Human Salvation

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, and today is part two of S. Lewis Johnson's message that we heard last week. I just love listening to S. Lewis.

God had really gifted him and perfectly made him to do what he did, teach seminary, preach. He understood Greek, had a lot of classical Greek training before God even saved him. And so today, you're going to listen to Samuel Lewis Johnson preach a very important Christian truth, part two.

And so if you'd like to find more of his sermons, and you can listen like I do eight or nine hours a week, go to SLJ Institute or go to Believer's Chapel in Dallas, Texas. And you might wanna be praying for me.

I'm working on trying to edit some of his material for a book, shopping for publishers, Samuel Lewis Johnson. Maybe my wife's favorite preacher too. No, it's not me. It's Samuel Lewis Johnson or to his friends, Lewis.

So today, part two on a very important Christian topic, S. Lewis Johnson.

Sovereign Love and Divine Election

Leads ultimately to an affinity to what we would call theological liberalism, that God loves everybody the same way. Scriptures do not teach that anywhere in all of the word of God. Now there are certain blessings that come to men and come to all men.

God exercises common grace to all men. He ministers to them in ways that could be called divine blessing. But when we talk about sovereign love, we're talking about something that pertains to a particular people, the people of God.

Let us not forget that God is love. And the same book that tells us God is love is the book that tells us God is light and God is righteous. So God loves in sovereign grace. Secondly, God elects in sovereign grace.

The passage we read in our scripture reading is Ephesians one, verse three through verse six. Listen to what Paul says here. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. God elects in sovereign grace. The three theories about God's election. I've spoken about this many times, so I'll just sum them up for you.

There are those, unfortunately, who believe that God loves those who do that which is right. He loves those who perform good works. Now, of course, if you read the Bible, it's not long before you run across denials of this.

The scriptures say a man is saved not through the works that he performs, but through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ on the principle of grace. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. So to say that God elects the good and defining good by human standards is again to go contrary to the divine word. Among Christians, there are two theories that often compete with one another.

One of them is that God chooses men on the basis of the faith that he sees that they will exercise. And so the picture is usually presented of a God who foresees the individuals who hearing the word of God will respond in faith.

And he then chooses those whom he foresees will believe. Now, if you just think for a moment, think for a moment, you'll see that cannot be true. In the first place, the kind of God who can look down through the centuries and gain in knowledge is not the God of all knowledge.

He's a God who increases in knowledge and being a God who increases in knowledge, he cannot be the true God who is omniscient. Furthermore, if he should look down through the years and see who will believe, and mind you, God is able to do that.

What would be the point of foreordaining them to the relationship with him? If he sees that they're going to believe in him, there is no point in foreordaining them to salvation. So in other words, if we think about that theory a bit, there are many other things that we could say about it and lots of fine points that we would need to talk about, but you can see that that is contrary to the word of God.

God does not gain in knowledge, he has all knowledge. The reason that God knows who will believe and who will not believe is because of his ultimate foreordination of those who shall believe. Now, if you think that is unfair, let us remember that everybody deserves eternal hellfire and condemnation.

And so for God to exercise his sovereign grace towards some is a manifestation of his sovereign grace. To leave others in their condition in which they stand rebellious toward him and to his word cannot be a matter by which we should blame God.

He loves his sin, he persists in sin, and even when he hears the gospel preached as I am preaching it to you right now, he rebels against that. And so when God offers the salvation to all men through his preachers, he doesn't respond, he doesn't want to respond, and he's left in his condition of rebellion.

Then if that is not true, then we must believe what the apostle says. He says that we are chosen in him before the foundation of the world, that we are predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, according to the good pleasure of his will.

So men are elected not because they're good, not because God sees that they will believe, but they're elected according to the good pleasure of his will. Put it another way, by divine sovereign grace.

That's what scripture says. Says it plainly, says it over and over again. And if you want to know who the strongest propagator of this doctrine is in the New Testament, it's no secret, it's the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

That's where the apostles learn their lessons from him as he interpreted the holy scriptures. You know, there is a famous children's book written by C .S. Lewis called The Lion, The Witch, and The Wartrobe.

And Mr. Lewis pictures an animal world held in the merciless grip of the white witch of Narnia. She's cast a spell over the land, which has the unhappy effect of making it always winter, but never Christmas.

Mr. Lewis had magnificent gifts. Only when Aslan the Lion and Savior King appears and sacrifices himself, does it emerge that there's a stronger power than that of the witch. There is what Lewis calls, and I'm quoting him, the deeper magic from before the dawn of time.

Deeper magic than the witch's magic. And listen to how he writes it. But what does it all mean, asks Susan, when they were somewhat calmer. It means, said Aslan, that though the witch knew the deep magic, there is a magic deeper still, which she didn't know.

Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back into the stillness and darkness before time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.

She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the table would crack, and then listen to these words, and death itself would start working backwards.

It's not only in the world of Narnia, that deeper magic from before the dawn of time operates. In scripture, as we read the word of God, we discover that eternal love existed before time, and that eternal love was set upon you and me in the family of God.

So election is in sovereign grace. If you want another passage to put by the margin of Ephesians 1, take a look at 2 Timothy chapter one, verse eight through verse 11. But thirdly, God calls in sovereign grace.

The apostle in Galatians chapter one in verse six says, with reference to the Galatians, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. And then in verse 15, he says, but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace.

God calls in sovereign grace. This is the divine summons to new life through the gospel. God making the unwilling willing. We all are by nature unwilling, but God works in the hearts of the people of God and transforms their unwillingness into willingness in his own mysterious and secret way and brings us who are unwilling to willingness.

The will that determines to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ is the will that has been determined by God. Now you can see from this that when we talk about the will, we are therefore denying that there is such a thing as a free will.

Paul states it very plainly. Remember the mind of the flesh is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Now, if we believe that the will is free and that we must have ourselves make the initial decision to respond to the Lord God, it's no wonder if we really believe that that we would be devising all kinds of methods by which we might persuade men's wills.

That's why Arminianism about which I was speaking tends to major on methods by which men can be persuaded. But if we really believed in the free grace of God, the sovereign grace of God, that God alone can change a heart and transform the will, then we are driven by that to God himself through Christ and the ministry of the word of God in the spirit.

And that is why in the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, there are often two different kinds of methods. One stressing human methods, human means of persuasion, altar calls, writing your name in books, raising your hands and meeting, singing 34 verses of a hymn that has only about six and so on.

All of those are reflections of certain theories concerning the way by which men come to God. But if you really think that salvation depends upon the Lord God and the working of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man, then you look to the Lord God as you preach his gospel and in faith and trust, you count upon him according to his promises to bring the word of God to bear upon men's hearts and wills and to make the unwilling willing in his own sovereign way.

That's why we don't have any altar call in believers chapel. When I go, they may have one, but they don't have one now. And that's why we don't have, you raise your hand in the meeting and that's why we don't have you sign a decision card.

And the only way in which you express your faith is to go to the oldest and say, through the preaching of the word of God, I've come to faith in Christ. I'd like to be baptized in water to give testimony as the Lord Jesus has asked believers to do.

So if that's your experience and you've believed, go to one of the oldest and say, you'd like to be baptized in testimony to your faith. Free grace alarms the careless sinner, lets him know he cannot believe anytime he wants to believe.

And it awakens the drowsy formalist who thinks because he's identified with the church, that surely everything is going to be all right. No, God is not that kind of sentimentalist who's touched simply by sentimentalism, but the gospel of the Lord Jesus is the most serious thing that a man could ever utter.

And the time at which we respond is the time that the eternal God himself has determined should come to pass. Maybe this is the moment for you. Maybe this is the moment of your whole life to which you have come.

And it's your time to submit to the ministry of God, the Holy Spirit. I hope so. Fourthly, God justifies in sovereign grace. In Romans chapter three and verse 24 and 25, the apostle states this very plainly.

He says, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.

Luther called justification by faith the article of a standing or falling church, that everything hinges upon the preaching of justification by faith apart from the works of the law. What does it mean to be justified?

Well, it means to be declared righteous by God. It does not mean to be righteous, for we are still sinners. It doesn't mean to be made righteous, for we are still sinners. But it means before the throne of God to be declared righteous on the basis of the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To put it according to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and this is surely in harmony with the word of God, this is what it says. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, we might add through the sacraments, which is what they have in mind, but by pardoning their sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone.

Not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them. They receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

That's good biblical doctrine, and true to the words of our Lord and his apostles. By believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are declared righteous before the throne of God and possess the righteousness that satisfies him.

What a magnificent thing that is. William Cunningham used to say, and I've often said this in this audience, he said, the righteousness of God is that righteousness which God's righteousness requires him to require.

And that's what everyone must have if he's to enter heaven, the righteousness of God. It's not a question of sentimentality. It's a question of, do you possess the righteousness of God? And that is the gift of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, grounded in the blood that was shed on Calvary's cross.

The Lutheran, R .C .H. Linsky, in speaking about this expression, justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, he says, this is pure, astounding, abounding, astounding grace. And when we think of it, we can sing, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress. Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed with joy, shall I lift up my head. Do you have that righteousness? Is it your possession? Can you say, I have been justified by God through Jesus Christ?

Adoption, Sanctification, and Final Glorification

Fifthly, God adopts in sovereign grace. Ephesians said that. Remember, in verse five and verse six, the apostle went on to say, after he spoke about divine election, he spoke about adoption. He said, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.

So Christ propitiated the holiness of God. And on the ground of that, men receive life, which expresses itself in faith, and then they are declared just by God and adopted into the family of God. Now, mind you, all of the people of God are de jure sons of God before they come to faith in Christ.

That is, they have already been made heirs, but they haven't experienced it yet. In fact, it's very much like heirship here. There are people sitting in this audience that are already heirs. Somebody has written a will, and the will has been duly recorded, and legally, they are heirs, but they don't have a thing.

De jure, they're heirs, but the time will come when they will be de facto heirs, and they receive the material benefits of that. Now, the Lord Jesus speaks of the people of God before they come to know him.

He said, other sheep I have which are not of this foal, them also I must bring. They're sheep. God said to Paul, before they had come, I have much people in this city, so go on and preach the word of God.

The Lord Jesus speaks about those whom the Father has given to him. It's possible someone has not even been born yet who has already been given by God the Father to the Son, and let me assure you, they will come, both into existence and into the knowledge of the Lord.

We are his children, and we, as a result, have his nature in part. We have his name, we're called sons of God, not Johnson, but sons of God. Time will come when I won't have to bear the burden of the name Johnson.

Son of God, how marvelous. I wouldn't swap it for Rockefeller. Who would? We have the Holy Spirit, and we have the assurance of divine love. Sixthly, God sanctifies in sovereign grace. There's a marvelous passage in 2 Corinthians 3, in verse 18, in which we read this.

But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Or to put it in another way, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so we are assured through the word of God that sanctification, which is by the word of God and through the ordinances and the experiences of life, is a work that is sure to be accomplished. And in fact, glorification, to which we look forward, is the ultimate proof of the completion of divine sanctification.

And, my dear friends, if you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you belong to him, the time is coming when there'll be a tremendous improvement both in your body and in your being. You will be like him.

Much easier to get along with, too. You will be like him. And that procedure is going on right at the present time. Every time you open up the word of God, Paul says, and you gaze upon the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as expressed in it, you are experiencing the transformation from glory to glory.

I love that old story that Hawthorne told about the little boy who kept looking at the great stone face. Some of you, no doubt, have been to that mountain and you have seen the great stone face. But this young boy in New England heard a legend that there would someday come to their little village someone who looked like the great stone face and the village would be blessed by it.

And so, as a little child, he would go out and sit and look at the great stone face, that mountain image. And as a young man, he continued to do the same. As the years went by, he still.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.