Romans chapter six and verse
17. But God be thanked that ye were
the servants of sin, that ye have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from
sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after
the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.
For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to
iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants
to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants
of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those
things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death. but now being made free from
sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness
and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Our thoughts today are going
to surround this subject of free will and free grace. And let me put it into a context,
if I may, by referring to the occasion when the Lord Jesus
Christ was approached by a leper. This was a poor, sick man. A man who was alienated in his
society. A vile creature who had long
since realised his helplessness and the finality of the sentence
of death that he carried in his body due to his diseased state. He was a leper. And in Mark 1,
verse 40, we read there, Then came a leper to him, beseeching
him and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou
wilt, thou canst make me clean. This leper came to Jesus, and
he said, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And I want to
draw attention to this poor man's language to you today, because
I believe it shows us three things. The first is this, that he knew
he was a leper. There was no point in pretending
otherwise. He knew that he could not make
himself clean. because he would have done so
if he could have done so. He wouldn't have continued in
that leprous condition if there was any possibility of him healing
himself. And the third point is this,
that he believed that Jesus was able to heal him if he was willing
to do so. Now, if we replace the word leper
with the word sinner, then I believe that this is a perfect picture
of the gospel. He knew he was a leper. Let us
change that word. If he knew he was a sinner, and
there was no point in pretending otherwise. He knew he could not
make himself clean because he would have done if he could have
done. And he believed that Jesus was
able to heal him, to cure him, to deliver him, to redeem him
from his sin. Did you notice the leper's words? He said, if thou wilt, if you
will. This leper came to the Lord Jesus
Christ seeking help. He came and he sought grace from
the Lord Jesus Christ. Personally, he himself willed
it to be so. He desired healing more than
anything else. But just because he willed it
to be so, did not make it so. I wonder if you've ever heard
of the power of positive thinking. Well, you know, people sometimes
say that there's a certain psychology to things and that if you think
positively, you can make things happen. Well, I don't know that
that works really because even if a person had a cold, they
couldn't think themselves well and be well. far less any of
these other diseases we see around about us in the world. And what
are we to say with respect to hell? Can we think positively
about hell and think ourselves out from under the judgment of
God? No, the idea of thinking positively and willing something
to be is a nonsense when it comes to the more profound and deep
needs that we have in this world, far less the eternal needs that
we have before Almighty God as sinners. This leper didn't presume. If he is to be made clean, It
must be an act of kindness on the part of Christ. It must be
mercy given. It must be grace bestowed at
the discretion of that one to whom he came. Notice that this leper And again,
let us replace that with sinner. This leper did not come with
a sense of entitlement, but with a sense of need. And there is
a huge difference in attitude between coming to Christ for
grace and coming to him to claim what we assume we are due and
entitled to. And that is the essence of the
difference between free will preaching and the preaching of
free grace. Free grace preachers, they encourage
us to come with a sense of need humbly before God and ask if
he will be willing to save us. free will preachers, they engender
a sense of entitlement and say that it's there to be had for
anyone who simply comes and asks for it. Free will teaching is
based on three false assumptions. Firstly, that God loves everyone
and wants to save everyone. Second, that to make this possible,
the salvation of everyone, the Lord Jesus Christ died for everyone. And thirdly, that the Holy Spirit
offers everyone a chance to believe. This free will teaching is the
teaching of entitlement. that salvation is yours for the
taking, while free grace teaches humility to those who know themselves
to be sinners. Now, I'm not going to spend this
morning too much time exposing lies. Rather, I want to tell
you the truth. But let me just say this, that
nowhere in the Bible does it ever say imply or even hint that
God loves everyone. On the contrary, the Word of
God explicitly declares, I have loved thee Now you can look that
up, you can look it up in Isaiah 43 verse 4, in Jeremiah 31 verse
3, in Revelation chapter 3 verse 9, there are other places also
where the same sentiment is conveyed. I have loved thee. Again, the
Word of God tells us multiple times, Romans chapter 9 verse
13 and other places, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Repeatedly the scriptures declare,
because the Lord loved you, or because the Lord loved your fathers,
or because the Lord loved Israel, because the Lord loved Jacob,
the Lord speaks of his love particularly throughout the whole of scripture. And realise this, that every
single one of those examples that I've just given you would
be redundant if God loved everyone. There would be no reason to say
God loved you or God loved your fathers or God loved Israel forever
if God loved everyone. It would be a redundant idea
and a redundant use of language. And men preach that God loves
you constantly in pulpits throughout the Christian world. The sentiment is God loves you
and wants to save you. But the Bible, as opposed to
men and women, always says that God loved his people. Not that he loves his people,
but that he loved his people. It speaks in the past tense,
and it is always particular. It is always everlasting, and
it is always effectual. It is always the reason, the
foundation for grace that is dispensed at the hand of God. In Deuteronomy 10, verse 15,
we read there, the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them and
chose their seed, even you above all people as it is this day. And what of the desire of God
to save all people? That's what we're told. God loves
everyone and wants to save everyone. He desires the salvation of everyone. Well, let me tell you clearly. Our God lacks nothing. Our God wants for nothing. If God desires to save sinners,
He saves sinners. If God loves, he delivers. Don't tell me that God wants
to save but can't or won't or doesn't because that's not my
God and that's not the God that I read about in the scriptures.
And so what if it's popular? So what if it's a ubiquitous
message in the pulpits of this world? Repeating a lie over and
over and over again doesn't make it true. If God wills all men and women
to be saved, including all who suffer eternal damnation, then
his will is evidently frustrated. His purpose is foiled and his
design has failed. If God wants and desires something
that doesn't happen, then God has failed in his abilities to
achieve that which his soul desires. If God wills a man or a woman
to be saved, but that man or woman wills not to be saved,
rejects the gospel, then whose will has prevailed? God's will
or man's will? And what kind of God is that?
That makes man the God and God the failure. We are told by the
preachers of this age, that the Lord Jesus Christ died for all
the sins of all men and women. Thereafter, all that is required
is that men and women must believe, must exercise faith, to make
that atoning work of Christ, that redeeming work of Christ,
that pardoning work of Christ successful. But wait a moment. If that is
true and all that is required to make Christ's work successful
is man's faith, then that makes man his own saviour. If faith
is the efficient cause then why did the Lord Jesus Christ
have to die? If believing is all that God
requires, then believing one proposition is as good as believing
another proposition. God didn't need to send the Lord
Jesus Christ to the cross. He could have done anything and
said, simply believe that what I have done is sufficient. And
any faith that was required by God would have been efficient
to save that individual. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
have to die if all that is required is the faith of the unbeliever
in order to effect their salvation. Christ's blood was spilled in
vain. The payment of that infinite value achieves nothing. until
and unless sinful men and women make it so by something that
they do. Universal atonement and universal
redemption as it is taught today in our so-called Christian churches
makes a mockery of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that he achieved. And I brought these thoughts
this morning to us because I've been challenged, even in the
past week, in the past few days, of being reminded of these things. And I believe that it is good
to be reminded of these things because it makes us realise just
how much we hate, hate that doctrine of universal atonement. because
it mocks our saviour that we love, and it despises the work
which he accomplished. Redemption, the work that Jesus
Christ accomplished on the cross, is a purchase. We are bought
with a price, and the Lord Jesus Christ will have all that he
bought. He says in Isaiah 43 verse 1,
but now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he
that formed thee, O Israel. You see there's Jacob and Israel
being used to speak of the church of Jesus Christ. Thus saith the
Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy
name, thou art mine. We insist in getting what we
paid for and yet we imagine that the Lord Jesus Christ had paid
for all the sins of all men and women and yet many end up in
hell. It's a crying shame to present this as being the gospel
of salvation. So much for the Father, so much
for the Son, what of the Holy Spirit? These free will believers,
they claim to be Trinitarian, but they're not Trinitarian because
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one is as impotent
as the other is in their doctrine and in their teaching. I would
rather hear what the Bible has to say about the Holy Spirit
than what these free will preachers declare. Scripture is clear,
the Holy Spirit acts with power to call and to quicken and to
regenerate the dead. The Lord Jesus Christ speaking
to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 verse 6 says, that which is
born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit
is spirit. The flesh can't bring to life
the spirit. The flesh can't, by a mere act
of the will, bring to life that which is spiritual. It has to
be a spiritual work. It has to be the Holy Spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. Someone
must born you again. Someone must create a new creature
and that is the work of the power of the Holy Spirit. Faith is
a gift given by the Holy Spirit. That's why we read in Romans
chapter 6 verse 23 that the wages of sin is death. But the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, his son. It's a
gift of God. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God. It is impossible to believe without
faith. and faith is a gift from God. So those that say to men, believe,
believe, trust the Lord Jesus Christ, are they going to impart
faith whereby that trust, that faith, that believing can be
enacted? It is to put the cart before
the horse and it is a shame. Now we are not denying that people
have choice in natural things. There is a natural liberty. And
here we often find that our teaching of free grace is maligned and
misrepresented. We can choose to eat or not to
eat. We can choose to drink or to
sit or to stand or to walk. We can love or we can hate. We
can hold a grudge or we can forgive an offence as our pleasure takes
us. We can even fulfill religious
activity as many do. We can pray, we can sing, we
can read scripture, we can attend worship, we can hear the gospel
preached. And yet our fallen nature spoils
everything that we do. Men and women can appear on the
outside to be good, to do things that have a show of moral goodness. We can withstand temptation sometimes. We can do a number of things
by our natural free will. But there it ends. In spiritual
matters, natural man has not the will nor the power to act
in ways that are pleasing and acceptable to God. He is spiritually
dead and his whole nature is opposed to God and to the rule
and lordship of the Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible speaks about
this as spiritual enmity or antagonism against God. And that reigns
in our flesh, in our mind, in our will, in our soul. It prevents
us from doing what is right in matters of spiritual life and
in matters of faith and belief. We cannot spiritually repent. We cannot regenerate ourselves. We cannot convert ourselves. And our will is not free to choose
God, but captive to sin and Satan until it is liberated by God
the Holy Spirit through grace. And I think that not only do
free will preachers and free will believers have a wrong concept
of God, presenting him as a weak God and as an inadequate God
and as a God who must wait patiently on the will of man, but it also
has a wrong view of man in his sinful state and condition. The
Bible speaks of man as being polluted. as being carnal, as
being a slave to sin, dead towards God, impotent to do any spiritual
good. And in Adam, in that Adam nature,
we find that it is impossible to please God. We cannot be obedient
to God. We cannot do that which God requires
in our natural state. our thoughts, our judgment, our
affections, by which our will is influenced and directed, are
depraved, ruined, and corrupt. Read Jeremiah 17, verse 9. And also nothing that originates
in the human heart is any good. Read James 1, verse 17. Our will always leads to evil. To the satisfying of our natural
lusts, the lusts of the flesh, it does not, cannot, make, forge,
create, begin, continue a relationship with God. We slavishly serve
the old man of sin, having no spiritual desire, no power, to
please God until God makes a change. And all spiritual activity must
originate in God and work by the enabling power of grace.
Paul says to the Philippians, chapter two, verse 13, it is
God which worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. So it is only in the new creation,
when the bondage of the will is removed by grace and conversion,
that man can know peace with God. And that's the message of
the gospel. We present, when we preach the
gospel, an able saviour suited to poor sinners. And we present
that able saviour suited to poor sinners, to poor sinners in need
of an able saviour. The dead must be made alive,
quickened as the Bible says. The captive must be set free. The blind must be made to see. hearts must be opened, lepers
must be cleansed, sin must be taken away. Until and unless
that happens at the command of Almighty God, man's free will
is only free to take him down to hell. Now let those free will
preachers, let those free will folk wriggle and wrestle with
their claims of universal love and universal atonement and universal
calling all they will. The clear teaching of scripture
is that God has a distinguishing love for a particular people. That is the purpose of the Father
in electing love. The purchase by the Son in substitutionary
atonement. The effectual call of the Spirit
in the new birth and conversion. And all of these three works
of God the triune God go hand in hand to the salvation of those
people and those alone that he is pleased to call his own. Here I stand, I can do no other,
so help me God. Amen.