here in Texas. And then welcome to all of our guys out across the country. And some of you folks in Colorado are probably laughing that we think it's a big deal to get a little bit of snow.
But we get it about every decade here. And so it's kind of fun for us, actually. And we don't have to shovel it. If you live up north, just remember, we don't have to shovel the snow. It just goes away.
Three days, four days later, we'll probably be playing golf again. So it's pretty nice. Nice to have a few seasons, I think. Well, let's take a look at where we are here in the book of Romans going verse by verse.
And now we're in chapter nine. And so we talked about the, you know, the introduction to the chapter is where Paul said three different times. I'm telling the truth and I don't lie. And then he said he is sorrowful.
And we have to remember, he's thinking about the fact that Jesus Christ, the greatest teacher who ever lived, taught what Paul is about to teach three different times. And each time he taught it, they tried to kill him.
I'm talking about Jesus. When Jesus taught the same doctrine that Paul is about to teach every time he taught it, they tried to kill him. And so it's sombering to realize how hated this doctrine in Romans chapter nine is by human beings.
And natural man hates the fact that God's in control. And probably this particular chapter teaches that God is sovereign more than any other part of the entire inspired scripture. The second verse there says, I have great heaviness and continual sorrow.
And if you can jump into chapter 10 for a second where we're headed soon, we see why. Because he says, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer for God is that Israel would be saved. And that is why his heart is sorrowful.
And some of it plays into the fact that Paul is like all of us. There's something in all human beings being from a fallen race that wishes we were in control and not God. That's just in all of us. We wish we were in control and not God, but we're not.
And so that's part of Paul's sorrow is because he can't make God save his fellow Jews until God's ready to save his fellow Jews. But Paul did say that all Israel will be saved. So looking forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ, when the Jews who are still alive see him in the air, they will bow the knee and receive him as their personal Lord and Savior one day out there in the future.
So that's wonderful to know. And Paul then, and moving into verses 6 through 11, he begins to teach election. The great choosing is what the word means in the Greek. The choosing where God chooses who his children will be, where God chooses who the bride for his son will be.
And so we find that in Romans 9, 6 through 11. And then Paul is quoting and speaking from Genesis 17, 7 through 17. And we looked at that last time, too. And this little part here where it says, neither because they are of the seed of Abraham are they called children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That is, they which are of the children of the flesh. These are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. And that's where he starts off and launches his teaching on the sovereignty of God and election and how not everyone is saved just because they're a child of Abraham.
That's what he points out to his Jewish listeners. His crowd also had Gentiles, but he always speaks to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. And the Jews are familiar with this story. And he points out, look, just because you're son of Abraham doesn't mean you're saved.
You have to be through the lineage of Isaac. And, of course, that is a physical object lesson of a spiritual truth. And Isaac and his lineage are the picture of those who are born again into the family of God.
The first birth, just being born physically, does not save us. Because our grandfather was a preacher, does not save us, right? Because our family was Christian, does not save us. And that's what he's picturing by saying, just because you're a child of Abraham doesn't mean you're saved.
You have to be a child of the promise. And Isaac is a picture of that. And the promise is through the Abrahamic promise. And it's by faith, not by works. And Paul is going to nail all this down as we go.
And we can see there that little phrase, counted for the seed. That proves we don't do the work. We can't make ourselves be a seed of God. We can't make our own children be the seed of God. We can't make anyone be wheat as opposed to a tare.
Only God can do that. And God counts. Listen, think of the human race as a totally fallen, lost race. And God, because of his mercy, chose to save a remnant as a gift, a love gift to his son Jesus Christ.
And in doing that, he counted some of us as if we have the righteousness of Christ. And he gives us the ability to believe in Jesus and the desire to believe in him, which we never had. Because there's none that seeketh God, not one.
All of that is the mercy and goodness of God that causes any single individual human to be saved. Because none of us would have chosen God on our own. We had to have the Holy Spirit draw us to the Savior.
And the Father had to draw us to the Savior and so forth. So we're going to talk a little bit about the natural man and how we think about God. Because it's part of our fallen nature. Even when we're saved, we are still schizophrenics.
I mean, we're the old man and the new man, both at the same time. Now, granted, I believe that the real us is the new man. And the old man is crucified. But we know that spiritually, physically, we have both.
We live in this old body that is prone to sin. And our minds are prone to think like natural man. And only the Holy Spirit and our new man can correct that. And it must be corrected many times every day.
And otherwise, we think like an old natural man and we get it wrong. And we have to be so careful how we allow our thoughts toward our Heavenly Father to go. Because Satan and our own flesh would have us think of the Father as not good.
And so think about that during today's lesson. Not good. That's how the natural flesh thinks of God. God is not good. Look, God is being mean. God is not fair. How could God let that happen to a good person?
All of those kinds of thoughts come from our natural man, the lostness of our nature, not from our new man or from the Holy Spirit. Now, Paul counted six things in that little passage from verse 6 to 11 and spoke of them and gave Scripture and ideas supporting his belief and his exhortation that not everyone who claims to be a Christian is one, just because you think you're from Abraham doesn't mean you're saved, right?
Salvation is not passed down from generation to generation physically. Number three, only children of the promise are children of God. And number four, children of the promise are called and righteousness is imputed to them by God.
It's not something that they caused to happen. It's something they received as a gift. And number five, salvation, therefore, is not by man's righteous acts, but by God's imputation counting you as righteous.
He puts Jesus's righteousness in your account. It's an accounting term. He imputes Jesus's righteousness to the elect and to whom he chooses. That's the elect means who he chooses. And then number six, salvation is not by having done good or evil, but by election and God's grace.
That's how salvation works. And the modern church, by and large, has that completely wrong because they have a modern gospel that's been invented that puts man in control of who gets saved. It's not the true gospel, never has been.
We'll talk more about that, too. We saw this Genesis 17, 17 through 22 passage. It's really interesting that even Abraham himself, when God had already told him Ishmael is not going to inherit the promise.
It's going to be through your son Isaac, your son, indeed, Isaac, who's a picture of Jesus, by the way, but not through Ishmael. And then look what Abraham did in verse 18. He pleaded with God, oh, that Ishmael might live before thee.
Boy, that is a huge picture of natural man and how natural man thinks. The desire of man to determine who God will save is pictured in verse 18. But man cannot do this. Verse 19 proves it. It says, And God said, Sarah, your wife will bear you a son indeed.
And thou shalt call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him, not with Ishmael. And look at this. Verse 22, God just ended the conversation. He doesn't even allow Abraham to come back and say, but please, he just leaves.
He says he leaves off talking, and he goes up from Abraham. End of story, end of discussion. God says, I'm in control. You're not, Abraham. That should be a great lesson for all of us. And the world at large misses it, and the church at large today misses it.
So now that adds a seventh point to the six points Paul's already discovered. God does the choosing. The elect bride does the responding. Okay, so that's God's order. Now, that's kind of where we've been.
So Paul, in fact, the Bible's ultimate teaching on election and the sovereignty of God and the true nature of God, which is unknown to the world, is found right here in chapter 9. But here's the, I would say, the climax of all of this is found right here, Romans 9, 12 through 14.
It was said unto her, The elder will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now, right there, that's why I put sort of tongue-in-cheek up there in the left-top corner where it says not in your Sunday school quarterly.
The Southern Baptist Church would never put that in the Sunday school quarterly when I was growing up because it's too controversial. I mean, more than half of every church is Armenian. You know, probably, I remember Dr. Criswell, pastor of the great First Baptist Church of Dallas, who I got to meet personally because my mentor, Dr. Erwin Freeman, who was a friend of his and preached at his church every year for the Jewish-Christian fellowship that Dr. Criswell always had.
Charlotte and I were privileged to get to go to that several times and sit at the head table with Dr. Freeman and Pat, and Dr. Criswell would come by and we'd get to talk to him and meet him, thanks to Brother Rocky.
But listen, he had one of the strongest churches in Texas, one of the strongest churches in the world, and he, at one point, I remember Dr. Criswell saying that I don't think but about 5 of our membership is saved.
Now, think about that. That was a huge church. But that's what Dr. Criswell thought. So, you know, the reason most churches won't teach chapter 9 of Romans is that huge unsaved component of the local church that pays the bills.
They'll walk out if you teach this. Why? Because this puts God squarely in control and takes the control totally out of man's hands, and lost people hate that, and carnal baby Christians don't understand it.
It confuses them, and they want to go somewhere where God loves everybody and it's just love, love, love, and that's all we talk about. And it's funny. Charlotte and I have been listening to some awesome praise groups, singing groups in different churches, one in particular in Dallas we just found recently.
Kind of looks like a fairly small church, maybe not that much larger than ours, but their music is incredible, and they look so sincere and real when they're praising the Lord and so forth. But I don't know what their doctrine is like.
I've read their doctrinal statement, and there's a couple of points in it. I mean, a lot of it looks really good, almost Dallas Theological Seminary type statement of faith, but part of it I just can't agree with it biblically.
But listen, they love the Lord, and they praise the Lord so beautifully. And Charlotte and I will sit there and crank the speakers up and watch a video of them on our big screen and praise the Lord with them sometimes.
But sometimes I wish I could be invited to go preach there and just share some of these things right here with them because they don't know this. They don't know what we're going to talk about today. And so I wish they did because this is so powerful, but the world at large hates this.
And when you find churches that are compromised doctrinally, they're not going to preach this stuff. But the Bible says it's the job of the preacher to preach the whole Bible. You don't leave any of it out, and you preach it just like it is in context.
You don't try to change it to fit your seminary's beliefs. And luckily, I never went to seminary. My seminary was Dr. Irwin Freeman and his library, which I now own. His wife gave it to me when he went to heaven.
But I'm not bent in any particular direction by any seminary, and I always thank the Lord for that. I wish I did have some of the education I could have gotten at seminary, but I think the Lord has helped me to read the right books and learn what I need to learn, at least up until now, but I'm still always trying to learn.
But the point is seminaries can skew your belief towards their belief, and that's not always healthy. As adults, we should have the right to read the Scripture, keep the Ten Rules of Bible Interpretation at many denominations.
I put that together, but I got it from books written by different scholars from all different denominations, and they're pretty much in agreement on the right rules of Bible interpretation, oddly enough.
Even passing from Catholic to Protestant, they pretty much agree on a lot of it, nearly all of it. And so if you just keep those rules and don't cheat, you can actually learn what God is actually saying, not what you want Him to be saying.
And that is so important because what actually happens is when we mold God into our image, we're idolatrous. When we create a Jesus who loves everybody, which the Bible doesn't say that the Father does anyway, maybe Jesus when He's on the earth in time, yeah, but the Father does not love everybody.
He certainly doesn't love the tares as He loves the wheat. He doesn't love the goats as He loves the sheep, His own sheep, His own children. He doesn't love Satan's children like He loves His own children, and yet preachers preach this all the time.
It's simply not true. In fact, look at verse 13. It's one of the greatest proofs of it. These two children had not been born yet, so it had nothing to do with works or abilities or gifts or any of that stuff.
It just says that God said He loved Jacob and He hated Esau. Now, liberal theologians all over the world write on this verse and try to diminish it by saying, well, it doesn't really mean hated, and yet if you just go out and you look at the very great definition, which is one of the rules of proper Bible interpretation, is look at the actual definitions of the words and in context, and I'm going to show you the context of this is quite amazing, but the actual word means to detest someone.
It means it has been translated other places in the Scripture hated and despicable, maybe not despicable, but it's the same meaning as despicable, and this is how God felt towards Esau. Now, you say, well, that doesn't really mean that.
Well, then why does verse 14 say this? What shall we say then is there unrighteousness with God? Why would anyone question that if the word hated does not mean hated in verse 13? Why would we question God if it doesn't mean hated?
The reason we're questioning God is because it does mean he hated Esau. Now, we question God because of our old nature, because our old nature will always be tempted by Satan to question if God means what he says and if God is good.
That's exactly the same ploy he pulled on Eve in the garden, and Eve bought into it. Eve thought she was doing God's will when she ate the fruit because Satan convinced her that God was not mean. If God kept this tree from you and this fruit, he'd be mean.
He's not mean, and so surely you don't think he's mean, so go ahead and eat the fruit. He would really want you to. He would want you to know not only good things but evil as well, and we got exactly what we wanted as human beings.
Now we've got everything. We have all the beauty of the snow. We have the beauty of nature. We have the beauty of spouses and children and grandchildren, but we also get along with that death and sorrow and war and rumor of war and death of loved ones.
All this comes with it. Why? Because we asked for it in the garden. That's what Satan offered. We took it, and that blame goes to man, not to God, and God is not mean and God is always good, but our flesh will fight against that, and when you see God say something like verse 13, you say, well, Lord, that's not fair, and the minute that phrase enters our head, you can know that's your old man tempted by Satan thinking that, right?
So, man, I mean, this is the climax of the teaching of election in the whole Bible. God chose Jacob. He rejected Esau. In fact, he chose that Esau wouldn't be chosen. Think about that. Read the book of Jude.
The book of Jude says very clearly that some people are chosen for the blackness ordained, same thing, ordained for the blackness of darkness forever. Wow. And I've heard so many people say, well, God never said that.
Well, God did say that. It's just that humans don't like it, and human, the old nature, won't tolerate it, and so most churches won't talk about it. But there must be something good in it, or God wouldn't have told us about this aspect of his own character, the fact that he chose who he wanted to, not who man wants him to.
There must be something good in it, so let's keep looking. We see that he saves who he loves and knows. Now, in the Bible terminology, and this one is one place where you can't just look up the word for know in the Greek dictionary.
You have to also look at its usage everywhere in the Bible, which I've done. Every single place it's in there, I looked it up, read it in context. And there is no example anywhere in the Bible where this word for knowledge, the usage of the doctrine of foreknowledge, has anything to do with God just looking out and seeing something and knowing stuff.
It doesn't mean that in the Bible language. To foreknow in the Bible language always has to do with people who he loves as his own. So it's a family-type word, like Adam knew Eve and she got pregnant.
So it's a word of love. It's a word of intimacy. And so maybe there's a better English word to translate foreknowledge into. Forelove would be a great translation. So he saves who he foreknows in the sense that he loves them as his own and always has before he made anything.
That's who he saves. Those who he loves and has known and has always known as his own, that's who he saves, and that's who the Bible says he saves. And human, natural man hates that because he has no control of it.
None, no control of it whatsoever. Now, do I think man has a will? Yes, and we'll get to that. So does Paul. Paul will get to that. But it doesn't contradict. There's no contradiction here. Man can have a will of his own, but God chooses what he wants to choose because he's God.
Why is that contradictory? To me, it's not. I mean, a man is free to choose a particular woman to be his wife, and that woman is free to choose that man or not choose him, and they both have to agree on that or the marriage doesn't happen, right?
But they still have that choice, and other people around don't say, well, that means I don't have any choice because they chose each other. That's ridiculous, right? Now, look, Romans 8, 29 says, for whom he did foreknow.
Now, that's that word of loving relationship, intimate knowledge and love for someone. Who he foreknew, that's who he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among brethren.
So whoever he foreknew, that's who he predestinated, and that exact same group of people are the ones that the Holy Spirit calls in time. That's called the effectual calling. He taps them on the shoulder, wakes them up, and says, look, there's your Savior.
What do you think of him? And he opens their eyes to the true Jesus Christ and the true love and goodness of God, and he becomes irresistible to that person. That's the Holy Spirit's job. That's called the calling, and the same group that he calls, he justifies.
That means he counts them as righteous. They're saved forever at that point, and those that he justifies, he also glorifies, and I like the fact that's in the past tense because from the Father's viewpoint, he knew you forever.
He knew you before he made anything, before Genesis 1 -1 happened. He already knew you and loved you, and you were his, and then on this particular day when the Holy Spirit called you and opened your eyes, you were notified that you were his, and you knew it for the first time, but God always knew it, and he counts you as if you're already in heaven.
Perfect. He sees you as perfect. Now, that's what the Bible says, and I love it. I don't hate that doctrine. I think it's amazing. Now, look at Ephesians 1 -4. According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.
So all of this happened before anything was made. So what do you have to do with it? You had nothing to do with whether you were chosen or not. You had nothing to do with whether he knew you or not. It happened before you were born.
Your good works play no role in it, nor they can't cause the salvation nor uncause it. That's why you cannot lose your salvation. And it's so funny to me that the southern batters want to take away sovereignty of God and election, but they want to keep the eternal security.
Total nonsense. That's totally illogical because eternal security is based on predestination and election only. That's the only thing it can be based on. Can't have one without the other. So he goes on and says, having predestinated us to be adopted as children by Jesus Christ to himself.
And now what is the cause of all this? Do you see anything in man's nature or anything in man at all that causes God to pick who he chooses? It says according to the good pleasure of his will. It's who God wants to choose.
That's who becomes his bride. That's who becomes his children, et cetera. Whichever allegory you want to use for relationship between man and God. God does the choosing. Verse six says to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he has made us accepted.
Excuse me just a minute. You'll be glad I did that. Otherwise you might have had an ear shattering sneeze right in his microphone. Okay. So who, you know, why does God choose who he's going to say? Well, he, how does he make that choice?
According to the good pleasure of who he wills or wants to say that's how and then verse six adds to it. It all brings praise to the glory of his grace. Now, if you want to ask anyone ever asked you, here's a deep question.
Why did God create humans is because he was lonely. You know, why did God make man? There's the answer in verse six. It's always been the answer. It's the only answer. It's the best answer. And it's because God has many attributes.
If you study the character of God, it will take you weeks to study all of that. But there's one in particular that he wants to show off to the entire creation. And that's the one called grace. The fact that God can love unlovable beings, humans, he can love people who don't deserve his love because they hated him.
They walked in their own flesh. They went their own way. None seeketh God, not one. We all go our own way. Totally don't deserve it, but he loves us anyway. That's what he is glorifying when he chooses a little remnant of an entirely fallen race to save them.
So it's to glorify his grace is the purpose of it. Now, see, that is God first, not us first. That's for God's purposes, for his desires, because of what God wants to do, because of which aspect of himself he wants to glorify.
That's why he saves anybody. But we receive the benefit of it when we find ourselves saved, don't we? We receive this huge benefit, and God wants us to have the benefit. He does love us as his dear children far infinitely more than we can love our own children and grandbabies.
He loves us and always has, is my point, from before the foundation of the world, according as he has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world. So he's loved us with infinite love since before anything was made, and certainly before we were born into this world.
And so our works have nothing to do with it. In fact, God didn't choose Israel because it was a powerful nation. He said, I chose you because you were the weakest. You were the least likely, and because I wanted to choose you.
It's all according to good pleasure as well. You can't get that. You've got to get that in your mind so much because the old man will come up and say, well, it's not fair. Well, it's not about fairness.
It's about God's desires, God's will. He made everything. Isn't it his? Paul's going to hit that point a little bit later here, even better than I can hit it. Well, a lot better than I can hit it. Look at verse seven in whom we have redemption through Jesus's blood.
Who's the we there? The we are the ones who were chosen according to his will. The we are the people who were predestinated to be adopted into God's family before the world began before the foundation of the world.
That we in Christ, because we have redemption through his blood, we have been bought from a lost race and set free from it. We have been purchased out of a slave market of sin and set free from it by the blood of Jesus.
But it doesn't say that blood was shed for every man, woman, boy and girl ever born in the world. It says it's shed for the we, the chosen. And that is the fifth point of Calvinism. And you may not like Calvin, but he didn't invent it.
Augustine talked about it 1400 years before Calvin was born. And Paul talked about it 400 years before Augustine and Jesus taught it to Paul. It's Christianity. It's the true gospel. Okay, it's it. Let's face it.
It is the true gospel in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. Now, does that mean, brother David, that the verses that say whosoever will may come are false?
No, no part of the Bible is false. What it means is that anyone who chooses to come to Jesus and receive him as their personal Lord and Savior will be covered by this blood of Jesus. That's the gospel offer.
It's offered to the whole world. It's offered to the goats and the sheep and any goat that wants to can receive it. And it's beyond the scope of this message to prove you why they won't do it, but they can.
It's free. It's offered freely. And the Bible says the gospel has to go to the whole world before Jesus comes back. And that's the fairness of God right there. So there's no one promise. I promise you this at the great white throne judgment.
No one's going to stand up and say, God, you can't send me to hell because it's your fault because you didn't choose me. No one will say that because they'll all know they had the choice and they hated Jesus and they chose to reject him.
I mean, it all works together. If you don't believe that you got to cut out one half or the other of the Bible because everywhere I see a sovereignty or election verse. I also see a will, a will of man verse where here he is.
I'm presenting him to you. What will you do with him? Choose make a choice. It's all together all the way through it. Anyone who says it's not is either a hyper Calvinist, which is wrong or an Armenian, which is even worse.
If I had to choose, I'd be the hyper Calvinist, but I'd rather just be a biblionarian and just believe the Bible just like God teaches it. Keep it in context, stay balanced, but understand it's not truly balanced because man is not equal.
Man's will is not equal with God's will. God is God and man is underneath him. And it will always be that even in eternity. If you don't like that, you don't like the God of the Bible and you're not going to receive him anyway.
You just not. So don't worry about it. You know, you can't help that. Now, if it bothers you a little bit and you worry a little bit about your soul and where you might go when you die and it bothers you when you sin, then you're most likely at least to say a lost sheep who will be saved.
You're probably not a goat because goats don't care. They don't care about their soul. They don't care about their fellow man, really. It's all about self. A lost sheep can look like a goat, but he has a stronger conscience in my book.
It bothers him when he sins or her when she sins. And they always are aware that God is watching, whereas a goat's not. So, you know, if that's you and you're not saved yet, but you do, you're aware God's watching and you know he's right and you know you need to come to him.
That is a great sign. Just listen. When the Holy Spirit calls you, just respond. That's all your job is just to respond with what your heart wants to do. God's not going to save you against your will, but the sad thing is the will of the natural man is always against God anyway.
So if you feel the Holy Spirit awakening you, that's wonderful. And those of you guys already saved sheep, you know it. I don't have to preach to you about that. You know it because his spirit witnesses with yours.
Now, if you don't believe that God saves who he knew and that's only who he saves. Look at Matthew 7 22. Jesus said the same thing. Jesus said, many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name?
Have we not cast out devils and in thy name? Have we not done many wonderful works? But look what Jesus says. And then will I profess unto them? I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.
So there are people in church who think they're going to heaven because they're doing good stuff, right? They're doing religious things, good works. And yet if they weren't foreknown, if they don't know Jesus and Jesus didn't know them and the father didn't know him from the foundation of the world, and they weren't saved by being called by the Holy Spirit, brought under conviction and moved to receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, then they're just not saved.
They're just playing the game, right? They're there just to mess stuff up in the church. And Jesus never knew them and never will. And there was never a chance those people would be saved. Goats don't ever get saved.
They're not going to be saved. God knows who they are. Jesus knows who they are. Our job is to preach the gospel and be salt light to the world. We don't have to know who the goat and the sheep is. We can be aware that it exists that way.
In fact, we have to be somewhat aware because Jesus said, cast not your pearls before the swine unless they turn and rend you. You've got to understand there's some people you don't witness to. In fact, let's put it in the positive.
Only witness to who the Holy Spirit moves you to witness to. And I even put it stronger than that. Only witness to people that I can't not witness to. That's bad grammar, but good preaching. All right, here we go.
Therefore, whosoever hears these sayings of mine. You see, people under emphasize this word, the hearing of the ear. Whosoever hears, let him hear. Jesus would say so often. Jesus looks at these religious people and says, oh, well, you've cast out demons.
You've done miracles in churches. You prophesied in my name, but I never knew you depart from me. You workers of iniquity. Therefore, whosoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken to the wise man who built his house on the rock.
You have to have ears that hear. And only the Holy Spirit can give you that at the calling. So everyone has to be called before they can be saved. You can't be saved by a formula that some preacher gives you.
Just pray this prayer and you're saved. It doesn't work that way. Now, let me be quick to say, and I always have, because I learned a lesson the hard way one time and one was enough, is neither can the preacher with a little formula unsave you.
If the Holy Spirit opened your eyes and put the desire of Christ in your heart before you got up from the pew and walked down the aisle, he can't mess that up. The preacher can't. So you got saved even if you did the prayer formula, but it was the calling that happened that put that desire in your heart that saved you.
Now, let me give you an illustration. I didn't know this till just a few years ago. I discovered it by studying verse by verse, an old familiar verse that I hadn't studied in years. It's so familiar. Romans 10, 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
If you read that in the true sense of the Greek language, a better English translation would be whosoever desires to call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, because it's the Holy Spirit that changes your want to when he calls you.
He changes your desire and causes you to desire Jesus, and that's when you receive him as your personal Lord and Savior, and that is so good, so good, but you have to hear. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, it's like a man that builds his house on a rock.
Your ears have to be opened by the Holy Spirit, and that only happens to people that God foreknew before the foundation of the world, and he sends his Holy Spirit to them on their spiritual birthday, which God has always known.
What day they would be saved, just like he knows the day and the hour you will physically die or be raptured. And all of this, God's in control. Man hates it. God's in control. Now, look at this. Ephesians 1, 5, it says, Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.
So now here we talk about predestination. That means they were chosen before time began because God knew them and loved them, and they were adopted into God's family through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, brought to God through that relationship with Jesus, but why?
Why did this happen? Well, it happened according to the good pleasure of God's will, not man's will. You see, it's all through Scripture that it's God's will, not man's will. Romans 9, 17, For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh.
Now, we're back in our chapter of Romans 9, and verse 17, Paul is teaching all these things we just saw as we go out into all of Scripture and look at the same truths that are taught. Paul nails it down right here in verse 17.
For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, and he refers back to Genesis and Exodus, Even for this same purpose have I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
So God had a purpose for Pharaoh, and Pharaoh was a goat. He didn't get saved. It was never God's will that he be saved. Many of you will go into the book of 1 or 2 Peter, and it says God is not willing that any should perish.
We can deal. We have dealt with that verse. If you use the ten rules of Bible interpretation, it does not contradict Romans 9, 17 at all. It fits it perfectly, but it's beyond the scope of this sermon.
But if you check our archives, we've preached on that particular verse many times. Take it in context. One of the rules is you always have to ask who is being spoken to in a particular passage. And in that passage, both 1 Peter and 2 Peter, in the first chapter, the first few verses, it's very clear that the whole letter is written to Christians only, to the elect.
So God is not willing that his own elect children should perish is what it teaches if you read it in context. But people love to pull it out of context, say, ah, well, God wants to save everybody. Let me ask you this, friend.
If God is God and he wants, desires, wills to save everybody, then why aren't they all saved? So that's nonsense. God saves who he wants to save, and he saves everyone that he wants to save. And Jesus said, no man can come to me unless the Father draws him, and of them I will lose nothing.
He doesn't lose anything he wants to save, nothing. That's just worldly, fleshly, natural man nonsense and philosophy of natural man that's not informed by the Holy Spirit or the Word of God. Or you hadn't studied the Bible very well either.
But anyway, it's very clear. The scripture said to Pharaoh, God says to Pharaoh, I made you for a purpose, and the purpose for you is that my name would be declared throughout all the earth, and that's why you're here, that's why you live.
You're not mine, but you're still serving me, whether you like it or not. I mean, I remember Brother Otis when he taught me that the whole world, Brother David, they all serve God, even the lost. They wouldn't like it if you told them, but they're there to put everything on the shelf God's children need.
Oh, what a beautiful teaching from Brother Otis. But Paul taught it right here in verse 17. That's where Otis learned it, right? Therefore has he mercy on who he will. Now, let's put it in Texan, okay?
Therefore, God has mercy on who he wants to have mercy on, and who he will, he hardens. So whoever God wants to have mercy on, he does, and who he doesn't want to have mercy on, he hardens their heart so that they'll be even further from receiving him.
That's what verse 18 says. Can you see why chapter 9 is left out of the Sunday school quarterly? I mean, this is controversial if all you've been taught is junk your whole life. It's not controversial if you've studied the whole Bible, but if all you've been taught is a few little things about God to pull more and more people in to pay the bills for the church, then you're going to be a little confused here.
But even if that's the case, just read it like it's written. Just ask the Holy Spirit, just teach me what you mean here. I'm easy with you doing that. You don't have to believe me. Just ask the Holy Spirit, read the whole book of Romans, and then focus on chapter 9 in the context and of the whole Bible, and then tell me what you think it means.
But it's very clear. God says, I have mercy on who I want to, and the ones that I don't, I harden their hearts. Look at this. Seven times in the book of Exodus, it mentions Pharaoh's heart being hardened.
Six of those times out of seven, it was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart. And only one time in 815 is where that was found. Pharaoh says hardened his own heart. All the other times, it says God hardened his heart.
Now, we know for a fact from other scriptures, though, that Pharaoh's heart was already hardened because he's a natural man, and there's none that seeketh God, not one. They all go after their own way.
They all seek their own self. All humans think they're God. They don't accept God as God. So this man's heart was already hardened. But it also says God hardened his heart. And where is that contradictory to what we already know?
We know that when you present the pure scripture to any human being, it's going to do one of two things. It's going to draw them to the Lord, or it's going to push them farther away. And that's what's happening in this passage.
Every time God introduced himself to Pharaoh, Pharaoh moved farther from God because Pharaoh was a goat. Pharaoh was a tare. Jesus didn't even put him in the world. Jesus said the devil put him in the world.
But God used him for God's purposes, just as he uses Satan for his own purposes. All of this is God's business, and man hates it. Man does not like this, not one little bit. So we see the facts here. God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh was not about to receive the gospel or receive God as his own.
He was moving farther and farther away from God, and Pharaoh even hardened his own heart. That shows man has a will and that his choices are important. Ultimately, when Pharaoh finds himself at the great white throne judgment at the end of the millennial kingdom, coming next, after the second coming, he will simply be asked, what did you do with Jesus?
And he'll say, I rejected him because I wanted to, didn't want him, never wanted him, I thought I was God. That's what he'll say, and he's condemned for that. So he hardened his own heart, but God hardened his heart too, because the word of God will always do that to the tares.
Now look at 9 .15, I want to go back just a little bit here in this amazing chapter nine of Romans. For he said to Moses, I will have mercy on who I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on who I want to have compassion on.
Now here we see again, God chooses who he wants to have mercy on, and he chooses who he will have compassion on. And look at verse 16. So because of that, because of the fact that God chooses who he will have mercy on, and we know verse 18 says he chooses whose heart he will harden too, because of those facts, verse 16 is true.
Now look at this, this is so important, and we talk about these doctrines a lot, but Paul ties them right into all the other doctrines of the Bible, the other truths of the scripture about man's nature and God's nature that make these things be true.
Like we want to talk about, well, were you not saved by works, you're saved by grace. We like to talk about that all the time. But how do we prove that that's the case, that you're not saved by works, you're saved by grace?
Is it because we're a Baptist? Well, we took that off the sign years ago. That's not why. We're Park Meadows Church, not Park Meadows Baptist Church. So why do we believe it? Well, look, verse 15 says God has compassion on who he wants to, and verse 18 says he hardens who he wants to.
So verse 16 makes sense. So then it is not of the human being that wants or wills something. It is not of him that runs. That's a picture of working. It's not of the human that wills to be saved or desires to be saved or that does good works to get saved.
The salvation is of God who shows mercy. And who does he show mercy to? Look at verse 15, to who he wants to. So it's all part of God's will. Now, with regard to verse 16, let's look into that just a little bit.
It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but salvation is of God that shows mercy to whom he will. All right, look here. God saves according to his own will, not man's, right? We see that so clearly in chapter 9 of Romans.
Not by man's will nor man's works, but by God's mercy are we saved. God saves who he chooses and he hardens the hearts of the rest all to the glory of God and for the glory of God. And if you find yourself caring about your sin, disturbed about the eternal destiny of your soul, desiring Jesus Christ, then you now know how special you are because the natural world never has those things happen.
Only when the Holy Spirit calls you do you have these things happening in your heart and mind. So now you know you're special. You've been called by the Holy Spirit, awakened, quickened by the Holy Spirit.
You are chosen to be adopted into the family of God forever. How special are you? And that is the power of all this teaching on election. It's not to leave people out. On the contrary, I mean, if you want to look at it from a negative side and you want to pretend God's mean and God is not good and all of man is good, all humans are good and they all deserve to be saved.
If you want to pretend that, you can, but that's not the gospel of the Bible. That's not the God of the Bible. It's not truth. But you don't have to look at it from a negative viewpoint. And I'm going to give you some quotes from the great Charles Spurgeon and show you how he looked at it from a positive viewpoint.
It's just amazing. It changes your whole view. So this is the only true gospel, by the way, and there can be no greater good news than what we've just discussed from Romans chapter 9 is that God, in his mercy, chooses to save some of us.
And if he hadn't, we would never have been saved. That's the good news. It was not based on us. It wasn't based on our good works, on what we will do or won't do, because if it were, we would lose it.
It wouldn't be good news. When properly understood, the doctrine of election that chapter 9 is all about, the fact that God chooses who he will save, it pulls all of scripture together into one unified story of what the father did for his son and what the son did for his father and how the called are blessed beyond understanding.
The prince of preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, said this about the doctrine of election that the world hated in his day 180 years ago or some odd years ago. He said, there is no more humbling doctrine in scripture than that of election, none more promoting of gratitude, and consequently none more sanctifying than the doctrine of election.
Believers should not be afraid of it, but adoringly rejoice in it. To me, it is one of the sweetest and most blessed truths in the whole of Revelation. And those who are afraid of it are so because they do not understand it.
If they could but know that the Lord had chosen them, it would make their hearts to dance for joy. Stagger not at electing love. It is one of the highest notes of heavenly music. Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
He said this, too. Whatever may be said about the doctrine of election, it is written in the word of God as with an iron pen. There is no getting rid of it. There it stands. However, much of the doctrine of election may be disputed, as it frequently is.
You must first deny the authenticity and full inspiration of the Holy Scripture before you can legitimately and truly deny that it exists. Pretty amazing. Now, God's sovereign call, Spurgeon affirmed, is far more powerful than any man's resistance.
And what I want you to look at here is how Charles Spurgeon puts this whole doctrine of election in the positive. Now, God's sovereign call is far more powerful than any man's resistance. Now we're putting it in a positive tone, a positive note, that no matter how hard the man or woman has become because of sin, no matter how far down they've gone in the gutter of sin, they're not beyond the reach of God.
A man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. How many times have you heard me say that? So I didn't make it up. Charles Spurgeon said it 150 years before I was born.
All right, so a man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Spirit, a mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man and disarms the man and makes a new creature of him, and he is saved.
I love that. His want to has changed. The Holy Spirit just makes you look and see Jesus for who he really is and see yourself for who you really are. And once you see that, you desire Christ. And you're saved because you want to be saved, because the Holy Spirit has just opened your eyes to truth, basically.
This means no one is beyond the saving power of God. Now, put it in the positive. You can look around at men and women around you, even some kids, and say, man, I don't see how even God would save them.
They just seem unsavable, and that is simply not true. There is no human being beyond the reach of God's saving, electing love. Difficulty is not a word to be found in the dictionary of heaven, Spurgeon says.
Nothing can be impossible with God. The swearing reprobate whose mouth is blackened with profanity, whose heart is very hell, and his life like the reeking flames of the bottomless pit, such a man, if the Lord but looks on him and makes bare his arm of irresistible grace, shall yet praise God and bless his name and live to God's honor.
Isn't that beautiful? That's how we should look at this, is that the fact of foreknowledge and predestination and the calling of the Holy Spirit and the justifying of the human being who was lost, as lost could be, makes it that no one is so hard that they can't be saved.
No one is so mean-spirited or has done such horrible things that he can't be saved. So God's irresistible grace, as it reaches down into the life of any human being, no matter how hard they are and how far from God they are, they will be drawn back to their shepherd.
And that's a beautiful way to put it, I think. Spurgeon says this, it is no novelty then that I am preaching no new doctrine. And he's talking about when he talks about Calvinism. He doesn't really like to call it that, neither do I, but it's well known as that because Calvin was maybe the best teacher of these truths since the time of Augustine anyway.
So he says it's not something new that I'm preaching, no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines that are called by nickname Calvinism. Now Spurgeon says very clearly that's not what they are.
It's just the nickname the world has given it. But which are surely and verily truly the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. So the points of Calvinism, Charles Spurgeon says, are the truth of the gospel.
He even said this, Calvinism is the gospel and nothing else. Wow. So what that tells me is the gospel that's being preached in most churches around America today is not the true gospel because it's a whole different type of salvation where man's in control of it.
And that's not the true gospel. Romans 8 .18 says, Therefore, hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth. I was supposed to say Romans 9 .18, sorry. God's ways are not as our ways, I would have to say.
Wouldn't you agree? He raises up the tares to bring glory to himself, and he raises up the wheat to bring glory to his name. Both according to the good pleasure of his will. Now let's look at 9 .15. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth the mercy. This is not the only place the Lord teaches us this. Look at John 1 .10. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
That's the depravity of man right there. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. There's the depravity of man right there. That's the Jews. The first verse, verse 10, talking about the Gentiles, the whole entire world of mankind.
Verse 11 is talking about the Jews. But as many as did receive him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Well, there's the universal call right there.
Anyone who will receive Jesus will have the power to become a child of God. Isn't that beautiful? And that goes out to the whole world. And the whole world will either reject it or receive it when they hear it, one or the other.
Verse 13 says, which were born, and here's where we go back to this whole idea that it's not by the will of man, it's not by man that runneth, but it's of God. And John 1 .13 says the same thing. These people who became the sons of God, it says of them that they were born not of blood.
In other words, because my daddy and mom are Christians, does not make me a Christian. That's what Paul talked all about. Just because you're sons of Abraham does not make you God's child. You got to come through Isaac, which is a picture of you have to be born again, right?
So these people who are saved were born not of the blood, not of their lineage, nor of the will of the flesh. Look at this. Let's break it down. Jesus is talking here. John is speaking of Jesus, anyway, through the words Christ has given him.
And he says they're born not by the will of the flesh. No one got saved because they wanted to. Now you have people talk about free will all the time. You don't have free will. You're either led by Satan or you're led by the Holy Spirit, or you do stuff because your mama told you to.
You have influenced will. That's not the same as free will. Okay, so you can call it that if you want to. You do have a will, and it's important, and your choices are very important always, but you're not saved because of your will.
It's not because you wanted to because you didn't want to, and I can prove that because why didn't you get saved a second before you did get saved? Because you didn't want to a second earlier or a minute earlier or an hour or a lifetime earlier.
You rejected Christ. And only when the Holy Spirit changed that in your heart and mind and showed you Jesus for who he really is, he had to open your blind eyes, your deaf ears. Your old dead spirit was brought alive and started to bud for the first time, and then you wanted to, but you didn't do it because your flesh wanted to.
You see that? Not by the will of flesh, nor is salvation by the will of man. Listen, you can't just make someone else get saved because you want them to, whether it's your child or a friend or a neighbor.
Listen, Abraham said, but God, let it be Ishmael. And God said, no, I'm gone, and God left him. He said, no, it's going to be Isaac. Bye, and he left. He didn't even let the conversation continue. We saw that earlier this morning, didn't we?
So it's not by the will of man. It is of God. Now let's think about who God is for a minute. God is not limited with knowledge like we are. God is not limited in anything. His love is fuller. In fact, it doesn't say he loves.
It says he is love. He's the very definition of what love is. It says he's all-knowing. It says that he's omniscient. He knows everything. He's all-powerful. He can save anyone he wants to save and will save.
Jesus said, of them I will lose nothing. This is who God is, and salvation is of God, and God is perfect. And so would you rather salvation be of imperfect man? In other words, you have to be so good that people are watching you that they want to be a Christian because of you?
Or you have to get your presentation of the gospel so slick that you can talk people into getting saved or else they're going to hell? You see, that's the Arminian viewpoint. They just don't want to put it that way, but that is what they believe.
Now, aren't you glad that it's of God, not of you? In other words, you can't mess it up. You can try, but you can't mess it up. If you don't witness to who you're supposed to from a human viewpoint, then God will make the rock cry out to him.
God will have someone witness to him. It's not about you. It's all of God, and that's the truth of the Bible, and that's the true gospel. And the word, that's Jesus, was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, right?
Now, let's just go forward two chapters. John 3, 5. Jesus answered. Now, we're talking about the fact that salvation is not of the will of man, is not of him that runneth. It's not the works of man. It's of God, and that was in Romans 9.
Now, we find it in John in these two different places. Here in John 3, 5. Now, remember, we're right before John 3, 16. This is the context we're in here. Before Jesus ever said John 3, 16, he said John 3, 5.
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto you, except a man be born of water, that's the word of God, throughout the New Testament, water, pictures, the word of God, except a man be born of water, the word of God, and the Spirit.
So it takes two things to get saved. You have to have God's word, which gives you the gospel, and you have to have the Holy Spirit awakening you or calling you, or you don't get saved. And you're not going to get saved with just one or the other.
And there's so many lies and weird stories out there about people out in different places in the world getting saved because they saw a vision. Well, you've got to hear the gospel. That's the water of the word, and you have to have the Holy Spirit.
That's what the Bible says. Otherwise, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, Jesus taught this to one of the most knowledgeable Bible scholars in his day, Nicodemus. Nicodemus couldn't. He totally rejected it because he was part of a religion that was based on rule keeping.
You got to heaven by being more righteous than the next guy. And Jesus right here says, unless you're born of the word of God and the Holy Spirit, you're not going to get saved, no matter what works you do.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's the same thing Paul was saying in Romans chapter 9 a minute ago about Ishmael versus Isaac. Ishmael pictured the flesh, natural birth, living a natural life.
Isaac pictured the spiritual side, the new man. That which is born of the flesh only is always going to be fleshly and is not going to be saved. But that which is born in the spirit is spiritual, Jesus says.
Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again. Now look what he says about this whole thing. This whole idea of being born again. He says that is like this allegory I'm about to tell you about.
Everyone understands the wind, right? The wind blows where it wants to blow. No man can control it. The Democrats think they can control the climate. But they think they're God. They can also decide which babies get to live.
They also decide whether we're going to have global warming or not. And we get to decide everything because we're God. But that's why I'm not one. I'm not a Democrat for that reason. The old Democrats didn't used to believe that way.
When I was growing up here in Texas, they were good godly people. But things change. And that's a rabbit trail. Take it or leave it. That's just my opinion. Now I'm back to scripture. Okay. The wind blows where it wants to blow.
That's the allegory. You can't change it, whether you're Republican or Democrat. It blows when and where it wants to blow. Jesus says now think about that because that's how salvation is. It blows where God wants it to blow.
The wind blows where it wants to blow. That's what listeth means, the old English word. It means it blows where it wants to. And thou hear'st the sound thereof, but you cannot tell where it came from or where it's going.
Just like that is everyone that is born of the spirit, he tells Nicodemus. And Nicodemus answered, said unto him, how can these things be? That doesn't make sense to me. It's confusing because my whole religion is based on man doing good stuff, man choosing to be saved by choosing to be good.
And Jesus just took the control out of mankind completely. He said, no, it's like the wind. Salvation blows where it wants to blow. It goes where God wants it to go. Man can't control it. That's the way everyone is that's born of the spirit.
Wow. This is the context that this verse is found in. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. True, the universal gospel goes out to all men, but only those who believe will be saved.
And who is it that gets believed? Well, wherever the wind blows, wherever the Holy Spirit goes and calls men, that's who will be saved. And that's God's control. And that's where John 3, 16 comes from.
No one likes to read five through nine, nor do they like 17 and 18. But so they just plucked John 3, 16 out of context. But I mean, it's the most misunderstood verse in the Bible. You've heard me teach on that before.
Paul uses many methods to teach election. Number one in verses seven through eight, chapter nine of Romans by allegory. He tells the story of Isaac and Ishmael. Number two, verses nine through 11, he teaches election through contrast, not by having done good or evil, but by election and grace.
He shows how salvation doesn't work. It's not by doing good or evil, and he shows how it does work. It's by who God chooses, and he does so because of his grace, because no one deserves to be saved. So he chooses a few to be saved because he is gracious.
He sheds his love on people that don't deserve it. Number three, salvation is not by merit, but by the eternal loving knowledge of God for knowledge. That's verses chapter nine, 12, and 13. He saved Isaac, whom he knew and loved, and he did not save Ishmael, whom he hated and did not know.
Number four, he teaches election by telling the story of Moses and Pharaoh. That's chapter nine, verses 15 through 18. Salvation is not of him, not of the will of man, nor the works of man, but of him that shows mercy.
Number five, he teaches election by proving that God shows mercy to whom he wishes and hardens the heart of whom he wishes. Verse 18. Now, if you don't believe, we're almost done here. I know we've taken up some of your lunchtime today, but we're almost done here.
But if you don't believe chapter nine is teaching these things, if you don't really think it's teaching that God loved Isaac and hates Esau, if you don't really think that it's teaching that God chooses who he wants to choose and the rest are lost, then why is verse 19 here?
Think about that. It's really important. Why is verse 19 here and why does it say this? Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth he yet find fault for who can resist God's will? Now, why would a person philosophically make this argument?
If all this stuff you just taught, Paul, if it's true, so apparently they thought he meant it to sound like it sounds. We didn't need PhDs in ivory towers to say, oh, it doesn't really mean he hated Esau, Ishmael.
It's just that it was a lesser love. I mean, if it meant that, we don't need verse 19 and we don't need half the verses. The very verse right after that, we don't need. So why does it say this? Well, if these things are true, how can you say that you can't find fault in anybody who doesn't get saved because they can't resist God's will and he didn't will for him to get saved?
Well, that's a human philosophical argument, isn't it? And it comes from where? The natural man or the spiritual man? Do you think that comes from the flesh or from the spirit? Do you think that comes from man or from God's word or from God?
So Paul dealt with the same negative impulses of the natural man that we have to today. And we deal with the same arguments. Nothing new. So we need to learn the arguments. Well, how does Paul handle this?
Well, he understood that the nature of man is that fallen man is continually questioning God's goodness. Goodness from the day of Eve in the garden and then Adam till today, natural man always questions God's goodness.
And this is part of his very fallen nature. He can't help it. It's how we think. So if we get down in the flesh, we start thinking this way. But look at verse 20. Paul says, nay, but O man, I like the way he says O man, O natural man, you're nothing but a man.
You're not God. Who art thou that replies against God? Pretty good argument. I mean, you can think what you want about God. It doesn't change who God is and doesn't change who you are. You're the created thing.
And he's the creator who made you for his purposes. He'll use you as he wants to. Just like you would if you created a world. You'd be evil about it. You wouldn't be fully good and fully all knowing like God is.
Nay, but O man, who art thou that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it? Why did you make me like this? That's Paul's answer. Can you imagine preachers answering it that way today?
You wouldn't have enough people to pay for the building you're in or the bowling alley you own or all the different things, right? You just wouldn't have it. That's why it's hard to preach it. Hath not the potter power over the clay?
God is the potter, right? Here he's working the clay with his hands. Doesn't the worker of the clay have power over the clay of some clay to make one type of vessel and of another one to make another?
Can he make a beautiful dish that's used when company comes and it's fine china and he can make one that's just used to put over in the bathroom to spit into or something? Doesn't he make both? Well, of course he does, and he makes it according to the use and purpose he has for it.
This is the allegory that Paul uses to show O man, that O man does not have the power because he's not God. God is God, right? Listen, that is Paul's argument against this philosophical argument. Psalm 377 said this, the angel of the Lord encampeth around about them that fear him and delivereth them.
O taste and see that God is good. You see, man's flesh always questions God's goodness. God's word says taste and see that God is good. You can't taste and see unless you have a relationship with him.
You can't taste God and experience God unless you're walking with God. So no, you won't know if he's good or not. If you haven't spent any time with him, you can question anything you want about God philosophically.
That's humanism. Just go ahead and go for it. It doesn't change God, and it doesn't change who we are, O man, right? So taste and see that God is good. Blessed is the man that trusts that he's good. O fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him.
You won't lack anything in life. You'll have everything you need and desire if you walk close to God because he's good. And yet natural man wants to say, well, God's bad. He doesn't just save everybody.
He doesn't let man choose who gets saved. He makes all those choices. Well, he's God. And he forms people like Pharaoh into a pot that's placed over next to the commode in the bathroom. It has a purpose, and it's got God's purpose.
And that's a bad illustration maybe. But whatever, all of it is for God's purpose to bring him glory, and he makes it as he wants. And then he creates beautiful china and puts it at the dinner table when company is coming, or maybe the king or queen are coming.
That kind of pottery is made also, and it's all made from the same clay, and it's up to the potter to decide what to do. And that's Paul's point. Paul reminds us of what one would think is a core understanding of humans among humans, but it's not.
And that is that God is God. He is the creator of all things and creates according to his good pleasure, and he saves according to his good pleasure as well. Humans are part of his creation. He did make us in his own image, and Satan made sure that we were formed back into Satan's image somehow.
And if God hadn't had mercy and grace and saved some who didn't deserve it, there would be no humans left. There would be no humans to go and populate the millennial kingdom for a thousand years. All would have been lost if God's great mercy had not come through in Jesus Christ who gave his life for sinners.
Right? That's the true gospel. Verse 22 says, What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath? Those are the goats. Those are the tares.
And look what the scripture says. They were fitted to destruction. That means God made them for that. He fitted them for that. And also that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had aforeprepared unto glory.
You check out aforeprepared. It's the same Greek word as fitted. That's predestinated. So God predestinated some to be saved. They're the vessels of mercy. And look what he's going to do. He's going to pour out and already has the riches of his glory on those.
And we were part of the same fallen race that rejected and hated God as anyone else. So that's pure grace and love and mercy. And God chose to save some of us and he will save others. And we have to witness to people because they're only going to get saved by the water.
That's the word of God. We got to give out the water to him. The Holy Spirit comes and opens their eyes. And that process will continue till the Lord comes back and God will save some. And if he didn't, none would be saved.
And that's how we should think about it. This is pure grace and mercy. And he pours out the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy. How special are you? You can't be more special than the fact he's always known you as his own.
And he prepared you aforetime. That's what afore means. Predestined unto glory. Even us. Who's the us? The same people he writes the book to, the letter to. It's Christians. It's born again people. The saints, the called, the elect.
Even us. Who he did what? He called us out of darkness. We were lost. We were going the wrong way. We would have continued. But he called us. Not of Jews only but also of the Gentiles. So this word fitted that we find up here in verse 22 that some are fitted for hell, for destruction.
It means to complete, thoroughly, or frame them that way. That sounds like predestination to me. And this word destruction literally means ruin or hell. So there are some human beings that were fitted according to God's predestination and plan for destruction.
In fact, the whole race was that way. All came into the world lost like that. And God chose to save some. And that's verse 23. And that's his mercy and his grace. And it's rich and shows out the glory of his grace so richly.
And he prepared them. And that word aforeprepared is the same word katarizo. It just means fitted or created to be that way. Same of them. So both are fitted. And then verse 24 says even us who are called, those are the ones who are the saved, the elect from both Jews and Gentiles.
So Jesus died for the whole world in that sense. Not just Jews only but for the whole world. It doesn't mean for every individual man, woman, boy, and girl, because everyone that he died for will be saved.
And then Calvin knew it. Augustine knew it. Paul knew it. Jesus knew it. The Bible teaches it. But the world and the church at large have forgotten these old great doctrines. Aforeprepared. It comes from that same root word as fitted.
To fit up in advance. Wow. That's cool stuff. All right, guys. So we have come to the end of another glorious time in the Bible. What wonderful thing it is we have the word of God, isn't it? What if we didn't?
But God has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. And I hope all of you will find the warmth of family today and let the light of the gospel and the love of God that he's had for you since before he made anything warm your hearts.
And we'll all be together with him soon. That second coming is closer than it was last time we preached. And we'll all be together soon. And until then, we're going to be salt and light, aren't we? All right, Brother Dave.
I am finished here with the Bible teaching time. Okay.
Yeah, I can hear you. All right. Well, let's see. I'm not sure how to get my video back up, but that's okay. It's up. Oh, is it? You can see me? Yep. All right. Something's weird on my computer where it's not showing it to me.
That's all right. Well, then let's go ahead and close in prayer, I guess. Thank you, Father, for loving us. Thank you for Valentine's Day, which reminds us of love. Help us to remember that love originates and is generated by you.
And the only way that we can love each other, which is how the world will know us, is to tap into that love that you have for us. Lord, thank you so much that you chose us, that you loved us, that you saved us, and that you gave us a hope and a future.
Help us to look forward to that future, keeping in mind that only good is in store for us. Even when things seem bad, when things get crazy in this world, we know that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
And that's us. Lord, thank you for that. Help us to remember that and be motivated by that. Lord, we thank you for Brother David, who brought the message today. We just ask that as we go about our daily lives, that we are reminded moment by moment that you love us and that we're supposed to love each other.
Happy Valentine's Day, and thank you, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you very much. Hope you enjoyed today's sermon. I know I did. Can't wait to see you guys again next Sunday, and Lord willing, we'll be able to meet in person.
Y 'all take care and have a great Valentine's Day. Bye-bye.