So I'm going to start in Acts
chapter 9 again at approximately verse 15. We'll start in Acts 9 verse 15
and work our way through. The servant Ananias has just
thought to help God understand what he was doing when he decided
to arrest the apostle, the Pharisee Saul, on the road to Tarsus.
As we learn, Ananias has been given an assignment to go to
this man and speak to him. And we read over in verse 13,
Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this
man how much evil he hath done to your servant, how much evil
he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority
from the chief priest to bind all that call upon your name. But the Lord said unto him, Go
thy way. For he is a chosen vessel unto
me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, the children
of Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer
for my namesake. So I want to start at the top
of our outline, which in your bulletin is on the point. Number
one, the proposition election alone is the cause of our calling
and our service election alone. The apostle Paul or the servant
Saul, who will soon become the apostle Paul is a perfect model
for us of what it means to be saved. A perfect model of salvation. Because as Saul was in his rebellion
against God, and he acted out in hostility towards Christ by
persecuting this church, you and I know that by nature, we
are just like Saul, true? Meaning that apart from the grace
of God, we can't love what God loves, see what God sees, or
even desire what God desires. Saul in his native state, we
call it his unregenerate state, has openly vented his hostility
to Christ. And before you were saved, you
were just like that, hostile to God. So the reason I set that
proposition before you is that I know people who profess to
be Christian, but really do not adopt the biblical doctrine of
human depravity. They do not really believe that
they are sinners. And it's amazing to me that every
time that I talk about sin in the biblical sense of what sin
is, I get pushback from religious people. folks who say they love
God and love the gospel. But as soon as I tell them that
you by nature are no different than Saddam Hussein or Mussolini
or Hitler, that we all by nature are totally and completely depraved,
that left to ourselves, we can commit the most heinous crimes.
And that if we had been there 2000 years ago, we would have
crucified Jesus just like those people. So like when once you
start dealing with the biblical doctrine of anthropology, that's
one of the areas where you discover people have a very flawed foundation
when it comes to a biblical worldview of human beings. That is to say,
we really don't want to be told how bad we are. Because we judge
ourselves based upon what we might do in our external deeds. So some of us look good outwardly
because we wouldn't dare curse in public, in public. Or we wouldn't dare do some of
the heinous things that other people do. And what we would
do is we'll use a sliding scale to judge ourselves over against
people who are more overtly ungodly than us. And we will say, I'm
not as bad as him. But the reality is the Bible
would say you are just as bad as him. So one of the problems
we have in this present 21st century Christianity is that
we use a human measuring rod to determine what's right and
what's wrong. But what the Bible plainly says of you and me is
that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's
Romans chapter 3 verse 20. And what the Bible says is that
there's none good So we've just used two words, all and none.
You guys note that? There's none good. That's in
the same chapter. We're going to be going through the book
of Romans after we leave Revelation. We will be going through the
book of Romans and be revolutionized once again by that book. But
what the writer says is that humanity and Adam are all spiritually
dead. Now, what that means is that
you and I don't have any capacity in ourselves to reach out to
God. to get a hold of God, to even
desire God. In our present generation, multitudes
of people are under the false notion that we have some intrinsic
worth, some intrinsic goodness, that our goodness is such that
we can actually reach out to God. You will hear this term.
All kinds of people in the world are seeking for God. They just
don't know where to find him. Man has this God-sized vacuum
in his heart, and he just doesn't know where God is. Now, when
we are biblicist, Bible-believing Christians, you know what you
do with propositions? You test them. You don't let
propositions simply fly by because they feel good and sound nice. If you say that I have a God-sized
vacuum in my heart, and I'm really looking for God, I just don't
know it, you have to demonstrate that proposition through the
scriptures. And what I would say to you is that there's none
that seeks after God, no, not one. And I would show you that
in the New Testament, and I would show you that in the Old Testament.
And I would show you that we all have turned to our own way. Each one of us has gone astray. The human race from Adam's fall
to the present, everything issuing out of the womb, are lost sinners. Not only are we lost, we are
dead spiritually. So our Lord says in John chapter
4 very clearly, John chapter 5, I'm sorry, The hour is coming and now is
when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they
that hear shall live. What are we talking about? We're
talking about God having to infuse life into the dead souls of men
before they can even hear the word of God. All right. So stay
with me for a moment because our first proposition under the
chosen vessel of the Lord is that when we are finding ourselves
longing after God, desiring God, or running after God, or pursuing
God, if we ever find ourselves doing that, there was a prerequisite
work on God's part that initiated that desire. That humanly speaking
on our part, we do not desire God. until God begins to infuse
into our life certain ingredients by which he produces an arousal,
an awakening, a desire to know him because we are spiritually
dead. I see Ephesians 2 verse 2 through
5, that we were dead in trespasses and sins. Colossians chapter
2 says it as well. We are dead in trespasses and
sins. Ezekiel 37 is a perfect description that we are like
the dry bones of Ezekiel 37, dead by nature. And what that
means is that if we ever come to God, it means that God has
to first draw us. Are you guys following me? And
what's a wonderfully graphic truth along those lines is this,
that you don't discover anywhere in the Bible where people naturally
pursued God. When Adam failed into sin, him
and his wife rebelled against God, they ate the fruit, right?
Did they eat the fruit? What was it, an apple? No! Whatever
it was, when they ate the fruit, the consequences of sin manifested
itself right away. Did they eat the fruit? which
was transgression against God's law and didn't run after God,
or did they run from God? They ran from God. This is what
we call the noetic effect of sin. Immediately, shame set in,
guilt set in, and then death set in. Before the shame, guilt,
and death set in, they had great fellowship with God. As soon
as they broke God's law, the fellowship was what? Broken.
So here's the proposition. Who sought who first? God sought them. Our first parents
ran from God because of the enmity in their heart, because of the
shame, guilt and fear. And they had no sense of love
or propriety towards God anymore. They had a sense now of enmity.
And now God is like a judge because he had established the law. Had
he not established the law in the day that you eat of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely what? And they
had immediately died psychologically. They immediately died spiritually,
and they would eventually die physically. There are three deaths.
I have the atheists who love to argue and debate with Christians
over theological nuances. And this is not a nuance. This
is simply a precise assessment of what happened when Adam and
Eve fell. Some people say, how come they
didn't die immediately? They did die immediately. Now,
the atheist, who him, or herself is dead spiritually already,
when you give them that solution, they laugh at you. I'm talking
scholarly atheists. I'm talking about really sharp
atheists who used to be professing Christians, but they acquired
enough knowledge to no longer believe the Bible, not be mixed
with faith, and then begin to argue against what appear to
be discrepancies and errors in the word of God. And they would
assert that God is some kind of monster. And that Adam and
Eve, when God said you would die, they really didn't die,
wanting to make God a what? Liar. What we say is you don't
understand the nature of death, that it has multiple components
to it. If you simply believe that mankind is a physical being
without a soul, without a spirit, then you are flawed again in
your anthropology. Because the Bible plainly says
that God created man out of the dust of the ground, that's his
physical body, breathed into his nostrils the breath of light.
Then he became a living soul. That means he has what we call
an immaterial essence, which is the true essence of his being. And in that immaterial essence,
he is a soul and a spirit. That means he has a personal
entity with a rational, cognitive, intelligent mind capable of working
through moral and ethical rights and wrongs being created in the
image of a holy God. Are you guys following the logic?
This is what God breathed into him when he breathed his ruah,
his spirit into man. Man became like God in that he
is a rational, intelligent, propositionally thinking creature, able to deduce,
able to induce, able to draw conclusions, able to rationalize,
think in terms of moral and ethical rights and wrongs and art. Animals
don't do that. They're instinctual. And because
he is created in the image of God, he is accountable to God. And when God laid down the law,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the law. You
cross that line, you become a sinner. The wages of sin is what? So
now with the atheist, he says, well, where was the death? And
we say it was immediately in his mind. He died in his mind
because immediately he failed to recognize that God is omnipresent. That was a complete deterioration
of his transcendent capacity to think of God in true terms.
He now sees God as a local being from which he can run. That was
a death. Then he failed to realize that
even if God were limited in his spatial essence, God is omniscient. And so what did he do? He hid
and covered himself with fig leaves, thinking the fig leaves
would somehow dupe God. He has once again demonstrated
a spiritual deficiency in terms of his comprehension of God.
That spiritual death, ladies and gentlemen, And that's where
men and women are outside of God now. When they think of God,
they rationalize God in terms of the pagan deities all over
the world with limited capacities. The biblical God is not like
the gods of this world. And conversely, when God saves
you, he brings you out of that narrow thinking of paganism into
the broad scope of this infinite being who is omnipresent, omniscient,
omnipotent, and possesses predicates and attributes exclusive to himself
by which he measures every human being. Those predicates exclusive
to himself are righteousness and holiness and justice, mercy
and patience and goodness, co-mingled together of which he tells his
creatures to operate in. If God is merely righteous, we
all go to hell. If God is merely loving, then
he is capricious and he is permissive and we can live like we want.
We're still going to heaven. If God is loving and holy, sin
has to be punished and salvation has to be accomplished by a righteous
means. Am I making some sense to you?
And because God is both holy and loving, and these are not
contradictory attributes, righteous and loving, he is able to take
those attributes of himself and demonstrate them in the person
of his son, Jesus Christ, retaining his holiness while punishing
sin and saving sinners who were in an inextricable dilemma, having
sinned against God and under the indictment of death. spiritual
death, physical death, and then ultimately what? Eternal death,
which the Bible calls the second death. So you and I, when we're
born into this world, we're born separate from God, are we not?
That means our minds are not thinking about the true and the
living God. Not in terms of a loving, filial relationship with God. And so until God does something
for us We are left in ourselves and we live and we die and we
perish under the judgment of God. Is that true? Now what I've
just shared with you is the premise for which we send the gospel
into all the world Let me say something about that on an evangelical
note If in fact mankind is not as bad as God says he is then
there'd be no reason to evangelize him If in fact men can come to
God on their own steam, why do we have to go to men with the
gospel? If in fact man has the capacity within himself to reach
out after God and find God without God's help, why on earth did
Christ come? And why do we hazard our lives
traversing all parts of the planet to hunt down barbarians and share
the gospel with them? If in fact they can come to God
on their own. But when you follow the biblical
narrative, guess what? God's always the one hunting
down sinners. He's the one calling them. He's
the one choosing them. He's the one quickening them
by His grace and then preparing them for ministry and using them.
This is what we call His sovereign choice. And so in here in our
outline, election alone is a cause and calling of service, election
alone is the cause of our calling and service. Under that, I have
four propositions. The first is God chose us. Is
that legitimate? And then the second one is God
called us. The third is God saved us. And then fourthly, God what? Right. And so if a man or woman
feels the missionary urge or the desire on an evangelical
part to see other people saved, what you and I are doing is responding
in a recapitulation process that when you and I go and share the
gospel, we are recapitulating the process over and over again
by which people are saved. Someone went for me. Now I'm
going for them and someone will go after me because they went
after them. Am I making some sense? So that
process is the way that salvation works. Christ was sent into the
world by the father. in order to have a people for
himself. And he would do it by sending
others with whom he has entered into a personal relationship,
i.e. the apostles. And that pattern
falls out for us, as John chapter 20, 21 says, for as the father
has sent me, so send I what? Right, and when we really understand
our calling as Christians, we understand that we are going
not because it's our own natural bent to go, but because we've
been saved. And we've been saved because
we've been called. And we've been called because we've been
chosen. That's a line of truth that cannot be denied. God chose
us, chose us, he called us, he saved us, and he sends us. That's
what happened to Paul. He was chosen by God. Look at
our text. This will begin to help us understand. Verse 15,
but the Lord said unto Ananias, go your way for he is a what
kind of vessel unto me? And God can say that about every
one of his saved people. Is that true? We are all chosen
vessels. So going back to the PowerPoint,
because I just want to go through these notes just to help some
of you who may be struggling with the doctrine of God's election.
Please understand, do not struggle with it. Accept it. It is a foregone
conclusion, an awry assumption on the part of us who simply
accept the scriptures verbatim. God is the one who does the choosing,
not us. God chose us, we didn't choose
ourselves. John 15, verse 16, he plainly says, I have chosen
you, you have not chosen me. that you should go forth and
bear forth much fruit and that your fruit should remain. That
was God's choice. That was Christ's statement to
his disciples in order for them to understand when I send you
out into ministry, please do not take the faulty position
that you are operating on your own steam or with your own objective
and view. Please understand that I am the
one who is sending you because I chose you. Now you guys remember
the narrative, don't you? You remember Jesus comes into
the world and upon his anointing and baptism, he begins to preach
the kingdom of God. Is that hand, is that true? And
upon preaching the kingdom of God is that here, Peter and John
and James hearing that decide upon their own steam to come
ask Jesus. Could they follow him? Remember
that? No, you don't remember that because no such thing is
in the text. No such thing is in the text.
What's in the text. And Jesus, as he was going through
Galilee, saw John, saw James, saw Andrew, and he called them. And he said, follow me. And straightway
they dropped their nets and followed him. They didn't call him, he
called them. They didn't choose him, he chose
them. That's what the text teaches.
Matthew chapter 20, verse 16, it's a common phrase. Many are
called, few are chosen. You got that? Many are called
fewer chosen. Christ said that several times
throughout the ministry of the gospel, because there is what
we call in theology, a general call where the message of the
gospel goes out to multi multitudes of people. So I might as well
establish this theological truth to help you. Because again, in
our evangelical church, we churches, we say things that are not biblical.
Like here's what we say. We'll say that the gospel goes
to every individual soul on planet earth. That's not true. It's
just not true. We ought not to say things that
we cannot verify in the scriptures. And I'm so glad that our Lord
Jesus had recorded by his apostles, many, many of his sermons and
messages, because inherent in his teachings, one of the things
Christ said in Matthew chapter 11 was, if this message that
was preached to you was preached in Tyree and Sidon, they would
have long time ago repented. If this gospel was preached to
Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have long time repented. What's
the implication? Are the emperors drawn out? They
never heard it. And so men now begin to struggle with the prerogative
of God to have the gospel preached to some people and not others.
And if you and I just simply follow logic, and if you are
going to be a grounded Christian, you have to be rational. You
heard me in my prayer say that lots of people die every day,
right? Do you know that over 300,000 people die every day
on planet earth? 300,000. And now follow this
now. And we believe in the utilitarian
nature of the gospel. We believe that apart from the
preaching of the gospel, you can't be saved. That's another
problem in the evangelical church. They struggle with this notion
that you can only be saved by the grace of God through the
preaching of the gospel. That somehow God finds other
ways by which you can be saved because they see this struggle
that if people are only saved by the evangelical and missionary
work of preaching the gospel, then we got a problem because
multitudes of people are dying every day who never hear the
gospel. And this just blows synapse in the minds of people who want
to somehow reconcile a loving God with a perishing humanity,
right? Just be honest. I understand
the struggle. Pastor, how do you resolve that
struggle? Fairly easily. Just accept what the Bible teaches.
I saw fairly easy. I'm not saying be cold and indifferent
to hell bound centers because you and I by nature are hell
bound centers. And if it wasn't for his grace, we'd still be
hell bound centers. But what I am not going to do
is I'm not going to say that God is doing something that he's
not doing and that I cannot demonstrate logically and accurately through
the scriptures. When the scriptures lays it out,
salvation is definitely a work of God. And it is a work that
God does in a manner where in we struggle. Our master's first
sermon was in his own hometown. And the reason they wanted to
kill him for preaching his first service, taking him to the cliff
and throwing him over headlong, that's what they wanted to do.
Do you know why they wanted to throw him headlong? Because he
preached the doctrine of election. Read it and look for it. The
message was going great. They were saying, man, is this
Joseph's son? This boy getting down, man, we got us a preacher
in the house. But they got upset when he says
Isaiah 61 is talking about me. They didn't want a crystal centric
message. They wanted an ethnocentric message. They start backing up. Isn't this Joseph's son? And
then he says, well, the scripture says, listen, in the days of
Elijah, the prophet, remember when there was a famine in the
land to whom did he go? But to the widow of Zarephath,
she was a Gentile woman. Everybody else perished. They
understood the implications of his message, that God was selective
in his preservation of that one woman. And it wasn't in regard
to her being an Israelite either. See the doctrine of election
demolishes all of these sort of intrinsic notions that we
are worthy of God's favor. Well, that's a contradiction
of grace. Grace is never defined by me being worthy of God's favor. but me being unworthy of God's
favor and him bestowing it upon me in spite of me. So one of
the battles we have in Christianity is the doctrine of humanism constantly
asserting itself on the pages of scripture and dignifying man
when he's nothing but a rotting corpse. That's what he is, a
rotting corpse. And you and I struggle with what
do you do with a rotting corpse? Well, you can't do anything with
a rotting corpse. But God can. And this is why
you have to understand that salvation is nothing short of a powerful
living God infusing into the dead soul of a helpless human
being his grace to live. Anything less than that stills
the glory of God. Am I making some sense, ladies
and gentlemen? Once we start formulating ideas that somehow
man has a spark of goodness in him now watch this we make God
a liar For not only did the psalmist say none are good. Not only did
Paul say none are good But Jesus said there's none good, but one
even God That's an exclusive statement Completely excluding
all of us from intrinsic goodness. Am I making some sense? I Now,
if Jesus tells the truth and he does, my condition and yours,
apart from the grace of God, is that we're not good. So why say people are good when
the Bible says they're not good? If you put people in a position
of being good when the Bible says that they're not good, you
put them in an unsavable position. Because Christ does not come
for good people. Are you following the logic?
This is really important. And this is why I don't mind
preaching against this religious generation, because this religious
generation continues to bring down God's standard, raise up
the standard of men and fail to understand that God is glorified
when man is helpless. God is glorified when man is
helpless. And so our proposition is God
is the one that chooses us. Do you guys believe that God
chose us? God called us first Corinthians
chapter one, verse 26. You see, then you're calling
brother. You see your calling, not many noble, not many mighty,
not many wise, notice it. For you see your calling, how
that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called, verse 27. Watch this. But God hath
chosen the what kind of things of the world? To do what? And
God has chosen the what things of the world? To do what? Confound the things that are
mighty. Two adjectives, foolish and weak. Do you see that? Stay
with me, ladies and gentlemen. When we teach the doctrine of
election, what we teach people demolishes their pride through
and through. First, it takes the initiative
out of their hand. It's God's initiative. Secondly,
it destroys the assumption that the reason why God chooses you
is because you're bright or strong. But the text tells us that God
chooses foolish things and weak things. And he tells us why to
confound the wise and the mighty. Stay with me now. When you understand
the gospel correctly, you have to actually change the way you
think because the gospel doesn't make sense. When God sent his
son into the world, did he not create a controversy by it? Jesus
could have been born in the palace of David in Jerusalem. He was
born in a stable. He could have been conceived
in the context of something less scrutinizing and scandalous than
a woman who gets pregnant apparently out of wedlock. Am I making some
sense? So he had to live with the scrutiny
of he was a child of fornication. He grew up in the hood and I
mean in the hood. Nazareth was the hood and he
grew up in Galilee. They talk with that southern
slang accent. It was all in terms of pedigree,
completely opposite of what anyone would think. And what does that
do? That causes you and I to have
to step back and raise the question, what is God doing? He's confounding
the wise. He's demolishing the mighty.
Because it is assumed on the part of the wise and the mighty
that they merit something by which they can receive favor
from God. And nothing is further from the
truth. God called us second Thessalonians
chapter two, verse 13, go there in your Bible. So you can see
it. And here's what the apostle says himself being the object
of being called. Here's what he says concerning
calling, calling. He says these words with respect
to the, the, um, the work of grace in our life. Second, second
Thessalonians chapter two, verse 13. Are we, are we there? This
is a very, very ominous passage of scripture that has to do with
the apostasy of the church and the blinding of men and women
by Satan. This here is the, that, that
mystery of iniquity that's working already in verse seven. And then
we read over in verse 11 and for this cause, God sends them
strong delusion that they should believe a lie. That too is one
of those difficult texts for people that God would send delusions. and cause people to believe a
lie. They struggle with the sovereignty of God in His indictment and
punishment of people who continue to rebel against His will. But
we accept it because the Bible teaches it, right? He sends a
strong delusion that they should believe a lie. Then it goes on
to say that they all might be damned who believe not the truth,
but have pleasure in unrighteousness. This is tough language, isn't
it? But it's biblical language. Now follow the next verse. This
is radical. But this is what we call a contrasting
clause. Watch this. But we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brother and beloved
of the Lord. Why, Paul? Because God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he what? Called you. by our gospel. To what end? The obtaining of the glory of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, verse 13
and 14 says this. God has a people that he's not
going to allow to be deceived by Satan's workings, by which
in their desire to live unrighteous lives, he blinds them and gives
them over to reprobation. See, if it wasn't for God choosing
you and me, we would still be deceived. And what the apostle
Paul says is, we thank God for you Thessalonians. Now see, you
can take the book of Thessalonians, Philippians, Colossians, Romans,
all of those books and plop them down in the book of Acts. Cause
they all have the origin in the book of Acts. We'll be getting
there, won't we? As Paul passes through Macedonia and he goes
into Thessalonica and as he goes into Philadelphia and all of
those churches near Asia minor where God called him to preach
the gospel. Now he's saying to them, we thank God that he called
you out of that dark paganism into which you had fallen and
grown up because he chose you. And so this is why we teach the
doctrine of election. God called us. God chose us and
God called us. One more text, Romans chapter
8, 28 and 29. Now, I could have given a multitude
and myriad of texts. I just want to wet your whistle
with a few before we go back to our Acts account. It's critical
that in your rejoicing in your salvation, and you ought to rejoice
in your salvation. There's not a whole lot more
in this world to rejoice in than in yourself, especially in these
days in which you and I are living. I think about the mess that we
are in right now, our economy. And I think about the difficulties
that we're going through in terms of our sort of social decay,
the policies that are proliferating now in Sacramento and in Washington
that's constantly divesting itself from biblical truth. I think
about the constant demise and demoralization of our families
and our children. I think about what's happening
with the Gen Xers and even the dumb baby boomers. I mean, dummies.
We're getting worse and worse when it comes to sin, more hardened. I was thinking about this when
I was coming here earlier about the vanishing line, which is
the conscience being eradicated by sort of a bombardment of pleasure. Our senses are constantly overloaded
with pleasure so that we don't even know what's right and wrong
anymore. And our children are almost just absolutely reprobate
in that area. And I think about many Christians
who profess to be believers in Christ, but are given over to
so many sinful patterns of life that it scares me. It scares
me that you can say, I'm a, I'm a Christian, but I love committing
fornication. I'm a Christian, but I love committing
adultery. I'm a Christian, but I love committing this idolatry.
I'm a Christian, but I love, and I mean, they flaunt it like
it's okay. Like it's mutually acceptable
to call yourself a Christian and do this. See long ago, there
would be no way that you could correlate those two concepts,
Christianity and sin. But see, the Jesus today that
most people embrace is a Jesus that simply allows them to be
whatever they want to be. Now, that thinking belies the
fact that they do not understand why he came. Well, why Christ
came is to save us from our sin. That's Matthew 121. And when
a person is radically confronted by the grace of God, there is
a gradual moving away from patterns of life. by which they were enslaved
when you actually have grace in your life. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? And so you and I are struggling
with a culture right now that can easily adopt the terminology. I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian,
I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian. And there's no conversion evidence
at all. That's not real Christianity.
I've been settled with that. That's not real Christianity.
Breaks my heart. Breaks my heart, but it's true.
It's true. Listen to Romans chapter eight,
verse 28 and 29. Are you there? This is another one of those
texts that underscore that God is the one who is sovereign in
our salvation through and through. Verse 28, and we know that all
things work together for good to them that what? Now this here
too needs to actually be investigated, examined, analyzed, critiqued,
because is loving God simply saying I love God? That's right. So to them that love God, to
those who are called according to his purpose, see? The ones
that love God evidently are the ones who are what? Called. And
when we're called, we're called according to his purpose. For
whom he did, what's the word? For no. He also did what? Predestinate. Here's the objective
of God's predestinating purpose in his prescience or foreknowledge
of us to be conformed to the image of a son. Do you see that?
So the goal of God, when he calls a sinner to himself and brings
about a change in his heart, we call regeneration, is a process
of conforming us to the image of Christ. A lot of you need
to circle that part of your Bible. You need to circle that part
of your Bible and put a point there, a point of reference saying,
this is where I need to meditate. It's right here. Because I believe
in predestination. I believe in foreknowledge. I
believe in election. I believe in God's predetermined
purpose to save me. But I've got to get a handle
on being conformed to the image of his son. Because that's what
salvation is. I'm talking about the intrinsic
work of grace. Where the spirit of God now is
working on you. to shape you and mold you and
change your mind and renew your mind and enlighten you and conform
you. So now what you and I need to
be able to do is to look over at the nature of Christ in his
hypostatic union, this God-man that walks the earth and begin
to see what I am going to look like when God's done with me.
And it asks the question, is the spirit of God bringing me
to a place where I love the truth? Is he bringing me to a place
where I desire to know more of Christ? Is he bringing me to
a place where I am passionately desire to have the same aspirations
as Jesus does, which brings me into conflict with what my native
principle and drives are intrinsically. Is there a warfare in my members
of which I am willing to engage in until grace subdues and brings
into captivity my carnal passions so that I am seeing God work
in me the will and to do of His good pleasure. Am I making some
sense? See, because a lot of Christians don't even want the
warfare. But I am here to tell you, without the warfare, you
cannot do the will of God. You cannot do the will of God
if you aren't willing to deal with the warfare. That's my sermon
two weeks from now. That's my sermon two weeks from
now. Because I just know Christians are not, they're not armoring
up for the battle. They're just not armoring up
for the battle. And that's what God calls you to when he saves
you. Did Jesus walk through a primrose garden and then just kind of
lightly float into glory? Or did he go through hell from
the moment he was conceived? until the time they nailed him
to the cross. Did he go through hell? Was the
enemy constantly attacking him? Was they attacking him in the
womb? Did he have to go down to Egypt? Were they seeking to
kill him when he was two years old? Did God have to shroud him
in the providence of his mercy until his bar mitzvah took place
at 13 years old, 12 years old, and then protect him until his
baptism? And boy what happened when the
heavens opened up and said this this is the one this is my son
all hell broke loose Didn't it? Everywhere he went The demons
of hell pursued him revelation chapter 12, and I saw a woman
clothed with the Sun The moon were under her feet 12 stars
upon her head and she was pregnant with child ready to be delivered
and then I saw another wonder the dragon and that old serpent
the devil who is called satan who deceives the whole world
ready to devour the man child as soon as he be born do you
remember that you know what we call that christianity that's
what we call it christianity let's call christianity that's
what real christianity is The enemy trying to swallow you up
and God protecting you like God protected that woman, like God
caught that boy up. That's, that's what God does.
That's what real Christianity is. It's a warfare. So, so, so
when we teach election, we do not give any room for any thinking
Christian to feel good or feel self-righteous or feel boastful
like they're better than someone else. If God chose you, you're
going through trouble right now. That's right. That's the nature
of election. Conformity to Christ means a
crucible of difficulty and suffering that purges you, breaks you down,
conforms you to his image, humbles you, humbles you into the mold
of his darling son. And the omnipotent spirit of
God, the third person is the one doing it. Omnipotence pushing
over against you every day. Omnipotence gradually nudging
you in the direction that you should go. Omnipotence gradually
pressing down on your shoulders. Omnipotence holding you back. Omnipotence turning you in the
direction that you ought to go. And you have found that you can't
budge omnipotence. Omnipotence is having his way
in your life. And over time you learn what
it means to walk in the spirit because omnipotence will bring
you down. And if you resist and you're
one of God's elect, omnipotence will take you out like he took
PD out. Do you guys understand that?
If you will not be conformed, he'll send you on home. You get
the short route to glory because he's, his purpose down here is
to use you. You remember what the text says?
He's a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name among the Gentiles
and among Kings and among Israel. And I'm going to show him how
much he's going to suffer for my namesake. So whenever I teach
election, I tell my brothers, don't gloat in election because
most people that talk about election aren't elect. And so it's very
important for us to see it notice. He says, for whom he did foreknow,
I'm sorry, and we know that all things, okay, for whom he did
foreknow, that we might be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among what? That's the techna we talked
about last week. Remember the difference between
the sperma and the techna? The Jews said, we be Abraham
seed. Sperma, that's techna. The firstborn
among many what? You know what that means? The
same sufferings that Christ went through, every one of God's elect
go through the same thing. Next verse. Notice what it says. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
then he also what? There it is. It's always a calling. Whom he called, then he also
what? And whom he justified, he also what? That's right. And
we don't have time to go into that because I'm going to preach
the book of Romans and we'll be able to deal with the verb
forms and the tenses there, the nuances of that language on a
technical level to demonstrate that there's a golden chain from
heaven to earth. And when that chain gets a hold
of a sinner, he is going to be brought into an ultimate status
of sonship by which he is glorified with Christ one day. And it all
starts with God having predestinated you, having foreknown you, having
called you, having justified you, having glorified you. These
are all actually past tense verbs. You know what that means? In
God's sight, you're already glorified. These are all past tense terms.
These are what we call it. Just a basic Aries form of the verb. He's
already done this. Well, where did he do it in Christ?
Are you guys following what I'm saying in Christ? I'm already
glorified. What that means is that God is going to infallibly
conforming to his image. That's something I don't have
to ever worry about. God is, if he'd begun a good work in me,
he's going to what? And so my joy is God started it. If he
really started it, you're good to go. You really start to see
this conformity to Christ is not God is not actually asking
you to agree with him He's not will you notice that Christ did
not negotiate with Saul Christ didn't bring a contract out and
say Saul would you sign would you agree with me to be my servant? Did he say anything like well,
did the did the sovereign Lord even hint at a possibility of
an option? by the time Saul started talking,
he called him Lord. And the next time the Lord spoke,
he gave him directions where to go. Their relationship was
already established, was it not? All of this sort of negotiating
and making the decision for Jesus and all that's out the window
when grace is really working. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? It's all out the window. See, really and truly, if God
actually has saved you, there was a mysterious work that began
deep down in your soul that was so deep and profound that all
you had from time to time early on was an intuition that God
was doing something. And it was confirmed by a powerful
revelation of the glory of God in the preaching of Christ, wherein
your soul ultimately said yes to Jesus. Am I telling the truth? There was a day when you said
yes, But the day you said yes was not the day things began.
It began way, way, way, way, way
before that. God was long time before him
with your soul. But that's how he works. He puts
you in a position where saying yes is the most reasonable thing
in the world. Is what Saul did. This is why
it's important for you and I to understand the doctrine appropriately
so we can glorify God. God chose us, God called us,
and God saved us. Titus chapter 3, verse 5. Listen
to it. Titus 3, 5. It's very important for you to
see it. Who does the saving? Do we save ourselves? No. That's ridiculous. That would
make us a co-savior. Right? I mean, if God does some of the
work and I do the other part of the work, wouldn't that make
me a co-savior? Be honest now. If Christ comes to me and say,
Jesse, I have done all I can do. The rest is up to you. And I go, really, truly, the
rest is up to me. Lord, scoot over because I get
part of your name. And they shall call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. See, if
I actually contribute to my salvation, I get to own the title Savior. Am I making some sense, ladies
and gentlemen? See, so what we say is gospel preaching demolishes
the pride of man in thinking that he has anything to do with
his salvation. God is the one that saves us.
What does the text say? Listen to it. Titus chapter three,
verse five, not by works of what? Which we have done. So stay right
there. So we teach constantly that if
you're going to be biblical and sharing with people how you got
saved, don't start with the word I. Because that would be humanism
again. How did you get saved? Well, I know. No, it doesn't
start with the eye. Well, he now we on the right
track. Well, God, now we're on the right
track in his mercy, hunted me down. And in his patience and
his kindness shut me up to the gospel. And that gospel kept
penetrating my heart day in and day out, month in and month out,
year in and year out until I broke. Am I telling some truth? That's
right. That's why we raise our children up under the gospel.
I never did tell my, would you please accept the Lord into your
heart? Never said that to my children. All I did was what
God told me to do, raise them up under the word of God. Faith
comes by what? And hearing by what? That's exactly
right. That's exactly right. That's
exactly right. Listen to it. Not by works of
righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy, according
to his what? So stay right there. This is
why we say be careful when you are dealing with the front door
doctrine of salvation. because it's easy to substitute
biblical faith for human works. If you say I'm saved because
I accepted the Lord, it is no longer based on mercy, but merit. Because now if the only way that
God can save you is for you to accept him, he now is your debtor
on the premise of your accepting him. Please understand that. You have
to save me God, because I accepted you. Well, that destroys mercy. See, when you come to a God for
mercy, you're not coming on the grounds of anything that you
can bring to the table by which you get to move God in your favor. All you say with the publican
is have mercy on me, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. And guess what? God does not
have to have mercy on you. Are you hearing me? Stay with
me. Stay with me. Stay with me. We hope that he
shows mercy because it's intrinsic to his nature, right? But if
I demand that God shows me mercy because I appeal for mercy is
no longer mercy. Now is merit. Some of us are getting it. See,
when you go to the king or go to the judge asking for mercy,
what you know is he has every right to refuse you. Is that
true? This is why we have to actually
be so careful about our presentation of the gospel. Some of you will
be with me in a couple of weeks at progressive as I teach evangelism
all over again, biblical evangelism. And these are critical areas
that have to be explained because our evangelism today is nothing
but a sales pitch to human beings, making God some kind of icon
to be purchased in order to be an addendum to people's lives.
And they shrink it down to almost no theological terminology at
all. Repeat these words after me and
you're good to go. That's the most blasphemous approach
to the character and nature of God and the depths and comprehensive
nature of people's need. How are you going to get a person
saved in seven words or in five minutes? It's impossible. It's
impossible to save someone in five minutes like that. Impossible. Absolutely impossible. And you
don't even see that in the scriptures. So these things have to be explained.
Think about the apostle Paul, who was our object lesson for
today. God took him through the ringer. He had to see Christian
after Christian after Christian after Christian until he consented
to the death of Stephan. Remember? His conscience was
plaguing him. And remember what the Spirit
of God, our Christ, said to him? It's hard for you to kick against
the gold, young man. I got you. I got you. And he was rebelling against
the master all the way. Was he not rebelling? I'm going
to get papers and dragging them all the way back from Damascus.
All along the spirit of God is poking him, pressing him down,
pressing him down so that when Christ shows up, he says, you
can't win. You're mine. You cannot win this
battle. And it shows us that you and
I, by nature, fight to the very last breath until there's a break
in our spirit. A break. That's why you and I,
we pray for our kids and we know they're not saved when we see
this rebellious streak running. And we are all Lord have mercy.
And then one day something changes. Something changes, just a subtle
trajectory of change. and a breaking of that impenitency. And you come to realize, oh,
God has done something for them of a monumentous nature. Now,
they're not perfect, but something serious changed. And guess what? It took so long, it took so long
that we would dare not say it was the consequence of our wisdom
or our skill or our machinations or something we did. See what
God often does, God wears everybody out with patience. He wears us
all out with patience, wears us all out. And then we get to
the point where sometimes we even got to a place where we
didn't stop praying for our kids. And then he saves them so that
we won't say they got saved because of our prayers. But God saved
my kids cause I prayed. No, he didn't. He saved your
children because he chose them and he called them at the right
time. See, even the ones who want them saved will steal the
glory. That's why God takes his time. And see, remember he chose
the foolish things and the weak things. What the church at Jerusalem
is getting ready to struggle with is God having chosen a foolish
thing. Are you with me? The church getting
ready to trip. No, not Saul. No, God, you didn't save him. I think they're getting ready
to struggle with the doctrine of sovereign election. Because
see, no one in Jerusalem would have chose Saul. I love this gospel. I love it. I love it. See, cause I, I grew
up with religion telling me the very opposite of what I'm telling
you right now. The very opposite. I was under
the assumption that we had a bunch of stuff to do to get right with
God. And if we could, if we could kind of just measure up and we
could, you know, clean up and get our degrees and start a business
and, and, and, and develop a dignified life. I remember, I remember
exactly how I was going to do it. First, I was going to make
a couple million dollars selling dope. See what I'm saying? A couple
million. Most of us in the hood, we know
how we do that, right? I'm going to make a couple million dollars
selling dope. And then I'm going to start about three, four, five
businesses. Some of my folks right now, they would fall back
in the seats if there was no back on them right now. But I'm
telling you how I thought growing up in the hood under the delusion
of false religion. Are you hearing me? I'm going
to get my act together. I'm going to work it out. Yeah,
I'm a tip and dip and play cause I ain't quite ready right now,
but I'm gonna get it straight in a little while. And then right
around 35 I'm gonna end up being a preacher. That's what I said.
That's what I said. Cause you know, when you go to
some of these clowning church preaching looks pretty good.
I get my own Mercedes and then they can keep up the payments
on them. And what am I talking about? False religion. I'm talking
false religion. I'm talking about the scam religion
of which most people are deceived by to this very hour. Salvation
is profoundly intricate and spiritual and singular and powerful. Intricate, singular, spiritual
and powerful is not the showmanship of religion. It just doesn't
work that way. If anything, you're getting called
out of that junk He calls you out of that Babylonian mystery
religion that continues to perpetuate humanism. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, here are three
words I want you to get. Subject, verb, object. He saved us. You got it? How'd you get saved? He saved us. That's how you got saved. He
saved me. Just that simple. See, when you
say it like that, you don't even get nowhere near close to still
in His glory. How did I get saved? God saved
me. Well, what was the process? God saved me. Now, can you be
particular about it? God saved me. Now, can you be a little
bit more particular about it? God saved me. Can you be more particular
about it? God saved me. You got that? That's that's particular
that's that's particular for religious folk who want to carve
it up into methodologies God subject saved verb me object
It's simple, isn't it? Listen to the text by the washing
of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That was the
means he preached a word to me in the mouth of his servants
and where in the truth of the word of God was like water that
washed my soul clean from the defilement and filth of sin. And at the same time, washing
my soul, he was raising me from the dead, regenerating me at
the same time, like a brand new baby being born again, washed
and quickened and raised from the dead. And something new was
going on in my soul at 18 years old, something brand new. what's
going on in my soul. It was a washing and a cleansing. You know what I'm talking about?
And that work of regeneration, that motor was getting started. I didn't know what was going
on. And then one day. And I've been alive ever since. Every sense. God did it. That's called regeneration. And a very crude analogy. I was
the car on the side of the road whose battery was dead. God had
to come alone and jumpstart my battery. It was bone dry dead,
not a cell in that battery. In fact, he had to take the old
battery out and put a new battery in. Do you guys see the picture?
That's the picture of salvation. Now go to our next verse so we
can wrap this line of thought up on this. And that's Titus
chapter, 2 Timothy chapter one, verse nine. I have to make sure
that before we move into the apostles ministry, that we are
able to appreciate this truth that we are now elucidating and
considering. And I hope that there's none
of you in here who are strangers to this doctrine, neither by
your knowledge or by your experience. And if you are, I hope that God
changes your life. Second Timothy chapter one, listen
to how the apostle Paul talks about it here in verse eight
and nine. He says to Timothy, one of his
ministerial sons, be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou a partaker of the
afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. Now mark
the last line, be a partaker of the what of the gospel? See,
when you're God's elect, what? You suffer. You got that? See,
this is not be a partaker of the prosperity of the gospel,
of the riches of the gospel, of the material blessings of
the gospel. See, if I segue here and I can easily do it, I can
easily now contemplate with you, vicariously with me, That the
notion of pomp and circumstances and wealth and opulence is alien
to the scriptures. That there was no such thinking
in the first century. That in the first century all
you had were poor people who lived every day hand to mouth,
hand to mouth. Who when they became saved even
became poorer because of the nature of politics in that culture.
Those are the ones whom Christ loved passionately, because they
lived every day from hand to mouth, trusting the Savior. And
their hope was not about some type of breakthrough. It was
about glory. They had a hope reserved in heaven,
which was an anchor to their soul by which they could live
daily, saying, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your
name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. That's it. That's it. Our Christianity is completely
distorted today. Completely distorted. Remember, I told you what he
said, the weak things of the world. the foolish things, not
the wise, not the mighty, the poor of the earth, the poverty
stricken of the earth. He saved vagabonds, thieves,
crooks, liars. He saved the dregs of the earth.
That's who we call publicans and harlots and tax collectors
and thugs, criminals, people whose IQ is very low, very low
IQ. low enough to keep them out of
hell. See, you can be so smart that you can't even make it to
glory. I know a whole lot of people getting their degree going
straight to hell. See, there's a movement right
now. There's a movement right now and it's called the born-again
atheist. I got about five minutes. Can
I talk to you for five minutes? Can I keep talking to you? It's called the born-again atheist. You hear me talking with these
cats on my Monday program, don't you? You got my good friend Brandon,
right? I use him as a model. I've been
patient with him, you know, towing him in slowly but surely. I thank
God for Brandon. He listens. He listens, like
most atheists do. But see, you know what your born-again
atheist is? He's the individual who went
to church to try to get all his answers solved, but he found
so much hypocrisy in the church and unattainable standards of
righteousness and then the level of hypocrisy behind the scenes
in scholarship and among the theologians, and then the debates
and controversies around scriptural texts of which he could not reconcile. And in his pursuit of knowledge,
he built himself a monumental fort against the claims of scripture. And he went from ignorance to
knowledge to atheism. He went from ignorance desiring
God to knowledge about God to atheism against God. His slide
down the proverbial slide of knowledge didn't land him in
the scriptures. It landed him out of the scriptures.
Are you guys hearing me? So say that they've learned enough
to know that most Christians couldn't defend the Bible to
save their lives. So they chew most Christians up and spit them
out. Plus most Christians don't even think right. So they don't
even mess with them. That's why Brandon called me
last Monday and said, you're the first preacher that I heard
ever was honest about the origin of evil. Most preachers will
say evil doesn't come from God. And logically minded people understand
that if God is first cause, everything proceeds from God. Logically
minded people understand that. Now, the conundrum may be, how
do you keep God from being culpable of being evil since evil proceeds
from him? Well, that's not hard. It is
not hard. All you have to do is think it
through. That's why I try to tell my brothers and sisters,
start thinking. You will win atheists if you
think. They just don't want to be hoodwinked anymore. That's
why they say you Christian folks check your brains at the door
and you play emotional religion and you still don't have good
sense. That's what they say. See, after a while, the emotionalism
wears off and then you got to start thinking. You see, what
the atheist said was when he read the Bible, you know what
he said? It appears that the person in this Bible is sovereign.
And I said, I agree with you. He said, it appears like he is
the one that chooses good and bad. I said, I agree with you. It appears like if God didn't
want evil in the world, it wouldn't be here. I said, I agree with
you. He said, but I can't understand
why if God is good, he allowed all this evil to take place in
the world. I said, humble yourself before
the mighty hand of God and he'll show you why. Are you hearing me? Stay with
me for a moment now. I hope I'm not blowing your synapses.
See, because all he's doing is reasoning through the fact that
God claims absolute authority over everything. So when you
read your Bible in very difficult places, I create good and I create
evil. I make the light and I form the
darkness. Isaiah 45, 7, just in case you
need a text. Behold, the good and the evil are in my hand,
saith the Lord. I created the wicked for the day of evil. When
God says things like that, when he says, I kill and I make alive.
He says, when he says the blind and the deaf and the dumb, behold,
I, the Lord, have made all those things. You know what God is
saying? I'm ultimately culpable of why this is happening. Now,
if you want to answer for me, just humble yourself and I'll
let you know what the answer is. You see what I'm getting
at? See, and then they flip out.
But what I have to say to them is this. Is it possible for me
to produce a city wherein I make laws. This is my city and I make
laws. And I'm going to let you live
in my city. But if you run this stop sign, you're going to pay
a fine. If you hurt this person over here, you're going to suffer
for that. If you kill this person over here, I'm going to kill
you. Are you guys following me? In other words, because our God
is a God of laws, wherein he's made it very clear from the beginning
of time that the wages of sin is what? Oh, now once we understand
that sin is something that's so abhorrent to God that upon
one transgression, evil will break out all over the world
and all of humanity will find themselves dealing with the inescapable
consequences of sin. Does that make God evil himself?
It only reflects his holiness. Like I said to my friend Brandon,
who said, I think God is evil. How can a good God bring so much
suffering upon people? I said, Brandon, you are, you
are becoming God's judge. You say you like the book of
Job. He said, yeah, I love the book of Job. Well, you know what Job
said? When God destroyed his whole house, his family, his
business and kids and everything. Remind me, remind me. The Lord
gives, the Lord take it away. Watch this. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. See, do you understand what mechanism
was operating in Job's life? It wasn't a cold, apathetic,
indifferent, sort of narcissistic, whoopee, I didn't get hurt. It
was an acquiescence of faith in a God that he knew was just
and could never do anything wrong, though everything wrong was going
on around him. In other words, what's missing
in my atheist friends acquisition and erudition of knowledge is
faith. That's what's missing. See, if
you acquire knowledge, but don't possess the gift of faith, you
can skip past the scriptures into oblivion because you're
going to have more questions than answers. And you're never
going to be able to resolve all of the questions that you have.
Because salvation is not rooted in every one of your questions
being answered. That's the condemnation of the
devil. Do you know that? The devil is condemned under
that very rubric right there. He's the one running around asking
the question, why, why, why, why, why? That's the devil. And see, when we give the simple
answer that without faith, it's impossible to please God, the
atheist goes into a tizzy and has fits. Are you following me? Now watch this. What I say to
my philosophical, erudite, atheistic friends is without an ethical
break, without a moral compass, you can never, ever land on the
truth. As you're sliding down the slippery
slope of knowledge, you have to have breaks. You have to stop
before you go beyond that which is reasonable. Remember what
Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 29 says? The secret things belong
unto the Lord, but the things that he has revealed unto us
are for us and for our children that we should obey him. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? In other words, knowledge puffs up. without knowledge being
mixed with faith, all you're going to do is crash into the
dung heap of a thousand questions that will never be answered.
So we slide past the foundation of faith in Christ into the world
of speculation and argumentation and condemn ourselves. But here's
what I know. This is my hope. I'll stop right
here. We'll pick this up next week. Here's what I know. If I believe
the doctrine of election, and I do, This is what I know. A person like Brandon is a perfect
object for God's mercy. Can I tell you why? Because he
will show himself to have been so depraved by his own choices,
by his own actions, by his own sticking his fist in God's face,
by his coming on the radio and talking with me with tens of
thousands of people listening. by his arguing over this and
arguing over, you know he argues over abortion, he argues over
same-sex marriage, argues over, just love to argue. Well, he's
arguing because he's struggling. Are you hearing me? But he keeps
calling in. Pastor Jesse, I heard you say,
and you know what I say? Keep listening. Keep listening,
because one day, He will be a trophy of God's grace. Are you hearing
me? Like Saul was, like Moses was,
like Joshua was. See what God will do, as Paul
says in second Timothy chapter two, he'll set you out as an
example of the long suffering of God. He'll put the handcuffs
of grace on you. He'll put the toe line of grace
on you. He'll put the hooks of grace on you and let the line
out. Just let the line out. Let you run like a Marlin. Run,
boy! Run! Run! Hundreds and hundreds of yards
out. God got long line. You can run for months. Run for
months. Then he starts slowly putting
the drag on. Just slowly putting the drag
on. He'll let that drag run for years. Slow your tail down. You getting gray hair, still
fighting God. Getting ulcers, fighting God.
And then all of a sudden you find yourself tired of fighting
God. He told you right on in, pull
you up. So guess what? Trophy of my grace,
got him again. Amen, amen, amen.