All right, we're continuing in chapter 12 of Don's book, Basic Bible Doctrine. And he's talking in this chapter about the phrase or the word predestination. As you recall, that word is used several times in scriptures over in Romans 8, again in Ephesians chapter 1.

And we read, Don brings out in the beginning of this chapter God Almighty is the one true and living God, the God of the Bible, and He is a God of purpose. Sovereign, eternal, unalterable purpose. Everything that comes to pass in time is brought to pass by the hand of our God. Listen to these words from Ephesians chapter 311. According to the eternal purpose he had purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. This eternal purpose of God is what we call in the Bible terms predestination. Predestination is the decree of God whereby he hath for his own glory foreordained So last week, we spent our time considering that predestination is a Bible doctrine.

We went through different scriptures, and we talked a little bit about that. The basis for our faith is the word of God and the word of God alone. We went over that a little bit. And then we considered misrepresentations. And I'm not going to go over all that again, but Don brought up four points of misrepresentation of the word predestination. So this morning we pick up where we left off, the doctrine of scripture, and essentially the doctrine of divine predestination, writes Don, is this. This is just a basic breakdown of it.

Before the world began, God sovereignly predestinated all of his elect to be conformed to the image of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus. That's what Romans 8 is talking about there in verse 29 and 30. That's what it's talking about. It's talking about us being conformed to the image of His dear Son. Now the Lord Jesus Christ, which He accomplishes through the Lord Jesus Christ, which He accomplishes by His sovereign, irresistible, immutable grace and foreordained all things necessary to accomplish that great goal in the way which is most honoring to Himself. Eternal predestination is God's sovereign work as well. Carefully observe the language of Scripture. It says, He also did predestinate. He did. But this is talking, once again, about His people. Look over at Romans chapter 8, if you would, and see with me what He's talking about there. Romans chapter 8, verse 29. for whom he did foreknow.

Now, let's remember something. When God talks about foreknowing, he's talking about intimately. When a man becomes married to a woman, they are intimate. And that's the best way I can describe it for you without going into graphics. This is what it's talking about.

For whom he did foreknow, for whom he had intimate relations with, he also did predestinate. to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Then verse 30, moreover, whom He did predestinate, notice we're talking about Him, Him, Him. He's the one who's doing it. He's the one who predestinated us to go through certain things, to come out a certain way. Them He also called. And whom He called, them He also justified. in whom He justified, them He also glorified. It's He.

The word He is the original cause of all things. He is the source of salvation. Everything springs from Him. It is written that all things are of God in 2 Corinthians 5.18 and again in Romans 11.36.

Specifically, predestination is God's eternal purpose of grace towards His elect. People say, well, what about the predestination of unregenerate men? Are they predestinated as well? No. Nowhere in scripture does it say that men were predestinated unto damnation.

That's what Don's bringing out to us here. See, so many of us can fall into that trap thinking, oh well, remember what we talked about last week where it was, well, you know, just let it be. Whatever happens is what happens. We were talking about this in Friday night study. Folks, we have a responsibility. I'm not saying that we Trust in what we do in that responsibility. I'm saying there's only one place to trust, but I'm telling you that there's no fatalistic thing that says whatever happens must happen. God has predestinated, and when he talks to the predestination, he talks about his elect. That's what we're bringing out here in Scripture. That's what we're pointing out here. All things are of God, yes.

Specifically, the predestination and eternal purpose of grace towards His elect. Now it is God's determination to save His elect. It is His determination of the everlasting destiny of chosen sinners before the world began. Without question, God's sovereign purpose and absolute decree included all things, all people, and all events in heaven and earth and in hell.

However, the revealed object, did you catch that? The revealed object, those of whom predestination is considered is the salvation of his chosen. Divine predestination is absolutely free, sovereign, and unconditional. This work of God was finished before the world began. Predestination was an immutable, unalterable work of God's free grace in Christ Jesus. His predestination is his gracious purpose to save His purpose of grace founded upon the arising from His everlasting love.

Now listen to these. I've got several verses for you I want to read for you because there's not enough time for us to turn to each one. So I'll read for you first. And these are familiar verses. You know them very well. Jeremiah 31, verse 3. The Lord hath appeared of old unto me. Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, because of His love.

Do you catch that? That word, therefore, folks, these words are important. When the Lord says, shall, therefore, all these things, we need to take all those things into consideration. Don't just slide over. I used to do that. Now I stop and consider these words a lot more clear, trying to think. Therefore what?

Therefore, because he has loved us with an everlasting love, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Another very familiar words we just looked at over there in Romans 8, 29, and 30. Let me read it again for you. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn of many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

As well, Ephesians 1, verses 3-5, 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, because he hath chosen us He hath predestinated us, those for whom He is loved with an everlasting love, He hath predestinated us in Him. He chose us in His Son, the Lord Jesus, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him.

In love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. So again, we see that predestination is definitely a teaching of Scripture. It's definitely a teaching about God's people that He has loved. Listen to these words, 2 Timothy 1 verse 9 through 10.

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest unto the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Salvation is accomplished by the irresistible power of God's grace, according to the sovereign purpose of God and His eternal decree, through the merits of Christ's blood and righteousness as the sinner's substitute. Oh, I love that saying. That's such a wonderful saying. Substitution. Our substitute. We're going to look a little bit more about that later on in our next message.

Salvation is not the result of man's will, but of God's. It is not the sinner's will that brings him to Christ, but God's will. God's will is not ruled by or subject to man's will. Man's will is ruled by and subject to God's. Listen to John chapter 1, verses 12 through 13. But as many as received him, To them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Did you catch that? So then it is not of him that willeth, Romans 9, verse 16, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

Salvation is God's work, writes Don. It is accomplished by his sovereign, deliberate purpose. It is a work which the Lord God Almighty purposed to accomplish from eternity past. That means or the means or the method by which he would accomplish this glory work was devised and resolved upon from eternity in the everlasting covenant of grace and the council of peace. This is God's purpose. In eternal mercy, he determined to save a people for the glory of his own great name by the substitutionary sacrifice of his dear son.

Look over at Job. chapter 33. We'll look at several verses for a moment. Job chapter 33. Job is right before the Psalms. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, the Psalms, and then Job. Going to the left in your Bible. Look at chapter 33. We're talking about the salvation of God's people being God's work. Predetermined from before the world was, look at verse 24.

Then he is gracious unto him and saith, deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. This is talking about God Almighty, before the world ever began, determining, predetermining, predestinating that His Son would save His people. I have found a ransom.

Now, turn over to Psalm 89, if you would. Go back to the right, back towards our text, the book of Psalms, and look at Psalm 89. Look at verse 19. Then thou spakest. This is Psalm 89, verse 19. Then thou spakest in a vision to thy Holy One, and saidest, I have laid help upon one that is mighty. Do we not see the pattern here of how the Lord is pointing in the Old Testament Scriptures us to His Son, the Lord Jesus? I have laid help upon the one that is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out of the people.

Now, let's go over to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. In Romans chapter 3, beginning at verse 24, we read these words, being justified freely, without cost. Folks, that's what grace is. Grace is free. If grace cost anything, it could no longer be grace. So we see, it's talking about grace here.

For being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, a payment, a mercy seat, true faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission, for the passing over of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, this is verse 26, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

So we see, now look over chapter 5, Romans 5. One page to the right in my book. Verse 8, one verse over there, but God, who commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Another one, if you would, one more, if you would, go over to 2 Corinthians, just the other side of 1 Corinthians. You've got Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. And this is a familiar verse for you. Romans, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5.

The last verse, verse 21, for he, for God, the Son, the Lord Jesus, to be sin for us who knew no sin, speaking of Christ, that we might be made, and this is so important, I try to emphasize this every time we read this verse, that we might be made the righteousness of God. Folks, that is so important.

That's the only righteousness God accepts. Our righteousness that we have in this flesh is nothing but filthy rags. We must be made the righteousness of God, and it says here that Christ did it. God the Father had made God the Son to be sin, that we would be made the righteousness of God in Him.

So we see very clearly that salvation is God's work. Going on in my notes here, the death of Christ at Calvary was no accident. and it was neither an afterthought as well, our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross to accomplish our salvation by his death as our substitute, according to his father's own determinate counsel. And we've read that many a times over in the second chapter of Acts, chapter 2, verse 23. It says, by the determinate counsel wicked hands slew our Savior. But it was by the counsel of God. It was by His predetermined purpose. Did He cause those wicked hands to do what they did?

Absolutely not. God is not the author of sin. Our sin is our own. And as sinners, we know that, don't we? God's not causing me to sin. I sin because that's what I am. And every single one for whom God has revealed this sinful flesh to, we understand that. He's not the author of it. But He is the author and the finisher of our faith and everything about our salvation. That's what Don's bringing out here.

So we see it was God Almighty who determined the time, the place, and the circumstances of Christ's death. It was God alone who determined the time and the instruments of his son's betrayal. It was God the Father who determined the time, place, and circumstances of his son's execution by wicked men. And it was God who determined what the results of his son's sacrificial death would be as he was hung on that cross. The Father resolved from eternity to save chosen sinners by the sin-atoning death of His darling Son, writes God.

Listen to Isaiah 53, 10-11. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It pleased God Almighty to bruise His Son, to lay on His Son the stripes that we all deserve. He hath put him to grief, it says, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied by his knowledge, shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.

All of this the Lord our God resolved upon and predestinated for his own glory in the salvation of his elect. He chose to save sinners by the sacrifice of Christ through the power of his grace without any aid or assistance from them for the glory of his own great name.

Whatever predestination affords, brings to path, or accomplishes, is for God's elect. Read the scriptures. Predestination concerns the chosen of God. It secures their salvation, their preservation, and their glory. It is as much more than an abstract theory or theological speculation. Predestination is one of the most practical, blessed, and glorious doctrines revealed in Holy Scripture.

Any sinner who is lost to hell will do so as the result of the deliberate action on their part. I read that slowly. I want that to sink in. Folks, this just magnifies God's grace to us. If we were left to ourselves, we would walk down that very path. We would go down that path just as everybody else is who are not under God's grace. and receive our just reward. When they are cast into hell, writes Don, they will acknowledge the justice of God in casting them there.

It talks about there will be gnashing of teeth. You know, I heard a man say once, I don't remember which pastor it was, but I remember him saying, that to me, he said, would be as though they were sitting there in hell realizing, I could have, if I had just not been blinded by what I have in this flesh, I could have been in heaven with the Lord. Yet He, in justifiable reasons, has sent me to hell, and that's what causes them to have gnashing of teeth. Be sure you don't Be sure you understand this, writes Don, if anyone goes to hell, it's their fault.

And it's their fault alone. They have no one to blame but themselves. But if anyone is saved, it'll be God's fault alone. And that is the result of deliberate effort on God's part. We will have no one to thank and praise for it but God. And God's salvation begins in eternal predestination. Without predestination, we would be damned forever. Predestination is the guarantee of God's salvation. The Almighty predestinated all things for the everlasting salvation of His elect and the glory of His name. In other words, all that comes to pass in time is purposed by God. and eternity, purpose for our souls, everlasting good, and God's everlasting praise. That's what we read in Romans 8, 28 through 30. Turn over to Ephesians chapter one, and I'll bring this to a close. Next week we'll look at, or actually I need to point something out. Ephesians chapter one.

While you're turning there, Kathy and I are traveling to San Diego on Wednesday through Saturday night. For those of you who don't know, we'll be not getting back till very late. on Saturday night when we get back here to the house till after midnight. I'm bringing a message for the folks down there for a funeral. So next Sunday morning we'll gather here at 11 a.m. for the regular service, not for our 10 o'clock Bible study service. I'm just going to be too tired. I can picture myself, I sleep so much now.

So here, Ephesians chapter 1, two verses if you would. And last, we'll have prayer. Verses 11 and 12. In whom? Speaking of in Christ. That's what all of Ephesians 1 is about. The blessings. See what it says there? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 3, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That's talking about all that comes next. Right here to verse 11. In whom? In Christ. Also we have obtained an inheritance. being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ.