Romans chapter 9 and verse 13. Romans the 9th chapter and verse
13. This is what God says. Romans chapter 9 and verse 13. As it is written, We read it earlier, it's written
in Malachi chapter 1. As it is written, written by
God the Holy Ghost, written by divine inspiration, as it is
written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. My subject this morning, Jacob
have I loved. The Lord willing, next Sunday
morning, I'll take the next statement, Esau have I hated. Both statements are statements
from God Himself concerning two brothers, born from the same
womb, conceived at the same time, raised in the same house, under
the same circumstances, by the same parents, in the same environment. And God says, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. If you've got a problem with
that, take it up with God. This is what God said. Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Blessed sons of Jacob, chosen
race, our God's the God of sovereign grace. He will perform what he's
begun. He'll save his chosen ransomed
ones. Though rocks and hills and mountains
fall, and darkness overshadows all, whate'er our plight, whate'er
our lot, our God's the same, he changes not. Our comfort often
ebbs and flows, our God no variation knows. Though Jacob's sons unfaithful
prove, God loves us with unchanging love. Now, before we look at
the text and subject, let me tell you again that which motivates
me in preaching, that which motivates me as I prepare a message for
you, specifically that which motivates me in bringing this
message to you this morning. I want you to know Christ. I want you to know the Son of
God. I want you to know the blessed
grace of God in the sweet saving experience of his grace in Jesus
Christ the Lord. And I know that it is by the
preaching of the gospel that God saves sinners. As I prepare
this message, as I prepare to preach to you, I prepare asking
God to be pleased to use the message, to call out chosen redeemed
sinners by omnipotent mercy and graciously reveal Christ in you. I want you to know the joy and
peace of righteousness, forgiveness and salvation and eternal life
in Jesus Christ the Lord. And I want to comfort you who
are God's saints. I try consciously to think about
God's admonition to every preacher found in Isaiah chapter 40 as
I seek God's message for you. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith the Lord. I want to give a word of comfort
to you who are God's saints in the midst of trial, temptation,
sorrow, pain, lethargy, even your lethargy and indifference. I want a word from God that will
minister to your soul's needs. And as I prepared this message,
I thought what could be more comforting to Jacob? than this
word from God, Jacob have I loved. In all his circumstances, Jacob
have I loved. Jacob have I loved. Back in the late 1800s, there
was a man who spent most of his adult life in a insane asylum
And in those days, they were considerably different than now.
Most of his days were as you might imagine them to be. He
finally died, and when they were preparing his room for the next
unfortunate inmates, they found these words scratched on the
wall. Someone took them later and put
them into a hymn, but here are the words. Could we with ink
the oceans fill? And were the skies of parchment
made? Were every stalk on earth a quill,
and every man a scribe by trade? To write the love of God above
would drain the oceans dry, nor could the scroll contain the
whole, though stretched from sky to sky. Apparently, the man,
though insane, had some days, perhaps just a few hours, perhaps
just a few moments in some days. When his mind was sound and at
such a time, in such unimaginable circumstances, in that horrible
place, he found consolation and strength for his soul and his
mind in the marvelous love of God for sinners like you and
me. And I seek to preach God's message
for your edification. who are God's, for the edifying
of his church. I recognize that God saves sinners
by the preaching of the word, and God builds up the souls of
his people by the preaching of the word. Everything you and
I need for our soul's good is in his word. Children of God,
would to God I could make you understand this. Nothing, nothing,
nothing that comes up is so important for your soul's good as the worship
of God in his house and the ministry of the word. Nothing, nothing,
nothing. Let nothing interfere with that.
Let nothing interfere with that. Well, I just, I need to do this.
I need, you need to hear from God. and God speaks by his word. Make it your business to find
your place in God's house to hear the gospel of his grace.
I can't tell you how often I have thought concerning folks when
they have difficulties. The one thing you need, Bobby,
when your heart's the heaviest, when your soul is the darkest,
when your heart's most full of ungodliness, the one thing you
need more than anything else is to hear from God. And the
one thing you're most quick to neglect is the place where you
can hear from God. Don't do it. Don't let anything
interfere with the hearing of the gospel of God's grace. And
I want, oh, how I want to preach for the glory of God, to preach for the glory of Oh, God, give me grace to glorify
my God in my life and to glorify God in the preaching of the gospel. So as I prepare the message,
I try to find from God a message that will be a word of life to
sinners, proclaiming the gospel of his grace. a word of comfort
to his saints, a word to edify his people, and a word that will
give glory and honor to him. Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. That's the text. May God be glorified
this day. The word hated in this 13th verse
of Romans 9 does not imply a positive hatred. that involves contempt,
anger, and wrath, but rather it is what John Gill called a
negative hatred, God's will not to give eternal life to some,
neglect of some, taking no notice of them, passing them by while
he chose others. And that's exactly the way our
Lord Jesus uses this word in Luke chapter 14. You remember
he said, if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother
and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple. Our Lord is not telling us that
we are to treat our mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters
contemptuously or mistreat them or be mean to them. He's not
telling us that at all. He's not telling us that we're
to treat ourselves contemptuously or to mistreat ourselves. Not
at all. What he's saying is, if you would
follow me, let nothing interfere. If you would follow me, give
consideration to nothing. You can't follow me and consider
your family. You can't follow me and consider
your own life. You can't follow me and consider
your wife, or your mother, or your brother, or your sister,
or your son, or your daughter, or your father. If you would
follow me, you must hate them all. Give them no consideration. I can't tell you how disappointed
I had been over the years to find men that I looked upon as
men who've just given themselves to the work, go to Mission Field,
go to Africa or go to Korea or go to one of the islands and
they come home because of their wife or their son or their daughter. No, no, no. You've given up too much. You've
given up too much. You can't follow Christ and give
consideration to yourself or to your family. But my daughter
and my son have reached this age, doesn't matter, doesn't
matter. They're God's, not yours. You're God's servant. You can't
follow Christ. without hating your family and
yourself. So the hatred that's used here
is a negative hatred. It is to give no consideration
to. The Lord God says, Jacob have
I loved. He passed by Esau. He gave no
consideration to Esau. His only consideration was for
Jacob. His only love was for Jacob.
He considered Jacob. He chose Jacob because he loved
Jacob. Now, as we read in Malachi chapter
one, from where these words are quoted, it is obvious that the
men Jacob and Esau, as they are used here in Romans nine and
verse 13, refer not just to those two specific boys in their mother's
womb, but it refers to two groups of people represented by Jacob
and Esau. There are but two groups of people
in this world. The whole human race is divided
into just these two groups. Everybody sitting in this room
fits in one or the other of these two groups. Everybody out yonder
in the world fits into one or the other of these two groups.
God's elect and the reprobate. Vessels of wrath and vessels
of mercy. people appointed to salvation
and people appointed to condemnation. The woman seed and the serpent
seed, Shem and Japheth and Ham, sheep and goats, wheat and tares,
Israel and Edom, Jerusalem and Babylon, Jacob and Esau. And between these two groups,
there is a great gulf fixed so that they which would pass from
one to the other cannot do so. God says, Jacob have I loved. That's our subject. This ninth
chapter of Romans was written by God the Holy Ghost to teach
us that the purpose of God according to election stands. It stands unalterably. It stands
fixed, not upon the foundation of humanity, not upon the foundation
of works, not upon the foundation of free will, but the purpose
of God according to election stands upon the foundation of
God. God's sovereignty, God's grace,
God's purpose, God's love. The love of God is his eternal
everlasting will, his purpose, his determination to deliver,
bless, and save his people. The love of God is his commitment
to his people to save them. Commitment. It is God's devotion
of his being. to his people to save them. Now
you young people, and you older folks can listen in if you want
to, young folks think they've fallen in love. And they get
all excited, they've fallen in love. because their passions
are aroused and they're young and they met a good looking fella
or met a good looking gal and they just got to have them. That
ain't it. That ain't it. You won't build
a life on that. You won't build a marriage on
that. Love's another story. Love is the giving of your life. to the good of your object. It's the devotion of your life
to that woman. The devotion of your life to
that man. It's laying down everything for
them, for their good, for their delight, for their happiness.
Now hear me, and oh God help you to get hold of this if you
can. This is God's love for Jacob. The God of glory, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost has devoted the totality of his being, the totality
of his being to the everlasting welfare and salvation of our
souls. No wonder Paul said the love
of Christ constrains us. What can be so motivated? What
can be so constraining? What can be so compelling as
to be loved of God so that you're aware that God is utterly committed
to you? Love with God is both an attribute
of his being and an act of his goodness. Let me show you a few
things concerning this matter, Jacob have I loved. First, let's
turn to 1 John chapter four. 1 John chapter four. Whenever you speak at all concerning
God's judgment, or God's wrath, or God hating Esau, or God sending
men to hell. Folks, that can't be, God is
love. Whenever you talk about hurricane,
tornado, flood, famine, pestilence, war, disease, sickness, death,
say God did that. Oh, you can't say that, God is
love. Well, here in 1 John 4, twice
in just a few verses, John makes this statement. God is love. Let us never forget that. God
is love. 1 John 4, verse 8. He that loveth
not knoweth not God. Not a possibility, for God is
love. God is love. If you love God,
you love. If you know God, you love. If
you don't know anything about love, you don't know anything
about God. In this was manifested the love of God toward us. That
is, this is how we know God's love for us. Because that God
sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live
through him. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected
in us. Hereby know we that we dwell
in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son
to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
And we have known and believed the love of God, the love that
God hath to us. God is love. And he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Now, John does not tell
us God is loving. He does not tell us that he is
a God of love. He does not tell us that he is
a loving God. Rather, John says, God is love. Love is an attribute of his being,
as essential to his being as holiness, justice, righteousness,
and truth. God is love. Now, when we start to think about
God's love, you got to get outside yourself.
You've got to try to have some understanding of God's love without
equating it in any way to what you experience in love. Because
God's love ain't nothing near like what your love is. And your
love ain't nothing near like what God's love is. Pastor, you
shouldn't talk like that. You heard what I said, didn't
you? There's no comparison between God's love and our love. None
at all. Our love is a passion. More than anything else, I fear
it's a passion to be loved. God's love is not a passion.
God's love is the determination of His being to bless and save. Our love is caused. It's called by something in the
object. the beauty of the face, the beauty
of the personality, the beauty of some action performed by them.
Our love is attracted by the one we love, not so with God's
love. God's love is called by his love. God's love is altogether in himself. When I was in college, my theology
professor, tried to convince us that because God is love,
there was a great vacuum in God that could not be filled. And
so God created man so that he might have someone to love. That
sounds sweet, doesn't it? It's just blasphemy, but it sounds
sweet. A vacuum in God. so that God needs you? God could
not be complete without us. God had to have an object to
love. Oh no. God is love. And God, the triune Jehovah,
dwelt alone in his ineffable glory, full of love, the Father
for the Son and the Spirit, the Son for the Spirit and the Father,
and the Spirit for the Father and the Son, dwelling together
in mutual harmony. You mean, Pastor, God loves himself?
He's the only being there is for whom it is right for him
to love himself. He honors himself. He glorifies
himself. He seeks for everything to honor
him. He's the only one. It's right for him to fully be
consumed with seeking his glory and his honor and loving himself.
God, whose love is holy, cannot love anything or anyone that
is not perfectly holy. Perfect love can't fall on imperfection. Holy love can't fall on anything
but holiness. Pure love can't fall on anything
except that which is pure. I don't know how to illustrate
this, but I know we live in a strange world these days. Men and women
treat animals like they were children. Folks, that dog just
like one of the children. I don't think so. I don't think
so. It's just a dog. It's just a
dog. A man may pity a suffering hog,
but he can't love it. He can't be devoted to it. He
can't give himself to it. Because love requires compatibility. There must be a likeness. There
must be a compatibility between the one loved and the one loving. And there's no compatibility
between a man and a hog. Even so, God cannot love sinful
man. God cannot love sinful man. How come? Because Mark Medley,
there ain't nothing in you compatible with God. Nothing. Nothing. But God says, Jacob
have I loved. but he loved Jacob before he
was a sinner. And his love didn't change because
Jacob became a sinner. He loved Jacob in his son, in
union with his son before the war was. And so it is that God
loves his people. He loves us with an everlasting
love in his darling Son as men and women worthy of his love
for we're one with his Son, Jesus Christ the Lord. Yes, God loves
fallen, depraved sinners in Christ. He loves us in Christ and for
Christ's sake. Nowhere in this book, nowhere
in this book is God said to love a person outside Christ. Nowhere
is a man assured of God's love apart from Christ. God loves
Jacob. God loves the sons of Jacob,
mediatorially. He loves us in Christ. He loved Jacob before he became
a sinner. And he loved Jacob when he was
born in sin. And he loved Jacob, though he
often sinned after he revealed himself to him, because he loved
Jacob in Christ and for Christ's sake. So he loved us before ever
we came into being. He loved us when we came forth
from our mother's womb, speaking lies. He loved us all the days
of our rebellion. He loved us before he called
us. He loved us when he called us. And he loves us after he
called us, in spite of all we are. His love never changes. In spite of all we are, his love
never changes. Bill Raleigh, he loves us in
Christ, for Christ's sake, because of Christ. God's love is such
that you can rest in it. You never have to be concerned
that you might lose it. Never, never. I am the Lord, he said. I change not, he said. Therefore, not because you don't
change. Remember, he's talking to Jacob.
He said, I love Jacob, and Jacob said, where did you love us?
How did you show us you loved us? And Jacob says, here, I got
this three-legged hog, I'll offer that to God. I got this leftover
change, I'll put that in offering plate. I've got a little spare
time, I'll give that to God. And Jacob says, where didst thou
love us? That's Jacob. God said, I love
Jacob. And God said, I am the Lord,
I change not therefore. No matter what Jacob does. No matter what a mess Jacob makes
of himself. No matter how often Jacob falls. No matter how Jacob acts. I am
the Lord, I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. God is love. But second, don't ever imagine that God loves
everybody. He doesn't. He doesn't. You hear folks say,
we love you. You know, the politicians, you
remember listening to them? I love y'all. Oh, we love y'all. You don't even know my name.
You don't even know my name. You love me? What foolishness. What foolishness. Oh, we love
everybody. Do what? That may sound pretty, but it's
a lie and you know it. And if it were true, it doesn't
do any good. Universal love is universal stupidity. Universal love is universal uselessness. Universal love is nonsense. There's no such thing. And it
certainly is not true of God. God says, this is what God says. Not what Don says. Not what the
Baptist church says. Not what Calvinism says. Not
what church history says. This is what God says. Esau have
I hated. That's God's word. That's God's
word. And there's a reason he reveals
both the fact that he loved Jacob and hates Esau. God does not
love all men. And the talk about universal
love, any reasonable person whose mind has not been perverted by
the influence of Arminian freewill works religion must recognize
is absolutely absurd. Did God love the multitudes He
swept off the earth in the flood? Did He? Did God love those folks
that He swept off the earth in the flood? If He did, you ought
to be praying to be saved from that kind of love. Did God love
the degenerate Sodomites upon whom He rained fire and brimstone
from heaven? Did God love the sons of Korah,
Dathan and Abiram and their followers whom he swatted up into hell?
Perhaps you think, well, Brother Dodd, what can possibly be wrong
with telling people God loves them? Well, to tell them that
God loves them is to declare that which is a direct contradiction
of scripture. God didn't say to Pharaoh, for
this purpose have I raised thee up that I might show my love
in thee. Did he? He said, Pharaoh, I raised
you up to show my power in you. What can be wrong with telling
people God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?
The word of God never addresses sinners outside Christ in such
a way. You won't find it in this book.
You won't find it. The word of God warns sinners. God's angry with the wicked every
day. God hates the workers of iniquity. I cannot and I will
not attempt to assure you that God loves you, except you believe
on his son. You see, the love of God is only
found in his son. And you have no reason to even
slightly suspect that maybe God might love you till you trust
his son. Outside Christ, our gods are
consuming fire. God's angry with the wicked every
day as the manslayer sought by the man pursuing the manslayer. Injustice outside Christ, outside
the city of refuge. Justice is after you. Anger is
after you. Wrath is after you. Vengeance
is after you. God's after you until you find
yourself in Christ, in Christ. God is love. Only in Christ do you find the
love of God. Only in Christ is the love of
God revealed. Not only does the assertion that
God loves everyone contradict the word of God, it has serious
implications. If God loves everybody, and some
folks go to hell anyway, God's love is just a frustrated passion
in God. Just a frustrated passion in
God. When I was a little boy, there
was a lady that hung around with my mother who was a doll. I mean, she was a beautiful gal. And I was about eight, nine years
old, and I fell in love with that girl. I mean, I just flat
fell in love with her. And it tickled me to death anytime
she just looked my way. But it didn't take me long to
get real frustrated. Because I knew she wasn't going to marry
me. She wasn't going to hang on. It was just a frustrated
passion. God's love is not a frustrated
passion. God's love is just not a, is
not a passion that can never be satisfied. To suggest that
God loves all men is to declare that God's love is really mutable. That you can't really depend
on God. You can't really trust him because God changes. Except
patriot, nobody would say that. A.W. Tozer, who founded the Armenian
Christian Missionary Alliance denomination, made this statement
about love, about God's love. He said, God must love and will
love man until hell has erased the last trace of the remaining
image of God in him. Men are lost now, Tozer wrote,
but they're still loved of God. I believe, he said, that God
now loves all lost men, but the day will come when lost man will
no longer be loved by God Almighty. I believe the time will come
when God will no longer love lost human beings. Well, God, your love's worthless, if that's
what it is. If that's what it is, it's worthless.
Worse than worthless. To make such a statement's blasphemy.
We'll worship our minions would have us believe that God loves
all men before they're born. Loves them as long as they live
in this world, no matter what they become or what they do.
But he stops loving them and casts them into hell in his wrath
and fury. Or else, or else, they tell us
that God still loves them. and helplessly weeps over the
damned in hell because he did all he could, but he couldn't
save them. A changeable God is no God at
all. A helpless God is no God at all.
A frustrated God is no God at all. But pastor, God's goodness
to men in the world. Surely, surely God's goodness,
he feeds all, and he causes the rain to fall on all, and he causes
the sun to shine upon all. He gives help to all. Surely
that's an evidence that God loves everybody. What? What? I have some friends who live
in the midst of places where hurricanes hit them a lot, down
on the coast of North Carolina. Some believers who've lost some
serious property. Some have been injured in those
hurricanes. When God sends judgment, does that mean God's angry with
them? Is that an indication that God hates them? Just because
they were hurt in the hurricane? No, no, no, no, no, no. We experience
famine if famine comes to the land, though we're believers,
because we live amongst the ungodly. And the ungodly, the reprobate
of this world, enjoy the benefits of God's providence because they
live next door to us. If our neighbors, if the neighbors
around here knew, knew, if they only knew, What they'd get by
living close to me. They'd do anything for me. It'd
never rain on them. Sun would never shine for them.
They couldn't raise one stalk of ear if they planted a whole
bushel of corn. If they didn't live next door to me. All the benefits of life in this
world fall upon ungodly, reprobate men only because God's elect
are still in this world and he preserves them and maintains
the world for the saving of his elect because he will not that
any of them should perish, but all should come to repentance
and knowledge of the truth. I say again, universal love is
meaningless love. consider these questions. Just suppose God does love everybody. Then why were some not elected
to salvation? Now God says many are called
but few are chosen. Why is it that many never hear
the Gospel? There are multitudes all over
this world who perished and never heard the name of the Lord Jesus.
Why, if he loves everybody, did the Son of God refuse to pray
for some? Why, if he loves everybody, did
the Lord Jesus refuse to die for some? Why, if he loves everybody,
do many perish under the wrath of God? If God loves all men,
what does the love of God have to do with salvation? I'll give
you the answer, nothing. If God loves all men and then
some are saved and some are lost, God's love doesn't determine
anything, but rather it's all determined by you. Understand this too. God's love
for his own. God is love. God doesn't love
everybody. And God's love for his own elect. special, distinguishing, sovereign,
saving love. Look in Verse 10, herein is love,
not that we loved God, we didn't, we wouldn't, we couldn't, but
that He loved us. And those whom He loved, people
He chose before the world was, Those whom he loved, he sent
his son to be the propitiation for our sins. God loved us because he loved
us. He sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Christ died for the people he
loved. Christ intercedes for the people he loved. The Lord
God loves his people and he loves us sacrificially. So much so
that he gave his only dear son to die in our place and be the
propitiation for our sins. And those he loves, he saves. The love of God for us is much
more than a helpless passion. It is his saving commitment his
determination to save his elect. And therefore he says, Jacob,
I gave Egypt for you and Ethiopia for you, men for you and people
for your life. Whatever it is that's necessary,
I'll give it all for you. This is God's word, Jacob have
I loved. All the benefits all the benefits
and blessings of grace and salvation flow to chosen, redeemed sinners
because of God's love. Get that, get that. The Lord
appeared of old unto me, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love, therefore. Therefore. with loving kindness
I have drawn thee. Because I loved you. I just happened
to catch Elizabeth's eye. Imagine God's arrangement of
things. Fixed it so you'd meet that lanky fellow there, come
hear the gospel of God's free grace. How come? Because I loved you
with an everlasting love. and at the appointed time of
love I drew you to me. All the benefits and blessings
of God's goodness flow out to chosen redeemed sinners because
of God's love for us. One last thing. have I loved? Jacob have I loved? Oh, how we ought to love God. Oh, how we ought to love our
God. The love of Christ constrains
us because we thus judge that if Christ died for us, then we
died in Him. And He died for us that we should
no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died for us. Oh, how we ought to love Him
who loved us and gave Himself for us. Oh, God. God, my Savior, as you are utterly
committed me. Graciously force me, day by day,
hour by hour, moment by moment, to the last breath of my being
on this earth, to be utterly committed to You, for Christ's
sake. Amen.