Romans 9 verse 9, for this is
the word of promise, at this time I'll come and save her,
she'll have a son. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. All right? Verse 10, not only
this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by her
father Isaac, for the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand. That is, that it might be established
once for all. That this is going to be the
basis of it. This is going to be the foundation
of it. You're going to preach it, preach it this way. that
the purpose of God according to election might stand not of
works, but of him that calleth. It was said unto her, the elder
is going to serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. God's people are here established
in Jacob, whom God calls Israel, and they went by that name Israel
from that day forth. But God uses his earthly name
here to establish God's free and sovereign grace in his election. He don't use his name as the
prince. He uses his name Jacob. Jacob. And he uses it to establish,
as I just read to you, that it's not of works, but of him that
calleth. You know, men and women are always
shocked when I read that scripture to them out of the Bible or make
some point and quote that scripture out of the Bible. Jacob have
I loved and Esau have I hated. When I read that thing, Esau
have I hated, I've had people gasp. They're shocked. They're shocked that God would
hate Esau. It doesn't shock me that God
hated Esau. It shocks me that He loved Jacob.
Huh? He had every reason to hate Esau.
Esau sold out his birthright for a bowl of deer soup. Just for petty worldly wants,
sold out his birthright, sold out the priesthood, sold out
God. He had every reason to hate Esau.
He didn't have any reason to love Jacob. Huh? There wasn't one reason in Jacob.
He was a finagler from day one. Always trying to cut a deal.
Always trying to get around something. Why are men so shocked that God
would hate Esau? Because religion has deceived
men into disregarding God's testimony of man. That's why. God says
there is none good, none righteous, none that seeketh after God,
all gone astray, all together become unprofitable, at his best
state, all together vanity. Liars from the womb, hearts full
of adultery, swift to shed blood, lovers of pleasures more than
lovers of God. Mankind's born in a cyst full
of iniquity. He's a sinner from the inside
out. Yet he's been deceived by satanic
religion and told that he has great potential. Great potential
in himself just needs to be developed. The spark of God is in there.
All you got to do is blow on it and you get a fire going.
Not what Isaiah said. He said it's just ashes. Ashes means the fire went out. Man has been deceived into believing
that every soul is a precious commodity and God wants to save
everybody He can and help everybody He can and turn everybody He
can. Man sits in the palace of his
mind as a prince among God's creatures. Satan has lifted him
up and seated him on the throne. He believes himself worthy of
God's blessings, and God's obligated to save him. Huh? I heard men say that from the
pulpit. God's only obligated to call you one time. He's not
obligated to call you at all. And nobody obligates God but
God. Man sees himself as God, sitting
in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. That's
how Paul described this Antichrist, this spirit of Antichrist that's
coming into the world and is in the world, as God sitting In the place of
God, he dictates the ways, the means, he draws the plans, he
puts the plans into motion, and he saves everybody that will
follow his dictations. But that's not how God's people
are manifested or why. They're manifested by God's design,
God's means, God's election, God's calling, and God's grace.
By divine inspiration, Paul tells us that God established his election
in Jacob. In Jacob. As faith was established
in Abraham. He's the father of the faithful.
Ask anybody who Abraham. Oh, he's, that's all right. Abraham's
the father of the faithful. That's what scripture says. God
established faith in Abraham. He talks about faith. He always
talks about Abraham. It wasn't written for his sake
alone, but for us also who believe. As faith was established in Abraham,
election was established in that same manner in Jacob. And he
does this for several reasons, but I want to just limit my remarks
this morning to three. First of all, God establishes
election in Jacob that the objects of his blessings and his love
be made clear to all men. There is no reason on this earth
except for sin and deception for any man to try to take the
salvation of God and make it universal. You can't find it
in the scripture anywhere. It's not in there. It's not hinted
at. It's not typified. It's not in
there. The idea of universal love and
universal salvation is not consistent with the word of God. Oh, now
wait a minute, preacher. He uses that word world in connection
with salvation a lot of times in the scriptures. I know that.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting
life. Paul tells us over in 2 Corinthians
5, verse 19, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them. He wrote to Timothy, Paul did,
and told Timothy, for God our Savior will have all men to be
saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And John tells us in 1 John chapter
2, he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world. And you begin to
deal with men out here, and they have a little bit of knowledge
of the scripture, these are the scriptures they're going to run
to. But none of these verses use the word world in the sense
of every individual in the world. but to overcome the idea of Jewish
prejudice that was in the world, believing that none but Israel
was going to be saved. This was God's elect, this little
tiny nation, these sons of Abraham. This is God's elect. This is
all that's going to be saved. And our Lord and his apostles
came into this world to reveal a great hidden mystery. that
his elect was not the physical sons of Abraham, but his sons
were going to be drawn from every nation. Huh? Isn't that what
he told Abraham way back yonder? All the nations of the world
are going to be blessed in your seed. Sure he did. In this gospel age, the mystery
of the Gentiles will be revealed. Paul wrote to the Ephesian church,
and he said, I'm writing these things to you that when you read
them, you might understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ,
which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as
it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the
Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body
and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel. That's
why he uses that word world. The word world simply means,
as Paul puts it here in our text in Romans 9 verse 24, even us
whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. All of the great revelations
of the character of God revealed in the gospel cease to shine
when they're applied in some kind of universal sense. They
have no glitter. They have no shine to them. They
have no wonder to them. Love. Where is the wonder of
a love that's willing to see its objects perish in the eternal
flames of hell? Mercy. What kind of mercy forgives
and then sentences the same one He forgave to everlasting damnation? And what about grace? If grace
is unmerited favor, then why would God send anybody to hell
if He died for all men? If He loves all men, if He's
gracious to all men, if His grace is unmerited favor, why would
He send anybody to Him? And justice. If Christ died for
all men and justified all for whom He died, then where is the
justice in the damnation of justified souls? If Christ was delivered
for our offenses, and the Scripture said He was, and then He declares
our justification in his resurrection. Then God's going to disannul
that justification, disannul his death, make his death of
none effect, and sentence those same men to hell. Righteousness. The scripture
said, he that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth
the just, even they both are an abomination in the Lord. And
Paul said, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ is dead and vain. And if Christ
died for all men and declared them righteous by virtue of their
union with Him, how then can God judge them as unrighteous
and send them to hell? That would be an abomination.
You follow what I'm saying? There's no way you can take the
gospel and apply it in a universal sense to all men. Here's what God says to this
world. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. He didn't explain it. He didn't
go off somewhere yonder and just kind of take the sting out of
it. He just said it. Jacob have I
loved, Esau have I hated. And brethren, that's the way
it is. Is it not? Jacob will be blessed. Esau will
serve him till he dies. God makes his election known
in Jacob to establish the objects of his love and grace. What hope
could you have in a universal sense of ever having anything?
I've never met a man who believes in universality that ever had
any confidence or assurance before God. Never had. He can't. He can. And then secondly, God
makes His election known in Jacob to manifest His absolute sovereignty
in the salvation of sinners. Let me tell you something. I spent a long time in my youth. I've raised in church. And I
spent a long time in my youth. guilty of sinning against God,
but believing I could be forgiven at any time, all I had to do
was ask. If I asked, God was obligated to save me. Kind of like the Catholics do.
And you can sin all you want to, but you have to come in and
confess your sins to the priest, and your sins then get absolved.
That's the way Armenians are, but in a different sense. They
believe that that they can go out here and sin all they want
to, and all they have to do is just ask God at any time. Just
ask God. You're in a car wreck. You run
over a cliff, and you're on your way down the river. If you can
pray fast and ask God to forgive you, you'll be safe before you
hit the bottom. What a crock. That's awful. That's terrible.
That's not consistent with the word of God. And I'm going to
tell you something, it's one thing to go through life believing
you can be saved anytime you want to, but it's something else
altogether when God reveals to you what you are. reveals to
you that all you could ever do is sin. I don't care how pretty
you make yourself, how good a life you live. I don't care what you
contribute and give. I don't care how long you pray.
I don't care how much you study. You're a sinner, and everything
you do is contaminated with sin, and God is absolutely just and
demands perfection, and you can't produce it. And you find yourself
in that condition in the hands of a sovereign God who can pass
you by or save you, it's up to Him. I'll tell you, it's a different
thing. It's a different thing. And it
will close your mouth if God ever shows it to you. If He ever
pins you up, shows you that it's not so much what you're going
to do with Him, it's what your Lord is going to do with you. One old preacher wrote a book,
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Oh, my soul, how God used
that man. A God who must and shall punish
sin. A God who cannot compromise or
alter his character. A just God, but a Savior. And my friend, if you'll read
this book carefully, you'll discover that God is God. That's what
you're going to find out. It's not like you thought it
was. Brother Mahan brought a message one time. It's not what you thought
it was. It's not. It's not. You'll find out that
God is God. The God being pushed over on
my generation, no God at all. He can't do anything without
man's permission. One old preacher, he was tangled
up with a fellow one night, and he was going to get a profession
out of this man before he went home. He was determined he was
going to get it. And he talked to that man and
butt and hoed that man and argued with that man up one side and
down the other. And the man just wouldn't have
it. He said, all right, if you won't let God save you, God will
send you to hell. He said, no, he won't. That preacher all shocked. He
said, what do you mean he won't? He said, if he can't save me
if I won't let him, he can't send me to hell either. Huh? That's the reasoning of this
world. I'm telling you, you'll find out if you read this book
that God is God. He does what he pleases. He doesn't
attempt to do things. He does what he pleases. He don't
want to do something. He does it. I read to a man of scripture. He was talking about men being
lost after they're saved. I said, I can't find that in
the scriptures. And I said, it says over here,
I give unto them eternal life and they'll never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. He said, yeah, but
you can pluck yourself out. Huh? Oh, no, you can't. And you wouldn't if you could. He doesn't attempt to do a thing.
He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. And
He does it in creation, providence, and salvation. What does the
Bible say about creation? I don't want to get into a big,
deep thing this morning, but here's what He says, Psalm 33,
9. Let all the world stand in awe of Him, for He spake, and
it was done, and He commanded, and it stood fast. That's God. After all these years, man doesn't
even have the capability to get out of our solar system. And
if he did, he'd find another and another and another. This
creation is as infinite as God. All things were made by Him and
for Him. He's before all things, and by
Him all things consist. And God has righteously and justly
judged this world in Adam. Election is God in mercy and
grace, saving some from everlasting ruin for the glory of his name. Men reject God's election because
they have not acknowledged God's condemnation of Adam. That's
what I said about 20 minutes ago. They won't acknowledge it. They're sinners. You know, if
you really believed that, you wouldn't argue with God. Because
you know you're ignorant. And you just say, well, I'm ignorant.
Teach me. Teach me. Men reject God's election because
they will not acknowledge God's condemnation in Adam. Were you
to take your place as a sinner, A guilty, vile, practicing sinner,
an ignorant, deceived sinner, you'd see election as the only
open door to salvation. No other way. No other way. If God did not choose a people,
they'd never choose him. He tells us a little later on
here in Romans chapter 9, Down in verse 29, he said, except
the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we'd be like Sodom
and Gomorrah. Men think because men are religious
and outwardly moral that they could not be under the curse
of God. Yet the Bible describes the chief of sinners as a master
theologian who lived a spotless life. Is that not right? Paul said he was the chief of
sinners. He was as highly educated in religion as you could get.
He was a master theologian. He was called master, doctor,
Dr. Paul. And he lived a spotless
life. He was the chief of sinners.
The very heart of Jewish religion was called by our Lord, children
of the devil. God chose to make his vessels
of honor out of the same lump as the rest of humanity. Isn't
that what he tells us down there when he talks about the potter
here in Romans chapter 9? Of the same lump. Same lump of
humanity. He makes one vessel under honor,
makes another to dishonor. The difference wasn't in the
clay. The difference is in the hand of the potter. Huh? Hear the sinful rebel as Paul
pictures him flying into the face of God. Why doth he yet
find fault for who hath resisted his will? O my soul, hear the
answer of God to him. Nay, but, O man, who art thou
that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say unto
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Senator, if you're here today
and God begin to show you a little bit about Himself and a little
bit about yourself, do you have any idea of the vastness of the
difference between you and God? All my soul. God says, my thoughts
are not your thoughts. I don't care what your thoughts
are. They're not His. Neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. Now listen to this, for as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Stand out there
tonight, look up into the heavens. How high is that? Huh? Farther than your eye can see. God said that's how much farther
above you are my thoughts and my ways. God manifested His election in
Jacob to establish His absolute sovereignty in the salvation
of sinners. Romans 9, 18, Therefore hath
He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will heal
hardened. Thirdly, the third reason why
God manifested His election in Jacob is to establish the glory
of His mercy and grace. He saved Jacob. He loved Jacob. We're told in the Scripture that
God commendeth His love toward us and that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. John takes it just a step further
and tells us herein His love, not that we love God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. And then Paul takes it about
as far as Revelation will allow him to go, saying, nothing shall
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. Love and mercy and grace are
all at the forefront in God's election. There's not a man alive
today if he knew his condition, if he knew how vile and despicable
he really is. would challenge God over his
sovereign election of sinners. We wouldn't do it. Because it's
altogether an act of grace. Paul wrote in his second letter
to Timothy, he tells him in verse 9, he said, God hath saved us.
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own mercy and grace, which was given us in
Christ Jesus before the world began. This act of election is
altogether an act of mercy and grace. And when God told Rebecca
of his election of Jacob, she did not see his salvation as
an unrighteous act against Esau, but a gracious and merciful act
for not leaving them both in their sins. And that's how you'll
see it if God ever opened your heart to see it. That's how you'll
see it. It's an act of grace. He could
have left us all, but he didn't. He said, I'm going to save some.
and not for anything in them. I'm going to save them to manifest
the glory of my grace and the glory of my mercy. If God had
not chosen a people in Christ, He would have destroyed mankind
in the garden. But God endures, Paul says here
in Romans 9. He endures with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction to make known the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy. which he had aforeprepared
unto glory, even us," he said, even us, whom he had called,
not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. That's election. And it's a beloved doctrine if
you ever discover it as a sinner. It's a beloved doctrine, oh,
election, election, election. Christ said, you haven't chosen
me. That's what he told his disciples. He said, you've not chosen me.
I chose you. I chose you. He chose one, and he said he
found him, is what it says. The Lord found him. He went back
and told his brother. He said, I found the Lord. No, he found you. He found you,
and he found you because he sought for you, and he sought for you
because he chose you before the world began.