If you will now take your Bibles
and turn with me to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew chapter 9. Just a few verses here, beginning
with Matthew 9 verse 9. And as Jesus passed forth from
thence, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom.
And he saith unto him, follow me. And he arose and followed
him. And it came to pass, as Jesus
sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came
and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees
saw it, they said unto his disciples, why eateth your master with publicans
and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he
said unto them, they that be whole need not a physician, but
they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that
meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice,
for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Now there are really two lessons here this morning. One is the
effectual calling of God's grace. Now this is Matthew writing of
himself, and he writes, with brevity, I suppose, is the word
you should use. He just briefly states what took
place. He's not going to give you all
the details. But if you go over with Mark and Luke, they'll add
some more details to this calling. But Matthew just simply says,
the Lord called me, and I got up and followed Him. That's what
he says. And that is as good a definition of the effectual
calling of grace as there is. He said, follow me, and he followed
him. Now, that's what it is. But there's
two lessons here. The other is on the condition
of those who are called with this effectual call. So this
morning, the Lord willing, we'll look at the effectual call of
Christ as Matthew, the writer of this gospel, illustrates it
in his own calling. There's two types of calls when
we talk about the call of the Gospel. There's two types of
call that set forth to this world as far as the Gospel ministry,
as far as those who gather in here to hear the Gospel. Or the
effect of this church on this community, or the effect of God's
church in the whole of the world. There's two callings. There's
a general call, and there is an effectual call. I grew up
in a little farmhouse. It was a two-story house, but
it wasn't very big, square. And up in northern Ohio, and
I suppose we're about a hundred miles off of Lake Erie, and we
get these big lake effects, snows, and it get cold. Twenty below
zero, and it might stay that way for weeks. And I can remember,
the only heat we had was a coal stove downstairs in this old
log house, and He would fire that coal stove up and get it
just real hot and get the whole house heated up. And then we'd
go to bed and he'd shut the stairway door because heat naturally going
to work its way up. But he wanted to hold as much
of it downstairs as he could for that reason, because it all
goes up. But come morning time, it was cold upstairs. And mom
would come to the stairway door and she'd have breakfast ready.
She'd open that stairway door and she'd holler for us to come
down to breakfast. But none of us was ready, really, to get
out from one of them warm quilts. We wasn't in no hurry to get
out and run downstairs. So we'd just stay there in the
bed. Pretty soon she'd come over and
she'd holler again. After about two or three times, depending
on her mood, she'd have Daddy come to the door. And when Daddy
comes to the door, we got up and come down. That's the difference
between a general call and an effectual call. It's the person
behind the call. There's a general calling in
the gospel that goes out to every man with a conscience. He hears,
just like I heard my mother call. He hears. He hears what you say.
They may pretend, most of them pretend they don't hear or understand
what you're saying, but they understand what's being said.
They hear to some degree. He knows why men gather in assemblies. He knows why preachers are there
and why they teach. And he understands in general
what's going on. He hears the call, but he prefers
the warm bed he's in. He don't want to leave the world. He don't want to leave his sin.
He don't want to leave that darkness. Natural man has a mind. Yes,
sure he does. He has a mind. I don't preach
to robots. When men come in here, I don't
preach to him like he's some kind of a robot. He can think,
he can reason, he can read, he can perceive, he can listen and
understand with his limitations of sin, with the limitation of
his own nature. He has affections. It's not as
though he didn't have a heart. It's just that his heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. He has one. Natural man
has a will. When we preach that salvation's
not of the will of man, I'm not saying that man don't have a
will. Everybody has a will. But his will is will not. It's
a fallen will. It's always will not. Will not. And the gospel does not imply
at any time that man has no will or that somehow his will is bypassed
in his calling. Nobody ever came to Christ who
wasn't willing. It's ridiculous to talk about
things like that. They were moved in their affections
and they become willing to seek Him. And God gives them an understanding. He didn't bypass their minds,
He didn't bypass their heart, and He didn't bypass their will.
My people shall be willing in the day of my power. So when
I preach, I appeal to men's minds. I appeal to men's hearts, and
I appeal to men's wills, because without these faculties being
moved, nobody's going to come to Christ. Now, I know that he
can't move them. I know that. He's a sinner. He
can't do for himself. But if God does for him, he'll
do in him. And if he does in him, it'll
be through his mind and his heart and his will. So when I preach,
I appeal to those things and wait on God to accompany those
things in power. I realize that As I appeal to
men's minds and hearts and wills that if God don't intervene and
do a work of grace on his faculty, he'll never respond to the message
he hears and be moved to come to Christ. What keeps men from
Christ does not in any way excuse his accountability or his responsibility. That doesn't excuse a thing from
a sinner. Here's a sinner. falling and
at him. There's nothing in him that God's
going to bypass or overlook that gives him some kind of an excuse
to remain in his sin or to cover or justify his rebellion. To
say, man, well, you know, man's falling. He can't do it. That's
no excuse. I hope nobody here is going to
going to wait until he gets to glory or she gets to glory and
then stand before God and try to plead ignorance and try to
plead your inability and things. That's just throwing gas on the
fire is all that's going to do. What actually keeps men from
Christ is their love of sin. You read John 3.16 and just leave
all the biases and stuff out of it. For God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son. that whosoever believeth
on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Then
he goes on and he said, for he came not into the world to judge
the world. That's not why he came. That's
not why he's here. He came into this world to save
sinners. And he said this world, he that
believeth not on Christ, he's condemned already. He didn't
have to send his son into this world to condemn the world. The
world was condemned in Adam. He condemned in the fall. Read
it in Romans chapter 5. By the offense of one, judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. And he said, here is the condemnation. This is the condemnation, John
3, 19, that light has come into the world and men love darkness
rather than light. That's it. That's why he won't
come to Christ. In Acts chapter 17, verse 30, Paul says that
God Commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Isn't that what He
said? He commands it. He commands it. In Proverbs 1, verse 24, He said,
I have called and you have refused. Who did He call? Everyone that
heard. Everyone that heard. So there
is a general call and a call that goes out to every man, woman,
and child under the sound of the gospel. And they hear what's
being said. That's why they get angry. That's
why they get upset. And the Lord said in Proverbs
1, He said, because you said it not the Lord's counsel. You
heard the Lord's counsel. He counseled you. But you wouldn't
have it. That's what He said. You said
it not all my counsel. He said you despised my reproof. You had no stomach for my...
I reproved you. I told you what you were doing
was wrong. How many Sundays and Wednesdays have I stood up here
and told this congregation about false religion and that it's
wrong to participate in it. It's wrong to go over there and
enter into some kind of an idol worship among them. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's
wrong to harbor those old idolatrous notions of God. It's wrong. It's
wrong. But, he said, He said, you had
no stomach for my reproof. Why? Because they love darkness
rather than light because their deeds are evil. There is a general
call, a general call. And then, thank God, there's
an effectual call. The effectual call is the call
accompanied by the power of God's Spirit. That's what it is. Until
the words that's spoken of a man or the words that's read in this
book is accompanied by the power of God's Spirit, it'll have no
effect on a fallen man. None. It's just like water on
a duck's back. It'll just bead up and drop to
the ground. All it does. But if he accompanies
that word in power, there's none that can resist it. That's the
effect you'll cause. Men and women are sinners. And
I don't think I'll get too much opposition to that statement.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Everybody
here has done something that they know is wrong. I've never
talked to a man who did no wrong. I never have. There might be
one out there, but I've never talked to him. They all know
that they've done a little something wrong. And they usually own up
to those things. But I'll tell you this, only
a man convinced of the Holy Spirit of God will confess that he himself
is sin. That he is sin. Everything about
him is sin. His heart is sin. It's the fountain. It's the spring of sin. It just
bubbles up and it affects his words and his sight and his thinking
and his hearing. And every faculty of man is just
polluted with this infection of sin. And he said, out of the
heart proceed adulteries and fornications and evil thoughts
and all this kind of stuff. It all comes out of the heart.
Comes out of the heart. That's the wellspring. That old publican, he stood afar
off with his eyes turned toward the ground. And he cried, Lord,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. Not a sinner. Most anybody will
admit they're a sinner. But you won't find one in a thousand
who will say, I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. The effectual
calling of God begins with a Holy Spirit conviction of sin. And
that sin is not something they did, so much as it is what they
are. They learned that they fell in their father Adam. They were
ruined by that fall. That they, through their father
Adam, were born with a nature that has the full potential to
do even the most hideous sins that you've read about in the
Word of God. In every man is that potential. That nature. I don't care how hideous it is.
And I've seen some hideous things read of. That apart from God's
restraint, There's nothing that he or she will not do. You put a person in a certain place at a certain time
with a certain opportunity and they'll do anything that anybody
else will do. You know, this is what, when
men talk about self-righteousness and they talk about, well, I
never did that, I wouldn't do that, I didn't, all those, that's
the restraining hand of God that kept them, that kept that opportunity
away from them and restrained them, that's His mercy. He didn't
show it to them for their sake, He showed it to them for His
elect's sake. But he did that to keep men from
being as evil as they could be, and men mistake the restraining
hand of God for self-righteousness. But Paul said, what have you
gotten that you haven't received? And if you received it, why do
you act like you didn't? I honestly believe this. The
only reason we don't do certain things is because God takes away
the opportunity. The effectual calling of God
is a call to truth, and the truth is that all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. As Paul said concerning both
Jews and Gentiles, both religious and heathen, he said we're all
under sin. We're all under sin. all of us
dead in trespasses and sins, and all are by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. And the truth is there is none
righteous, none that understandeth, none good, and none that seeketh
after God. They love darkness rather than
light, because the darkness hides their evil deeds and evil way.
And then secondly, the effectual calling of God is a call to righteousness. If God ever convinces a man of
sin, he'll have to convince him of righteousness, because he
knows there's none righteous. He knows that by his own heart,
his own experience of grace, and he knows that by the gospel. He knows that by the Word of
God, there's none righteous. But there is one, one man, one
righteous man, and that's Christ. That's Christ. And that man, convinced of sin,
knows he can't produce a righteousness of himself. He knows that no
other son of Adam can produce a righteousness of himself. And
so the Spirit of God reveals to him the God-man, the Son of
Man, the firstborn from the dead. And this man, because he bowed
God in man, can affectionately represent man in God. that God in His sovereign eternal
grace sent Him into the world for His elect to do for them
what they could not do for themselves. Listen to how a saved man talks.
Oh, that I might win Christ. Now, this was a man whose righteousness
was his life for so many years. He was a Pharisee. He trusted
in the law. He said, it's touching the things
in the law I've blamed. There was a man who hoped in
his heritage, in the high glory of his heritage. He was a Jew of the first order. And he said, oh, now he's converted. Listen to him talk. Oh, that
I might win Christ and be found in Him not having my own righteousness. He didn't want it anymore, did
he? You know what he done with his righteousness? He put it
in a bag and put it on the dung heap. That's what he did with
it. All them things that he mentions there in Philippians. He rolled
them all up and put them in a spiritual bag and dumped them on the dung
heap. Oh, he said, I don't want to be found having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness
of Christ, the righteousness. which is of God by faith. And
I believe this is the issue in our generation, or one of them.
I know the sovereignty of God's always been the main issue. But
this thing of self-righteousness is the issue of this generation.
And like Israel of old being ignorant of God's righteousness
and going about to establish their own righteousness, they
will not submit to the righteousness of God in Christ. Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness. There's no reason for a man not
to submit to it. It's the free gift of God. It's
given to him by the grace of God. Well, why won't he submit
to it? Because he thinks his righteousness is suitable enough
to win God's affection. And then thirdly, the effectual
calling of God is a call to peace. In Christ, the judgment of God
has been satisfied. You can have peace if you can
know that. I don't care if your neighbor is a bad guy or not.
You can have peace if you know this. The judgment of God in
Christ has been satisfied. The judgment of God is about
the righteousness of God and His justice. The Lord Jesus Christ
alone has satisfied the justice of God. By his suffering and
death, he's made peace with God on the behalf of all his elect.
And it's the eternal appointment of Christ as our propitiation
and our justifier that is the very basis of saving faith in
both the Old and New Testaments. Did you know that? The justification,
the righteous justification of His elect. That's the very basis
of faith in both the Old and New Testaments. In Romans 3,
verse 24, it said, being justified freely by His grace, through
the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past. Now he's not talking about your
past sins, he's talking about those sins that are past according
to the forbearance of God. He's talking about Old Testament
beliefs. How do I know that? Because of
the next statement. To declare, I say it this time,
that is after his death and resurrection, his righteousness, that he might
be just and justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. He was
the justifier of Adam. Huh? How can that be? He didn't
die yet. Huh? He was the justifier. You can't be saved and not be
justified. And you can go all down through
Scripture. They give them to you here in Hebrews chapter 11. All these Old Testament saints.
Justified freely by His grace. Abraham was justified. Talks
about that in Romans, don't it? He's the very argument for it.
But Christ hadn't died yet. No, but God set Him forth, and
He set that redemption forth that Christ would come and would
accomplish. And that's what man receives
by faith. Listen to this, Romans 8, verse
1, There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. The effectual call is an inward call. It's a call to
truth and it's a call to Christ. The effectual call is the call
of a sovereign. It's the call of a sovereign.
Absolute Lord of heaven and earth, but given His Lordship. This
is a title given Him. This is authority given Him. He is not talking here about
His co-equal authority with the Father and the Spirit before
the world was. He is talking about an authority
and power and lordship given Him. Given Him by the Father. Established in Him. Given to
Him to give eternal life to as many as the Father had given
Him. It is given to Him. given this
power to give life according to the will of God. And the effectual
call is the call of grace. It's the call of grace. There's not going to be any reason
for it that you can find but the grace of God. If God ever
calls you or He has called you, it's by His grace. By His grace. I tell you, when you look around
and you see the how many just the sheer multitudes of false
religion in this world. I think it's a miracle of grace
that anybody even comes in the door to hear. That's an act of
God's grace just for a man to come in here to hear. It's the
mercy of God. Oh, it's a call of grace. And
the effectual call is the call of love. It's the love of God
that calls the Father to send the Son into this world to redeem
fallen sinners. And then consider for just a
minute the answer, the answer of the call. It's an answer of
submission, submission. I think it's absolutely absurd
to talk about being a believer but have no submission. Always
fighting and kicking and poking and resisting. You ain't near
about been saved if that's your attitude. Huh? I tell you, this
call, this effectual call is answered in submission. It didn't
take me long to get out of that bed, did you, when your dad called?
Huh? You got out of bed and did what
he told you to do. You knew the consequences. And
to me it's just absolutely absurd to talk about being a believer
and have no submission. Believers are submissive as the
result of their calling. This calling is an inward calling. It's a revelation not to you
so much as it is in you. In you. That's what Paul said
when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. Now, he said,
I can go preach him to the heathen. And then I know this, it's the
answer of faith. Those truly called of God believe
what they hear. And their lives are arranged
accordingly. I get letters from people all
the time, I believe, I believe what you're saying, I'm a believer.
And they just go right on living the way they want to live. And
I'll tell you this, they're called believers because they believe.
And a man who believes rearranges his whole life around what he
believes. His whole life is turned upside down. Turned upside down. Not because a preacher stood
up there and said, now if you own a liquor store, you better
get rid of it. If you're smoking, you better throw them away. If
you drink, boy, you better quit. No, that's not what happens.
He just preaches Christ to them. And that inward change of grace
will take care of all these other things. His whole life will be
arranged accordingly. And then thirdly, when the effectual
calling of God comes, it's answered with self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. Matthew had made a good living. He was a tax collector. According
to everything I've ever read on them, they took bribes and
they just made a small fortune. If you could have that little
booth there, and his was right out there beside the sea, so
you're talking about import taxes on things coming in and out of
that sea. He was a wealthy man and a crooked man. He left the
table. He got up, he arose, he left
that seat of custom, and he followed Christ. That's self-sacrifice.
I'm not saying that Christ will have you to leave. He may never
have you to leave. You might sit right here until
you die. Might be. But I tell you this, if He does
this, that's where you'll go if you're a believer. That's
exactly what will happen if you're a believer. And if not, you'll
find some excuse not to. The object of God's calling owns
nothing. But he don't consider it to be
the gift of God. And God's for the asking. All
he needs to do is ask. He can have it. I have a car. It's a good car. It's never given
me any trouble. It may fall apart on the way
home, but it's never given me an ounce of trouble. But if God
wants it, he can have it. It belongs to him, and I know
it belongs to him. And he let me use it. And if
he has somebody else in here that needs to use it, they're
welcome to it too. It's God. I tell you, when a
man believes and receives this call, it's a call of self-sacrifice. He has what he's always had.
He just realizes whose it is. And if God needs it for any reason,
here it is. Here it is. What identifies this calling
from the general call is its immediate effect on the hearer. He cannot remain indifferent. The man who remains indifferent
has never heard the effectual calling of God. He cannot continue
on as before. Things are not like they were
before. This man who hears from God,
something has to be done. He'll worry over it. He'll fret
over it. He can't sleep. He can't find
any peace. He can't find any rest till this
thing is settled. He cannot continue on as things
were before. And he cannot resist this calling. Why? Because with the call comes
the mind and heart and will to obey. I love that message Henry preached
years ago. The title of it was, he couldn't,
but he did. He told that man with that withered
hand, how long had that thing been withered? Years and years
and years. You know, I think about Nathan.
He's got a little movement in that hand and he can do a little
bit with that hand. This man couldn't do nothing. Well, you're healed. No, that
ain't what he told him. He said, stretch forth your hand. He couldn't. But it is. That's the difference
between a general call and an effectual call. With the call,
with that call, that effectual calling, comes the mind and heart
and will to obey. There are four things in summing
up that describe the believer's response to the effectual calling
of God. First of all, he follows Christ. Isn't that what that says there
in Matthew? He followed him. He didn't follow his doctrine,
although he did. And he didn't follow his other
followers, although he did. But he followed Christ. He followed
Christ. That's where the glory is. That's
where the truth is. That's where the righteousness
is. And that's where the forgiveness of sins is. And then secondly,
the believer follows him wholly. He left his seat, he left his
bench, he left his authority, he left his station, and he left. And he followed Christ wholly.
Took him to his home. Introduced him to his friends.
Hold nothing back. And then thirdly, he follows
him continually. Abraham made no preparations
to return to his father's house, did he? He wasn't planning on
coming back. He wasn't planning on coming back. And then fourthly,
they follow Him immediately. When Christ calls His sheep,
they come to Him. Here's what He says over in John.
He said, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow
Me. When He came to the porter, the
porter recognized Him, and he opened the door. When he opened
the door, Christ said, Hey, Sam! John, Pete, the moment. What'd
they do? They come out the door. They
come out the door. That's the effectual calling
of God. And when Christ came here to Matthew, Matthew put,
I appreciate his brevity in it. I've been too long this morning.
But Matthew said, He called me and I got up and followed Him.
Huh? That's the effectual calling
of God. Our Father, bless and listen this morning to our hearts
for Christ's sake. Amen.