Being Eternally Known (11/10/2002)

Park Meadows Church

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This morning, we're moving into new territory in our doctrinal studies.

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We're going to move into an area that the theologians call soteriology. We call it salvation.

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And so we're going to talk about God's marvelous grace and all the things that happen in our lives because of his grace.

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And there are many things we can talk about along these lines, so this part of our study will last for some time as we go through the themes of salvation and study them together.

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I don't think we could start with any other than the theme of being eternally known.

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And secondly, the theme of redemption. So being eternally known and the theme of redemption,

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I won't spend as much time on the aspect of the eternal nature of our salvation as I would if I were in another church where people weren't fairly schooled on this issue.

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But you study this much and you seem to have a good, very good understanding of it, so I will just briefly outline this section and then we'll move into the second section, which is on redemption.

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And that really will be the first major theme that we cover. Because the truth is on the eternal nature of our salvation, we see that on every page in every study that we do.

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It's throughout the Bible. The sovereignty of God is everywhere throughout the Bible. It's even the definition of his name, if you think about it,

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God. He is sovereign. It's almost redundant to say he is a sovereign

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God. You could just say he is God. But today, in our society, people lack understanding and so it's so important to study it.

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So let's don't leave it out. Let's at least hit the high points before we move into what we really want to cover, the marvelous theme of our redemption.

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I want to quote Lewis Barry Schaeffer. He said, to be in the eternal plan of God is a position of surpassing importance, both with regard to the reality itself and its timeless character.

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The human mind cannot grasp what it means to be in the divine purpose from all eternity, nor what is indicated when it is declared that the same divine purpose extends into eternity to come.

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Whom he predestinated, he also glorified. As we just take a quick look at the terminology, let me give you the terms that have to do with the eternal nature of our salvation.

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The first one we'll look at is the word foreknowledge or to be foreknown. And this is a bit of a topical study this morning, so we don't have a passage that we're going to go through until we get to the theme of redemption and then we'll be for some time in the book of Ruth, as you can imagine.

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But for now, let's look at a couple of the verses that have to do with the foreknowledge of God as it as it deals with our salvation.

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First of all, you can be turning to first Peter chapter one in verse one. While you do that,

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I'm going to read Acts chapter two in verse twenty three, because it has more to do just with the fact of the foreknowledge of God, more than it does with our to do with our salvation.

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So let me read that while you're turning to the other. Him being delivered by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.

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The reason I read that verse is because. There aren't a lot of verses that deal with the foreknowledge of God, but a couple of them seem to place foreknowledge before predestination.

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However, Acts chapter two, verse twenty three places the determinant counsel of God in front of foreknowledge.

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What that teaches us is that with God, there is no order in this sequence because you can't say that one happens before the other with God.

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Now, from a human viewpoint, for the sake of studying, perhaps we study them in a specific order.

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But I will say this, it would not matter which order we studied them in, because one would be inappropriate if he said that God has to foreknow something before he can determine it.

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As a matter of fact, if you were going to use human logic, you would say he would have to determine it before he could foreknow it.

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But the truth is, with God, he doesn't have to do either one first because it all just is.

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So as God teaches us a little thimble full of information about his incredible nature, we as men and women have to study sometimes in order.

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Most will study foreknowledge first. Unfortunately, many, especially the

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Armenians, will take foreknowledge to be the very most important aspect and say that it limits

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God's determination, which is ridiculous. And I know no one here believes that, but I thought

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I would just let you know some others do believe that. I've had debates with friends before who didn't really believe too strongly in the sovereignty of God.

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Brother Otis would say, well, why would they be your friend? But I've had such debates before and they would say, well,

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God doesn't determine this or that or the other. He just foreknows it. And I always respond, well, if he has foreknown it and in fact he has seen it, isn't it sure that it's going to happen?

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So what's the difference? And they always go, could we change the subject? So people that don't study this a lot can easily be confused by it.

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Even those of us who do like the topic and studied a lot, we still know that we only know this much about this aspect of the nature of God.

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But isn't it wonderful that he gave us what he did because our rest and our peace is in knowing that God is sovereign, knowing that God has everything in his hand, every detail of our lives, not just the big things.

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Let me think who it was that was sharing. I don't remember. Might have been.

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I can't remember who it was. If it was you, you can raise your hand. But one of my buddies was was talking to me this week about one of the talk show hosts in Dallas and how that a

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Christian called in and said, you know, we can just thank the Lord that the Republicans won the whole

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Congress and then they have the presidency. And the talk show host comes across as a real conservative politically, but he was very quick to come back and say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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We we can't say we cannot attribute that to God. He said God is neither Republican nor Democrat.

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Now that confused me. No, I'm kidding. He said he said God has the universe and all the stars and the rocks and the asteroids and all that to take care of.

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He does good care less about the little details of human life. And this guy claims to be, you know, a

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Christian and conservative and so forth. He missed on that a little bit, didn't he? God doesn't deal with the issues, you know, the details of life, such as an election.

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And yet the Bible says that God is the one who moves the leaders in the world, the kings around his palms on a chessboard.

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But he's not interested. The people are so ignorant today. And this man goes to church every Sunday. What does he hear?

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Maybe it's not the preacher's fault and maybe he doesn't have ears. I don't know. But it's our nation is just, as you know, moving towards more and more ignorance with respect to God.

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Well, maybe Brother Raymond can get some of these tapes out across the country and people can learn about the foreknowledge of God.

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Now, you're in First Peter, chapter one, verse one. Let's read this. I brought this these two verses, verse one and two, up with a friend of mine who who is not only a theologian, but also has spent a great deal of time studying the biblical languages.

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And I asked him about this. Let me show you. Let's read it first and then I'll show you what I asked him. And he couldn't answer it, but he said,

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I'll give it further study. But it says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout

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Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the father, through sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you, peace be multiplied.

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Many have taken verse two without regard to verse one and tried to show that election is according to foreknowledge.

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As I said in the introduction a few moments ago, man wants to think that man is in control.

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So any way that he can minimize God's control, it makes him feel better. So one of the ways that man tries to do this is to say, well,

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God's election had to be according to his foreknowledge. In other words, he just had the ability to look out and see who was going to receive him.

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And so then he chose that person. Then he determined that that person would be saved, or many of them will say he didn't.

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What he did was he looked out and he saw that that person would receive Jesus. So then he determined that that person would do good works.

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They will not even go so far as to say that he determined he would be saved. So as you can go farther and farther out towards the

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Arminian view, the Arminian view means that man is in control and that our choices are what run the universe.

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However, what's fascinating to me in the Greek is as you read this verse, let me read it again and you watch here.

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Some of you may have already penciled this in because I've taught this before in a class. But when you read this word for word in the

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Greek language. It comes across this way. And I want you to focus on you see the very first word in verse two.

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What is the word? All right. In the Greek language, that word is not found anywhere in verse two.

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That word is in verse one and it reads this way. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the elect strangers scattered throughout

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Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God, the father, et cetera, et cetera.

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And I asked my Greek scholar friend, why is it that every version of the

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Bible in English that I can find places the word elect at the first of verse two rather than before the word scattered in verse one where it's found in the

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Greek? And he said, you know, I have no idea. I said, well, is there some grammatical reason or some idiomatic expression in Greek that we don't know or some reason why the scholars always move that word from being in front of the word scattered where it is in the

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Greek to start verse two? And he said, no, there is no no reason that I can see in the

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Greek to do that. He said, I want to study that further. I have heard back from you. But I thought I would just point out that the word really is the elect strangers.

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I said it comes before scattered. I'm sorry. It comes before the word stranger, the elect strangers scattered according to the foreknowledge of God.

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So it is the scattering that the Bible teaches, according to foreknowledge, not election. Now, it really is a moot point because, as I said, with God, neither happened before the other.

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It wouldn't make sense to say that the foreknowledge happened before he determined the end of all things any more than it would say that the determination happened before he knew how it would happen.

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And you just can't really separate them in time. But theologians attempt to, especially the Armenians, because they want to take away the election and they want to emphasize the foreknowledge.

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It makes them feel better. Why? I don't know. Because if you can understand, as I do, that if God has already foreknown it, it's just as sure to happen as if he predetermined it.

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Even if you said he didn't, if you just agreed with me that he foreknew it, then it is determined.

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I don't know why that makes them feel better, but it does. So I thought I would bring that point out. But truly, as the

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Bible teaches foreknowledge, it is mostly human expression for us to try to understand

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God a little bit. Because the truth is, God really does not foreknow. It's just all now to him.

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And you know that. So foreknowledge is kind of from our viewpoint to at least teach us this doctrine that God knows the end from the beginning.

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And that's where if you want to theologically study the concept of foreknowledge, that's where you have to leave it.

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You don't deal with predetermination. You don't deal with election. You don't deal with foreordination, although it is more similar than the others to foreknowledge.

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But when you teach pure foreknowledge in the Bible as it is taught, it teaches this very simple fact and this only.

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So don't go anywhere else with it. It teaches that God knows the end from the beginning.

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That is his foreknowledge. And that's where we should leave that. Now, as we go into Deuteronomy chapter seven and verse six, you know,

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I'm not going to spend any time there, but I'll remind you because I've preached on it probably three times this year. That's the passage where God talks about why he loves his children.

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And he says, I loved you because I've always loved you. Now, that's profound because man wants him to say,

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I love you because you do good things or I love you because you're very religious or I love you because you do good works for me.

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But God didn't say that. God said, I love you because you have been mine for all eternity.

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I've always known you as my own. So that's another aspect of the foreknowledge of God.

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It goes further than just our English word to know. It is an intimate relationship of love, that kind of knowledge.

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God has always known us that way even before we knew we were saved, even before we were born, even before he made this planet.

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You were his own. Now, let's move to the second key word in the study of.

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The eternal nature of our salvation, that is the word for ordination. For ordination is is a powerful concept in the scriptures, my favorite verse teaching this is

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Acts 13, 48, so I'm going to read you the two other ones first while you're turning there. Acts 2, 23 says him being delivered by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.

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The concept of foreknowledge in that verse really deals more with for ordination and then in first Peter, 120, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

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Talking about Jesus himself, it says God foreordained before he made the world.

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But that Jesus would come, but in these last days he was manifest for you, so there are a couple of verses on for ordination, but the main one that deals with our salvation is in Acts 13, 48.

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So please look at that one with me. This language is so extremely clear, the grammatical structure of this sentence is so clear, it is transparently clear.

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The Arminian would have to literally remove this from his Bible or minimize it in some way.

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But God says, and when the Gentiles heard this, talking about they had heard the gospel, they were glad.

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What does gospel mean? Glad tidings, good news. When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the

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Lord. Now, look at this next phrase. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

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That is so clear. Many people heard this gospel message preached on this particular day.

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Some of them believed, others did not. Can anyone tell me from what

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God just told us, which ones believed? Those that were ordained unto eternal life.

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So we see then that the Bible does teach for ordination. Now, as we move into these words from foreknowledge on each word we move to, we make more enemies.

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Because these are hated words in Christian circles across the world, especially when we get to the next one, the third one, predestination.

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That word is hardly discussed at all anymore in Christian circles. Many preachers

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I've heard them tell me, not that they were giving me advice, but I've just heard them chat with each other. I don't do that as much anymore, but when

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I was younger, I would go to some preacher fellowships and sit and listen to them talk.

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And that's why I don't go to them now, now that I'm older, because it's just like a talking head.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of the talk you hear, oh, well, you know, we just don't preach predestination because it just divides, it just divides.

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So so why is it OK to teach that man's in control? I mean, that would divide me away, wouldn't it, you?

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It's OK to divide in that fashion. So as you go into these words, the further we go, the stronger the word is and the more hated the word is among men and men who claim to be

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Christians. So look at predestination. Romans 8, 29 is a good place to look.

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While you're turning, I'm going to read you another one in Acts. Him being delivered by the predeterminate counsel.

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And for knowledge of God. We're turning to Romans 8, 29. Oh, that was

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Acts 2, 23. You see, it says that Jesus was delivered because of the predeterminate counsel of God.

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That tells us that God had predetermined or predestinated that Jesus Christ would die on the cross.

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And it also tells us it's one of the very few verses, no more than two or three in the whole

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Bible that teach about this counsel that took place.

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By the Godhead, before anything was created, when these things were determined, it mentions it here, gives us just a glimpse that there was a time, if for lack of other word to use before time.

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When the father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, so obviously we would include the

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Holy Spirit. He is the spirit of Christ. He is the spirit of the father. But when they came together.

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And began to counsel now, counsel implies sequence in time. So when the father there's a time, by the way, when

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Jesus said I proceeded forth and came out from God, he says I've always existed with the father, but there was a time

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I proceeded forth and came out from God. And so I believe I visualize that this this is my opinion.

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I'm going to go into opinion just for a moment. This is not the Bible. It's my opinion. I believe that Jesus and the father were one.

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And the father said, well, you know, I think I would like to have a council or a discussion.

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So Jesus came forth out from the father and sat down in a chair and now they can talk.

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Now sequence begins before that is an eternal non time and eternal present tense.

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But when they began to plan in our thinking anyway, you have to have sequence if you're going to plan, because the plan means this happens first, then this, then this, then this.

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That happened at some point before our time began on the planet Earth. The father and the son began to counsel the

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Holy Spirit always being with them to counsel and literally determine what would happen in human history.

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That happened, every detail was determined. Every detail was planned in this council.

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Talks about it in Acts two, twenty three, where even the crucifixion of Jesus was predetermined.

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Why do you think it was that Jesus in that garden as he sweat blood said, father, take this cup from me, comma, maybe not even a comma, maybe in the very next breath.

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Nevertheless, thy will be done. Why do you think he knew the will? He was at the council and at that council meeting, it was determined that he would be crucified by wicked hands and slain.

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So Acts two, twenty three discusses the predeterminate council, Romans eight, twenty nine, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.

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This discusses both foreknowledge and predestination, it does not necessarily teach an order, it simply teaches that both occurred.

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First, Peter, chapter one, verse two. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the father, through sanctification of the spirit and to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, which we know was predestinated, grace and peace be multiplied.

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So God's. Act of predestination is just as sure as his act of foreknowledge, and in fact, from a human viewpoint,

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I fail to see how anyone would put foreknowledge before predetermination. They both happened at the same moment, they happened in the council.

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All things were predetermined, all things were foreknown by the father.

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And by the son. Now, let's go to the fourth term. Now we're moving into very unpopular territory, because if one would concede, yes, since God is

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God, he can predetermine things. Then we move to the term elect.

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The elect God can elect who, in fact, shall be saved.

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Well, no, we can't go that far, they would say, I can go so far as to say God predetermined everything, but not who would be saved.

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Does that make logical sense? He predetermined everything, but not who would be saved and who would be lost.

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It's very difficult to move to this next step and say God is that sovereign. That God is that much in control.

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Now, why that's difficult for us, I don't know, because in Sunday school this morning, we were talking about some of these things and I was sitting back there getting on a mental rabbit trail.

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I was thinking about childbirth. And I think Brother Otis taught something about how

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God determined who his children would be, and I'm thinking, well, and his point was that God called us to himself for himself, not for us.

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Now, we benefit, we gain the benefit of it, but he did it for himself. And I thought that, well, that's perfectly logical to me, because how many parents in this room had children for the children's sake versus because you wanted to have children?

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Did you have the children for them or for you? I know Charlotte and I had them because we wanted some babies.

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We wanted children. You had your children because you wanted children.

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The child did not determine to be born. You determined that the child would be born.

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You foreknew that the child would be born in our own limited human way. But it's just an example that if human parents do the determining and do the choosing and elect to have children, it's not the children that make those choices.

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Why is it so important for the Arminian to believe that we choose our own spiritual birth or when we would be born or how we would be born into God's family or if we would be born into God's family?

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God does that. It's all of God. And as we come into beyond foreknowledge, beyond foreordination, beyond predetermination to this term elect, we see it very clearly.

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First Thessalonians chapter one, verse four says, knowing brethren beloved your election of God.

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I'm just showing you some places where the term election is used. Very commonly used in the first century among Christians today, you won't hear it.

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When's the last time you visited another church? Now you may hear it around here, but you visit another church and some brother or sister walks up and says, welcome my fellow elect.

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You say, well, I kind of feel funny if they did say that to me. But at least in the first century, this was common language.

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Today, especially among Baptists, it's been removed because it's controversial. And as we discussed in a recent sermon, even when

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Jesus talked about it, it said many of his followers walked with him no more from that day.

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Yes, it will cause division, but Jesus created that type of division when he discussed this truth.

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So apparently, he felt it important enough that as truth, we should discuss it rather than worrying about whether truth would divide.

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Now, we don't want little picky things or the devil to get involved and cause division in the church over minor issues ever or overheard feelings and those sorts of things.

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We don't want that. But we can never say that we're afraid to teach what we know is truth.

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For fear that it might cause division, because truth will not bring division among those who are the Lord's and who are studying his word and who love to study.

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That's kind of who I want to hang out with anyway, how about you? Romans 833.

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Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?

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It is God that justified. Colossians 312.

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Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, and long -suffering.

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Why? Because you are the elect of God. Titus 1 .1,

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Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness.

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Now, those are places where the actual term elect are used. There is a very similar term in the

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Greek, and it's the word to be chosen. Let me show you that one. Ephesians 1 .4.

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Actually, elect means to be chosen, to be elected. It means the same thing as it does in our common language.

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Isn't it funny how the Armenian will take a word like elect and totally destroy its meaning?

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When you go to the elections that we recently had, what do we mean when we say that some

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Republican senators were elected? Does that mean that we foreknew who they would be and after they became senators, we then voted for them?

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That's the way it is in some countries, the Soviet Union, perhaps. So in other words, we knew who they would be and they just took office and then we, so then we chose them.

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Is that how it works? Or did we choose them and therefore they are now in the office?

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That's what elect means. We elected them. It's what it means towards salvation as well. It does not mean that God looked down and saw who the good people were and then later he chose them to be his.

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It doesn't mean that at all. Chosen, Ephesians 1 .4.

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According as he hath chosen us, elected us, in him, in Christ in other words, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

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So it tells the time period when this took place from our human viewpoint. It happened before the world was formed.

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At that time, sometime before that, God chose us to be in Christ. Now many of these folks who hate these doctrines will tell you, well,

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I'll grant you that God determined things. But what he determined was that if you got saved, you would do good works.

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So predetermination and election and the choosing all has only to do with the good works you do, not the salvation.

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That's what they'll say. But as I read this very carefully, it says to me that I was chosen in Christ.

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It does not say that I was chosen to do good works. There are verses that say that. Ephesians 2 .10

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says that. The one we read about predestination a while ago,

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Romans 8 .29 says, we were predetermined or predestinated to be conformed into his image. But that's not really the same thing as saying we're predestinated to do good works.

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If you think about that verse in Romans, to be conformed into his image means simply to be in Christ, which is what this verse says in Ephesians 1 .4.

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He chose us before the world was made, long before we were ever born, to be in Christ.

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Does that speak, does being in Christ speak primarily of salvation, or does it speak of just doing good things?

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Well, doing good things may be part of our overall salvation or a result of it. But you couldn't say this is not dealing with salvation, could you?

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When it says we're chosen to be in Christ, and we know these things, but I'm putting them on the tape for Brother Raymond's crowd out there across America.

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Some people don't know these things. They haven't heard them preached in 100 years, some of these very simple truths.

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So we have foreknowledge, we have foreordination, we have predestination, we have election, we have been chosen before the foundation of the world to be in Christ.

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And then the next word is the word called. I think we discussed this in Sunday school this morning as well.

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Let me briefly mention two forms of calling among theologians as they study this concept in the

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Bible. One, sometimes they call a universal call, and the other they call the effectual call.

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If you want to see a verse that might have to do with what they call a universal call, you might turn to Matthew chapter 22 and verse 14.

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I am not as comfortable calling it a universal call as I am saying that God has given forth a universal message called the gospel.

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God gave the gospel to all men, women, boys, and girls. It is given to the whole world, meaning all men and women and boys and girls.

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The gospel is given in that sense, and in that sense, it is a universal call.

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Strictly from the human viewpoint, it is true that God calls everyone as he gave forth the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Everyone who hears that, if it falls on their ears, in a sense, God called them.

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But that's not the same type of calling that is used in most verses in the Bible. So we have to divide the word call into those two meanings, two definitions, if you will.

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Depends on which word you're talking about to determine the definition. It must be determined by the context.

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Matthew 22, 14 says, many are called, but few are chosen. Seems to show a difference between the number of people who are chosen to be saved and the number of people who are called.

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That's only true if what you mean by called is that they all heard the gospel.

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It's used in that sense. Now, I think it's funny that the Armenians will use

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Matthew 22, 14 to try to prove that the calling is not effectual. But to me, it's strange that they leave out the fact that it teaches choosing.

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It teaches that few are chosen. It teaches election, but they don't mention that part.

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They like to try to prove, well, it shows that there's a universal call. God is calling all men to himself.

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He is, in the sense that he gave the gospel to all men. A warning to the elect, a warning to the non -elect.

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We don't know who they are anyway, do we? So we preach the gospel to all men. And all men hear this warning in a nutshell.

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They hear number one, you have fallen short of the glory of God. God says in the gospel, you have fallen short.

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There's no man that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after me. You have all gone astray.

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You have all gone your own way. You are lost. That's number one.

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Number two, you cannot be saved by doing anything good.

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Because what you do good today does not eliminate the evil you did yesterday.

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So a system of doing good works will not save you. All of the great religions of the world, other than biblical

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Christianity, are based on good works. I will climb my way to heaven by doing things for God, doing religious things.

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All other religions, other than biblical Christianity, teach that. But the gospel says that is not true.

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In fact, that's why the gospel means good news.

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Because it would not be good news if we had to climb our way to heaven. Because we would slip and fall every time, wouldn't we?

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Every rung that we would climb, we would lose too. And we would end up in hell.

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So the good news is, my system of salvation does not work that way, God says.

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The good news is, I predetermined in the council before the foundation of the world that Jesus Christ would be crucified and would die.

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That you not have to die for those sins. Anyone who will receive him as their personal

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Lord and Savior, all of the sins have been paid for by his death on that cross.

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Anyone who would receive him, all of their sins have already been paid for. That is the good news.

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Now listen, that message has gone out to the whole world. The Bible says even in the first century, it went to the whole known world.

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By now, it's gone in almost every language and dialect that there is on the planet, that gospel message.

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So in that sense, there is a universal call. But now let me talk about the effectual call a moment.

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Turn to 1 Thessalonians 5, 24, and also we'll look at Romans 8 and verse 30.

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1 Thessalonians 5, 24 says, faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

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Now, there we have the word call. But I want you to look up and see what it's talking about, where God says, who also will do it.

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What is he talking about doing? Well, look at verse 23. And the very

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God of peace sanctify you wholly. I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

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In that sense, everyone who is called will have this done to them. It's passive.

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It means God does it. He preserves you blameless, your whole body, soul, and spirit, if you've been called.

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That's what we call the effectual call. You see it even more clearly in Romans 8, verse 30.

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Moreover, now you'll notice that this is the same number of people throughout this verse as it goes into the different things that are talked about.

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Whom he did predestinate, them he also called. So the same number that were predestinated were called.

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And whom he called, all of them he also justified.

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And whom he justified, all of them he also glorified. That's in the future. That's our future ultimate redemption of the body, the total salvation.

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Even the body is saved at that point. The same number of people, in other words, that find themselves in heaven glorified at the end of that verse are the same number who were justified while in this life.

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And the same number of those were called. And the same who were called were predestinated.

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So we see almost the entire lesson in that one verse this morning. And I want to close this morning with this quote from Louis Barry Schaeffer.

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Next Sunday, we'll get into this beautiful doctrine of redemption. And we'll have more of a verse -by -verse study.

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How great then is this characterizing work of distinctive position.

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And how immeasurable the opulence of the one who is included in the eternal purpose of God.

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Let's stand and have prayer together. Father, we cannot comprehend what it means to be included in your foreordination, which from our vantage point happened in eternity past, before our time began.

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We were known by you as your children. We cannot even comprehend our present salvation and all that it means in our life.

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But we thank you for the revelation that you've given us about it. But beyond that, it is immeasurably difficult for us to comprehend what it means that our eternal future with you has been predetermined as well.

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You have known us, chosen us, predetermined that we would be in Christ, called us at a point in time where we would look up and see the light and say,

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Lord, what would you have us to do? You have placed your spirit within our hearts, regenerated our spirits, given us the new man that is attached to your spirit.

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All of these benefits, and you did it all for yourself because you wanted children.

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Thank you, Father, that you've called us to yourself. Lord, if there's anyone in the congregation who has not had that calling and maybe is having it right now and sensing your voice and hearing your voice as you call them to the

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Lord Jesus Christ, may they simply look up and say, Lord, what would you have me to do this morning?

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Father, we ask that you go with us into our time of fellowship. We thank you for the meal we're about to have together, our afternoon

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Bible study. Thank you for the wonderful time you give us together. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.