I want to talk about God's sovereign
election. God's sovereign election. I read where our Lord went to
where he was brought up, went to his hometown. And he opened the book from Isaiah
61, first three verses, read it. Got up and read like men do here.
Get up and read the scriptures. Close the book. He said today, today, this scripture. To him all the prophets give
witness. Today, this scripture right here is fulfilled in front
of you. You hear it. You see the one
it's writing about. The one I'm doing it, I'm the
one that said it. That first scripture was talking
about me. That's what our Lord said. They
just had a, oh my. They expected they had a right
to His blessings. They said, position, heal yourself.
You're here at home, we've heard everything you do everywhere
else, so do something for us. We got a right to your blessings.
This is where you're from. We got a right to them. And he
said, oh no, no, no. He said, I'm going to show you.
No prophets accepted in his own country. I'm going to show you
what I mean by that, he said. And I tell you the truth in verse
25. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the
heaven was shut up. Three years, six months, great
famines throughout all the land. But as only one person that Elijah
was sent to, Not a wit in Israel, but a wit in Sarepta, a city
of Sion, only one. Then he says, many lepers were
in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. And not one of them,
out of all the lepers that there were in Israel at that time,
not one of them was cleansed, save in Naaman the Syrian. And I'm going to tell you something,
when somebody first starts hearing about God's sovereign election
and His grace, 99 out of 100 times they just act exactly like
these people do right here. And they're all in the synagogue
when they heard these things were filled with rain. That's
not fair. That's not right. That's not
good. That's why they said, heal us.
He said, I'm going to tell you how God works. I'm going to tell
you how God sovereignly works in this world. I'm going to tell
you how I work and how my father works and how I do things in
this world. He said, God goes one by one.
And he showed them that. And they got upset. Oh, my. And
they even tried to kill him, throw him off a brow of the hill.
But our Lord Jesus Christ just went right through the middle
of them. They missed him. And I say that salvation is by
grace. Why do we say that? Because God
says it. God says it. Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. First time the words mentioned.
And our Lord Jesus Christ says it. And the Holy Spirit says it in
the Scriptures, declares the salvations by grace. It's not
of him that willeth, it's not of him that runneth, but it's
of God that showeth mercy. For by grace are you saved, through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And then this one of my favorites,
this is the one that God used to teach me the gospel. God who
has saved us and called us with a holy calling not according
to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world ever began. Do you know why we say salvation
is by grace? Because I've experienced and
we've experienced salvation by grace. Our nature, our fallen
nature, the condition we're in outside of Christ, the nature
of man necessitates that salvation be by grace. If God doesn't save
a man entirely and completely by grace, he won't be saved.
God's got to choose him, God's got to save him, God's got to
give him a new heart, God's got to keep him, and God's got to
take him all the way to glory. Every step of the way that he
lives in this world after God saved him is by his grace. We go to glory by his grace. And I tell you what, I hope that
God will enable me to preach it continually. Preach the grace
of God. God's sovereign election. Because
I love it. I love it. I cherish it. And it's the truth. I love it.
I love it. I don't just like it. It's not
a doctrine. It's something I love. Don't you love it? Love the grace
of God. I'll tell you a little something
that happened last night before I get on in my message. Gary
and me and him and his mother and his brother, we rode out
to the graveyard together last night. His mother said something
about his daughter, said, boy said, the church she's going
to, she likes to go there because she preached the way her daddy
did. And you know what Gary said? He said, I don't preach like
that anymore. He said, I found out that I learned
grace. I learned the truth of grace.
And he said, I learned it through this preacher right here. I learned
it through Brother Donnie. And I don't preach like that
anymore. I preach grace. I believe grace. What a testimony. I don't preach like that anymore.
Don't believe like that anymore. You know how that happens? Grace. I was so blessed by that. But
our Lord Jesus Christ began to preach sovereign election. And
the natural man's reaction is all to the sovereignty of God
in the election proves that it's true. Here they've said one day,
one minute, he said, oh, I just love, listen, oh, listen to how
much grace he's speaking, how gracious he is. How wonderful
his words are. Then he said, well, I'm gonna
tell you how God does. And he said, he's lots of widows,
but Elijah's only sent to one. Lots of lepers, but Elijah's
only sent to one. Only one was cleansed. And they
start to grit their teeth. And just because of the way they
react to it proves that it's true. Proves that it's true.
And you know why in the world we love the grace of God and
love God's sovereign election? Because we know the man who believes
in this and has been taught this by God knows that all that he
is, all that he has And all that he ever will have and ever will
be is by the free grace of God. Huh? And if we preached at every
service, that'd be alright, wouldn't it? Be alright. Paul said, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. When it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb, and what did he do? Call me by his
grace. saw me by his grace. Oh, to grace
how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. And let's
look at the sovereignty of God's grace. He says there in verse
27, we're going to deal with this part of it. And many lepers
were in Israel in the time of Elias, or Elisha, the prophet. And none of them was cleansed
save in Naaman, the leper. Now, I want you to turn over
there with me to 2nd Kings chapter 5. 2nd Kings chapter 5. And we're going to look at what
our Lord is talking about here. 2nd Kings chapter 5. You know
the story of Naaman. And I tell you what, the healing
of Naaman clearly, plainly teaches the freeness of God's grace. The freeness of it. And that's
the way I love to talk about grace, being free. Being free. And what I mean by free grace
is that God gives it freely to whom He will and nothing, nothing
that we contribute to it in any way. No way can we contribute
to it. But look what it says here. We'll
go down through this a little at a time. Now Naaman, captain
of the host of the king of Syria. Now see, he's a Syrian. And this is the first thing he
said about it was he's a great man with his master. A great
man with his master and honorable because by him the Lord had given
great deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man but
here's his problem. And this is the way that man
thinks so good of himself, thinks he's so high, thinks he's so
mighty. And this fellow was. He was. He was a mighty general. But look what it says. He had
one thing wrong with him. He was a leper. And men can brag
and blow about themselves all they want to, but there's one
thing wrong. They're sinners. They're dead
in sins. They're without God and without
Christ. My and I'll tell you what in my mind The freeness
and sovereignty of the grace of God are the same You know
when our Lord Jesus Christ said all that the father giveth me
now that all Tells us a grace is universal goes all over the
world All that the father gives me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, and
here's this man, him that cometh to me, I shall in no wise cast
out. Now the grace of God goes all
over the universe. Reaches from here all the way
to heaven. Went from eternity to eternity. And yet it don't
save universally. It goes everywhere but it don't
save everybody. And I tell you, beloved, look
what it says here. But it was sovereign, free, grace,
electing grace that saved Naaman. He was a heathen. He was an idolater. And he worshipped Remen. It says
down here in verse 18, look what God did he worship. And this
thing the Lord pardoned thy servant, that my master goeth into the
house of Remen to worship there. And he leans on my hand. And
he was a sworn enemy to Israel. Oh, I tell you, that's what Naaman
was. He was a sworn enemy to Israel. Syrian Israel was enemies. It's like Saul and Tarsus. He
is an enemy of Christ. And he is on his way to put God's
people in jail, put them in prison, and to deal with them in a very
harsh, mean way. And God put him down. God put
him down. And I tell you, God's enemies,
and I, if you, was you ever an enemy of God? Do you ever know
what it is to have enmity in your heart towards God? I remember
having enmity in my heart towards God. When I was a young man,
when I was a young man, when I was a kid, when I got up into
my twenties, I remember very vividly that I had enmity in
my heart towards God. Well, how in the world is that
enmity slain? It was slain by the blood of
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he took that enmity out and
put the peace of God in there. He slew that enmity. And that's
what he did to Saul of Tarsus. He had hatred and enmity in his
heart. And when God put him down on
the Damascus road, the first thing out of his mouth was, Who
art thou? He said, I'm Jesus. of Nazareth, whom you persecute." He said, oh my, what have I done? The next thing out of his mouth
was, Lord, what would thou have me to do? And that's what happened
here. This man, this Naaman, he lived
a long, long way from the prophet Elijah. But God meant to cleanse
this leper and save this sin-blackened soul. And we see the sovereignty
of God's blessed grace in Naaman's experience because of all the
other lepers that were passed by. He said there was lots and
lots of lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha. But Elisha only
healed one. Elisha only cleansed one. And
he only cleansed Naaman. And they automatically knew exactly
who they was talking about because they read the Old Testament and
they knew about this man Naaman. And if Elisha is going to heal
lepers, surely, surely he'll heal those in Israel first. There's
lots and lots of them. Why don't they go through Israel
and start healing lepers in Israel? That's why they said to our Master
Physician, heal yourself. If you're in here with us, heal
us. And to bypass these religious
Jews, these Pharisees, for a foreigner? For a worshiper of a strange
God? A leper? An enemy of God? Why did God do this? Our Lord
said it the best way it could be said. He said, I thank thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hid these
things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes.
For even so, it seemed good in thy sight. It seemed good in his sight. I like that, it's good in his
sight. But oh my, I tell you what, no one No one has the right
to mercy and the grace of God. No one. No one has. No one has the right to mercy
and the grace of God. Suppose God made salvation to
be dependent on those who had pious parents. If pious was,
you know, so-called real pious and lived real holy lives. Or
maybe he made salvation conditioned on someone who had supposedly
good morals. Would that be right for God to
be a respect of persons? Because that's what it would
make Him. If He looks for something good
to save a man, for some reason to save a man, some reason to
cleanse a man some reason to do something for a man then that
would make God a respect of persons but you know the only people
he respects that has any first person is his blessed son the
Lord Jesus Christ and that's why he said no man comes unto
the father but by me and our father said this is my beloved
son you listen to him This is the one that always pleases me.
And beloved, that's why we make an issue out of the Lord Jesus
Christ and His sovereignty and salvation. I read it yesterday
afternoon. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He
was praying, He says, said, Thou hast given Him, Christ, power,
authority, ability, might, strength over all flesh, all flesh, and
flesh is grass. That flesh that's corrupt, that
flesh that's sinful, that flesh that's weak, that flesh that
stinks, that flesh that's abhorred. He said thou has given him power
over all flesh. That he should give eternal life
to as many as thou has given him. Naaman was given to Christ. Oh my, if you and I are going
to be saved, we're going to have to be saved by grace. You remember
when Simon Peter stood up after he had went down to Cornelius'
house and they got upset at him because he went to a Gentile's
house? And you know what he said? We believe, us Jews believe we
shall be saved by grace, even as Cornelius was. You know what men would have
God to do? Then have God to bow down to their altar of respectability. Bow down to their goodness. Bow
down to their regular church attendance. Bow down to their
soul winning. Bow down to their good thoughts
and their good opinions of themselves. They're like the Pharisees, they
say, stand afar off from me. I'm holier than thou. And that's
the way men want God to bow down to them, instead of them bowing
down to God. And bless His holy name. I'll
tell you one thing, men are going to find out one of these days,
who is respectable, who ain't. Who thinks they're somebody,
they're nothing. If a man thinks himself to be something when
he's nothing, you know what he said? He deceives himself. but every soul that is saved
will be saved by the sovereign free grace of God and be so thankful
that is that way God seeks sinners real sinners sinners from the
top of their head sinners to the sole of their feet Sinners
from the inside of their heart to the outside of their body.
Sinners in every way in the world. And then He'll leave them men
of self-esteem and men of righteousness in their own eyes. He'll say,
go on your own way. I'm going to save me some sinners,
some bonafide sinners. And I'm going to make them understand
they're sinners all the days of their life so that they'll
depend on me and nobody else. And when you understand that's
what you are, you will depend on Christ and nothing else in
this universe but Him. Is that not right? Oh, I've told
this illustration so many times. There's this great, great man. They had a ship, a galley there. And me and you know we'd put
criminals was put down to row these big galleys around. And
there was a man sitting down there one time with the authority
to set free any man he wanted to. Well, he went down through
the line and started talking to the men. What are you here
for? I'm innocent. Oh, I don't know
how I ended up here. I didn't do nothing. I tell you,
I was framed. And he went through, all of them
was innocent. And he finally come to a fella. And this fella
said, what about you? He said, well, he said, listen,
I'm here because I deserve to be here. He started talking about
all that he had done. And he deserved to be there.
He was a criminal. He deserved to be there. And
you know that was the one the man set free. Everybody's innocence
stayed down there. And everybody that's innocent,
Christ won't pass them by. But I'll tell you what, that
fella throws up his head. He said, Guilty! Guilty! Christ said, set him free. That's
why that man beat on his chest and said, God, be merciful to
me, the sinner. Oh, as long as a man's kicking
against God's justice, he'll never be saved. And there's unvarying
rules of God's grace. God saves whom He will. So when
it's here by Naaman, He'll save them when He will, illustrated
by Naaman. And he'll save them how he will.
And yet he has a method that he rarely departs from. Here's
the first thing that Naaman had to do. He had to hear the gospel.
He had to hear the good news that he could be healed. That
there was a prophet in Israel who could heal him. Look what
it says down here in verse 3. This is a maid that had been
taken captive. And she had known about she was
Naaman's wife's maid. And she said unto her mistress,
Would God my Lord with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would
recover him of his leprosy. Oh my, he got to hear that there's
somebody that can do something for him. That's the first thing he's got
to hear. He's got to hear the gospel. He's got to hear that
somebody can do something for him. Faith cometh by hearing,
hearing by the word of God. How beautiful upon the mountain
are the feet of them that publisheth peace, and bringeth good tidings
of good things. This little girl had good tidings. And what an unlikely messenger
that God uses. He used a little bitty woman,
a captive. She's the one who had the message.
She's the one who knew about the prophet. But he had to go
for himself. He had to heed the message that
she told him. He had to go to the prophet.
And now, oh my! And one went in, in verse 4,
and told him his Lord saying, Thus and thus saith the maid
that is the land of Israel. My he had to go for himself.
He had to make it make that message and go to the prophet It was
imperative that he obeyed the command that he received from
the prophet now look down verse 9 So Naaman came with his horses
and with his chariots and came up there and just rolled up there
to the door of the house of Elisha and You could just see it. It'd be like somebody we know
today, like a Bill Gates or somebody got all this wealth, he'd pull
up there in a great old big long limousine. Got money, I mean
more money than he can spend in 10,000 lifetimes. He pulls
up there, sits in his car. Well, let's see what this prophet's
going to do. I pulled up. Man, don't he see my car? Don't
he see this great big stretch limo here? Don't he see how rich
I am? Don't he see how powerful I am?
I've got people all over the place here that do what I tell
them to do. And oh, and Elisha didn't even
get out of the house. Elisha didn't get out of his
chair. And Elisha said, go outside and
tell this man. Go outside and tell this man,
say unto him, go over to Jordan and wash seven times and thy
flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be clean. Oh,
that ought to have been the best news he ever heard in his life,
that I can be cleansed from my leprosy. But oh my, look what
it says. But Naaman got angry just exactly
like those folks did over in Luke chapter 4. Got angry. Got upset. And went away. And here's his problem. Scott used to say this all the
time. You know what the man's problem
is? He thinks instead of believes. He wants to reason things out.
He said, I thought, I thought, I thought. And you find people
saying, I thought, well I thought that was, I thought this is the
way this man was supposed to believe. I thought this was the
right way. I thought this is the way he was supposed to do
things. I thought that he'll surely come out, oh yeah, I'm
somebody, he's gotta come out to me. Don't he understand what
a powerful person I am? He'll surely come out to me and
stand. Stand before me. Stand before
my power. Stand before my majesty. Stand
before my glory. Stand before my power and my
free will. And he'll stand here and he'll
call on the name of the Lord, his God. Not my God, his God. and strike his hand over the
place and recover the leper. He wanted an experience. He wanted
this man to come out and be somebody. He was somebody and this man
is going to have to do it for me. And you know how many people
in this world are just exactly like this? They get upset, they
get angry, they get mad. Don't they understand what I
am? Don't they know? Now he was ordained to be healed.
He was foreordained to be healed. There's no doubt about that.
But he's still going to have to do what he's told. He's still
going to have to go and get in that river and wash himself seven
times. It's not the river that's going
to cleanse his leprosy. It's not his obedience that's
going to cleanse his leprosy. But he's gonna come down. God's gonna put him down and
make him understand that you're nothing. You're nobody. You're
a leper. You're a sinner. You ain't got
no ability. You ain't got no power. You can't
do this for yourself. And oh my, he went away. And
oh, he thought, man, he was looking for an experience. And if that's
what you're waiting on, waiting for an experience before you
can believe Christ, you'll wait till Christ comes again. And oh, he said, are not abandoned
par far rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?
May I not worship them and be clean? He's like Nicodemus. He said, can I enter the second
time in my mother's womb to be born? If I want to be clean,
I can go over to my rivers and take a bath. But that's not what
the prophet meant. That's not what he meant. And
what it goes on to say. And oh, so he went and turned
and went away in a rage just exactly like those folks that
look for him. And his servant came to him. and spake unto him,
saying, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing,
would not thou have done it? How much rather, when he said
to thee, Wash, and be clean, your leprosy be gone. Oh my,
but he's going to have to go down there and wash seven times
or he's going to remain a leper. It was a very plain, it was a
simple message, go wash seven times. Wash seven times. And I tell
you what, simple faith in Christ. And I don't mean to say simple
in the sense, but I mean it's just, people stumble over the
fact that they have to bring something. Bring something. What have we got to bring? You
know the only thing that we ever had that ever really belonged
to us was sin? That's all we've ever had. And you know the only person
that can cleanse sin? It's the blood of Christ that
washes all away and cleanses us from sin. And save simple
faith in Christ. In His substitutionary death.
He was the Lamb slain. Why was He slain? We sang that
song, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but
the whole is nailed to the cross, I bear no more. Praise the Lord,
praise the Lord, oh my soul. Christ bore our sins in his own
body on the tree. And he by himself satisfied God. There has never been a man on
this earth, never been a man on this earth, and never will
be a man on this earth that can do anything to satisfy God. Only perfection satisfies Him.
Christ was the perfect sacrifice, the sinless sacrifice. The holy
sacrifice that God Himself provided that satisfied God's justice,
honored His law, and put away sin once and for all. And then,
beloved, He's the Savior! They call His name Jesus, for
He shall save His people from their sin. He's the Savior! The
only Savior of sinners! And the only way, why in the
world would you not believe that? Oh, it's the simple men stumbling
over it. And I tell you what, you know
when he was healed? When he got off his horse, got
out of his chariot, took his general's uniform off, is stripped
down to nothing. And God didn't have water. And
that's the way God does. He gonna strip you down. You're
going to take them ribbons and roses and all the other things
that you got hanging all over you and you're going to take
them off. They're going to come off and you're going to stand
before God just like you really are. Like the day you was born
in your birthday suit. That we're naked and open before
God. Naked and open before God. And
he was proud and he resorted to his own reason. And I tell
you the reason why men, I don't care who they are, who they are,
who you are in this service, or your friends, your sons, your
daughters, it doesn't make any difference. But until, until
you humble yourself and you can't do it. God's got to, you got
to listen to what God said. And can you come to Christ as
nobody? Can you come to Christ with nothing? Can you come to Christ without
anything in your hands? Can you come to Christ without
your thoughts? Without your reasonings? Can
you just come to Christ as He is? And you as you are? Can you
do that? You got to come off out of the
tree like Zacchaeus did. You got to get off your high
horse like salt in, putting the dust. And you got to be humble like
Simon Peter was after he denied the Lord. And I tell you what, he went
down there in verse 14, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan
according, listen to this, according to the saying of the men of God.
He listened to what God said. He believed what God said. And
his flesh came again unto him, like the flesh of a little child. These babies, you know, these
little old young baby children, you know, they got this wonderful
skin, wonderful skin. And they said that's the way
he is, it's like a child's skin. Soft. Oh my. Let me close saying this. Our
Lord said the gate is straight. That means it's narrow. No room
for anybody to go through that gate. No room for anything but
the center, stripped of everything. You can only get through there
if you ain't got nothing to take through there with you. You ever
been in a tight place and tried to turn every way in the world
to get through it? Well, you can't turn around to get in this
one. If you go through this straight gate, I mean, there ain't going
to be nothing on you. You got to just, it's just narrow. And we are saved by grace. Saved
by grace. You're going to be saved, you're
going to be saved by sovereign grace. Sovereign grace. That means that God, it's up
to God, and it's up to the Lord Jesus Christ who's going to save
you. He's the only one who's got the grace. We don't have
it, He's got it. And He gives it to whom He will.
Is that not right? And then when He saves you by
His sovereign grace, He's got to keep you by that same grace. And that grace will enable us
to face God in eternity. Face Him in eternity. And He gave us this grace in
one place, and that's in His blessed Son. In His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, thou hast promised to forgive all who on
thy Son believe. Lord, I know thou cannot lie.
Give me Christ, or else I die. Amen. Oh, Father, Father, Father, our
blessed Master, our Lord Jesus, thank you for allowing us to
stand again. Oh, Lord, bless your holy name
for this service. Been so blessed by your Spirit.
So blessed. Thank you for your saints. Thank
you for these dear sisters and their voices and their singing
reality in their singing. Thank you for all your people. Oh Lord, no one like your people
on this earth, no one like them. And I thank you that we can worship
together, rejoice in Christ together, and bow to your holy, holy, heavenly
will. and find comfort and assurance,
and looking only to you, trusting only in you, in your righteousness,
in your obedience. Thank you, Lord. Thank you and
bless you. And oh, Father, I pray that you'd
be pleased to save in this place such as
should be saved, for Christ's sake, for Christ's sake. We're
gonna sing Old Faithful. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, But now am found,
was blind, but now I see. T'was grace that saw my heart to fear. And grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear. The What's going to happen? We've only just begun. Well I sure love to hear somebody
say they trusted Christ. Well I'll see you tonight 6 o'clock.
We're going to take the Lord's table.