Thank you for that. Let's go
back to the portion of scripture that Ron read to us just a few
moments ago, Romans. And I'll make brief mention
of a few things in chapter 10, but I especially want to focus
those verses that he read to us in Romans 11. Let's ask God
to bless as we meet. What a special, very special
time this is, Father. You have directed our steps into
this place of worship, such a delightful time to the people
of God when we meet together and we join our hearts to exalt
you, to bless you. And we're so thankful for that
grace that we have read about and we just heard sung about,
grace that meets all the needs of your people, grace that was given us in the
Lord Jesus before you made this world. We are indeed debtors to your
grace. And this morning we seek to worship
you, Father, and give you the glory that you deserve, the glory
that you demand. We would not have any flesh honored
in this building. All of the exaltation, all of
the credit, indeed, all of the glory goes to our God. Thank
you, Father, for your purpose of grace, and we give our thanks to the
Son of God that He purchased us by His sacrifice upon the
cross of Calvary. And we give thanks to that blessed
Holy Spirit of grace who has done a work of grace within bringing
us from death into life, and bringing us from unbelief to
belief in this one who is the only savior of sinners. All that we are, Lord, and all
that we hope to be is fully dependent upon your grace. Now prepare each of us to receive
the Word of God. Lord, you know our weaknesses. You know how foolish we are. We find it rather easy to concentrate
on things of the world, things of
fleshly entertainment. And yet, when we come under the
sound of the most important message that there is, oh, how this flesh
fights against worship. We're so easily distracted. We
easily become a little sleepy. Forgive us, Father, and look
upon us through the merits of your Son, and give us grace to
worship you, to walk with you daily. And we are indeed reminded
of the Word of God. By the grace of God, Paul said,
I am what I am. And that grace that is given
to us is never given anything. And we rejoice in that. Bless
all of these dear people here and those who are watching or
receiving this message. Lord, we pray that The Word of
God will be effectual in each of our hearts. We preach down
to no one. We're all in the boat of neediness. And, oh God, only you can help
us, save us, restore us, quicken us, revive us. Do it, Lord, for your glory and
for our good. Through Jesus Christ we pray,
amen. Well, my subject today, this
morning at least, is the election of grace. The election of grace,
and of course that statement is found in chapter 11 in verse
number 5. Now, let me just kind of give
you an overview of the verses that he read to us, especially
those at the end of Romans chapter 10. And he speaks in these last
few verses of the 10th chapter that God has cast aside. He's given to the Israel the
gospel through preachers But they haven't believed. They haven't
believed. They've had no interest in the
Lord Jesus, even as Isaiah wrote, and of course that was quoted,
it is here quoted by the Apostle Paul, and Isaiah said it in Isaiah
53, Lord who hath believed our report. Unbelief just ruled the
day when Isaiah was preaching even as it did among most of
the Jews when this man Saul of Tarsus, after he had been converted,
he began preaching the gospel. We know him as the Apostle Paul. He saw much, much unbelief. But then it gets into this next
division, the next chapter, and he says, he asks this question
in verse 1, he says, I say then, has God cast away his people? In other words, he's anticipating,
and he often does this, he anticipates the objections or questions that
people will raise as a result of the things that he has said
by divine inspiration. And so he anticipates this question,
well, are you saying God's cast away all of his people? And he
says, God forbid. Another statement that he used
quite often, he says, God forbid. He says, I'm a Jew. God hadn't cast aside all Jews. He said, I'm a Jew. I'm an Israelite. God hadn't cast off all of Israel. But as he goes on, and really
this is kind of a summation statement, I suppose we could say, of Romans
chapter 11, he goes on to say that God has a remnant out of
every nation, out of the Gentiles and out of the Jews as well.
Now, when he says in verse one, has God cast away his people?
Has God cast away all of national Israel? No. No, he has not, because
he has a people of Israel and he has a people from the Gentile
world. He has already said that back
in chapter 10 in verse number 12. For there's no difference
between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord is rich in
all that call upon him. All who worship him, whether
you're a Jew, born a Jew, you're actually related to Abraham,
you can trace your family tree all the way back to Abraham,
or even if you're a Gentile, if you worship God by means of
Jesus, by means of His sacrifice, His bloody death. If that's the
way you come to God, it doesn't matter what your nationality
is. In fact, all nationalities, they
do break down in the Lord Jesus. We're one body. We're one group
of people. no divisions within the people
of God. So he answers this anticipated
question, are you saying, Paul, that God has cast off all of
Israel? No, he said, I'm not saying that at all. But there
is a remnant within Israel according to the election of grace. He
says in the second verse, he says, God hadn't cast away his
people, which he foreknew, because when he Lord knows a people having
loved a people from old eternity. He loves them always, always. So no, he hadn't cast them aside. And then he says he brings forth
a very illustrious figure before these people. And certainly the
Jewish people would recognize this name, the name of Elijah. It says Elias here, but that's
just a translation from the Greek comes out Elias just like Isaiah
is really Isaiah. So we just usually just go ahead
and say Isaiah and we just go ahead and say Elijah. Remember he made intercession
to the Lord. You'll go back in your history
and your memories of the history of Israel to the book of first
Kings and all those who were in opposition to the gospel.
And of course, Ahab was the king of Israel. He had a wife, Jezebel,
and they hated God. They hated the gospel. They worshiped
idols, especially the idol of Baal. And they had a bunch of
false preachers, 450 false preachers of the groves, and then 400 false
preachers. And they dined at Jezebel's table. She had 400 preachers, and they
were hers. They belonged to her. They answered
to her. And we know that Elijah stood
up against all of them, and then he gave the order that they were
all to be executed. because they were preaching a
false gospel. They were preaching another God.
Not the God of Israel, not the God of heaven and earth, not
the God who is to be worshipped, not the Creator, not the only
one who can save sinners, but they worshipped the works of
men's hands. And they preached, they led other
people to do it. And Elijah said, he gave the
order, kill them all. And 850 false preachers died. And word got back to Jezebel
what happened. Oh, and she went on the warpath.
You killed my preachers? My 400 preachers are dead? She said, I'm out for you. I'm
going after you. And she did. And Elijah ran. He ran. And he's so upset. This is a man who faced off against
all these false preachers. One man against 850. One man
who sought God's glory. One man who preached the gospel
of grace. One man who looked forward to
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. One man who would lead
Israel in the right way to worship God, that is, by sacrifice. and
here are all these false preachers, and he said, kill them all, and
they all died, and then one woman goes against him, and she announces,
the gods do so to me if you don't wind up dead. And he runs. He's fearful. And he sits down,
he feels so sorry for himself, and he says, I'm the only one
left. There's nobody else preaching the gospel. In fact, there's
nobody else believing the gospel. Look what he says in verse 3.
Lord, they've killed thy prophets. They've digged down thine altars.
In other words, they've dug down to the very foundation of the
altars that Israel had established, had built to worship God. They
dug right down. They destroyed them. They demolished
them. They did away with the sacrifices
of God. And he said, I am left all by
myself. Now they seek my life. But here's what the apostle says. What was the answer of God to
him? Now, mind you, Elijah lived in a day in many ways that parallels
our day. Because it was a day of false
religion. Lots of preachers, lots of preachers
there in Israel, 850 of them, and none of them preaching the
truth. None of them. He was one man
who stood against them. It was a day of great apostasy. Israel had forsaken the worship
of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The sacrifices seem
to mean nothing to them. And in the midst of all of this,
Elijah says, I'm all by myself. I said, it's a day that pretty
much matches the day in which we're living. A day of apostasy,
a day when the leaders of nations are ungodly, very much opposed to the Word
of God, opposed to the gospel of God's grace. So many false
voices out here preaching a false gospel, people following them
by the droves, much like our day. But verse 4, here's what Paul
says, what did God say to his downtrodden, dejected, discouraged
preacher. God said, I have reserved, I
have reserved to myself, I've reserved to myself 7,000 men
who have not bowed the knee to Baal. You're not by yourself,
Elijah. That's what God said. Stop feeling
sorry for yourself. Get up and go preach. I've got
a people. In fact, I got 7,000 more. You don't even know anything
about. And it's very encouraging to me because I see sovereign
grace churches, the ones that I'm aware of, and I know of several
men who preach the truth of the gospel, and the works are generally
quite small. It's easy for people to become
discouraged and say, well, you know, there's just really nobody
much preaching the gospel today. God always has enough preachers
to feed His sheep. He always has enough men to tell
the truth, and He makes absolutely certain that all of His people
will hear the gospel and be brought to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's what this is attributed
to, verse 5. He says, even so, now this is
what Paul said, even so at this present time, just like it was
back in Elijah's day when he thought he is the only one, there is a remnant, a group of
people according to the election of grace. God always has a people,
and they're His by the election of grace. Now, I'll deal with
that more fully in a little bit. And he says in verse six, and
if it's of grace, it can't be of works. You know, one of the
things that's very obvious as you read through the epistles
of the apostle Paul, and certainly this is true of the book of Romans
as well, he isn't fearful of offending anybody. He doesn't
salt pedal. He doesn't try to sugarcoat his
words. He just comes out directly, forcefully,
unashamedly, and he says, right now at this present time also,
there's a remnant according to the election of grace. But wait,
preacher, people don't want to hear about election. He says
it's according to the election of grace. He goes right back
to the origin or the very fountain of salvation. Where are we going
to go back to the origin and the fountain of salvation? Well, we'll go back to the sinner's
decision. Oh, no. No. Well, we go back
to Mount Calvary. No, you got to go back further
than that. I wouldn't discount the significance of what happened
on Mount Calvary, when our Lord Jesus offered himself the perfect
sacrifice to God, but he offered himself the perfect sacrifice
to God because of a covenant that had been made before time
ever began. He said, you've got to go back
way before even Genesis 1. You have to go into the eternality
of God. And there, as you study the eternality
of God, you will find God chose a people unto salvation, not
for any good that He foresaw that they would do, merely for
the glory of His grace, only because He would. He chose a
people unto salvation. And He says, as it was in the
days of Elijah, an election according to the purpose of grace. So there
is now a remnant, a remnant, like there was in Elijah's day,
a remnant according to the election of grace. He wasn't ever ashamed
of the truth of God. You say, but most people don't
believe this, Jim. I know they don't. I know we're in the minority. But the gospel of God's sovereign
grace is the truth that we must send forth. We must preach the
truth as it is in the Lord Jesus. It's of grace. It isn't of works. And if anybody introduces works
into this great scheme of salvation, then it ceases to be grace. It's
grace only, no works. And so he says this in verse
7, what then? Well, Israel hasn't obtained
what it seeketh for. But the election has obtained
it. And the rest were blinded. There are two groups of people
in the world, always. Only two groups. the election,
and the rest. That's just it. Preacher, that's kind of strong
language, isn't it? I'm telling you, Paul's just
bold. He comes right in. You see, you got to tell the
truth as it is, and you got to say it in such a way that people
understand, at least up here, what you're talking about. And
the people to whom he wrote, the people in the church at Rome,
they understood what he was speaking about. The election. They've obtained
grace because grace was given to them, 2 Timothy 1.9, before
the world began in Christ Jesus. And then there's the rest. The rest. He says the rest, well, they
were blinded. And he has made reference at
the end of chapter 10 how that people, they had heard the gospel,
but they wouldn't believe. They wouldn't believe. Unbelief
is a man's fault, is a woman's fault. It's your fault if you
don't believe. All people have the responsibility to believe. You understand that? All people
have the responsibility to believe God, to believe what God says.
But nobody has the ability to believe what God says. There's
a big difference between responsibility and ability. God commands all
of you All of you out there, wherever you are watching on
the internet or listening to this CD, God commands you to
repent. God commands you to believe on
His Son. That's His commandment. And you're
responsible to do that. You're responsible to turn from
your idols, Turn from your false God. Turn from your dead works
that you've been resting in and thinking you've been impressing
God. You've got to turn away from all of those things. That's
biblical repentance. And believe on, look to, cling
to, embrace, come to, drink of, eat of the living bread that
came down from heaven. God commands you to do that.
But the ability to do those things. We all lost in Adam's fall. The Jews heard the gospel lots
of times. They wouldn't believe. They wouldn't
believe. But they're without excuse, and
God just blinded them, a judicial blindness. You see, there is
the natural spiritual blindness that all are born with, everybody. A preacher can, he can with his
words perhaps, paint a glorious portrait of the wonderful Savior
of sinners and of the beauties of salvation and of the greatness
of the Lamb of God. He can set before you that He's
God and He's man. He's the very Savior of sinners. He's the Savior you need. Set before you His bloody death,
the accomplishment of redemption at the cross of Calvary, salvation
only in Christ Jesus. He can show those to you and
like I say, paint a beautiful word picture and you can hear
it up here and hear it with your ears and kind of get it in your
brain, but you can't see, you can't really see what this is
all about unless God gives you sight. And let me tell you something,
God can give you sight or He can judicially blind you. This is where people, this is
where people on sovereign grace. You see,
He has the right to do with you and to do with me whatever He
wants to do. What if He does blind some and
then others He gives sight to? Who are you to question what
He does? Who are you to argue with the
methodology of God? He's the Lord. He says, cannot
I do what I will with mine own? Well, who are His own? Well,
there's a sense in which everybody belongs to Him. He made us all. We all profit
from the sunshine that He sends. We all drink of the water that
He has made. He's not giving any new water.
For 6,000 years, men and women and boys and girls have been
drinking God's water. Hadn't run out yet, never will. Breathing His air, eating His
food. And the greatest gift God can
give is the gift of salvation in Christ Jesus. And He has reserved
the right as the giver of all things, either give you that
salvation or not give it, give you sight or just judicially
blind you. And that's what he did to many
of the Jews who were just judicially blind. They didn't want to see. They was happy with their blindness. And God, I don't know how to
say this, theologians have kind of argued about the best way
to say it, but I'll just put it this way. God just fixes things
so that they're never going to save. In fact, he says in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2, you hear the gospel and you don't believe the gospel,
which is your responsibility to believe. God will send you a religious
lie. He'll send you a preacher and
he'll just Oh, that preacher, he'll be slick as can be. And
he'll lay on you a false message, and you're so gullible, you'll
just drink it up. That's the result of the judgment
of God. I tell you, here's the problem
in our day, and same problem as it was in Elijah's day. People
have no idea who they're dealing with. They don't know who God
is. The Lord said to Israel, you
thought I was such one as yourself. I'm not like you. God says to
whom will you compare me? There's nothing that can ever
be compared to God. He's infinitely above all things. He gives sight. but he also blinds. God gave to them the spirit of
slumber, of sleepiness. Well, the election of grace. We're all familiar with the word
election. Election always involves a choice, a choice. We had elections back
in November. You made your choice. Well, in
this matter of salvation, it is salvation by choice, but not
the sinner's choice, God's choice. You see, understand this, this
matter of salvation, the salvation of the soul, it's a treasure.
It's very valuable. because wrapped up in this salvation
is the glory of God, the majesty of the purpose of God, the beauties
of the Son of God, the power of the Spirit of God, wrapped
up in this The golden casket treasure of salvation is that
gospel of infinite wisdom that answers the question of how can
God be just and justify the ungodly? All of this belongs to God. And He gives it to whoever He
wants to. After all, He owns everything.
And he has the right to do what he wills with his own. But not
only does he have the right, he exercises this right. This is certainly seen very clearly
in Luke chapter 4, when our Lord brought forth two illustrations,
one of Elijah, feeding a Gentile widow. And the scripture says,
our Lord Jesus says in Luke chapter four, there were many widows
in the days of Elijah. Their husbands had gone and fought
in wars and battles. Much of the men died, leaving
their wives widowed. No man of the house to work and
make provision for his wife and his children? And the Lord Jesus says, but
to none of those Israelite widows was God's preacher sent. What? That's right. But he did send
his preacher to one woman, didn't he? Sure did. Just one. And she was a Gentile. Well,
now he's preaching in a synagogue. In a synagogue. So his congregation,
they're all Jews. He doesn't hold back that which
he knows. He knows all things, right? No
question about that. He knows before the words go
out of his mouth that they're going to choke on this. Looks
like he would have backpedaled a little bit and gone a little
softer with him. Don't be so hard on him, Lord. Listen, he's setting forth that
which is God's glory, sovereign grace. crowd gets to stirring in the
synagogue. He says, well, I got another
illustration for you. He says, Elisha, in his day,
lots of lepers in Israel, lot of lepers, all leprosy, horrible
disease. He says, but none of those Jewish
lepers was Another preacher, the prophet Elisha, to none of
them was he sent, but to Naaman, a Syrian general, another Gentile. And of course, he was healed
of his leprosy. And the people rose up, all those
fine religious people, upstanding, outstanding citizens, very pious,
gathering in the synagogue and standing when the Scriptures
were read and singing all the Psalms, calling on the God of
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And they all stood up and they
ushered him out of the building and they took him up. They wanted
to take him to the top of a hill and throw him off the hill and
bash his brains out. Boy, was that a bunch of drunkards
or something? No, no. Elders and deacons and
Sunday school teachers and folks like that. And they got upset over this
election of grace. Of course, our Lord escaped through
their midst. Here, is really where the rubber meets
the road. It's salvation, the salvation
of the sinner, the deliverance from sin, penalty of sin, the
power of sin, the punishment of sin, someday the very presence
of sin. This matter of salvation, this
matter of your salvation, your salvation, Is it all of God, really? Or
do you have to make some contribution? And if the Word of God is indeed
the Word of God, then the answer comes through loud and clear. The salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord. And here's where it began, in
the election of grace. God chose a people unto salvation because he would. And if you
are a believer this morning, if you say, you know, Jim, I
see myself as like the chief of centers, I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I see the necessity for His sacrificial
death. It's the only way God could be
just. God's got to punish sin. God's got to strike out against
iniquity. Every transgression's got to
have the proper wages paid for them. I see all that. And I see
that's my condition by nature. But by the grace of God, I see
there's a Savior for folks like me. And I run to Him. I flee to Him. And I go empty-handed. I don't bring anything. My brother
Toplady said, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I
claim. Naked come to thee for drink. to be for rest. Foul. It's hard to find a person today
who'll say, I'm foul. F-O-U-L. I'm foul. I'm filthy. I'm no good. I'm
dirty. I'm rotten. I'm stinking before
God. Foul. I to the fountain fly. What fountain? Fountain filled
with blood. I say, wash me, Savior. You wash
me. I'll be whiter than the snow. If that's your, if I just describe
you, and you've run to this Savior, let me tell you something. The
reason that you have run to Christ Jesus and the reason you continually
look to Him, because faith is not an isolated act, Faith is
a lifelong persuasion. If you can always continually
look to Christ Jesus the Savior, I can tell you why you do. It's because of the election
of grace. It's a wonderful truth. We don't beat around the bush
regarding this doctrine. It's the word of God. And here's
what this truth does. It glorifies God in all of his
attributes and it humbles us before him and leaves us debtors
to his grace or as mercy beggars. Lord, you
don't owe me anything. never done anything for you.
I can't add to your glory. But for your glory, would you
show mercy on me? I'm just a dead dog sinner, and
I need help. I can't even raise, I can't raise
my finger apart from the strength that you give me. I certainly
can't believe you. without spiritual power that
you must give. Lord, do something for me. You
reckon there's ever been anybody who came to the Savior with that
kind of attitude that went away empty? But you know, if we come to Him
with that kind of attitude, we know who has changed our attitude. The Lord himself, this one, who
was the God of glory in the election of grace. I'm going to follow
down the same path this evening, so I'm not through with the subject.
I'll just give you my introduction. We'll get to the meat of the
subject tonight, the Lord willing. Our Father, bless the word that's
been spoken this morning. Forgive the speaker and forgive
the hearers for not giving 100% of our attention and focus to
the glory of our God. Lord, we are, we're just failed
creatures. We're frail, we're sad, we're
pitiful. But you have said in your word,
you delight to show mercy. Lord, that gives us hope. In
fact, we read you're plenteous, you're plenteous in redemption. Oh, that's thrilling to us. And you, you oftentimes shower
poor sinners with your free and sovereign grace. Oh Lord, do
that for each of us and lead us to believe on, to embrace,
to rejoice in, to look to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood
and righteousness always avail for us, and we are received and
accepted for Christ's sake. Glorify yourself and bless us
poor sinners, for Jesus' sake I pray, amen. you