When God calls His people, they
believe on Him. They come to Christ and they
believe on Him. When God effectually calls His people, He said, I
will say to them which were not My people, thou art My people.
And they shall say, thou art My God. That will be the effectual
result because God's call is always effectual. When He calls,
His people come. Now these elect were God's called
people from eternity. but in the secret purpose of
God only. God had not made it clear yet
except for places like Hosea. Now God did tell the children
of Israel through His prophets. He did tell them, I have an elect
people that are the Gentiles. And so this was not a new thing.
God didn't just give up on Israel and say, well, I'll turn now
and I'll choose out some people from the Gentiles. No, God had
an elect people among the Gentiles all along. And he's making it
known through Hosea and Paul is telling us now when he says,
even us, not only of the Jews but of the Gentiles also, he
goes back to Hosea and he says, see here, God spoke of this way
back there with the Old Testament prophets saying he was going
to call his people. He was going to call his people. We don't
know who the elect of God are. Just like Israel didn't know.
We don't know who they are. God has to call His people and
when He calls you and brings you to Christ and brings you
to believe on Christ, that's when you learn that you're an
elect child of God. The only way God's elect are
proven is through faith in Christ. He brings them to believe on
Christ. And that's the vessels of mercy
are those God calls to faith in Christ. God said plainly,
He said, I'll say, thou art my people, and they shall say, thou
art my God. And then, back in Romans 9, concerning
the elect Gentiles, Paul quotes Hosea again. He says in Romans
9 26, and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was
said unto them, you are not my people, there shall they be called
the children of the living God. Paul's quoting from Hosea chapter
1. And it says this, the number
of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which
cannot be measured nor numbered. This is Hosea 1.10. He says they'll
be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered.
And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said
unto them, you're not my people, there it shall be said unto them,
you are the sons of the living God. You got all these sons of
Israel more than the sand of the sea. And then God turns and
He begins to call out His elect from among the Gentiles. The
apostle Paul preached this word of Hosea to the Gentiles when
he went to Corinth. God had said, He said, In the
place where they said, You're not my people, there shall it
be said of them, You are the sons of the living God. And Paul
went to Corinth. And he's preaching the gospel
to them, and he gives God's promise. He said, As God hath said, I
will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their
God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you, and I'll be a father unto you,
And you should be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
That's what God said through Hosea. And so Paul goes to these
Gentile Corinthians and he preached that word of promise to them.
And through that gospel, God did what he promised. He called
some of them out and he was a father to them and he made them sons
and daughters unto him. This is the gospel that God's
going to send to all his elect. It's the promise God has made.
That's what the gospel is. It's the promise of God that
He's made concerning His vessels of mercy, concerning His elect
who He shall call out. And He'll be a father to us and
we'll be sons and daughters to Him by His grace, by what He
works in His people. Now the question is, do you hear
that call this morning? God is saying through the gospel,
come out. Come out. He never tells His
people, go in amongst and stay there and dwell amongst the unbelieving
rebels against God. He always says, come out from
among them. Come out from among them and
be separate, saith the Lord, and I'll be a father unto you,
and you'll be my sons and daughters. Do you hear Him this morning?
He says, come out. Come out. Believe on Christ.
If God calls you, you come in. If He calls you, you come out.
We see here God, He used all His Old Testament prophets to
declare what He would do. There's nothing new with God.
God had not made it known clearly in the sense that He had called
out His elect Gentiles yet, but He was saying all along through
His prophets that He had an elect people among the Gentiles. That's
you and me. You and I are Gentiles. We're
not children of Israel. We're not natural sons, naturally
speaking, of Abraham. We're called out from among the
Gentiles. That's us, brethren. Now, secondly,
I want you to see who these vessels of wrath are who are fitted for
destruction. Who are these rebels that God
simply put up with? That's what he's saying. What
if God endured? What if he just put up with these
vessels of wrath fitted for destruction? so that he could show his vessels
of mercy his riches and his grace in calling you out. You realize
what a blessing God's given you this morning to be sitting under
the preaching of the gospel where you're hearing the word of God
preached and we're just going verse by verse and seeing what
God says and hearing God's word. You know what a blessing that
is? You know what they're doing in most places? They read a passage
of scripture And then the preacher gets up and preaches on current
events, or he gets up and preaches some moral fable, like Aesop's
fables, and just gives you some moralism, and you go out saying,
okay, I'm going to try to live like that this week. And by Monday
morning, you figure it out, you failed. so you don't ever have
any peace. You come back again next week,
hear what you're supposed to do, you go out and try to do
it, you never have peace, you go back, it's just a cycle of
fear and bondage over and over and over. You've been brought
here to hear what God's doing, how God determined the end from
the beginning, how God determined what He would do and who He would
do it for and how He would do it, and to know that God brings
it all to pass exactly according to His purpose. Nothing out of
the purpose of God. So who are these vessels of wrath?
Verse 27, he quotes Isaiah. He says, Isaiah also cried concerning
Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as
the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. for He will finish
the work and cut it short in righteousness because a short
work will the Lord make upon the earth." God said through
Isaiah that most of the children of Abraham, most of the children
of Israel were not His elect. He said that way back there through
Isaiah. That most of the people in Israel
would die and perish due to their own rebellion against Christ.
That's what God declared. They had God's Word. That's not
enough. You've got God's Word. That's
not enough. You have to believe God. They had the law. That's not enough. You've got
to hear what the law says about you. Guilty. Guilty. The law says you need Christ.
You've got to hear what the law says. They didn't hear it. They
had the prophets. That's not enough just to come
and sit and hear God's preacher. You've got to hear what He's
preaching in your heart and you've got to believe on the one He's
preaching, Christ the Lord. You have to believe on Christ.
But among those natural sons of Israel, God had an elect remnant. A remnant. A remnant, you know,
is just a... Maybe you've got some place at
home where you've got those old rags that aren't worth anything
and you just kind of throw them over in the corner so if you
ever need them one day, you got them. Those are just the remnants
that are left from the cloth. They're the remnants. That's
what God's people are. Just a remnant. Just a remnant
that God's going to keep, that God's going to save. Not worthy
in ourselves, not any good in ourselves, but God chose us and
we're His remnant and God's going to save us. Go over to Isaiah
10, verse 20. Isaiah 10, 20. And look here in verse 20. It
shall come to pass in that day, He's speaking of the day of Christ,
that the remnant of Israel And such as are escaped of the house
of Jacob shall no more again stay upon him that smote them,
but they'll stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the
mighty God. For though thy people this will
be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant shall return." Now
listen to this, the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord God of hosts shall
make a consumption even determined in the midst of all the land.
That's what Paul, the way Paul said that when he quoted this
was he said, God's going to make a short work and He's going to
cut it short in righteousness. What he's saying is, God had
declared all along that He would righteously destroy the nation
of Israel due to their rejection of Christ. All along, God said,
there's coming a consumption, there's coming a destruction.
The Apostle Paul saw that destruction coming. In the beginning of Romans
9, he said, if I could take the place of my brethren according
to the flesh, I would. And he's talking about if I could
be the one to undergo this destruction in the nation, I would do it
for them. But they fixed to be destroyed. This whole nation
is fixed to be destroyed. Why? Because they rejected Christ. And God said this all along through
His prophets. He said in Isaiah 6.11, He sent
Isaiah and He said, ìGo forth and preach this gospel.î And
Isaiah said, ìLord, how long?î He said, ìTill the cities be
wasted without inhabitants, till the houses are without man, and
till the land be utterly desolate.î He said in Isaiah 8, 8, he shall
pass through Judah, he shall overflow and go over, he shall
reach to the neck, the stretching out of his wings shall fill the
breadth of thy land, O Emmanuel. He's talking about judgment.
He said in Isaiah 27, 10, the defense city Jerusalem that was that great
to fit city shall be destroyed, and the habitation forsaken,
and left like a wilderness. And there shall the calf feed,
and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof."
Remember, and then he gave this prophecy and Christ preached
on this. He said, when the boughs thereof are withered, when the
branches are broken off, the women come and they set them
on fire. for it's a people of no understanding. Therefore,
He that made them will not have mercy on them. He that formed
them will show them no favor." God made that nation Israel.
He made it as a picture of His spiritual elect Israel. He made
it to show how He calls out His remnant and He saves His remnant
from scattered throughout this world. Just as God saved a remnant
in Israel, God's saving a remnant in this whole world that are
His elect. But the rest of those in Israel who rejected Christ,
God promised all along, there's coming a day when I'm going to
be finished with my work with this nation Israel, and I'm going
to destroy it, and I'll be done with it. And I'm not going to
show them any favor just because they're natural sons of Abraham.
And the bigger picture is this, there's coming a day when God's
going to destroy this whole world, when He's finished with it. He
created this world just like He created Israel. He did it
to show how He saves His people. And when He saved His people
out of it and He's done with it, He's going to destroy this
world just like He destroyed Israel in 70 AD. And people are going around preaching,
oh, God's going to save Israel just because they're the sons
of Abraham. No, they're not. That's a lie.
That's not the gospel. That's the preaching that works.
He doesn't save anybody because you're the sons of some man. He saves his people because he
chose his people and he brings us to believe on Christ. That's
why he saves his people, how he saves his people. He's going
to finish the work, and when He does, He's going to cut it
short, and He's going to cut it short in righteousness. That
means He's going to consume and destroy, just like He destroyed
Israel, He did it in righteousness. It was the right thing to do.
And one day He's going to destroy this world, and it's going to
be the right thing to do. Turn over to Isaiah 28. I want you
to see this one. God promised He was going to
destroy the false preachers in Israel because they were preaching
lies against Christ. And He promised He was going
to destroy all in Israel who didn't believe on Christ. Look
here in Isaiah 28 verse 14. This is kind of lengthy. I want
to read this whole passage to you. He says in verse 14, Wherefore
hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, Scornful men are
those that won't believe on Christ. Scornful men are those that reject
Christ, those that find some reason to leave his gospel, to
leave his people, to leave his Christ and won't believe the
gospel. They're scornful men. And he
said, you scornful men that rule this people which is in Jerusalem,
you said we've made a covenant with death and with hell are
we in agreement. I'll say what I said to you when
I preached from this a couple of years ago. They didn't say
that with their lips. You don't hear people in religion
going around, we've made a covenant with death. We've made a covenant
with hell. But God said that's what you're saying when you say
you're saved by your works. You're saying I've made my covenant
with death and hell. They're not going to touch me
because of what I've done. Look what God said. When the
overflowing scourge shall pass through, they say, it shall not
come to us, for we've made lies our refuge, and under falsehood
we hid ourselves. Therefore, God said, because
of your rebellion, He said, I'm going to send the touchstone.
I'm going to send the touchstone. I'm going to determine who are
mine and who are not. Watch this. Thus saith the Lord God, behold,
I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone. That's Christ. A tribestone. A precious cornerstone. A sure
foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. He won't be afraid when the judgment
comes. Not at all. He's resting in Christ. But that same Christ and that
same gospel is judgment to others. Look, verse 17. Judgment also
will I lay to the line. and righteousness to the plummet,
and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lives, and the
water shall overflow the hiding place, and your covenant with
death and hell shall be a disannulled. Your agreement with hell shall
not stand. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then
you shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goes
forth, it shall take you. For morning by morning shall
it pass over, by day and by night. It shall be a vexation only to
understand the report. For the bed is shorter than a
man can stretch himself on, and the covering narrower than he
can wrap himself in. Christ is a bed you can stretch
out on. Christ is a place you can rest. Because when you're
wrapped up in His righteousness, you've got full covering. But
if you're trying to come to God by your works, That's a bed that's
too short and that's a covering that's too narrow. Look, he says, verse 21, The
Lord shall rise up in Mount Parazim. He shall be wroth as in the valley
of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work, bring
to pass his act, his strange act, that's judgment. Now therefore
be ye not mockers. Hear God now, don't be mockers,
don't stand back and say, yeah, sure, that's what God's going
to do. That's what men say by not believing Christ. Lest your
bands be made strong, lest you be bound in that unbelief, for
I've heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption even determined
upon the whole earth. Give ye ear and hear my voice,
hearken, hear my speech. And I say what Isaiah said, don't
be a mocker of God, you hear this. and come to Christ now,
believe on Christ now, there's destructions coming. Those people
Paul preached this to, his kinsmen after the flesh, he said the
same thing Isaiah said, there's destructions coming. God's going
to cut this work short. You've got a short amount of
time on this earth, Israel, and God's fixing to wipe you off
the map. And I'm standing here today telling you the same exact
thing. You got a short time and God's going to fold this world
up and it's going to be over with. And you know what the children
of Israel did when Paul preached that? They did what Israel did
when Isaiah preached it. They did what men do today when
they hear it. They mocked God. Said, I don't believe it. I don't
believe God. I went back and I was looking
over those notes that I preached from those passages in Isaiah
back in 2009. And as I was reading over that,
I was reading how God is, He was using Assyria in Isaiah's
day and He was bringing Assyria in and purging out a bunch of
the children of Israel with the Assyria. And through that, using
providence to do that, God said, now I'm going to do this with
the whole nation one day. And then in Paul's day, He used
the enemy and He was saying, I'm fixing to destroy it. And
that's what he's telling us today, he's going to destroy it. And
I thought as I read that about Assyria, and I was reading over
those notes, and I began to think, God does this with the local
church, doesn't he? I thought about, there were many
that were there in 2009 when I preached that, that aren't
here today, that aren't with us today. And I thought of the
ones that have come in and listened a little while and went out.
I don't care what a man's excuse is. I don't care what anybody
gives as an excuse. There is no excuse for leaving
the gospel of Christ. I wouldn't stand here and preach
to you if I didn't know 100% that I'm preaching the truth
to you. And I'm preaching the truth to you. And any man that
can walk away from this has taken the first step in apostasy. I guarantee that. You say, well,
that's arrogance. No more arrogant than John that
said, we know we're of the truth and this whole world lies in
weakness. If you know God, you know that. That's just fact. And I know that. And God uses
whatever He uses, but He purges out those that are not His elect
who rebel and they always find something, some excuse to leave
the gospel. I don't like the curtains you
picked out. Okay, we'll go. You ain't worthy to be here anyway. That's just fact. I don't have
time and I don't have I'm not called to pamper sinners on their
way to hell. I'm called to tell the truth
to sinners. A preacher, are you preaching
to me? Yeah, I sure am. Hear what I'm saying. I sure
am preaching to you. Hear it. And if it's God's Word
and it cuts against your flesh and it's offensive to you, there's
a reason for that. You're walking contrary to God.
but hear God and bow to God's Word. Don't just say, well, the
preacher is trying to get at me. Don't exalt yourself to the
point that you think that all I do is sit in my study and think,
how can I preach against Him? I don't do that. I don't have
time to do that. I'm going to preach a word to
God's people. I don't have time to. And besides that, I don't
know what you need. I don't know what to preach to
you. I don't know how to be offensive to you other than to preach the
truth. And that won't be offensive to
God's people. But I'm not sitting there just trying to figure out
a way I can be offensive to somebody. I'm just preaching what God gives
me in a text to preach. If a man's offended, God's offended
him. That's just fact. And if he can
walk away from this gospel, ooh, I'd be afraid. I'd be... And
you know the sad thing is, sinners hear this and they hear it just
like they heard Isaiah preach it, they heard Paul preach it.
Sinners hear this and they hear this and they say, Amen, and
I know that, I understand that. And then one day, they do the
very thing they've been warned against. I tell you, brethren,
that ought to make me and you hit our face and say, God, keep
me. Because I'm telling you, you
can walk out of here, God take His hand off you, phew, you'll
be gone. I need God to keep me. I need
God to hold His hand on me and keep me looking at Christ, away
from myself, away from everything else. I need Him to make me hear
this gospel. So do you, brethren. So here's
the point. God has an elect remnant today.
He's going to save them through the preaching of Christ crucified,
the sure foundation. But this same gospel is going
to be a saver of death unto death unto some. This same gospel,
Christ is going to be the determining factor. Sooner or later, everybody
that hears this gospel is going to hear it. And some are going
to hear it in grace and they're going to bow and rejoice. Others
are going to hear it And it's going to come as judgment. And
it's going to start sweeping away their refuge of lives. It's
going to start tearing down all their false refuge. And they're
going to start being exposed as being naked on a bed that's
too short. And when that happens, Here's
what happened. They start trying to find fault
with the preacher. They start trying to find fault
with the brethren. They start trying to find fault
with the building. They want to find fault with anything they
can find fault with. So like the Pharisees did, they
can look at Christ and go, see, He's the reason we're not believing
on Him. You got no excuse. You got no
excuse. You can't use anybody else's
rebellion to justify your rebellion. You can't use anybody else's
sin. If you did catch somebody in sin and you said, well, see,
that's the reason I'm leaving. That don't justify your leaving. We have no justification for
leaving Christ. Period. See, what's happened
is that hell's coming and sweeping away the refuge of lies. And
when that happens, a drowning man is a desperate man. He'll
drown those trying to save him. So here's the last thing. Contrary
to the objections of rebels, God's electing grace is cause
for rejoicing. Look here, verse 29. As Isaiah
said before, except the Lord of hosts, The Lord of Sabaoth
had left us a seed, except He had chosen a people. We had been
as Solomon had been like to Gomorrah. Isaiah looked around and he saw
what God was going to do and he said, there's not any difference
in me than in those people that are perishing. There's no difference
in any of these elect people that God saved and the people
that are perishing. There's no difference in any
of us, in ourselves, except the Lord had chosen a people. Except
the Lord had given His people to Christ. Except the Lord had
sent Christ to redeem His people and work out a righteousness
for us. Except the Lord viewed His people in Christ as vessels
of mercy aforeprepared unto glory. Except the Lord had done it.
He would have destroyed us back there when Adam sinned in the
garden. And He'd already wiped us off the map today. Except
God's got an elect people in this world. And He's going to
save them. One of these days brethren, He's
going to call the last one. And it's going to be over then.
One of those days there, Paul, Peter, one of them, somebody
preached and God called out the last elect child out of Israel. And in 70 AD God said, I'm finished. The work's finished. He called,
whistled for the fly just like He said He would in Isaiah. And
here comes the king of Rome in there with the Roman army and
wiped Israel off the map. Well, Israel is there today.
God said they can rebuild it but I'll throw it down. Read
Isaiah. It's exactly what he said. They
said we can build it back better than it was before. God said
they'll build it with hewn stone. I'll throw it down. Why has there been nothing but
war and trouble the whole time since 1942 or whenever? God said,
I'll throw it down. And people holding on to Israel
today, treating Israel like it's a lucky rabbit's foot. Oh, don't
hurt that nation. Oh, that's our four-leaf clover. God said, I'm finished with them.
I'm done with it. But God still has an elect people.
He still has elect people scattered to the four winds and He's calling
them. And when they're all called in,
that's when all Israel is going to be saved. All spiritual Israel. All true Israel. When He's called
the last from out of this world, then all Israel will be saved.
by His grace, by His mercy, by the blood of Christ, by the Spirit
of God, not of our works, all of God. If God hadn't left us
a seed, we would not have any hope whatsoever. So you see,
brethren, election doesn't close the door to salvation. Election
opens the door to salvation. If God hadn't chosen to elect
seed, we'd have been gone a long time ago. But He's saving His
people for Christ's sake because He has elect people in this world.
Alright, let's stand together. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. We thank You for Your electing grace. Oh, how to grace, how
great a debtor daily we are constrained to be. Lord, don't let us ever
leave Christ. Keep us bound to Him. Keep us
looking to Him only. Keep us resting in Him. Thank
you, Lord. Lord, we pray that those that
err from the truth and err from where your Gospels preach, we
pray, Lord, that they not be apostate. We pray, Lord, if it's
your will that you be keeping them, and we know you will. We
know you'll bring your people back just like you brought the
Apostle Peter, brought him back and used him mightily after he
went out. And, Lord, Keep your people separated. Forgive
us our sins. Forgive us for looking to the
works of our hands and to the natural flesh and thinking that
you would save just because somebody has a natural son. Don't let
us fall into that. Keep us looking to Christ only.
Forgive us our sins, Lord. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.