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Breathtaking, inspiring, exciting, amazing, astounding, awe -inspiring, hair -raising, spine -tingling, stunning, mind -blowing, majestic, shocking, moving, striking, stupefying, wonderful, wondrous, impressive.
Am I talking about mothers today? The antonyms to the words that I just gave wouldn't be boring, ho -hum, ordinary, run -of -the -mill, blah, lame, ordinary, trivial, unimpressive, and unexciting.
What am I talking about? These adjectives are modifying what? The answer this morning is not mothers, although I love my mother.
The answer is not my wife, although I love my wife. These adjectives and modifiers are only, or should only be used of our triune
God, especially when it comes to His eternal decree to save sinners.
Charles Spurgeon said, quote, nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of deity.
The most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the
Godhead and the glorious Trinity. Today will be a
God -exalting, God -lifting sermon. I thought about it this week.
Some things are better crushed. Ice, I think, is better crushed. Garlic, I believe, is better crushed.
And this doctrine this morning will crush you. That's exactly what
God wants. As we talk about the doctrine of election, the doctrine of God is sovereign over all, the doctrine that God has a decree, a single, solitary decree that has many parts, but He decrees that sinners are to be saved.
I'm so thankful because without this doctrine this morning, you will have no hope for evangelism.
Do you want your next -door neighbor saved? Would you like your spouse to know Christ? Would you like to have your friends and family come, as Tom was singing and beckoning people to come to Christ, not the righteous?
There's only one hope, and that hope lays in the eternal counsel of God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. God saves sinners, and He decided this before time began.
I love this topic. I was a Christian for several years before someone challenged me to understand the doctrine of election.
It changed my life. I thought I was saved all over again because I got the proper view of God as King, as sovereign.
We could call this morning's sermon, The Godness of God. God is
Lord. God is King. God sits on a throne. As you know, we've been looking at Matthew chapter 5 verses 13 through 16, talking about the disciples, and then us by implication, being salt and light, both preservative to the nations and also light that would illumine the darkness as God calls sinners to repent.
We looked at the parable of the sower last week, and if you'll turn your Bibles to that passage, Mark chapter 4, let's have a little review before we look into this truth of election.
But just to let you know, last week it was more the human side and our responsibilities. This week will be more the divine side that should help you.
It's a very important topic, and if you look back in Mark chapter 4, we'll see the first truth that would assist us in evangelism.
That was our sermon last week, that you should expect different responses to your evangelistic endeavors.
When you go and witness, you should expect different responses. Not everyone jumps up and down for joy when you tell them that they're a sinner and Jesus is the only
Savior. Matter of fact, there are four responses that our Savior gives us here in this wonderful parable called the parable of the sower.
Mark chapter 4, verse 14. The sower sows the word, and then we have the first response.
Hear the soil, the heart soil, if you will, is hard and unresponsive. These are the ones, verse 15, who are beside the road where the word is sown.
When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. We talked about that in length.
There's a second heart soil found in verses 16 and 17. This is more superficial and temporary.
In a similar way, verse 16, these are the ones on whom seed was sown on rocky places who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.
Wasn't that amazing last week? Some people receive the word with joy and they're still not fruit bearers. They're not Christians.
And when they have no firm root in themselves because they're only temporary, then when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.
The third soil is found in verses 18 and 19. As we expect different responses when we preach the gospel,
God wanted us to know that. This one is crowded and preoccupied kind of heart soil, verse 18.
Others are the ones on whom the seed was sown among thorns. These are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
So we have the first three soils, unproductive, not Christian soils, probably summarized by Hebrews chapter 4, verse 2.
And indeed, we have had the good news preached to us, just as they also, but the word they heard did not profit them.
It wasn't profitable for them to hear the word. But there is good news. If you look at verse 20, there is another kind of heart soil.
It's receptive and fruitful, and Jesus said in Mark 4 20, and those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil.
And look at the words, and they kept on hearing the word, and kept on accepting it, and kept on bearing fruit, not just 7 % or 10 % that was a good yield back in those days, but 30, 60, and a hundredfold.
This is wonderful. Some seed fell beside, some seed fell into, some seed fell in the midst of, and here the seed falls into.
They accept it. When you preach the gospel, we learned last week that you should expect different results.
The word of God is proclaimed, and it causes a division. Some say yes, and some say no.
God wants us to keep at it, to keep proclaiming the word, and not to be discouraged. How long, by the way, did it take you before you finally bowed the knee in acquiescence and belief?
Galatians 6 says, let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary. The word of God, true or false, accomplishes what
God sets it forth to do. Yes, so we just keep on proclaiming the gospel, and we must not be deflected from any immediate lack of success.
Well, I went out, how many people, by the way, went out yesterday to preach down at the Common? Did you go in the rain? Backsliders.
No, just kidding. Well, normally on Saturdays you go. How many people have been? And when you hear the word preached, and you're preaching it, and people don't respond right away, it's okay.
We can't just pack it up. Oh, they didn't hear our message. They didn't receive it with joy. They didn't receive it at all.
No, we just keep on proclaiming the truth. We keep on sowing. We are not discouraged. The disciples,
Jesus would tell them, basically with this parable, don't be discouraged as you sow the word. That was the first truth.
Now, that was more human side. Now, let's look at the second truth that will help us in evangelism. What I alluded to in my introduction, you must remember the second, the divine side of salvation, number two.
Different responses, number one. Divine side of salvation, number two. Here's my question.
Some of the soil was good soil. How did that soil become good? Did it make itself good?
Did it fertilize itself? Did it get its own weeds out? How did this soil become good?
In other words, where did the faith come from that was found in Mark chapter 4, verse 20? A long, long time ago,
Martin Luther said, we are justified by faith alone. We stand reckoned in God's eyes by faith alone.
And then a man named John Calvin asked this question. Well, where did the faith come from? Who gave that faith?
If faith justifies, is that faith meritorious?
Is that faith from ourselves? Here's my question to you this morning. What is it that accounts for the fact that anyone who is not a
Christian is now a Christian? What accounts for your salvation?
When was it decided that you would become a Christian? These are amazing things. The answer is found in the doctrine of what we call election.
A good definition of election by Louis Burkhoff is quote, the eternal act of God, whereby he in his sovereign good pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, chooses a certain number of men to be the recipients of special grace and of salvation.
Was it a mistake for God to put election in the Bible? Oh, we better not talk about election. You know, that divides and especially don't want to tell those new
Christians anything about election. We'll save that till later. Like never. The Bible specifically and emphatically declares
God, if you're a Christian, chose you. He predestined you to be saved. It was
God's will, his own free will, determined that you were to be saved. And Spurgeon said, can you,
O rejecter, cast election out of the Bible? Would you be like the woman at the feet of Solomon and have the child rent in half that you might have half?
Is not election here in Scripture? And let's turn our Bibles to Ephesians chapter one for a moment and see that this doctrine is right there for us.
And it's there for a reason. We have, as one man said, the school of the
Holy Spirit, which is the Bible. And why would it be important? Isn't just some kind of esoteric thing?
No. Who would like to place a charge against God for putting election in the
Bible to these people at Ephesus? By the way, most of these people could not even read.
Many of them were new Christians. And out of the gun, Paul says, inspired by the spirit of God, you would you like to praise
God properly? You don't know anything about praising God properly until you start with the utmost praise.
And that praise starts with verse three is the umbrella. Blessed be
God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Because of what Christ has done, we have it all. But what's the first one? What's the first thing he decides to praise
God for in this great apostolic? Praise, just as he, verse four, chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.
What about election? Oh, it doesn't seem loving. It says in the end of verse four, in love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.
James Boyce used to be a pastor down at 10th Street, Presbyterian in Philadelphia, and he was overseeing the ministry of Bible study fellowship, which just doesn't go out to a certain brand of evangelical, but many different views and considerations.
And he was in charge of teaching Romans and making sure that people taught Romans properly. And he said, every time someone says to you, but what about election?
What about this? And what about that? He said, here, teacher is what you're to do. You're to tell your students to take their fingers and move that to John, Ephesians, chapter one, verse four, and to read that out loud.
Your tradition says this, you think this, you've been taught this, you don't like that.
But if you put your finger to Ephesians, chapter one, verse four, it says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
And there it is. God chose us by himself, for himself, to please himself, only consulting with himself, only answerable to himself for the praise of his own glory, so that no one should, what?
And a good way to start grappling with the idea of election is that God is the sovereign
Lord and creator. God is God. He does whatever he pleases, whenever he pleases, always as he pleases.
He is not subject or answerable to anyone. What kind of God is this? Blown out of the water is some kind of little pet
God. You just keep in your pocket at the right time. You need a blessing and kind of rubbing. You say, okay, bless me.
Here is the great God, God's eternal purpose.
We need this view of God. When we evangelize, we need to realize that God in eternity past has chosen certain ones.
And it is our job not to try to unscrew the inscrutable. Our job is to proclaim the truth to everyone.
One man said to an old Baptist minister, I don't like election. I don't like that.
And the Baptist minister said, I never thought you would. It is the pride crusher.
If you tell me your view of election, that God either predestinated or post -destinated, either
God looked down the quarters of time and saw no one who would come or that God looked down the quarters of the time and saw some good ones who would come and decide to pick the good ones based on your view, the right view or the wrong view.
I know a lot about you. I know you, how you worship. I know how you don't worship. I know how you think about God.
And I want to tell you today from the scriptures, this is so needed for your life, for ministry, for hope, for a proper view of God.
And it's most needed for evangelism. Without election, no one that you talk to is ever going to get saved.
We want to advise God. But Isaiah 40, 13 says, who has directed the spirit of the
Lord are as his counselor has informed him. Who tells God what to do?
Even if you think about this word, this may help as we think about the doctrine of election, the word grace, we throw grace around all the time, the word grace.
Do you know grace is a sovereign grace? As John Gershwin used to say, it's a redundancy.
He used to say it a little bit gruffer. It's a blessed redundancy. That all grace is sovereign grace.
Grace is God's utter generosity. Spontaneous, unselfish, as Mitten said, reckless, prodigal generosity.
Even if people are unworthy of his love and help, when you work, you get a wage.
When you win a competition, you get a prize. When you do something that would award you a good job, you get an award.
But when you can't earn a wage, you don't win, you have no recognition appropriate to what you've done with achievements, and you still get a gift anyway, that's a good picture of grace.
In other words, grace can be described like this. God helps those who help themselves. No. Romans 11 says, but if it is by grace, it's no longer the basis of works.
Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. When we think of grace, it should eradicate these other words out of our mind.
Words like should, words like ought, and words like obligation.
God should save, God ought to, God has an obligation, then that just destroys the concept of grace.
He chose us. Matter of fact, if you look at Ephesians 1, verse 4, he chose us in him.
It's a middle voice. It's always for himself, because he wanted to do it. Let me ask you this question.
Does Christ have the right to choose his own bride?
That's close, but let's just go to a little more Eastern context, the context that most of us aren't too comfortable with, and that is arranged marriages.
We kind of like to choose our own wives. We even have arranged marriages here at the church, and that's a better idea.
Does the Father God, the first person of the Trinity, have the right to choose the bride for the
Son, the second person of the Trinity? Does he? The answer is yes.
Election doesn't harm anyone. It's a gracious thing. Election doesn't cause anyone to go to hell, because election is unto salvation.
All deserve hell, true? God perfectly just would send all to hell.
That he decides to save some, we somehow don't like that? I loved what
A .W. Pink said. There are those who misrepresent the doctrine of election in this way. Here I am sitting down at my table tonight with my family to tea.
It's a cold winter's night, and outside on the street are some hungry, starving tramps and children, and they come and knock at the door and say, we're so hungry, sir, we're so hungry, and could you give us some food?
We're starving. Won't you give us something to eat? Give you something to eat? No, you do not belong here. Get off with you.
Now, some people say that is what election means, Pink says, that God has spread the gospel feast and some poor sinners, conscious of their need, come to the
Lord and say, have mercy upon me. And the Lord says, nope, you're not among my elect. Now, friends, that is not the teaching of the book or anything like that.
This is absolutely a false representation of God's truth. Now then, Pink says, here's the truth.
God has spread his feast. But the fact is no one's hungry and no one wants to come to the feast.
And everybody makes an excuse to keep away from the feast. And when they are bidden to come, they say, no, we do not want to go or we're not ready yet.
Now, God knew that from the beginning. And if God had done nothing more than spread the feast, every seat at his table would have been vacant for all eternity.
Turn to John chapter 6, if you would, and let's continue to develop this theme of the importance of understanding election when it comes to evangelism, because it's going to help us and encourage us.
But right now, we're just dealing with this doctrine that sadly is abused and never taught.
It's the doctrine of election. John chapter 6, verse 37.
We need to understand that it's the sinners who slam the door in God's face, not
God slamming the door on sinners faces. John chapter 6, verse 37.
It's an amazing chapter of the Bible. God must do the work.
John 6, 37, all that the Father gives me shall come to me. And the one who comes to me,
I will certainly not cast out. If you keep reading, go down to verse 44. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me what draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
You don't think this is divisive. How about verse 65? And he was saying, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father.
How does that strike you? How did it strike the disciples? As a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and they were not walking with him anymore.
They were too prideful. They were too self -autonomous or autonomous, offended by Jesus's words.
If we have the wrong view of election that man is in charge, that man decides, then why would they be offended?
They wouldn't be offended. But if God's on the throne and he says, these are the ones who can come to me, they all deserve damnation, but these can come and I especially love these.
That's the offended, offending doctrine. If you take a look at verse 67, Jesus said, therefore, the 12, you do not want to go away also, do you?
Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Peter could be saying, you know,
I don't really like what you're saying, Jesus, but you are God. There's no other way to go. I have no other option.
It strikes my pride. Other people walk away, but I don't have anywhere else to go, whether I like the doctrine or not.
I mean, this is breathtaking. Was Paul in error when he told
Ephesians church about the doctrine of election? Was Peter in error when he said right from the get -go,
I know you're suffering, and he writes in 1 Peter, but let me reassure you with something and comfort you with something.
God chose you. See, if we could understand monarchs,
I think it would be better. Would you ask a king if he understood the doctrine of election? White Cross cites the story of King William III and Bishop Burnett.
The prelate affected to wonder how a person of his majesty's piety and good sense could so rootedly believe in the doctrine of absolute predestination.
So, King, how could you believe in predestination and election? How could you? The I not believe in absolute predestination?
I could not believe in Providence, for it would be most absurd to suppose that a being of infinite wisdom would work without a plan for which plan predestination is only another word.
God has a plan, and he works that plan out. When did he work that plan out? Let's turn to Titus chapter one, and if you don't think this is breathtaking,
I don't know where else to take you. This is absolutely amazing. Let's go into the Trinitarian councils of God before time began, and let's see what happened.
God in his love and affection, he's by nature a savior, has determined before the world was created to save sinners, to save certain sinners, to save all those certain sinners.
Titus chapter one, with a long introduction here, Paul's letter to Titus. Paul, that's his
Roman surname for little. Paul, a bondservant of God, a slave or a doulos, one who sells himself into slavery for the work of another, and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Here's my ministry. Paul says, number one, my ministry is so that people are justified, that people come to faith, right there in the text, for the faith of the chosen of God.
I also have another ministry, Paul says, and that is not just justification, but sanctification, that Christians would grow.
First of all, that they'd be saved, and then they would grow, and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness.
So Paul says, I'm after justification, I'm after sanctification, and I'm also in the ministry for what?
Verse two, glorification, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.
Now if you're like me, you just read that, and you're off to the next verse. Now let's just stop here, and let it just sink in.
Selah, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.
Oh yeah, the promise between God and Lucifer. Oh yeah, the promise between God and Adam.
Well no, how about the promise between God and Noah? How about God and Abraham? Well, it just didn't seem to work out.
He's made a promise before time began, long ages ago, in eternity past,
God made a promise. To whom did he make the promise? Who else was there? 2
Timothy 1, 9 says, God has called us with a holy calling, in Christ Jesus, from all eternity.
And by the way, this is a God who doesn't lie, do you see that? The unlying
God, as Satan is the father of all lies, and people who follow
Satan, tell lies, here God is the unlying God, he never lies.
The God of Israel, 1 Samuel 15 says, will not lie. One man said this, quote, the plan of redemption for sinners did not come after men fell, but before man was even created.
The father showed his perfect love to the son, by promising him, now we're getting into it, here we have a
Trinitarian promise to save sinners before time began. Good thing, matter of fact, one man said that it was done before time began, because if God would have seen not everything happen in time, how would he have saved?
Now that's just an argument, it doesn't seem to make much sense, but here before time began, the father, the son and the spirit, one
God in essence and nature, promises to themselves, we're going to save sinners. Who would glorify and serve him forever.
The man goes on to write, the son's role was to be the sacrifice for the sins of the elect, so that they could be redeemed and brought to glory.
Before God provided the marvelous promise of forgiveness and heaven to sinful mankind, he had given a promise to his beloved son.
That is the promise of which Jesus reminded the father in his prayer on our behalf, John 17 24.
Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, in order that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou didst love me before the foundation of the world.
God has promised before eternity passed, that there is going to be a group of sinners that Jesus is going to die for, and they will come to glory.
God has promised it, and God by nature doesn't lie. God by nature is a savior. Only in the pastoral epistles,
God, our savior. And in the Greek it's mixed up, it's savior, our savior, God, the saving nature of God, before time began.
Now if all of you can just put that all together now and figure it all out and go home and explain it to your kids with alliteration, something's wrong.
You should be thinking to yourself, this is beyond me. This is kind of almost uncomfortable. How could this happen?
That's exactly what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to make you go, this is amazing.
I can't just walk away today going, where are we going to go for lunch? The lines are pretty long at the manor, aren't they, honey?
No. In the eternal counsels of God before time began,
He didn't have to save anybody because they were all going to earn His disfavor as sinners and rebellious.
Yet He decided to love them anyway. He decided to choose them, to put His favor on them, to say, before your destiny has even begun,
I have predestined you, I have loved you, I have set my affections on you before you're even born, before I've even created with the word the universe.
That is amazing to me. That is absolutely amazing. And you
Christian, if you're a Christian, you believe in election. It's just what your definition is.
Clearly in the Bible there are words like elect, chosen, for a nation, for knowledge. They're there in the
Bible. But do you have the election that's taught in the Bible, an election that God Himself chooses irrespective of person?
Or do you have the kind of election that's the man -centered doctrine that's promoted today that says, you know,
God chose me because I was special. God chose me because I believed. God chose me because I was better than my friend.
God chose me, God chose
Israel, and He chose no other nations, true or false. God chose some angels, but He didn't choose the other angels, true or false.
God chose some priests, the Levites to be priests, and all the other tribes, no priests.
God chose some to be prophets, like Jeremiah, but He didn't choose Elemas to be a prophet in the
New Testament. I went to, what store did
I go to? Stop and Shop on Friday, it was my birthday, and I thought I'd like to have some filet on my birthday.
So I went to the special spot in Stop and Shop. There was some premium filet here, and there was some not so premium here, and by the prices they all seemed premium to me, but it just...
I picked up one and had a couple in there, and I thought, ah, those look pretty good. Then underneath I saw two that looked better.
I'll take those instead. Election is simply a doctrine of picking out some out of a bunch.
That's all it is, just as I would do that, and I have the right to do that. It's the sovereign act of God choosing some individuals for salvation.
The question is not ever, why didn't He choose everyone? The question is, why didn't He choose...
He shouldn't have chose anyone based on what they're going to do. The eternal act where God, His own good pleasure, chooses some to give grace to, by definition, grace, and without election, no one would be saved, and the reason is because men are crooked.
Some people say this, God chooses yes, He wants you saved, Satan chooses no, for you not to be saved, and you cast a dividing vote.
If you were to cast a dividing vote, I already know how you would cast that vote, and there's not going to be any hanging chuds or chums or whatever they call those things.
What are they called? Chads. Oh, in Nebraska we call them chums. In Florida, they're chads.
The key, mark this, if you don't understand election, it's because of this reason, because you don't realize how utterly unable men are in their sin.
You don't understand how depraved men are, because if men are not depraved, then they can somehow come to God, but since they are, and they're spiritually unable to respond,
God has to come to save. Our guest speaker next weekend, please come,
Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, Robert Raymond said this in his systematic theology, and you tell me if it's true or false. Every part of man's being, his mind, his will, his emotions, his affections, his conscience, his body, has been affected by sin.
True or false? True. True or false? Because man is totally or pervasively corrupt, he is incapable of changing his character, or of acting in a way that is distinct from his corruption.
He is unable to discern, to love, or to choose the things that are pleasing to God. True, that's why
God has to say, I'm coming to the rescue, and the rescue was before time began.
Spurgeon said, if left to ourselves, the road to hell would be as naturally our choice as for a piece of inanimate matter to roll downwards instead of assisting itself upwards.
And R .C. Sproul's mentor, John Gershner said, alongside getting faith out of a heart that is utterly hostile and unbelieving, making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or getting blood from a turnip is child's play.
If you do a study sometime on the cannots of Scripture, let me just read them to you quickly. The cannots of Scripture, and you will see that God had to intervene.
His intervention, though, was before time. How about these for the cannots? Jesus said, truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born again, he what? Cannot see the kingdom, John 3. John chapter 6, verse 44, we already read that.
And no one can, he cannot come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Romans chapter 8, verse 7, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, for those who are in the flesh what?
Cannot please God. 1 Corinthians 2 .14, but a natural man does not accept the things of the
Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they're spiritually appraised.
God has to rescue us. It is a
God who loves, it is a God who forgives, a God who pardons, and he does it before we were even born.
He sets up the counsel to do that. Are you glad God's not deistic when it comes to salvation?
Winds everything up, and just hope you get in. Now we start looking at our friends that we evangelize to.
Do you know they can't save themselves? I sure wish he would respond better. I sure wish when I preach the gospel to him that he have some clue.
I mean I tell him about sin, and there's sin in his life, and I tell her about this, and I tell her about that, but she never responds.
Do you know what? She never can respond. She's responsible to respond, but she can't do it.
So what do you do? You just keep preaching to these people thinking, you know what, there's a
God. Matter of fact, an unlying God. A guy who before eternity passed has chosen some for salvation, and every one of those chosen ones, guess what, will believe.
That is amazing, and it is not their choice, and it is not your choice.
Whose choice is it? It's God's. There's a study Bible called Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, and it says this.
Matter of fact, I call that book, and I'm not ashamed to do it, because those mistakes are horrible. The notes are horrible, some true, but many horrible.
I call this Annotated Reference Bible, Dake's Mistakes, and that will help you. Just remember, if you see
Dake's, just be careful. I'll tell you, here's one illustration. This is what
God chose before the overthrow of Luther's world, that all the new race of Adam who accepted
Jesus Christ should be holy and without blame before him in love. It is this plan that is chosen for all believers, not the individual conformity of any person to that plan.
The final choice is left up to the individual and not God. All are called and chosen to become holy before God and love.
If they want to accept this plan and choice of God, but only those who meet the conditions will so be blessed.
And if Dake is right, then these many people will be going to heaven. On the flip side,
Acts 13 .48, and when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the
Lord, and as many has been pointed to eternal life, believed. They believed because the
Holy Spirit was working. People can't save themselves. That's why we need to give them the word of God.
Let me ask you this question. This should encourage you eventually, maybe not encourage you at the beginning. Was your salvation due to the person who was preaching to you?
They're a good preacher. It had an objection answered for everything that you said back. You know, where did
Cain get his wife? They knew the answer. You know, did Adam have a belly button? They knew the answer. They've got it all down.
They were presuppositionalists. They were not evidentialists, and they knew all the answers. Well, if it was true, then how could
God use us to do any kind of evangelistic preaching? But it's the counsels of God who save people.
He is the one, and when you stand before God on that great day, when you meet Him face to face, you will do nothing except boast in the cross of Christ Jesus.
You will not say, I'm better than this guy. I'm better than the other. I responded. God, you voted yes.
Satan voted no, and I cast the deciding vote. One man said from Ephesians chapter 2, it should be written above the
Christian, and that not of yourself, and that not of yourself. Whether it's the grace of God or the faith that we have in God, it's not of ourselves.
John Stott said, we will not be able to strut around heaven like peacocks. Heaven, and this is so good, this is what makes heaven heaven.
Heaven will be filled with the exploits of Christ and the praises of God.
We better be careful how we talk about our salvation, because salvation is from God. It's all about what God did to us.
Lest we be like in Judges chapter 7, when God said, lest Israel become boastful, saying, my own power has delivered me.
Romans 4 .2, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
The doctrine of election is one of the most crucial elements of evangelism that I could ever teach you.
There is no hope without it. If we have to rely on our own power and ability to convert sinners, no one will ever be saved.
If they have to rely on their own power to save themselves, no one would ever be saved.
Every single person that the Father has chosen and the Son has died for will believe.
You say, well, I don't like this doctrine of election, and it seems like if everybody is going to go to heaven, then why evangelize? No, because God, the great
God, has determined not only who will go, but how they go, and here's how they go, through prayer and through preaching. And every one of the great evangelists that you've ever heard of believe this doctrine, because that gave them hope.
When you go knocking on the door, you think, today might be the day I meet someone who God is drawing and God has set
His love on in the eternity past, and they respond. They can't do it, but God can. And so whether it was George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Robert Brainerd is the elder down at Newtown Bible Church, him too,
Spurgeon, William Carey, Adoniram Judson, they believe that God chose and they said to themselves, then
I need to go there and preach the gospel to these people. Faith comes by hearing a message about Christ. You say, well, it's difficult.
Of course it is. God said it. Our minds are sinfully tainted.
We can't wrap our minds around that. What if He didn't choose my mom?
Then what's going to happen? All these questions we throw out. If He didn't choose anyone, they're never going to make it.
How about this? Jesus with the disciples. All right, here's the 11 motley crew people, and I want you to go out and I want you to turn the world upside down.
How could they do it? They can't do it. Piper said that assignment was nothing short of overwhelming.
It was a case of 11 men against the world, of 11 relatively ignorant men of the most despised nation under the sun against all the power and the wisdom of the world.
That feeble, by human understanding, band was given orders to conquer the glory that was
Greece and the grandeur and might of the world spanning the Roman Empire. You say, well, oh,
I know what it is. I don't like election because what if non -elect people want to go to heaven? Well, that's it. God gives people what they want, and the non -elect never want heaven.
They don't like to be punished. They don't want to go to hell, but they don't want to go to heaven so they can praise and give honor and glory to Christ Jesus.
They don't desire Christ. They run from Him. They want the goodies, not the goodness. They want the Christmas presents, not the
Christ. One man said, to put it in the most blunt way possible, hellions are glad they are in hell.
Nobody is in hell against His will. Everybody there is glad that He is there. They do not want to be in hell, but when they know that the alternative to hell is to go to heaven with a pure heart, they would much rather stay in hell.
And I start studying this, and you know what I get? I don't want to go down to Connecticut to some jive -talking
Las Vegas gambling joint where there is the wonder of it all. I want to be with George Rawson who said,
I may not reach with earthly wings the heights and depths of God. This is too unbelievable to understand.
Or with the hymn writer who said, I sought the Lord and afterward I knew. He moved my soul to seek
Him, seeking me. This is where the rubber hits the road. This is the most pride -smashing doctrine that I know of, that salvation is all of grace, election is all of grace, that election is free.
And as Mike Horton said, when we give in to election, we finally give up on ourselves in the matter of salvation. I love to know that as I preach the gospel,
I'm going to run in to elect people, and I don't have to be concerned. That person seems kind of like a Christian.
They got a big E on their head. Luke got the other day at a 99 cent store some little, something he's going to get in trouble with,
I'm sure, is what it is. One of those little laser pointers. You know, those things that are good for your sister's eyes.
See what the iris really looks like up close. Good to shine up into airplanes when they're coming out of Logan.
What if we had to have one of those, and we'd have to shine it on people's foreheads? Is there an E or there isn't? Well, you know, there's not an
E, so I better bypass that person. We don't know who the elect are. God knows. But here's what we do know.
We know everything that God wants us to know. And here's what He wants us to know. That in the eternal decrees of God before time began,
God promised within the Trinity, He promised to Himself, that He would have His Son go ransom for Himself a bride.
The bride of the Father's own choosing. And the Son was glad to do it. And the Son was glad to lay down His life as a ransom for those many.
And in time, the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the Word and through prayer, quickens, redeems, regenerates those people that the
Father has chosen, and that the Son has died for, and they come to faith in Christ Jesus. That's how every person who's ever been a
Christian has become a Christian. I like that, because God's the one who saves, and He lets me in on His methodology.
He lets me be a preacher, and who am I? Who are you? Who are we when we go down on Saturday to proclaim the
Gospel to the people? When you evangelize, it is necessary for you to remember that God is sovereign, that God chooses, that God is the one who is in control.
I like this doctrine for many reasons. One is, who could ever come up with such a doctrine? How do I know the
Bible's true? Well, I don't know it's true because of all the reasons people use for canonicity and everything else.
Many things I agree with when they talk about that. But one of the reasons I know it's true is because, who could write a book that talks about the sinful state of man like it does?
And who could talk about a book who shows that God is just other? He's different, He's alien,
He does whatever He wants, and no one says, God, how could you? That's what I like.
Lloyd -Jones says, I wonder if we imagine that we can rise on the pinions of our little human understanding to the truth of this nature.
When we think we've got it figured out, in other words, we are simply betraying an astounding ignorance of the character of the truth.
We are finite. God is infinite. And He has told us in His Word that in love
He has predestined some. He has told us that He has chose us before the foundations of the world, not because we were holy and blameless, but that we would be holy and blameless.
I never go to bed at night thinking, I preached the gospel to that person who was in ICU. I preached the gospel to my friend.
I preached the gospel to my grandma. I did all these things I could, and if they go to hell and they don't go to heaven, how am
I going to live with myself? I never think that. I'm sad if people reject.
But I say to myself, Lord, You're Lord for a reason. You're the Lord of hosts for a reason.
And You have told me to preach this wonderful news that Jesus Christ saves sinners. He saves them on their deathbed.
He saves them when they're little. He saves them when they're older. He saves them 50 years after they've heard the gospel, like the guy who was over in England and heard
Flavel preach a sermon on forgiveness and is sitting on the ocean shores of Rhode Island 50 years later, remembers that sermon, and bows his knee to Christ Jesus.
I'm so glad that I don't say to myself, it's all up to me. What I am to do is to proclaim the gospel and say, here's a
God who can forgive all your sins. He's not going to change His mind.
He's the unlying God. He's determined this before time began. He doesn't say, well, you know, since you've done that, now how could
I love you? No, because it's all before time began. I love to proclaim that God.
That's the God we're to proclaim, the God who is subject to none, who receives no counsel, but yet somehow stoops.
He bends. He condescends. I guess the illustration will fall apart, but whenever I want to talk to little kids, what do
I do? I stand up on a chair and I yell at them. No, I don't do that.
Well, maybe I do sometimes. For counsel time, I do. You bend down, don't you?
If you're a big guy, a big strapping guy, or got a deep voice, and kind of just bend down, and you want to bring the kids close.
You want to have them come over, and you want to share with them a little bit. I always try to tell people I'm nicer out of the pulpit than in the pulpit.
So I try to, you know, I have a strategy, and here's my strategy. I want kids to be afraid of me when I'm in the pulpit.
The Word of God. But outside the pulpit, I want them to be able to come up and, you know, put their finger behind my head, or, you know, whatever, play around.
They'll only do it one time, but I want them to be able to have that. Kids coming up and sharing, and you just have to kind of get down on their level.
And to think that in eternity past, a God who would never have to stoop so low as to enter into the human realm, cloak
Himself with humanity. And the last verse we'll just look at quickly in Philippians chapter 2.
Here's what God did when He became incarnate. The second person of the Trinity cloaks
Himself with human flesh, and He comes down, as it were, on our level. He condescends. He stoops.
He's low. He's smitten by others, forsaken. He comes to Israel, and they say no.
And this is the God we proclaim. And we just proclaim this God and let God take care of the rest.
Philippians chapter 2 says it all. The context is so we treat other people this way.
But for the sake of the message today, verse 6 of Philippians 2, who, speaking of Christ Jesus, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.
But He emptied Himself. Well, what do you mean, emptied? Did He stop being God in any way, shape, or form? No. Emptying is described later in this verse.
Here's what it means that God would empty Himself. This is not a cup filled up. Taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself. He stooped. He condescended. He loved that chosen bride that His Father gave
Him so much by becoming obedient to the point of death. And not just any death, even the death on a cross.
Not that that hurts so much, but He bore the wrath of God for that bride to make her pure, to make her white, to wear a white wedding dress.
Verse 9, For this reason also God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, that's the name, to the glory of God the Father. And we just tell people, here's this great
God of the universe, and here's what He's done, and you look to Him and live.
Let's pray. Lord, these things I'm sure are a comfort to many, and I'm sure they're a difficulty to others.
Yet Lord, I would ask that Your Spirit today would help those understand that certainly it's in the
Bible, and certainly we are to bow when it comes to You being the King of kings and Lord of lords.
And Lord, may we see this great doctrine in light of Your kingship and of Your authority, and Lord, that we would see that it's only because of who
You are and what You've done before time began and then at Calvary that we could ever call You Father.
Thank You for Your Son, the One who died on our behalf, in our stead, in our place, who suffered for us, the
Lamb of God, that we could be saved. And Lord, help us to proclaim these truths to anyone who will listen and even to those who won't.
Lord, help us not get caught up in election trying to figure out who's elect and who's not. Lord, we'll never know until we're in heaven or we'll never know until people come to faith and will realize what
You've done in them in time certainly started in eternity past. And Lord, I pray that You'd help our congregation to know that You're God, King, and Sovereign and that You've told us to go preach.
We wouldn't need anything else, yet You've led us into the eternal workings of the Godhead before time began and we want to be, not how could
You, but we want to be with the attitude that is unbelievable, that is breathtaking. So Lord, may
Your Spirit work those things in our hearts because left to ourselves, we will be prideful, we will be rebellious, and we'll think somehow
You chose us because of something good in us. And we could never bow the knee properly.
Lord, for those who are here today who don't know Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord, I pray that they could see the utter godness of Yourself and realize that You're the
Sovereign King and that You would be pleased to have them bow the knee to Jesus Christ, the risen