Psalm 110, and later I hope to
show that this is a messianic psalm that it has to do with
Messiah, with Christ. Here's what we read. The Lord
said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine
enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
his strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. In the beauty of holiness from
the womb of the morning, thou hast the due of thy youth. The Lord has sworn and will not
repent. Thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek. In the third verse, thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. And that would intimate
until that power is split forth, they are unwilling and are made
willing by a supernatural inner work of God. I begin by saying
this is probably the greatest article of disagreement between
sovereign grace and Arminians that we might imagine. And that
is the matter of free will, or the state of the will of man
as it regards salvation. Is the natural man as free to
embrace Christ as he is to reject him, is his will as free to good
as it is unto evil? Or must he be quickened, sovereignly
enlightened, his understanding opened in order that he might
embrace Christ and the salvation that is in him? Can God save
whom He will? Is He able to make will in whomsoever
He will or whomsoever it pleases Him? Does He have access and
power over the will of men and of women? Now, shall He respect
our free will? Is God bound to respect and to
honor the free will of man? and wait until he has made himself
willing and ready to have a part in Christ. So, let's deal with
the subject, if we might, this way, by considering the text
that we have relied upon. Psalm 110 and verse 3. For there the above question
are decisively and decidedly answered for the children of
God. And then coming, if we might,
to consider the modern doctrine and the modern view of the free
will of man. First of all, the text, as I
said, is messianic. This is a messianic text by That,
I mean, that it refers to Christ. It has to do with Him as the
Messiah. This psalm has been called the
psalm of the priest-king, which is none other than the Lord.
Now, the New Testament confirms for us that the psalm is concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we can come to no other conclusion
but that it is Christ that is spoken of and presented here. For example, verse 1 of Psalm
110 is quoted in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 13 and applied directly
unto Christ. Again, the Lord Jesus Himself
uses that to confirm that it was Him that the prophet David
was speaking of. You find that in Matthew 22 verse
41 through verse 46, also in Luke chapter 20, verse 41 through
verse 44. And then the fourth verse of
Psalm 110 is the great text, is that lingering text for the
priesthood of Christ in the book of Hebrews. And from chapter
5 all the way through chapter 7, There is that section on the
priesthood and constantly the author is bringing it back, thou
art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now we're
interested in the third verse because it has to do with willingness
or with the will of man. The willingness of thy people. Let's don't let that escape us.
The people of Christ who shall be willing in response to the
work of God, the power of God that is exerted in them. First,
we notice the subjects of the oracle. The people in the eye
of the psalmist. Thy people, it is said, in the
eye of the psalmist. Meaning, again, the people of
Christ. The one chosen in Him before
the foundation of the world. His brethren, the children, as
it is said. in the second chapter of the
book of Hebrews. For the Father hath given unto
him a people, as he declared in John chapter 6 and verse 37
through verse 39, the one called his people in Matthew 121. For
he shall save His people from their sin. Now, these are not the whole
world. These are not everyone. It's
not the Jewish nation in its entirety only, but a number who
are denominated Thy people. Thy people shall be willing. They are Christ's now by electing
grace and by covenant Arrangement they are his or they are bought
with a price first Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 20 and that
price is no more and no less than the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ first Peter chapter chapter 1 and verse 19. But let's put a focus upon the
words, number one, shall be willing, and number two, in the day of
power. Now here are some points. to
be noticed in concerning these two statements that we just read. Shall be willing in the day of
thy power. A. Some of the sons of Adam,
but not all, are made willing. Never in any community or state
or nation were all made willing. And then B. Some, but not everyone,
will be made willing. Will be made willing to serve
and espouse Christ. See, some who were once what
John Gill called rebellious and unwilling, unquote, will be made
willing. Some of the stoutest enemies
of Christ will eventually be made willing. And Saul of Tarshish
is a good example of that. And then D, they're being made
willing is the result not of their action or their desire
or their act, but of the power of God, the day or the time of
thy power. Now we should choose a rather
clearer matter concerning the text in Psalm 110 and verse 3. As in some versions you will
read as in the New Geneva Bible, King James Version, and the New
American Standard Bible, it is rendered, they shall be freely
or willingly volunteer or offer themselves willingly unto him
in the day of his power. And some think that that's because
the psalmist had a metaphor in his mind as he wrote down this
scripture. and that of a general or assembling
a great army that he might go out and withstand the enemy. A great general who musters an
army to serve under his command and to fight under his banner
and to follow up after him. Now such expositors as Gill and
Calvin And Matthew Henry caught this not-so-veil reference to
the metaphor of a general mustering an army. And their motive might
be patriotism for their life and country, or it might be for
liberty. that they might serve and protect
their country, to repeal or destroy an enemy that might come against
them, rescue hostages or whatever it might be. And yet in Psalm
110 and verse 3 declares that the Messiah, Christ, the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself is in view in this passage of the scripture. We know that from verse 1 and
verse 4 definitely are applicable only unto Christ. That he would
muster a people and that they would consecrate themselves by
willingness through his power under his service to follow and
to be obedient unto him. They would serve Him as the captain
of their salvation, as He is called in the book of Hebrews. Now, the spiritual side of the
metaphor, or of the illusion, is expressed in this quote that
I took from John Gill on the third verse of Psalm 110. Rather lengthy, but let me give
it. Quote, They are made willing to be saved by Christ, and only
Him, to serve Him in every religious duty and ordinance, and to part
with their sin and their sinful company in favor of His righteousness,
to suffer the loss of all things for Him, to deny themselves to
serve Him, and to take up their cross and follow Him." End quote,
the words of John Gill. In other words, to literally
become the indentured servants of this great Christ, our Messiah,
the one that bought them with a price and bound them unto God
by a covenant. And we move to the next phrase
of our subject, and that is whether or not man has a free will whereby
he can, under his own will and power, decide if and when he
will become a Christian or a follower of Christ. And then, whether
God must or will, honor the so-called free will of individual sinners. I once knew of or heard and read
after a very famous preacher of Armenian persuasion who was
fond of saying this, God is too much of a gentleman to violate
the free will of man, unquote. But that's a lie, because according
to that, he violates it all of the time. Need I remind you that
the so-called free will of man is the most sacred and cherished
idol of apostate Christendom in our day? In fact, I make a
hard chart. It is the second golden calf
that they have fashion, and as with the first, they dance about
it, shouting and laughing, and sing for joy, and they praise
it as being the means why they have come to be born again and
to be a Christian, because they exercise their free will. But the Puritan Thomas Manton
was of another mind altogether. He called free will and the will
of man itself, quote, the proudest enemy of Christ, this side of
hell and the cause of all evil in the world, unquote. It is
imperative, that is, it is necessary that we understand what is involved
in the teaching that men have an absolute free will as to the
matter of salvation. And to get a handle on that,
let me quote some of the old masters of free will themselves. For example, Corvinus, quote,
all the operations of grace which God can use in our conversion
Yet conversion remains so in our own free power that we cannot
be converted, that is, we can either turn or not turn of ourself."
Another one, Arminius himself, quote, All regenerate men have
by virtue of their free will, a power of resisting the Holy
Spirit, of rejecting the free offered grace of God, of contemning
the counsel of God concerning themselves, of refusing the gospel
of grace, of not opening the door to him that knocks." Unquote. Arminius himself. This caused
John Owens to reply, my, what a stout idol is this. What an idol is this that all
of that cannot overcome it. And I would add, what manner
of idol is this that they have erected that even the eternal
decree of God, even the blood of Christ, and the Holy Spirit
are powerless against it. Has God no means to penetrate
into the proud citadel of that almighty free will of man? On the other hand, they say that
any person may will themselves into salvation into faith and
into the new birth and eternal life. That his will is as free
to that as it is to reject and set it aside. That he must be
allowed free will in order to make himself to become a Christian. Now, we recognize the essence
of their doctrine are a free will to be this. There is, they
say, an absolute independence and a self-sufficiency that free
will gives all the ability in themselves to choose whether
to accept or reject Christ and eternal life that God can only
offer. He can offer it, but he can't
apply it. He can only offer it, but man
is free and wills either to accept it or reject it. I dug off of
the shelf for this an old volume I bought in 1969. once I was
tempted to have a book burning, but I've kept it. It's by a man
called Watchman Nee, who was quite famous in that day. And
in Volume 3, if you want to check me out, page 76 and 77, he described
the free will of man in this way, quote, In discussing man
and his will, we should bear in mind that he exercised a free
will. This means that man is sovereign,
that he has a sovereign will, and free will signifies that
men can choose what he wants." End of quote. A little bit later,
he portrays man as being between, quote, two massive contradictions,
unquote. Meaning, on one side, there's
the will of God. On the other side, there is the
will of Satan. And then he writes this, in between
subsists the sovereign, independent, free will of man, unquote. Get that. Sovereign, independent,
free will of man. Now at the beginning, we settled
the title, Free Will, The Big Lie. It has been said, if you
tell a lie often enough, repeat it over and over and over, people
will come to believe that it is the truth. A good example
of that might be evolution in our day. But if you tell a lie
over and over and over, then finally people begin to accept
it as a truth. And so it is with free will.
The big lie has been so often and so long repeated and endorsed
by so many, that by some of the biggest names ever to exist in
religion and Christian, that many have accepted it as being
true. To speak out against free will
Therefore, marks one as a heretic in our day where evil is called
good and good is called evil. It is accepted in nearly every
major denomination on the face of the earth today. God gave
us free will. You ever heard that? A hundred
times probably. God has given us free will. They
say, free will you can be saved or not be saved. It is according
to the will. Free will is the big lie for
it is contradicted, it is inconsistent with the doctrine of human depravity. Human depravity being what it
is, It is inconsistent and inconceivable that man should be assigned a
free will. Let me go a little further on
that. Every human faculty, whatever one you might name, every what
we call human faculty has passed under the depraving power of
sin and corruption. So that free will is actually
a denial of total depravity. But that's no problem with the
proponents and adherents of free will, for they cut off the last
inch of depravity anyway. It is a deceiving lie. to tell an unregenerate sinner
that they may will themselves into the grace of God and the
kingdom of Christ. Now, every faculty is corrupted. That's true in the scripture.
So rather than the will being free, as the Puritan Goodwin
wrote, The will of man is the proper seat of sin." In all unregenerate,
the will remains an act under the corrupting power and influence
of their depraved nature. How is it that the will is singled
out for all this glorious freedom? Why settle upon the will as that
part that is free? Is the will the exception to
all of those faculties that have fallen under sin? Is every faculty
except the will fallen under depravity? Why do we never hear
a free conscience? Why do we never hear a free heart,
free mind, free soul, free understanding, but always settling upon free
will? Now, if man has the power to
will himself into salvation, why can he not will not to die? When he will himself off of a
deathbed, off of a sick bed, or will himself out of hell. Why can he not do that if the
free will is sovereign, independent, Why cannot one will themselves
well when they are sick upon the bed? We hear a lot in our
day about willpower, meaning somebody can stick to a diet
or they can give up their tobacco, they can leave off their sweets
or their bread or refrain from alcohol so that they might be
more healthy. And yet the passage in John chapter
1 and verse 12 and 13 explicitly excludes the will as the cause
of regeneration. If we were to turn there, John
chapter 1, and it is verse 12 and 13 that I wanted to read. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name. which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God." Now, here we see very, very clearly, and I think we
ought to probably back up to verse 6 and consider the overall
or the larger context. If you see in verse 1 through
5, The wonderful declaration of the deity of the Lord by John
as he opens this glorious gospel. Verse 6-11 then. And then verse
12-13 of John 1. There is a connection here that
is to be made between these two verses. Some received him believing
and have been given the power or the privilege, it is exousia,
of sonship, for they are born of God, which is the foundation
upon which the first to proceed. They have been born of God. It is a good truth. They have
the privilege to become, to be called, to be denominated sons
of God. 1 John chapter 3 and verse 1. They're highly blessed. They're
born of God. Not by receiving Him, not by
believing, for these are the result of the prior work of God
in the individual. Regeneration, born of God. See the three exclusions, if
you would, in John 1, 12, 13. Not being the source, not being
the cause of the new birth, but the result or the effect. Verse
13, not of blood. These were born, but not of blood. Some say that this word is or
ought to be plural, bloods, not born of bloods, not of human
descent, not a matter of natural ancestry, no matter how noble
or virtuous may be the land or the family, and not even from
Abraham himself. In the case of the Jew, for corruption
is passed to the offspring, but grace is not. Secondly, also
in verse 13, not of the will of the flesh. In no way can the
energy or the ability of the natural man, the person in the
flesh, contribute one single thing to his regeneration or
to be born of God. And the third exception is the
will of man, nor of the will of man. And the will of man here
is specifically by name excluded as being the cause of the new
birth. If any person claims to have
willed themselves into the new birth, into grace or salvation,
we must call them at best deceived or untaught and at worst a liar. The words in verse 12, as many
as received him, and then they that believe on his name, is
simply describing the experience of those granted the privilege
of sonship as a result of having been born of God, which is not
of, by, or from the will of man. The will acts under causative
influences. Always the will acts under causative
influences. Something causes it to act, which
if so, means that it is not sovereign, it is not independent, and it
is not capable of acting contrary unto its nature. or contrary
to the predominant influences that are brought to bear upon
it, to guide it in one way or another. We do not mean that
man exercises his will. We do not mean that man does
not exercise his will in matters civil and natural. But even here,
it acts under influences and chooses based upon some strong
desire some benefit, some danger that he might expect or derive
from his choices or his action. What we do deny is that the will
of man in the natural man, in the unregenerate man, has no
moral free will that is able to put him in a state of grace. He can only be made willing by
an exercise of God's power. And until that, it acts under
the corrupt nature and wills to gratify itself and go its
own way. Now, we know that Armenians generally
ascribe to the will absolute self-determination and power,
especially in regard to sin, salvation, and Christ. That it is an absolute power
that they possess to reject or accept Christ's salvation, depending
upon the mood that their will is in. that it can resist the
call of God at any degree and overthrow God's desire and God's
purpose in the matter of salvation. And yet, according to Arminian,
God is not allowed to violate man's will and cannot save until
that man's will determines to let Jesus come in to his heart. Does the will determine the will? What determines the will? Is
the will its own determiner? Is the will determiner or determinee
is a question that we might ask. Suppose a person were to say,
I've determined to will not to sin. Could a graceless will fulfill
such a volition? Or would the power of depravity
make it sure that that would fail? I think so. As stated earlier,
such a notion of free will is a denial, if not in whole, yet
in part, of depravity. And that the will, having fallen
with all the other faculties and essence of man with every
other faculty can act by self-determination to bring him from sin unto salvation,
to turn him to Christ. It is a denial of Scripture.
It is a denial of all that the scripture teaches about human
depravity, to say that the will is as free to grace as it is
to sin. Where was free will in the conversion
of Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road? In Acts chapter 9. I asked
a lady that one time. She said, well, he had three
days to make up his mind, to think about it. And the Lord
arrested Saul even when he was making war on the church of God. He was not looking for God, not
looking for Christ. He hated Christ. He hated the
gospel. He was even at that time armed
with letters that he might persecute them in every place that called
upon the name of the Lord in a flesh. The Lord met him, accosted
him, took him, and changed him, causing him to cry out, Lord,
what will you have me to do? It didn't take long. It came
very quickly. Saul, or Paul, as we know him,
speaks several times of his conversion. He gives accounts of his being
taken by Christ and in Acts chapter 22 and chapter 26 of that book,
Galatians chapter 1, he speaks of it again. And yet, not once
does he speak of it being a matter of his free will, or of his choice,
or of him taking Christ, of his choosing to become a Christian. In fact, he assures the Galatian
Assembly that leaving Judaism is a thing that he would never
have done if left to himself. Turning from Judaism to Christianity,
is something he would never have done apart from a mighty work
of God. For he was a determined and a
committed Pharisee and a committed enemy of Jesus Christ, of the
Christian church, and of the gospel. He was the most zealous
in his age, as he says there in Galatians chapter 1. But he
attributes his conversion to Christianity, to a sovereign,
irresistible work of God in Galatians chapter 1. Did Paul write in
Romans 9 and verse 16, it's not of him that wills or of him that
runs, but of God that showeth mercy. Philippians 2.13, It is
God that works in you, both to do and to will of His good pleasure. That is, the will is a result
of the Word of God, and then producing the will to serve God
and serve Christ. And I trust you have considered
Ephesians 1, 19 and 20. Paul describes the power, that
work that they had believed in Christ. And in verse 19 of that
chapter, he doubles the epithets with regard to the work of Christ. That they hold dear in their
memory how Christ and God had brought them unto faith. such expressions as these, exceeding
greatness of His power." Again, the working of His mighty power. He said, I want you to understand
or to know that which worked in you to bring you unto Christ
and to make you a believer. In the case of Ushward, who believed
according to the working of His mighty power. The great dunamis,
the great dynamite of God worked that we might become believers.
Why? The promise to Messiah in Psalms
110 and 3 Thy people shall be willing, and will willingly assemble
under the banner of the Lord himself." Now, our final consideration
is, how do they become willing? How do they go from unwilling
to willing? from hating Christ to desiring
him with all of their heart? Is it by inward resolve or is
it by an inward work and power of the renewing grace of God?
It must be a sovereign supernatural power that so changes the will
of that person that they desire the things of God, where once
they had despised them. God does not need our consent
to make us willing. And you know what? We will thank
Him everlastingly that He, by His power, made us willing. Yet He needs not our help. to make us willing. His will
is supreme, and his people shall be willing in the day of his
power. And the change of fallen child
of Adam will, as he did Saul, as he did ours. is a work of
sovereign grace. Nothing short of the power and
the work of Almighty God can make one willing to submit to
the yoke of Christ. For first, they must leave their
sin and part with their old way of life. and then take a new
way of life altogether. That takes a great exercise of
power to do so. It's not by brute force, as the
Armenians have caricatured us, but by an inward sovereign work
that changes and lifts and quickens the faculties that have been
dead in sin. Man's will is only evil continually. How shall they convert any if
God is bound to leave men to their own free will? How shall
any believe or be saved? Thank God He makes us willing
in the day of His power and to that I proudly and gladly say,
amen. Thank the Lord that this is a
work of God. Look at your life, the way you
were going at one time and how drastically God turned us about. He made us willing by the exercise,
by the day of his power.