King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but King and Lord over man's will? (part 2) - [1 Corinthians 1:24-25]

They kiss calves.

They kiss cows.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Hosea chapter 13, where it was said of people

who worship a false image of Yahweh, they're kissing a cow.

They're kissing a cow.

Hosea chapter 13 sets the scene.

The kingdom has been split.

The northern kingdom, the southern kingdom.

And Jeroboam is the king of the north.

Problem is, if you want to go and worship, you've got to go to Jerusalem, which would be in the south.

And you'd lose your people.

So how can you, as a wily king, keep your people in the north?

Well, you can't have a new temple there.

So you have a cow manufactured in Dan, and you have another cow manufactured,

and you put it in Bethel.

And instead of going all the way down to Jerusalem to worship, you can go to Yahweh, God, and worship

Him, except He now looks like a cow.

If you'd ask Jeroboam, Jeroboam, that's idolatry, Jeroboam would say,

no it's not, that's Yahweh the cow.

That's Yahweh the calf.

And we're not worshipping some idol, we're worshipping Yahweh.

It's like when we talk to people today, you can't worship those statues, that's false worship.

No, we're not worshipping the statues, we're worshipping God.

If you take a look at the passage in Hosea chapter 13, Hosea chapter 13,

it says in verse 1, When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling.

He exalted himself in Israel, but through Baal he did wrong and died.

And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves molten images.

Idols skillfully made from their silver.

All of them the work of craftsmen.

They say of them, let the men who sacrifice, this sacrifice of humans unto Baal,

let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves.

They kiss cows.

I'm quite convinced in evangelicalism today, the God that many people worship

isn't the God of the Scriptures.

It's more like a cow.

Oh, they'll say it's God.

They'll say it's a triune God.

Some will actually be believers.

But the God they worship is not the God found in the Scriptures.

You want to see the God who's found in the Scriptures?

Go to Hosea chapter 14.

Hosea chapter 14, verse 4.

This sentence in verse 4, Spurgeon said, is a body of divinity in

miniature.

This is theology in miniature.

If you want to take all the Bible theology about who God is, focus on this verse.

Spurgeon said, he who understands this verse

is a theologian.

You want to be a theologian?

You understand this verse.

You want to make sure you're not bowing down to kiss some cow.

I've been to different countries in Africa and India, and I've seen them worship and bow down and

kiss statues.

And we'd all say, that is horrible.

Well, I don't want to be the kind of person that bows down to a God who's not found in Scripture, but he's a

manufacturer of my own idea.

Spurgeon said, if you understand this verse, it's a body of divinity in miniature.

You understand it, you'll be a theologian.

And he who can dive into its fullness is a true master of divinity.

It takes you three years to go to seminary to be a master of divinity.

If you can get this, you'll be there, and you'll no longer bow down to kiss some kind of cow God who's

not found in Scripture.

A God who's just manufactured in your own mind.

Manufactured by the culture.

If you get this verse, you get it all.

Hosea 14, I will heal their apostasy.

And now here's the phrase I want you to get.

This is God speaking.

I will love them freely.

I will love them freely.

I will love them freely.

No compulsion, no external pressure, no inducements

found by anyone else by my own.

Free, sovereign love.

I will love sinners.

That's who God is.

We do something in our lives, and then we expect somebody to respond.

God with free, sovereign love loved these people, and he loves people today the same way.

I will love them freely.

We've had four children, and every time, Kim has been late in the

term and in pregnancy, and so it's about 10 days later, and we have to go in, and they'll say, all right, tomorrow you show up at

the hospital at seven o 'clock in the morning, and we will what?

Induce.

We will give an artificial substance that will start the contractions, and what they gave my wife, at least, was

Pitocin.

And we will induce labor.

Spurgeon says this.

If you'd like to understand God, if you want to grasp who God is, then you better

make sure you get rid of any kind of God that has a love for people that is induced by

who they are, what they've done, that there's no reason for God to love us.

Found in us, found in the environment, God has loved his people forever and for always

freely, out of his own free will.

Matter of fact, that verse there in Hosea chapter 14, verse four, that Hebrew word there,

is where we get the word free will offering.

You won't find free will in the Bible any place except for a free will offering, and used here.

I will of my own free will love them.

You don't understand the God of the Bible until you get this picture, that God with no inducements,

with no external compulsion, with nothing except his own good pleasure, loves people.

He doesn't look down some corridor of time to see what you might have done.

God's love is eternal.

He has loved before there's a corridor of time.

God is the eternal God.

He's the immutable God, and he loves people freely.

Perfect spontaneity, no restraint, no constraint.

It's a free love.

Growing up in the 60s, free love was something else.

Free love was with no moral restraint.

Free love here is the free love of God without any kind of constraint or restraint from

anyone or any person.

And when you get to heaven, you will not get to heaven and sing with the angels and the saints,

anything except, God, you freely loved me.

Because if you would, the angels would, this is just a hypothetical, but if you were to say, God, I'm here

because I believed, because I was faithful, I repented, I did all these things apart from you,

you kind of helped me along the way, and I did them, and I take responsibility for getting myself into heaven.

The angels would throw you over the gates of heaven if you would say something like that.

And I think that evangelicalism is kissing,

and that cow is a cow that says, that they say is God,

but it's a God who can't do anything without the permission of man,

bound by man.

Say, what does this have to do with 1 Corinthians?

It has everything to do with 1 Corinthians, because the reason why we're harping and going on and on

about the God who calls Christians is because you need to have the right view of God so you

worship the God of the Bible and not.

If you'll go to Israel with us, we probably this year won't go to Bethlehem, because when we go to Bethlehem, you go down into

this church, and you go down to this building, and then the very bottom floor, there's this star, and this

is the place where Jesus was supposedly born.

And it's just rubbed smooth with the lips and the saliva of

cow worshipers.

Bending down, bowing down, genuflecting down, kissing this star, kissing this, for what?

I don't know.

I just thought, I've had enough cow kissing in my life.

Tozer was right.

The most important thing about you is what comes in your mind when you hear the word

God.

And if you can get your arms wrapped around this revelation from God that says

God loves people freely, you'll understand God.

You'll understand His sovereignty, His immutability, His eternality.

God loves people freely.

And now let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter one, where we're focusing on this love

called in 1 Corinthians, the call.

The call, we say, oh, what you're calling in life, I'm a missionary, I've been called.

But when it comes to Paul and his New Testament epistle definition for calling, it's

God with free love, calling people to Himself and making them alive.

You say, pastor, you've been going on and on about this because you must think the call is important.

Yes, I do.

Just take a look at chapter one alone.

Have you ever connected the dots?

Chapter one of 1 Corinthians, verse one.

Paul, called by the will of God.

1 Corinthians chapter one, verse two.

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus.

What's the next word?

Called saints, called to be saints.

Verse nine, same chapter.

God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son.

And verse 24 of 1 Corinthians chapter one.

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom

of God.

The reason why some people worship trees and the other people worship the God who was

killed on a tree is because God called them.

The people who now say, I don't wanna worship trees anymore, I wanna worship my Messiah who was hung on a tree,

only do that because God called them out of His free

love.

He has loved them freely.

So that's why we're focusing on it.

That's why it's turned into an extended series.

My wife tells me that this is the church of the two -parter.

And so we're many parts to this because it's so crucial.

And you know, Paul, being at Corinth for 18 months would teach them of the free

spontaneous love of God.

I've loved them freely.

Paul says in chapters one, two, three, and four, we can't have division.

And if you think of the cross properly, you think of wisdom properly, you'll all think along the same line and

line right up underneath that thinking.

Unless God intervenes of His own free will with His own free love, everyone

would say to themselves, the cross is stupid, it's foolish.

Look at verse 22 before we get to our outline today.

First Corinthians 1 .22, for indeed the Jews ask for signs.

We want to seek some kind of child prodigy, some kind of, you know, make the mountain turn upside down.

We want some kind of sign, manna from heaven.

And the Greeks search for wisdom.

But Paul said in verse 23, but we preach, we proclaim.

This isn't sharing, this isn't kind of talking.

This is, here's my message to you.

Town crier, hear ye, hear ye.

Christ, the Messiah, what?

Crucified.

And the emphasis in the Greek is on the word crucified.

The crucified Christ.

And how do these people respond without God calling them?

To the Jews' stumbling block and to the Gentiles' foolishness.

I mean, really, how are you going to be saved by someone who can't save himself?

How are you going to be saved by someone who Isaiah says was despised and forsaken of men?

This doesn't sound like a rescuer to me.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and like one from whom men hide their face.

He was despised and we did not esteem him.

Our sorrows he carried, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and

afflicted.

Oh yeah, that guy who just gets crucified naked on the tree.

He must have done something wrong because he's getting his due now.

How can anyone say the cross is now lovely, that Jesus is God?

Verse 24, but to those who are the called, called by God's free love,

both Jews and Greeks, Christ now, who used to be weak, is now the power of God.

Christ who used to be foolishness is the wisdom of God.

Because, verse 25, don't miss this, because the foolish thing, that is the cross, is wiser than men.

And the weak thing of God, the cross, is stronger than man.

You want to see the greatest exhibition of power in the universe?

It looked like Jesus was weak on the cross, but he was powerful.

So we've been talking a little bit about the call.

Today we'll finish our message, Lord willing, about the call, the effectual call.

Remember, when we preach the gospel, we give a general call.

Repent.

If you're not a Christian here today, you ought to repent of your sins.

You must believe in Christ Jesus.

You must believe in his provision made for sinners at Calvary.

Jesus Christ, who died for sins and was raised from the dead.

There is hope in no one else.

You must believe.

That is a general call.

And that was enough, by the way, for Adam.

Before Adam fell, only a general call was needed to Adam.

Adam, obey.

Adam, name these animals.

Adam, work in the garden.

That was fine.

But when the nature of Adam was corrupted by the fall, something more needed to be done.

You could not just tell Adam now, here's what I want you to do because he was unable spiritually to respond to God.

Oh, he could make decisions on what to eat and what to wear, but he could not do what God asked him to do because of the fall.

So now we have something called the effectual call.

The general call is repent.

People can say, no, I don't want to repent.

And now there's the effectual call where the Spirit of God comes along like with Lydia in Acts chapter 16 and

then opens the heart of the sinner.

And that's the call here in the New Testament epistles.

Every time in the New Testament epistles you see the word called, it's the second call, the effectual

call.

Here's a good definition of the effectual call.

According to A .A. Hodge, that is an exercise of the divine power upon the soul,

immediate, spiritual and supernatural, communicating a new spiritual life and thus making a

new mode of spiritual activity possible.

The repentance, faith, trust, hope, love, et cetera, are purely and

simply the sinner's own acts.

But as such are possible to him only in virtue of the change wrought in the moral condition of his

faculties by the recreative power of God.

Matthew 2 says Christ was called out of Egypt.

It's the same kind of thinking.

Jesus wasn't called out of the Egypt by someone going, Jesus, time to leave Egypt.

Everybody come.

No, it was the effectual call.

It wasn't just an invitation where God pulls, brings Jesus up out of Egypt.

He ushers him out.

That's the effectual call.

And so we started the series last week.

Just let me give you reasons why you should marvel at God, reasons you should worship God because of his

effectual call, that you should stand in awe of him.

The best way I could describe it, I guess, for an outline is with Roman candles.

Roman candles, fireworks.

Have you ever played with fireworks?

Lay on ground, light fuse, get away.

But it's fun to hold a Roman candle like that by the stick, you know, because you could, this was like pre -Star

Wars, you know, lightsaber kind of thing.

You could get the eight -shot Roman candle and you'd hold it and it would go, boom!

Now, I don't want you to pick up the things.

I don't want you to hold fireworks.

I don't even think you can buy fireworks here, can you?

Sparklers are illegal.

Okay, don't get me going.

I gladly submit to the sparkler rule,

externally.

Now, Roman candles aren't that big a deal now because we see these fireworks displays.

But I love going to hear people at fireworks displays.

I like seeing them, but I like hearing the people.

And the people do this after every big explosion.

What do they do?

Ooh, you guys.

So, you know, if this was another kind of church, I'd say, turn to the person to your left and say, ooh.

These could be several oohs, if you will, to stand back and look at God and to gawk and to gaze and say,

it's his free love.

He didn't owe it to anyone.

Grace, by definition, means he doesn't owe it.

We in evangelicalism are so caught up in works,

merit.

God can do this as long as we do that.

The first ooh, if you will, reason why you should marvel at God is, is that

effectual call of God teaches that God is sovereign over the human heart.

We dwelt on that a long time last week, that God is not going to be stopped

in his sovereign hand by sinful, finite man.

He does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with hearts to harden, our hearts to open.

For the will to stop God means that the will of God must be superior to God in

power or equal to God in power, and neither one of those could be true.

God does not bow to the will of man.

He does not kowtow to the will of man.

There's nothing greater than God, and therefore he is sovereign over the will.

Number two, I think we only got to one last week.

Number two, you should marvel at God because God's effectual call teaches that God is sovereign

over the salvation of sinners.

God is sovereign over the salvation of sinners.

Thomas Arnold said, the Puritan, the distinction between Christianity and all other systems of

religion consists largely in this.

You wanna know the difference between Christianity and every other religion?

That in these other religions, men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God

seeking after men.

That's right, God's sovereign.

Please turn with me, if you would, to James chapter one.

We're gonna go on a little detour on some of these marvels.

James chapter one, you need to get James chapter one, 17 and 18 down pat.

You need to turn there often and regularly, and so we're gonna take a look at whose will is responsible for

the salvation of sinners.

Whose sovereign?

And James is going to do something very interesting.

James is going to say, the way I want you to think about God's sovereign recreation of the human heart

should be thought along the same lines as how God made the world.

How did God make the world?

He made it freely, spontaneously, out of nothing, with no cooperation from

the stars.

And the way God makes the universe is the way God makes sinners, Christians.

Of his own free will, of his own sovereign pleasure.

He didn't have to do it.

He didn't owe them anything.

And look at how James does this.

Just earlier, people were saying, maybe I should blame God for my temptation.

And James says, don't blame God for temptation.

Everything good comes from God.

Verse 17, every good thing bestowed, and every, look at the supreme generosity, and

every perfect gift is from above.

God gives everything, holds back nothing.

Anything that you've received, you've received from God.

Coming down from the father of lights, just wonderful Hebrew -influenced Greek language,

with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

God's will alone creates the moon, the sun, the stars, and the universe.

As I just said a moment ago, no cooperation, no inducements, no constraints,

no have -tos, no musts.

God, out of nothing, creates with his word.

Verse 18, in the exercise of his will.

Now, you've read this before, but if you're like I am, and you stop for a second and

not read any farther, you'd anticipate, James say, by in the exercise of his will,

he made the sun and the moon and the stars and all these things he talked about in verse 17.

But now he changes.

In the exercise of his will, his free love, his sovereign love, he brought us

forth by the word of truth.

He creates the universe with the word.

He creates new life with the word.

His own sovereign pleasure, he does it, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among his

creation.

The word for choose in Greek is having purposed.

He chose, just like the creation of the stars.

There was nothing in the stars because they didn't exist.

And in God's eternal love, there was nothing in us because we didn't exist.

Yet he put his love on us.

His decree before the foundation of the world, according to Ephesians.

You see the text, verse 18?

He chose to give us birth.

He doesn't tempt.

He gives birth.

Divine fiat created the world, and by divine fiat, he creates new life in a

sinner.

That's why Jesus called that in John chapter three, everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Think of Lazarus, the same kind of thing.

Lazarus, come what?

Forth.

And as one scholar said, good thing he said Lazarus, otherwise everybody in that cemetery would have got up.

Lazarus, come forth.

By his own pleasure, by his own decree, with no inducements, no constraints, no restraints, no have

-tos, Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth.

That is a good physical picture of what's going on here spiritually.

Lydia, you're a pagan worshiper, come forth.

Be alive.

Paul, the Christian killer, be alive.

I'm so glad this is true, because it affects our relationship with the Lord so

we can trust him.

It'd be one thing to think, I know he loves me, but what if he's not sovereign in control?

I know he's powerful enough, but what if he doesn't control everything by his own will?

No, saints have always said to themselves, the sovereignty of God gives me comfort.

You say, well, I'm having a hard time with that.

Friends, let me just help you.

Jonathan Edwards had a hard time with that.

I've had a hard time with that.

Everybody who realizes they're not God, and they wanna have God constructed in their own way,

kind of a good calf -kissing God, and they say, but that's not the God, this is a dangerous God.

This is a God who sits on the throne and he does whatever he pleases.

It is hard because there are things in your mind.

How does that reconcile with my responsibility to believe?

What about there's evil in the world, et cetera, et cetera?

Here's what you do, and here's what helped Edwards.

Be resolved to believe what is in the scriptures, even if you can't tie things up in a nice, tidy

way.

It is a, maybe this will be the most important thing I say today regarding this topic.

Maturity as a Christian will allow untied things untied.

You can know when you're beginning to grow in Christ when you say, I know God's sovereign.

I know man is responsible.

How can those things come together?

They can't on earth with our finite sinful minds, but both

are taught.

The same thing is true.

Who wrote Romans?

Paul wrote Romans, the Holy Spirit wrote Romans.

They switched off on verses.

I get the odd, I get the even, back and forth.

Jesus is fully God and fully man.

How can Jesus grow in wisdom and stature and pleasure with God if he's already the king of the universe?

But when Jesus was 29, he had less wisdom than when he was 30, according to Luke.

How can you get your mind wrapped around that?

You can't.

So when it comes to the sheer sovereignty of God, I believe last week and this week, I've given you enough verses for you to

say, I know the Bible teaches that.

God, help my heart to believe it and quiet me down.

The Bible teaches other things about God's sovereignty, but this is true, let me rest

in you.

I don't have to force mental closure.

Number three, you should marvel at God because God's effectual call will not let sin stop God from

saving sinners.

These are all related, but I'm making this now explicit what was implicit.

Marvel at God because God's effectual call will not let sin stop God from saving sinners.

By the way, if you have a loved one who's not saved, you should be very, very thankful this is true.

If you have a loved one and you'd like them to be saved, a neighbor, a father,

a daughter, sin cannot stop God's effectual call.

How about that?

Seems like everything's gonna stop it.

And when God intervenes, something happens.

Turn with me, if you would, to Romans chapter eight.

I want you to see that if it isn't for God's effectual call, there's no hope.

If you have a hard time believing in the sovereignty of God and salvation, your number one problem is I need to submit to

Scripture.

Your number two problem is you underestimate the good, you underestimate man's depravity.

You think man's a little bit better than what he is because if you realize man is sinful and can't do

anything spiritually to say yes to God, oh, he can pick the Red Sox or

the, you know, the Yankees to choose to root for, but he can't say, God, I think

I've hated you my whole life, but I'll begin to love you now.

I've hated righteousness my whole life, but now I want to love it.

I've loved sin my whole life and now I want to hate it.

You can't change your nature.

So we need the rescuer, God, and so take a look at Romans chapter eight.

Let me just make this bold statement.

I'll steal it from Kurt Daniels.

So then that way, if you don't like it, you can blame him.

Man will not initiate anything toward God but hatred.

Man will not initiate anything toward God but hatred.

This is the unbelieving man.

They can walk people across the streets and pay their taxes, but in terms of initiating

something to God, they don't have it in them.

Look at Romans chapter eight, verse seven.

Oh, that God would save such sinners as these is wonderful.

It's marvelous because the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God.

We have this great chapter about no condemnation in Christ, but he goes back to show what an unbeliever

thinks and does.

These are the people, by the way, we're leaving to themselves to save themselves.

These are the people that we're leaving to themselves because God's done all he could do and now it's up to you to make the next step.

God's made provision and now you've got to fill in the blank.

God votes yes, Satan votes no.

You cast the dividing vote.

Here's how they're going to vote right here.

It's hostile toward God for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even what?

Able to do so.

And those who are in the flesh, we're not talking about in the body.

Those who are in the flesh, they're not saved.

They're not spiritual, cannot please God.

The word there for subject in verse seven, they don't subject themselves.

They say this, you are my commander.

The Greek idea has a military term.

You are my commander, you are my officer and I refuse to follow your orders.

You tell me to take that hill, I tell you to take a hike.

I'm not going to do what you say, how you say it.

I will not have you rule over me.

That's what an unbeliever says to God.

They're not able to respond.

They cannot, do you see the text?

They cannot keep the law of God.

They have no moral ability to do it.

They can't please God, why?

Because they're united to Adam.

Straight jacket of sin, shackle to sin, bondage to sin.

Brake will ask this question.

Does man have some internal disposition, propensity, ability, or power to believe in Christ and

to truly repent upon the external presentation of the gospel?

Answer, no.

John five, Jesus said, and you will not come to me that you might have life.

But the effectual call, when God says, I'm calling you to myself, it works every single time.

Did you know depravity will not keep your loved ones from getting saved when God calls them?

That is so good.

I think you'll hear about this verse tonight.

It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom

I am foremost.

The call of God gets its man or woman.

Did you know a person's stony heart does not stop God's salvation?

Because the text says in Ezekiel, I shall give them a new heart.

Did you know the people that hate Jesus and say we don't want him to reign over us cannot

stop the effectual call of God?

Top lady said, the person with power to accept or reject as he pleases must say this.

If you think I'm wrong and you say no, but it is up to the person.

Apart from God, God's done all he can and this is not him granting faith or giving repentance, but of the person's

own volition, his first step forward.

He says, this is what you say, top lady says, this is what you're trying to say.

No, thou does not finish the work of redemption, Jesus, which has given thee to do.

Thou did indeed do part of it, but I myself must add something to it or the whole of thy

performance will stand for not.

Jesus, what you did on the cross doesn't count until I help finish the deal.

Why do you think some people would say the manifesto of the reformation was not justification

by faith alone, but it was what?

The bondage of the will.

Did you know the effectual call overcomes people being enslaved, having an enslaved

will?

2 Peter 2 and Romans 6.

Did you know that if man loves his sin, effectual call can

overcome that?

Listen to what Hep said, the will of man then is only free for evil, which he does freely and with pleasure.

So the unbeliever freely and with pleasure sins until God calls.

And so can you imagine, now let's just step back for a second.

Paul saying to the church of Corinth, you guys are acting fleshly, carnally, sinfully.

You're called.

God has called you.

You used to be wallowing in sin and God said, now you're my children, you're my sons, you're my daughters.

You have been called out of that sin.

Why run back to it?

Did you know the effectual call overcomes the world's influence?

Did you know the effectual call overcomes Satan's will?

Why don't you turn to 2 Timothy 2 with me just for a moment.

2 Timothy 2 and we need to move on probably to the next point.

2 Timothy 2.

Here's what I want you to know about every unbeliever that you've ever met and this is what I want you to know about you before God saved you if

you're a Christian.

God has to have a sovereign, powerful, free love that finds

itself effectually calling you or else you will permanently

be stuck.

2 Timothy 2 verse 25.

This is what we know about the unbeliever and Paul is writing to Timothy pastorally and he wants to make sure that Timothy is

kind and gentle and always the teacher when it comes to the unbeliever.

And so he says in verse 25, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them

repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.

Correct people who are unbelievers because maybe God will save them and that they may come to their senses and

escape the snare of the devil.

What kind of snare is on the devil from the devil around people?

How do they have him caught?

Excuse me, how does he catch people?

Having been held captive by Satan to do his will.

How do you take a person who runs around who thinks he has free will, who's actually doing Satan's will

and then convince him by the showing of the cross, hey person, you're doing Satan's will, you're a

slave to him, he's got a snare around you and here's Jesus the Messiah, he can't really save himself but he died on the cross

for sinners like you, he was raised from the dead, this is the only God, if you don't believe in him, you're not gonna go to heaven,

he's the only sin bearer.

What takes that person who's enslaved by Satan's will?

Satan's will is gonna say what?

I hate Jesus, I reject Jesus, I don't care about Jesus, there's other ways.

How do you make that change?

The only way you make that change is when the triune God says, you have your eyes opened by me.

Think about it, when God finds people in the Bible, he finds them sinning, Paul

ravaging the church, Matthew taxes from his own

people, Zacchaeus extorting.

Number four, I'm anticipating something here so here comes number four, marvel number

one at God because God controls the human heart, number two because he's sovereign over salvation of sinners, number

three, he doesn't let sin stop God from saving sinners and number four, you should marvel at God because God's

effectual call makes people Christians, not puppets or robots.

God's effectual call makes them Christians, not robots.

God changes the heart of someone, they had the stony heart, he gives them a new fleshly heart and that new heart

says what?

As I've said hundreds of times, that heart that used to say, I hate God and love myself, now says,

I love God and hate my own sin.

How does that happen?

Because God makes the person willing.

I think too many people believe this with the sovereignty of God, that when God saves someone, he somehow drags you.

I don't know if cavemen ever did this or not but do you imagine a caveman and a cavewoman, Mrs. Cavewoman and the hair is here,

dragging.

It's somehow, you know, I don't wanna go and God's like, you're going with me and I'm dragging you.

What's wrong with that illustration?

Besides, you know, some kind of evolutionary rabbit trail.

Here's what's wrong with that illustration.

The person who says, God, I hate you, now is given a new heart.

And if you've got a new heart, given by the Spirit of God and you have a new nature and you're a new creature in Christ Jesus,

what do you do?

I'm not gonna follow you, you're gonna have to pull my hair to make me go after you.

What does that new person do?

Saul, why are you persecuting me?

He's slain in the Spirit.

At least there's one person slain in the Spirit in the Bible.

Saul is slain by Jesus Christ Himself.

And now Paul says, you know what?

I'm gonna follow you.

I'm gonna follow after you.

We don't say to ourselves, when God saves a sinner, He drags them against their will, God changes the

will and then the people come freely, normally, naturally and willingly.

He makes the unwilling willing.

Ernest Reisinger said, God's sovereign grace does not annihilate man's will, it overcomes his unwillingness.

It does not destroy his will, but frees it from sin.

Now, let's just push the envelope because I like to do that and I think you'll listen.

People are like, well, if God makes me believe, then I'm like a robot.

Well, then friends, you never wanna go to heaven.

If your theology is, you know what?

I'll let philosophy determine love, acceptance, puppets,

robots and I'll believe like the world does, then you will hate heaven with a hatred.

Say, how can you say that?

That's easy for you to say.

In glory, you will only be free to choose righteously.

In glory, you will not be allowed by God to choose any sin or unrighteousness.

I can't believe God would make people robots in heaven.

I can't believe he makes them puppets in heaven.

You mean to tell me, they have no freedom of choice to sin in heaven?

The answer is, hallelujah.

We have this whole philosophy that comes from the world.

How can God love?

Who can he love?

And you know what?

If God says, I'm gonna give you, you sinful person, you depraved person, you want to go to hell, but

I'm going to freely love you, give you a brand new nature and now that new nature will say, God, I love

you, I respect you, I wanna honor you, I wanna give you glory.

Then they call that some kind of puppet love.

Forget the idea then of going to heaven ever because in heaven, no free will to sin.

You have a nature in heaven and that nature will be a glorified nature and that glorified nature will make freely

whatever decisions it would like to make according to its nature, but there'll be no sin in the nature so there'll be no

sinful actions or thoughts.

Isn't that a good thing?

Grudem said, we are real persons.

Puppets and robots do not have the power of personal choice or even individual thought.

We, by contrast, think, decide and choose.

Again, the Arminian wrongly takes information from our situation as human beings and then uses that information to place

limitations on what God can or cannot do.

There's no kind of robotic mechanical thing, it's I'm going to give you a new nature and that new nature

says, hallelujah, real choices from a

real nature.

Now to close, I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 22.

When you say close, that's time, I don't mean close your Bibles.

We're just going to wrap this up here in Matthew chapter 22.

We looked at a similar passage a couple of weeks ago.

This is different.

I want you to hear from Jesus and here's what I'm after.

I'm after a lot of things here.

If you're an unsaved person, I want to preach the gospel to you.

If you're a Christian, I want you to be thankful.

If you're a Christian who's struggling with, if God's sovereign, how can man be responsible?

I want you to see man's responsibility in this parable of Jesus.

I want you to see Jesus always affirm that men and women are responsible.

They're just not able.

And that's why we need the second Adam to come along because the first Adam and we in Adam fallen.

Basically the context of Matthew chapter 22 is this.

Some Jews are missing the kingdom.

I don't want to miss it.

How can we not miss it?

And he gives this parable.

Oh, it's so good to just sit at the feet of Jesus and just walk through this.

And the way he teaches and with, you think I'm intense.

I want you to know now that I am sappy, gooey, effeminate compared to Jesus.

Because this is God who freely loves.

And Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parable saying, the kingdom of heaven, Matthew 22 too, may be

compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

Would this be a huge production?

Think Charles and Diana times a hundred.

This is the king.

The king is going to have a wedding and the wedding is for his son.

It's a feast, pomp, circumstance, purple, the regalia.

He gave a wedding feast for his son and he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited

to the wedding feast and they were unwilling to come.

A PS, it's the feast tonight.

Make sure you all remember, please come tonight.

I don't want to come.

We're unwilling.

By the way, that was like a statement of war.

They can't say, well, I didn't have enough notice.

They've been given plenty of time.

And look at the generous, gracious patience of this king.

And we know who the king is.

It's all a story about God, the father and the son.

And he sent out other slaves saying, tell those who have been invited, behold, I have prepared my dinner.

My oxen and my fatted livestock are all butchered and everything is ready.

Come to the wedding feast.

Come.

Forgiveness, kingdom.

Jews come.

He overdoes it.

He outdoes himself.

They don't care.

He takes it up a notch.

And so their apathy increases.

His generosity that he has is even more manifoldly expressed.

By the way, back in those days, no cable TV, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Red Sox.

You sit around every day and eat gruel one day and then gruel the next day and a little more extra gruel the next day.

And now the king is going to have a feast.

And you can just see the picture, the shackles of sin and the hardships of sin and the pain of sin

and the eternal condemnation of sin.

God says, here's my wedding feast, forgiveness found in Christ Jesus.

Come.

Verse five, just to show you how hardhearted sin is and how they're going to be responsible for what they do.

But they paid no attention and went their way.

One do his own farm, another do his business and the rest

seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them.

Well, God is not just generous and gracious and having forbearance and patience.

He is also holy, righteous and he has indignation every day.

And the Jews that Jesus was talking to would get the picture because they knew Deuteronomy four, the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a

jealous God.

They killed his slaves, but the king was enraged, verse seven, and sent his armies and destroyed those

murders and set their city on fire.

Here's my free love for you.

And then now you do that.

He didn't say, oh, you're not responsible.

You weren't able.

Then he said to his slaves, verse eight, the wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.

Go therefore to the main highways and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.

Look at the mercy of God and the love of God.

Go get all walks of life.

Forget just the Jews, just go get everybody.

Open to all.

And those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found.

Both evil and good.

And the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

Now you're gonna just be shocked.

If you're listening to Jesus and you're thinking about what's happening, the next several verses are a

shock.

Partly because Jesus is a master storyteller.

The other part of the reason is we don't understand the culture of the day where if you invite people to a feast,

they only have one set of clothes.

And those clothes, frankly, are dirty and smelly.

And if you're the king, you have a feast, you know what you would do back in those days?

You'd provide an extra thing of clothes because you don't wanna have people around you with all kinds of smell.

And so it was very typical of the king back in those days to have a feast and then to have these day laborers who had one set of clothes, maybe

two, here's the garments for you.

Now let's read it.

Verse 11.

But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw there was a man not dressed in the wedding clothes.

He's conspicuous, he's smelly, he's dirty.

I don't need the wedding clothes you provide.

I don't need Jesus Christ's righteousness.

I don't need imputed righteousness of Christ.

I don't need a wonderful clothes of righteousness by

you.

I'll come in with my own clothes, quite thank you.

You provided it, I say no.

My own good, my clothes of good works, my clothes of merits, my clothes of baptism.

I'll come in the way I wanna come in.

I reject you providing me some kind of clothes.

Doesn't this sound like Romans chapter 10 where the Jews sought to establish a righteousness that

wasn't their own, that was of themselves rather?

And he said to him, look pal, this isn't the kind of

amorous kind of friend that you see elsewhere.

He said to him, buddy, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?

I provided everything.

I provided the feast, the prophets, the people, the garments.

How'd you come in here without wedding clothes?

And he was speechless.

Just like Romans three, every mouth shut.

You come on the King's terms or you don't come at all.

And the King's terms are Christ Jesus is the Messiah and we can only approach the King through the

perfect righteousness of Christ, the robes

of Christ of forgiveness and repentance and righteousness.

He has no excuse.

He's tongue tied.

What can he say?

Now the same patient, loving God, generous,

forbearing says in verse 13.

Then the King said to the servants, since you reject my son, Christ Jesus, since you reject his righteousness,

since you want to come into my presence with your filthy sin, since you won't accept my free gift of Christ

Jesus, you are responsible.

Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer

darkness.

In that place, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I wanted these sinners in my presence with my righteous son's righteousness cloaked over them,

but they refuse to come and they want to come with their sin.

So you find the place that's the farthest in my kingdom and banish them because I don't want to even see them.

You force God's hand.

He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

He said, does this take God by surprise?

No.

Verse 14.

Now remember, I said the call in the New Testament epistles is always the effectual call, but in the

gospels, it's the general call.

And here we see that in Matthew 22, 14.

For many are called, repent, believe, come to the kingdom, but few are what?

Chosen.

God wasn't taken off guard.

God's sovereign grace is free love.

He knew the whole time and yet they were responsible.

You can't say, well, God chooses and now how can he hold people responsible?

Because the answer is they're responsible in Adam and they're responsible to sin.

Many are called and few are chosen.

Israel, you rejected your Messiah, but not all of Israel was ever meant to go

anyway.

Can you believe that kind of language from Jesus?

Bind him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness.

In that place, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I don't know if you saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of

Doom.

Ever see that show, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?

Early 80s, I think.

And what you have to do is you say to yourself, you know, it's an okay movie, except if you're gonna take your younger kids, there's one spot or

one bit of the movie that you don't really want them to see.

You remember that part?

And you say, okay, kids, now would be a good time to close your eyes.

And that high priestess was there and they rip open that guy's chest and the high priest reaches in with

his hand.

It's been such a long time.

I don't know if I have every detail right.

Reaches in with his hand and pulls out the beating human heart.

And you go, that's bad.

It's horrible.

I don't know if somebody read Hosea 13, but that's right from Hosea chapter 13 on

how God, just like here in Matthew chapter 22, after providing the

sacrifice, offering

Israel, you won't believe me, you won't repent.

And then Hosea says, speaking for God, so I will be like a lion to them.

Like a leopard, I will lie in wait by the wayside.

I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs and I will tear open their chests

and devour them.

And so Paul says, Corinth, Jesus the son has been devoured

by the wrath of God and has been raised from the dead for your justification.

Believe in him, look to him, follow him.

And to the rest today who aren't Christians, I have only one statement.

Consider your souls today because one day you'll stand before God and the provision has been given.

The feast has been set.

The loving, gracious God says, here's my son's death and life and resurrection, believe.

Don't you think it's about time to stop kissing a cup?

Our gracious heavenly father, thank you so much for Christ Jesus.

We had to come to your banquet on your terms and we couldn't come.

We couldn't be good enough.

We couldn't make ourselves acceptable in your sight so now we worship

you because you've provided our king, our savior, the prince, your son,

the wonderful savior.

Thank you so much for pouring out your wrath on him and not us.

Thank you, Lord, that you didn't love us because Jesus died for us, but because you loved us, you sent your son to die for us.

Thank you that you're sovereign.

Thank you that sin won't stop salvation.

And I pray for these dear folks here today that you would help them acknowledge both

truths, the sovereignty of God and man's responsibility.

I pray, Lord, that you'd give them an intense desire to be an evangelist like Christ Jesus.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to pray for the lost ones and how you work through prayer.

And Lord, all the time, would you seal in our hearts, not just mentally, but in our

souls, this master of divinity, this theological school that's

contained in one verse, that you have loved us freely.

In Jesus' name.