Is Predestination True? (Part 3)

The Sovereignty of God and Unconditional Election

Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 9. One of the many texts we'll be looking at today as we look into this doctrine of unconditional election or unconditional grace, again, which is kind of the definition, unconditional grace.

We're in our series right now on the doctrines of grace, studying what the Bible teaches about God's grace and salvation. We're looking at concepts like the elect and predestination, God's choice to save.

So Romans 9 is one of the premier passages in reference to the concept of God mercying whom He wills and hardening whom He wills. So Romans chapter 9, Romans chapter 9, I encourage you to spend lots of time in this particular passage.

It is something we have to wrestle with as believers and yield to what scripture teaches about God as the judge, God's sovereign right to give mercy to whom He wills. We're gonna start in verse 6, Romans 9, in verse 6.

Hear now the word of the living and the true God. But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son.

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

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.

You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this?

Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles.

Thus far as the reading of God's holy word, let's pray together as his people. Father, we come before your holy word, praising you, Lord, for this amazing gift. You have spoken. You've spoken and you keep speaking in the created order itself.

You're shouting to the world about your presence and your power, but you've also given to us the revelation, Father, of your son. Lord Jesus, you are the revelation of God entered into history, revelation incarnate, walking among us.

And God, you've spoken through your word. We can have certainty about what you've said because you've told us. The secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but what he has revealed belongs to us, and to our children.

Lord, we're grateful, Lord, that we don't have to simply relegate things to incomprehensibility, simply, or to mystery. But where you have touched, Lord, we can know. We can know your heart. We can know your mind if you've revealed it.

And so, Lord, we're thankful. We're thankful, Lord, for your grace, your mercy. We're thankful, Lord, that you've saved rebel sinners like us that deserve the justice you've given us mercy, and it's mercy and grace that is totally undeserved.

We should have the opposite, Father. Help us to see it. Help us to know it. As we examine these texts, I pray that you would break down the pride we have within our hearts, our arrogance, our haughtiness.

Teach us, Lord, about your sovereign will and your powerful love and grace. In Jesus' name, amen. So the purpose of this study is to whittle down our church to a small number. No. I had a friend many years ago.

He was Pastor Tom Schrader at East Valley Bible Church way back when, and when he would do his annual work through the doctrines of grace, he would say, the parking lot's getting too full. It's time to clear it out.

So he started the doctrines of grace. Now, that shouldn't be the case when you see the glory of God and the glory of his grace. The problem is human pride. The problem is stubbornness. The problem is a haughtiness that says, there must be something in me that attracted God to me.

There must be something in me that's different from the other that allowed me to see these truths, to come to Jesus, to trust in him. That's what makes us all different. Is there something in the creature, not in ultimately God and his sovereign will and purpose, but something in the creature that makes them able to get themselves to God?

Something different. Now, of course, acknowledging that people will say, no, you need God's grace. Of course, you need the grace part, you need the power of God part, but it's still something ultimately not in God, but the creature that makes the final say, the vote count.

You've heard things like, God's cast a vote for you. The devil's cast a vote against you, and your vote is the deciding votes. Pithy little evangelical slogans like that. Is it really in the creature or is God as sovereign as the Bible teaches?

Over every detail, every detail, from birds falling from trees to the creatures in the ocean that many of us have never even seen, it would be horrified if we did, to the sustaining of the entire universe with billions of galaxies, we're in one.

The sovereign God who brings down kings, who directs the heart of the king like a stream of waters. The sovereign God who says that he predestines and elect people for his purpose, for his glory. Is God as sovereign as he says in his word, that he's the one who declares the end from the beginning, that nobody can stay his hand, nobody can thwart his purposes.

The Bible teaches that God is sovereign. We started this entire series with that as the foundation. God is the sovereign. It's one of the quotes I put here in the soul food today. I thought it was simple, profound, easy.

It's a line, it's from Dr. R .C. Sproul and I think it should cut us. I hope it does cut you, challenge you, because it's true, it's so true. It's everywhere, it's not just in this subject, but it really is everywhere.

All over our theologies, all over our praxis, our sovereignty, us as the powerful ones, our will as the ultimate. Dr. Sproul says, most Christians salute the sovereignty of God, but believe in the sovereignty of man.

It's true, it really is. God is sovereign. We give him the nod, we tip the hat at that doctrinal truth because you can't get away from it. It's from Genesis to Revelation. It is everywhere, incontrovertible.

It is overwhelming. God is sovereign. And yet we have soteriological beliefs, beliefs about salvation, theological beliefs that put us mainly in the center. Sure, God is sovereign, but ultimately somehow our theologies or our soteriologies have God somehow constrained with his hands tied behind his back, somehow, like we say things like, well, God is sovereign, but we have a free what?

We've got a free will, you see, and God can't ultimately get in the way of the free will. He sort of set this game in motion and set up rules that are sort of above him. He can't violate these rules because we have sort of a free will and God's not gonna manipulate things or he's not gonna do anything to interfere with this supreme truth that man has a free will.

And because of conflicting theological presuppositions or views of soteriology and how a person is saved, the issue of God's sovereignty becomes muddy. It becomes secondary, not overarching as the Bible makes it as overarching and supreme, God is sovereign, but his sovereignty becomes secondary to our sovereignty, us, the creatures, the sovereigns in the sovereign's universe.

See, the purpose of this study, so you know why, why would you do a study? Why talk about it again? Because we do have a series behind us. We've done this before. Why talk about it again? And the answer is because it is my life's goal to defend the biblical gospel, to preserve the biblical perspective of God's grace.

There are always, there has been throughout the history of the church and I believe moving forward, they're gonna keep coming, there have always been distortions of grace, distortions of the biblical gospel.

And as Christians, we have to always know what is the truth about God's grace? What is the biblical gospel so that we can proclaim that gospel, which is the power of God for salvation and preserve and defend that gospel for future generations.

These are essential truths. The grace of God in salvation is not a side issue. It's not a tertiary issue. It's not adiaphora. It isn't. It's central. We are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, in Jesus alone.

But the big question is how gracious is God's grace? Because listen, you fudge grace, biblical grace, and you get false gospels. You mix up what God says about grace and you will grow false gospels out of that mixing up of God's grace in scripture.

So it is our goal, our purpose to defend the biblical gospel and the Bible's definition of grace. The question to ask is this, how gracious is grace? How gracious is God's grace? So again, we started with the foundation of the whole study.

Number one, the sovereignty of God. Is God kind of sovereign, sort of sovereign, mostly sovereign, or is God completely sovereign? I'm not gonna rehash that whole sermon right now. Go back and listen to it, but that is foundational.

God is the sovereign. He rules, he determines, he's in control. I hate that I have this. It's really, by the way, I'm wearing T-shirts because it's super hot up here, and I hate that I have this where I have to have sort of a powerful sermon.

Okay, thanks, thanks, Elliot. Talking about very profound, powerful truths and then sipping on the straw. But this one's cold. That one felt like it was left in the heater. So number one is sovereignty.

That's foundational. Number two, we talked about total depravity or total inability. Now listen, if you get these truths that are incontrovertible, they cannot be taken down. They will not be taken down because it is pervasive, it is consistent.

Listen, you can spot the false theological belief via its inconsistencies. This is consistent through and through. God is sovereign. How sovereign? Completely sovereign over every detail. Not a maverick molecule in the entire universe.

God declares the end from the beginning. He sustains all things. It's his purpose and plan. Next is the condition of fallen men and women. If you're a son and daughter of Adam and Eve, and that means all of you of every color, we're all the same.

You are fallen, not righteous, not good. Romans 3, non-God seeking. There is none who seeks for God. That's the condition. Jesus says in John chapter six, no man is able to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.

Which one? The one unable. And Jesus says, I will raise him up. Who? The one the father drew who was unable to come to God. So the idea that our wills are free is not a biblical concept. It's not to say that we don't have a will and we're not making willing choices.

We have a creaturely will. That is according to Jesus in John eight, enslaved. Where did we ever get the idea that our fallen wills are free? Jesus says this, and here it is. He said we could do it all day, but we already did it.

So I won't do it all day again. I'll just stay on the foundational ones. Jesus, the Lord of glory, God incarnate said this about sinners. He says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

Now, are slaves free? They're in bondage. They're enslaved. He says this though. But if the son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. So our contention is that biblically there is no God seeker. There is none righteous.

We have all gone astray. We are enslaved. We are in bondage. And unless the son sets us free, we will not be free. So those two are foundational. God is totally sovereign. All of mankind, every human being is either in Adam or Jesus, Romans five.

If you're in Adam, you are dead spiritually. There is condemnation. You are not righteous. You are condemned in Adam. If you are in Christ, there is the gift of eternal life and of righteousness. Two categories according to the apostle Paul for all humanity.

How you like them apples? He doesn't break humans up into different colors and ethnicities. He says you're either in two representatives, Adam or Jesus. Which one? One is death and condemnation. One is the gift of eternal life and righteousness.

That is the summary of all of humanity. And so our condition is fallen rebels by nature, children of wrath, Ephesians two, dead in our sins and trespasses. And the glory of God's grace is this, but God, but God, though that is the condition of every single human being, though we are rebels, though we are enemies of God, Romans chapter one, but God who is rich in mercy with the great love that he loved us.

It says this, we were dead. God made us alive together with him. By grace you've been saved. That brothers and sisters is the biblical definition of grace according to the apostle Paul in that famous evangelical passage.

We all quote from by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not according to works lest any man should boast. That's after he says you were dead. God made you alive by grace you've been saved.

That's how gracious this grace is. It's an undeserving grace, which is again, the definition of grace. You see, there are two concepts we need to understand here in terms of God's choice to save his sovereign will and salvation.

We need to understand the concepts of grace and mercy, kind of, well, three concepts, grace, mercy, and justice. Grace is getting something that you do not deserve. Mark it down. Grace is getting something that you do not deserve.

It's unmerited, it's gift, it's a definition of gift. There's no wage, there's no labor involved. It's just grace. That's why we love Christmas at Apologia Church. It's a day of grace, it's a day of celebrating grace.

God gives us Jesus, we don't deserve him, and we'd like to celebrate that day with a ton of gifts, as many as we can give away, because we're showing grace, grace, grace. The next concept is mercy. What is mercy?

Not getting what you do deserve. Not getting what you do deserve. You're guilty, you should get this punishment, but I will not give it to you. I will show you mercy. You deserve this, but I will not give it to you.

I'll show you mercy. The next concept is justice, and that's what we do deserve. Righteous response. We talk about God's wrath. God's wrath isn't even like our wrath. It's a settled opposition against evil.

When we think about wrath, we think about our own outbursts. I was really angry, I was filled with wrath, and so I let it go. That's not how God's wrath works. God is a just judge. When he has wrath, it is a settled opposition against evil, and when he responds as a good judge, he gives a righteous sentence, a righteous penalty, and here's the deal.

According to scripture, every single son or daughter of Adam and Eve is condemned. Romans 5. Romans 5. If you are born a son and daughter of Adam and Eve, you are born dead in your sins and trespasses by nature a child of wrath, and you are condemned, and you are worthy of God's just response to your sin.

Justice, grace, mercy, and justice. Why am I talking about it? Because here's the deal. When people hear about God's sovereign grace, what they'll always say is this. Wait, are you saying that God chose to give grace and mercy to these people but not to these?

That's not what? Fair. You've been in this conversation before. That's not fair. Grace and mercy to these but not to these? But God is a God of love, bro. He's a God of love, bro. He's a God of love, and I can't see a God of love saying, I'll give you grace and mercy, but I won't give it to you.

That doesn't seem fair. I don't worship that God. I say, well, perhaps you don't. The Bible actually teaches that those concepts, grace, mercy, and justice, are different categories. And what does every single human being deserve from a holy God that we're rebels against?

One thing. What is it, everyone? Justice. There is no denying that biblically. You cannot controvert that. You can't get around it. You can't deny it. Every single human being is a rebel against a holy God.

That is a testimony of this book, and we all deserve one thing from God, and that's justice. We cannot say, why doesn't God give it to everybody? Proof that you don't really believe that is that nobody acts that way in human courts.

Nobody. When we walk into human courts today, it's a terrifying experience. You ever been in a court? It is truly a terrifying experience. Even watching other people get the sentence, there is a sense, a presence of justice that is heavy in the courts.

It is terrifying. I've had to go into courts as a pastor to testify for people, to beg the judge for mercy on people who are coming to Christ out of drug and alcohol addiction. That's a terrifying experience.

Even for a pastor to go before a judge and to plead. I remember distinctly, I think you're in this room. I won't point you out. People came to Jesus. Lives totally transformed. Facing sentence, and I go before the judge and I stand in court.

I went to court that day just thinking to myself, I'm gonna go to court, I'm the pastor, I'm gonna talk about the life change, and I'm gonna beg the judge to give mercy in the sentence. And I remember getting into the courtroom.

It just came out of nowhere. This deep sense of, oh my goodness, there is justice ahead, this is serious. My hands and my legs were shaking. I could barely get my voice out to the judge to explain why I was begging for mercy on behalf of this person that had come to Jesus.

There was a sense of justice, and I was pleading for mercy to the judge. Please be merciful. Please do not give everything that could be given. Please be merciful in some way. Don't send him to jail for 10 years.

Put him under my care. Let me be responsible for him, but please show mercy. Please do something merciful in his case. There was a terrifying sense in the room that day. But what was I doing before the judge?

I didn't go in before the judge and say to the judge, your honor, if you're really a judge who loves, then for the rest of the day, you're gonna give every person that comes before your court mercy. And if you don't do it, you're not a good judge.

We all recognize this guy is really guilty. And this judge has a responsibility to give a just sentence. The judge doesn't know anybody in that courtroom, mercy or grace. The judge has a job to do, and that is to be righteous and just, to protect victims' rights.

And if this person walks into the courtroom and is found judicially guilty, truly guilty, the judge has one duty, and that is be righteous and judge, to give a sentence. We all recognize in a human court, that's the judge's job, that's his role.

But the amazing thing is, is we don't walk into courts today saying, your honors, love and grace and mercy for everybody. Let them all go. Proof is that when you've been victimized and I've been victimized, we go into that courtroom as victims, expecting the judge to do right by us and to sentence the guilty.

But isn't it amazing when we stand in this discussion about God's justice and his mercy, we stand before the ultimate righteous judge, and we actually say to him, you're unjust. You should have given mercy to everybody.

How could you ever do such a thing? You see, really, if you think about it biblically, when everybody is guilty, and we're all the rebels and criminals in God's universe, and we're all enemies of God, children of wrath, non-God seeking, slaves to sin, the real question is not, why does God save some and not others?

The real question is, why would a holy and just God save anybody, even one, and especially me? That's the real question. And it's only arrogance, pride, and haughtiness that gets us to a place where we look up to God and we actually accuse him of injustice when he has actually given mercy and grace to so many.

And it was a mercy and grace that was purchased through his perfect eternal son. That is mind-boggling and incomprehensible. The problem with people resistant to unconditional election is that they're mixing man-made philosophies about our condition and our rights with biblical truth, and they are coming into conflict.

They will not meet in a coherent way. So here we are talking about God's unconditional election that when God chooses to save, he chooses to save before the foundation of the world. We're gonna go into some of those texts.

But it's this concept that God is the sovereign and he's the judge, and he chooses to give grace and mercy that is undeserved to sinners that ought to get justice. You see, A, this offends rebellious creatures.

And it's no surprise that it offends rebellious creatures because criminals often have a very low view of their judge at sentencing, right? You ever seen criminals or really violent criminals before the judge as he delivers a sentence?

You ever seen him go berserk in the courtroom, start yelling at the judge? You should watch Worldstar. It's quite a thing. People who are criminals often have a low view of the judge. Next, oddly, this biblical concept of God's choice to extend mercy to whom he wills is offensive to many modern evangelicals who believe ultimately that they're the sovereign, not God.

A passing view of, yes, God is sovereign, but really the creature is the ultimate sovereign here. We're the determining factor. And next, this is a problem for many, this concept of unconditional election or unconditional grace because there is the charge of injustice.

But as you work through this, just think about this conceptually. What does a good God owe the guilty? Mercy or punishment? Mercy or punishment? Punishment. Now, Sproul did an amazing illustration of this.

I thought, I think it was actually really good. So I'm just gonna do it. I don't have a board that Sproul used to have, you know, he'd write on the chalkboard behind him or whatever, but he would do it by way of drawing stick figures on a board.

He would draw six stick figures on the board and he would circle three and then circle the other three and he would say, mercy for these, justice for these. Now, he would say, as you look at the board, I want you to imagine this is all of humanity, all of humanity.

And all of these stick figures are actually guilty criminals. They're all sinners, they're all rebels. Every one of them deserves justice. Now, if I come up and I circle three and I say mercy and grace, and I circle the other three and I say justice, the question is this, has any injustice been given in that concept?

Can anybody say there that's unjust? All are guilty, all are worthy of justice, all are deserving of justice. If God chooses to give grace and mercy to a set and justice to the other, the question is this, can there be a legitimate claim of injustice?

What do you think? Because the ones who get justice, did they deserve it? Yes, and the ones who get mercy, what should they have gotten? Justice, but what'd they get? Mercy, was it owed? No, so no injustice has been done.

And finally, again, the incomprehensible thing is that God saves even one. He saves even one. So here are the questions that come up or the challenges that come up. And we're gonna go into a lot of texts today, but I wanna fill out some of the questions and challenges.

People will say, yes, you can't get away from it. Predestination is all throughout the Bible. The word is there, predestined, election is there. God chooses, he chose us in him, Ephesians one, before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons. There it is, can't get away from it, it's right there. It's not a verse here or there, whole discourses, whole chapters describing this particular doctrinal truth.

So people will say, well, yeah, I can't get away from God choosing. I can't get away from predestination. I can't get away from election. I mean, my goodness, Paul opens his letters up talking about the elect of God, addressing the elect of God.

So what do I do with it? Well, I need to somehow save God. So what I'll think is that really, you see what it is like this. God created, and when he created, there's a sense in which he looked through time to see who would choose him and believe in him.

And on that basis, he chose them. What are the problems with that biblically? If God looked through time, he would see a graveyard. He would see a world with a full history of dead people. What does Romans 3 say?

There is no God seeker. So if God did look through time to see who would be seeking him or believing in him, what would he see? Rebels, hostile, all of them, non-God seeking, spitting in hatred at their creator.

So when God looks through time, does he find anybody able to believe in him because of their rebellion? John 6, no man is able to come to me. So if God looked through time to see who would believe in him, and on that basis, he chooses them, what does he find?

Non-God seekers. So there is no one looking back at him, and further, and I think this is demonstrably one of the most powerful responses to that kind of argumentation, God is all-knowing, amen? Think about it.

God is all-knowing. If God, quote, looks through time to see something and he learns from that, it means God learned something and he wasn't all-knowing. So that doesn't work. Biblically, it doesn't work.

But then people will say, okay, maybe it's not like that. Maybe it's that his choice is based upon their choice, maybe their deeds, their righteousnesses. And now we're right into a false gospel and there is no righteous one, none that does good, and all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

So God's not choosing people on the basis of their own good deeds and their works because the Bible says we're dead. We're rebels, we're worthy of wrath. So when God is choosing, he's choosing to give salvation to unworthy people, people who are enemies, people who are slaves.

That's what the Bible teaches. Now, this whole concept of election, God's choice, his sovereign choice needs to start somewhere, of course. Now, I wanna just say, as I always say in this, this isn't exhaustive.

We could go all day long here with passages and it's almost endless. But we gotta start somewhere conceptually. And if you are in a different place on this particular subject right now, all I would ask you to do right now is just be humble enough to hear the perspective and then work through it biblically.

And I thought a good way to do this is to start in the Old Testament and to start in a particular place that every Christian seems to have agreement on. We all seem to have agreement on this particular point.

And so let's go to it together, Deuteronomy chapter seven. Deuteronomy chapter seven, six through eight. Deuteronomy seven, six through eight. It's amazing because this is actually a popular concept. And I always found that this particular truth ought to be something that wakes us all up to this concept of God's sovereign choice.

Because we all recognize it here oddly. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verses six through eight. Here's what it says. God's speaking here to his people. It says, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all the peoples.

But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he has swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Now think about this again conceptually today. People have a big problem with this today and it is true that much of evangelicalism is responsible for a lot of this. I'm not gonna get into this whole discussion right now.

But people talk today about America's support for who? Israel, right? And what do evangelicals today typically say in the West? They say, well, those are God's chosen people. Israel is God's chosen people.

Even though today you have people there who reject Jesus, violently opposed to the message of the gospel, try to prohibit the proclamation of the gospel, people today, evangelicals will often say, that's God's chosen people, Israel.

And we'll go to a text like this and say, in terms of the nation of Israel, God says, I chose you out of all the nations on the earth. And what we say is typically, that's exactly right, that's true, Israel as the people of God, God chose them out of all the other nations.

It's not that there are more numerous, they were actually least, but God chose them because he loved them, because he was keeping his promises. But we all recognize God had the sovereign right out of all of humanity, out of all the tribes, to actually choose Israel for his plan.

And we all recognize that was a sovereign choice and it wasn't anything in Israel. Do we know Israel's history? It's a little spotty, it's a little spotty, right? I mean, even getting redeemed and seeing the crazy miracles and the exodus and all the blood water and all the frogs and locusts and the Red Sea just popping up and they're just walking across like on dry land and seeing God destroy their enemies, they still can't get it right.

And then God's raising up kings and then they're sinful and they're broken. Even David, a man of God's own heart, yeah, guilty of adultery and sending a man to get killed, all of them have their warts, all of them, sins, all of them, sinners, but God says, I chose you.

And we all recognize that. Listen, God chose the people of Israel. What's that mean? He didn't choose the Philistines. He didn't choose the Egyptians. He didn't choose the Amorites. He didn't choose the Hittites.