It was noticeable to me how quiet
we got when Romans 9 was read. It is a fact that most preachers
and many, many people avoid Romans 9. And especially the passage
that says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now, this morning, if you're
a child of God, you will leave here stunned, amazed, appalled
in wonder that God has saved you. If you are religious, you
will leave here angry, upset. Jacob have I loved, and Esau
have I hated. Some of you are already thinking
that's not fair. Well, the Apostle Paul is not
talking about what's fair. He's talking about the grace
of God. Jacob have I loved. Wow. When I read it, that's exactly
what I say. Wow. I'm taken up with the wonder
that God loved Jacob. This is a real problem. For religion,
this passage. Jacob, have I loved because if
you read your Bible, you immediately think that can't be. Because
there was nothing to love in Jacob. And that's exactly right. I don't want you to imagine for
an instant that I pretend to be able to explain the great
mystery of predestination. There are some who claim to know
all about this matter of predestination, attempting to twist it around
their finger as if it were an everyday thing. But he who thinks he knows all
about this mystery knows very little. It's but the shallowness
of his mind that permits him to see the bottom of his knowledge.
He who dives deep finds that there is in the lowest depth
of this matter of predestination a greater depth still. It is a fact that the great questions
about man's responsibility And free will and predestination
have been fought over for years and years and years. And have been answered in 10,000
different ways. And the result has been that
we know just as much about the matter as when we first began. The combatants of predestination
have thrown dust into the face of each other's eyes and have
maybe hindered each other from seeing. And then they've concluded
that because they put other people's eyes out, they could therefore
see. A little weighty this morning. The truth is we have no right
to know more about predestination than what God tells us in the
Bible. If we do not stick to the Word
of God, we will surely go astray on this matter. We have no sure
foundation, no sure footing. If God wanted us to know more
concerning predestination, He would have revealed it to us
and revealed more. And so today, I pray with help
of the Holy Spirit, to shed some light from God's Word upon this
great doctrine of God's divine sovereignty. You're holding on to your seat.
Some men are chosen and other men are left. What scripture do you have for
that pastor? Jacob have I loved. Esau have
I hated. It's a fact. And what a terrible
text it is, I admit that. Terrible in the sense of awesome. I want to be honest with it.
Some have said hate means to love less. But the fact is, hate
is the word used and that's what it means. See the quiet amens? See how quiet it's getting in
here? Because you're being shut up into a box. A box where you
have to give God all the glory, all the praise and all the honor. Love less is meaningless. What
does that mean? Jacob have I loved and Esau have
I loved less. Let the Word of God stand just
as it is. The fact is that God loved Jacob
and He did not love Esau. The fact is He did choose Jacob,
but He did not choose Esau. He did bless Jacob, but He never
blessed Esau. His mercy followed Jacob all
the days of his life, even to the last. But His mercy never
followed Esau. He permitted, that is God did,
Permitted Esau to go on in his sins and to prove that dreadful
truth. Esau have I hated. Some say that
Jacob and Esau are nations. Can you make any sense of that? He hated whole nations while
loving other nations. Is the difficulty removed by
extending it to nations? You tell me it is unjust for
God to love one individual and choose him and hate another.
And then explain the unjust action of God by saying he chose nations. Are you following me? All right. Stay with me. There is nothing
said in this scripture of nations. Look at the verse. here in the
text. Verse 11. Listen to it now and
let this go deep into your very soul. And I'm going to try to
smile a lot, because most of you aren't smiling back. This
is a sweet, awesome, wonderful text that causes the people of
God to say, oh, what a wonder that Jesus found me. Out in the
darkness no light could I see. He put His great arm under and
wonder of wonders. He saved even me. Look at verse
11. For the children being not yet
born. Is that what your Bible says?
Now we're going to take the Bible today. Not what preachers say. Not what the Baptists say. Not
what the Methodists say. Not what the Calvinists say.
Not what the Presbyterians say. But what does God's Word say? Absolute truth. For the children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand. In other words, God chose folks
before they ever did any good or evil. God rejected or passed
by folks before they had done any good or evil. Now we're in
a real mess, aren't we? We're in a real mess because
we're saying salvation is of the Lord. My good works, my bad
works had nothing to do with it. It was the sovereign grace
of God. To God be the glory. Not of works,
but of him that calleth. We must never be guilty of trying
to make the Bible bow to us. I've been in this for 50 years.
Romans 9. I have heard preachers and Christians
trying to twist it and twist it and twist it and make it say
something it does not say. It says God is the author and
finisher of our faith. That God initiates salvation. That He begins salvation. That
He carries on salvation to ultimate glorification. And if you don't
believe that, you can't give Him all the glory. Man is out
to take some for himself. There's the fact of God making
us to differ from another. In the Corinthian letter, the
Apostle Paul says, who maketh thee to differ? Who makes you to differ? How
come your brother's saved and you're not? How come others of
your family are not saved and you are? You're not going to
cheat, are you? You're not going to try to steal
some of the glory, are you? You're not going to say it was
your will, are you? If I were you, I wouldn't say
it was my anything. I would say God sought me, caught
me and bought me. And the reason you're wrestling
with this, I can feel it. You're wrestling with this, Jacob
have I loved and Esau have I hated. I know some of you are out there
like this, God is love. God doesn't hate anybody. Then
rip Romans 9 out of your Bible. Because it's not true. Some say
they do not like the doctrine of election, and I'm not trying
this morning to push this off on you or even to get you to
like it. I'm just proclaiming what God
said. It's true whether you like it or not. And God, listen, $100,000
checks do not come by accident. When we bless God, when we praise
God, the blessings come down. When we give Him all the glory,
the blessings come down. Why do you think one man can't
read and another writes books? God makes you to differ. Think
about this. Every gift you have Every talent. Every ability. God gave you by
grace. You didn't deserve it. God makes
us to differ in so many ways. And especially in salvation. And whether you write books or
you can barely read, to God be the glory. Thank God I can read
a few lines. Why is it you're not already
in prison? Many of you should have been
there a long time ago, right? If God just let you go, let you
go, let you go. Who called you out of Lodibar?
There are some still down in the hood that you know that have
been there for years and God put you out like a brand out
of the fire. Are you going to just say it
was your will, your works, your something? I don't think so.
It was the irresistible grace of God. Some of your friends
still down there blind as a bat. Why did you see? Because God
revealed it to you. I have not seen, nor hear heard,
neither have entered in to the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed
them to us. The most glorious revelation
is salvation is of the Lord. And this is where religion and
true Christianity battle who gets the glory. That's the acid
test of any testimony of any song who gets the glory of any
message who gets the glory. That's the acid test. There's
a vast difference between a braggamony and a testimony. And No bragging on our part here,
but how is it that you sit under a powerful ministry of gospel
truth while others listen to a preacher whose drowsiness is
only exceeded by that of his hearers? Just think about that
a little bit. You'll get it. Now, you can alter opinions,
but you can't alter facts. You may change a mere doctrine,
but you cannot possibly change a thing which is actually which
a thing that actually exists. Jacob, have I loved. Just take it home with you today,
and I hope somewhere maybe out in the restaurant or or when
you get home or in your in your bedroom when you're changing
clothes, God just takes the scales off you. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Or you quit fighting it. You
say, He saved me. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me salvation so rich and free. You may object to election. You
may do that. Whatever you think about it.
God did love Jacob and God did not love Esau. Well. Seems strange, doesn't
it? I know you're fighting it right
now. I feel you're struggling. If you're saved, just consider
this. What a wonder I am. Why on earth
would God have saved me? Why did he seek me out? I know
a lot of people that are better than me, don't you? In outward
conduct. Now, the second great thing about
God loving Jacob was why? Look at Jacob's life. Look at
this history. And I won't have you turn to
all these passages. Salvation is not by works. If
it were, Jacob would have went to hell and Esau would probably
go to heaven because Esau was a better guy than Jacob. Jacob
was a snake, a swindler, an embezzler, a fraud,
a cheat. He was a liar. The Scripture
says so. Even Jacob said, Few and evil
have been the days of my pilgrimage." Few and evil. But God loved Jacob. Before he
had done good or evil, God loved Jacob. It's nothing less more
than the sovereign grace of God. Sovereign grace. Grow to love
it. Grow to appreciate it. Grow to
give Him glory. Moses said, show me your glory. Show me your glory. Here's the
glory of it. I'll have to hide you in the
cliff of the rock because if I show you my grace and my glory
fully, it will kill you dead. So I'm going to hide you in the
cliff of the rock. And you're only going to see
the hinder parts of my grace. And then he said this, here it
is, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Huh? You say, is that the glory of
God? Absolutely. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. Has He had mercy on you? I hear
people say this all the time. I just want God to give me what
I deserve. No, you don't. You don't want to get what you
deserve. See, you're lying now. And you've
been taught by religion to camouflage your gross iniquity. Your total
depravity. There's no good in us. It was because God is infinitely
gracious in His dispensation of grace that He chose Jacob
to be the object of grace. Can you say, I'm an object of
grace? And God did it all. God did it
all for me. There are reasons you are saved
today, as well as was Jacob. It is simply this. God has mercy
on whom He will have mercy. It's just really that simple. The only reason I'm saved today,
as are you, is because of God's merciful heart and omnipotent
will. You know, God had to overcome
your will. Don't be praising your will. Your will was enslaved
to your depravity. A hog is a hog and loves a mire
because it's a hog. The dog loves its vomit because
it's a dog by nature, by practice, and by choice. I wanted to be saved more than
anything else in all the world when I got saved. Me too. But
it wasn't until God worked on my willer. My willer had to be
changed. Yours did too. There was a time
when you loved crack. You didn't love Christ. How come
you love Christ now and hate crack? How has God changed your willer? Hang on to the Word of God. You'll
not go wrong. And if you go home frustrated
and a bit angry with the pastor, and maybe even thinking, you
know, I don't know. I don't know about going over
there. Get you a Bible. Get down and search the Scripture. If I'm wrong, then come and tell
me that you've got Scripture to prove that I'm wrong. But
let's start with Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. Now you
explain that to me. Amen. I'll take you like Grant took
Richmond. And what I mean by that is simply
this. What I meant by that was not
a boast. It's just simply this. I am beyond positive. that the
message of free and sovereign grace is true from cover to cover. The chief
end of man is to glorify God completely, absolutely, positively. Now, why did God hate Esau? Because
he deserved it. Oh, you don't think he deserved
it? Let me tell you this. There will
not be one person in hell saying to God, you gave me what I didn't
deserve. Did you hear what I said? Not
one person in hell will be saying to God, I didn't deserve this. It was your dirty old predestination.
That's why I'm here. It was your dirty old election.
That's why I'm here. Every knee shall bow. Every knee
shall bow. And I want to say to those of
you who don't love Christ, and you won't love Christ, it's because
you won't. You're in love with your sins.
And you won't come to Christ. The truth is, we were all in
love with our sins. And then Jesus came. And then
Jesus came. No man comes to Me except the
Father which has sent Me. Draw him. That's how you came
to Christ. You know, I used to draw my grandmother
Tutty's water out of the well. And I never went out to the well
and said to the water, jump up here in the bucket. I had a rope
and a bucket. I left the bucket down. It filled
with water. And then I drew it to myself. Christ has drawn you to Himself.
What a glorious thing. He didn't have to. You know,
He can still be God and pass you by. That's why the old songwriter
wrote the words. He knew the truth of free and
sovereign grace. Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
while on others Thou art calling. Do not pass me by. He could pass
you right by. And I want to say this to you.
Those of you here without Christ, you're on death row. And I can
tell you this too, Jesus is passing by. He has the key to your cell. You're on death row. He can stop
and let you out or pass you right on by and still be God and still
be Savior and still be Lord. If I were you, I would take a
shot at it. Hey! Hey! Pass me not! Wicked, guilty, undone, yes! But your Lord and your Savior
don't pass me by. It'd be worth a shot. He might stop. I've read in this
Bible where blind Bartimaeus and others cried out, hey, over
here! The disciples said, shut up.
He doesn't have time for you. And the Bible says he cried more
the louder. What I'm hoping here today is,
for the first time in your life, you find out today you're lost
and He's the only One that can save you. I know you've heard
me say this before, but I'll say it again. I hear people all
the time, I found the Lord! I found the Lord! He wasn't lost. The truth is, once you began
to see, He found you. You were hiding in the bushes.
Adam and Eve weren't saying, I'm over here. We want to be
better. No, they had already, you know,
sewed them some fig leaf aprons, which didn't please Him at all.
Hiding in the bushes. Marijuana bushes probably. Aren't you glad God didn't give
you what you deserve? You know, God really has nothing
to do with condemnation, except as a judge gives a criminal what
he deserves. A man does not go to hell because
he loves his sin and will not come to Christ. No man is saved
by his own free will, but every man is damned by it that is damned. Let me say it again. Every man
that is damned will be damned by his free will. You willingly
go to hell. You willingly and you will not
come to Christ. That's what's so marvelous about
this effectual, irresistible call of God. Come! And when the power of the Spirit
of God says come and calls you, you come. Yes. Today if you're going, oh, I
am wretched and blind and undone. Would He save somebody like me?
Listen really close because that's not you saying that. That's the
Spirit. And the brides say, come. Let
him that is a thirst come. And whosoever will, let him come. Are you willing to come? Then
come on! There's nothing to stop you.
It's not whosoever won't let him come. It's whosoever will
let him come. Do you have the will to come?
Then it was given to you by God. You will never be willing to
get free until God makes you willing. That's why you keep
smoking crack. That's why you keep doing heroin.
That's that's why you keep fornicating. That's whatever you do. Whatever
you do, whether you're suburbanite or inner city folks attending
over here, it doesn't make any difference. Whatever you do,
you do because you love it. You know, I'm not here today
because I have to. A mother went into her 45-year-old son's bedroom
and said, you've got to get up. It's time to go to church. He
said, give me one good reason why I've got to go to church.
She said, because you're the pastor. Like, I'm not here today because
I have to be here. I wanted to be here. In fact,
I couldn't wait last night. I couldn't wait to get here. You know, the crack house suits
you better than the house of God. You know, the pot house
suits you better than prayer meeting. You know, you would
rather trust yourself and trust in Christ. That's why you you're
going to go to hell. If something doesn't happen on
the inside of you. We say this all the time. You know, why do
you keep doing the same thing over and over? Expecting different
results because you want to. You want to. God has to put a
willingness in you. Esau lost his soul justly, but
he couldn't get it back by good works. And you may listen, you
may quit crack and you may quit heroin and you may quit fornicating
and quit lusting and quit doing this. I doubt it. But it won't
get you to heaven by quitting stuff. You got to come to Christ,
Jesus Christ. And I thought this last night,
if any, ask you what Clark preaches. I hope you'll tell them he preaches
salvation all of grace and damnation all by sin. That's what I preach. Salvation is by grace. And if
you go to hell, it's because you are lost, uncaring, not bowing
at the feet of Jesus Christ, loving what you do. You're not
going to blame God. You're not going to blame the
grace of God. When we all get to heaven, we'll
sing the victory. We'll shout, hallelujah, worthy
is the Lamb of God that was slain to receive glory and honor and
praise. If you perish, you perish of
suicide. You're your own destroyer. Now,
don't don't try that on me. I know some of you maybe don't
like the doctrine of election predestination. You try to push.
Oh, it's God's fault. It's God's fault. It's your fault. He saw sold himself. You are
too. He saw sold his birthright. Of
course, Jacob swindled him, but. Now lastly, in closing, let me
do a little practical preaching here. I want you to turn over
to the book of Genesis just a moment. And this is so amazing to me. In Genesis chapter 28, God is
speaking to Jacob after he's done everything possible to turn
God off to him. He's done all kinds of things.
Look at Genesis 28 and 15. And here's what God says. And
behold! What does behold mean? Look! That's right. Look! Look! I can't tell you how many times
this word behold is used in Scripture. And it's always used in the sense
of something startling. Something startling is about
to be said. Watch this. Behold, I am with
thee, you crooked liar, embezzler, and will keep thee in all places
whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. For I will not leave thee until
I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. Well, what
happened to Jacob? What's Jacob going to do here?
What's Jacob's part here? God makes no mention of Jacob
except in this sense. I am with thee. I will keep thee. Wherever you
go, I'll be there and bring you again into this land. I will
not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken. to
Thee. And we know that all things work together for good to them
that love the Lord, to them who are the called according to His
purpose, because for whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.
Whom He predestinated, them He also called. Whom He called,
them He also justified. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect, I am persuaded that neither life nor death nor
principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to
come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. My friend, you are being saved
by grace every day. God should have killed us all
a long time ago. He should have killed us all. Some lady years ago said to me,
we're having the Lord's Supper, which we've got to do. And we
got to have to get a baptismal pool up here. We must have 100
people wanting to be baptized. But at any rate, this lady said
to me, I won't be coming to church tonight because I don't feel
worthy. You never were worthy. You don't
come to the Lord's table with worthiness. You come trusting
the blood of Christ, the Person of Christ, and that alone. And
you come with a sweet spirit saying, Thank You, Lord. Thank
You, God. Every day. And so we lift Him
up. I believe the angels in heaven
are not mad this morning, but are praising God along with us.
I'm sorry. Not real sorry. I started to
say, I'm sorry if you're hurt, but sometimes you've got to get
hurt. You've got to be pierced because this thing of self-glorification
and self-worth and anti giving God all the glory is so in us. I mean, I was honored today with
the city council doing that, but quite frankly, a little embarrassed
to My name mentioned too much. I'm telling you, without God,
this place collapses like that. Who's ever heard of a church
going out of business and sending another church a hundred grand?
A hundred thousand dollars? Out of nowhere. I'm going to
the mail tomorrow. I'm glad the mail runs tomorrow. What a mighty God. A mighty God. Let's stand and praise Him. If
you're here without Christ, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust
Christ. Bow to Christ. If you want to
be saved, be saved. As old Brother Barnard used to
say, do it! That's right. I guarantee you,
if you want Christ, it's because He first wanted you. If there's
a desire on the inside of you to trust Christ, that's because
He's calling you. And He will give you faith. For
by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself.
It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Let's
praise Him.