Please turn back to 1 Thessalonians
and that first chapter where we read. I suppose you've been hearing about
the coming election. You haven't. You obviously have
been exiled on a foreign island somewhere. And the more you hear
about it, the more depressing the more confusing and the more
distressing it becomes. But what I want to talk about
this morning is another election. And it is one that the people
of God find reason to rejoice in. It is an election in which
there is only one voter. And that is God Almighty Himself. And it concerns a people that
the Apostle Paul is speaking to here and speaking about in
this first chapter of 1 Thessalonians. If you remember, this is a letter,
an epistle that was written to them Because the Apostle Paul
originally had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach
the gospel in Asia or Bithynia, but rather he was directed on
this missionary journey to Macedonia and a city called Philippi. And you might remember that it
was there that he preached to some women by the river, and
it says there that the Lord opened the heart of a woman by the name
of Lydia, so that she attended unto the things which were spoken
of Paul. Not only her, but many in her
household. But Paul was, as well as those
with him, they were imprisoned and beaten by the authorities
at the Jews' request. And even while he was held there
in prison, He preached the gospel, and you remember the Lord was
pleased to save the Philippian jailer as well as many in his
house. And when they were forced to
leave Philippi, they traveled on to this city Thessalonica,
and they preached in the synagogue in that city. But on the one
hand, what he preached met with the same persecutions from the
Jews who believed not. But that fourth verse of Acts
17 says, that some of them believed, and
consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great
multitude, and of the chief women not a few." They preached in
those synagogues. They were for the most part rejected,
but as the case is, when the gospel is preached, Some believed. And so when they were forced
out of the synagogues, they went in the house of a man by the
name of Jason, who along with others later on were accused
by the Jews saying, these are they that have turned the world
upside down. They accused them in the message
they were preaching. They accused them concerning
the gospel of Jesus Christ as being those who had turned the
world upside down. And so Paul was again forced
to leave this city of Thessalonica so much sooner than he would
have liked to, because the Jews, it says, they set all the city
on an uproar. They set all the city astir because
of what was preached, so he did not have the time to spend there
among those who believed like he wanted." So now later on,
he writes to them this letter. Because rather than him being
the one who built a church at Thessalonica, God, through the
preaching of the gospel of Christ, God built a church, raised up
a church, a body of believers there, and He addresses this
letter to the church of the Thessalonians. That's what He says in that first
verse. And listen to his greeting to
them, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians,
which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, grace
be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. We give thanks to God always
for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering
without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience
of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our fathers. He encourages them. He thanks
God for them. He rejoices in them. And then He says some things
that were not only encouraging to them, but also very instructive
to us. Look at what He says in that
fourth verse. knowing, brethren beloved, your
election of God." That's a pretty powerful statement. He says to these believers, to
these in this church in Thessalonica, knowing, brethren beloved, your
election of God. As a matter of fact, something
like 16 times in this book, he addresses them as brethren. That is, Paul has an intimate
relationship with them. He has a family relationship
with them, one that supersedes all other relationships. You see, his close natural family
was no part of this relationship. And not only that, his national
family, being a Jew among Jews, they had no part of it, and certainly
his former religious family, they had no part in this relationship. You see, like Paul, God, who
is described in these verses as the living and true God, was
their Father. They had the same Father, the
same heavenly Father. And this One who is described
here as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, He was also their
Father, God the Father, and they were His brethren in Christ. There was a unique relationship,
a spiritual and eternal relationship with them in God. And this reason
is because that Christ, if you remember, spoke to those disciples
before He departed this earth, and He said, I go to My Father
and to your Father. So what he's talking about here
is an association that comes by virtue of them in grace being
united by God to the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore to one another. He says, knowing, brethren, And
he knows this, he knows that they are such, he knows that
they are God's elect, because God the Spirit has assured him
of this fact. He's writing these words by inspiration
of the Spirit of God. He knows they are God's elect
because He has seen what God has done in them. And He knows
and is assured of it because He has seen what God has brought
them to do. It is not without a real evidence. It's not a hope or a thought. He says, knowing, brethren, And
then he goes on to describe them. He describes them saying this,
he says, "...knowing brethren beloved." That is, these people,
they are beloved of God. And since God is unchanging,
remember this, If God is unchanging as He says that He is, His love
for them has been as much so in eternity past, and they were
loved at that very moment, and they will always be loved because
He is never changing. Do we know that? God is not like
this generation in our day that talks about love on every level
and is as fickle and changing as up and down as anything could
be. No, He is the same yesterday
and today and forever. He's the One who changes not. So when he writes to them and
speaks of them as those who are beloved of God, they've always
been loved of God. They've been loved, as Jeremiah
says, with an everlasting love. God doesn't do anything for us. He doesn't do anything to us. to make us so that He would love
us. Everything He does for us and
has done for us, He has done for us because He loved us. You say, well, how can He love
a sinner? I'll tell you this, not by the view that men take
in our day when they say, well, they try to separate sin from
the sinner. They say, God loves the sinner,
but He hates the sin. He says, we are sin. But this love that he has for
his people, this everlasting love out of which everything
flows as the gift of God, it is the love of God, as Paul says,
which is in Christ Jesus. An everlasting love. When Paul writes to these same
people in the 2nd epistle, in that 2nd chapter, in verse 13,
he will describe them as those who are beloved of the Lord. They are loved with that same
love that we read about in John 3.16. But John 3.16 does not
stand alone by itself, but it manifests what all of the Scriptures
say about the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. You see, divine love is the first
cause of all that they are and all that they have. And this
may shock you. I hope it doesn't shock anybody
who comes here on a regular basis, but it may shock some people
who hear this. And that is, contrary to what
men and women, and especially preachers, generally try to convey
about the love of God, He does not, and He is not speaking here
or anywhere about every person. If God loved every person in
the same way that He loved these believers in Thessalonica, if
He loved every person the same way that He loved Paul and Peter
and James and John and every other believer we read about
in the Scripture, there would not be a hell. That's right. There wouldn't be a hell. There
would be no need of a judgment. You see, the love of God is in
Christ Jesus, and outside of Christ Jesus, God describes Himself
as a consuming fire. And if God loves everybody, what
in the world does the love of God have to do with salvation? If He loves one the same, and
the other the same, and the other the same, then it naturally has
to be concluded that it must be something done by the sinner
whereby they make good of the love of God, and by doing so,
they actually save themselves. That's not the love of God. The
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, You see, that love of
God which is distinguishing to sinners like Jacob, does it mean
anything to anybody that God, as well as saying that He loved
Jacob, that He also says that He hated Esau? And men and women,
they wrinkle up, and they frown, and they fret, and they fuss,
and they say things like, that's not my God. And I heartily and
quickly reply to them, you are exactly right. It is not your
God. But this is the God of the Bible. This is the One who says that
He hates all workers of iniquity. This is the God who says that
he loved Jacob and hated Esau. Somebody said, well, it just
means he loved him less. What's the difference? What's
the difference? And you see, what people don't
realize is instead of beating our heads against the wall of
divine unmovable and unbreakable truth, plain statements from
this book, what we ought to be trying to find out for the benefit
of our own souls is not how he could hate Esau, who was like
us a vile sinner, but how in the world? Can the thrice holy
God love a rascal and a sinner like Jacob? How could He say
to these people who in a place called Thessalonica, known for
wickedness and vileness, these people who were themselves vile,
helpless, worthless sinners, how could He ever, the thrice
holy God of heaven, refer to them and look upon them as those
who are beloved? of the Lord." He said they were
loved. How were they loved? They were
loved with a sovereign love. God can love who He wants, but
He can only love those who are in Christ. He can only love that
people in Jesus Christ. And being loved, He calls them
the elect of God. You know, there's such a natural
rebellion in our hearts against the truth of God, that most of
the time when we hear that first mention of the word elect, or
God in His Word referring to His people as His elect, we automatically
think elite. These are some elite people. No, He just calls them mine elect. knowing, brethren beloved, your
election of God." That's right. They are described, and if we
know what the word election means, it simply means to choose. But like I said, there's only
one who has the vote here, and that's God. These people, those
that he loves, those that Christ comes to die for, those that
he calls his church and his bride, if you trace back all their blessings,
everything they have, to the fountainhead, it's the love of
God, and therefore the choice of God. Who could deny what honest,
Even an intellectually honest person could deny that in this
book, words like elect and election and chose and chosen, as they
refer to an act of God concerning a people out of Adam's race,
how could we deny that they're there? He says, knowing your
election of God, knowing that you were chosen of God. What does God's Word say of election? Well, He starts all the way back
over in the Old Testament with various prophecies. He says,
such as what we find in Isaiah 65 concerning His people. They shall not build, and another
inhabit, they shall not plant, and another eat. For as the days
of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall
long enjoy the work of their hands." That's not an earthly
people. Though Israel is a type of that
people, And it is said of them who are the picture of God's
elect spiritually, He said, for you are an holy people unto the
Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar
people unto Himself above all the nations that are upon the
earth." If God is wrong to choose a people out of Adam's race according
to his own volition and will, and save them, and bless them,
and protect them, and take them unto himself, then he was wrong
to do so with a nation of people called Israel." He said, I chose
you. We need to get that straight.
Salvation is by choice. God's choice, not ours. He goes on and He speaks of these
same people. Christ does in Matthew 24. He
says, "...for there shall arise false christs and false prophets,
and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it
were possible..." They deceived even the very elect. He says
the counterfeit will be such. that they would deceive these
false Christs and false prophets. They would deceive, if it were
possible, the very elect. What does that mean? It means
they can't deceive them. Not the elect of God. They may
live their life, the most of it, in a false religion. They
may be born in a very obscure place. but they will not finally
and ultimately depart this world without finding out the grace
of God concerning them through the gospel and believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ." Listen to this, what he says in Mark, "...and
then shall he send his angels." What's an angel? An angel is
simply a messenger. He said He'll send His angels,
His messengers, and shall gather His elect from the four winds
from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of
heaven. I'm not on a fool's errand this
morning. You say, if you really wanted
to see all these people saved, you wouldn't preach things like
election, you wouldn't talk about predestination, you wouldn't
point out the error of so-called free will. My friend, if I have
any concern for your soul, And first of all, if I have any concern
for the glory and word of God, I have to tell you what He says. Why? Because His sheep, Christ
said, they hear His voice. And they follow Him. And He sends
out His gospel. He sends out a gospel preacher
here and a gospel preacher there, not the masses and the multitude,
but He goes sending them out with them to call out His sheep. I'm not trying to get everybody
saved. I'm not trying to do something
to get folks to do something. I'm looking for God's elect.
I'm looking for His sheep. Listen to what Paul says in Romans
8. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who does He justify? He justifies
His elect. That's why no charge can be laid
against them. He justifies them, that is, He
declares them righteous through and by the doing and dying of
Christ. Paul again, to the Colossians,
put on therefore as the elect of God. Well, if people find
out that there's an elect, that salvation is according to election,
if they find out it's all of grace, they'll just live like
the devil. No, they already live like the
devil. He said, "...put on, therefore,
as the elect of God, holy and beloved." They're already holy
in Christ. "...but put on, therefore, as
the elect of God, vows of mercies and kindness, humbleness of mind,
and meekness, and longsuffering." Does that sound like that kind
of life to you? They do what God commands. They live by His grace and His
enablement, though not without sin in their lives, but they
strive to please God and to help their brethren and to love their
brethren. They do so because He saved them,
not to be saved. Listen to Paul writing to Titus.
Paul, a servant of God. and an apostle of Jesus Christ
according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging
of the truth which is after godliness." I'll tell you this, election
itself is not salvation, but there's no salvation without
it. No salvation without it. It is an election or the choice
of God unto salvation. He says, knowing, brethren beloved,
your election of God. And Paul mentions this often
in the Scripture. He says in Romans 9, for the
children, Jacob and Esau, 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." I oftentimes
hear people give what they, I guess, would call their testimony. You
know where it always starts? It always starts with them. That's right. It always starts
with them. And the one it starts with is
the one who gets the glory. Paul again, Romans 11, "...even
so then at this present time also there is a remnant according
to the election of grace." And what he was saying is true in
every age. He uses Elijah as an example
of it. Elijah got so weary and down
and so disheartened with what was going on in the world around
him, he said, Lord, take me, kill me. And he said, let me
depart from this world because they've killed your prophets
and there's nobody out there who has any interest in your
gospel. You know what the Lord told him.
He said, Elijah, you get up and preach, because I've reserved
unto myself seven thousand that have not bowed their knees to
Baal. Seven thousand. That's simply
a definite number for a definite people. And seven representing
completion. oftentimes in the Scripture.
That's what Paul is talking about. He said, even at this time. He
wrote that in the epistle to the church at Rome. Do you know
what Rome was? You could call it Little America.
A vile, wild, ungodly, unholy, corrupt place with nothing but
sinners and rebels. But he said, even at this present
time. There's a remnant according to
the election of grace. And here we are at this hour,
and the election coming, that's not the big problem. The big
problem is all this other stuff that demonstrates that everyone
by nature is a fallen sinner. I'll tell you what, when something
like happens as it did this past week, and a man goes crazy, and
he goes into a movie theater, and he shoots and kills 12 people,
wounds 50 more, and everybody is asking all kinds of questions. When are we going to have more
gun control? The man was obviously, in one
sense, mentally a genius. He rigged one apartment so that
all the sophisticated elements of law enforcement and examination,
it took them days just to disarm the apartment. Do you think maybe
he could have made one bomb and killed everybody in that theater? Well, what brought him to that?
What brought him to that was essentially the same nature that's
in every one of us. And we like to look at him and
say, well, he was a maniac, he was so evil and all these kinds
of things. No, he's just like us. But restraining grace was lifted
from him to show exactly what we are by nature. Because that
maniac that you like to look down your nose on, there goes
you and me but for the grace of God. The heart of man is deceitful
above all things, and what? Desperately wicked. That's exactly
right. But even with all that, even
at this present hour, there is a remnant according to the election
of grace. Paul, speaking of his own people,
shows the contrast. He says, "...what then? Israel
hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election
hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." He says, "...as
concerning the gospel, they, the Jews as a whole, these Israelites,
they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election,
they are beloved for the Father's sake." What's he saying there? He said the great mass of them
were enemies, but there was a people from among them, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Paul, and many more who were the objects of saving grace,
electing grace. And then there's somebody that
always says when you talk about election, they say, well, God
can't do that. Wait a minute. His Word says
He's already done it. Your complaint is too late. He
did it from old eternity. It is eternal election. Why fuss now about something
that happened before the world began? Paul says in the first
chapter of Ephesus, he says, Bless be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us. Past tense. He hath blessed us. The gospel
is not what you can do in order to be blessed of God. all of
God's people, they have been blessed. They were blessed in
Christ according to an act and choice of God. Blessed be the
Lord God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. Were you there then? That's what
God says to Job. Were you there when I made the
worlds? Were you there when the angels sang before this world? Where were you, Job, when I did
all this? Does the potter have power over the clay, or does
the clay have power over the potter? God did this. The wise, holy, sovereign, almighty
God, He did this in old eternity, before the foundation of the
world, and He did it sovereignly. He alone possesses the right
to do it. I know what folks say, they say,
well, I believe it's a coordinary will. Well, just will yourself
a million dollars then. Because surely, if you can will
yourself or will God to save you, you can will yourself a
million dollars or you can will yourself to the moon or something
like that. God is the only one who had the
right to do it, and He alone has the reason for His doing
it. And that's what makes it unconditional. That's what makes it not to be
foreseen of works or merit. I've heard all those things wherein
they say, well, God looked down. They think they've really got
this thing figured out now. Actually, what election is, they
say, is God looked down and He saw who would choose Him, and
He chose them. Think about that. That makes
you your own Savior. That makes salvation not based
on His grace, but on your works. And the worst one of all, worst
one of all, is when they say things like this, God votes for
you, the devil votes against you, and you cast the deciding
vote. You talk about willingly ignorant. When this election took place,
you and me and the devil were not present, nor if we had been,
would we have had a vote. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who chose us. Election does not find us in
Christ. Election puts us in Christ. For by grace are ye saved, and
that not of yourselves, I mean through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast. They say, well, you've got to
believe. Absolutely. But no one believes
unless God gives them, as Paul says there in Ephesians 2, the
gift of faith. You don't have faith when you
come in this world. I don't have faith. We don't
ever gain faith. It's a gift of God. It's a gift
He gives to His elect whereby they believe on Christ. And I tell you, this election
of God, it is just and right. If we didn't know for any other
reason, it's so because God does it. People look back and they
say, well, you know, that wouldn't be right. The only right that
we know is the right that is twofold from God. We know what's
right by what He does, and we know what's right by what He
says. That's what's right. Paul addresses
this in Romans 9, he says, "...what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid! For He said to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I'll have compassion." God is only obligated to Himself,
as far as you and I are concerned, first of all, to judge our sin. And when Paul said, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect, he follows that
immediately with this, it is God that justifies. How can He do that justly? Next
statement, it is Christ that dies. He does it through the
death of His Son. Those that He loved, those that
He chose, He sent His Son into this world to die in their place,
to satisfy His justice against their sins. And He can, on that
basis, declare them righteous. You see, it's a choice of a people
from among Jews and Gentiles. He didn't choose all the Jews,
He didn't choose all the Gentiles. All of humanity is divided up
in those two classes, Jew and Gentile. But He's chosen and
redeemed a people from among men. He's chosen, He's redeemed
a people from among every kindred and tribe and nation and tongue. And it is unchangeable. and shall
be effectual. And all of his elect, they will
actually reach eternal glory and be saved for everlasting."
Oh, you're down there in the prison. Look what preaching this
doctrine got you. Look at what preaching that salvation
is all in Christ, not of works. That it's all by your grace.
That it's your gift. That we're chosen into salvation. Look what it got you. You're
down there in the prison. Well, it's in the prison. Why,
he's there in the prison. He's preaching. And guess what? The Lord saves
a man by the name of Philemon, runaway slave. He's there in
a prison preaching. And the Lord is pleased to save
the jailer who holds the key to his bonds. But Paul says,
therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they
may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with
eternal glory. He said, I'm not there on a fool's
errand. God sent me there to cause one of His people to know
that God has loved them with an everlasting love, and Christ
in love has died for them and paid their sin debt, and God
saved them. I'm not trying to get anybody
saved. God's the Savior. Paul said,
He saved us and called us. I'm trying to preach that gospel
whereby He calls His elect, that they might know that He saved
them. He saved them. Paul, Christ said
concerning the end times, He said, except those days should
be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. Why has not some
mass murderer destroyed a whole country with a nuclear bomb? Why have they not, by one means
or another, Lord knows it looks like they've tried to, Why haven't
they been able to shorten the days? He says, but for the elect's
sake. It's for the elect's sake. Because
he's not willing that any of them should perish. This world
goes on. That God might call out and bring
to himself all his elect. Think about how many efforts
have been made to stop even the printing of God's Word. Think of all the efforts have
been made to stop someone coming into a place to preach the Gospel. But they've not been able to.
He has a people. And it involves individuals.
Somebody says, well now, what he's talking about there is this
nation of Israel. When the Lord called Saul of
Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Saul wasn't searching for the
truth. Every sinner in their blindness left to themselves,
though they say they're looking for the truth, what they're trying
to do really is to find anything but the truth. But Saul of Tarsus
was one of God's elect. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
stopped him on the road to Damascus. He interrupted him. He intercepted
him. And if you're one of his sheep,
if you're one of these chosen sinners he's going to show mercy
to, he'll intercept you. He'll interrupt you. He'll interfere
with your life. As a matter of fact, He'll do
anything necessary to save you. He stopped Saul of Tarsus. He
brought that arrogant, proud Pharisee down to the ground.
One old preacher years ago said, he unhorsed him. And his brilliance
and his glory was such that Saul of Tarsus All he could say was,
Lord, who are you? He said, I'm Jesus, whom you
persecuted. You get on down to Damascus. You go to a street called Straight.
There's a preacher there. He's got a message for you. When
he got there, that man Ananias said to him, The God of our fathers
hath chosen you. Wait a minute now. You're supposed
to keep that election business kind of on the back shelf. It's
not something you want a new Christian to hear. It's something
everybody's got to hear. He said, the Lord hath chosen
you. You didn't choose Him. That's
what Christ said. You've not chosen Me, but I've
chosen you. You didn't choose me." He said,
"...the God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest
know His will, and see that just one, and shouldest hear the voice
of His mouth." Individuals. And Paul closes out the epistle
to the Romans. He says, "...salute Rufus, chosen
in the Lord, and his mother, and mine." To the Philippians
he says, "'And I entreat thee also, true yokefella, help those
women which labor with me in the gospel, with Clement also,
and with other my fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of
life.'" But I could tell you this, election is not some kind
of a doctrine that you put off on a shelf and admire and all
this. It is election that is essentially
and eternally bound to the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from Christ,
it would be a damning thing. He hath chosen us in Him. That's why we can't throw out
election. If we do that, we throw out Christ. He, God, hath chosen us in Him. He didn't choose us in ourselves. The only way the thrice-holy
God could love us and choose us was to do so in our substitute,
in our Savior, in our representative, in this One who is our surety.
He chose us in Christ. That is, He chose us in the view
of our being redeemed and saved through His person and successful
work. He is the first elect. He's the one who's called the
beginning. He says of him in Isaiah 42, "'Behold My servant,
whom I uphold, Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth. I have
put My Spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles.'" He'll judge the sins of His people in Himself. He'll be made sin for them. And
they'll be made the righteousness of God in Him. Some old hymn
writers said, Christ be my first elect, God said, then chose our
souls in Christ our head." He's the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. It's a reality. It's the truth. It's sound doctrine. It's something
God has done. And it has a result. Knowing,
brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not
unto you in word only. Oh, it came to them in word.
But these did not hear that word that Paul preached like hearing
a man making a speech. or hearing a philosophy, giving
his philosophy, or somebody giving their ideas or opinions. He said, it didn't come to you
in word only, but also in power. The Spirit of God bore witness
in their hearts that this was the truth. that these things
are the things of God's grace in Christ. That this is a faithful
saying that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners,
and you're one of the chief ones. also in power, and in the Holy
Ghost, and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men
we were among you for your sake. And you became followers of us
and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction."
They received the word in much affliction? Well, to them personally,
when you first hear the truth, it afflicts you. But when you
begin to believe the truth and bear a testimony to the truth
in this world before your family and your friends and your neighbors,
and especially this big religious world, there's affliction. He said, "...and you became followers
of us and of the Lord, and have received the word much affliction
with joy. Some about this gave them joy."
And when the Lord taught it to my heart, It brought me joy,
and it's been bringing me joy ever since. He said, you are
examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Acacia. For
from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia
and Acacia, but also in every place your faith to God is spread
abroad, so that we need not speak anything. For they themselves
show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you
turn to God from idols." He didn't just change denominations. He
didn't just change religions or creeds or confessions. He said, you left an idol. Paul
said of himself, he said, I was before a blasphemer. Well, I
left this religion. They had a lot of good things
to say. No. It was blasphemy. To not attribute to God what
He says about Himself, to not attribute to God what He says
about His Son and how He saves sinners, to not attribute to
God what He says about us is blasphemy. Pure and simple. But you turn to God from idols
to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from
heaven." Which Son? The one He raised from the dead,
that Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come. When He hung
there on that cross, He delivered His elect from the wrath to come. They can only look to God and
see the smile of His loving face. hear about his redeeming mercies
somewhere, he intercepts his elect. He may have to put a man
like Paul in prison for it. He may have to send a man like
Philip out into the desert to intercept an Ethiopian eunuch
in a chariot. He may do what he may do. He's
going to cross your path with the gospel and make it good news
to you. It won't be the ways you think,
but somehow He's going to get you under the voice of somebody
who will tell you the truth to the glory of God. I sure am glad
He did it to me. I sure am glad. I had a head
full of Calvinism. I had a head full of biblical
facts as a preacher. But He sent a man who showed
me that this is all in Christ. He chose us in Christ. He loved
us in Christ. His name was Henry Mahan. I'll
love Him till the day He dies for telling me that. This is
true. But He's the truth. It's all
in Him. That's the only way God could
choose me, love me, save me, keep me, take me unto Himself. That means He gets all the glory.
All the glory. Father, this day we thank You
for such amazing mercy. And we confess, Lord, that had
You not chosen us, we would have never chosen You. If You left
us to our self, to our will, and to our logic, and to our
self-righteousness, we would have surely perished. But blessed
be your holy name, that you loved us and chose us unto salvation,
through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth,
whereby you called us by this same gospel. All glory be to
you, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.