Election

Okay, so tonight we're talking about election. And election is not something to do with politics.

Election, if you've never heard of it before, has to do with God choosing, before the foundation of the world,

God choosing those whom he desired to save. And so, our statement of faith presents it this way.

The salvation of humanity is fundamentally the work of God. Before the foundation of the world,

God unconditionally elected his people, setting his affection and grace upon them.

In love, God predestined each of his elect for adoption. Faith is a gift of grace that is given by the mercy and pleasure of God according to his own purposes, so that no one may boast.

Because of humanity's pervasive sinfulness, apart from the intervention of God, humanity cannot choose of his own accord to worship

God and pursue righteousness. God's sovereignty does not diminish human moral responsibility and accountability.

Right. Do you believe in predestination? Was the first thing the brother asked me as I walked into the church building.

Well, we have to believe in predestination, because the word is right there. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.

This is King James, that was back in the day. That was my unsuspecting answer. And with a frown now, he said,

So you believe that God predestines people to burn in hell? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And he turned away. And he, with his family, and a number of other families, decided to leave the church.

And never came back. What sparked it all was an expositional series on Romans.

And we were in Romans 9. The problem this brother was having was with the clarity of Scripture on the subject of predestination.

He knew Romans 9. He did not want it preached, because it clearly taught something he did not personally feel comfortable with.

His question was not, What do you believe the Bible means when it says predestination?

It was, Do you believe in predestination?

I quoted Scripture, which served to say, Everyone who believes the Bible believes in predestination.

The real question is, What does Scripture say about predestination?

So, there's common answers that people give to that question.

The most common one, probably, is veiled ignorance. I say that because they will say,

Deuteronomy 29 .29, The secret things belong to the Lord. And yet, it's these same people that say these secret things belong to the

Lord, that they don't get the whole verse, where it says,

But what he has revealed is for us and our children that we may obey all the words of this law.

And it seems always those people who say the secret things belong to the Lord, they always have a knack for holding strong opinions about how

God couldn't do this or that in predestination, or how he wouldn't do this or that in predestination.

So, it seems they know quite a lot of things about how God works, but they say the secret things belong to the

Lord. If it is so secret, how do you know so much about what

God does or doesn't do, can or can't do? Now, when talking about God choosing people before the foundation of the world, there's also other answers that are given.

There is what's called corporate election. And, basically,

God chose Israel as a nation, not just individual people, but as a nation, out of the rest of the nations of the world to be his treasured possession.

And he did that for them to receive privileges, and in the same way, God chose the church collectively as a body to salvation.

However, if you just look at that and think about that, if God chose a bunch of people and said, you're going to be saved, that huge sea of people contains individuals.

So, you get right back at the point where the election of the many still requires the election of the individual.

So, corporate election to salvation really says nothing. There's also another view, and that view, by the way, for all that George Ladd is good for, that was his view.

There's another view that says that we are elect in Christ, the elect one.

So, Jesus Christ is the elect. But then, you don't become elect until you get saved.

He's the chosen one and precious, according to 1 Peter 2 .4. So, when you come into Christ, into union with him at conversion, you then become elect too.

The same is done with predestination in Ephesians 1 .5. They say that we are predestined for adoption as you come into union with Christ.

However, 2 Timothy 2 .10, Paul's talking about his labors for the gospel, how he's in chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound, it's not chained.

And he's saying, he does all these things, therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

So, the elect aren't saved yet, and he's doing what he's doing, going out preaching the gospel, getting persecuted, going to prison, and heralding the word of God, and he does all of that, day in, day out.

Fighting with beasts at Ephesus, and whatnot, because God's chosen people need to get saved.

So, people can be elect, and not saved. There's latent flowers, robust,

Arminian, nowadays, believes that God elects people for service.

People are chosen in the sense that they are chosen as instruments. Jeremiah and Paul basically say the same thing, that God set me apart from my mother's womb, and put me into this ministry before you were born.

I knew you, and chose you to be a witness to the nations.

Even the priests, the

Levites, were chosen to serve the people of Israel, chosen for service.

Well, that's not wrong. Those things are true. God does that. But this type of election isn't everything.

There's also to that of salvation. So, you can't just say that there's only choosing to service, and not the other.

You're basically using a highlighter for those parts of the scripture, but then you're blacking out everything else that talks about God choosing people to be saved.

Now, John Wesley's view was that God predestined salvation to be available.

God predestined that there would be this amazing salvation that would be available to all people, so that whosoever will may come and believe.

He predestined the means to salvation, but he didn't actually predestine people to be saved, to come and benefit of that salvation.

However, people are the subjects of predestination to salvation.

Now, we'll talk about how broad, really, this word predestination is. It's not just something that has to talk about people being saved, but that there's more to it than just that.

And then there's the most common, probably the most common, or second most common, which talks about conditional election.

This, by Dave Hunt. Dave Hunt went to be with the

Lord, I think, last year, or something like that. But basically, the thing is, is that when it talks about the foreknowledge of God the

Father in our being predestined, God foresaw who would choose him, and God chose to then save them based on their reaction to the gospel.

So God saw what we would do. He knew everything that would happen.

And he knew who would accept him and who would reject him. And so he decided, then, that these ones are my chosen ones, who had already chosen him.

However, scripture says in Acts 13 .48, as many as were appointed to eternal life believed, not as many as believed were appointed to eternal life.

As many as God had ordained to receive eternal life, they believed.

Not as many as believed God then ordained to receive eternal life.

John Calvin, and I'm not defending Calvin tonight, I'm defending what scripture says.

What do we hold to concerning this subject out of the

Bible? But John Calvin, a brother and a good man, a godly man.

If you read his institutes, you read the preface that he wrote to the king.

It was King Louis, the French king. You see how he really wants to defend the

Bible, and how he's defending it against Roman Catholic critics and persecutors of the church.

And how he wrote his whole books that he did was for the sake of defending

Christians from persecution. Calvin said, we indeed ascribe both pre -science, that means to foresee something, to know something beforehand, pre -science and predestination to God, but we say that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former.

So God predestines not because he foresaw what would happen, but he foresaw because he predestined.

And Augustus Strong said plainly, epithely, election proceeds rather from foreseen unbelief.

God, if he's going to save people, and he's going to choose to save them, he's going to do so because he knows beforehand that we are going to be unbelievers and dead in sin and have nothing to give to God, would not accept of his invitation.

So election proceeds rather from foreseen unbelief. Now, those are the most common answers that people will give.

And this is something that is a heated debate, not just something that's a new heated debate, but people will get angry and be fuming and be furious and call you names and split churches over this and will say you are not

Christian. The other side will say they're not Christian. This is something that's huge. But our answers are as follows.

The salvation of humanity is fundamentally the work of God. Before anything else is stated, this needs to be known.

Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Psalm 38, salvation belongs to the

Lord. Psalm 37, 39, the salvation of the righteous is of the

Lord. Jonah 2, 9, spit out of the fish. Just before that, the acknowledgment that he makes before he's spit out, his salvation belongs to the

Lord. This is of the Lord's doing from beginning to end.

Salvation, deliverance from sin and its consequent doom, is not something that man had planned.

It's not something that we worked out ourselves.

It's not something that we even desire until God gives it to us.

God puts that taste in our mouth to actually desire to be saved and see that the

Lord is good. It's something that we couldn't do in our own powers.

Deliverance must come from God. He made us. He put breath in our lungs.

He regulates our every heartbeat. We are not wise.

We are foolish. When God comes to Job, and Job has been accusing

God of injustice the whole time, not the whole time, but about half the time, accusing

God of injustice in the way that he has dealt with him, God doesn't give

Job an answer to his question of, this is why

I did this. But rather he says, this is who I am. Who are you? Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

Salvation is something that is from first to last, must be from God.

It is in God's court to offer any kind of deliverance from the plight that mankind has brought upon himself.

And so that must be stated very clearly right from the get -go.

If that's not accepted, then there's nothing more that really can be said.

It's not just that God made a salvation available. It's that God works deliverance for his people.

God saves, and part of that salvation we'll see is delivering from unbelief.

So he must actually work salvation in such a way he gives us faith to turn us from our unbelief.

So that's the preface. The major premise that we're saying is before the foundation of the world,

God unconditionally elected his people, setting his affection and grace upon them. In love,

God predestined each of his elect for adoption. Now, you have to hear that we're echoing Scripture.

This is part of Scripture in what we're saying.

So we're going to go through a few different places that really talk about the main places of the

Bible that talk about predestination and election to really see what does the

Scripture say. Does what we have said, does that hold weight? Does that hold water?

Ephesians 1, 3 -6. Paul starts out his letter.

He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

And then verse 11, In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Now, what's being said here? Does the above statement that we've said is in our statement of faith, does that accurately reflect what's being said in Ephesians here?

What's happening in Ephesians 1? There's election, choosing unto holiness and blamelessness.

He didn't choose us because we were blameless or holy. He didn't choose us because we had given a good fruit in sanctification and God had seen that we had made the right choice.

He chose us because we were unholy and he was choosing us for holiness. It says that he predestined us unto adoption as sons.

We were not children of God before. He chose us for that. He predestined us for that.

And that word predestination is, it's partly, part of the word is where we get the word horizon.

Pro horizo. There's a limit placed.

Just like the horizon, you see the sunset, you see the edge of the world from what we can see in our perspective.

The horizon, it's a limit. And God delimits and designs who will receive salvation.

This is what he's doing. He's limiting us believers, we're believers now, weren't then, but unto a certain benefit.

These will receive adoption as sons. So that's the what, the when.

It says before time, before the foundation of the world, who was there? Only God. Only God was there.

Nobody else was there. We didn't have a part to play in it. Who? God. And then when it comes down to us, it is saints.

Believers. The ones he's writing to. Those who have, according to verse 14 and on, they've believed the gospel.

They heard the gospel. They believed the gospel. They were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

And it's plural and singular. In verse 12 and 13, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the

Holy Spirit of promise. Now, for the promised Holy Spirit, that's not a collective seal.

That's something, it's not just when we come together as a church, we have the

Holy Spirit. Each individual needs to hear the gospel, needs to believe.

Each individual receives the Holy Spirit. And so each individual was predestined.

How does God do it? Well, it's by God's will. It's according to his purpose.

It's according to his own counsel. Nobody else got in on that counsel. It's all

God doing. Nobody else has any other say in it.

It's what God is doing, and it's in love. It's not malicious. It's not cold.

It's not mechanical. It's not God just choosing.

It's not choosing because he has to. It's choosing because he wants to in love. And why?

It's for God's glory, for the praise of his glorious grace.

When we think about God choosing people, God doesn't owe anyone anything.

If I came home, I had cookies from work. It's not like I owe these cookies that I have to my family to give to my children.

If I want, I can give those cookies to them. Really, if I want to,

I can give them to one and not all of them. It is

God's will to actually give salvation. Mercy is undeserved.

He doesn't need to save anyone. God doesn't owe anyone anything.

So that's Ephesians 1, Romans 8, 28 through 30. Romans 8, 28, we must know this one.

This is a comfort at all times. And we know that for those who love

God, all things work together for good, or it could be said

God causes all things to work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

For, so this is why, those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his

Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those whom he predestined, he also called.

And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Now, what is going on?

Predestination unto that good. What's that good that it talks about in verse 28? All things are working together for good.

What's good? Verse 29, conformity to the image of the

Son. When does that happen? In glorification, verse 30. Okay? Called, justified, glorified.

That's when we'll be fully conformed to the image of Christ. What's happening in our lives at any given point in time, if you are a

Christian, was meant by God to make us more and more like Christ until that climax in glory.

That's what God predestined us for. When did this happen?

When did he foreknow and predestine? Well, it would have to be before all things.

If he's working together all things for good, and believers have been around since the beginning of creation, basically, after Adam and Eve sinned, then it would have to be before all things.

Who? Well, God, of course, in the context. And in verse 29, those whom he foreknew.

It doesn't say what he foreknew. It doesn't say that he foreknew that they would believe or foreknew that people would make the right choice.

He foresaw that they would come to Christ. It's not what he foreknew.

It's whom he foreknew. Okay? And that's important because when he foreknows someone, he is, as we're saying here, he's setting his affection and grace upon them.

He's purposing that we would be in relationship with him, just as Adam knew his wife

Eve, and then she bore Cain. Okay?

There's more to knowing than meets the eye. Amos 3 .8,

you only have I known of all the nations of the earth. Well, God knows all things.

He's in relationship with that specific nation, Israel, that he chose. In Genesis 18, when he says to the two angels attending him, have

I not known Abraham that he may command his children?

In righteousness and justice, I think it says. But known him that he may.

God is in relationship and affects something. How? This is

God's purpose. We're called according to his purpose. Why? It's for the sake of his love.

Verse 39, nothing else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

Lord. His motive for all of this is love. Love for his son, that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

Love for those whom he foreknew, that we would be partakers of this. Romans 9, very quickly, what's going on in Romans 9?

If you read Romans 9 to 11, the main thing is, the

Jews who believe are so few that one might think God is being unfaithful to his promises to the patriarchs and has cut off Israel from salvation.

Paul says, no, no, no. God is faithful to his promises by saving those whom he has chosen from within the nation of Israel and joining believing

Gentiles in on it. The whole context has to do with salvation.

We're not going to get into another tangent here, but just quickly to say, it doesn't have to do with land promises.

It has to do with being saved. And the point is, it's all about God.

God does it. It's not dependent upon man whatsoever. If it's grace, then it's grace and it's not works.

If it's works, don't even mention grace. So very, very quickly,

I'm just going to get the very key texts here in Romans 9.

We could go starting verse 10.

And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told, the older will serve the younger, as it is written,

Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. People will say, well, in the context of the Old Testament, Jacob and Esau were just nicknames for the two nations that came from them,

Israel and Edom. And so they will say two nations were in her womb.

That's when the thing was said. How is the apostle using this here?

There was a distinction made between the two, the two twins in the womb of Rebekah.

Before they had done anything good or bad, there was a distinguishing grace that God set his love on one and not the other.

And the reason why that interpretation is correct, because listen to what he says next.

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means.

What you will hear from those that hold the opposite view of what

I'm saying here is they will listen to this and you don't even have to give them an interpretation.

You just read the scriptures to them and they will say that's not just.

If you're agreeing with the people that Paul has been arguing with, up until the point he writes

Romans and he knows their argumentation, then you're on the wrong side. He knows that people are going to have a problem with his teaching.

They're going to say that it's unjust for God to do that. That's why he says to them, what shall we say then?

Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion, so then it does not depend on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

Basically, God can do whatever he wants. He can dispense his mercy or not.

It's up to God. For the scripture says to Pharaoh for this purpose,

I have raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

Do we care about God's name? It's about God. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

You will say to me, so he calls out what the other person's thinking. Why does he still find fault?

Why does God find fault with his creatures? If he hardens them, how can he call them responsible for who can resist his will?

Listen to how Paul answers, and it starts with actually,

O man, in the Greek. O man, and that's the point, that's where we need to accept our place as.

O man, who are you to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to the molder, why have you made me like this?

Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, listen to God's grace here.

This is his common grace, his kindness in time to people that deserve hell.

What if he has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

And we're talking about people here. God endures with patience people that are ultimately going to go to hell.

And he does this in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

In the text, do you see anything in there where anyone merits

God's favor? Do we merit God's favor?

There's what? There's vessels of mercy prepared for destruction. Do we deserve destruction?

Absolutely. And then he says there's vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Vessels of mercy. This is the astonishing part. Not that God hated

Esau, but that he loved Jacob. Not that God has made vessels for wrath.

That's not the astonishing. That's not the sickening. That's not the crazy part. The astonishing part is that God has actually decided to make vessels of mercy so that he could actually share the glory of being in fellowship with him for eternity.

That is a wonder of wonders. So, going on in Romans 9, we're going to skip over actually to Romans 11.

Very quickly, he says these...

Oh, no, no, Romans, not Romans 11, sorry. Romans, yeah,

Romans 11, beginning of Romans 11, verse 4. But what is God's reply to him, to Elijah, that is,

I have kept for myself 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too, at the present time, there is a remnant, and I think he's talking about remnant within the nation of Israel, chosen by grace.

But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.

As it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.

So, it is all God that in his willingness to save chooses to set apart some, but not all, for salvation.

God is not beholden to anyone. And it's in his marvelous grace, it's to the praise of his grace that he saves.

So that at the very end of Romans 11, Paul rightly can say in 33 and on,

Oh, the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways.

Inscrutable means it's past finding out. We're going through the scriptures and we can say, this says the

Lord. But at the same time, we have to say, Lord, this is too much for me.

This is too wonderful for me. I can't comprehend it. Verse 34, For who has known the mind of the

Lord, or who has been his counselor? Now we're going to get into this. Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?

We don't give a gift to God. Okay? We don't act first and then he reacts to us.

What do we have that we've not received? If you believe here tonight, it's because God has done a mighty and marvelous work in your heart to cause you to actually accept the testimony from his mouth and trust in Christ alone.

That's God -given. That's not something we gave to God. For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be glory forever. Amen. I could go into 1 Peter 1, 2, where it talks about elect according to the foreknowledge of God the

Father. And people like Dave Hunt would say that, you see, it's according to his foreknowledge. So he foresaw and then he chose us.

But what is foreknowledge? Foreknowledge in the book of Acts is a part of God's planning and foreordaining things.

The death of Christ, the pinnacle of history, did that come just because God foresaw what would happen?

And he just put his son in the right place? I have to take maybe more time on this than I thought.

Acts, just to sufficiently quote it, Acts 2, verse 23, this

Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed.

Now, if God has a definite plan, and you're saying that foreknowledge is just him foreseeing what happened, then really, if it's like that, then his foreknowledge has to be dependent on his definite plan.

If God is saying, I'm going to put something into effect, I am going to offer my son as a sacrifice, and he's going to be delivered up,

I'm going to deliver him up to the hands of lawless people so that they will kill my son, that's my definite plan.

Then what God is foreseeing, if that's what you're saying is foreknowledge, then he's actually foreseeing what he's already planned.

Either way you slice it. God foreordains, and he does this for salvation.

If he did this for his son, and it was no injustice to him, but rather he delivered him up so that he would die and provide salvation for his people, then he does this as well with his people that they may receive that salvation.

In Acts 4, listen how united the church was when they're praying.

In Acts 4, 27, this wasn't a question to them back then. This wasn't something where there was a debate between Calvinism and Arminianism.

They were unified. For truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

It's something that God is sovereign over everything, and yet we're not puppets.

God is completely sovereign that he has this day planned, and every one of our thoughts are laid out before him, and every one of our intentions, and everything is all gathered together before his vision, yesterday, today, and forever, and yet he's planned it all.

This is baffling. So, God definitely does work salvation.

He does so by choosing to save. He could have saved no one. He could have provided salvation for nobody.

Adam and Eve could have sinned, and God could have just said, okay, you and all your posterity and your loins are done.

But God decided to show mercy to some.

Faith is a gift of God's grace that is given by the mercy and pleasure of God according to his own purposes, so that no one may boast.

Because of humanity's pervasive sinfulness, apart from the intervention of God, humanity cannot choose of his own accord to worship

God and pursue righteousness. Romans 3. Humanity's condemned

Jew, Greek, everybody. Nobody is good.

Verse 9. We've already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, under the dominion of sin.

As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one, listen to this, understands.

No one seeks for God. I've had conversations with brothers, genuine brothers in Christ, that have said,

I decided to pull the car over and to listen to the radio, or I decided to read the

Bible, and I was searching. That's why I'm saved.

God says, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

No one does good, no, not even one. 1

Corinthians 2. The natural man, the one that's unsaved, does not understand the things of the

Spirit of God, cannot comprehend them. They are foolishness to them. When we go out to tell people the gospel, we're telling people, and we need to acknowledge this already, these people are dead and deaf and blind, and they will not,

I can't just persuade them into the kingdom. I will do what Paul did, and preach, and teach, and persuade, and reason, and go to the scriptures, but ultimately, everything is resting upon God giving them eyes to see, and ears to hear, and a heart to understand, so that they may turn and be forgiven, and the

Lord would heal them. There's nothing in my power, nothing in their power.

If you're here tonight, you're unsaved. There's nothing in your power that you could do to turn to God, but it is all dependent on God.

Yet at the same time, God commands all people everywhere to repent. Faith is a gift.

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.

It is a gift of God. So here Paul says to the Philippian jailer, you must believe. There to the

Ephesians, faith is a gift. Both are true. Both need to be taken together.

God commands all people everywhere to repent, Acts 17. And yet, repentance is granted in 2

Timothy 3. Correct your opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance unto life, or repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, rather.

All of these things, God works together. They're not contradictory.

Those things work together. God is sovereign 100%. He's in control of every event in history.

He's in control of how long we live. He's in control of who gets saved and who doesn't.

He doesn't need to extend that to everybody. He's in control of everything. And yet, we have to take it all together that we do have a responsibility.

God holds us accountable, and we actually do what we want to do. God isn't forcing us to do something.

We're actually doing what we want to do, okay? Spurgeon was asked to reconcile the two truths that are expressed by Jesus in the

Gospel of John. Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.

Here we see the Father giving people to his Son, and people coming to his Son. God's choice and human choice.

In one sentence, how Spurgeon was asked, do you reconcile these two truths?

How do you reconcile these two truths? His answer, I never reconcile friends. God's sovereignty, man's responsibility, those things are not contradictory.

Those things are complementary. Those things are in God's mind. Those are things that work together.

Okay? And just to, we have to be baffled at how

Scripture does this, and we just have to confess it. We don't understand it, but we confess it to be true.

We go to Matthew 11. What did Jesus do in Matthew 11? You follow his train of thinking, okay?

In verse 20, I'm going to summarize this. He condemns those people in the places he went to preach because they didn't repent, okay?

He condemns them. He holds them accountable. He condemns them. But what does he say?

He says, if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

Now, I just want to throw this out there. They would have repented if those works were done there. It was up to God to do those works there or not.

He chose not to, okay? I just want to put that out there. But, okay, so he condemns them that didn't repent.

And then, what does he do in verse 25? At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for such, both those things, was your gracious will, okay?

They're condemned because they're rightly condemned. They didn't believe the gospel. Thank you, Father, for hiding those things from them and revealing them to little children.

That was your good pleasure. Then, he says, verse 28, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, okay?

We don't just confess, verse 28, just come to me broadly whosoever will.

We do confess that, but we have to say everything before. Not only is there the open offer of the gospel, the free offer of the gospel, but there's also the inner working of God here that Jesus rejoices in, where some are rejected, some are elected.

And those who didn't repent are accountable to God for their own decision.

And we have to just... It's written there. Do we just have to read it and believe it and just say,

Lord, this is marvelous. This is a mystery to me. And I can't...

I can't put all of these things together, but I will worship you,

O God. For how you are sovereign over these things. Sovereign over everything.

Nothing's outside of His control. Our responsibility is not outside God's control.

Our limited freedom to make choices that have real consequences, that's not outside God's control, okay?

If anyone does anything evil, that's not outside God's control. God didn't make a person sin.

He didn't make them not repent and reject the gospel. They didn't want

Christ the whole time. Just as in Psalm 105, it talks about how

God turned the heart of the king to hate his people. God didn't put hatred in his heart.

God let that king do what he so wanted to do.

And his restraint was lifted, just as when he hardens

Pharaoh's heart. And he said he would before anything ever happened. He said, I will harden

Pharaoh's heart in Exodus 4. He's giving

Pharaoh over to his sin. Okay, how do we use this?

We should adore the love of God, the marvelous love of God, that it is out of his mere and sheer love that he sets affection upon people.

We should glory in that. Okay, this is from Spurgeon's Our Own Hymn Book.

And they had a section right on there about predestination. And there is a couple songs in there.

And there's a couple Isaac Watts hymns. But this is one of them from John Kent.

"'Twas with an everlasting love that God his own elect embraced before he made the worlds above or earth on her huge columns placed.

Long ere the sun's refulgent ray primeval shades of darkness drove, they on his sacred bosom lay loved with an everlasting love.

Then in the glass of his decrees Christ and his bride appeared as one, her sin by imputation his, whilst she in spotless splendor shone.

O love, how high thy glories swell, how great, immutable, and free!

Ten thousand sins as black as hell are swallowed up, O love in thee.

Loved when a wretch defiled with sin, at war with heaven, in league with hell, a slave to every lust obscene, who living lived but to rebel.

Believer, here thy comfort stands, from first to last, salvation's free, and everlasting love demands an everlasting song from thee.'"

That God chooses one is amazing grace. That he chose an innumerable multitude to be saved and doesn't force anyone against their will, but gives a will to believe is amazing grace and we should respond in praise.

Any questions? This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.