Boards are good. Boards are okay. There you go. Oh, let me see. Yeah, yeah, it's
perfect. All right, good morning everyone.
Let's begin with number 46. 46, Ode for a Thousand Songs. Ode for a thousand tongues to
sing, The glories of Thy God and King,
the triumphs of His praise. My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim, To spread through all the earth the throne,
the honors of Thy name. This music in the sinner's ears,
gives life and health and peace. ? His blood can make the foulest
wind ? ? In His blood I'll ever be ? ? Here in me, death, with
praise be done ? ? Your loose and chosen blood ? ? Here in
me, Lord, your Saviour come ? ? And lead me laid for joy ? ? Glory
to God ? Our second hymn will be number six. Help us to praise Father all
glorious, for all victorious. incarnate birth, birth of the
mighty sword, our prayer of ten. Come and thy people bless and
give thy word and success. Spirit of holiness, thou dost
be sent. O Holy Comforter, Thy sacred
witness bear in this glad hour. Thou who almighty art, now rule
in ev'ry heart, and e'er on us depart, Spirit of God, may we in glory sing, and to
eternal life sing. Good morning. I would like to
read from Exodus 15, the song of Moses after the crossing of
the Red Sea. Exodus 15. Before we read that, I'm just
going to read a couple verses from 1 Corinthians 10. Moreover,
brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that
all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through
the sea. And were all baptized unto Moses
in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual
meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank
of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ."
Now going back to Exodus, I'm just going to back up to verse
30 of 14. Thus the Lord saved Israel that
day out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the Egyptians
dead upon the seashore. And Israel saw that great work
which the Lord did upon the Egyptians. And the people feared the Lord
and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. Then sang Moses
and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake,
saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath
he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song,
and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare
him in habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The
Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's
chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea. His chosen
captains are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered
them. They sank into the bottom as
a stone. Thy right hand, O Lord, has become
glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath
dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine
excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee.
Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble.
And with the blast of thy nostrils, the waters were carried together.
The floods stood upon. stood upright as in heat, and
the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy
said, I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide
this foil. My lust shall be satisfied upon
them. I will draw my sword, and my
hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with Thy wind,
the sea covered them, they sank as lead in the mighty waters.
Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like unto
Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? To
God, for neither doing wonders. For thou stretchest out thy right
hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth
the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy
strength unto thy holy habitation. The people shall hear and shall
be afraid. Sorrow shall take hold on the
inhabitants of the Palestinian. Then the dukes of Edom shall
be amazed, and the mighty men of Moab, trembling, shall take
hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan
shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon
them by the greatness of thine arm. They shall be as still as
a stone till thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people
pass over which thou hast purchased. thou shalt bring them in, and
plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place,
O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the
sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. The Lord
shall reign for ever and ever. For the horse of Pharaoh went
in with his chariots, and with his horsemen into the sea. And
the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them. But the
children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.
And Mariam and the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel
in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels
and with dances. And Mariam answered them, Sing
ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his
rider hath he thrown into the sea. Our heavenly and merciful Father,
we thank you for assembling us together here. What a great opportunity
and a great, great blessing it is, Lord, that we have a place
to come, especially in these times of uncertainty and where
things are so unsettled and chaotic. But Lord, you do give us a place
of shelter. And Father, we thank you for
this local assembly. We thank you for sending us a
pastor, a man after your own heart. Father, will you continue
to watch over us and keep us together? Unite us together with
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, remember Brother
Eric as he stands before us. We thank you, Lord, for giving
him the courage, the strength and the health to continue to
speak to us, to declare the finished work of our great and glorious
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, continue to be with him.
continue to give him the desire and the strength that he needs.
And remember us also, Lord, as this small group continue to
give us the financial wherewithal and the wisdom and the appetite
to hear this glorious gospel declared from week to week. Father,
remember us. as we don't know the future,
but Lord, give us wisdom and strength and courage that we
may not fret so quickly and have so much unbelief in our hearts,
but that we may thoroughly throw ourselves upon You, that great
Redeemer. Father, remember us this day.
Bless what Brother Eric hopes to declare unto us. For Jesus'
sake alone, Amen. Good morning. Alright brethren, we're going
to be in Romans 8. Romans 8, and we'll be looking
at verses 29-31. Romans 8, 29-31. Now building upon what we know, that all things work together
for good to them that love God, Paul places our safety Not on
us, not on our love, that's not our hope, that's not our confidence
is in how we love the Lord, but he puts it on the foundation
of God's decree. He said there in verse 28, to
them who are the called according to His purpose. Those that are called according
to God's purpose. Now, I know from my own experience
and from speaking to many believers, many tender-hearted believers,
that a lot of people have fear. A lot of people who have a hope
in Christ, they have fear. And that fear, from my own experience,
comes from when I'm examining or looking at my thoughts. when
I examine or look at my works, or my actions, or lack thereof,
or how I feel. And some people can be very wavy
in terms of how they feel from one day to the next, or one hour
to the next. Our feelings can be a very moving fluid thing if we're depending
on how we feel or what we think or what we do. So that's not
the source of our comfort and our hope. And we know that the
Lord has told us, He's given us hope. Hope, meaning that we
don't see, we're not going to see what we think we should see. But rather, we're going to have
faith. It's going to require faith,
which our God also graciously gives His people. we don't find a lot of comfort
in these things. But what I hope to share with
you today, what I hope to say to you today, and what I want
you to hear, is that our comfort, the Lord doesn't tell us that
that's where we're gonna find our comfort, is in our thoughts,
or how we feel, or in what we see about ourselves. Because
again, we can judge ourselves very, very incorrectly either
for good or for bad. But our hope is founded upon
the Word of God and what He's revealed in us by His Spirit
through the Word. It's going to align with the
Word of God. The Lord teaches us Our salvation
is in Christ and He declares to us the hope of our salvation
and He gives us a hope looking to Him. We find that comfort
and that joy and that peace looking outside of ourselves to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so, that's what I want to
speak to you about this morning. I titled this message, The Foreknowledge
and Predestination of God. The Foreknowledge and Predestination
of God. And I want to begin our study
looking at who the Lord foreknew. Whom God foreknew. And our text
begins in verse 29, with for whom He, for whom God did for no. And what we're to understand
there is that this is speaking of the love of God for His people. And I want to show you that in
the scriptures, that this foreknowledge of God is referring to His love
for you that are His people, you that are His bride. and hope
in Him, it's because of the love that God has for you. It's not found in you and what
you've done, but it's found and rests in God Himself. And so, our God's love for us
is not founded upon our love for Him. but rather our love
for God is founded upon His love for us, right? That's why we
love Him. It's founded in His love for
us. Now, I bring this up because
there are many that would tell you, right? It's a fairly popular
teaching in many so-called churches that the foreknowledge of God
is only Him for knowing, Him looking down through the annals
of time to see that certain ones would believe Him. And that based
on what He sees in you, this faith that you're going to have
when you hear the Gospel, that's why He saves you. Right? They
spin it all around, and yet we'll see that the Scriptures don't
teach it that way. They teach that All things are
according to the purpose and decree of our God, and that's
why things are the way that they are. It's according to His purpose. Now there is a sense in which
foreknowledge, right, especially with us, foreknowledge is based
on a sense of us foreknowing or seeing something beforehand.
There is a sense in which that is true. But God's knowing something
beforehand, the reason why God knows it beforehand is because
he's the one that's predetermined it to be so. So, He knows because
He's determined that it's going to be that way, and that's how
God foreknows beforehand. We see this in regard to our
God's foreknowledge of Christ's death, of Him going to the cross
and being crucified there. In Acts 2, 23, we're told that
Christ being delivered by the determinate counsel, that which
He's determined or appointed, or ordained, by the determined
counsel and foreknowledge of God. Christ was crucified because
God determined it, and He knew it would be so, because He determined
that it should be done that way. So, our God foresees it exactly
as He's ordained it to come to pass. He knows it, because He's
God. He can do all things according
to His good pleasure. Now, in the Greek, we see the
same root word that's used here in our text. God's foreknowledge
is also used over in 1 Peter 1.20. It's the same root word And Peter uses it to describe
the coming of Christ, that it was preordained of God. He says
in 1 Peter 1.20, Christ verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world. It's the same root word, and
there they interpret it as foreordination. So God's foreknowledge is in
accordance with what He's ordained, what He's purposed to be. And
so the choosing of His people, God's choosing of His people
is not because He saw that we would have faith. What we actually
find in Scripture is that faith is the effect of predestination. Faith comes out of the fact that
we've been predestinated by God. Again, in the Scriptures, we're
told in Acts 13, 48, that as many as were ordained to eternal
life believe. As many as God ordained to this
life, they believe, so faith is the effect of our being predestinated
by God. Nor can our salvation be the
result of Him looking down in time beforehand and seeing some
good works in us. Ephesians 2.10 tells us, for
we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So again, our good works that
God foresees and knows that we'll do is because He's predestined
it. He's ordained it to be so. He's
determined that we would walk in them. And then we see this
brought together. It isn't that God knows that
there's going to be some cooperation on our part to hear the Word
and to believe it. but rather we hear the word and
believe it because our God has ordained it. I'll give you one
more scripture, 1st Timothy, rather 2nd Timothy 1, 9. God
hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according
to our works. Not because we would believe
it. but according to His own purpose and grace, which means
it's apart from our works, it's apart from our cooperation, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Alright, so with that hopefully
cleared up so that we don't base our hope and thinking that it's
in something we've done that God foresees. What I want to
show you now is in Scriptures, this foreknowledge is the love
that God has for you, that hope in Him. that have no hope or
confidence in your works, that don't even look to that which
you do for any confidence or assurance, but that you love
Christ because God has ordained it to be so. That's why you have
a hope in Him and why you believe that He is the Christ and that
God sent Him for you. That's why you long for Him and
desire it to be so. That's why you want to feel it.
That's why we want to see it in our works. and why we're troubled
when our thoughts are discouraging and not that which we think they
should be, because He has put His Spirit in you and given you
a longing to be with Him and to be like Him and to know Him. We are troubled in our flesh
because it isn't what it should be, but that's our hope. We know
that it shall be so in the day when Christ returns for us. So that our walk here now is
a walk by faith. Alright, so let's see that this
foreknowledge is God's love to us. First, turn over to Romans
11. Romans 11, and look at verse
2, how it's used there. Just the beginning of the verse
says, God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. And so there we see that because
of God's foreknowledge of his people, the Jews, those who were
of the Jews, because he foreknew them, he's not rejecting them. He's not turned away from those
whom he loves. He foreknew them. He knows them. He loves them. He's not rejecting
them therefore. He called out many Jews. The
apostles themselves were all Jews. And so God was very gracious
to those who He foreknew and loves. And that's why he won't
reject his people. And then, you know, as you read
that little passage there, you see how Isaiah himself, a prophet
called to God, cries out against Israel. He's saying, none of
them are listening to me, and they're destroying your prophets,
and they're persecuting me, your one and only prophet. And the
Lord actually says in the middle of verse 4, I have reserved to
myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of
Baal. Even so then, at this present time, Paul tells us, there is
a remnant according to the election of grace. And so those whom God
foreknows, He's chosen them. and he calls and gathers them
up as a remnant, a small group of people who are the election
of grace, those who he calls the election of grace. And so the foreknowledge of his
people is why God chose his people to salvation. It's because he
knows them. It's because He loves them. That's
why He chose them to salvation. And so in the scriptures this
foreknowledge actually reveals one of loving affection. God's
love for His people is one of loving affection, and it's approval
of them. God approves of His people. He accepts them and is gracious
toward them because He loves them. He chose them. He knew
them before they did any good or evil. Psalm 1-6 says, The
Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. He knows their way. He's fully
aware of their way. He's accepting of their way. He loves the way of the righteous,
but the way of the ungodly, those whom He doesn't know, their way,
and then they shall perish. They have no part. in God. Paul, speaking to the Corinthians,
said, but if any man love God, the same is known of God. God knows, God loves those who
love Him, and he clarifies this a little more in Galatians 4.9
when he said, after that we have known God, or rather are known
of Him. We know Him because He knows
us. We love Him because He first
loved us. 1 John 4.19. That's why we love God. Because
He knew us. He loved us. He approved of us
and chose us. And I get it, when we look at
ourselves, we think, why ever would He love me? I'm not the
most giving, I'm not the most gracious, I'm not the most kind,
I'm not the most faithful. Why would God be merciful to
a sinner like me? I don't know, but He foreknew
this people that He's gathered from all these different walks
of life and all these different backgrounds, He's gathered you
here this very day to hear this gracious Word, to hear His love,
His foreknowledge of you. Right? Not because we can fix
that calling to something that we've done, but all we can say
is, Lord, truly You are gracious and merciful and kind and tender
and patient with Your people. Thank You, Lord. Please don't
let me fall away. Please keep me, Lord. Please
continue and finish that which You started. That hope that you've
given me, Lord, continue. Finish it, Lord, please, because
I can't. I can't do it." So, the Lord loves His people, and
He saves them. His love moves Him to save His
people, unlike those who He doesn't love. Right? There's a people
that we know on the day of judgment, what they're going to hear is,
then will I profess unto them. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
sitting on the throne of judgment to judge the wicked and the unrighteous. He says to them, I never knew
you. I never knew you. Depart ye workers
of iniquity." So there, those whom God knows, those whom He
knows are those that He loves, and He knows their works, because
He's created them in them. He's given them that work of
faith, that righteous fruit of faith, and He's given them a
heart to desire, to long, to pant after Him. If you saw everything
that you think you should see, you wouldn't have had everything.
You would have desired it. You would be proud and arrogant.
I would be. I've been proud and arrogant.
And it's always there, that pride and that arrogance. And it's
the grace of God that humbles His people and keeps us in humility
and humble. And even being humble, I still
don't like how proud I really am. The Lord knows. He knows
that we're dust and we depend so much on the grace of our God
and His mercy toward us. So, this foreknowledge means
the love of God for His people. Look back in Romans 8, 29. For
whom He did foreknow. And now, because God foreknew
this people, because He loved them, because He's affectionate
toward this people, we read, He also did predestinate. Because He loves them, He predestinates
them to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the
firstborn among many brethren. And so there we see that God's
love is not a helpless love in which He says, oh, I wish, I
wish that they would just believe on Me. I'm going to send them
this message and I'll send them that message. Oh, pretty please,
won't you please just believe on Me. I can't do anything for
you unless you do something first for yourself. No, God's love
moves him to action and moves him to predestinate them, to
determine beforehand the day of their salvation, the appointed
day of their salvation. Even if you don't believe today,
even if to this point you don't like what you see in yourself,
that if God stirs your heart and gives you a hope in Him,
then today is the day of grace for you. Today is the day. Just
because you've heard it before and haven't believed, may the
Lord stir our hearts today to believe on Him and cry out for
His mercy and grace. So our God's love moves Him to
predestinate His people. And so His love leads Him to
predestinate them, and that leads us into the inheritance, the
experience of His grace. in the day that He's determined
beforehand that we should hear it. Ephesians 1.5 says, having
predestinated us, right, here's the inheritance, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. And Ephesians 1.11 says, in whom
also we have obtained. We've come into possession of
an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose or the
decree of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His
own will. Right? It's all contained in
Himself. It's all founded in God's love for us. It's for Himself,
by Himself, that we have a hope in Him. So he's definitely not
looking down through the annals of time and seeing works of his
people that changes his mind about somebody. It's God himself
that has determined within himself whom his affection is set upon
and he makes us trophies of his grace. as it pleases Him, right? That's why we can't say, well,
I believe like that person believed. I came to the Lord the same way
they did. That's rare that you find anybody that close to your
own experience, but you yourself have wrestled with unbelief and
sin and iniquity and various sufferings and troubles that
the Lord has used for the good of His people to bring you for
the hope that you now have in Him. All right, so the Lord tells
us the reason for this, the reason why He's done this is because
He's not appointed us to wrath, right, like those that He doesn't
know. He's not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation
by our Lord Jesus Christ. All right, so that fear that
we have When we look at ourselves, when we look at our thoughts,
and our heart, and our actions, and our faith, we are discouraged. And when we're not discouraged,
it won't be long before the Lord reminds us our need of Him. He'll humble us and let us see
how dependent we are really on His grace. And sometimes that
can be really scary. And a lot of times under chastening,
it feels like you're lost and that you've cut yourself out
and been cast away. Because the Lord brings us to
see and to know, to varying degrees, to know our need of Him and to
humble us under the hand of God. But He's the one that lifts us
up in His time, alright? So, we trust Him. Now let's look
at being predestinated to be conformed. Predestinated to be
conformed. The next thing that we see here
is the surety of our salvation. The certainty of our salvation. Because we've been given to Christ. We've been put into the hands
of Christ. So that's another comfort. that
it isn't coming down to you and how tightly you can hold on to
Christ. It comes down to Christ and Christ
alone. It's all, our lives are in His
hand. And the comfort is that God committed
us to Christ, right? He didn't commit salvation into
your hands or my hands to do this. He committed the whole
work to Christ, and that's a comfort, because He does not fail, and
He's perfect, and He pleases His Father well in all things. And so that's a great comfort,
to see how the assurance that we have and the certainty that
we have is always found not here, not with me, but in Christ, and
in Christ alone. And that's what the Lord is showing
us in His Word continually. 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." And so in other
words, the Lord's saying, he's making us to resemble Christ. We're the image of Christ, all
right? So first, Jesus Christ himself
was elected of God. He was chosen by the Father to
do this work of salvation, all right? He was elected of God
to obtain eternal redemption for those children of God whom
he foreknew. It was all committed to Christ.
So, you could say our God trusted Christ. Our God, God the Father,
trusted Christ before any of us ever did. God determined that
He could depend wholly upon Christ for that work of salvation for
His people. We're told in Ephesians 1.12
that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted
in Christ. Our God first trusted in Christ
and He trusted us to Christ. You know, after Adam sinned,
when Adam sinned, he didn't have any children. There were no sons
and daughters yet born to Adam. And so, when he sinned, all his
seed in him was corrupted. When He sinned, we sinned. When He died spiritually, we
died spiritually. And so, we all fell in Adam. And the Scriptures tell us, you
know, when God first created Adam, He created Adam in His
own image. But then we read, a little later
on in Genesis 5-3, it says that Adam began to beget sons in His
own likeness, after His own image. which was corrupted, full of
sin and darkness and iniquity, having no spiritual life. So in order to restore those
that God foreknew who would come from Adam's loins, the Lord purposed
to save a people. He determined this before, even
that, I'm just speaking in terms of of humans, He purposed to
restore that which was lost in Christ, the second Adam. And
so the Lord sent His Son, and we're told in Hebrews 1.3 that
Christ is the brightness of His glory and the express image of
His person. and upholding all things by the
word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." So Christ accomplished
our salvation, right? So that in Christ, who is called
the Son of God, brethren, we're called sons of God, right? Now we are the children of God
because we have His Spirit, and those who are led by the Spirit
They are the children of God. And Christ has accomplished that
for us. He restored that which was dead. He gave life to us
by His spiritual seed. As Christ is accepted of God,
and we believe that God is well pleased with His Son, and He's
accepted Him, we find that we in Christ are accepted with God. And as Christ has a better name
than the angels, so we have in Christ a better name than the
angels. They know nothing of this salvation. They can only
look from without, but they don't understand it. Because those
angels that never fell, they weren't saved or redeemed from
their fall. Our God only did this for His
people, for His children, right? And just as He suffered in the
flesh, so it is appointed for us of God to suffer in the flesh
like Him, right? That we should find our hope
and our joy and our awe looking to Him, and seeing the wonders
and the splendor of our God in salvation. And so Adam, when
he sinned, defaced that perfect image of God. By grace in Christ,
we know, we understand that we shall be like Him in that day
when He returns. Right now, we don't see it. Right
now, we don't see what we think we should see, but we continue
to struggle with sin, struggle with iniquity, struggle with
unbelief, struggle with doubt, struggle with failings and foolishness
and saying things that hurt one another. And we struggle with
those things. All those passions of sin and
iniquity rage in this flesh. But there's coming a day We know,
it's our hope, there's coming a day when Christ will return
and redeem that which He's purchased with His own blood. He's going
to raise us up. And John tells us, we don't see
what we shall be, we don't quite know exactly, but we know that
when He comes, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as
He is. And so, understand now that Christ
Himself is the firstborn of many brethren. He's the firstborn.
And we're His brethren through adoption and through regeneration. Through adoption and through
regeneration by His Spirit. And that's what Paul tells us
a little earlier in Romans 8. Romans 8.24 says, that we are
saved by hope. That's why we don't see what
we should, what we think we should see right now, because we're
saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope, but what
a man see it, why get yet hope for it? If we were as we think
we should be, perfectly, there wouldn't be hope. Because we'd
already have it. We'd already be perfect. And
it wouldn't be fake, because it would already be done. And
others would see it and know the truth of God, because we'd
be perfect in all things and in all ways. But now, we hope. We hope in Him, trusting and
believing that when He returns, We shall rise and He shall say,
well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into thy rest.
That's our hope, our confidence is in Christ. We know this through
regeneration, right? We see fruits of it. It's not
necessarily the fruits that the world has told us to expect,
but we see the fruits of his regeneration because he's turned
us from dead works of religion, from trusting the things that
we were doing in the flesh, trusting the things that we were doing
in religion, and believing that those things had some benefit,
that those things were the things that God was pleased with and
that that's why He saved us. Even when we knew in the head
that that wasn't the truth of what God was saying, we still
fixed a lot of hope in those things, right? We wanted to see
perfection. And the more perfect we wanted
to see it, the less we saw. Thankfully, because the Lord
pulled that veil back and let us see the deadness of those
works, but it's through His regenerative powers by Him giving us life
that we see that's not salvation there. And He's shown us that
all our hope, if we have any hope of salvation, it's Christ. It's got to be Christ. Because
I'm falling far, far short of perfect righteousness in myself.
It's not good enough. I've come short of the glory
of God, and my hope is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. And so, this love of God for
us is all witnessed in our being now called, justified, and glorified. That's what we see there in verse
30. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
then He also called, and whom He called, then He also justified,
and whom He justified, then He also glorified. Alright, so our
God calls you that are His people. He calls you by that general
call of the gospel. It goes out, but you that are
His will hear it as it is in truth, the Word of God. It's not just the words of a
man, but it's the words of God. It's the truth declaring to you
our salvation in Christ. Peter says, but the God of all
grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. Meaning that God calls us apart
from works, apart from anything that we could fix our hope on. God's gonna make sure that you
understand, you that hear it, that it wasn't because you're
good little boys and girls. He's gonna make sure that you
know that it is because of His grace and His foreknowledge,
His love of you that caused Him to send His Son to lay down His
life, that caused Him to call you by the Gospel, right? And
whom He called, then He also justified. In other words, God,
because of His foreknowledge, He predestinated our calling,
meaning that He had to justify us. He justifies, which means
what He did when He sent His Son into flesh, who had to be
a fit sacrifice, so He had to come into flesh, He had to be
perfect, And so Christ came as the Lamb of God, meaning He was
intended for the very purpose to come and lay down His life
for you sheep that He formilled. So Christ came and is the perfect
sacrifice for His people. And Christ fulfilled all the
law of God perfectly, loving God perfectly, loving His brethren
perfectly. He went to the cross, willingly,
bearing the sin of His people, to make sacrifice of Himself,
to make atonement for the sins of the people, to justify us. Which He accomplished, He justified
us. Paul tells us, But God commendeth
His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Much more than being now justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. And again
to the Corinthians, for he hath made him to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him. 7 Corinthians 5, 21. All right,
now whom he justified, them he also glorified. In other words,
he that believes on Christ, he that trusts Christ, it's because
we've been justified of our sins. It's because God has done this
work for us, and he called us through that gospel, and we believe,
we hope in him. Our trust is fixed in him, and
continues to be fixed in him, the Lord keeping us. The Lord
keeps us. He turns us from doubts and unbelief
and foolishness. He won't allow our faith to be
shipwrecked and for us to be destroyed. He does all that work
in keeping us. And so, we'll never fall away
and perish in our sins and perish in unbelief. Because God has
determined that He shall glorify us. Meaning, He's speaking of
our eternal glorification. Not that we'll be glorified here
in the flesh through good, amazing works that we do, but we're glorified
with Christ. We shall be brought home with
Him. John 1, 12, and 13 says, to them gave He power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." In
other words, we shall be with Him in that day, which were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God. It's the purpose of our God who
did this. Alright? And our God tells us that this
has already been accomplished for us in Christ. This glorification
even now is set and determined. God already. He says in Ephesians
2 6, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. So we're already there. It's
already been predetermined, preordained, and so it cannot fail. He loves
you. He's keeping His people. You
that hope in Him have every reason to rejoice and trust Him. You
may not see it as you would in your flesh now, but you have
no other hope. You that have no other hope,
it's because God has given that to you. If you have another hope,
then you've not yet heard the truth, and there is no comfort
for you. But those that have no hope,
But Christ, in Christ alone, that's not of the flesh, that's
of the Spirit. And so, give God the glory for
that fruit of righteousness by Him. And then, just in closing,
Romans 8 31, what shall we say then to these things? If God
be for us, who can be against us? Even we ourselves can't be
against this truth. Thankfully, we can't, we didn't
start it, we can't end it. Our God began it, and He's the
one that will bring it to a close. He's the one that will bring
us to Himself. So I pray the Lord will bless that Word to
your hearts, brethren. Let's close in prayer, and then
we'll have some announcements. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank You for Your grace and mercy toward us and Your Son,
Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for your knowledge
of us, that you should love us. You have nothing to boast in
or nothing to bring before you. But Lord, we hope in Christ,
and that's all we have, is that faith and that hope which you've
given to us in Him. And we know, Lord, that you've
predestinated this, made it so. We thank you for our pollen in
Christ, We thank You that You've justified us by His blood. And
Lord, that we shall indeed one day soon be glorified with Him,
when our hope and faith shall become sight. Lord, keep us. Lord, fill us with this hope. Settle us in Christ. Let us not
be trusting in ourself, but let us ever be trusting in the Lord
Jesus Christ, our God, our King, and our Savior. It's in His name
we pray and give thanks. Amen. I'm just gonna stop this. Keep it going for, oh, that's
right, we're gonna have one more hymn. So let's have a hymn and
then we'll, we'll talk after. And just so you all know that
are watching online, We're going to just talk about a meeting
place. And so if we stop at them, we'll just catch up with you
that have an interest in knowing where we're going to be meeting
going forward from here. All right. One of them will be number three. Dear Virgin, nearer, close to
Thy heart. Call me, my Savior, so precious
Thou art. Shelter me safe in the name of
Christ. God-blessed offering to Jesus,
my King. Holy, my sinful, thou contrior,
grant me a blessing. ? And be thy blessing ? ? Thy blood
doth impart ? ? Nearer, still nearer ? ? Lord, to thee I'll
go ? ? Sit with this promise I pledge thee ? Give me my Jesus, my Lord, who's
just and kind. Give me my Jesus, my Lord, ? Hell's aching glory by anger
instead ? ? True and blissing ever to thee ? ? Ever blissing
ever to thee ? We'll leave this going since
I know some are at home.