Well, it is so very, very good
to be back with you folks again. It's been a long, long time since
I've been here, since Shelby and I have been here, and we're
so delighted to be here. We just had, by God's grace,
a feast and a great example of what preaching is. And I'm confident
that the message I have, God's given me just to follow
that up. Romans chapter 8, verse 28. Romans chapter 8, verse 28. I know most of you can quote
it. I want you to put it on your
laps and read it with me. Do you know how God's people
in this book are most commonly identified? What words most commonly
identify God's people in this book? The most common term of
identification used throughout the Word of God is one that I
think we've passed maybe a dozen church buildings on the way down
here tonight from the motel. You won't hear it in any of them.
Ever. Ever. Some of them will bypass
it as they read the scriptures. The elect. God's people are the
elect. The chosen. They're called the
elect more than they're called anything else in this book. The
elect. They're called the redeemed.
That means that they're not in the common mass of folks. They
came out of the common mass. They were born in the common
mass. We lived in the common mass. But God chose us. They're
the elect. And they have been redeemed not
along with, but redeemed out of every nation, and kindred,
and tribe, and tongue. Purchased by the precious blood
of God's darling son the Lord Jesus Christ God's people are
identified in this book as the Saints Called Saints, I said
Saints St.. Marvin Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right all God's
people are Saints the word means holy ones and sanctified ones,
men and women who have been sanctified by God the Father in eternal
election, sanctified by God the Son in sovereign redemption,
and sanctified by God the Holy Spirit in the new birth, making
us new creatures in Christ, giving us a new nature, making us partakers
of the divine nature. And God's people, these who are
the elect. Oh, what a special group of people.
The elect. I've always wanted to be somebody,
haven't you? I am somebody. God said you're honorable. God
said I've honored you above everybody. The elect. The redeemed. The saints of God. They're called
the called. In Romans chapter 8 and verse
28. For the clay has been talking
to us about God's promise to gather his people. Well let me
talk to you about the gathered. God is gathering his elect in
all that he does. Gathering his elect scattered
among the four corners of the earth. Gathering his elect out
of every nation, people, kindred, and tribe. Gathering his elect
in everything he does. Have you got it? Romans 8, verse
28. And we know. We know. This is not guesswork. We know. We know because God
taught us. We know because it's written
here in this book. We know because we have in measure
experienced it. We know that all things, good
and bad, prosperous and adverse, pleasant and painful, righteous
and evil, all things, all things, every angel in heaven, every
demon in hell, Satan himself, all righteous men and all wicked
men, all the thoughts of men, all the words of men, and all
the deeds of men, all things, all things, all the events of
history, all things, nothing excluded, work together. Together. Together. We have a terrible problem. We
have tunnel vision. We look at things just one thing
at a time. You know why? Because that's
all we can do. We can't see everything. So we
see stuff and try to figure out what's going on. Don't try to
figure out what's going on. God told you what's going on.
He's gathering his elect. He's gathering his people. That's
what he's doing. He raises up nations, and it
tears them down. He raises up more, and it tears
them down for one purpose, the gathering of his Israel, the
gathering of his elect. All things work together for
good, not necessarily temporal good. Not commonly temporal good. Not usually temporal good. I don't know too many of God's
people in this world who experience what folks look at as temporal
good things. Most of the people I know have
a lot of pain and a lot of heartache and a lot of trouble. They have
husbands or wives or sons or daughters or mothers or fathers,
neighbors who cause them a lot of pain. They have lives that
are turned upside down. Their bodies are wracked with
pain. They have trouble. No, all things do not work together
for your temporal good to make you feel good while you sit on
your couch. All things work together for the eternal good of all God's
elect, them that love God. Who are those? Those who love
God or those who are loved of God? We love Him because He first
loved us. And the Lord God sovereignly
manipulates. I like that word. He said, well,
yeah, that makes us puppets on a string. That's being very complimentary
to you. God Almighty sovereignly manipulates
not the way you move your arms alone, the way you think. He
manipulates it. And He doesn't apologize for
it. In His high time, preachers could apologize in full. He sovereignly
manipulates everything. for the saving of his land. Oh what God does to save his
own. I have some dear friends down
in North Carolina who I've known them since 1994. First sermon
that was aired by Family Radio when they started airing sermons
of mine back in 1994. Actually, 93. 93. They started airing them
on shortwave stations and 126 stations all over the country
and around the world. And the message on basic Bible doctrine
for the Eugene Sivistian had just come to this country. His
fiancee, Natalie, had just come to this country. They were among
the first two families in the Soviet states where they lived,
his family and hers, the first ones to come to this country
after Mr. Gorbachev tore down that wall. And the Soviet Union broke up.
They were among the very first ones. Brother Eugene heard the
sermon. He was living out in Oregon.
And he called his fiancee, Natalie, and said, you've got to hear
this. and put the thing up on a recorder, on telephone, you
know back when you had to put quarters in the machine. And
you listened to it an hour and several minutes. And God saved
them. And I stayed in touch with them.
I wound up down in Florida for a little while and wound up in
North Carolina down where Brother Frank Hall is now. And I didn't
meet them for a number of years until they were married and had
two boys. Their boys are both grown now, one of them is a preacher.
First time I saw them, I preached for them for a few days. And
I called those two boys out. Mom and Dad standing there, I
said, I want you all to understand something. You won't understand it now.
I want to say something I hope you never forget it. Our God turned
the world upside down so you could hear what you're hearing.
So you could hear the gospel of his grace. Isn't that amazing? Why, it shouldn't surprise us.
God does that all the time. God does that all the time. He
only doeth wondrous things. Wondrous things. Why on earth
would a woman named Tamar disguise herself as a harlot and have a child by her father-in-law
in horrible incest? Why? Why on this earth would
a man take his family, a rich, rich man, take his family when
the Lord sent famine into Bethlehem, Judah, and run away into a pagan
land with his riches, hoarding everything up for himself, and
his sons marry idolatrous pagan women? Why? Why? Why? Why would a man like David take the wife of a faithful servant
and then scheme to murder him to cover it up? Why? Why would
God send Israel into Egypt, hold them there for 400 years, and
afflict them severely. Why? Why? When they came out,
why would he lead them in a direct path? He said he did, didn't
he? They took a three-day trip in
40 years. Their direct path was like this. All the time. All the time. Why
were they subjected to enemy after enemy after enemy? Judges
raised up and then enemies come and overtake them again. Judges
raised up, enemies come and overtake them again. Why did God send
that people into Babylon for 70 years? Why? All because The Lord God has
one who's coming into this world, promised back in Genesis 3.15,
the woman seed. And that line by which he comes
must be preserved. Preserved in such a way that
God identifies him as the friend of sinners, even in his lineage. And in the lineage of our Savior,
read the name of a woman named Tamar. and a woman named Bathsheba and
a woman named Ruth and God graciously preserved the lineage written
down in meticulous detail the way the Jews used to do. You
read about Jews and conflicts and all that stuff in the Middle
East now. Do you know how many Jews there are in this world
who can prove their lineage? Do you know how many there are? Not a one. Not a one. The records have been destroyed
for years. 70 AD, it's gone. There's not a one of them who
prove his lineage back to Abraham. But when our Lord walked on this
earth, of all the things that the Jews called as reasons not
to believe Him to be the Messiah, the King, the Prophet of God,
they never questioned His ancestry. because it couldn't be questioned.
It was written down, held in their temple. God working everything
just right, just right. Why on earth was Don Fortner
born on a sharecropper's farm in Bladen County, North Carolina,
June 10, 1950, in a household where God wasn't known? jerked up by the hair of the
head in a house that's more of a hell hole than a family. Why? And why all the rebellion and
the ungodliness sown by this man? Why? I offer no excuse. I confess my guilt. I confess
my sin with pain. But I'll tell you why everything
that has come to pass in the 66 years I've been breathing
topside of God's earth has come to pass because all things work
together for good to them who are loved of God to them who are thee called,
thee called, thee called, thee called, thee called All how God
calls. Read the 107th Psalm before you
go to bed tonight. Please do. Read the 107th Psalm
and read it in this light. The psalmist is showing us how
that God arranges the affairs of time. All the affairs of a
man's life. All the affairs of a woman's
life. Everything He arranges it. to sweetly, graciously force
them into the arms of his son. Everything. Everything. There
are some people in this world from whom God will never take
no for an answer. Aren't you faithful? There are
some people in this world from whom God will never take no for
an answer. The call, obviously, at least
it is obvious to anyone whose brain hasn't been pickled by
the vinegar of free will religion, the call spoken of here is not
the outward, external, general call of the preaching of the
gospel. This is the call that's internal. It is the call that comes by
God the Holy Spirit in you. And the only one who hears it
at the time is the one called. It's the call by which God graciously,
sweetly forces you to come to Christ. The call by which the
Son of God graciously, sweetly forces the heart of His chosen
into His arms. The call by which God causes
sinners to approach Him in faith, trusting His Son. The call by
which we are effectually, irresistibly forced to believe on the Son
of God. I wonder when you will believe.
No, I don't. I know exactly when you will
believe. You will believe God when you got nothing else you
can do. You'll believe God when you're
forced to believe Him. You'll believe God when you're
stripped of all hope. You'll believe God when God graciously
calls you. And he does that by the preaching
of the gospel. He does that by the preaching
of the gospel. Imagine that. Oh, what an honor. What a high
privilege. We've come here to preach the
gospel of God's grace, to worship God together, to call you to
faith in Christ and to call you to believe Christ, to follow
him, to consecrate yourselves to him, to devote yourselves
to him with this promise. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. The God of glory has
trusted the treasure of his gospel to these hands. The gospel by which God is pleased
to call out his elect. We're born again not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God that lives and
abides forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. We preach the gospel knowing
that God by the gospel calls his elect. I love the way John
Gill described it. He said, Christ stands in the
gospel ministry at the door of men's hearts and knocks and calls. Having the key of the house of
David, he opens the heart by the power of his grace and lets
himself in. He comes and he lets himself
in. He calls. Yes, he calls. Yes,
he calls. He calls. He calls. He calls.
But you will never answer until he lets himself in. And the first
time you know he's called, he's already sitting on the throne
inside. He comes in and brings his welcome with him. Now let
me look at this call in three or four ways, and then I'll answer
a question for you. Number one. Let me remind you
that those who are the called in time, who are called to be
the sons of God in time, were called or named the sons of God
in eternity. We're called to be the sons of
God in the experience of grace. But our believing God does not
make us the sons of God. Believing God is the result of
the fact that we are the sons of God if you believe it's because
God before the world was Adopted you as his own and because ye
are sons God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts
crying Abba father Not to make you sons, but because you are
sons he adopted us as his sons before the world was in fact
a You read these verses here in Romans 8, verses 28, 29, 30,
and you read about God's purpose, predestination, election, justification,
calling, so on. It's all in the past tense. And
you read that and you, I mean, some of you may have just dropped
in here from the moon somewhere and you read this for the first
time and you scratch your head and say, well, that looks like
this was all done before the time began. Boy, it does look
that way, doesn't it? It does look that way, doesn't
it? You know why it looks that way? That's the way it is. That's
the way it is. The works were finished before
the foundation of the world. What's going on in time? We come
to experience in time what God did in eternity in Christ our
Savior. So that just, that makes it meaningless. Well, it does until you experience
it. Yeah, yeah because your sons
God sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying
Abba father Caused you caused you by the power of his grace
revealing Christ to you Giving you faith in Christ to do What
you tried to do and couldn't do And folks tried to get you
to do it, and you couldn't do it. Some folks even tried to
get you to fake doing it, and you couldn't do it. You just
couldn't do it. You couldn't do it. Yeah. You
looked at God. Every thought you had of him
terrified you. Terrified you. It's that true,
isn't it? I never had a thought of God
that didn't terrify me. When I began to have some sense
of what I am by nature, some sense of God's requirements,
some light in God's word, I went to bed at night, I'm talking
months and months and months, begging God for mercy, begging
for mercy. Trying my best to start some
kind of a deal with God so he'd let me live on this earth. Begging
God for mercy. Wanting to believe God and I
couldn't believe. I could not believe. I could
not believe because I kept holding on to something. Wanting to do
something. I hadn't been stripped of everything
and then one day because God chose me in Christ, adopted me
as his child before ever the world was. He sent the spirit
of his son into my heart and I heard the gospel of God's darling
son. I found myself believing it. I just found myself believing.
I couldn't help it, Jeff. I just couldn't help it. And
for the first time in my life, I lifted my heart to heaven and
called God my own daddy. My father, my father, my father,
Abba, father. Those are the calls. who were
called the sons of God before the world began. Second, those
who are thee called are called according to the sovereign will
and purpose of God. Sinners are not called to life
and faith in Christ because of their will, but because of God's
will. We're not given life and faith
in Christ because of what we do or did or might do, but by
what God did for us in eternity and does in us in time. That
which distinguishes God's elect from other people is this distinguishing
grace and purpose of God. Look at Romans chapter 9. Just
turn over a page. Romans chapter 9. It's always helpful when you
want to know what the Bible says about a subject to find out what
the Bible says. And pay attention to what the
Bible says. But what's the place of man's will? What about man's
will? Oh, what does the Bible say about
that? Let's see. Romans 9 verse 16. So then it is not It is not of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth. Salvation is not according to
your decision, and is not according to your doing, but of God that
showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Well, Brother
Dunn, that looks like this whole thing is God's work. That's how
it looks. That's our love. Sounds that
way to me. In other words, if God leaves
you alone, you're going to hell. I pray God won't leave you alone.
If God leaves you to yourself, there's no hope for you. Oh,
God, don't leave them to themselves. Don't leave them to themselves.
I have one daughter. And she and her husband have
given us two grandchildren. They're about grown now. Our
daughter just graduated from high school. I'll tell you what,
I've been praying for them since I first found that they were
conceived in the womb. Hardly an hour passes that I
haven't prayed this for them and continue to. Oh, God, please
don't leave them alone. Don't set the world in their
heart. Don't leave them to themselves. Reveal Christ in them. Sweetly,
graciously hedge them about. Force them into the Savior's
arms. It's not of him that winneth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. God
before the world was ordained who he would call by his grace.
He ordained the time when he would call them. He established
the place and circumstances in which they would be called. And
He arranged to bring them to that time and that place and
those circumstances. And all hell couldn't prevent
it. God works all things together
for good to them who are the loved of God, the called, according
to the riches of His grace. That time is called the time
of love. He said, I pass by you. And I
spread my skirt over you. And I said to you, live. And
you became mine. That's the call of God. That's
the call of God. You say, well, Brother Don, why
do we have to insist on this? To suggest anything else, to
suggest any other possibility, is to make salvation the work
of man. and not the work of God. You
who are yet dead in trespasses and in sins, I can manipulate you into becoming
religious. And if you're my son or daughter,
as long as I got control over you, I can make you behave outwardly. That's just fact. I can make
you behave outwardly. As long as I got some control over you.
I'm a little older than I used to be, but I can still make them
behave. You say I can't do nothing to
my boy? Leave him with me for a week. I can't. I promise you
I can't. I got a stick that'll take care
of him. It's flat, bald, and hurts. Enough about that. If you don't use one, you need
to. But the fact is, men who are dead in trespasses and sins
can't do anything. They don't know anything. They
don't feel anything. And you can't make them know
anything. And you can't make them feel anything. They're totally
aware of who they are and what they are. They're dead. They're
dead. Y'all know where Babcock Street
Park is out here? I hadn't been on the lookout past him very
long. My wife taught school, and one day I was by myself,
and I'd gone down to Babcock, and I was just out walking in
the woods, got up in the woods, and I ran across something up
there. I ran across an old, old cemetery. Must have been a family
cemetery. I couldn't make out just parts
of dates that were old. I couldn't make out any full
family names that were old. But I looked around, because
I never did want anybody to put me in a funny farm, and I wanted
to make sure nobody was listening. And I started preaching. Man,
that fella lay right there in that grave. I made promises to
that fella. I just had that one beautiful
daughter, and I promised him, I'll tell you what, you get up
and come home with me, and you can stay in my house, and I'll
provide everything for you, and I'll keep my daughter, and when
she's old enough, I'll give her to be your wife. All you got
to do is just get up and come home with me. Well, preacher,
you wouldn't do that. I did that, just so I could tell
you I did that. Because that's what preachers
all over the place do. That's what they do all over the place.
Call on dead folks, do what dead folks can't do. Call on dead
folks to live, dead folks can't live. Call on dead folks to make
a decision, dead folks can't make a decision. Call on dead
folks to come, dead folks can't come. But don't we call men to
Christ? Yeah, but you can't come. Don't
we command men to live? Yeah, but you can't make yourself
live. Oh, but if God, by the gospel speaks, he calls and the
dead live. It's the spirit that quickens.
the flesh profiteth nothing. Do you understand that? This
is God's Word. They're called by God's purpose. Third, those
who are the called are called by sovereign, irresistible grace. Sovereign, irresistible grace. Brother Don, folks don't like
to use that word irresistible. I know that's the reason I use
it. What does that mean? What child
in here doesn't know what it is to find something irresistible?
I'm not supposed to have any sweets. I'm diabetic But my wife
you know bless her heart. She loves me, and she deprived
me of the sweets most of the time sometimes She just can't
resist We'll drive down here the other day. She had some coupons.
She said I got a coupon here for two soft-serve ice cream
cones right here Don't stop get them And she went in and came
back out with a big vanilla cone. And I had two choices. I could
look at that thing and watch it drip down all over my hands,
down on the leather seats of my car and have to clean it up.
Or I could do what I really wanted to. Guess what I did? Knowing full well it was going
to raise my sugar. Knowing full well it was going to. It's not
good for you. Nobody's just irresistible. Well,
not really. I had been known to throw them
away. I've been known to. But when Christ comes calling,
he makes himself irresistible. Irresistible. See that pretty
blonde there? I started dating her right after
God saved me. I was 17 years old. And we had been dating just
a couple of weeks. I told her I wanted to marry
her. She said, you're crazy. You don't know what you want. And I proceeded to
court her. She was going to school in Winston-Salem
and I lived about five miles from there. You know, I'd drive
completely across town after getting off of work just to carry
her books from one place to the other. I did. I opened the door for her. She
didn't ever open the door. I'd take her to McDonald's and
get her whatever flavor milkshake she wanted. I just, I mean, I
just, I courted her and courted her and courted her until one
night we were visiting some of my relatives up in Spruce Pine,
North Carolina in the mountains and all of them had gone to bed
except Shelby and me. And I got down on my knees and
took her by the hand and asked if she'd marry me. Well, before
I could get it out, she would jump and say yes. What happened? I made myself
irresistible. I didn't show her anything but
the good stuff. That's right. I didn't show her anything else.
Nothing else. This is how God works irresistibly. Brother Clay's
been preaching Christ to us. Your pastor preaches the Lord
Jesus to you. You come here and hear the word
and he preaches and preaches. Your daddy preached to you all
your life. And you wouldn't hear, and you wouldn't hear, and you
wouldn't believe, and you wouldn't believe. Loved your daddy, but
you couldn't obey him. Couldn't judge him, couldn't
believe him. But one day, God revealed His Son in you. And you couldn't resist the revelation. That's irresistible grace. That's
the force of grace. When it pleased God, who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal
his son in me. We don't know Christ after the
flesh. No, no. We know him after the spirit.
By the revelation of God in our hearts, he comes and makes his
son known. Fourth, this called. Those who are thee called. are
the called of Jesus Christ. Among whom he also are the called
of Jesus Christ. Listen to this. Paul is talking
about preaching the Gospels in his last epistle, 2 Timothy chapter
4. You don't need to turn there, you're familiar with it. He's
talking to Timothy now, his son in the faith. And what a man. He's been a son to me since he
was a teenager. I thank God for him. Paul's giving Timothy his
very last word of instruction. I'll guarantee you, if I call
you and I know I'm about to speak to you for the last time, you
better pay attention to what I've got to say, it's important. His
very last word of instruction about preaching the gospel. This
is how he describes it. He says, God hath saved us and
called us with a holy calling. Not according to our works. Oh
no, no, no. What we did or decided to do
or wanted to do, got nothing to do with it. Not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ before the world was. And now is made
manifest by the appearing of Jesus Christ. who hath abolished
death yes he did it at Calvary and he came at the appointed
time of love and abolished death in you and brought immortality
to light by the gospel brought immortal life to light by the
revelation of Christ in you by the gospel believers Described
as the called of Jesus Christ because God the Holy Ghost Calls
those who were redeemed by Christ Those to whom he is sent by Christ
and this calls As I was only in Christ Called to life in him
Well, I hope you're interested in this question I've been talking
to us about the call Brother Clay's been talking about the
gathering of God's elect. Who are the called? Who are they? Who are these ones who are so
highly honored of God? Who is it that's called of Him?
Those who are the called are those who were chosen and predestinated
unto eternal life in Christ before the world began. That's what
you have right here in Romans chapter 8 and in chapter 9. They are
those whom the Lord God chose to be His own. He comes to make
known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy which He
had aforeprepared unto glory. Vessels of mercy. God made us
vessels of mercy. He takes a piece of clay and
makes one vessel to honor and another to dishonor. And I'll
be honest with you, I don't know much about those vessels of dishonor,
those vessels of wrath. fitted by their own works to
their destruction so that their damnation is just. And we read
about it in Isaiah 42 and we sing God's praise when it's over.
That's what the book says. But I know something about these
vessels of mercy. Vessels God ordained to hold all His abundant grace. All his fullness in his son in
all his fullness forever To the praise of the glory of his grace
They're the called they're the called those who are the called
Are those who are in Christ? sanctified in Christ and called
those who are the called are For those who were redeemed by
the precious blood of Christ, purchased by Calvary's Lamb,
purchased by the doing and dying of the Son of God. He said, fear
not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. Listen to this, Zechariah, God
speaks by his prophet and says, I will hiss for them. and gather
them for I have redeemed them every redeemed sinner every chosen
sinner is God's and at the appointed time of love is I will hiss for
them I'll hiss for them psst psst psst that's utterly meaningless
to you utterly meaningless unless you're my wife or my daughter,
or my grandson, or my grandchild. Do you know they can hear 5,000
tunnels and not pay any attention to it. But somehow or another
they recognize this one. She knows them. Call her. She
just knows it. How do you know? Because she's
mine. She's mine. I'll hiss for them. And when
I hiss for them, I'll gather them. I'll gather them because
I redeemed them. I redeemed them because I chose
them and I said before the world was I will be their God and they
shall be my people. I'll tell you who's called always. The most unlikely fella, the
most unlikely woman in the place. How often we think well the Lord's
gonna call him He might I hope he does but He'll be in here before he's
16 hang on God just might call it yeah God just might call it God sent
Samuel down to anoint a king for Israel Went to the house
of Jesse. He said, bring me your boys.
God's chosen one of them to be king. And Jesse sat and fetched
every one of his boys, every one of them. And brought them
in. The Lord said, that's not him. It started with the biggest
one and the oldest one. That's not him. That's not him. That's not him. That's not him.
Went to him and said, are these all your boys? He said, no. I got one little boy out there.
He's kind of worthless runt. He said, go get him. And David
walked in, and God said, Arise anoint him, this is him. This
is him. You see your calling brethren?
You see your calling? Not many wise. Not many wise
men of the flesh. Not many mighty. Not many noble
are called. But God has chosen the foolish
things of this world. to confound the wise, the weak
things of this world to overcome the mighty and the base things
of this world and things that are just nothing, just nothing. I'm looking at a room full of
nothings and nobodies who couldn't accomplish a frazzling thing
on your own. Nothings and nobodies. Ah, but
preacher, you don't know this fella, he went to university,
he got him a PhD degree in four different fields of study. Yeah,
I know, nothings and nobodies. Some of them smart, but still
nothings and nobodies. Maybe smart in all things material,
physical, and scientific. Nothings and nobodies, don't
know anything about God's book. Nothings and nobodies. And he's put this
treasure in these earthen vessels. And he says to you and me, go
preach it. Go tell the world who I am and
how I save sinners for the glory of my son. And as you go, he
says to Sovereign Grace Baptist Church down here in the mountains
of Crow, West Virginia, assault the very gates of hell. Assault
the very gates of hell.