Thy mercy, my God, is the theme
of my song. Welcome, friends, to another
broadcast of Morse's For Zion's Poor. The God who rules in the
army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth is under
no form of necessity except that which he has designed in order
to fulfill his own desire and purpose. Only with that rightly
in mind can we begin to discuss the work of Jesus Christ and
the redemption of his people. There would have been no creation
had he not been pleased to make one. So it is sheer folly to
entertain any such notion that he is compelled to save all or
any part of that which was his to do with as he pleased. It
seems quite clear from the scriptures that he has created some vessels
unto honor and some unto dishonor as it has pleased him. Who can
question his doing or imagine some scenario under which he
might fall prey to some form of necessity, which is not the
complete undertaking of the fulfillment of his own design? The Scripture
is also clear that before the design of this creation ever
took place, that He loved the people which He chose in His
Son. The natural man has an innate aversion to the view that God
has determined the future of all men and things. They will
ascribe all sorts of power, knowledge, and ability to Him, but will
balk and rebel against the notion that it is He and not them who
is in the ultimate control of their destiny. They will fall
in worship at the shrine of free will much more readily than at
the feet of an absolute God, who does all things according
to the good pleasure of His will. Therefore, while they cannot
outright deny that the scripture speaks of an election, they seek
in a de facto manner to actually deny that God made the choice
at all. They do this by explaining his foreknowledge to be simply
a matter of knowing what would occur ahead of time. In doing
so, they liken him to a two-bit gypsy fortune teller rather than
a sovereign ruler who says of himself, I form the light and
create darkness. I make peace and create evil.
I, the Lord, do all these things. While it is true that he does
foreknow what will occur, the reason that he does is because
he has ordered all things to occur according to his pleasure.
The foreknowledge upon which his election is based is much
more than a simple look into the future, but rather it is
the knowing of his people or his love of them. We read in
the Scripture that Adam knew his wife, and we clearly understand
that it means more than that he became acquainted with who
she was. The Lord said He knew His sheep. He means that He loves
His sheep. He loves them because they are
His, not because they decided to be His. Their love of Him
is predicated on the fact that He loved them. John said we love
Him because He first loved us. So it seems quite plainly revealed
that He chose the people whom He loved in Christ before the
foundation of the world. These people were ordained unto
eternal life by Him who alone hath immortality and the ability
to grant eternal life to whomsoever He will. The decree of the fall
of man into sin occurred because man's ruin set the stage for
the revelation of the glory of His grace in the redemption of
the people whom He loved. To this end was the world created,
and to this end the Lord Jesus came into it as the salvation
of His elect children. When we understand that, then
we can say that he did all that was necessary unto the complete
and perfect redemption of them. The baptism of John was a harbinger
of the gospel, even as his whole ministry was for the purpose
of announcing the Messiah. Yet John did not preach the gospel
as we now know it. Rather, he was the last of the
Old Testament prophets, and the message which he preached was
more closely related to the demands of the law than the mercy of
grace. Even as the Lord said, there
is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he that
is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. John understood
the inferior nature of his ministry and baptism, as he was unable
to see the unfolding of the ministry. of one far greater than himself.
As he said, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance,
but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes
I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire. Yet Christ our Lord came to him
to be baptized with his baptism, when he had broken no law and
needed no repentance. For in order to fulfill all righteousness,
it was necessary that he subject himself to the law as a sinner,
since he was made sin for us. It was required under the law
that the sin offering be washed, and that the priest be cleaned
when he entered into the Holy of Holies. Thus our great high
priest, who was also our sacrifice, did fulfill the jot and tittle
of the law in submitting himself unto John's washing. In so doing,
he manifested that he fulfilled all legal requirements for his
people insofar as baptism or washing in water is concerned.
Have you been baptized with the fire of Christ or only the water
of men? If you would like a free transcript
of this broadcast, email us at forthepoor at windstream.net.