passage that we're going to look
at starts off in verse 10 and it may it's not a You may look
at look and say well, it's not a good place to begin but consider
this he says and not only this What's the this talking about?
Well, he's talking about God's sovereign electing grace Whereby
God chose Abraham and And out of Abraham, he chose his son
Isaac, the son of Abraham, the miracle son of promise, the son
of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, the child of promise. And then
from Isaac and Rebekah, he chose Jacob to be the physical line
through which the human nature of Christ, the Messiah, would
come into this world. And so that certainly is a promise,
and we will have to say that nations are included in this,
but to say that because that he's talking about nations, that
he's not talking about the salvation of individuals is to deny the
context. First of all, he made it clear
that they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. And of course,
his point there is that just because a person is a physical
descendant of Abraham, does not automatically make that person
a spiritual child of God. And we looked at many passages
of scripture. One that always comes to mind
for me is that Romans 2, 28 and 29. He is not a Jew which is
one outwardly, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly. And circumcision
is not that of the flesh, but of the heart and of the spirit,
whose praise is not of men, but of God. You see, that's the creation
of God. That's talking about a regenerated,
born-again sinner who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ from
the new heart, which is a gift of God, the new spirit. The resurrection life of Christ
imparted to us because he died for us and was buried in a rose
again the third day. So that's talking about an individual.
And he talks about how the children of promise in verse eight are
counted for the seed. Who are the children of promise?
Well, the Bible teaches us the children of promise are those
who believe in Christ. Sinners who are brought by God
to believe in Christ and rest in Christ. And so there is the
promise, the seed, the promise of Christ himself. But Christ
acted not as an individual, but as a representative, as a surety,
as a substitute, as a redeemer. And so as you look at this, when
Paul, back in verse seven, he talked about that physical connection
with Abraham didn't make one automatically a spiritual child
of God, and he goes back, you think about Isaac, Abraham and
Sarah's miracle child of promise, not conceived of the flesh, that
is by the power of the flesh, but conceived by the power and
the promise of God in Abraham and Sarah when Abraham was 100
and Sarah was around 99. And then God chose Isaac to be
the child of promise, not Ishmael who was the child of the flesh.
You remember Ishmael was the child of Abraham and the bond
woman. Hagar, the Egyptian bondwoman. Well, the Jews could have argued,
well, we're favored because we're true children of Abraham and
Sarah and not like Ishmael, who was out of wedlock to another
woman, an Egyptian, a Gentile. And that's what they could have
argued. So Paul goes on and he's talking, he goes on, he said
in verse 10, and not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived
by one, even by her father Isaac, so now he's going to go to Jacob
and Esau. Incidentally, you do remember
that Rebecca was barren herself. Isn't this amazing how God works
in his power? Here's Abraham who married a
woman, Sarah who couldn't have children, And God miraculously
and powerfully blessed her with a child, even at 99 years old. Well, Isaac married Rebekah.
And Rebekah was, she too was barren. And it talks about how
in Genesis 25, 21, how she prayed and then God gave her a child.
It was always God's intention to do so. because it was through
Jacob. You know, I look at this, you
know, when we talk about the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, you know, Abraham, he is a prime example of God justifying
the ungodly. And God bringing a sinner from
idolatry to true worship by faith in the promised Messiah. And
remember, Christ said, Abraham, rejoice to see my day, and he
saw it and was glad. And when he talked to the Pharisees,
who were physical descendants of Abraham, he said, I know you're
Abraham's seed, but you're not spiritual children of Abraham.
You don't believe me. You don't honor me. Abraham didn't
do that. He honored the Messiah. He believed
in the Messiah. Abraham looked for the promise
of the Messiah. When Paul is relating that back
in Romans chapter four, what does he do? He shows this is
how Abraham was justified. It wasn't because he was a Jew.
There were no Jews back then. It wasn't because he was a good
person or one who worshiped God. He was an idolater. He was called
out of Ur of the Chaldees. And they were all idolateries.
And God chose him and brought him out sovereignly, unconditionally. and used him for that purpose.
And so Abraham believed God, and there comes Isaac. He's the
child of promise. What promise? Well, ultimately,
it was the promise to send the Messiah, but not just that promise. It was the promise that God made
to save sinners by his grace, through the mercy and grace that
he would provide justly in Christ to his people. And so this is
talking about salvation of individuals, and then he says Jacob. Jacob
is a prime example of sinners saved by grace. Jacob, read his
biography. You look at Jacob and Esau, listen,
verse 11, he says, for the children not being yet born, being not
yet born. Now you can't get any plainer
than this language here. Neither having done any good
or evil. Now think about that. These people who say, well, election
means God looked down through the telescope in time and foresaw
what we would do. This destroys that heresy. God
chose Jacob and left Esau to himself before they had done
any good or evil. Had nothing to do. Now why did
God do it that way? That the purpose of God, according
to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. The election of grace. And all
of this we're gonna see in a couple of weeks when we get down through
here. We're gonna see, you know what this does? This is all to
the glory of God. It gives no glory to man. It's God's sovereign choice,
God chose a people, and he gave them to Christ, placing all of
the conditions of our salvation upon Christ, made him to be our
surety, charging him with the debt of our sins, and he obligated
himself to come in time and to become incarnate to be made of
the seed of David according to the flesh, and go under the wrath
of his father for the sins of his people, and pay that debt
in full. That's what all this, that's
what the election of grace is. It's not just that God chose
a people. He did. But he chose them for his glory.
And his glory is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, the
person and the finished work of Jesus Christ to save his people
from their sins. And they're identified all through
the Bible as the elect of God, the chosen ones. So he says,
is that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not
of works, but of him that calleth. So this destroys any notion of
conditional election. We believe unconditional election,
not conditional. All conditions placed on Christ,
none on us. And we can ask the question,
I'm gonna get into this more next time. We can say, well,
why did God choose Jacob and not Esau? Or why didn't God choose
Esau and not Jacob? Now, if you read their biographies,
as we've got what little we have in the scripture, we've got more
about Jacob than we do Esau. But pretty much, you could conclude
that Esau, as far as human beings are concerned, was really a better
guy than Jacob. Jacob, they call him the supplanter. Somebody said that's what his
name means. It may be. It's kind of like a cheater.
I hesitate to say it because a lot of people today, they name
their kids Jacob. They wouldn't say, well, I don't
want to name him Cheater. I personally like the name Jacob.
I think we need to claim ourselves to be blessed, to be Jacob's. Because God said, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated. And I always think about Malachi
3.6. I am the Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob
are not concerned. What is Jacob? He was a sinner
saved by grace. That's what I am, that's what
you are. And you know something will never rise above that in
this life? Only a sinner is saved by grace.
This is my story. To God be the glory. But here,
in God's choice of Jacob, we see such a glorious picture of
salvation. Now people, you know, these passages
of scripture, First of all, there's some of the most ignored scriptures
that you'll see today. Most preachers don't even deal
with it. In fact, I think some of you told me stories about
before you left First Baptist and came here, that the pastor
was going through the book of Romans, and when he came to Romans
8 or 9 or somewhere, he said, we're going to skip over that,
jump over to, I guess, chapter 12. So sometimes they're ignored. I think mostly you could probably
say they're ignored. And the reason is, is they'll
say, people will say, well, we don't preach these because people
don't understand them. I contend this. I say, it's not
that you don't understand it, it's people just don't like it.
They hate it. I mean, what, you know, God chose
Jacob, passed by Esau. God loved Jacob, hated Esau.
People don't want to hear that. You understand that. But now
these scriptures are sometimes twisted. Look at verse 12. It
says, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.
This was God's sovereign way of dealing with human beings.
You know, the law of the firstborn says the elder is in control
of the spiritual well-being of the family. And the elder, the
firstborn son, is sort of like the priest of the family. especially
during the age of the patriarchs. And they had the responsibility
to lead the family in the word of God and in the ways of God.
But Esau didn't care about that. You know, when he sold his birthright,
that birthright wasn't money. Esau had plenty of money. At
birthright was the responsibility to be the spiritual leader to
lead the family in the ways of God. And Esau didn't care about
that. Well, we're all Esaus by nature. None of us care about those things
by nature. Because we're by nature unbelievers. We're by nature idolaters. We
worship a God like ourselves. And Esau was a man of the world.
He was the all-American boy, you might say. He was his daddy's
favorite. Jacob was a mama's boy, they
say. Jacob was a conniver. He was
a plotter. He was a cheater. You know, he
was always looking for the easy way out. And so here's Jacob,
who was probably, in character and conduct, less of a likable
person than Esau. And yet God said, the elder shall
serve the younger. This was God's way. This is his
sovereign way. Well, a lot of people, when they
go to these verses, they'll twist them. Look at verse 13. As it
is written, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Now, how many
of you have heard him say, well, that really means that Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I loved less? A lot of people say that, don't
they? Well, that's not what it means. What people are doing
there is they are worshiping a God who's like themselves.
Now, in our realm of existence here, we all know people who
are, we might say it this way, they're easy to like or easy
to love. And we all know people will say,
well, they're harder to like, harder to love. And we might
even say, well, I love those who are easy, I love them, and
I love those others less. We might be able to say that.
But that's not how God views things. That's not a relationship
that exists between God and any person. You can't say God loved
Jacob and God loved Esau less. God doesn't love anything less.
When God loves, it's perfect love, always. It's 100%. There's no 100% and then 50%. It's all in and all God's love. And the thing about it is, when
people approach scriptures like this, think about most of us
growing up, what were we told? We were told God loves everybody,
Christ died for everybody, and if you'll just do your part,
whatever that is, depending upon what denomination you're from,
then you'll secure your salvation. That's what people are told,
but that's a false gospel. And so the Bible speaks out differently
in the opposite. The Bible, most people, they
can't conceive or they dislike or it's detestable to them to
think of a God who hates anybody. And yet when God the Holy Spirit
comes to us and convicts us of our sin, don't we kind of wonder
how could God love anybody? So the question is it's not how
could God hate Esau, the question is how could God love Jacob? We would probably see Jacob as
less lovable than Esau. How could God love anybody? How
could God love any sinner? And we're never told. We're never
told until we come in confrontation with the gospel, the true gospel,
we're never told that God's hatred is not like ours. You see, when
I hate someone, now we can talk about righteous indignation,
but that's not what I'm talking about now. When we hate someone,
it's usually because of our selfishness or our pride or our envy, it's
sinful. That's why we're told to love
our neighbor as ourselves. But when God hates, it's not
sinful. It is true righteous indignation. It's God's wrath against sinners
to whom sin is imputed. Now you look over in passages
like Psalm 5, which I think I've got cited here, Psalm 5.5, I
think we're talking about God hateth all workers of iniquity. Well, wasn't Jacob a worker of
iniquity? Aren't I a worker of iniquity?
Aren't you? You know what iniquity means,
don't you? That's sin. It means you don't measure up,
you don't balance out. The scales are against you. We're
like old Belshazzar. We're weighed in the balance
and found wanting. So how can God love any of us?
We're sinners, we don't deserve God's love, we can't earn God's
love. So that's the question. We'll
see under this preaching that's going on today that tells everybody
God loves you, Christ died for you, now you can do your, if
you just do your part. Whether it's walk an aisle, pray
a prayer, repeat after me, get baptized, or whatever. You can
seal it, you can secure it. The justice of God, The issue
of how God saves sinners really doesn't come into view. Really,
it's a deception that people are sealed into unless the Spirit
of God just prides us out by convicting us of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment. But here's the question. Somebody
said that Job is the oldest book of the Bible. Well, this may
be the oldest question. How can a man be just with God? Those whom God loves, he saves. That's what the scripture teaches.
What is God's love? It's his purpose to glorify himself
in the salvation of his people through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and
what? Now here's the question, here's
the answer. How could God love Jake? How could God love me?
How could God love you? How could God love any sin? He
hates all workers of iniquity. Well, there's got to be a way
that God can look at a sinner and not charge him with sin,
not charge him with iniquity. Well, what way is that? Hearing
is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent
his son to be the what? Propitiation. There's your key
for our sins. What is a propitiation? It's
the sin-bearing sacrifice that satisfies the justice of God. God's love toward Jacob, God's
love toward his elect, God's love toward any sinner is a just,
holy, righteous love that takes away our iniquity, takes away
our sins. And we can say with David of
old, blessed is the man to whom the Lord what? Imputeth not what? Iniquity. Yes, I'm a sinner. Yes, I'm a
worker of iniquity. But who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? You see, that's the issue of
the gospel. That's how God can be just and justify the ungodly. That's the lesson we learned
from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are the things that a man
like Esau, a man of the earth, didn't care about. None of us
care about by nature, but God intervened in Jacob's behalf,
and it was based upon his sovereign choice. Why did God choose Jacob
and leave Esau to die in his sin? Well, basically, there's
only two scriptural answers given to that question. And none of
it has to do with any goodness, or any cooperation, or anything
that Jacob did, or would do, or would try to do. And the two
answers, one of them's right here, look at it again. Verse
11, that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of
works, but of him that calleth. What is that talking about? That's
the glory of God. That God might get all the glory
in this. That God alone, and not Jacob
or you or me, could take any credit for our salvation. that we might say with the Apostle
Paul, by the grace of God, I am what I am. That's it. It's not
because I'm an American, it's not because I'm a conservative,
it's not because of being a Jew, it's not anything except God's
glory. It pleased God. And the second
answer is found in Matthew 11. Let's turn over there just a
moment. Here's where the Lord is talking
about how God, in his sovereign mercy, verse 25, listen to this. Matthew 11, 25. At that time,
Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise
and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. The wise and the prudent there
is man by nature. The babes here are those whom
God has blessed in his power to bring us down off of our self-sufficiency
and make us realize that if I'm saved, it's sovereign grace,
it's sovereign mercy. I'm like that old publican, God,
be merciful to me. That's what the babe is there.
The babe is one, you know, a babe is one who is totally dependent
upon the parents for its physical well-being. Well, that's what
we are in our Heavenly Father. Everything in salvation, none
of it's dependent on us, it's all attributed to Christ. All attributed to our Father.
And it says in verse 26, now here's the answer. Why did God
choose one and not another? Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. It doesn't say they seemed good
in thy sight. Because we're not good in his
sight. It seemed good, what? God's choice. God's purpose to hide it from
the wise and the prudent, and his purpose to reveal it unto
babes. Now there's the only two scriptural
answers you get for that. And we're gonna, next time when
we talk about objections to sovereign mercy, we'll see this too. And
here's what I tell people. And the reason I say this is
because this is the way to approach the scripture. This is the word
of God, isn't it? And imagine yourself sitting
down with the Apostle Paul and having a conversation with him.
And you realize that the words coming out of Paul's mouth are
verbally inspired words from God. Paul's just the instrument. He's just like, just like I've
got a pen here. This pen can't write anything
unless I do it. And that's the way Paul was,
that's the way we are. We're just the instruments. God is
the authority and the power. When we preach the gospel, we
can't save anybody, can we? We can't save them, we can't
give them a new heart. John the Baptist said that, he
said, I can baptize with water, but I'll tell you somebody's
coming who can baptize you in the spirit. He can birth you
again, he can give you a new heart. He can bring you to faith
and repentance. That's the one I'm looking to.
And so here's the apostle Paul, and you're gonna, he's told you,
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. That's God's purpose
of election. And you're gonna ask him some
questions. You're gonna say, well now Paul, doesn't that sound
unfair? Doesn't that sound unjust? And Paul's gonna give the answer,
and it's the word of God. And let me tell you something
about it. You can read on ahead. This is the last word. You say,
well that doesn't satisfy me. Well, it better satisfy you.
Because this is the last word. And there's no other. Well, you
know, in there in Romans 9, 13, when he said, Jacob, have I loved
Esau, have I hated? You know, he was quoting from
the book of Malachi there. And as some, as I said, they
want to soften that to say, Jacob, have I loved Esau, have I loved
less? Realize that kind of reasoning
comes from self-righteous people who assume that we deserve God's
love. We think God loves everybody
because that's the way God ought to be. But the Bible's just the
opposite. The Bible tells us that if God
were to give any of us at any time what we've earned or deserved,
it would be his hatred. It would be his wrath. And I'm
talking about right now. You know, as one who has been
blessed with the grace of God, and you see this too in yourself,
right now, if God were to give me what I've earned or deserved,
what would it be? It'd be his hatred and wrath.
We are always objects of God's sovereign mercy. The Bible says
in Romans 9, over there, we're gonna get to, that he says, the
riches of God's glory, verse 23, That God might make known. Remember I told you those two
answers? That first one was his glory.
And that's what it says in verse 23. And that God might make known
the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, listen to this,
which he had aforeprepared unto glory. Somebody said, well, at what
time did God start this? It's always been, folks. Eternity
past. Brother Jim Bird, he says, old
eternity. I guess we're in the new eternity.
But it's eternal. But that's the way it's always
been. That's the way it always will be, isn't it?