Good morning, everybody. Good
seeing you. Good to be home. I've got a little
thing topped up to remind myself, give you some notes on the trip
to Australia. It wasn't just a vacation. We were working, and the Lord
put us to work, and I think He blessed it. But I'll have a little
more time next hour. I'll give it to you then. For
this first hour for a Sunday school, let's look to Romans
8. Romans chapter 8. The time of message is predestination
and salvation. Predestination and salvation.
If somebody asks you, like I said before, you may be the only person
that ever is used to tell somebody about the gospel. And so if somebody
said, what does predestination mean? That's very common where
I'm from, and that's a point of contention, strongly. And people are mad about things,
and they don't know what it means. Ever since somebody's mad about
something, they don't know what they're even talking about. They just want
to be mad. If it wasn't mad, they'd pick something else. What
about salvation? How many people in this county do you think are
saved? Think that they're saved? Lots,
everybody's saved. Everybody and their brother's
saved. Well, of course they're saved. We had fellowship with
them and we had a good time. I ain't never been to church
and I don't own a Bible and don't worship God, but everybody thinks
they're saved. What does that mean? What does it mean to be, what
if your grandchild came up and said, what's it mean to be saved?
Will we have an answer that's accurate with what God says it
is to be saved? would we? These two things go
hand-in-hand. Romans 8, verse 28. These are
very familiar scriptures, and we're going to look here, and
then we'll look at Ephesians 1 that we look at often. And
I pray God will teach us something in this and show us what He says. Romans 8, verse 28. And there's
some things before that, weren't there? We know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to 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. The Lord speaks here about predestination. He says he predestinated some
people. We often confuse that. We say, well, the word means
pre, that's before, and destination, that's an outcome or a place.
Well, that's not what it means. That's what we think it means.
And we confuse that with providence, don't we? Providence, and riders
of old, too, they would take predestination and mean the whole,
as Barnard said, the whole shooting match. They'd wrap everything
up in that one term. And no, we want to stand on their
accomplishments and reach a little higher, and we're thankful for
them. Like he said, I'm not worthy to untie their shoelatches. That
is wrong. That ain't what it means. That's
crazy, isn't it? Can you believe such a thing?
That they're fallible men just like us? We don't know what we
don't know. That's the truth. Let's look
at what we do know and what God's told us. Providence is what comes
to pass. That's what happens in daily
life, and that's the will of God that acts out in our lives.
Predestination is something totally different. And there's a lot
of contentions concerning this word predestination, but many
don't know what it means. They're mad about something,
they have opinions about something, they apply their feelings to
that, but it's something opposite of what God says. It's not what
it means. A lot of harms come to the gospel
and to the Lord's people by enemies of the gospel concerning this.
And as faithful men of old have told us many times, a lot of
harms come to the Lord's people and the gospel by people that
did love the Lord from this. Predestination has nothing to
do concerning who is saved. That's God's electing grace.
It has nothing to do with who is not saved. That's man's intentional
rebellion. That's what the common phrase
I've heard throughout the world is that you believe in predestination.
I said, I sure do. God's saints all over do. Well,
you believe that God predestined some people to go to heaven and
he predestined some people to go to hell. You don't have an
understanding of the word and you don't have an understanding
of man's rebellion. You don't understand total depravity
if you think that's the case. That's not so. This has nothing
to do, this word and this text, you look it up, everywhere it's
used in the scriptures all six times, it's solely concerning
the Lord's people. It's not predestinating anybody
to hell or any of those things. Man does that all by himself.
He don't need any help. We are to be blamed. That's so. It has nothing to do with what
will come to pass or what will not come to pass. That's providence.
That's the Lord's will in action. This predestination, it's concerning
the results of salvation and what salvation is. The Lord gave
us, his people, eternal life and it's what that life is. Do you have an interest in that?
Has the Lord gave us a spirit of slumber or are we interested
in these things? So without the lens of man's
opinion, without the lens of mankind's emotion, let's see
what God has to say about it. We read this word predestination
two times here in Romans 8. We're going to read it two times
in Ephesians 1. There's two other places it's translated the word
ordained. So six times throughout scripture
this is mentioned. But here in Romans 8 verse 29.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his Son, that his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
might be the firstborn among many brethren." So who does predestination
begin with? Who does it continue with, and
what's the culmination of it? That's like that repentance has
those things, doesn't it? That's the best quote I've ever
heard. I've traced it all the way back to Princeton, New Jersey,
to Princeton University, back whenever a faithful man used
to be the first headmaster of that. And then we couldn't find
it any further behind that, so I don't have an author for it.
But repentance is the pilgrimage from the mind of the flesh to
the mind of Christ. That means it has its conception
and its continuance and its culmination. The mind, the whole of me, what
I think, what I want, what I desire, the nature of me, goes from me
to what he thinks, what he desires. It has those things, a beginning,
a middle, and an end. And this is important. To understand
this, we have to know something about who was doing the saving.
We have to understand something about the character of God, don't
we? It says in verse 29, who does
this come from? Who does this predestination
come from? For whom He did foreknow. The first cause of this, the
root of all this, who brought this word up? He! The Lord did. The Lord did. This begins with
Him. This is sustained by Him, and
this comes to its fruition. It comes to the end. It comes
to a head because of Him. Because of Him. This is the Lord's
doing. This is His workmanship. Would
you like to watch the Lord work? If He's gonna make a paper airplane,
would you sit down and watch Him make it? Or would you say,
I'll take a nap. I'm gonna go get my manicure
or something. I want to watch him work. This is his workmanship.
This is what he's doing. He says in Deuteronomy 32, see
now that I, even I am he. Speaking of himself, you pay
attention to what I'm telling you. He said, there is no God
with me. I don't have a co-pilot. God's
not your co-pilot. He's the plane. He's the pilot.
He's the seats. And we had better be him. He conformed to him. He said, there's nobody with
me. He said, I kill and I'll make alive. Everybody has an
appointed time. Everyone is going to die. Who
does that? Well, cancer got him or bad life
choices. God kills. Me and Brother Bob
was talking about this early this morning. He got here early
at the church house. If anything in providence, not
predestination, right? We are separated there. If anything
comes to pass in providence, it's because God willed it. Now, is he holy? Is he just? Is he right? Is it for our good?
We just read that. All things are for our good.
So isn't it majestic? Oh, that we could see it as so.
We have our mind. If we don't see it as majestic,
that's our mind thinking. If we see it as perfect and this
is just fabulous, that's having a mind of Christ. It's different. Would you be made whole? Do you
want that mind? Why did the Lord do this? He
said, I kill, I make alive, I wound, I heal. Neither is there any
that can deliver out of my hand for I lift up my hand to heaven
and I say, live forever. He said, I save, I give eternal
life. That's what God does. This predestination,
it begins with him, for whom he did foreknow. Why did the
Lord do it? It says for whom he did foreknow,
foreknow. That's the verb foreknow. Other
places we read the noun foreknowledge. Well, he knew ahead of time.
Well, no, that's not what that means either. We gotta look these
words up. Spend some time studying. That's
why I make the big bucks. I gotta look these things up
for you. For love, loved before, and the act of love. Adam knew
his wife, and because that happened in person, there was some offspring.
There was some life. The Lord gave us that to show
us Christ and his bride. We meet in person. I look you
in the eye, and if the Lord's pleased, He'll use his word,
and he'll create life in you, and that's what the Lord's gonna
use to make offspring in his church. That's so, like Clay
preached last night, if y'all get a chance to, they'll be up
Thursday, I heard. They're from Rescue, but what
sanctification is. And he said, that's what the
Lord uses, and he sets people apart for his service to serve.
And you'll say, you'll go to your neighbors and say, come
church with me. And you teach your children at home what these
things mean. The shadows that the Lord gave us, the tokens,
the tops, the pictures that point to Him. That's why we're here
for the soul. The only reason we go to work
and work on the Lord is to further the gospel. A man called me one time, said,
I want to, we want to have a local church. We want to have a gospel
church in our town. I said, why? Fair enough question,
isn't it? Why? Just because you want to
have somebody come wait on you? Or do you want it for that community?
Because God's worked in you and you want to tell your brethren
about it. Why did the Lord do this? Out
of love. That's our labor of love. We get to. We get to. Love. He said, I know the thoughts
I think towards you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace, not
of evil. I'm not just here to send trials
to smack you in the back of the head because I'm a mean and austere
man." He said, this is for your good, not for evil, to give you
an expected end, that eternal life. What predestination concerns,
we'll see in a minute. Then, Lord said, I'm thinking
on you. I love you before time. And because
of that, because he did this, then shall you call upon me. When we gonna call on him? When
the Lord loved us before time. That's prerequisite. Who says
so? He says so. Don't fight me, fight
him. And you shall go and pray unto
me and I will hearken unto you. We take our prayers serious?
God hears them. We have an audience with the
king. We have a personal meeting with the ear of God. What are
we gonna ask for? And he shall seek me and find
me when you shall search for me with all your heart. Why did
the Lord do this? Who does this come from? It comes
from the Lord. Why did he do it? Love, that's why. Who does
this affect? Says to whom? There's people,
right? And we know, verse 28, That all
things work together for good to them that love God. Those that love Him. Not love
a God, not love their imagination of God, the true and living God.
We love Him. Do you love Him? People say they love Him. A lot
of people say they love their spouses. They sure don't act
like it. A lot of people say they love
the children. God says they hate them. They won't correct them.
They won't make a mind in those things. He gives us our responsibilities
really clear. And we say, well, we know we
love them. We know what love is. Those that love him, to them
who are the called according to his purpose. Look down in
verse 30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called.
That's who this is. The called. To whom he called,
he also justified. whom he justified, them he also
glorified. This loved people that's called,
that's justified, that's glorified. That's who this is for. That doesn't exclude anybody.
People say, well, I wanted to call on the Lord and he predestined
me to hell and he won't let me, I ain't one of the let. No, you
won't find that. That's just excuses for self-righteousness
is what that is. You take all the stuff that we
hear often. It's Arminian Will Works religion. There's the pre-canned verb in
it, noun that we ascribe to it. What is that? Boil that down.
Well, it doesn't have to be Arminian, does it? What's works? Well, everything's works. It
ain't grace. What is it? Boil it down. Let's get plain.
Let's get simple. It's pride. I did something good. God owes me something. Now I
did this, now you owe me. Uh-uh. No, look at that. He called the people, he loved
the people, he called the people, he justified the people, he glorified
the people. That's all he's doing. Ever be
it. He can't do wrong and I can't
mess it up. It just gets sweeter and sweeter.
Well, what is it? That leads to my title, Predestination
and Salvation. I thought about doing salvation
versus predestination. Maybe that'll be the title, I
don't know. Or what is it to be saved? They go hand in hand. What is this predestination thing?
This word, what's it mean? Look at verse 29, the Lord tells
us, For whom he did foreknow, the people that God loved before. He also did predestinate. to
be conformed to the image of His Son. What is predestination? It's to be conformed to the image
of God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The spittin' image. That's hillbilly slang for spirit
and image. You have the inside and outside
of Him. Predestination is being conformed
to the image of Christ. Having His mind. What does that
mean? Well, we're conformed to the
image of Christ. Okay, what's that mean? To have his mind. The mind in the New Testament
means whole of me, all of me. To have his actions, to have
his desire, to have his faithfulness, have his attitude, what we call
an attitude. What kind of attitude they have
when they're doing that? The whole of me. The whole of me
made the whole of him. His name, his smell, being one
with him, one mind, one accord with God himself. What is predestination? It's being made like Christ.
Do you want to be made like Christ? Do we? We know him. He's revealed himself to us.
Do we want to be made like him? Don't want to be like him? I
want to be like my dad when I was a little kid. He took a nap every
Sunday. Only on Sundays after services,
we'd go home. We'd go out to eat or something, go out and
eat. Folks are at the church, visit with them and do things.
They come up the house. And after all that stuff was
over about two, three o'clock, he'd take a nap. And I tell my
mom, I want to be like dad. I want to take a nap. I want
to dress the way he dresses. I want to talk the way he talks.
I want to do everything he does, the way he does it. I want to
be just like him. That's an idol, isn't it? You
want to be like Christ? Have you put away your other
idols? Has he made you push those away? Do you want to be made
like him? Do you want to be one with him? The God of the Bible,
not the God of our imagination, but him. He is as he says he
is. Just as these scriptures say,
do you want to be made like that? Do I believe in predestination?
Do you believe in predestination? I sure do. I don't believe in
whatever you think it means, but I believe in what God says
it is. I believe he's gonna make a people like Christ. And what
we call time, the Lord Father purposed one time and looked
at his son and he said, I'm gonna make a whole people just like
him. He's gonna be the firstborn. They're gonna honor him, but
they're gonna be just like him. I believe that completely. God
says so. My brother Barnard said that
too. He said, if you're going to fight predestination, fight that. Trifle with God if
you want to. Make a lot of it if you want
to, but not me. David said, thy throne, O God, is forever and
ever. That's what he taught that king. And he taught King Nebuchadnezzar
that. We've been looking at that. The sepulcher of thy kingdom
is a right sepulcher. You do all things well. Thou
lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. Therefore, That's
in the perfect tense. You always have, you do, and
you always shall love righteousness. You always have, you always do,
and you always shall hate wickedness. Therefore God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. That's
speaking of Christ coming in the Godhead in a body on this
earth and living for his people and dying for his people and
raising for his people and setting on a throne for his people. He
loves righteousness and hates wickedness. I want to love righteousness
and hate wickedness. Don't you? I want to be made
like him. And it seems that in this flesh,
all I do is love wickedness and hate righteousness. Almost like
there's a war going on. Almost like there's two totally
different people trapped in one body. That'll end one day. That's the culmination. The creation
of this concept, predestination, the Lord did before time. Before
knowledge, love before. The continuance of it is what
we experience in Providence. These are all big words we're
getting there. That's our daily life. It's what's happening right
now. And then when this life is over, that's the culmination.
You're completely 100% lucky. How does all this happen? Ephesians
1. I've got this highlighted and
underlined and dates written down, messages I've heard from
it. Only what's recorded. I don't even know all of them.
It's just what happens beyond sermon. I think Henry preached
from Ephesians 1 like 58 times or something. God make us new
to us this morning. Not old hat, not something to.
So I've read that before. Make it new to us. Ephesians
1 verse 3. Blessed be the God and father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us. That's why I was talking about
Romans 8, wasn't it? He chose people. He chose us. Who? Us! In him, before the foundation
of the world. That foreknowledge just took
place before. That we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. Made holy, unblameable, unfallible,
before him in God's presence, in love. Not, well, this is a
legal standing and you're allowed to come in now. Come on, buddy.
Come on. Colon. There's a colon there. Let's need some explanation on
how to do this. Having predestinated us, verse
five, unto the adoption of children. What happens when you adopt a
child? We're going to do some paperwork. What paperwork? You
got to give it your name. He surnamed us. He said, so I
will surname them. I'll call them the Lord. Our
righteousness. By what means? By Jesus Christ. To what end? To himself. Why? According to the good pleasure
of his will. What's the end state of that? To the praise of the
glory of his grace. Wherein he hath made us. He made us. Accepted in the beloved. He's done all this. He's made
it. It's done. It's almost like the work's finished. In whom? in the beloved, in Christ. We
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches of his grace. That's how it all took place.
That's where the transaction took place. Christ came, he shed
his blood, and his blood, he died. We sinned, we were the
problem, and he took it all, and he paid it all, and his own
body on a tree. according to the riches of His
grace. Verse 8, wherein He hath abounded towards us in all wisdom
and prudence. The Lord sends His Spirit. The
Father purposed this, the Son purchased it, and the Holy Spirit
proclaims it in the hearts of His people. Not on billboards,
and not in statements of faith, and not in decrees. He does it
in the heart. It's a heart work. What does
He say? I'm going to take out that heart of stone, I'm going
to put in a heart of flesh. And then as the Lord loved, we'll
start loving. As He was merciful, we'll start being merciful. As
He's serious about saving His people, we'll start being serious
about Him saving His people. And so, we're gonna start being
like Him. Having made known unto us the
mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He
purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness
of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven, which are in earth, in Him. In whom? we have attained an inheritance,
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should
be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ."
Salvation. It's not election. I used to
believe that. I thought, well, if you believed
in election, you saved. believe in election never saved nobody.
Christ saved somebody. The election, that's concerning
God's grace as to who is saved. That's the concern of the people
that he set apart. Salvation is not having sin put
away. That was necessary. That has
to happen. Salvation is not just going to
heaven when we die, though that's the location that the saved will
be. Salvation's not being just freed from the law, that law's
fulfilled in Christ. He's done that for us, he had
to. Act of righteousness, act of a holy nature. Salvation's
being made like him. What is it to be saved? Be made
like Christ. Well, who's he and how's that
happening, who does it? Being made like him is never
having the ability or the desire to break the law again. Don't
want to, and you can't, cannot see Him. That's what His Word
says. There's no creation that cannot see Him. And then with
that, being in the presence of Holy God, set apart for His service,
and just tickled to death about it. Tickled to death about it. Being in that family, being adopted
into it, being born into it, being married into it. Isn't
that nice? Lord puts things in words that
we can understand, and he puts things in experiences that we
can understand. Not everybody's been married, so maybe they don't
know what that's like. I never was adopted, but I was born.
Born, adopted, and married. That's the language he uses.
And any way you can cut it, you're mine. And I'm gonna make you
just like my son. Having sin put away, it was necessary.
Salvation's being made like Christ. That's a byproduct of it. That's
what it is. It's paid for. But this predestination's being
made a person that saved us, that put away our sin. That is
who, not what, that is who we trust. I trust in the doctrines
of grace. You better trust in the God that
gave us those things, that declares them in his word. And that's
who we believe. We trust and we believe in him.
He said, people quote this all the time, in business, in college,
I don't know, pick something, but you shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. I said, after that presidential
debate the other night, everybody's talking about lies, and I said,
truth sets you free. What's that mean? Well, it's not facts. It's
not that, well, this is accurate and this is inaccurate, and then
the accuracy will set you free. Truth's a person. And ye shall
know Christ, and Christ will set you free and make you like
him. Verse 13, in whom ye also trusted. The father trusted in
him before anybody else did. That's the most God-like thing
you can do, trust Christ. The father did. And you trusted
in him after that ye heard the word of truth. You couldn't have
trusted him if you never heard the word of truth. Nobody ever
preached that to you, because you didn't know him. And he said,
but I sent a preacher, and you heard it, and you trusted. The
gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Sealed. You're pinched within and without,
just like that ark was, and it can't ever be taken away. which
is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession and to the praise of his glory. Until that day.
He's bought us. We got down payment on it in
us right now. And until that day, he redeems us. In this case,
bringing us home to him. And made completely, translated
into the kingdom of heaven, made completely like him. Inside and
out totally. In this old body of death done
with. Back in our text. How close? With who does this predestination
begin and continue and culminate with? God himself. Why? Out of love and his good pleasure
and will. Who does that affect? Those that
he loved before, that he called, that he justifies, that he glorifies.
And what is it? What is predestination? What
is salvation? Being made like Christ. Where does that leave
us? Now what are we gonna do? What
do we have to say about that? Verse 31, Romans 8, 31. What
shall we say to these things? What are you gonna say? If God
be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own
son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with
him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? That's one of the things I wrote
down, too. I got who highlighted, and I wrote next to it, not even
me. Somebody said that one-time message. I don't remember who
said it, but I'm thankful they did. Not even me. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. What's
that justification got to do with? Well, that's once he called
and he predestinated in love and he glorified. I heard old Barnard say this.
If you're going to fight predestination, fight the house. I don't want
to. I'm happy. I hope this hurries up. Come, Lord. Come quickly,
right now. Put this body of death away before
I start locking it again and going back to it. Ain't that
right? All right, let's pray together. Father, thank you for
this word that you've given us. Thank you for having it so abundant
for us, Lord, so easy for us to read. have it our hand and
lay our eyes on. Lord, thank you for this government
that you've given us and this nation that we're in, that we
have freedom without any concern for our life and being martyrs
to come and worship Christ. What a privilege that is, Lord.
Thank you for this time that you've given us to be in. Lord,
work this in our hearts, this love that you've loved us with
in Christ and this good news that we have. Make us live as
lights in this community and give us hearts that want to serve
and tell people about Christ and further this good news and
publish it abroad. Forgive us for what we are. or
we believe help our unbelief. Thank you for our brethren that
you've made known to us and those that shall be. Well, we pray
for them. You'd be with them as you promised
and comfort them and keep them as you said you would. We ask
these things because of Christ. Amen. All right, we'll meet back
at 1030.