A few days ago, Shelby and I
were in a men's shop over in Lexington. She's wanting to buy
me a new black suit, and I need one. And a fellow was helping
us, and I forgot what came up, what question was raised. But
he said, that'll be the determinant. And he said, is that a word,
the determinant? I said, oh, yes, that's a marvelous
word. The determinant counsel and foreknowledge
of God. If you learn anything about that,
you will have learned something. I hope it sits in his mind and
won't let him go. Turn with me, if you will, to
first Peter chapter one. I want to return to one of my
favorite subjects and favorite passages of scripture. First
Peter chapter one and verse two. Hear these words and rejoice. If you're God's, if you belong
to Christ, if you've been saved by God's free grace, this is
what God the Holy Ghost says about you. Elect, according to
the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Oh, what a word of grace. Chosen, sanctified, redeemed,
blessed. That's my subject this evening.
Chosen, sanctified, redeemed, blessed. If you are one of God's,
you are chosen of God, sanctified by God, redeemed by God, blessed by God. Everything here
spoken of describes God's work and God's work alone. Here the
Apostle Peter, as in many portions of Scripture, gives us the work
of the Holy Trinity in a single statement of Scripture. He tells
us that salvation is the work of the triune God. It is God's
work alone and It is God's work involving grace, grace from the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is an effectual work
of free, sovereign, omnipotent grace. These days we hear folks
talk about salvation, like I made my decision for Jesus. I came
to the Lord. I decided to start living for
the Lord. I started serving the Lord. When
was the last time you heard someone speak about God's salvation by
saying, God saved me? God saved me. Everything today
hinges on man, never in the book of God. Today, the emphasis is
always about man. Brother Todd called this afternoon
asking me about some things, and we were discussing this thing
that Even fellows who seem to have some knowledge of
God's grace. Emphasize constantly your change that you've experienced
and what a great change it'd be if you'd believe on the Lord.
What a great change it'd be if you'd come to Christ. The emphasis
always on man. Never in this book is the emphasis
on you. It's always on the character
of God, the will of God, the choice of God, the purpose of
God, and the work of God. The emphasis in this book is
never about you, your character, your choice, your conduct, your
change, or your benefit. The emphasis is God and his glory. God and his grace. God teach
us that and we might learn to worship Him. God teach us that
and we might learn to properly proclaim His goodness. God teach
us that and we might be compelled from our hearts to sing His praise
and devote ourselves to Him. These soul comforting words in
Scripture here in 1 Peter 2 are matters of divine certainty. All who were chosen by God in
eternal election All of them, none accepted, and none but them,
were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ when he died
at Calvary. All of them, none but them, and
none accepted from them. Christ Jesus redeemed God's elect
upon the cursed tree. When Christ shed his blood, he
did not in any sense whatsoever intend to redeem folks who are
not redeemed. Folks, he didn't pray for, he
won't die for. Folks, he didn't pray for, he
didn't lay down his life for. Folks, he did not include in
the number of his sheep. He did not include in the number
of his redeemed. The Lord Jesus died for God's
elect. Pastor, why stress that? In fact,
that's the very thing Brother Todd called me about today and
asked me about an ambiguous statement from some pastor in congregation
about the atonement. And the issue is just this. If
Jesus Christ intended to do at Calvary that which he did not
accomplish at Calvary, then you're yet in your sins. He is no God,
he is no Savior, and his death is of no benefit to anyone. To
compromise on the atonement is to deny the gospel in its entirety. All those chosen of God were
redeemed by Christ. And all of those redeemed by
Christ shall be called regenerated, sanctified, born again by God
the Holy Ghost. And all of Christ's chosen, redeemed,
sanctified ones are now and shall forever be blessed of God. These are matters of absolute
certainty. There is not in our text an if
or a but, or a maybe, or a condition of any kind to spoil these sweet,
sweet words of grace. All right, let's look at them
one at a time. There's nothing new here that I'm going to be
dealing with tonight. And I don't intend to say it
in a new way. If I can say it more emphatically
and more strongly than I have in the past, I'll be thankful.
But nothing new, nothing astonishing, nothing surprising to you here.
Follow along with me in the text. Chosen. All who are saved by
the grace of God are distinctly, divinely chosen of God. Chosen of God. What a great,
great word. God's people are his chosen people. If I am God's, I am God's because
he chose me. If you are God's, you are God's
because he chose you. according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. All who enjoy the blessings,
gifts, and benefits of God's grace in Christ are the objects
of his eternal choice. You turn to Deuteronomy chapter
7. I want to read several passages
of scripture. This choice is called election,
the election of grace, God's election. Don't ever be ashamed
of that term, election. Contrary to popular opinion,
this is not a cuss word. This is a good, blessed word. Elect, election, chosen. These are words that God uses
to describe his people. In fact, God's people are described
more often in this book as the elect than they are in any other
way. More than any other way, the
saints of God used to speak to one another as the elect. Happy,
happy, happy we ought to be to think of and rejoice in God's
election. I can't read you everything the
book of God says about election, but let me read you a few things
while you just hold your hands. Deuteronomy 7. Blessed is the
man whom thou choosest and causes. You know what it means, Don?
Blessed is the man, oh God, whom you choose and force to come
to you. And causes to come unto thee.
Oh, blessed is that man whom God chooses and forces to come
to him. You mean God forces people to
be saved? If God didn't force you to come, you wouldn't come.
If God didn't force the issue, you'd never be born again. If
God didn't force the issue, you'd never believe. Well, preacher,
that takes away man's free will altogether. It does, doesn't
it? This book takes away man's free will altogether. It does
indeed. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. But
pastor, where is the place for man's free will? That's a cuss
word. That's blasphemy. That's the
place for it. You have not chosen me, but I've
chosen you and ordained you. that you should go and bring
forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain. Listen to our
Savior. I pray for them, those that you've
given me. I pray not for the world, but
for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. I hear
folks say, I get letters, I get notes, I get telephone calls.
Preaches, but isn't there some sense in which the Lord wants
to save everybody? John 17 9 and John 17 20 where
our Lord in his high priestly prayer twice declares I Pray
not for the world. They said that twice in one prayer
I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given
me. And for those who shall believe on me through their word, I pray
not for the world. Surely then you understand that
it is not his desire in any way that all the world be saved.
If it were his desire, it would be done. It is his desire that
his elect be saved and they shall be saved. Many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. All right. Look here John our
Deuteronomy chapter 7 Deuteronomy 7 You are chosen generation Here
the Apostle or the Prophet Moses speaks to us concerning God's
election This is God's Word to the children of Israel by his
servant Moses When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the
land with a thou goest to possess it. I And hath cast out many
nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the
Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites,
and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou.
Reckon why he said seven. Reckon why there were seven there.
Because seven speaks of completion. God Almighty takes these seven
pagan nations by which he read by which all the Gentile world
and all the world of unbelieving Non-elect people are represented
and he says these shall be cast out to make room for my people
in the new creation of my hand read on When the Lord thy God
shall deliver them before thee and Thou shalt smite them and
utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with
them, nor show mercy unto them. What a statement. Look at verse
6. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord
thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself,
above all people that are upon the face of the earth. I said this to you some time
ago. I recall when I was preaching from this passage of scripture,
it had never struck me before. All my life as a believer, since
I was just a young man, folks just snarl and get angry over
elections. You just think you're something
special. I say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I learned
something here. God says I am. God made you special, special above all people in the
world, special as his people, his peculiar treasure, the jewels
of his crown, special above all people of the earth by sovereign
free election. Now, I'm going to tell you something.
If that bothers you, I'd be concerned about my soul if I were you.
If that disturbs you, I'd be very disturbed about my soul
if I were you. If ever you come to experience
free grace, you will rejoice in God's election. All right,
here's the second thing, foreknowledge. How we rejoice in God's free
electing love. But here, Peter states it somewhat
differently than we commonly stated or as commonly described
in scripture. He says we are elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Now, if you're discussing
this with some babbling freewheeler, some well-worshiping Arminian,
he'll jump on this text right here and spit it at you with
a snarl. There you see. God's election,
we have to admit so, but God chose us based on what he foresaw
we would do. That's not what the book of God
says here. The Holy Spirit has caused this
book to be written in such a way, now listen carefully, as to confuse
folks who will not believe. The Holy Spirit has written this
book in such a way as to confuse folks who will not believe. So
they'll read one text of Scripture and say, well, that's just what
that means. It can't mean what it obviously
is intended to mean. And so they risk the Scriptures
to their own destruction. When the Spirit of God here speaks
of foreknowledge, understand, He is not talking about an attribute
of God. Foreknowledge is an attribute
of God. It's called prescience or pre-science. omniscience. It is not God's
knowledge of something beforehand. That is not the way the word
foreknowledge is used anywhere in the Word of God. Foreknowledge
is used in the Word of God to speak of an act of God. And here
Peter says, we are elect according to this act of God, the foreknowledge
of God the Father. What is this act of God? What
is this act of His? Foreknowledge means these four
things. Now, if you haven't written them
down somewhere in the margin of your Bible before, do it now.
Foreknowledge means foreordination. We know that, plainly revealed,
down in verse 20, Christ is described as the Lamb who barely was foreordained
before the foundation of the world. Foreknowledge means foreordination. It's the very same word in verse
20 that's translated foreknowledge in verse 2. Second for knowledge
means everlasting love The root word is knowledge In the Septuagint
translation of the Old Testament Genesis chapter 4 Adam loved
his wife Eve The word is Adam knew his wife Eve The word for
knowledge speaks of God's for ordination, and it speaks of
God's everlasting love. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness,
have I drawn thee. Before the world was, God loved
us. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Before the world was, God loved
us. Therefore, he called us by his
almighty grace. Were it not for God's eternal
choice of his people in electing love, there would never be a
single sinner saved by God's free grace. Here's a third meaning
of this word for knowledge. Approval. Elect. According to the everlasting,
eternal Approval of God the father Oh God helped you to get this God approved of us in Christ
before the world was and He never changed his mind We were accepted in the beloved. And that didn't change when we
send in Adam. That didn't change when we came
forth in my mother's womb speaking lies. And that doesn't change
today. Our approval by God is because
of our union with Christ the Lord so that he looks on us in
his son and approves of us. The Lord knoweth the way of the
righteous. But the way of the wicked, the
ungodly, shall perish. What does David mean when he
says that? The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the
way of the ungodly will perish. The Lord knows what you're doing,
but he doesn't know what the wicked are doing. Oh, no. The way of
the ungodly will perish precisely because God knows exactly what
they're doing. But when he speaks of the Lord knowing the way of
the righteous, he's saying the Lord approves of the way of the
righteous. The way of the righteous is not
the way you walk day by day. The way of the righteous is not
the way you talk. The way of the righteous is not
the way you behave in the world. The way of the righteous is Christ
the way. And the Lord approves of the
way of the righteous. And we walk in Him. And He approves
of us in His Son. He tells us to walk in this world
rejoicing with the wife of our youth, drinking our wine with
a merry heart, because God now accepted thy works. Fourthly,
this word for knowledge speaks of infallible safety and security
in Christ. The foundation of God stand assure
having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. We who believe God, all who've
experienced his free saving grace in Christ, rejoice and give thanks
for the blessed knowledge of God's election, according to
the foreknowledge of God the Father, his foreordination, his
everlasting love, his eternal immutable approval and his absolute
steadfast security. We rejoice in electing love. Chosen of God, all the chosen
shall be saved. But election is not the first
thing to be learned. You can't know your election
and you can't know your redemption. You can't know that you've been
chosen of God, and you can't know that you've been redeemed
by Christ until you experience God's grace in regeneration.
It was described here as sanctification. Look here. Elect according to
the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification
of the Spirit. Turn back to 2 Thessalonians
2. 2 Thessalonians 2. This is precisely how the apostle
Paul describes this blessed thing of election. Verse 13, we're
bound to give thanks all way to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God had from the beginning chosen you
to salvation. through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification here speaks of
the work of God the Holy Spirit making us new creatures in Christ.
It speaks of regeneration. It speaks of God making us partakers
of the divine nature. Forming Christ in you the hope
of glory giving you that holiness without which no man shall see
the Lord Most people think of sanctification As something that
we do with the assistance of the Holy Spirit the vast majority
of folks who speak of it if they ever speak of it the vast majority
of folks who preach on it if they ever preach on it and Declare
it to be a work that begins in the new birth when God the Holy
Spirit gives you a righteous nature and you With great exercise
and discipline get to be more and more and more holy Until
at last you're right for heaven and then the Lord takes you home
Now that may make you feel good about yourself if you're dishonest
That may cause you to think very highly of yourself if you're
dishonest. But if you're the least touch
honest, you know it just ain't so. You know it just ain't so. Which
of you have gotten better? I'm not talking about in the
way other folks see you. I'm not talking about in the way
you outwardly behave. I'm talking about the way you
think. Which of you has gotten better? I'm talking about in
the way you think in your heart. Which of you have improved? I'm
talking about in the way you think in your heart. Oh, not
me. The fact is none have. None have. Our holiness is not determined
by us. He's talking about Christ in
you, the hope of glory. That's sanctification. We were
sanctified by the decree of God, Jude chapter 1 verse 1. We were
sanctified made perfect by the sin atoning blood of Jesus Christ
Hebrews chapter 10 verse 14 and we are sanctified in the experience
of grace when God Opens the windows of heaven and drops his son into
your soul in renewing grace by the power of his spirit sanctification
of the spirit is the new birth. It is the washing of regeneration.
It is that work which God does in us, making us the sons of
God in the experience of grace so that we are new creatures
in Christ Jesus. This means that we belong to
God. If God's chosen you through sanctification
of the spirit, that means God's going to get you. God's going
to get you. I don't use tricks and deceitful
practices and cunning craftiness to try to get people to make
a profession of faith in Christ. How deplorable. How deplorable. And that's what the whole of
the religious invitation system is. I was in school in preacher
training classes, evangelism classes that teach you to bring
your message and your service to a crescendo and to a psychological
pitch to get folks inclined to do something. No, we don't use trickery to
trick you into thinking you're going to heaven when you're going
to hell. If God's chosen you to be saved through sanctification
of the spirit, God's going to get you. And I'll tell you something
else. If God doesn't get you, it won't
be much of a loss. Men think there's something.
We like to think we're something. You will contribute nothing to
God and you'll take nothing from him. Salvation is a matter of
his free grace. And David Peterson, if God's
chosen you, to his marvelous foreknowledge and sanctification
of the spirit to be his. That means you belong to God.
Locke's talking barrel. You're his because God chose
you. You're his because God set you apart for himself. His because
God cut you out and called you by his grace. Therefore, if any
man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed
away. Behold, all things have become
new. And you're not your own. You're
not your own. You've been bought with a price,
so glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. But why does Peter put sanctification
before redemption? Paul clearly makes it to be something
that comes in experience after redemption. But Peter is here
telling us that we are sanctified experimentally before we know
anything about redemption in the experience of God's grace.
You may know much about it in theory. You may know much about
it in doctrine. But you can never know redemption
until you've experienced God's grace, the sanctifying of the
Spirit, giving you life and faith in Christ Jesus. You need never
imagine that God loves you or Christ died for you until you
believe on the Son of God. This book gives no hint of it,
gives no record of it anywhere. Folks, this generation of God
loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life. If God loves everybody,
he got a mighty strange way of showing it. Ask Noah's generation,
ask those folks that perished in Sodom. No to tell folks that
God loves them when they have no knowledge of God's grace is
to declare that which simply is not so Those who are born
of God who believe on the Lord Jesus They are the people who
are loved of God and God's love is sealed in their hearts by
the sanctifying of the spirit Here's the third thing redeemed Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through sanctification of the spirit unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. We don't preach the possibility
of redemption. We don't come to sinners and
say, you may be redeemed today. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We preach
redemption done, redemption accomplished. You who are gods have been redeemed. Jesus Christ, by one sacrifice,
put away our sins forever. Jesus Christ, by his death at
Calvary, satisfied the justice of God completely and forever. Jesus Christ, by his blood, entered
into heaven and obtained eternal redemption for his people. Redeemed. But what does this mean? When
he speaks of redemption, the obedience, and sprinkling of
blood of Jesus Christ. He's talking about two things. John Murray years ago wrote a
book, I read it when I was in college back in 68, 69, called
Redemption Accomplished and Redemption Applied. That's what this is
all about. Redemption accomplished and redemption
applied. We were chosen by God in his
everlasting love. through sanctification of the
spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ chosen to this thing that Christ should redeem us with
the sacrifice of himself sprinkling his blood in the holy place obtaining
eternal redemption for us and chosen to the sprinkling of the
blood of Christ in our hearts, upon our consciences. Clearly,
the Apostle Peter is here referring to both the Passover and the
things that took place in the Passover. Look down at verse
18. For as much as you know that
you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversation, from your empty, meaningless, worthless
life, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious
blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,
who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,
but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do
believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him
glory, that your faith and hope might be in God." Now in this
book, redemption is always presented as particular effectual redemption. Grace is always presented as
effectual, sovereign, saving grace. And grace and redemption
always go together. Those for whom the Passover lamb
were slain, all of them went out of Egypt. And they showed
us the experience of this in their own sacrifice and sprinkling
of blood on their doorpost. You remember the head of every
house was commanded to take a lamb and sacrifice that lamb for his
family and smear the blood on the doorpost of his house. And
the blood smeared on the doorpost of his house. They're inwardly
sitting there, standing there with a staff in their hands,
their shoes on their feet, their coat on their back, eating the
sacrificed lamb with haste because they're expecting to leave Egypt
because the blood has been applied to their house. Oh, that's just
the picture given in Hebrews chapter 10. Turn back there.
Hebrews chapter 10. I'm sorry, chapter 9. Chapter
9. This obedience under the sprinkling
of blood speaks also of the obedience of faith. Hebrews 9 verse 11. Christ being come and high priest
of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood,
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. That's redemption accomplished.
Verse 13, for if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes
of the sprinkling of a heifer, the sprinkling of the unclean
Sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh.
Now, here's the picture. Here's the argument. Paul is
saying if those carnal ceremonies purified the flesh so that men
carnally were allowed to approach God on the basis of these things
as being clean, how much more Oh, how much more? If the picture
is true, if the ceremony is true, how much more shall the blood
of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without
spot to God? Watch this now. Purge your conscience. Make your conscience clean from
dead works to serve the living God. If Aaron could go into the Holy
of Holies, with nothing but the blood of a dumb animal. How much more may we approach
the throne of grace with the precious blood of Christ with
no guilt, with no fear, with no dread. This is redemption
applied. I love the picture that Bunyan
draws of Pilgrim when he made his way to Mount Calvary with
the burden on his back and he looked up and saw Christ crucified. And when he did saw the Lamb
of God slain for him, he said the burden fell off my back and
rolled down the hill into the abyss of forgetfulness, never
to be remembered again. That's redemption applied. You
who are gods are chosen, sanctified, redeemed. Now watch this. And
blessed. He let, according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you,
and peace be multiplied. This is God's promise. Grace
is yours. Pardoning grace, preserving grace,
sufficient grace. Grace as you need it is yours.
And as you need it, God will supply it. Someone came to Spurgeon one
day and was very troubled and kept coming back, coming back
about the same thing. He said, I'm so concerned because I don't
think I have dying grace. And finally Spurgeon said to
her, are you dying? She said, well, no. He said,
well, when you need it, you'll have it. God doesn't give grace
when it's not needed, but when it's needed, he gives it. How often, Sally Ponsor, did
you think in the last couple of years, what am I going to
do without Bob? And painful as it is, God gives grace sufficient
as it's needed. Is that true? he's as good as his word he gives
grace all grace continual grace to all his own according to his
everlasting purpose and love and choice and work of grace
and he gives peace all the peace of pardon the peace of his presence
the peace of his providence The peace of his promises when we
can't even grasp them. Peace. Now, what's this? Be sure you carry this home with
you. Grace and peace once given. Only multiply. Grace and peace be multiplied. The blessedness of God's saints.
is always multiplied, never subtracted, never divided, always multiplied,
so that God's people are a people indeed chosen, redeemed, sanctified,
and blessed forever. Amen.