Good morning. It's great to see
you all here today. And it's such an honor to stand
before you and share the gospel. I told somebody a couple of weeks
ago that I'm going to try to keep this message so simple that
by the end of it, you're going to call it elementary. I'm going
to start off today by sharing with you a little bit about myself.
And then I'll go into today's message. Now, I wasn't raised
in a religious family. We rarely ever went to church
or attended a service. We were never members of a congregation,
and we never went to Sunday school. As a matter of fact, today is
the first time in my 37 years that I've ever stood before a
group of people and shared the gospel. And I've never taught
a Sunday school class or done a Bible study. So me getting
up here today, it's a big step for me. And it's a very big moment
for me. But this is such an important
message to talk about. You know, this is the single
most important thing that I can talk about and share with anyone. The gospel message is a message
of eternal life or eternal death. That means we have an eternity
to spend in heaven or in hell. And let me tell you, an eternity
is a very long period of time. So this message, the gospel message,
is very important. We're commanded in Mark 16, 15
to go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
So that's what I'm going to do today is share the gospel. In
my early 20s, I began to attend a local church regularly. I was
baptized, I made a confession of faith, and I joined a church.
Several years later, there were some personal things going on
in my life, and I began to question what I had been taught. I began
searching and searching for what was the truth. And in my search,
I asked my manager at work some questions about what he believed
in regards to religion. He openly shared his beliefs
with me, and I listened. He told me that there were only
two religions. There was a religion of grace,
and there was a religion of works. At the same time, I continued
looking in other places. I searched and searched. I looked
at Baptists, I looked at Methodists, Church of Christ, Church of God,
and others. I even looked in non-Christian
religion. And after searching and searching,
I learned about a truly sovereign God. I learned about Jesus, who
came, bled, and died on the cross and actually saved his people.
He didn't just come and make salvation a possibility for sinners
to make the decision if they wanted to be saved. The Jesus
we hear about at this church actually did what he said he
was going to do. He came and saved his people.
I learned a lot of new words whenever I came here. I learned
about propitiation, redemption, imputation, election, salvation,
others. I heard so many new words that
I had never heard before. Through all of this, God was
revealing to me the gospel of his grace in and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Like I said, God has revealed
so many truths to me, but the one truth that I'm going to speak
on today will be the doctrine of election. So what is election? Election is what God did before
the foundation of the world, before the beginning of time,
before he created anything. He determined to elect certain
people called his sheep out of Adam's fallen race and conditioned
all of their salvation on the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Election is something that most
mainstream religions don't believe in, and to be quite honest, really
don't want to talk about or discuss. But I say to you, read your Bible,
because it is a biblical truth. The following verses describe
election, starting with John 637 through 40, where it reads,
all that the father giveth me shall come to me and him that
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from
heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. And this is the father's will, which hath sent me, that
all of which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the sun and believeth on
him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. Also look at what Christ says in John 10, verses 27 through
30. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me. and I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father, which gave them to
me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." Christ
is saying here that God the Father gave him a group of people called
the elect, his sheep, and he came to save those people. And
he says that he will not leave anyone behind. Not one of his
sheep will be left behind. And then in Romans 9, verse 11,
where it reads, for the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to
election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.
Paul is saying that even before we were born, and we have not
done anything good or bad, we haven't done anything at all.
He says that God makes the decision as to who the elect are and who
the non-elect are. This passage also describes that
salvation is based on God's grace and not of the works of a sinner.
Also look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13, where it
reads, But we are bound to give thanks all the way to God for
you. Brethren, beloved of the Lord,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. And
last, in Ephesians 1, verses 3 and 4, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings. and heavenly places in Christ,
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Nothing in any individual center,
nothing outside of God himself, influenced which centers God
chose to elect for salvation. God is the one who justifies
the ungodly And all of those who God elected for salvation are, according
to Ephesians 2, 3, by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. This means that even God's elect,
his sheep by nature, sinners that are born of Adam, deserve
God's wrath in the same way as those that God does not elect.
A sinner that has been born, has been born again, cannot glory
in anything he has done or been enabled to do to make him to
differ. He knows his character and his
conduct falls way short of God's holy standard, which is Christ's
righteousness, his work alone. Now let's look at what the scripture
says about the standard of judgment used by God. Look at Acts 17,
verse 31. because he, God, hath appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man, Christ, whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given
assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead.
This says that Christ is God's perfect standard of judgment,
his perfect righteousness, that a sinner must have to stand before
God. A child of God knows that, because
of his own selfish pride, self-love, and self-righteousness, he would
have never chosen God. He knows that God had to choose
him. The reason that God chose one
sinner over another is only known to God. Those that are not saved
by the grace of God will fight election to the bitter end. It
is clear that God has revealed the scriptural truth of election
in order to show his elect, his sheep, that there is no hope
of salvation outside of the perfect obedience of Christ alone. The gospel that we believe declares
the righteousness that is required for salvation, and God commands
all who hear the gospel should believe on Christ, seeing all
the conditions for the salvation of sinners, have been fully met by him alone.
All who hear the gospel are warranted and commanded to believe the
gospel. All who hear the gospel are forbidden
to believe anything else. And all that believe the true
gospel will not believe anything else. When God, by his spirit,
regenerates and converts one of his sheep, and he does this
in the work in the day of his power, then they will not ever
desire anything else but the finished work of Christ. Now,
I was once talking to a close member of my family about this
gospel. I was telling him about election,
and he looked puzzled. He then stated if it was true
what I was saying, then some members of our family may not
be going to heaven. Listen, we all love our family
and our friends, and this is something that you hate to even
face or think about. But the thing about salvation
is that God is the one who decides who goes to heaven and who doesn't.
Salvation is entirely of God, and it is out of our hands. God
does, however, tell us to preach the gospel which reveals the
only way that sinners must be saved. A good example of God's
sovereign power over all things is displayed in the analogy of
a potter and his right over the objects that he makes. This is
found in Romans chapter 9, verses 21 and 22, where it reads, hath
not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make
one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing
to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with
much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? God has the power to make his
vessels unto honor or dishonor, just as the potter has power
over the clay to do what he wants to with the clay. even if that
means that the potter destroys some of the vessels while keeping
others. The unbelief of many, even the
majority, will not change God's promise. God's elect in each
generation will hear and believe God's gospel. They shall be made
willing to be saved based on the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ and nothing else. Look at Psalms 110, verse three. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. The day of his power, God's power,
is when the elect of God hear and believe the certainty of
salvation in the person and the finished work of Christ as it
is revealed in the gospel. They are brought to see that
they are justified by the blood of Christ solely based upon the
imputation of His righteousness. God commands all who hear the
gospel, whosoever will, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
be saved. How could the doctrine of election
shut any sinner out of heaven when God himself commands all
who hear the gospel to believe? Sinners shut themselves out by
denying God's election of grace. and insisting that salvation,
or at least some part of it, be conditioned on what the center
does. By God's grace, the goal of this
message today is to try to remove the prejudices against election
and to show its scriptural reality. In most cases, natural prejudices
have been reinforced by perversions of this truth from the enemies
of the truth. Also, natural prejudices have
been reinforced by others who claim to believe these doctrines,
but because of ignorance, confuse and mistake the real issues involved
in God's revelation of these truths. God uses his truth to
eliminate ignorance, confusion, and darkness. This happens in
initial conversion when a sinner, by the Spirit of God, is enlightened
by God's gospel to see the truth that all of the conditions or
requirements for salvation have been fully met by Christ alone. It is also a continual process
in believers where we are continually learning and according to 2nd
Corinthians chapter 10 in verse 5, casting down imaginations
and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge
of God. in bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. The truth of God's election of a people and Christ's
effectual, definite, redeeming work on their behalf are gospel
issues that are vital to the salvation of sinners. These are
not simply matters of theological debate and higher knowledge. These precious God-honoring,
Christ's exalting truths have to do with God's way of saving
sinners. How will a holy and just God
bring sinners into his fellowship? What will actually satisfy God's
justice and gain God's favor for that sinner? These answers,
the answer to these questions will be settled as all eternal
issues are. They are settled by the standard
of God's glory revealed in Christ. God's grace revealed in election
and in Christ's effectual, definite, redeeming work, as he by himself
accomplished salvation for God's elect, are both necessary for
the plain, simple preaching of God's gospel. These doctrines
are vital components of true salvation knowledge of the gospel.
not things to be added later only for the mature Christian.
These are issues that have to be discussed up front and not
later on. They are not doctrines that are
hidden in obscure scriptures that can only be interpreted
by well-learned theologians or biblical scholars. These truths
identify the Christ that God sent to save a people from their
sins They distinguish the true Christ from all counterfeits.
They remove all grounds of boasting on the sinner's part. They show
how God is absolutely sovereign in salvation, how Christ is the
only effectual Savior, and how man by nature is totally depraved
and in need of free, sovereign grace, not a mere savability
or a mere possibility of being saved if he will meet certain
conditions. In conclusion, I'm excited to
share this message with you on such vital scriptural truths
that point to Christ as being the Savior based on His doing
and His dying. The truth can be hard to hear
for those not resting on Christ alone, but the message of salvation
based on Christ's finished work at the cross and that alone is
music to a believer's ears.