Let's turn to Romans chapter
8. We had good services down in
Houston. And I heard from several different
ones that you had good services here. And I look forward to listening
to those messages. All the brethren in Houston said,
tell you hello. And we had good services, I thought. As far as I could tell, anyway.
Let's turn to Romans 8 and let's read verses 28 through 31. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to God's purpose. For whom he did foreknow, He
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, them He also called. And whom He called,
them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. What shall we say then to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us. Everything that God brings to
pass in time, God purposed in eternity. God's eternal purpose,
His eternal purpose, is what God purposed to be done in time. Everything that comes to pass
is according to that purpose. It's God's purpose. And when
God purposed it, it was done. When he purposed it, it's done. When he thought it, it's done. The Lord said in Isaiah 14, 24,
The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought,
so shall it come to pass. As I have purposed, so shall
it stand. It's done. God's working His
eternal purpose in everything that comes to pass. That's what
we saw last time. Providence. That's why we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called. It's because it's all according
to His purpose. All according to God's purpose.
Let's review what we saw last time just a little bit. All things
includes everything that comes to pass. That means Our fall
in Adam, our sin and death in Adam, that's working together
for the good of God's people. Affliction, temptation, desertion,
betrayal, good, bad, happy, sad, great, small, all of it, God's
working together for the good of His people. And the good that
He's working in all these things is spiritual good, our spiritual
eternal good, our salvation. The Lord God's a sun and a shield.
The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he
withhold from them that walk uprightly. It may appear like
it's not good to us. It may appear like it's terrible
to us, but it's a good thing. If God's bringing it to pass,
which if it comes to pass, God's bringing it to pass, and what
he's doing for his people, no matter how you see it, how I
see it, it's a good thing God's giving. It's for our good. You
think of everything that happened to Joseph. His brothers rejected
him. They threw him in a pit. And
we're going to leave him there for dead. Just leave him there
to die. Slow death. And because they were covetous,
they decided, oh, let's sell him. That'll be better. And they
sold their own brother into slavery. And he ends up in Egypt. And
he ends up in prison in Egypt. And then God worked it to where
he ended up being the second in command in Egypt under the
most powerful man in the world. And what did he say about all
of that? He said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for
good. Every bit of it. And that's so
with all his people. And he does this not to everybody. He does this to them that love
God and he tells us who that is. It's them that he called.
That's who loves God, and the only ones that love God are those
he called. And that's who he's working this for. You take a
sinner that goes through his life hating God, hating Christ,
hating the gospel, hating God's people, and he passes through
this world that way, he may have accumulated mass wealth in this
life. He may have worked great things
in the world, and people all over the world esteem him highly.
God didn't work a thing for him. Nothing. He only works good to
them that He's called. That's the only ones. The only
ones. Now how is it that God works
all things together for good for His people? Look at the end
of verse 28, and this is going to be our focus. It's according
to His eternal purpose. According to His eternal purpose. There's no such thing as chance
or fate or luck. or quesara sera, what will be
will be, none of that. God's working everything exactly
as he determined before to do it. Exactly. I want to look at God's eternal
purpose. Everything God brings to pass in time, God purposed
in eternity. And when he purposed it, it was
done. We're going to see here all of these verbs are in the
past tense. All of these verbs are in what's
the Greek tense called Aorist tense. And that tense means it's
a past action that is complete. And we're talking here about
God's purpose. We're talking about God purposing in eternity.
And because nobody's going to disannoy God's purpose, because
God's going to bring his purpose to pass, therefore when God's,
when God purposed it, when he thought it, It's done. It's done. The scripture says
the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
This is how sure the salvation of God's people is. It's been
finished since before the foundation of the world. And then he brought
it to pass. And he won't stop. This thing
of time will go on until he's accomplished this purpose in
every one of his people. And then it'll be will be eternal
with God where we've always been. Let's start with the first thing
here. God's eternal purpose is God's foreordination of his people. He's ordaining beforehand his
people. He says, this is why all things
work together in time for the good of them that are called
is because it's according to this purpose, for whom he did
foreknow. Now, The foreknowledge of God
here is not God knowing all things in the future. That's not what
this is. That's not foreknowledge. That's
not what this word means. Notice it says for whom he did
foreknow. It doesn't say what he foreknew.
It says whom he foreknew. He foreknew his people. God's
foreknowing is not God knowing that some would believe on him
and therefore he chose them. If that was the case, we wouldn't
need the next thing which says he also predestinated us. You
wouldn't need that. If he saw that you were going
to believe, well, there wouldn't be any need for predestination.
There wouldn't be any need for calling. Because if he foresaw,
if that's what this means, that's not, it's not his omniscience. Omniscience, when you talk about
omniscience, that's an attribute of God. He's omniscient. He knows
everything. But foreknowledge, foreknowledge
is an act. You know, get what I'm saying?
Omniscience is an attribute. Foreknowledge is an act of God. God doing something. And the
fact is nothing can be foreknown that wasn't already predetermined
by God. Because He's God. He predetermined
everything. So it doesn't mean He foreknew.
What it means is, God eternally, everlastingly loved His people.
That's what this foreknowing is. It's Him knowing intimately,
everlastingly, lovingly beforehand. He knew His people, He knew His
people as His choice, and He foreordained His people. The
Lord appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love. That's this foreknowing. and
everlasting love and therefore with loving kindness I've thrown
you. This is the foreknowing we're talking about. Remember
Christ said, I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect
in one and that they may know that thou has sent me and has
loved them as thou has loved me. That's what this foreknowing
is. He loved his people as he loved
his son. God foreknew Christ before the
foundation of the world. Look at 1 Peter 1 and look at
verse 20. Do you think that meant that
God foresaw that Christ would come into the world and lay down
His life for His people and therefore He chose Him to be the Savior?
Of course not. It means He foreordained Him.
Look here, 1 Peter 1 and verse 20. It says, Christ verily was
foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest
in these last times for you. That word foreordained is the
exact same Greek word that's in Romans 8.29. That's translated
foreknowing. Foreordained and foreknowledge
is the same word. He ordained it to come to pass
beforehand. On the day of Pentecost, Peter
stood up and he said, Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. Same word. Everything that
took place on the cross was according to God's eternal purpose. It
was foreordained. And it was all ordained to come
to pass beforehand. And that's what he's talking
about here about his people. God's elect are his people by that
same determinant counsel, by that same foreknowledge, that
same foreordination of God. So when he chose us in Christ
and he knew us in Christ, we were his. It was done. No way,
shape, form or fashion it was going to ever be undone. That
was done. Christ said on the day of judgment,
there's going to be many that are going to say, you know, didn't
we do this and didn't we do that and all these wonderful works
and make their boast about what they did. And what did Christ
say he would say to them? Depart from me, I never knew
you. I never ordained you to be mine. See, this is where it all starts.
It all starts with God. It doesn't start with the sinner,
it starts with God. Salvation starts with God. And our Lord
said, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord
knoweth them that are His. With an everlasting love, He
knows everlastingly His people. Now secondly, God's purpose determined
our end from the beginning. God's purpose, in His purpose,
He determined our end before it ever began. Look at verse,
back there at Romans 8, and look at verse 29. For whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Predestination is God, it's just
what it sounds like. It's God setting our destination
beforehand. predetermining our destination.
Predetermining our destiny, where we're going to end up. And this
is what he did. In Ephesians 1, you're familiar
with this. He says, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places, according as he chose us in him.
And it says, before the foundation of the world, why? That we should
be holy. and without blame before Him
in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ Himself." Meaning, we're going to be brought into
the family of God, but in eternity, in God's purpose, it was already
accomplished. He already predestinated us.
Now, if anybody wants, you know, men always talk about the glory
of God and the glory of our Redeemer. If you really want to Him to
have all the glory, Men would love the doctrine of predestination
because that's the purpose of it. The purpose of predestination
is for Christ to have all the glory. He says there, it's so
that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And that
means to have the preeminence. He said in Colossians 1.18, he's
the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead. And here's the reason, that in
all things he might have the preeminence. And he might be
the first, you know the elder son in a family was, he was the
one who the father trusted the entire family to. All the inheritance
went to him. And he could divide it with the
brothers and sisters in the household if he wanted to, but it was all
his. And that future of that house
and the future of all those brothers and sisters in that house depended
on that firstborn son. And that's the picture here.
Everything about God's house was put in the hands of his son.
And the whole reason God predestinated his people to be conformed to
the image of Christ was so that Christ would have the preeminence
as the elder brother, the firstborn among many brethren. So if men
want to get mad about predestination, what they're saying ultimately
is, I don't want God having all the glory. Because that's the
purpose of it. That's the very purpose of it.
And it's only reason we have an eternal inheritance is because
of predestination. He said in Ephesians 1.11, in
Christ, we've obtained an inheritance. How do we get it? Being predestinated
according to the purpose of Him that worketh all things after
the counsel of His own will. That's how we obtain this inheritance.
Because God predestinated us to it. Now thirdly, before this
world was made, Before he ever made anything, God called his
people. Look here in verse 30. Moreover
whom he did predestinate, them he also called. This was in eternity. We're talking about God's purpose,
his eternal purpose. The word called means to be named,
to be made to bear a name. That's what it means. And that's
what God did in eternity. He called His people from eternity. He called us. He gave us His
name before we ever made anything. Timothy, Paul said to Timothy
in 2 Timothy 1.9, God hath saved us and called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the
world began. He called us before He did anything.
This is why all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the call. Because He called us before He
ever made a thing. We've been His, wearing His name
before He created the first grain of sand. I'll show you this. Go to Galatians
4. I can prove this is so. Look at Galatians 4. You mean
we were already called into the family of God? We were already
sons of God before He ever called us in time? That's right. Look
here, Galatians 4 verse 4. It says, when the fullness of
time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that
we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are
sons, he called you. See, he said because you are
already sons, he called you into his family. That means there
was a call that came before the call we experienced in time.
He had already called us. We were already sons before He
came and told us, you're my son, you're my daughter. We were already
children. Already. He purposed it. He works all
things for our good. And at His appointed time, He
sends the Spirit and He calls us and we experience that call.
But then we begin to learn there's nothing new under the sun. What
is has already been. Nothing can be put to it. What
God does is done. You know, we think of things
in time sequence. Everything's got to happen in
a chronological order. God's eternal. He doesn't know
time. So when God purposed it, it's
done. It's done. Now let's look at
this fourth thing. God justified us according to
His eternal purpose. whom He called, them He also
justified. Now, listen to this carefully. You're saying, preacher, we were
justified in eternity. Listen. He blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Is justification a spiritual
blessing? Yep. And He blessed us with all of
them. Every one of them. Everyone you experience in time,
he blessed us with all of them before time, including justification. He declares the end from the
beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,
saying, my counsel shall stand. I'll do all my pleasure. Calling
the man that executeth my counsel from a far country, you know
who that man is? It's Christ. It's Christ. Cyrus, King Cyrus, who God actually
called from a far country to come in and deliver his people
out of bondage, was a picture of Christ. He came from a far
country and delivered his people. Because God chose us in him,
the scripture says Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. That means when our Lord Jesus
entered into covenant with the Father, saying, I will go forth,
I will justify them from all their sins. God didn't look to
us anymore after that. It was Christ alone. And in Him,
we were justified. Christ became the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. There's nothing new with God.
What He did, what He works in providence is His purpose. That which He's already determined
beforehand. You see, instead of this making some men want
to argue and get all upset about this, but it ought to make us
rejoice because we see how certain and sure our salvation is. It
was all finished before, from the beginning. And there's no
possibility that God's not going to bring to pass what he purposed
in eternity. And so this thing of salvation
of God's people is sure and certain. What is it that you do that you
don't plan beforehand? Anything? Don't we think God
is smarter than we are? Of course he purposed it off
beforehand. The difference is, we can't say,
I purposed it so it's done. Because there's a thousand things
that stop us from doing what we purposed. There's nothing
that stops God from doing what he purposed. So when God said,
I purposed it, he said, as I thought, so shall it stand. It's done,
because nobody's going to disannul it. It's done. Scripture says,
the Son of God came forth to do whatsoever thy hand and thy
counsel determined before to be done. That's what Christ accomplished
on Calvary's cross. Everything God said He would
accomplish before Him. And so, He does call us in time,
and He does, when He calls you in time, He makes you to see
you're justified. You're justified. from all your
sin, and then there's going to come a day when we're going to
stand before this whole world, past, present, and future, at
one time, and God's going to declare we're justified by Christ
Jesus the Lamb. And so we're justified. You know,
this thing was done in eternity. This thing was done at the cross. We were justified when He called
us and made it, let us know He justified us. and will be justified
in the last day when he declares before this whole world, they're
justified. I've done it. That's what J.C. Philpott called
fourfold justification. All right, lastly. Now this one
is something that's, it took me a little while to think about
this, because one, I hadn't experienced this personally, and two, I started
to think, how did he do this in eternity? He says, whom He
justified, them He also glorified. You mean He glorified His people
in eternity? Well, look at John 17. John 17, verse 5. Our Lord's praying to the Father.
He says, well, let's look at verse 4. He said, I have glorified
thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. Now, O Father, glorify thou me
with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before
the world was. What does that mean? When God
the Father chose His Son, He glorified His Son. When God the
Father chose Him and He foreordained His people in Christ, He justified
His people in Christ, He predestinated His people to be conformed to
Christ, He called His people in Christ, when He did all this
according to His purpose, He gave our Lord Jesus great glory
in eternity. before this world was ever made,
He glorified Him to the highest because He was declaring what's
going to be at the end is He's going to have all the glory and
so He basically gave Him all the glory right then. And that's
what Christ is saying, glorify Me with thine own self with the
glory I had with you before the world was. Well, where were His
people when He did that? We were in Christ. And so when
He glorified Him, He glorified his people in him. Now we're
gonna, one of these days, we're gonna be perfectly conformed
to the image of Christ, and we're gonna drop these bodies of death,
and we're gonna be raised incorruptible, and we're gonna be glorified
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember we saw Thursday night,
he said, I'm gonna give to you to sit in my throne. with me
just like I overcome and sat in and my father gave me his
throne to sit in. I'm going to do the same thing
for you, Christ said. Just as the father glorified him with
the glory he had before the world was, he's going to glorify us
with the glory we had in him before the world was. You see
that? The point I want you to get from
that is we've been one with Christ from eternity. There's never
been a time that His people were not one with Christ. So much
so that when He glorified Him, He glorified His people in Him. Now, this tells me, and this
is the purpose for which Paul is saying this. This is how come
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called, It's because it's all
according to His purpose. It's because whom He did foreknow,
He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. And whom He did
predestinate, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He
also, or whom He called, and them whom He called, He also
justified. And then whom He justified, He
glorified. All this was done beforehand.
And it's all been brought to pass for you that believe except
for the glorification part. So is there any doubt whatsoever
that everything is working together for our good? No doubt about
it. We have no reason to doubt. We
have no reason to murmur or complain about anything. Everything is
working together for our good. It has been since before the
world was made. Look what he says, verse 31,
what shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, there's
nobody that can be against us. God's supreme and there's nobody
that can be against us. All right, brethren, let's stand
together. Father, we thank you that You
wrapped this whole thing up before you ever started it. I'm thankful,
Lord, that you made us one with Christ and gave us all these
spiritual blessings in Him before the world was made. Lord, keep
us from murmuring, and any time that we want to complain about
the way things are, make us to remember these things and to
know that whatever it is that we would complain about, You're
working that for our good just as much as Christ's blood shed
on Calvary's cross. Make us to just close our mouths
and wait to see it unfold and see what you're doing and how
good it is for us. And Lord, we trust you to bring
to pass this purpose. We're thankful that you left
nothing undone, but you predestinated everything in time and you're
bringing it all to pass. Lord, help us to remember these
things. We pray now that you'd bless the hearts of your people
and keep this in our hearts and make us to see these things and
rejoice in Christ our Lord. It's in his precious name we
pray. Amen.