The Doctrine Of Election - Part 3 — John Piper

Truth, Doctrine, and the Church’s Stability

Large crowds, is dumbing down, saying truth doesn't matter, doctrine isn't really significant. Just getting people here, feeling good, meeting felt needs is what it's all about. And the world has just discovered in the crisis of terrorism, we must have a rock.

We must have truth. We must have right. We must have wrong. We must have absolutes. And suddenly it will take us 30, 40 years to get back up to speed as a church. And by that time, the world won't be interested anymore.

Oh how sad when the church is just kind of floating along in the river of culture. I really do believe God revealed this doctrine with others to put fiber into the limp limbs of our tree of faith. Third pastoral thought, the doctrine of election is one of the best tests that I know of as to whether or not we have reversed roles with God without knowing it.

Human Autonomy and the Judgment Seat

It's one of the best tests to see whether or not we have reversed roles with God without even knowing it. This is a timeless problem, but it is mainly and especially a modern problem. By modern, I mean in the last 200 years, modernity, life culture in the West in the last 200 years is basically defined by human autonomy, human autonomy, independence is assumed and authority is questioned.

We've seen the bumper stickers, question authority. It just oozes the last two centuries since the Enlightenment. That's the name of humanity. We question authority and we take the judgment seat to decide if God exists.

We sit in judgment. God is in the dock. That's modernity. Now Paul addressed this already in Romans 9 and he said to an objector who questioned why does God still find fault in view of your doctrine? Who can resist his will?

Paul says, who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me thus? In other words, it's not fitting for you to switch places. It's not fitting for you to be the potter.

Election, Job, and Repentant Humility

God is God. The doctrine of election, like no other probably, helps us decide are we judging God or is God judging us? Job, great help here. The book of Job, all his defenses are spent defending his innocence to God.

All of the half-truths of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are over. Now God has spoken in the last several chapters of the book of Job and the sum of the matter is given in chapter 42 like this. Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. And God responds, hear and I will speak. I will question you and you make it known to me. In other words, let's not switch roles anymore, Job.

I'm the teacher here. If anybody accuses here, I accuse. You're the learner, you keep quiet. To which Job finally responds, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear. But now my eyes see you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

The Hidden Arrogance of Modern Christianity

There are so many people who have tasted that. As the doctrine of election broke over them like a wave. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear in Sunday school and my little reading, and now my eyes sees you and I repent in dust and ashes for years and years of man centered presumption.

It is very hard for a fish to know he is wet. All there is for a fish is wet. Fish doesn't even think of it. And so it's hard for a modern person to know that he is arrogant towards God. All there is today is arrogance towards God.

It's the ocean in which we swim. It's the air we breathe. It's woven into the fabric of our Christian minds. We don't even know it's there. We can't see it because it's the glasses through which we see everything.

No, it's worse. We can't see our arrogance or other people's arrogance towards God, not because it's the glasses, but because it's the eyeballs. In other words, it's endemic to us. It's not just put on.

It's us. That's who we are. Arrogant towards God, questioning, doubting, belittling, neglecting, putting him way down the line after television. Oh, how incredibly arrogant the world is. It's the air we breathe.

So that some of you are sitting there now saying, I don't have a... You're crazy. I don't feel arrogant towards God. Go take your eyes out, put them in some gospel acid, and then put them back in. C .S. Lewis was a great help to me in this point years ago, and I just saw it again.

I keep a little... I keep a very big Lewis book beside my table at night. Here's what he wrote. The ancient man approached God as the accused person approaches a judge. For the modern man, the roles are reversed.

He is the judge. God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge. If God should have reasonable defense for being the God who permits war and poverty and disease, he's ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal.

But the important thing is that man is on the bench, and God is in the dock, everywhere, including the evangelical church, and there are not many doctrines like the doctrine of election to get us off the bench and in the dock where we belong.

Seeking Deliverance from Arrogance

So I ask you, are you still floating and soaked in the indigenous ocean of arrogance in the modern world, or are you being delivered? And that's all I think I can say about me or any of Christians. We are being delivered.

I shudder at my own arrogance. Comes out towards my wife, comes out towards my kids, comes out towards finding that I couldn't find the plan for whether there's going to be paid parking over there tonight or not.

If you have to pay to get out of that parking lot, tell us next week, we'll pay you. I have permission to say that because I've made calls. I mean, my quickness of judgment is frightening to me. I will not cease to tell you that until I am perfected.

Number four, this one's so encouraging to me.