I invite your attention to the
book of Exodus, chapter 33. 33rd chapter of the book of Exodus. My text is in verse number 19. My message is titled, Sovereign
Grace. I'm not certain, but It may be
that I have preached this message here before. If I did, it was
a few years ago before I became your pastor and upon a visit
with you. A few months ago, I prepared
a tract on this subject, put it on the table, and that was
in response to a visitor to our worship service who asked What
is sovereign grace? And I thought, well, you know,
it would be good to put it in tract form and we can just hand
it out. Here's what it is, although each
of us should be able to give some kind of a brief explanation
regarding it and giving an answer to anyone who should ask of the
hope that is within us. But my text in chapter 33, Book
of Exodus, Verse number 12, And Moses said unto Jehovah,
See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people, and thou hast
not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said,
I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Is that not a great expression? I have found grace in your sight. This is Moses speaking to the
Lord. You say, I found grace in your
sight. I want you to notice he's going
to use this term repeatedly. Now therefore, I pray thee, if
I have found grace in thy sight, Show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I
may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation
is thy people. And Jehovah said, My presence
shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And Moses said
unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up
hence. For wherein shall it be known
here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is
it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated,
thy and thy people, from all the people that are upon the
face of the earth. And Jehovah said unto Moses,
I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken. For thou hast
found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And Moses
said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. I want you to notice
something here. Moses is speaking to the Lord
somewhat like Abraham did when he pled for Sodom. He asked for
something and the Lord gives it to him and then Moses says,
Let me ask you for something else. Okay. And he asked it and
the Lord gives it. Okay. I'm going to ask you for
something else. Have you noticed that the Lord
just keeps giving to him what he wants? Because Moses had found
grace in his sight and Moses keeps requesting and the Lord
keeps granting. Moses said, verse 18, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. And Jehovah said, I will make
all my goodness pass before thee. This is the answer to the question,
some of your glory. I will make all my goodness pass
before thee. I will proclaim the name of Jehovah
before thee. And I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. Here's my text. I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. and will show mercy on whom I
will show mercy." Now that's a grand thought. Sovereign grace. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. You want an explanation of sovereign
grace, there it is. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. This term, sovereign grace, it is either loved, hated, or
abused. I assume, with good reason, that
that term is loved here. Why, you just named your church
Sovereign Grace Church. People should know when they
drive by, at least those with some theological knowledge, someone
drives by and sees a sign that says, Sovereign Grace Church. You know, and some child says,
Father, what does that mean? It means they're not free will
Baptist, that's for sure. It's just the opposite. People
know what that term means, Sovereign Grace. If they do not, we're
going to be able to explain it to them because we love it. Your late pastor, John Mitchell,
for more than 40 years, here in, shall we call it the middle
of nowhere, a voice in the wilderness. What was he preaching? Sovereign
grace. People back east knew it because
every time he went back east, they expected to hear it. Your
next pastor, a champion of sovereign grace, not only in England before
he came here, While he was here and known internationally, Peter
and many known for loving sovereign grace, I have it on good authority
through a personal and intimate relationship with your current
pastor that he loves sovereign grace. And I dare say that to the man
and to the woman in this church, Every one of them loves sovereign
grace. Can you say amen? Okay, so be
it. This doctrine is loved. This
doctrine is also hated. I graduated from a Bible college,
hated this doctrine of sovereign grace. Some over 400 students
in the college pursuing degrees in theology and religious education. To the best of my knowledge,
there were five of us on campus who claimed and acknowledged
ourselves to believe in sovereign grace. I know that we five, We're not
allowed to discuss the extent of the atonement on campus. It
was feared what would happen if we did. I know that I lived off campus
and if I would go and study for an exam with some of my fellow
students on the night before the exam, if I go on campus and
study with them, They would be called into some administrator's
office the next day to find out, did Moose discuss the extent
of the atonement? Where this sovereign grace is
feared, it is hated. This doctrine, this term, this
gospel is abused. It was a revival of sovereign
grace back in the 50s and the 60s. A.W. Pink wrote his book on the sovereignty
of God and it had a great influence. That book, other than the scriptures,
has probably changed more people's lives with regard to the gospel
than any other. The Lord raised up a generation
of older men like Rolf Barnard and B.B. Caldwell and A.D. Mews, N.B. Magruder, and a young
man by the name of Henry Mahan in Ashland, Kentucky. And the
church in Ashland, Kentucky began conducting conferences. And there
was a revival of this gospel, this doctrine, this term, sovereign
grace. My father came under the influence
of some of the early men of that generation, became a firm believer
and a preacher of God's sovereign grace, mentored me with regards
to it. There was somewhat of a revival
of it even in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, my hometown.
The Lord raised up a number of men. to preach this gospel of
sovereign grace. Some of them you know, Tim James,
Don Fortner, myself, we lived within five miles of each other,
we knew each other and fellowshiped with each other, and there were
others as well. People began to realize something
about these preachers of sovereign grace. The scriptures are on
their side when they say, Jehovah says, I will be gracious to whom? I will be gracious. Hath not
the potter power over the clay to make one vessel under honor
and another under dishonor? Jacob I have loved and Esau I
have hated. And people began to realize that
These men who preach God's sovereign grace have the Scriptures on
their side. So some people who did not really
believe what was in these Scriptures began calling themselves sovereign
grace. They did not want to be known
as the opposite, which was Arminian-Pelagian free will. I'm sovereign grace. Oh, they wouldn't preach it.
They might mention the term from time to time, but this term is
abused. It is abused. There are many
who claim to believe in sovereign grace, and they give it lip service. They'll use it as long as the
term brings some profitability to themselves. So you see, this
term is loved by some, hated by some and abused by others. We're going to look today at
this doctrine of sovereign grace, its definition, its necessity,
its God, its objects, its time, its denial, and number seven,
its praise. Consider first the definition
of sovereign grace. Grace in its simplest definition
is unmerited favor, such as a gift, in contrast to merited recompense,
such as wages. So we're talking about that which is merited, that's
wages, that which is unmerited, That's grace. We can illustrate
in this fashion. Here's a man in need of employment. He goes on Monday to an employer
and he says, I need a job. I need it badly. The employer
says, all right, you'll work for me five days a week. I'll
pay you $1,000 a week. So the man goes to work five
days a week with the promise of $1,000 at the end of the week. The employer goes to see the
man's foreman early Friday morning. How's my new employee doing?
Oh, he's doing very well. He's earning his $1,000, and
he needs that money very badly because He recently incurred
a debt of $500 that must be paid very soon. He needs this money. So at the end of the day, the
man comes to the employer to receive his wages, and the employer
hands him $1,000. This is your wages. You earned this. This is merited
wages. And by the way, here's $500. It's a bonus. You did not earn
this. I'm giving it to you. It is a
gift. Do not confuse wages with gift. And so it is with us as well. We have incurred a debt and we
have come to God desiring that the debt might be paid. We have come to Him, except that
in this case, we do not want from Him what we deserve. We
do not want our wages, for the wages of sin is death. And if God gives to us what we
deserve, we're going to die. The wages of sin is death. Oh Lord, withhold from me what
I deserve. Show me thy mercy. Okay, here's a gift. And the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Never
pray that God give to you what you deserve. No, no, no. If you
do, you're not breathing another breath. Ever pray that God give
to you what you do not deserve. That's His grace. That's His
gift. That's His Christ. When Moses
says, show me your way, God showed him Christ. Christ is the way. God deals with His people in
grace. We do not want what we deserve. We pray that God deal with us
in grace. Look at this term sovereign.
What does it mean? It means having supreme rank
or power. Who is the sovereign of all this
universe? It is the Lord God, Jehovah. For I know that Jehovah is great
and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever Jehovah pleases, he
does in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places. The mightiest monarch of his
day, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is admiring this city. Look! I built it! I built it! And the Lord said, now let me
show you what I can do. And Nebuchadnezzar, one minute,
is admiring what he has done on the walls of Babylon, and
the next minute, He's on all fours out in the field eating
grass like an ox. Until... Until... God showed grace to him. And
even Nebuchadnezzar found grace in God's sight. Not that he earned
it, not that he merited it. But God looked down and He said,
see that man down there? with the dew on his body, eating
grass like an ox. That's Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon. Stand up, king! I'm going to
restore you. Nebuchadnezzar stood, and then
he said, regarding God, all the inhabitants of the earth are
reputed as nothing. He does according to his will. in the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, nor
say to him, what are you doing? You do not question God. This
is the sovereign. Sovereign grace is the grace
of the sovereign, and the sovereign is Jehovah. He is the God of
all grace. There is no grace other than
that which is sovereign grace. The grace of Jehovah, the sovereign,
He is sovereign to the extent that He is said to be the God
of all grace. He can give it if He will. He
can withhold it if He will. He can give it to whomsoever
He will. God is the God of sovereign grace. Necessity of sovereign grace.
First of all, we are unable to merit salvation. We all are by
nature that condition in which we were born. I'll give you 12
characteristics quickly. Spiritually dead in trespasses
and in sins. What can a dead man do? Nothing. That's what we are. Spiritually dead. Second, we
are willfully serving Satan, our father. Third, we are deserving
God's wrath. We are incapable of understanding
the truth. Fifth, we are blinded by the
satanic God we serve. Sixth, we are alienated from
God and incapable of finding our way back to Him. Seventh,
we are devoid of hope. Eighth, we are unwilling to come
to Christ for salvation. Ninth, we are unable to come
to Christ for salvation. Tenth, We are unable to regenerate
ourselves and receive Christ. Eleventh, we are unable to believe
the gospel and convert ourselves. Twelve, we are unable to overcome
our enmity against God and become subject to Him. Now, I give you
the scripture references for every one of those. It's in your
tract there that is before you. Twelve points. That's a message
in itself. into that depth today. You can
look it up for yourself, but I'm telling you folks, that's man by nature. Every one
of us by nature. In our native state, that in
which we were born, we are incapable of even the least merit before
God. Furthermore, we need sovereign
grace from God because every deity devised by man is a God
that cannot save, cannot save itself. Back to Babylon, had its gods, especially
Baal and Nebo. Young boy walks through the gates
of Babylon with his father. He sees the statues. What are
those? That's Baal and Nebo, son. Who
are they? Our gods. They protect us. Baal and Nebo. And then the prophet
describes them. Baal and Nebo are bowed down. The enemy came in and put them
on ox carts and carted them away. Beryl and Nebo could not save
themselves. They therefore cannot save others. If you trust in an idol that
cannot save itself, it most certainly cannot save you. 1984, I made a trip to the island
of Trinidad to minister. A big part of the island was
Hindu. The pastor with whom I was ministering,
a Trinidadian driving me around, I noticed that in some yards
there were flags, usually in a corner of the property, and
a little building in that corner around the flags. What is that? Those are Hindus. Those little
buildings are the shrines. Inside the shrines are their
gods, and they have their flags out to symbolize their gods. Would you like to see one? Yeah,
yeah. So, he took me to a friend. And,
dude, and, you know, may I see your gods? Yes, yes, come, come. And, because, you know, they're
beautiful-looking gods, you know, Painted up, nice looking statues,
and got a little building, maybe about four by four or so, maybe
five by five, and he's got his gods in there, and he was showing
them to me, and this one is for this, and this one is for that.
They have thousands of them, folks, so you're not going to
see the same gods in each shrine. Now imagine, The man is working
out in his yard, cutting his cane with his machete,
and it slips and slashes his leg. It's severe. He's going to bleed to death.
He looks to his shrine, come and help me! Please come and
help me! Does his God have ears? Yeah,
they do not hear. Does it have a mouth? Yes, but
it cannot say, I'm coming. Does it have legs? Yes, but they
cannot, the God cannot save itself, much less can it save you. I'm
telling you, my friend, we do not trust in such a God that
cannot save itself. Our God never needs saving, but
He is completely capable of saving us. And unless God is gracious
to such wretches as we are and is willing to do so, there's
no hope for us. No hope for us. Third point,
the God of sovereign grace. He identifies himself as Jehovah
El, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
of sin, and by no means clearing the guilty. I love that description. I love that description. Shawn,
there's a message in itself right here. It'll be a long message if you,
you know, it could be if you treat it right, but just look
at this. Look at his name, Jehovah El. Jehovah means the existing one. El means the mighty one. His existence is in and of himself,
underrived from anyone else. He is the mighty one, the self-existing
mighty one. His grace is joined with His
mercy in longsuffering, for He is merciful in grace's longsuffering. All three terms have to do with
unmerited favor. Unmerited favor. What is mercy? Mercy is God withholding
from you what you deserve. What is grace? Grace is God giving
to you what you do not deserve, what is long-suffering. That's
God putting up with you, putting up with you. He's giving mercy
to you and you won't even acknowledge it. He's long-suffering to you. He's merciful and gracious. and longsuffering, and he is
the God of all grace. No grace is found outside of
him. He alone is the source of all
grace, the possessor of all grace, the giver of all grace, and every
other God is a God of no grace, because Jehovah has it all. Then let's consider the objects
of sovereign grace. Jehovah says, I will be gracious. To whom? I will be gracious. They are the objects of God's
sovereign grace. Those to whom he says, I will
be gracious. I will be gracious. Similar expressions are found
in Paul the Apostle's sacred commentary on this declaration
when he says, Jacob, I have loved, but Esau I have hated. And Brother
Mitch, you're exactly right. John Mitchell was exactly right
in your illustration concerning him. People ask, why would God hate Esau? That's
not the question. Why would God love Jacob? He
was worse than Esau. Jacob I have loved, Esau I have
hated, and men dare question God because he will do as he
will. He says, I will have mercy on
whomever I will have mercy. He says, I will have compassion
on whomever I will have compassion. And therefore it is not of him
who wills, contrary to those who believe salvation is through
man's free will, nor of him who runs, contrary to those who believe
salvation is through man's works, but of God who shows mercy. He has mercy on whom he wills,
and whom he wills he hardens, as he did Pharaoh. Now preacher,
that's not fair of God to harden someone's heart. What does it take to harden your
heart? What does it take for God to harden your heart? All
it takes for God to harden your heart is to leave you alone. I worked two summers with a construction company.
Much of the time was built helping a man, helping a crew to build
manholes and catch basins. I was the mud man. I mixed the
cement and the sand and the water, and they would get down into
their holes if they're building manholes or whatever they're
doing, and I've got to keep them supplied. And you have to get the right
mixture, and you have to get the right consistency. Because
there's a man down in that deep hole, and he's putting courses
of brick, piling them up, and I've got to put a bucket of mud
cement down to him, and he's got to pour it out, and it's
got to be the exact right consistency. I got to be pretty good at it. So let us say that at the end
of the day, there's some of that mud left over. Let's just leave it overnight.
Come back for it tomorrow. Well, no, you will not. Because
when you leave it alone, it hardens. All God has to do to harden you
is to leave you alone. Oh, if God ever withdraws His
hand. I'm afraid He's doing that to
our country. I'm just afraid. You look at what's going on around
you, folks. Why is crime so rampant? It's almost as though God says,
You want me out of your life? Okay. I'll step back and we'll
see how you do it on your own. And men's hearts have hardened.
All God has to do is leave you alone. Oh, listen, folks. Never
pray that God leave you alone. Never pray. If He does, you're
hardened. You're hardened. You will be
hardened. Noah is a foremost example of God's sovereign grace. In his day, Jehovah looked down
from heaven looking for a righteous man. Believe it or not, there
is not a single solitary righteous man on the entire earth. Okay, I'll show grace to that
one. Noah, you have found grace in
my sight. Like he said to Moses, you have
found grace in my sight. Oh, that God would look down
upon our city of great halls. Some of you with relatives and
loved ones here, neighbors, if God does not show favor, if God
does not let them find grace in His sight, none of them are
saved. Let us pray that not only ourselves,
but our loved ones may find grace in God's sight. Fifth point, the time of sovereign
grace. Not only is God gracious to whom
he will be gracious, but he will be gracious to them when he will
be gracious to him. When is that moment? When is
that moment? The book of Job describes him, a man under conviction. He's
lost his appetite. He knows he's doomed. He's walking in his blindness. He has come to the very precipice
of the abyss of eternity, about to fall into eternity. And Jehovah
says, deliver him from going down into the pit. I have found
a ransom. That's to whom God will be gracious. Deliver him. Not everyone. Deliver him from going down to
the pit. When does he do it? There's another
word in that phrase. Then God is gracious to him. If you're saved, let me ask you
this. When did God save you? It was not by your appointment.
You did not get your appointment book out one day and say, I will
be saved on this day. No, no, no. It happened on God's
timetable and took you completely by surprise. I thought I was
saved when the Lord saved me. And He let me know how deceived
I was. My wife thought she was saved
when the Lord saved her. We were both professing believers
when we were married. Unbeknownst to us, we both were
lost. The Lord saved me. Let me tell
you a story. I don't think she'll mind. The
Lord saved me, and then she began to have her questions. And she slept. We slept every
night. and her hands were around my
arm. And after the Lord saved her,
she said, did you never wonder why my hands were around your
arm? Well, no. Well, I knew the Lord had saved
you, and I was afraid a rapture was going to come, and I was
going to hold on to you. And then the Lord saved her,
took her completely by surprise. He does things on His time schedule. which means he could do it today. Right now, he could touch some
heart and say, now you have found grace in my sight. Then the Lord
is merciful to him. It's on his time schedule. Then
there is sixth, the denial of sovereign grace. It is denied
by everyone who believes in man's free will for salvation. These
doctrines of God's sovereign grace and salvation and man's
free will and salvation, they are antithetical to each other. There is no agreement between
them. The school I attended, as I told you, believed in man's
free will. It therefore denied and did not
care for this doctrine of sovereign grace. It has another kind of
grace in your bulletin. Take a look at it, if you will. It is an article on page one,
a hymn we must never sing. A hymn we must... We're not going to sing it, but
I'm going to read it to you, okay? Arminian grace, how strange the
sound Salvation hinged on me. I once was lost and turned around,
was blind, then chose to see. What grace is it that calls for
choice made from some good within? That part that wills to heed
God's voice proved stronger than my sin. Through many ardent gospel
pleas, I sat with heart of stone. But then some hidden good in
me propelled me toward my home. When we've been there 10,000
years because of what we've done, we've no less days to sing our
praise than when we first begun. Now there is the denial of God's
sovereign grace. If you contributed even the minutest particle to
your salvation. It was all of works and none
of grace. Grace and works mix no more together
than do oil and water. Except in this case, you may
say it was 99 percent God's grace and 1% my works, and God will
say, no, it was 100% your works and none of my grace. God will
have all the glory, or he will have none at all. This is sovereign
grace. Then we come to the praise of
sovereign grace. Seventh point, my last. The praise
of sovereign grace. We prayed it this morning, did
we not? Sovereign grace or sin abounding, ransom souls the tidings
tell. Tis a deep that knows no sounding,
who its length or breadth can tell. Written by John Kent, a
poor man in England. Honest, hard-working man with
his father. An apprentice to his father,
but never had much. Worked long hours and He tried
to write poetry in his spare time. Well, I kind of wish he
had more spare time. That hymn, was it not a glorious
hymn? We sang it this morning. Henry Pace has written, Ah, but
for free and sovereign grace I still had lived estranged from
God. till hell had proved the destined
place of my deserved but dreaded abode. But, oh, amazed I see
the hand that stopped me in my wild career. A miracle of grace
I stand. The Lord has taught my heart
to fear. And then you can sing amazing
grace. What is amazing grace? that has
anything to do with you and your contribution. Nothing amazing
about that. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now
I'm found. I did not found myself, I was
found. Was blind, but now I see. Oh,
that God would come down in grace this day, open some blinded eye, Lord, let me see your glory.
Let me see your glory. Here, I'll hide you in the cleft
of the rock. What was that rock? It was Christ. We sing a hymn about it, do we
not? He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock. God put Moses
there. In a cleft of the rock, in a
little recess, a little cave in the rock, Moses is hidden
in Christ when God's glory comes back because you cannot see God's
glory and live. Then God puts his hand over the
cleft in the rock and God passes by and Moses is blessed to see
the afterglow of God and as he Beholds Jehovah passing by, what
is Jehovah saying? I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. That's God speaking. I will be
gracious to whom I will be gracious. Oh Lord, be gracious to me. Let me find grace in your sight.
Hide me in Christ in the cliff of that rock. Show me your way
and let me see that way in Christ. And Lord, if it please you this
day, we would be blessed if you would
let someone in our congregation find grace in your sight that you might be pleased to
pass by, manifest your grace. We pray that we might love this
sovereign grace, that we may be faithful to it in believing
it, in preaching it, and in living it. To your glory in Jesus' name
we pray. Amen.