Well, our second speaker of the
evening, Brother Bruce Crabtree, pastor of the Sovereign Grace
Church in Newcastle, Indiana. We're so delighted, Bruce, that
you're here. We hope you feel right at home.
You come preach to us. Don't be in a hurry. We're not
having anything to eat after. We have plenty of time. Don't
you be in a hurry. You preach the gospel the Lord laid on your
heart. Thank you, Frank. Thank you. I want you to turn
to John chapter 6 with me, please. Brother Donnie just preached
my confession of faith too, as well as yours. Thank you, Frank, for the kind
invitation. It's good to see everybody. I
just have one verse of scripture I want to read in John chapter
6 and verse 37. Very familiar passage. John chapter
6 and verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. My subject this afternoon is
election. Mike asked me what I was going
to preach on, and I told him election. I thought about, in
telling this, why we love election. Why I love
election, and why you love election. We love the scriptures. Why do
we love the scriptures? Because we love the author. And
why do we love the teaching, the doctrine, the truth of particular
redemption because we love our Redeemer. And why do we love
effectual calling? It's more than just because it's
taught in the Word. We love Him who calls us. So
we love election. We love the doctrine of election
because we love Him who chose us. That's my subject this afternoon. I have just four simple points
that I want to share with you. The first one is the fact of
election. All that the Father giveth me. That's election. He giveth to
me. A gift. That's election. The second point is this. The
very first thing that election reveals is the Father. all that the Father giveth to
me. Then the third thing is this,
election secures our coming to Christ, to be saved by Him. All that the Father gives to
me shall come to me. And then my fourth point will
be this, election secures the eternal and final salvation of
all the elect. I will in no while cast him out. For no reason at any time will
I cast him out. So let's look first at the fact
of election. The Lord Jesus says here that
all that the father giveth me. All that the father giveth to
me. Now we know from reading the holy scriptures that the
father has given to his son everything. He's the possessor of everything,
not just as the creator of it, but as the gift from his father.
The father loveth the son and hath given all things unto his
hands. There is nothing seen, there
is nothing unseen, but that Jesus Christ does not own it. It's
his by gift. The son will come up in the morning,
that's his. The moon will come out tomorrow
night and light the sky. That moon is His. Everything
in the world is His. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof. It's all His, isn't it? I sometimes
wonder when Satan was tempting our Lord and he made this statement. He said, if you'll bow down and
worship me, I'll give you all of this. I just wonder if he
wasn't lying. Where did he get it? He didn't create anything. Trouble. I think he was lying. He may
have stole some things, but to stand before the judge with stolen
goods and brag that it's yours? All of this is mine. No, it belongs
to Jesus Christ. God gave it to Him. Everything. All people are given to Him. The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Every man and boy and girl and
woman belongs to Jesus Christ. Ask of me, his father said, I'll
give you the heathen for your inheritance. and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession. You'll rule them with a rod of
iron. You'll dash them in pieces like
a potter's vessel. Jesus Christ is the Possessor,
the Ruler, and the Disposer of all men. Isn't He? We used to make that statement
before the Lord saved us and we learned better. What will
you do with Jesus? That's not the question, is it?
What will He do with us? He's not in my hands to dispose
of. I'm in His. I'm His. You're His. All souls are mine. They belong to Jesus Christ. Spurgeon used to say that men
will be damned by Christ or they'll be saved by Christ because He
owns all men. God has given Jesus Christ as
a gift, everybody. God has given to His Son some
men in particular to father His redemptive purpose. Some men
are given to Him in particular to father His redemptive purpose. One of the most solemn statements
our Lord ever made was when He was praying to His Father. All
that you've given me, I've lost nothing but that one son of perdition. You know God gave Judas to his
son to betray Him? I think God gave Herod to Christ
to mock Him. I think He gave Pilate to Him
to crucify Him. serves the redemptive purpose
of Jesus Christ. Some men in particular don't. That's a fearful thought, isn't
it? I don't want to be used and cast away as a reprobate, do
you? Oh Lord, my Redeemer. But our text deals with another
group of people. When the Lord Jesus says, you're
all that the Father giveth me, this is those whom the Father
has given to him to save. This is not all men, we know
that. I'm not here preaching to the choir. I'm not going to
stop and prove that all don't mean all. That would be silly.
You'd laugh at me. It'd be fruitless. This is the
all who will be saved. This is all that God has given
to His Son, and given them to His Son, His Son secures their
salvation. That's why He gives these to
Him. In other places, these are called
the elect. They're called His sheep. They're
called His chosen. Vessels of mercy. Children of
promise. In other places, they're said
to be chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Another place, He said, according to His own purpose and grace
which was given us in Christ before the foundation of the
world. Everybody had sinned. Everybody
sinned in our first Father. We died. We were condemned in
Adam. All of us were perishing. Left
to ourselves, hell would have been our abode. But God gave
a number that no man could number to His Son. And His Son has secured
their salvation. That's the all that He's speaking
of here. You know the necessity of election?
If He hadn't have chose whom He did, we'd have all perished.
I had a man to tell me one time, he said, you're just the dignity
of man. He said, how can you do this
to the dignity of man? I said, man, if you cared anything
about the dignity of men, you'd get on your knees and give thanks
to God for His electing grace. Without that, all of us perish.
All of us are as Sodom, and all of us are made like a digimara.
He hadn't left a seed, a remnant according to the election of
grace. These are the ones that Christ
died for. I lay down my life for the sheep.
These are the ones he shed his blood for. This is my blood which
is shed for many for the remission of their sins. He bore their
sins. He put their sins away and purged
them away. The Father gave these to him
to save. This word here, giveth, as far
as I know, it's the only time that it's used by our Lord in
the present tense. Everywhere else that I know of,
he uses, thou hast giveth. Thou hast giveth me. But here
he uses the word giveth. Have you ever thought of that?
And some have taken that and abused it. You know how people
are. They say, well, see, election is now. He's elected now. See, it said giveth. But why?
I don't think this is a mistake. I want to know what it means.
And I think it has a good meaning for you and me. When the Lord
had given the land of Canaan to the children of Israel, they
were on the east side of Canaan. Moses was ready to go up to the
mountain and die. And here's what Moses said just
before the children of Israel went into the land of Canaan.
He said, the Lord thy God giveth thee this good land to possess
it. He giveth it to you. He had already
given it to them. Had he not? He'd given it to
Abraham and therefore to them in Abraham, you know, he gave
it to Isaac, gave it to Jacob. But here he said, he giveth you
this land. He gave it to them before they
ever were born. And then when it come time to
possess it, he gave it to them again. I think that's the way election
is. You know, we do this, we don't think much about it. I
didn't have the opportunity to do it, but I bet some of you
in here that your family's in order right well. And you have
a daughter and you have some boy that wants to come and date
her and he dates her for a while and he comes and asks you if
he can have her hand in marriage. And you basically say, yeah,
yeah, that's my daughter, you can have her. They become engaged. You gave her to Him in engagement. But when it comes to actual marriage,
you stand there by her. And who gives this man to be
married? I gave her. You already gave
her. I'm giving her now. I think that has something to
do with what our Lord said. I remember Scott said one time,
it was so funny. Scott could say some funny things.
He's talking about, he's talking about getting, being married.
He was talking about, he said, he said, you know, when, when
I was standing there with Martha, he said, the preacher said, will
you, will you have this one? Will you take this one? He said,
man, would I? He said, man, you better bet I would. He said,
he said, he said, boy, since you look so good, I could eat
her. And two years later, I wish I had, he said. That's what he
told, bless your heart, he didn't mean that, but he told that.
If anybody need to be eaten, it'd be some of us men, ladies,
not you, ladies. But you know what gifts does?
How many new things have been given to us? And it's not long,
it wears out. It waxes old. The newness is
gone. It's not attractive anymore.
But I think what the Lord Jesus is saying here, this is a gift
of my Father. Though He has given it to me
before the world, He gives it again. It's always fresh. It's always attractive in my
eyes. That's what He's saying. I got
a little knife that my dad gave to me, and I remember when he
gave it to me. My dad's been gone for a while. A little Case
XX knife. It ain't worth anything, hardly.
But you know I wouldn't take nothing for that knife. Sometime
in my study, I'll get it out, and I'll look at it, open it
up, clean it. And my dad gave me that. I wouldn't take nothing. I mean nothing. You can't buy
that knife. That's a gift from my father.
And when the Lord Jesus looked at His chosen people, it's as
though the Father has just given Him those people. They never
were out. The gift will never grow old
and wax old. It's fresh, it's attractive.
These are those that the Father has given me. So He could say,
the Father hath given those to me. And He could say, He gives
me now, and someday around the throne, when they're all standing
there with Him, He'll say, Father, behold I and the children whom
Thou hast given Me. So that's the fact of election.
It's settled. It's done. There'll be no adding
to the number. There'll be no subtraction from
the number. It took place before the foundation of the world.
God gave to His Son a number that no man can number out of
Adam's race to save them, to secure their salvation. That's
election. That's the factor. What's the
first thing election reveals? And I love this. It reveals the
Father. All that the Father giveth to
me. The Lord Jesus seems to take
us back in eternity. And He opens the heart of God
to us. Opens the very heart of God to
us. And reveals God to us. And how
does He reveal Him to us? The Father. The Father. The Father. We can have some
hard thoughts about God and His sovereignty, can't we? Oh man,
when you talk about the sovereignty of God to some man, they get
it in their heads that you're talking about a cold, You're
talking about an inconsiderate. You're talking about some despot
that just rules arbitrarily just because he wills without any
understanding, without any wisdom, without any good and holy and
wise aim and ends. No. We're talking about the Father. This is the Father. Luther said he hated God. And
he said the reason I hated God, he said I thought that God was
just up there in heaven. looking down on me, waiting and
watching for me to see him so he could accuse me and finally
damn me. And he said, I hated him for
it. I tell you, I have some hard
thoughts. Do you ever have any hard thoughts when he's taking
things from you? It's tough to face it sometimes,
isn't it? And I know some of these things is to humble us,
but you think of the sovereignty of God, how high He is, then
you're so low and you're going through all of this. Why? Why
are you putting me through all this? I know some of these things
are to humble us, but I tell you some of these things, we
just judge God harshly. I remember you saying one time,
don't judge God by His providence. Judge His providence by Him.
And who is He? He's a Father. The first time
we hear Him mentioned, He's the Father. He's the Father. Every
step of the way, every step of the way, from back in eternity,
go back in eternity, and what do you find of God? Dear child
of God, you find Him thinking about you. You find Him secure
in your eternal happiness. You find Him purposing everything
for your good before you were ever born. Giving you to His
Son for His Son to save you. Oh, what a Father. Oh, what a
Father. Not out of necessity. He owed
you nothing. And you can't add anything to
Him. Because He's a gracious and merciful and loving Father. Every step of the way, the Son
of God came down from heaven to reveal the Father to us. He
truly came to reconcile us to the Father. Not just by His blood
to atone for our sins and make reconciliation for our sins,
but He came to reconcile us to God in our thoughts. What kind of God is God? What
kind of God is God? He's our Father. That's the first
thing we learn about Him. He's our Father. Disciples came to the Lord Jesus
one day and He was praying. They said, Lord, teach us to
pray. And He put a word in their mouth
and sent them off to pray. And you know what it was? Our
Father. Our Father. How many times have
you got on your knees walking somewhere out in the woods, praying,
driving down the road, and you had no words to say. But you
had this, My Father. And how much strength, and how
much joy, and how much peace and consolation have you found
in that one word, My Father. My Father. Every step of the
way, the Lord Jesus comes to reveal the Father to us. He said
back before time. Who was it that chose you? It
was the Father. And He said, now you must come
to Me. But you won't and you can't.
But listen, the Father's going to draw you. It's My Father that's
going to draw you. And then when He sends the Spirit
of His Son to our hearts in regeneration, what does He say? Father, Father. Every step of the way, Jesus
comes to reveal the Father to us. This is the way I can face this
world. This is the way we face this world. This world that sometimes
turns us upside down. We face it this way. He that
clothes the lilies is my father. He that feeds the fowls is my
father. I'm not afraid. I'm not anxious. He's my father. When I come down
to die, I won't be afraid of death. He's my father. Frank
was telling me about Dale's funeral and what he said there over the
grave. He said of all the emotions that
we're feeling, and I can't imagine, but he said there's one emotion
we're not feeling and that's fear. That's fear. Why? We have a father. You have not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but you've received the spirit of
adoption whereby you cry, Father, Father. We love election because
way back there is where the Father is revealed to us. Thirdly, election secures. All the elect come into Christ
to be saved. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Election is not salvation, but
it secures our salvation. A man asked me one time, he was
a pilgrim holiness, and I was standing out in his driveway
and he asked me a question. He said, what if one of the non-elect
came to Christ? Would he be turned out? And,
you know, I'd answer him the same way you'd answer him. But
after that, I thought, I wish I'd have answered him this way.
I really don't know. Because it's never happened.
It's never happened and never will happen. No man can come
to me, and no man will come to me, except my Father which sent
me draw him. And I think this message here
in chapter 6, Boy, proves that as clear as any other message
in all the Bible. Here was the gospel set forth
as clearly and as freely and by the greatest preacher that
ever lived. And what was the conclusion of
this message? They went away and won't with
Him no more at all. And why did they go away? The
Lord Jesus put His finger on it, didn't He? You've seen me
and you don't believe me. You've heard me. You've heard
me preach and you don't believe. He knew from the beginning who
believed and who didn't. Unbelieve. I tell you it's a
terrible sin, isn't it? Unbelieve. There's been a lot of great sinners
come to Christ. I mean come to Christ fornicators,
adulterers, idolaters, murderers. But there's never been one unbelieving. That's what will keep you from
Christ. That's what kept these men from the Lord Jesus Christ. These poor Jews. Poor Jews. I mean they were poor Jews. Under
bondage to the Romans. Their country was full of devils.
Look how a little country and the Lord Jesus every day of His
ministry was casting out devils out of somebody. They were in poverty. They couldn't
even afford to sack lunch. He had to feed just 5,000 of
them just before he began to preach this message. What a mess
they were in! And they were so proud and self-righteous.
They said, what can we do that we might work the works of God?
What can we do? Do. What can we do? You poor, hell-deserving, in
bondage to Satan's sanctuary. What can we do? Tell us what
we can do. I noticed as I read this and
counted the time that the Lord Jesus mentioned himself under
I, me, and mine over 60 times in this little short message.
He mentioned himself over 60 times. I am the living bread
that comes down from heaven. I came down to do the Father's
will. It is my flesh that's broken
and my blood that's shed. It's my flesh that's meat. It's
my blood that's drink. I am the one who came down to
give life. He told them all of these things.
I'm the one that's going to raise the dead. The doing is mine. That's what he was saying. He
took all the doing out of their hands and put it in his own hands. The doing is mine, he said. And
what was their conclusion about that? This is a hard sale. Who
in the world can understand that? Who can understand that all the
doing has been taken away from me and put upon someone else? I can't understand that. Unbelief
can't. Blind unbelief is sure to error
and count his work in vain. I remember when I was lost and
every time I thought about being saved, it was always doing. I never thought about coming
to Christ. I never thought about Him finishing the work. What
can I do? I need to pray harder. I need
to read my Bible more. I need to get in church. That's
the way down south it's getting in church. I need to be more
faithful. If I can do that. Do, do, do. We had a little saying when the
kids down home used the bathroom, they called it do-do. And I know
why now. Do, do. Do, do. I wish somebody had sat me down
and got my attention and read James Proctor's song to me. Looked
at me right in the eye and read this song to me. Nothing, neither
great or small. Nothing, sin or no. Jesus did
it all, did it all long, long ago. It is finished. Yes, indeed. Finished. Every
jot. Sinner, this is all you need. Tell me, is it not? When He from His lofty throne
stooped to do and die, everything was fully done. Hearken to His
cry. It is finished. Weary, working, burdened one,
wherefore toil you so? Cease your doing, all is done. Long, long ago, till to Jesus'
work you cling, by living faith doing is a deadly thing. Doing
ends in death. Cast your deadly doing down,
down at Jesus' feet, standing Him and Him alone. Gloriously
complete. But here's the thing. No sinner
will do that until God teaches him to do it. He cannot, and he will not, until
God gives him grace to believe. Then he'll cast all of his deadly
doings down, he'll burn them at his feet, and he'll rejoice
to think, I'm accepted in another. I'm complete in another. And brothers and sisters, that's
a miracle. Coming to Jesus Christ is a miracle of grace. And election
secures that miracle for every elect soul. Why did you come? The Father chose you. Why did
you come? The Father drew you. He taught
you your need of Christ. And He never quit drawing you
until you found yourself. believing in his son. I know nothing in this point
in my life. I thought I'd come to this years
ago. I guess we continually coming to this. But I know nothing right
now in my life, not only as a preacher, but as a dad, as a grandfather.
I know nothing that's more comforting right now and encouraging to
me than to remember what I'm just talking to you about. Our community, my family, is
hostile to Jesus Christ. Their hearts are filled with
unbelief. They're in bondage to Satan.
You can't even talk to them. Have you ever seen such a death? But listen. All that the Father
gives to me shall come to me. And that's never changed. And
if you're here tonight and you've never come to Christ and He's
given you to His Son, then you're coming. You're coming. And you're coming willingly.
You're coming joyfully. And you're coming and bowing
to Him and believing on His blessed name. The last point is this,
election secures the final and eternal salvation of every elect
soul. All that the Father gives to
me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise. Now this is not limited to our
initial coming. I'll never cast him out. For
no reason will I cast him out. At any time will I cast him out.
Not in this life, not in death, or surely in the life to come.
I will never cast him out. So election not only secures
the elects coming to Christ, it secures their eternal salvation
by Jesus Christ. I know and you know that the
Bible teaches us that we must persevere. We must persevere
to the end. I used to preach on perseverance
of the saints. Perseverance, isn't it? Perseverance.
Every one of us has a race to run. You've got to run. You don't have any choice. You
come to Christ by faith, you live upon him by faith, and you'll
die in the faith. You must hold the beginning of
your confidence firm until the end. We believe that, don't we?
It's not so much eternal security, the perseverance of the saints.
We endear, we know the necessity of that. But you know the Lord
Jesus here in verse 39, he just bypasses that. Not because it's
not so, but he's going to teach us a lesson. Look what he says
in verse 39. This is the father's will, which
had sent me that of all which he hath given me, I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. Hmm. You know what he's saying? He said the very fact that my
father elected you. The very fact that He gave you
to me, that secured your eternal records. Boy, if a man can make
his election sure, make your calling sure, and when you made
your calling sure, you don't have to doubt your election.
And then when you don't doubt your election, oh, you can live
in the joy and the assurance that your final and eternal salvation
has been secured. Just every once in a while, it
dawns upon me, just like it falls into my mind, for just a thought,
I'm saved. I'm really saved. It's not just
that the Lord has saved me and He's going to save me, but I'm
saved. And for just a thought, it lifts
me up out of my sorrow and my gloom and above this sorry world. And I seem to sit for just a
minute in some kind of a heavenly place. And then I fall back down
into this miserable unbelief and the present world and back
down into my fiction. The atheists tell us that this
is all fiction, don't they? The gospel's a fiction. God's
a fiction. You guys got your imagination
all messed up with God. That's just fiction. Christ is
fiction. Life is a fiction. Heaven's a fiction. No, that's
reality. I'll tell you what the fiction
is for the young godly. This life is all there is. This
life is the best there is. Things are going to be better
for me after this life. That's fiction. That's fiction. And you know believers live in
fiction too, don't we? You ever live in this? I don't
think I'm going to make it. That's fiction. I think these corruptions that
I'm struggling against is indication that I'm going to finally be
cast out. That's fiction. I don't think I'm going to be
able to continue to believe. That's fiction. Here's the reality. All that the Father has given
me, I will lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last
day. That's reality, is it not? This
is why we love election. God bless this world. Thank you
for everything. Oh, that was so refreshing, so
good, wasn't it? This is something I say from
this pulpit so many times. If there's someone here, and
there is, that doesn't know the Lord, I wish I could spare you
from making the mistake that I made for years and years and
years. Don't waste one more second of
your life Trying to figure out if you're one of God's elect.
Election's a fact. It's obvious. Don't spend one
more second trying to figure out if you're one of God's elect.
Think, well, if I'm one of the elect, then no, don't. Are you
a sinner? Come to Christ. The only way
you'll ever know you're one of God's elect, you come to Christ.
Someone asked me, am I one of the elect? Well, I don't know.
You come to Christ, we'll find out. That's when we'll know.
Come to Him right now. Come to Him. Come to Him. All
right. And we're going to sing a song.
John, after we sing this song, would you come lead us in prayer
to close this song? We're not going to have anything
to eat or anything tonight. Just let everybody go home. You
can stay and visit all you want. We'll lock up and everybody's
ready to leave. Tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, Brothers Don Fortner
and Todd Knight will be preaching this very same gospel to us.
Let's stand and sing. Mike, what number we got? Number
51. Praise the Savior, even though
Him Who can tell how much we owe Him. Gladly let us render
to Him all we are and have. Jesus is the name that charms
us, he who conflicts and harms us. Nothing moves and nothing
harms us while we trust in him. Trust in Him, ye Saints, forever. He is faithful, changing never. Neither force nor guile can sever
those he loves from Him. Keep us, Lord, O keep us, pleading
to thyself and still believing. Fill the hour of our receiving,
Promise joys with thee. Then we shall be where we would
be, Then we shall be what we should be, Things that are not
how nor could be, Soon shall be our own. Our Father, thank you so much for allowing
us to be here tonight, for allowing us to come into
your presence, for giving us an understanding of the gospel.
Thank you for these men, your servants, whom you sent this
way tonight. Thank you for the messages, Give
us an ear to hear, Father. Help us, Father, to give unto
you the glory due unto your name. Thank you for Jesus Christ. All
that we have in him, all that we need to stand in your presence,
you've given us in him. Thank you. Enable Don and Todd
to preach to us in the morning. Lord, no man is sufficient for
these things. No man is sufficient to handle
matters of eternity. Help them and help us to listen. In Christ's name we pray.