A Biblical Case for Election and Predestination

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Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.
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On today's program, we're going to be doing something a little bit different, as we're going to be listening in on a recent lesson that I gave at Set Free Church on the subject of election and predestination.
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So stay tuned.
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Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now.
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We are continuing with our study of Systematics or Systematic Theology.
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We do 12 weeks of Systematic Theology each week with a new category of study.
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Last week, we looked at the Doctrine of Justification, which is a subset of the Doctrine of Salvation.
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So we have Soteriology, which is the Doctrine of Salvation.
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Out of that, we have multiple subsets of doctrines.
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We have Justification, also known as Sola Fide, which is justification by faith alone.
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And we could talk about Sanctification.
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We could talk about Glorification.
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There are various subsets of this doctrine.
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But because this is only a 12-week course, and by the way, if you're here for phase one, you will go through this course at least once, sometimes twice, because it's 12 weeks and phase one is longer than that.
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But the goal is to have you go through each of these classes at least once.
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So some of you may have been through this before.
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So what we're going to look at today is the Doctrine of Election.
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Alright, so when we talk about the Doctrine of Election, it is closely tied to the Doctrine of Predestination.
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And that is why people get upset.
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Because when we talk about the Doctrine of Predestination, everybody has an opinion, and opinions are like armpits.
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We all got them, most of them stink.
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That's just the truth, man.
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So when we talk about opinions, well, whatever, I want to know what the Bible says.
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One thing I know for sure, if I talk to somebody and they say to me, I don't believe in election.
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I say, well, you ain't never read the Bible, because the word election is all in the Bible.
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Or if they say, I don't believe in predestination.
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I say again, you either don't believe the Bible, or you have so twisted word meanings, that you've come to the point where you think you know better than what the Bible says.
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So, we talk about words, we talk about meanings, and then we look at how those words are used in the Bible.
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So first of all, let's talk about the word election.
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Now we know what an election is when we think of our own government.
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Every few years, well, every year we have local elections.
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Every couple of years we have state elections.
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And then every four years, we have an election to the highest office in the land, and that is the office of president.
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And in that election, every one of us has the opportunity to go down and to punch a card or sign a little circle or whatever and drop it in a box.
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And when we do that, we are making a choice.
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So the word election means a choice or to make a choice, to choose.
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Okay, so with that in mind, turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1.
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Ephesians chapter 1 speaks on the doctrine of election.
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We're going to begin at verse 3, because the first two verses are Paul's introduction where he introduces himself and his audience.
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And I'm in the ESV.
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If you're reading a different translation, it may be slightly different, but probably won't be much different.
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And it says this, 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.
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In love, He predestined us for adoption 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.
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In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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Lord, Your Word is precious.
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And Lord, I pray now that You would help me to teach Your Word and to do so without error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man and I am capable of teaching error, and I don't want to.
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For the sake of Your name, for the sake of my conscience and for the sake of these men who I love, I pray, Lord, that You would give me patience and strength to teach well, give the men open ears and open minds and open hearts to learn well.
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And may Your Spirit ultimately be the teacher who applies this truth to our hearts.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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All right, so we see in this passage several key words.
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The first word that we see is in verse four.
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It says, He chose us.
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So as I said before, the doctrine of election is the doctrine of choosing.
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And I want you to notice the subject, the verb and the object.
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All right, so it says, He chose us.
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We have here in our language a subject, that is the one doing the action.
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We have the verb, that is the action being done.
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And then we have the object of the verb, which is the object being acted upon.
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Therefore, if I say, Corrie threw the ball.
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Corrie is the subject and through is the verb.
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And the ball with the definite article the becomes the object.
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Now, I could change that.
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I could say the ball was thrown by Corrie.
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Now, that's the same thing, but I changed the subject because now the subject is the ball.
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And the verb, was thrown, changes to a different form of the verb, right? Rather than saying, He threw, which is in the positive.
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It was was thrown is in the passive or active and passive, right? So there's different ways to say the same thing.
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But if I say, Corrie threw the ball, we know that that is a very simple sentence based upon a very simple principle of subject, verb and object.
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So now we look at this sentence or this portion of the sentence and we learn the same thing.
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He, who is he? Well, the context tells us, 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.
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He is known as a pronoun.
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A pronoun requires an antecedent.
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An antecedent means a previous noun to which it attaches.
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And the previous noun, by the way, this is exegesis.
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If you want to know what I'm doing, I'm showing you how you interpret things.
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This is the process of interpretation whereby you can be confident that you're coming to the right conclusion.
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Because you're using what is known as the grammatical historical method, looking at the grammar and the history of the text.
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All right, so this is a process of interpretation whereby we go through this process slowly and look at every word and how it's being used in the sentence.
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He is connected to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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So God is the he.
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So you could take out he and put the word God there.
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You could say God chose us.
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All right, so the word he is connected to God and God is the subject.
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And the reason why I make this point is because a lot of people, when we talk about the doctrine of election, people want to talk about our choosing God.
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But notice that that is not what is said here.
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What is said here is God chose us.
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And I've had this conversation many times where people will say, well, God chose me because I chose him.
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And they want to put their choice before God's choice.
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In the scheme of causation.
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I chose God, therefore he chose me.
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That's the circle of cause.
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But the Bible teaches, in my opinion, and I believe I can bear this out, that God chose us, therefore we chose him.
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And even one passage specifically I always am reminded of is when Jesus told his disciples, you didn't choose me, but I chose you.
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So that's just a good reminder of the key of the concept.
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Who's the first to do the choosing? And the Father, God, it says he chose us.
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And you say, well, how do we know he was first? Well, I want you to just notice that the text tells us.
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It says he chose us in him.
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That is in Christ.
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I'm gonna come back to that in a moment.
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Before the foundation of the world.
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What were you doing before the foundation of the world? Were you choosing? No, you weren't there.
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You were not alive.
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And you say, well, God looked down the corridors of time and he saw what I was going to do.
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That is the way that many people try to get around that.
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Well, I was there in the mind of God.
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He could see what I was gonna do, and that's why he chose me.
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But if you take that position, and that is the classical Arminian position, which I'm a Calvinist, so just to distinguish, there's Calvinism and Arminianism.
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The classical Arminian position will say, God saw my choice and he chose me because I first chose him.
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And again, the issue with that is it don't say that.
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It don't sound right either, but it don't say that.
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See, to get there, you have to insert an idea that's not in the text.
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My goal is first exegesis and then systematics.
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Exegesis produces a biblical theology, but exegesis is pulling out of the text what it says.
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And then you produce from that a biblical theology, and out of that, you produce a systematic theology.
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And it's sort of a process to get you to where we are.
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So he chose us.
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All right, now the big question is for a lot of people, because we know chose, we know that verb, he chose us.
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The question people have is who is the us? Who is the us? Well, in this particular context, if you go back up to verse 1, Paul delineates who the us are.
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He says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.
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Notice that I'm an apostle by the will of God.
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I didn't choose.
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God chose me.
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It wasn't my will.
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So Paul, from the very beginning, is addressing even his own having been chosen by God.
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It was by God's will.
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And you think about that.
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Paul wasn't on the road to Damascus to become a Christian.
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Paul was on the road to Damascus to arrest and enslave Christians.
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And Christ, by his mercy, blinded this man who had hatred in his heart, softened his heart and gave him a new heart.
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And Paul didn't ask for any of it.
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In fact, if it were up to Paul, he would have rejected it.
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But God, by his mercy, chose Paul by his own will.
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He drew Paul in, opened his heart by blinding his eyes.
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So we see God at work in the life of Paul.
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So he says here, he says, I'm an apostle by the will of God to the saints who are at Ephesus.
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Now, I'm going to erase a little bit so I can write a little more.
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I just start up here.
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When we use the word saints, this is not a word that everybody understands the same way.
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So I want to help you at least come to a couple of conclusions, because if you happen to have a background in either Roman Catholic upbringing or in Eastern Orthodox upbringing, then you may have been in a tradition that gives people the title of saint after they do something particularly special, like Mother Teresa, who worked with the poor people of Calcutta, or with somebody like one of the apostles, Saint Peter, Saint Jerome, Saint Andrew, you know, all these people, huh? Yeah, yeah, anybody, right? Anyone.
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And the idea is that saint indicates a particular type of person.
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But the word saint, and the word saint is agios in the Greek, and the word agios means holy one, holy one, sorry.
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And so the question is, how does someone become a holy one? Well, the Bible tells us when we are saved or when we are born again, God makes us holy.
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He takes us from the kingdom of darkness.
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He places us into the kingdom of light.
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We go from being children of wrath to being children of God, right? And by that, we become saints.
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So the word saint, from a biblical perspective, or hagios or hagiosmos is the sanctified or the saved, it refers to everyone who is saved.
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Does not just refer specifically to super saints or super Christians, right? So if you're a believer today, and I pray that you are, I don't know, but I pray that all of you are, I know this, you are a saint in the strictest of terms, because the Bible says we are either unsaved sinners or we are saved saints.
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Now, that doesn't mean that you don't sin, so be clear on that.
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But if you are saved, you have been made holy.
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In that sense, you're a saint.
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So when Paul says he's writing to the saints who are in Ephesus, he's not talking about a particular set of Christians, a super group of people.
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He's talking to all the Christians.
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And then he gives this word of blessing.
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He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who's blessed us.
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Who's the us? Well, it's Paul and the saints.
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Now, you might say, well, this maybe is just the saints in Ephesus.
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Maybe he's not talking to everybody.
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But I would contend that this letter is not just addressing the saints in Ephesus, but is addressing saints of all times because of the content of the letter.
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He doesn't say anything in the letter that would only be directed to them.
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He's saying things in the letter that would be directed to them and to the others.
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In fact, what we know from the history of this particular letter is that after reading Ephesus, it was sent around and read in other churches.
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In fact, the earliest books of the New Testament that were collected, grouped together as a book and sent out to the churches, what are what was known as the Pauline Corpus or the writings of Paul.
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They were all put into a book and sent around.
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That was the earliest version of the New Testament, because at that point, all of the books of the New Testament had not come together.
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But the writings of Paul went around to the churches.
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So it was obvious that the churches understood that this wasn't just for Ephesus, but this is for everybody who is a Christian.
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So knowing that, we go back to the he chose us statement.
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He is God.
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He chose.
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Who did he choose? He chose believers or maybe a better way to say it would be those who will believe.
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Those who will believe.
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That is that is the us.
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The us there is those who will believe.
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So it says even as he chose us or those who will believe in him.
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And that's where the in him come in.
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Because what do they believe? You can answer it.
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They believe in him.
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That's the easy part, right? In him.
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Who's the him? Christ.
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Here's something to consider when you think of the doctrine of election.
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Understand this.
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It is never outside of Christ.
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No person is chosen who is not in Christ.
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See, because somebody will say this.
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Well, if the doctrine of election is true, why even go out and evangelize? God's already chosen who he's going to save.
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And I don't need to go share the gospel with people.
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You're missing a vital part.
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The choice is in Christ, which means the people who are chosen are the ones who believe in Christ.
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So how does a person believe in Christ? What does Romans chapter 10 say? The hearing of the word, right? It says, how shall they hear unless someone preaches or teaches? Right.
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How shall they hear without a teacher? So we go.
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See, people tell me all the time.
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Well, you're a Calvinist.
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You must not believe in evangelism.
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Man, we got people in our church that preach on the street, like literally on the street.
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We set up booths and go and hand out tracks at events.
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We wear shirts that have gospel messages on it because we believe that people need to hear the gospel to be saved.
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We believe that hearing the gospel is the means by which God saves his elect.
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No person is chosen outside of Christ.
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They are chosen in Christ and therefore they hear the gospel so that they may hear and believe.
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That is so vital.
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No one is saved outside of Christ.
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And this text tells us he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
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He chose us in him before even the world was created.
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Now, that's that's I don't know about you.
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That's absolutely mind boggling to me.
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God, before he laid one stone, before he formed one thing, I know he didn't lay a stone.
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I know he spoke into existence.
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So that's a euphemistic phrase.
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But before God spoke anything into existence, he had already chosen to save me.
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Which means he knew me before I ever was created.
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By the way, that's what Romans 8 tells us.
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For whom he foreknew, he predestined.
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He knew me before.
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That's what foreknew means.
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He knew me before I was ever created.
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I mean, just basking that for what we just take five minutes and meditate.
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I'm just kidding.
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But I mean, just seriously, just think about the fact that he chose us before the foundation of the world.
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In fact, the Bible tells us in Revelation that Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
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Now, think about that.
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See, God not only had a plan before he created the world to save me.
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But he had the plan's outline already determined before the beginning of the world.
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Because the plan's outline included the sinning of his son, the death on the cross, and the redemption of sins that would happen by virtue of that death.
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All of that God had in his mind, if you want to call it the mind of God, in his will before the foundation of the world.
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This is like, what's the word I'm looking for? Metaphysical.
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It's like outside.
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It's hard to even imagine.
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It is crazy.
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Who said? Yeah, it's crazy.
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But it's good.
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Crazy.
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Because what we're doing, excuse me, we're going through a pre-review, apparently.
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What we're doing is we are getting a glimpse behind the veil.
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Right? We're getting a glimpse into the inner workings of God's mysterious acts.
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The Bible says that the hidden things belong to the Lord, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children.
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And so that tells us that there's things about God that we are not to know, but the hidden things.
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But that there are things that we can know.
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The things that are revealed are for us and for our children.
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So I know there's things about God I don't know.
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I don't know why he does some of the stuff he does.
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Somebody comes to me, child dies.
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I don't know.
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I don't know.
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I know God has a purpose for it.
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I know that this is not a wasted life.
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I know that your pain is not without purpose.
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I know that.
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But I don't know why your child died.
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You know, I don't know the answer.
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Because the hidden things belong to the Lord.
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And I can't answer every question when we suffer.
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Right? And the question of suffering is a big question.
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I don't know the answer.
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So we live in a sinful world that's cursed by sin.
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And so there's a lot of suffering.
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That's the one thing I can say.
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But I don't know why your child specifically became the object of that.
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I don't know.
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But I do know this.
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There are things about God I can know.
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The revealed things.
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And the things I can know, I want to know.
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And I want to know as much as I can know so that I grow closer to Him.
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And this text tells me some things.
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It tells me that He chose us.
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And I could say, without being prideful, when I see the us, I can relate that to myself.
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I could say He chose me before the foundation of the world.
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Now, I'm not saying He didn't choose you.
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I'm saying from a personal...
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It's sort of like John 3.16.
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For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son.
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Sometimes you can kind of put yourself there and say, For God so loved me that He sent His only begotten Son.
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Because God did.
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He loved you enough to send His Son.
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He loved you enough that His Son came to die.
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And even though we should not make the Bible all about us, because that would lead to a wrong understanding of stuff, we should understand where we fit in the narrative.
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God does love you.
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And He sent His Son for you.
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That's the key, right? And in this, He chose me from the foundation of the world.
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I can see myself in this passage.
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All right.
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He chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world.
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For what purpose? Why did He choose me? So I get to go to heaven, sit on a cloud and strum a harp for all eternity? No, no, no, no, no.
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Look what it says.
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He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
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Remember what I said the word holy means? Or the word saint means holy.
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He chose us that we would be holy and blameless.
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Now, let's break down these thoughts.
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He chose us that we would be holy and blameless.
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And by the way, it says in Him.
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It says in Him He chose us that we should be holy and blameless in Him.
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In Him happens twice.
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It's all about Christ.
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It's all about being in Him.
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All right, it bookends the idea with Christ at the beginning.
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He chose us in Him that we should be holy and blameless in Him, right? So the words holy and blameless.
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I've already talked about holy, but I didn't really give you a definition.
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I said that's what we are.
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But what does it mean? Holy means to be set apart.
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We are set apart and we are blameless.
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And you say, now, wait a minute.
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Does that mean we are sinless? In this particular context, what it is saying is that before God, our sins have been atoned for and therefore we are blameless.
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So you could say set apart and redeem.
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Because the idea is your sins have been paid for.
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You know what the word redeem means, right? It means something got paid for.
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Like you see a commercial.
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Redeem this coupon for free, whatever, right? The word redeem means it pays for something.
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And the word redemption comes from the word agora, which refers to the marketplace where the slaves were sold.
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And they would go and they would go into the agora and they would purchase the slaves.
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And that idea is the picture of us.
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We were slaves of sin.
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Christ came into the world and died on the cross and He paid the penalty for our sin and He paid the purchase price for us and He bought us out of that slave.
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He redeemed us out of that slave market.
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And now we who were absolutely slaves to sin have been made children of God, right? We've gone from being...
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Jesus said we've gone from being slaves of sin to slaves of righteousness, right? We're still slaves because we're His, but we're not slaves to sin.
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We're sons of God and slaves to righteousness.
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So we are holy and blameless before Him.
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In love, in love, He predestined us.
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I want to really focus on...
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I'm going to raise this up.
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All right, because when people hear the word predestined, they get upset.
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They hear the word predestined, they get a little concerned.
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But I want you to notice the phrase that is used right before the word He predestined us.
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Because it is He, that again is God, predestined us, that is believers, right? And notice what it says right before that.
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There's a little phrase.
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It is a prepositional phrase.
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And it is the prepositional phrase, in love, He predestined us.
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Before we get our emotions too high and get too upset about predestination, we should understand that it is an act of love.
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In love, He predestined us.
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Because notice what He predestined us to.
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The next thing.
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For adoption as sons.
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What's the most precious doctrine of all the doctrines that we have in regard to our relationship with God through Christ? Is it not the doctrine of adoption? That God came and adopted us because we were not His children by birth.
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And by the way, I want to remind you, no one is a child of God by birth.
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We are a child of God by rebirth.
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In fact, if you want proof of that, very quickly, just turn over to John chapter 1.
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In John chapter 1, it says in verse 11.
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All right.
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It says, He, that is Jesus, came to His own and His own people did not receive Him.
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But to all who did receive Him, that means to believe on Him, to all who did receive Him, who believe in His name, He gave the right to become what? Children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
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I want to hang out there for a minute.
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Hold your place here because notice what it's saying.
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It says Jesus came to His own people.
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That was the Jews.
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They didn't receive Him.
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And that was something that was the scandal of the ages, right? The Messiah has come and He is rejected.
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But it says as many as did receive Him.
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And what does receive mean? Who believed on His name.
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To them, He gave them the right to become children of God.
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And by the word, the word there, right, is actually the word power.
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It's the word dunamis in the Greek.
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And it literally is the idea that He empowered them to become children of God.
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He gave them the ability to become children of God.
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And how did He do it? Well, the next part says it.
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Who were born not.
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Notice the nots.
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They were born not of blood.
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What does that mean? Means they weren't.
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They didn't get this by virtue of their heritage.
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You know, just because somebody's a Jew doesn't mean they're saved.
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And just because somebody's white or black or whatever doesn't mean they're saved.
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It's not of blood, right? And not of the will of the flesh.
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Here's the here.
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Understand this, my friends.
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It's ultimately not your choice either.
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It's not the will of the flesh.
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Not you.
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They weren't born by blood.
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They weren't born by the will of flesh nor the will of man.
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You can't save somebody else.
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Like you can't will to save yourself and I can't will to save you.
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But by what? But by God.
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They were born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.
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This, by the way, is another verse that affirms what I've been saying.
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God is the one who chooses to bring us into His family.
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God is the one who chooses us to believe.
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God is the one who chooses us to become His.
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And in doing so, He adopts us.
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Back to Ephesians 1.
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He predestined us for what? Adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.
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According to the purpose, notice this purpose, and I love this word, the purpose of His will.
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A lot of people hear the word predestination or election and they get upset because of the concept of free will.
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And they say, Pastor Keith, if you believe in predestination, then you have to deny that men have free will.
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And here is my answer to that.
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Brace yourselves.
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OK.
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Because the Bible does not teach free will.
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It teaches a will that is bound in sin.
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Now, that doesn't mean you don't make choices because you do.
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Every one of you make choices.
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Some of the choices are what got you here.
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But every one of those choices that you make are bound by your nature.
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And we are sinners by nature.
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We are sinners enslaved to sin until Christ sets us free.
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So the Old Testament says this.
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It says the leopard can't change his spots, neither can the Ethiopian change his skin.
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How then can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil? Hear that again.
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The leopard cannot change his spots, neither the Ethiopian his skin.
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How can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil? The point is you have a nature and your nature is an evil nature.
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Your nature is a sinful nature.
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The Bible says we sin because we love it.
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And you think back to when you were in the worst conditions of sin in your life.
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Why were you there? Because you craved it.
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Whether it was sex or alcohol or drugs or women or theft or whatever it was.
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It was a craving.
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You loved it.
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You wanted it.
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Because your nature was that of a sinner.
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You're not a sinner because you sin.
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You sin because you are by nature a sinner.
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You are a fallen son of Adam.
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And Adam's sin nature has affected all of us.
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And we sin because we're sinners.
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And the Bible tells us that in that condition, we will not choose to come to God because that is opposed to our nature.
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You say, where does the Bible say that? Well, go to John 6.
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Jesus is preaching to a group of people in Capernaum.
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He's just fed 5,000 people.
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Then He walks on the water and all these people find Him.
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They go after Him because they want to hear more of what He has to say, but more specifically, they want to eat more of what He has to give.
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He's fed them once.
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He can do it again.
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So they're following after Him to hear Him and to be fed by Him.
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And notice what He says.
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Verse 25, When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, Rabbi, when did You come here? Jesus answered them, Truly I say to you, you are seeking Me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
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See, Jesus ain't fooled.
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You ain't coming here for miracles of glory.
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You're coming here for miracles of fattening.
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You're coming here because you're hungry.
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Do not labor for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life.
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The Son of Man will give to you.
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For on Him, God the Father has set His seal.
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Then they said to Him, What must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the work of God that you believe in Him who He has sent.
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So they said to Him, Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness.
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As it is written, He gave them bread to eat from heaven.
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Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the bread from heaven.
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For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
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They said to Him, Sir, give us this bread always.
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See, Jesus is talking about Himself.
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They're talking about physical bread.
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Because He's the bread of life.
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And that's what He says in verse 35.
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He says, I am the bread of life.
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Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.
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But I said to you that you've seen, and yet you do not believe.
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Hear that.
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Oh boy.
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Hear verse 36.
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I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet you do not believe.
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Understand, these people just crossed the sea to see Jesus.
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They have followed Him to Capernaum where He's at.
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They are there to listen to Him.
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And He looks out to a crowd of people.
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And He says, you're here, you're listening, but you ain't believing.
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Jesus ain't messing around.
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Verse 37.
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One of the most important verses in the Bible is verse 37.
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Because hear what it says.
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All the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out.
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That's a great promise.
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But notice the promise has two parts.
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One, it's the Father who gives you to the Son.
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That's what causes you to come.
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All the Father gives Me will come to Me.
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And if you come, He's not going to send you away.
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He's not going to cast you out.
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He will receive you.
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Like the father of the prodigal son received the son back who had gone and was living in the pig slop, and he came home probably covered in pig snot, and the father sees him from a distance, and he runs to him, and he embraces him, and he kisses him, and he holds him, and he's grateful and glad because his son is now returned.
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He was dead, and now he lives according to what he understood had happened.
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And the same thing happens when we come to Christ.
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He embraces us, and He won't cast us away.
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In love, He predestines us.
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See? But I want you to notice.
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We're going to jump down a little bit.
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I want you to notice verse 44.
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We've seen the context, but notice verse 44.
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What does verse 44 say? Verse 44 says this, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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Notice what he says.
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No one can come to Me.
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Again, that sentence.
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The phrase, no one can, is what we call a universal negative.
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A universal negative.
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So, for instance, if I said, no one can ride a bicycle, and then we all look out the window, some little 10-year-old boy, ching-ching, come riding by, you'd all look at me and say, what's that? You're wrong because you made a statement of universality.
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You said no one can ride a bicycle, and the little 10-year-old boy proved you wrong.
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Understand this, when Jesus says no one can, He's making a statement about all men.
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He is making a statement of universal inability.
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By the way, if you're a Calvinist, or if you've ever heard the term Calvinism, the first point of Calvinism is total depravity, also known as universal inability, meaning the inability to go to God on our own because we have a sin nature that does not want to.
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You see, it's all about the desires of the heart.
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And the natural desire of the sinful heart is to be opposed to God.
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This is why the Bible says, at once we were enmity with God.
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Enmity means at war with Him.
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We were separated from Him.
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We hated what He had to offer because we wanted our own autonomy.
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We wanted our own kingdom.
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We wanted our own liberty.
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We wanted our own power.
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We did not want a God to rule over us, but we wanted to be the ruler ourselves.
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We told God, get off the throne and allow me to sit in that chair because that seat is for me.
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That is the natural inclination of the human heart, to be our own ruler.
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And so, Jesus says, no one can come to Me.
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Now, the great thing is the sentence don't stop there because if Jesus just stood up and said, no one can come to Me, I'm out.
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That would have been rough, right? That would have been a terrible way to end the sentence.
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No one can come to Me? Peace out.
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He didn't say that though.
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Let me finish.
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He says, no one can come to Me unless...
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unless is the key word in that sentence.
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He says, no one can come to Me unless something happens.
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And what is it that happens? The Father who sent Me draws Him.
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See, we don't come unless we're drawn.
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We do not come unless we are drawn.
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And so, how does God draw us? He draws us by the work of the Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit, the Bible says when the Holy Spirit comes into the world, He's going to do what? Convict the world.
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Yeah, good, good, good answer.
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Okay, He's going to convict the world of unrighteousness.
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So, what's the first thing that brings us to Christ? Recognizing we're sinners.
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Recognizing we're desperate in need of a Savior.
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Right? Nobody has ever come to Christ who did not recognize the need of a Savior.
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Right? So, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.
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And then He does a mighty work called regeneration.
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Now, the word regeneration is a fancy way of saying born again.
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See, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and then He gives us a new heart.
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The words of the Old Testament were this.
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You had a heart of stone and God took out your heart of stone and He gave you a heart of flesh.
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See, that's God's work, not yours.
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You didn't do spiritual heart surgery on yourself.
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God did spiritual heart surgery on you.
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Now, you had a question.
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I didn't mean to overlook you.
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Go ahead.
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No, I was just saying, because it's in 39, it says that He wouldn't lose.
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That I should lose nothing at all that He has given me.
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Is that why? You know, when the gardener got into the vicinity, when he told Peter, he was like, there's a sword down.
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Well, I thought I heard something.
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Because we had watched that movie, and I'm that son of man, and there was things that I think that weren't Scripture.
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There's things that was Scripture in there.
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But I want to believe I read something about him telling Peter to drop the sword.
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My father says that anything that He's given to me, I will not lose.
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I'm not sure I would connect those portions.
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You may be right, but I'm not sure.
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It's not exactly where I'm at right now.
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Yeah, and so I would say, but what he says there about not losing anything the Father has given to me, that is a great comfort to us.
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Because if you have been saved, you have been given by the Father to the Son as a gift.
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Do you know why the Bible calls the church the Bride of Christ? Because brides were purchased by the Father and given to the Son.
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The Father would go and get a bride.
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Do you remember the story of Abraham? When he wanted to get a bride for Isaac, he sent his servant to his family, and he sent the servant, and he gave a dowry for the bride, and he brought the bride back, and he presented him to Isaac.
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That's the picture of us.
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We, the Father, has paid the purchase price for the bride so that the bride can be given to the Son.
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And here's the thing that's really blowing your mind.
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The purchase price is the life of the Son.
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The Son dies to buy the bride, and then the bride is presented to Him as a gift.
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You may say to yourself sometimes, I'm no gift.
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And I've heard people say, well, I'm no gift.
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If you are saved, you are a gift.
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You are a gift from the Father to the Son.
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You have been given from the Father to the Son.
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And it says, of all the Father gives me, I will lose none of them.
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Because the Father gives you to the Son, and you are redeemed, and you're secured in Him.
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Go ahead, ask your question.
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Q.
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Okay, I remember you said that the word was power.
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A.
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Well, I said that the word there is dunamis, and it means power.
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Now, going back to John 1, He gave the power to become children of God, or He became the right.
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Like if I give somebody the right to do something, my child says, Daddy, can I go outside and play? If I say no, I'm not giving him the power to do it.
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I'm telling him, you can't do it.
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But if I say yes, I'm giving him the right or the power to go outside and play.
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Well, we did not have the power to become children of God.
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God gave us that power through Jesus.
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That's the way I was using that term.
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Yes.
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Q.
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Is there something called double predestination? A.
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Yes, and that's a good question.
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And I will address that in just a minute.
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Don't let me forget because we're almost done, but I'll save that to the end.
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Okay, so looking over the texts, we've seen Ephesians 1, which teaches us that God, before the foundation of the world, chose us in Christ that we should be holy and blameless.
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And He did so in love.
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He predestined us in love.
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We come back to John 6 and we see this is not just Paul's words, but these are Jesus' words.
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Jesus is the one who tells us, no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.
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In fact, Jesus says many things.
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If you read the text of the four Gospels, Jesus says many things about this.
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They're not always as explicit as we might like, but there's some things that He says, like when He's preaching the parables and His disciples say, why do you speak to them in parables? He says, so seeing they will not see and hearing they will not understand.
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Literally, the parables were intended to confuse the unbelieving.
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So that seeing they will not see and hearing they will not understand.
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He says, but to you, I don't speak in parables.
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Who? His disciples.
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There was a sense in which Christ intentionally confused the masses.
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He said, well, why would He do that? Because they all were not a part of His elect.
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He said, oh, now I don't like that.
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Well, that's what He said.
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Why do you speak to them in parables? Because it's not been given to them.
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So that seeing they will not see and hearing they will not understand.
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But to you, I don't speak in parables.
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To you, I give it to you plain.
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Because they were His chosen people.
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His disciples.
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There's a lot in the Gospels.
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There's a lot in Jesus' words that tell us that He came for a specific purpose.
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And He came for the purpose of redeeming His elect.
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So now when we talk about the elect, we talk about elect equals chosen.
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And this includes all believers who become believers by grace, not by their own choice.
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And I'm going to say this.
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And again, don't, don't.
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Just take it for what it's worth.
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You did not believe on your own.
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You were empowered by God to believe.
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No one can come to me unless the Father has sent me draws him.
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And He says it again in verse 65.
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If you're in John 6, go down to verse 65.
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He says, this is why I said, no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.
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It's a gift.
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It's God's gift.
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Faith is a gift from God.
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Paul says this in Ephesians 2.
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For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourself.
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It is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
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We have faith as a gift.
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So having said all that now, when we talk about election, we have to talk about the opposite of election, which is reprobation.
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And this is going to get to the question you asked, because election is God's gracious choice of people who are absolutely unmerited to receive it.
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If you were chosen by God, you didn't do anything to deserve it.
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But reprobation is what we call God's passing over of the non-elect.
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So God chooses to do a work in the life of the elect.
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That is giving them the grace to believe.
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But God also chooses to pass over the non-elect and not give them that grace.
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That's why my church, do you know the title of my church is? Sovereign Grace.
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Do you know why we call it Sovereign Grace? Because God has the free choice in the distribution of grace and He distributes His grace sovereignly to whom He chooses.
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You say, I don't believe that.
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Turn to Romans 9.
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Romans 9.
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God has the choice to distribute His grace to whom He chooses.
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God has the ability.
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See, we talk about free will.
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You know who truly has free will? God.
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God has freedom to choose whom He wills.
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That's the key.
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It's not about your will, it's about His will.
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Now when you get to Romans 9, Romans 9 is answering this important question.
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If God chose Israel, why is not all Israel saved? That's a good question.
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And Paul answers that question in Romans 9.
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He says this, I'm speaking the truth in Christ.
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I'm not lying.
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My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
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For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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Paul says there, if I could give up my salvation and get them saved, I would.
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Now you have to think, would he really? Well, I don't think he could have written it in Scripture if it weren't true.
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Because he's saying it in the Bible.
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He says, I would give up my salvation if it meant the salvation of the Jews.
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And it goes on.
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They're Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises.
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To them belongs the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.
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Amen.
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He's saying to them, they've been giving all these blessings.
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They were chosen by God as a nation.
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They've been used by God to bring about the Scriptures.
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And even through them, Christ came.
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So they got a lot of blessings.
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But it is not as though, verse six, is not as though the word of God has failed.
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For not all who descend from Israel belong to Israel.
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And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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Right there is a point of Old Testament truth.
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Not everybody born of Abraham was part of the promise, but only the sons of Isaac.
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And then Isaac had two sons.
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And only one of them were the son of the promise.
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It was Jacob.
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Notice what it says.
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It says, This means that is not children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of promise are counted as offspring.
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For this is what the promise said.
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About this time next year, I will return and Sarah will have a son.
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This is quoting Genesis.
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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 stand, not because of works, but because of him who calls.
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She was told the older will serve the younger as it is written, Jacob I love, but Esau I hated.
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Right there, God made a choice between Jacob and Esau.
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And he made the choice to elect Jacob and not Esau.
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Now, if you look at the story of Jacob, I just got done preaching.
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I've been in Genesis for three years and I've just now finished the story of Jacob and Esau.
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That long tenure of circumstances between them.
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At the end of the story, Esau does come off looking rather good because he forgives Jacob.
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He hugs him.
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He welcomes him back.
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He doesn't have any animosity, even though he said he was going to kill him.
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He doesn't.
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Esau comes out looking pretty good at the end.
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But if you go to the New Testament and read what the New Testament says about Esau, it still says he was a man of unbelief.
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It says he didn't believe.
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And you say, well, where's that in the Old Testament? Well, think about he sold his birthright for a pot of stew.
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He tried to get the blessing, even though it wasn't his anymore because he'd already sold the birthright.
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Tried to get the blessing from his father and he cried for the fact that he didn't get it right.
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And he married Canaanite women and the daughter of Ishmael.
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He did a lot of things that demonstrated he had no love for the things of God.
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So even though at the end of his life, he looked kind of good, the extent of his life showed he was a man that did not have faith.
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And therefore, we come to this passage in Romans 9 and it says, Jacob, I love.
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Now, Jacob was a scoundrel, lied to his daddy, dressed in, you know, he liked LARPing.
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First LARPer, live action roleplay.
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He was dressed up as Esau, you know, went in, pretended, did all kinds of crazy stuff.
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But he was God's chosen man.
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And in the end, we see God blessing him.
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The point in all of this is God's choice to choose whom He will.
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And it wouldn't always be our choice.
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I mean, honestly, if you knew all the things about you, would you choose you? I wouldn't choose me.
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Now, here's the question that goes with this.
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Verse 14.
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What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? Now, here's the reason why he's asking that question, because he just said, Jacob, I love Esau.
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I hate it.
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I chose one.
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I didn't choose the other.
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Does that mean God's unfair? Is there injustice with God? By no means.
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For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion so that it depends not on human will or exertion, which that's a comparison to John chapter one.
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We just read a little while ago.
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It's not the will of flesh, not the will of man, right? It's not human will or exertion.
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But God who has mercy for the Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I've raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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So then God has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.
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That is the point.
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God has the power to elect and he has the power to pass over the non elect and he does both.
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And that is the definition of double predestination.
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It's not the same because God doesn't have to do any positive action because the reprobate are already sinners.
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God doesn't make you worse, but he leaves you in your sin.
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For the elect, he does the positive action of giving grace and for the non elect, he passes over them in their sin.
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He does not do them wrong for it is not wrong of God to not extend grace because grace is never deserved.
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But in passing over the non elect, he leaves them in their sin and they die deserving their punishment.
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Understand this, God will give you one of two things.
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God will either give you mercy which you do not deserve or he will give you justice which you do.
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And in both cases, he will be completely righteous and you will not be receiving any injustice.
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Is there any injustice with God? No, for God will either give you grace and mercy or he will give you justice.
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But no man will face God on judgment day and say, God, you were unfair.
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I've heard atheists say that.
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Well, if I face God on judgment day, judgment day, I'm going to tell him you just didn't give me enough reason to believe in you.
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And I say on judgment day, all you're going to do is cower on your knees.
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Before the face of a mighty God.
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And understand this, we will all face God one day.
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So I call you today.
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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You might say, how can I believe if I'm not elect? The Bible doesn't tell you to look.
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The Bible doesn't tell you to try to be elect.
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The Bible says believe.
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And that's an important distinction.
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As far as election and predestination goes, that is in the mind of God.
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We don't know that.
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That's why I don't walk around to you guys and lift up your shirts to see if there's an E tattooed to your back for elect, because nobody has that.
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Here's how you know the elect.
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They believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That's why I've said the whole day, elect are those who believe.
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If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.
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I can say that to any man.
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If you will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved.
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The Bible says the Father gives you to the Son and the Son will in no wise cast you out.
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So I can say that with all confidence.
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If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be set.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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And I pray that this will be used by you to help us all understand a very difficult subject more easily in Christ's name.
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Amen.