For all the saints, Lord, I just
thank you that even though many are out tonight, Lord, I pray
that what we have come to do would be a blessing to us. Lord,
it would be purposed before the foundation of the world that
we are who we are this evening. And Lord, we are purposed to
pray for one another. You have called us to do that.
You have stirred our hearts to do that. So we pray. Lord, for
all of the circumstances, the marriages, the frustrations,
the pain, the suffering, the fear, the hatred, everything,
Lord, that could possibly be boiling in our souls and minds,
God, we thank You for Your glorious grace and that You put Christ
on the cross and punished Him in our stay so that we might
be called Your righteousness. We have been adopted by Your
love. because of your love for us.
And Lord, I pray that as we hear your word tonight, that it would
be more than just a study in Romans, but God also the salve
and the ointment to our souls, to our minds, to our hearts,
that we might rejoice, that we may be fulfilling, that we would
see that you are fulfilling a greater purpose in our life than that
which we can see. And in that we trust and in you
we trust and in all the circumstances therein we rejoice. And we pray
these things in the name of Christ. Amen. Alright, so Romans chapter
8. Was that my daughter? Oh goodness. Romans chapter 8. In this golden chain, we're going
to specifically deal with the call. The call and what most
people would call the effectual call of God. The effectual call
of God. And when you think of a call,
what do you think? You think of someone getting
in touch with you, someone leaving you a message, someone trying
to contact you. And so a lot of times people
believe that the call of God is just like that. that God is
trying His best to get in touch with folks, tap them on the shoulder,
get their attention, but that's not how God operates. We know
that God doesn't operate that way because God is not beholding
to the will of volition of His creatures. God is not beholding
to answer anything that His creatures would suggest He answer. God
is not beholding in any way whatsoever to this idea that He is offering
something that we can refuse. If we and our volition and our
will are connected in any way to our justification, then we
indeed are a condition. Our personhood is part of the
condition of our justification of our salvation, and therefore
we are instrumental in its cause. And so when we think about the
calling, there have been debates through the years about the call
of God. People say, well, God calls everybody.
Doesn't God preach the gospel to all people? Didn't Jesus preach
in front of the multitudes? Doesn't the scripture teach us
to share the gospel? Yes, absolutely. And so as I
begin tonight, I want to talk about two distinctions of the
idea of the call. One, in a general sense, that's
not really given by God. It's just through men, through
the Word. And this outward call, if you
will, whereby we could go out on that corner and we could talk
and talk to people, and we can proclaim the gospel of grace,
we can tell people that Christ is God who created the world
and everything in it, and that He created a woman, and before
the foundation of the world, He purposed to create a body
for Himself inside of her, and He was born of this virgin, and
lived a life of obedience as a human being, still being truly
God at the same time. And in doing so, He fulfilled
all righteousness. all obedience, all perfection,
that God was pleased with Him in His humanity just as much
as God was pleased with God the Son in His divinity. And then
He willfully laid down His life to be propitiation in order to
justify God's people, the elect, those for whom Christ died, and
then was raised to life. He took His life up again. We
could proclaim all of the finished works, the ins and outs of the
gospel of grace. We could talk about those things,
And in doing so, in a technical sense, we can say we are providing
a general call. Because what is that call after
that proclamation? It's to believe in this truth.
Change the way you think in regard to salvation and justice and
righteousness. Change the way you think in regard
to all of these things and believe in this finished work of Jesus
Christ, not just the details of Him and His work, but the
efficacy of His work, that He accomplished something in a great
way. This is what we need to make
sure that we understand. But yes, so there is this idea
that there is a call, but when we see this particular thing,
we see it coupled with what? We see this foreknowledge of
God, and we learned three or four weeks ago that foreknowledge
has everything to do with affection, that God has a favor toward those
He foreknows in the same way it could be illustrated that
God's love and God's foreknowledge are synonymous. so that God foreknows,
He loves, He also predestines, He elects. And that's what we
talked about last week. God elects or predestines those
for whom Christ would die. Before there ever was a world
or a cosmos to reveal His glory, and ever a people ever existing
in time, God purposed all of that in order to save His people
out of the world. This is what we believe, because
this is what Scripture reveals. And so in all these things, there
is only one, then, reality of those He predestined, He also
called. So these things are true equally. For those who He foreknew, they
are all predestined, and all those that are predestined are
all called, and all those that are called are all justified,
and all those that are justified are all glorified. So there is
no separating, well, somebody was called, but he wasn't justified.
Or somebody was justified, but he wasn't called. It cannot be.
That's the point of this. The church in Rome, in all of
their suffering, is resting in the finished work of Christ to
such a degree that there is nothing that can shake them because they're
continually being taught by the Holy Spirit in the most difficult
of times that their salvation is absolute. It's absolute. Absolute. So then we come to
this essence, to the essence of what this call is. Nasir Noah
now. What is this call referred to
here? We use the term effectual call. The effectual call. And the effectual
call is where God overpowers the heart, the mind, the soul,
the will, the volition, the desire, the affections of a human being
and makes them alive through regeneration. That's what the
outward call, that's what the inward call is. The effectual
call of God is this, is this work that God calls us someone
to be born again. Not just like a horn blowing
on the street. Get out of the way, pay attention,
listen to me. It's not just that. It's more
than that. You're mine. That's what the
inward call says. You belong to me. I've snatched
you out of death and dumbness. I've snatched you out of deafness.
I've snatched you out of blindness. I've given you everything in
Christ. Behold, and we see it. We see
it. That's what's so damnable about
all the realities of the synergistic and Oh goodness, free will mentality
of the work of God in Christ. That's why it's so damaging to
the culture in which we live because many people have a resting
place in something they accomplished. Let me say this, and I can say
this in here, but it's terrible for me to say it out there, but
one day I'm going to, or somebody's going to listen to something
like this and they're going to go, oh, you're talking about me. I'm not talking about
anyone in particular. But over the last two-plus decades, I
have heard a thousand times as if I've heard it once, when someone
professes faith these types of words, I am so proud of you. And I just want to walk up and
go, what are you talking about, you know, and pop them in the
head. What are you talking about? I mean, I saw this just last
week. Somebody sent me this little
link and said, look here, I'm so proud of my grandson. Oh,
what'd he do, win the Spelling Bee? Oh, he was baptized. I'm so proud of him. I'm so thankful,
Johnny, that you made this wonderful decision to what, wet yourself?
I mean, what are we talking about here? This is not a decision
of man to be born again. It makes no sense to me. Well,
how do you know this? Well, we've already gone through
this a thousand times probably in the last few years, but we
are deplorable people. We are broken, wicked, evil,
sinful, ridiculously separated from God in a judicial way, in
a spiritual way. We are antithetical to everything
righteous and holy and good. There is none good. No, not one. Not one seeks after God. Not one does righteousness. No, not one. Paul would say in Romans 3, referring
to many Old Testament texts, So that means that the reason
there has to be such a powerful call of God to rip our hearts
into a new place is because in the essence of man's depravity,
there is no possible way in which He could come to the place in
His will to be made righteous. He doesn't want it. And many
of you say, well, I can't argue that. I know a lot of folks who
wanted to be right with God, like Esau, like Pharaoh, like
Judas. How many people do we know that
want to be right with God? A lot of them. We misappropriate
the use of the law and we think that the law of God will teach
them what God requires and then scare them into coming to a decision
that they need to get right with God and then the using of the
law causes them to think they can work themselves back into
a place of righteousness. Oh, and by the way, because you
can't do that, Jesus died for you. Oh great, that makes it
easier. Nobody has come to Christ of their own volition. Though
we willfully and joyfully and desirably believe in Christ. We desire Him. We know. Why? Because we've been made alive.
We've been called by God effectually. And if it weren't for that, in
our state of depravity, we are at the beckon of the call of
Satan. We are always at the call of
our flesh. And see, here's something about
free will. Those who are unregenerate, absolutely,
in their own understanding, in their own logic, in their own
philosophy, have libertarian free will to do everything they
want. That's what they believe. Why?
Because they're blinded to see the difference. They're blinded
to see anything else. They have no ability to come
because they're in a state of darkness. They're in a state
of blindness. And this blindness is deceitful. This blindness is sealed. This
blindness does not allow them to have the strength to even
see the righteousness of God and the work of Christ, no matter
how they may twist it or play it. Think of the Pharisees. We're
going through that on Sunday. Think of the Pharisees, how devout
they were to, quote, God, and how passionate they were about,
quote, righteousness. Yet Jesus' own words are that
they belong to Satan, and all the works they do are Satan's
works. How is it that Satan's works
are to teach of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob? Because
when we teach him wrongly, we teach just as Satan taught Eve
in the garden. Did God really say, see, God
knows that when you eat of this, you will be like Him and you'll
have the knowledge of good and evil. A true statement. But in that, he implied the character
of God was withholding in a maniacal way. I don't want these people
to be happy. on the alternative was, the antithesis,
the reality was that it was life and death. We are unable, as
if we put it in the way they used to put it in antiquity,
theologians of yesterday, they used to say, man is utterly,
in his depravity, impotent to all spiritual realities. Not
that we want to use that too much in our public discussions.
But there's no strength, there's no volition, there's no opportunity
for humanity because of the pollution and the damnable position that
we find ourselves in and our depravity could ever answer a
sincere call of God. It's not possible. It's not possible. I even said Tuesday in our high
school Bible class that the youth ministry of my day when I was
a younger guy, It sort of went something like this. We want
to get all the youth together. We want to get them to talk about and
think about all the things they do in life, and we want them
to gauge those and put them on a scale of good or bad. And the
things that are bad, we want to tell them that they need to
get rid of them in their lives, like the afterglow bonfires with
the cassette tapes. Yeah? or the CDs. We finally graduated the CDs,
but I was too old to be burning music I paid for when I started
buying CDs. I don't want to do that. But
I've seen a lot of that take place. And then we're going to
scare children, young people, young adults into being abstinent
because of the wickedness of that. And we wonder why we have
hang-ups in our day. Then we want to talk about the
dangers and the evils of how we take care of our bodies. We
don't put substances in our bodies that we shouldn't put in our
bodies. And as long as we're doing this, we're honoring and
glorifying God. And it is glorifying to God to take care of our bodies.
to steer away from sexual immorality, to strive for purity, and to
have purity of our mind, and our eyes, and our ears, and of
our mouth, to set ourselves apart in some way, to give glory and
honor to God for the sake of our intimate relationships with
the body, and for the sake of our witness in the world. Yes,
we do these things, but that's not what youth ministry was in
my day. It was, here's all that bad stuff. Now, when you give
it up, you are more dedicated to God now than you ever were. And all of that was it. Look at all this good stuff you're
doing. Do you really do it with all passion? Do you do it with
all affection? Are you really willing to lay
it all down for Jesus? Looks like you love baseball more than
Jesus. Looks like you love chess more than Jesus. Looks like you
love instruments and music more than Jesus. Looks like you love
that Walkman more than Jesus. So then what do you do? Then
all these good things then become opportunities for the bonfire.
And then you strive and all of a sudden you're just like this
weird kid who just preaches the gospel everywhere, carrying a
Bible. You get called a Bible thumper
when you're 15, 16 years old. And this is my testimony. And you wonder, Why is it the
Bible says that Christ suffered for my sins and saved me? And
all these well-meaning, wise, spiritually discerning adults
are trying to push me into something that I don't even see in the
Bible. Now you start talking that when you're 16 years old
and see what happens to your face. Because you talk to the wrong
adult in a way of inquiring and you're rebuking them. You're
not being respectful. You're asking too many questions. Friends, the problem is that
most of the world of Christendom today believes that man is inherently
good and if we can get control of our young people and get them
on a right path of doing righteous deeds, then Christianity will
grow. No, Judaism will grow. And as Judaism grows, Romanism
grows, and as Romanism grows, Satanism grows, because it's
all the same thing. It's all humanism. And sometimes it's
in the name of Christ, with the words of Christ, and the book
of Christ, and the people of Christ, but it's abuse. It's abuse in every turn to tell
someone that they should do that which they cannot do, and that
it pleases God, and it changes their state before God to some
kind of affection from Him. I don't know, maybe all of us
in the room, if we were to think about it very hard, or maybe not so
hard at all, maybe we could actually testify to that same thing, that
we lived in a place of fear and guilt and condemnation and self-loathing,
wondering if we were ever going to be in a place where we could
please the Lord. And what's crazy about it is even when we were
the impeccable picture of morality and cultural righteousness, we
still never felt good enough to be right with God. Because
we're never good enough to be right with God. Because only
one person who has ever lived in this life as a human being
has ever been good enough to be right with God. And His name
is Jesus. He was called the Christ. He
is Messiah. He is the Son of the living God
eternally. We are in a condition that prohibits
coming to God. Because we are in a state of
damnation. We are born under the curse of sin. The wrath of
God abides upon us, John 3. Now we're not going to argue.
Those of you who listened to the Sunday night Q&A, you know
this past Sunday night I answered a question about, or the week
before I answered a question about, is there ever really a
time that the wrath of God is looming over the elect? And the
answer to that is no. But the scripture shows us in
the narrative and the illustrations of the gospel that we cannot
say that to an unbeliever. Because we must adhere to the
instructions, the outlines of the text, which are not contradictory. So we hold fast to that those
who are not believing, the wrath of God remains. And that is the
call of the general sense. That is the proclamation of a
general sense. But I guess the next question
should come in how in the world does the special call, does the
effectual call come? How does it come? Well, it comes
by the Word. It comes by the Word of God alone.
Paul would say in Romans 10 that faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes by the words of Christ. So that Jesus in John 3, as he
tells Nicodemus that his confession of faith, that Jesus is the one
come from God, the prophet, Messiah. It's the only one they were looking
for. That's why John the Baptist answers the way he does when
they say, who are you? If you come in the spirit of
Elijah, are you the prophet? No, I am not the Christ. That's
what he answers, because he knows what he's talking about. They
don't. But he says to Nicodemus, you must be born again in order
to see. You're blind, Nicodemus, and you cannot see no matter
what you profess, and though your logical mind puts around
all the prophecies of the Word, and you see me fitting them very
clearly, you still are not trusting in me as your mediator and as
your propitiation, as the instrument of justification on your behalf.
You are trusting in yourself. You are trusting in your works.
You are trusting in your knowledge. You are trusting in your belief
and having faith in your own faith. You must not have these
things. To that the apostles would declare
repent of that self-righteous thinking. And the means of the
effectual call, Jesus said, is through His Word, or the Scripture
says it's through the Word. But how is it that the Word makes
the call effectual? Didn't you just say that just
preaching the Word of God doesn't save everyone? Absolutely not. It cannot, for it was not intended
to do so. But it will call to those who
are the elect of God. It will call to those for whom
Christ died, those who have been given to the Son by the Father,
and they will indeed hear. They will hear. The Word of God
is the instrumental cause of our conversion, our regeneration.
The Spirit is the one who causes it to take effect. He is the efficacy of our call. We, if we were to play a song,
and when you hear the song, like most of the large megachurches
that I've been a part of through the years, when the music starts,
people would know, oh, service is coming. So there'd be a song
playing, or what we call to what? Call to worship, you know, and
here's the 50 billion people singing, and everything's playing,
and everybody goes, oh, it's time to put down coffee and donut,
or whatever else I might have, and let's just go meander in
there, meander into that room. It's a call to worship. But does
that call, does that organ, does that piano, does that electric
guitar, does that drum set, do those amazing voices cause people
to worship? No, not at all. Neither does
the preaching that I do, or that you may do, or the sharing of
the gospel that you may do through the Word of God. Is it really,
every time, is it a magic formula that every time I share the gospel,
God's going to save the hearer? No, I'm just like the music starting
the worship service. The Holy Spirit is who applies
it to the life of the elect. The Holy Spirit makes it come
alive. As Acts 10 would tell us that
the Holy Spirit fell on those who heard the word and they believed. It is not the work of the preacher
that causes salvation. It is the work of Christ by the
Spirit through His Word that causes salvation. And I'm using
that term interchangeable in this context about the effectual
call, regeneration. Salvation involves all of these
things. So some people, the reason I make the distinction is some
people say, oh, that's not about our justification, our salvation.
Let's don't conflate these terms all into one thing, but let's
call them all one thing, and that is salvation. Salvation. that works is through the Word
by the Spirit. And God has decreed this as He
sees fit by the counsel of His own will to call His people to
Himself in such a way and at such a time that pleases Him.
God has used the natural means of men's voices, humanity's voices,
and the natural means of the vernacular of language and syntax
to reveal Himself, and through the Spirit, by these natural
means, He calls His people. So we don't have to worry about
what else we must do in order to call sinners to faith, and
call the elect of God to hope or to truth. The world is just
full of nonsense and silly opportunities that try to get people involved
in the assembly of the body of Christ where there is no body
to be found, nor no gospel to be heard, nor no effectual work
of God the Holy Spirit in any aspect of any corner of the room.
Maybe the rats who eat out of the trash cans may have more
spirituality than some people. At least they're doing that which
way they were created to do. Well, when it's all said and done,
the world and religious people who are not converted, who have
not had the call of God effectually, they continue to consider what
they might do to employ methods to reach others. What can we
do to get this crowd? And then they have this special
place in their heart sometimes to say, you know, there's a group
of folks that we've just been blind to. We haven't seen the
railroad children. They're living out there amongst
the bushes, out there by the railroad tracks, and we've just
ignored them. So let's do something that will appeal to them. What
do you do? I don't know. I just made it
up off the top of my head there. I don't have an explanation of what we could
do, but I guarantee you, if I drop that into some think tanks, aka
elders meetings, or leadership team meetings, they would come
up with some incredible opportunities. Well, we know that every morning
when they hear the train coming, they run the other way because
they don't want to get smashed. Maybe we could have them something
to eat when they come over here. Give them a hot dog. You get
a kid a hot dog, they'll follow you off a cliff. The Pied Piper
didn't play music that was magical. He had hot dogs. See, I had hot
dogs, and every child in the room went, what? Hot dog. Say
donut, and that gets the other half. Maybe potato chip. Or here it is, how about some
candy? That's it. All the teenagers just salivated.
Alright, so there's always something to try to draw someone to Christ. And the Spirit is the only one
who will bring him. The Word of God being taught. That's why
it is deplorable when churches continue in a manner inconsistent
with the strict prescription of the New Testament that don't
teach the saints the Word of God. What can we do to grow our
church? Teach the scripture to the body
of Christ. Feed them well, they will grow. Feed them well, they
will flourish. Feed them well, they will fight
the good fight. Feed them well, they will resist
temptation. Feed them well, but feed them
not and they'll rot. I just made a poem, didn't even
realize it. So this calling then is a call
that outflows, like verse 28, it flows out of God's monergistic
work. It flows out of God's divine
decrees. It flows out of God's desire
to call His people to love Him for His purpose. And this call,
then, is a call that is righteous and good and holy, and it is
a call of affection. Let's look at a couple of different
temporal expressions of this. Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, the Lord says, and
he looks down, he says, come down, I'm going to your house.
Zacchaeus had no mention in his heart of wanting to change himself
or come to a place of believing in Christ. He wasn't looking
to try to get the Lord's attention, but Christ had Zacchaeus as an
object of His own attention, for He was one of Jesus' sheep. And He called him out. And he
didn't tell Zacchaeus, hey, hey, hey, would you come down here?
He just commanded him to come down. He called him down. This
is a very vague picture, a very small, easy picture that a lot
of young people can grasp. And all of a sudden, at that
moment, Zacchaeus was Christ's because he had been Christ's
forever. Did Zacchaeus do anything worthy of being called a disciple
of Christ? No. Quite the contrary, Zacchaeus
was a criminal. He was a criminal by his own
laws and by the laws of Rome. He was a criminal and a greedy
man. And he was a man who took advantage of his own citizens,
his own kinsmen, so that he might become richer and richer and
richer and more and more powerful. But Jesus called him. And there
are a lot of other places there, the calling of the disciples,
things of that nature. But there's one, and we'll get
to it on Sunday morning in just a few weeks, actually, and it
is the calling. We won't get to the calling,
but we'll get into the text of John 11. The calling of Lazarus. Lazarus dead in the grave, and
the working of the organic matter of his body began to decay. The
smell of decaying flesh. probably permeated the room in
which his body was encapsulated, and yet Jesus goes to the tomb
and says, roll away the stone. And what did the people say?
Lord, the smell will be bad. Whatever you're trying to do
here, just turn around and teach, man. Let's not do that. And he
rolled away the tomb. Now get this. He rolled away
the tomb. My interpretation of that is
that there was an odor. And then Jesus says three words,
Lazarus, you awake? He doesn't say you're awake,
but you are now. Lazarus, come out. Now this dead man decaying
had no propensity for hearing, no ability to respond or to notice
his name. He was a bag of meat laying on
a slab wrapped in cloth. waiting for His body to disintegrate
into the earth. And that's why Christ did that.
That's why Jesus did that. The effectual call of Jesus to
Lazarus stated for Him that He was alive. Lazarus was made alive
by the call of Christ. He was made alive. He wasn't
given a choice. He wasn't given an opportunity.
Jesus didn't sort of make him a little bit alive and say, okay,
Lazarus, do you want to come out? He commanded him with all
authority, come out. Come out. That's what He commanded
him. Come out. And Lazarus waddled himself out. I believe there may even be some
divine work there in the context of Lazarus' body making it to
the door. But either way, Jesus says in
John 11 some very prophetic words, and I will expound on these poetically
when I get there, because I can't help myself. But He says to those
around Him, unbind him and let him go. Let him go. Let him go. In John chapter 5, Jesus talks
about the voice of God. And He says there is a time,
and the time is now, when all who are dead will hear the Son
of Man, and that they will hear His voice,
and those who hear will live. That's verse 25 of John 5. And
in verse 26, Jesus couples that, for as the Father is life in
Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself.
And He has given him authority to execute judgment. So now we
have two different ends of things. We have life, which is to escape
judgment, and we have judgment. Jesus has both authority to have
both. And He has the authority in life
to call the dead and they live when they hear. You see that?
That's the effectual call. And He says, do not marvel. He
is the Son of Man, and that's why He is the Son of Man, because
He has authority to execute judgment. Do not marvel for an hour is
coming when all who are in the tombs... Now He's talking as
what we would say in theological circles, eschatologically. He's
talking about the last days where Christ will call all men to life
physically. The very first part of that is
He's talking about those who have eternal life, those who
have the effectual call to be born again, and the work of Christ
aware to them by faith they will believe. And all who are in the
tombs will hear His voice, and they will, verse 29, come out,
and those who have done good, to the resurrection of life.
Now who has done good? In the sense of righteousness,
no one. So how is it that some can be
called to life who have done good unto the resurrection of
life? Because those who have believed,
listen to this, are those who have heard the words of Christ.
And those who have done evil, those who have not heard the
words of Christ, the resurrection of judgment. So there are several
things, I won't get on them, but for that sense, the effectual
call saves every time. Those who are called effectually,
they do not come and then wonder what they must do now to have
eternal life. They are granted life and there is no escape from
life, but there is those who have heard an escape from judgment. So therefore, this nonsense and
the silliness that we've all heard throughout the last hundred
years or so about this judgment of God whereby He will grant
favors and privileges and esteem and crowns and jewels and everything
else, to Christians who have done more honorable things with
their life versus those who have not done much at all, like the
thief on the cross. Oh, sore sad fella. He's born
again and then he dies. He'd be good to get a plug nickel
if you know what those are. Used to have those as kids. He'd
be good to get the lollipop stick, much less a piece of candy for
his good deeds. He won't even get a star for
his chart or his chest. He's just like, well, you're
here. Be thankful. Stand over there in the corner
with the rat and do what you're supposed to do, worship. No,
there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, so then in
the same way there's no judgment. For we who are called by Christ
do not have to fear the judgment of God. We should never whatsoever
fear, even as believers, that we are going to do something
in which God is going to put us in a place or a tier to where
we would actually have some grief, anxiety, frustration. Aren't
all of those things antithetical to the gospel of grace and peace?
Yes, it's ridiculous. It's a silly notion. And yet
we teach our kids these things forever, much like most people
talk about Pierre Noel. If you're good, you get. If you're
not, forget it. Can't say that out loud. People
get really mad when their children hear things. But it's just one
of those things that our culture has just become pharisaic. because it's the natural state
of humanity. But here's the great news. In
the latter few minutes I have, let me talk about this call in
a way that should give us joy. It is irresistible. The grace of God given to you
as a child of God is irresistible. That means in the fact that you
can't do anything to come or to believe, and God must do something
divine in you in order for it to be effectual, the same thing
is true is that you will not miss it. You will not mishear
it. You will not come by accident,
but by the will of God, and therefore you will not reject it. You will not reject the gospel
of grace, beloved. if indeed you are beloved." The
irresistible call is shown throughout the entirety of Scripture, just
the narrative of the prophets of old where we see that God
calls a king to what? He calls kings to call a census. Why? The man's standing there,
he's sovereign ruler, he can do anything he wants to, and
he goes, I think I'm just going to call everybody down here and count them in order
that God's purposes might be fulfilled. He caused Pharaoh
from his birth to be raised up in order that his power might
be revealed in him. He caused Moses to be raised
up in order that he might be a picture of the Redeemer. He
caused Joshua to be a warrior and a general for the army of
Israel in order that he might take the name Yeshua, Yahweh
saves. The same name as Jesus. These people are not puppets
or pawns in the hands of God. They are purposed, and they are
decreed, and they are righteous because they are set apart for
the purpose of God. In other words, His work in them
are righteous, not they themselves. Pharaoh, of course, not righteous.
Judas, of course, not righteous. But His work in them is righteous.
For who says to the potter, why have you made me this way? Does
the clay say, don't do these things? Do this with me. No. So this call is irresistible. God says no one can resist His
will. Paul will say that even in the
next chapter, verse 19. God destroys the will of man. God destroys the plans of man.
God bends ships under His will. God destroys armies. God destroys
the mighty and allows the weak to stand upon the hill of success,
the hill of victory. And so this calling is an irresistible
call, and it's also a gloriously gracious and unchangeably immutable
call. I know that seems like a bunch
of redundancies, but it is glorious, it is gracious, it is done because
of God's love, and it is unchangeably immutable. Yes, that's redundant. But I want you to see that the
call of God, when it is sent, can never be removed. We've already
talked about how we will not miss it, how we will not ignore
it, how we will not resist it, but God also will not remove
it from us. God will not take away life because
in the sense that God has done all that He does to save His
people, He is most glorified in their redemption to the praise of His glorious
grace. It's not my opinion. It's the opinion of Paul. who
says that all the things in Ephesians, all the things that God has done
in the context of salvation is to the praise of His glorious
grace. In him you also, when you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed
in Him," Ephesians 1.13, "...were sealed with the promised Holy
Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire
possession of it, to the praise of His glory." That's a recapitulation
of the entire 8th chapter of Romans. To the praise of His
glory. So in closing, we look and we
see these truths. We see that there is nothing
that can separate us from the love of God for the very next
thing that we'll see next week. We'll see those who are called
are justified and justified or glorified. But we already know
what the next question is. What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare His own
Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him
graciously give us all things? So in that, let's pray. Father,
we're so thankful for Your glorious grace, for the truth of the Word
of God, for the truth of Your Holy Spirit found therein. who does the work of calling
us by the ministry of Your Word and sealing us for the day of
redemption. Father, I pray that we would
rejoice in this, that we would rest in this, and that everything
that we are and everything that You've made us to be would give
You glory and honor forever and ever. Amen. Thank You, Church. Let's sing.