2 Thessalonians 3. I'm going
to read verses 1 through 5, and then I'm going to back up and
deal with a category in our study that I have been sort of preparing
you for in your outline for a number of weeks. And that is the doctrine
of election according to classification, the doctrine of election according
to classification. And hopefully we will also be
able to enter into chapter 3 and begin to work through verses
1 through 5 of chapter 3. This is the final chapter in
the book of Thessalonians, one of the early churches to which
the Apostle Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy ministered the gospel. And we are closing out this chapter. And of course, because it's inspired
Scripture, there are some things to learn. Verses 1 through 5
says this, Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of
the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is
with you. And that we may be delivered
from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not faith. But the Lord is faithful who
shall establish you and keep you from evil. And we have confidence
in the Lord touching you that you both do and will do the things
which we command you. Verse five, and the Lord direct
your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting
for Jesus Christ. And the Lord direct your heart
into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. If you have your outline, you'll
see at the top of your outline, and we've been dealing with the
same outline for several weeks, election, election in its biblical
classification. Now, thought it was important
for me to call your attention to this aspect of the term because
it's necessary for you to know when it comes to discussing scripture
or debating doctrine or deliberating over one of the most difficult
doctrines in the Bible. And that is the doctrine of election. There have been theologians who
have argued that election biblically could only be understood in what
they call class sense, in the sense of class election. And what we mean by class election
is that they only see election in the Bible in terms of God
dealing with categories of peoples, plural, minus are contrary to
the idea of God dealing with individuals singularly. There
will be on the part of many professing Christians, pastors will do this.
This is triangulation. This is part of the ambivalence
method of theology that's rampant everywhere. It's a political
tool for being able to agree with you, but at the same time
disagree with you. This is political speech. It's what is called triangulation
or ambivalence. And what it is, is one may be
able to say, I believe in the doctrine of election, but what
they are saying is, I believe in it in the general sense in
which God deals with people in terms of categories, but I do
not believe in election in the specific sense in which God determines
certain individual persons to be qualified or given eternal
life before the world began in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ as we assert here at Grace Bible Church and the church has
asserted since the earliest portions of the New Testament church.
We believe in the doctrine of election, God choosing us, us
not choosing God, God being the cause of our salvation. When
we make a decision for Jesus, it is simply the response to
the grace that God had already applied in our lives, appropriated
in our lives. But our decision, our choice,
did not affect our salvation nor cause our salvation nor bring
it into being. It was the evidence, if it's
a legitimate decision for Jesus, that God had saved us. We do
not hold to the doctrine that any aspect of our salvation,
as a true believer, is caused by us. We don't cause anything
spiritual in our life. God is the one who causes life. He produces life. He affects
life. So every spectrum of our salvation
experience, we owe to God. In theology, we call this monergism. Monergism, the energy which is
necessary for you to be saved is an energy that God himself
applies to save you. God must apply his own divine
energy to bring about life in you. You and I by nature are
spiritually what? Dead. I bet you that's a revelation
for some of you, isn't it? The human race by nature is dead. We are dead spiritually. That
means we have no spiritual life in ourselves until God infuses
his life into us and as it were raises us from the dead. And
then we begin to manifest those lifelike characteristics. This
is why Jesus said, if you don't know in John chapter three, you
must be born again. And the struggle that the theologian
Nicodemus had at that time was working in his finite mind how
it is that a human being could actually be born from above,
be born a second time and to be born anew because that's what's
inherent in the term to be born again. It means to be born a
second time. It means to be born anew and
it means to be born from above. And when he thought through as
a theologian what Jesus meant in that particular proposition,
he couldn't get his mind around what Jesus meant when he says,
except you be born again, you can't see the kingdom of God,
except you be born of water and of the spirit, you will not enter
into the kingdom of God and thus experience the realities of the
kingdom. And so Nicodemus was fit to be
tied because he didn't have any categories or any reference points
by which he could begin to understand that term. And yet, ladies and
gentlemen, this idea of being born again, while it has been
just sort of stretched beyond measure in religious circles
to where it's merely a cliche, is a profound, true, critical
to the reality of the gospel. If you are not born again, you
are still dead in your sins. and you don't have a relationship
with God at all. And so the subject of the new
birth, the doctrine of regeneration is inseparably connected to the
doctrine of election. Now the troubling aspect of it
as we're getting ready to develop it now is this, inherently mankind
knows that when we talk about election or when we talk about
new birth, in a very technical sense, what we are talking about
is something outside of the scope of our control. When you and
I talk about election or talk about the new birth, the inherent
apprehension that comes to you the first time you hear that
doctrine taught, because this is what happened in Nicodemus,
was that you were exposed in the contemplation of that truth
for being out of control. Now here is one of the fundamental
problems of the human race. We've got to be in control of
everything, even God. And so in the Christian church,
we have reduced God down to a bellhop who simply exists to serve our
felt needs. even when it comes to salvation.
So when it comes to, uh, uh, this idea of election or this
idea of rebirth, and they are two sides of the same coin. They're
not synonymous, but they're two sides of the same coin. God has
elected you under salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth. Having called you by our gospel,
that's what we've been dealing with for the last four weeks.
What a person is found doing is struggling with the idea that
what if God did not elect me? Am I telling the truth? And after
that question is raised, If the individual cannot settle down
and work through the viability or the plausibility of that inquiry,
the individual will then begin to blame God for not being fair. I can't see why God would elect
some and not elect others. Wouldn't that make God a respecter
of persons? And then all of a sudden you
have these arguments that are developed. In theology, that's
where they are. But before you give credibility to the argument,
here's what I wanna say to you. is very important before you
determine whether or not you're going to pick sides with the
pro or the con group on any issue of doctrinal truth. You have
to first ask yourself, is it biblical? Is the doctrine of
the rebirth biblical? Is election biblical? Is the
doctrine of the atonement biblical? Is the doctrine of the Trinity
biblical? Is the doctrine of justification
biblical? Is the doctrine of the resurrection
biblical? Is the doctrine of ecclesiology
or the church biblical? Is the doctrine of sanctification
biblical? Before we argue what it is, we
have to argue, is it biblical? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And if we conclude that the Bible furnishes more than ample evidence
that a certain doctrine is biblical, well then perish the argument
as to why it's there. It's there because God put it
there. If it's biblical, we accept it on the grounds of inspiration
of scripture. And so it is with the doctrine
of election. We're gonna see that tonight. I'm just raising
these issues because I've heard people in their attempt to explain
to people election, make a number of cardinal mistakes. And I don't
want us to make those mistakes. I want us to be able to help
people understand the clarity of a doctrine in the volume of
scripture so that they can struggle with not the fact of the possibility
of it being in the scriptures, but they can struggle with whether
or not Because they are in the scriptures. How does that relate
to me? I would much rather you struggle
with how does election relate to you than you struggling with
does the Bible teach election because there are those who will
argue that it does that it doesn't and that would be like saying
that the Bible doesn't teach about God Right and there are
people who hold notions that are so contrary to scripture
You know that they don't know the Bible And so when we talk
about the doctrine of election or God having chosen us in Christ
before the world began, we accept it. What it teaches us is that
God didn't rush to try to save us by exercising a plan B when
we blew it in the garden of Eden. That God is omniscient and therefore
he knows everything at all times and never learns anything. And
so that God is not reacting, ever reacting to what you do.
God always responds to what you do because he knows what you
are doing. See, you and I react, God responds. We react because we have no power
over circumstances, events. We don't have precedence. We
don't see them before they come. They happen and then we respond,
right? And action then a what? Reaction
equal to that action, good or bad. That's not the case with
God. God sees all things at once. And so because he has determined
to bring to pass events, he will enter into those events and respond. according to his purpose, according
to his own schemes and plan. And one of the things that the
Bible does is it reveals to us not only the nature of God, but
the work of God, which is a challenge for us. So in the area of election,
if you have your outline, election in its biblical classification,
what I want to say is, it's necessary to recognize classifications
or categories of election. The first one you see at the
top of your outline is the fact that the Bible deals with election
in terms of what? Nations. Nations. What do I mean by that? The Bible
is very clear that Israel is God's elect. You guys know that,
right? Israel was chosen by God. Deuteronomy chapter seven, you
have to go there. Just remember, God did this,
Jehovah did this to Israel the same way Christ did this to the
apostles so that Israel wouldn't get haughty and proud and think
that because they came to meet Jehovah, and found themselves
in the auspices of his blessings and grace that somehow they were
more special than other people. So if you listen to me carefully
tonight, I'm not only going to define election for you, but
I'm gonna help you understand the nature of election so that
you don't embrace a false view of it. Israel struggled with
pride just like you and I do. And Israel struggled with pride
because they knew the true and the living God. And Christians
struggle with pride because they know God too. Am I telling the
truth? That's why a lot of non-Christians
don't want to be around y'all. I told you there are three things
that God hates. Pride of face. We talked about that in our women's
theology class last night. Beauty is vain. Favor is deceitful. But whosoever pleases the Lord,
whatever woman pleases the Lord, happy is she. Beauty is vain. Favor is deceitful. And so God
looks upon the human race and he tells all of us, if you have
any beauty, I gave it to you. But you can be proud of your
beauty. You can be proud of your face. Then you can also be proud,
we learned this last night, the tribalism of your race. Black
people are obnoxious with that. Proud of their race. Am I telling
the truth? Proud of their race. And in other
ethnic groups too, La Raza is driving me crazy these days because
somehow they're trying to get California back. And when they
lost it, they shouldn't have never gave it up in the first
place, but they're trying to get California back. And so I'm
saying what we do is we fall into tribal categories. Like
my sister talked about last night, this series of contextualizing
people will find anything to make themselves special or better
than somebody else. Watch this then. So there are
three things that are abominable to God. Pride of face, pride
of race, and then pride of grace. Pride of grace. To be proud of
the grace that God has given you means you don't understand
grace. And yet the church is filled with that arrogant pompous
predisposition. I hear it rampantly in your word
of faith movement, in your prosperity gospel. I'm a child of God. And the whole expostulation of
that statement is filled with arrogance and pride. And then
because they are a child of God, they feel like they can arrogate
to themselves qualities and characteristics that are part of the divine nature
that God did not communicate to us. And they start acting
like God. Well, you and I know that grace
and pride are mutually exclusive concepts. that you cannot possess
pride in the ontological sense and possess grace at the same
time. These are two spectrums on the
farthest ends of the universe. Grace belongs to Jesus Christ,
pride belongs to the devil. Am I making some sense? Pride
belongs to the devil and grace belongs to Jesus Christ. And
the only people that's getting God's grace are people who have
long ago abandoned their pride. He gives grace to the humble. First Peter chapter five. Are
you hearing me? So this idea of sort of a sort
of homogenizing grace and pride means that you only have a theoretical
grace. You don't have a biblical grace.
Biblical grace demolishes the pride factor. All right Let's
assume that we all understand grace in the biblical sense and
that you are a possessor of grace What I may rightly assume therefore
is that you are not a proud person Remember God gives grace to the
what and ostensibly every Christian is supposed to be humble at least
in the in the sense of their relationship with God, right?
And so, you know, we struggle when character traits and attributes
and certain human manifestations are contrary to the fruit of
the Spirit, contrary to the character of Christ, and yet they are exhibited
in the life of professing Christians because they are oxymoronic.
They're contrary to the nature of what it means to be saved.
I'm laying these down because I know in an audience of 150
people, there has to be a few of you who are unacquainted with
the doctrine of election. I want to make sure you understand
two things. You may have never heard of the doctrine of election,
or you may have heard it, and that doctrine has been skewed
by the flawed character of those who say they believe the doctrine.
I want you to understand that if you do come to understand
election in a right way, election is designed to humble you, not
make you proud. There's nothing in you and me
for which God must choose you. If God chose you, it was purely
by his grace, based upon his own love, without any merit on
your part. That's designed to keep you humble.
Remember what Paul says, I am that I am by the grace of God. And so once you understand that,
then what you do is you leave the issue of the subject of grace
for those who are still insecure in their relationship with God
to them in God. But don't ever deny a biblical
doctrine because God knows why he gave it to us. Remember Deuteronomy
chapter 29 verse 29? The secret things belong unto
the Lord. But those things which he hath
revealed to us are for us and for our children that we may
do them. there are secret things that
God knows he hasn't revealed to us he's God but there are
things that God has revealed to us and they are for us and
for our children that we may do them so we don't get to as
it were obscure or negate the doctrine of election. We must
teach it, we must teach it accurately, and we must allow the doctrine
of election to do what it's gonna do in the minds and hearts of
anyone who wants to struggle through, why would God save this
individual and let that other individual perish? Well, ask
God when you see him, right? Ask God when you see him. I guarantee
you God doesn't mind answering that question for you. The question
that you and I have to always ask around any doctrine where
God discriminates, I'm gonna show you this. Wherever God discriminates,
ask the question, what does this act of discrimination mean in
terms of the character of God? What does this act of discrimination
mean in terms of the character of God? Because God is showing
me something about himself that I need to learn. God is a spirit,
therefore he is infinite and pure, immutable and unchangeable,
incomprehensible in his pure nature. But he's also a person,
which means there are relational aspects to God by which you and
I can relate to God. God carries attributes that he
has communicated to you and me that are human like, right? Righteousness
and justice and mercy and long suffering and kindness, holiness,
wrath, All these attributes you and I can identify with, right?
So when God acts, what he's doing is revealing himself to us for
us to learn something about God. And can I share something with
you as we begin to open this up? You will see God act sometimes
in ways that you don't like. And the reason why you don't
like them is because you're not God. If God did everything right in
your eyes, you'd be God. And he'd be your image bearer.
The reason why we discovered there, I like the way my sister
said it last night. I know it sounds a little blasphemous,
but she said, J. Bernard McGee said, you know,
there's one chapter in the Bible I never preach on. And that's
the time with Tamar and Judah got all jacked up and Judah ended
up sleeping with his daughter-in-law. Well, that's because he didn't
understand the gospel. That's the reason why he didn't preach
from it. Because had he understood the gospel, he would have understood
that where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound. And that
God knows how to make a straight line out of a crooked stick.
And God knows how to redeem wicked people even in the extremities
of their sufferings and difficulty. And we can share with you, if
we look carefully into the text, how that sister Tamar, she just
wasn't giving up on the promise. Her faith was funky, it was ugly,
but it was biblical faith. And by the time the show was
over with, her name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and
she was the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you might not
like how it worked out, but the God of heaven and earth saw to
it that it did. These things challenge us, but
they're designed to humble us, to help us understand that we
don't always have all the information necessary to put God on judgment. And sometimes it's people as
well. Are you following me? You better leave Tamar alone. Amos chapter 3 verse 2, go there.
Amos 3 verse 2. I'm going to give you about 20
minutes to find it because I know you haven't looked up that verse
in a long time in your Bible. I'm going to take a break. I
want to go get some coffee. So I'll be right back. By the
time you find it, it'll be 9.05. The book is after My brother
said what time is it Jeff? I don't know 20 minutes gonna
be enough for me. It's after Daniel Let's get past our man
our major prophets and then pass our minor into our minor prophets
after Daniel Hosea then Amos So you got Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel
Daniel Amos, all right So then when you get to Amos, I want
you to go to Amos chapter three, I wanna show you something there.
We're dealing with election in its biblical classification.
And the reason why I'm gonna expose you to these terms is
so that when people argue for election in this classical sense
or classificational sense, you can agree with them. And the
other reason why I wanna share it with you is so that you won't
use election, use passages to teach election where it's dealing
with election in terms of categories and classes. Because a sharp
Bible reader will be able to demonstrate that you are misappropriating
the verse in that regard. Are we there? All right, we are
now considering Amos chapter three, verses one and two. Notice
what it says, hear this word, that the Lord has spoken against
you, O children of Israel. So our context is Israel, Hosea's
the prophet, he's dealing with the 10 northern tribes, against
the whole family, which I brought up from the land of Egypt. So
you guys see the context. He's talking about national Israel,
we call it ancient Israel that he brought out of Egypt, right?
This word is going directly to them. Are you with me, ladies
and gentlemen? Listen to it. Hear this word that the Lord
has spoken against you, O children of Israel. You know, God speaks
against his people sometimes, right? All right, so now listen
to this. The whole family which I brought up from the land of
Egypt saying, verse two, here it is, watch it. You only have
I what? Known. See that word known? It
ties back to Romans chapter eight, verse 28 through 30. Remember
what we learned concerning God's foreknowledge? Those whom he
foreknew, he also did predestinate that we might be conformed to
the image of his son. And those whom he had predestined,
he also called. Those whom he called, he also
justified. Those whom he justified, he also
glorified that Christ might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Here, the word known here is also used in what we call the
covenantal sense, the special covenantal love of God towards
Israel. Mark it again. You, Only see
that little only that's an exclusive clause You only have I known
of all the families of the earth now God can't say that in the
sense of his omniscience. I In the sense that God knows
all the families of the earth, that God is aware of every generation,
that no generation can come into existence unless God has spoke
them into existence. All people groups come from God,
is that right? Of one man did God make all the
nations of the earth, Acts chapter 17. So God knows all the nations
in the intellectual sense, in the cognitive sense, in the prescient
sense. But in the sense of personal
intimate relationship, this is what we call covenant knowledge.
God knew Israel in covenant terms in which he knew no other nation.
God made a covenant with them like I made a covenant with my
wife 30 years ago. I know a lot of sisters, but
I only know one Barbara Gistan. Am I making some sense? and we
must understand those terms in their context. When God says,
you only have I know, it means that God, he never made that
kind of special covenant relationship with any of the other nations
at all that he made with national Israel. And he's reminding Israel
of his electing them and choosing them for a purpose for which
they were called into existence. He chose them before they had
a being when he made his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
You guys remember that? He told Abraham of your seed
that will come from your loins. Will I have a family that will
spread through the earth and be a blessing to everybody? So
he already told Abraham before Israel as a nation came into
existence. This is what we call election. But our text here teaches
us that God in the concept of election set aside a nation. He set aside a nation. So you
can call that national election. National election is a group
called according to covenant. That's Hebrews 3, 17 through
19, Hebrews 4, 1. In fact, the whole book of Hebrews
underscores this. National election means that
God set Israel aside to whom he gave what we call the old
covenant. Remember that? We have two covenants
in our Bible. Your Bible is made up of 66 books
and they comprise two covenants. What are those covenants called?
Old and what? That's right. Who established
a new covenant? Jesus. On what basis? His blood. This is the New Testament
in my blood, which is shed for you. We'll get into that when
we get back to bibliology in the fall. But see, you got to
know your Bible. So your Bible is comprised of
two covenants, Old Covenant and New. Those two covenants have
one overarching message, and that's Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
But you and I are not under the Old Covenant. We are under the
what? If we are Christians, we are under the new, and it's necessary
to understand those distinctions. There are things that are carried
over from the old covenant into the new, and there are things
in the old covenant that are now done away. Are you guys following
me? That's important to know too
when you are arguing with people over a lot of moral and ethical
issues as well. People get all bent out of shape
when you say that you shall not commit adultery, or you shall
not commit fornication, or God is against homosexuality and
lesbianism. And they're all, that's Old Testament.
That's New Testament too. That principle got carried over.
Well, I hope in a couple of months I will actually be having a special
class that will last for about 12 weeks where I will be devoting
myself to the subject of the gospel and sexual confusion. And we will deconstruct the political,
psychological, and theological relevance of this issue because
it's prevailing in all of our cultures today. And the church
is doing a horrible job, in my opinion, of being able to demonstrate
the forcibleness and rightness of scripture in that regards.
It's just like a lot of other things. If we're not serious
about the word of God, we won't be able to help people see that
they are in pits. So I'm looking forward to that
because a lot of us have those challenges in our families and
you need to know how to address it. And if you don't believe
you me, there's a lot of information given to people that are in these
particular lifestyles, information for which they can argue against
you and your own Bible. If you are not solid in the scriptures.
So this speaks to national election. The next classification of election
I wanna call your attention to is what we call a vocational
election, vocational election. And this will easily come to
mind, vocational election. It's in your outline. When you
think about prophets, when you think about the priesthood, when
you think about the kings, You are rightly thinking about vocations
for which in God's own prerogative, he chooses certain individuals
and not others. When you think about the kings, God chose King Saul, then he
killed King Saul and he chose the next king and his name was
what? Now he could have chose any of David's brothers, but
he chose David. which means he did not choose
the others. This is called discrimination.
Grab that word because again, in the war on words in our culture,
which is part of the political agenda of the adversary, they
take terms and they give those terms certain connotations and
meanings. and they own the words. And once
they own the words, you and I feel like we can only operate with
that word according to the way in which they have defined it.
Here's what I want you to understand. The word discrimination is not
a bad word. It has been used in a political
sense in which it becomes inflammatory and it's tied to things like
racism and all of that type of stuff. But be sure that if you
are going to be a healthy person, you better learn how to discriminate. Am I making some sense? You better
know how to discriminate between knuckleheads and people that
have character. You better be able to discriminate
between hoodlums and individuals who are genuine and authentic
in terms of their presentation. You better be able to discriminate
between the truth and lies. You better be able to discern,
to be able to analyze, to be able to divide between right
and wrong. That's called discrimination. Don't let the political world
own terms and therefore define those terms and then limit the
use of those terms for you. That's a very good term, discrimination. God did that when he chose Israel
over all the other nations. He did it when he chose David
and not David's other brothers. You know what we call discrimination?
Election. I chose my wife 30 years ago
over all the other women in the world. I discriminated. did not. And so we do that. And it's all right for us to
discriminate. It's all right for us to elect stuff, but God
can't do it. So what I'm trying to get you
to understand is very important for you to think objectively
and not be driven subjectively based upon the narrative of our
present culture. I'll be talking about this on
Sunday. It's important for you. I'm going to be preaching the
parable of the sower and the seed this Sunday. And I'm gonna be explaining
why Jesus said that there were three soils that failed to produce
fruit. And it has everything to do with
how we hear. How we hear. It's very important
for you to hear objectively and critically enough to know whether
or not when you are listening to a thing, you are listening
through the prism of other people's interpretation rather than your
own tried, proven, tested analysis of a thing. Because you can piggyback
on the back of whole cultures and miss the truth. Am I making
some sense? And so it's very important to
notice. So a vocational election has to do with the prophets.
It has to do with the priests, has to do with the Kings, has
to do with the New Testament apostles. Do you know God, the
Lord Jesus Christ chose 12 apostles? Do you know that? Just like Jehovah,
which is the Lord Jesus, he chose 12 tribes. You guys know that,
right? Just as he chose 12 tribes, he
chose 12 apostles, and he had many men from whom he could have
chosen, but he only chose 12. And you know what he says in
John 6, verse 70? You only have I chosen. So he made a choice of 12 men
in the gospel of John, and he let them know very clearly, I
chose you. We learned a little bit about
four of them last week, didn't we? Peter, James, and John, and
Andrew, who were fishermen. The Lord Jesus just interrupted
their life, didn't he? Wasn't that a good message? Just
interrupted their life, took over. Next thing they know, they're
following the master. And right before he was crucified,
he had to stop them in their tracks. In John chapter 15, verse
16, he says, fellas, I want to make sure we keep something straight.
When I go to glory and I send the Holy Ghost down and I give
you apostolic power and authority to change the world, I want you
to remember this. I chose you. You didn't choose
me. I want you to remember that you
was out fishing, catching nothing. I love it. I love it. I'm telling
you election is humbling, isn't it? The Lord Jesus shows up the
night after they were fishing and didn't catch a thing. And
my point is this. What he did was to remind them
that life was going to change for them exponentially. And they
would be they would be the talk of the town all over the world.
Every apostle would be imminent, imminent in its influence around
the world for the cause of Christ. And our fallen nature is such
that if God doesn't check us, we will steal his glory. Am I
making some sense? We will still his glory. So with
his own apostles, he says, listen, fellas, please understand this.
You didn't choose me. I chose you. So let's keep it
straight when it's your turn to actually do the gospel. I
only raise that because I want you to understand that in vocational
election, God chooses the prophets. He chose Jeremiah, didn't he?
He chose Isaiah, didn't he? He chose Daniel, didn't he? He
chose Elijah, didn't he? Elijah chose Elisha, didn't he? We have all sorts of prophets
in the Old Testament that God chose. You may not have liked
those prophets, but those were the ones that God chose. Whether
you like it or I like it or not doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
God chose those people. That's what election is all about.
So in vocational election, that is a vocation, like the gifts
that God gave to the church in Ephesians chapter four, the gift
of a prophet and apostle and evangelist and teacher and pastor. Those are gifts that God gives
to the church. And he gives those gifts to people in the church
whom he wills. You don't get to go to the candy
machine of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and buy a gift. Yeah, well,
I want to be a preacher. No, no, no, it don't work like
that. God has to call you to this office. Am I making some
sense? Because everybody want to be
a preacher, right? But the Bible is very clear that
God did not call everybody to the task of pastor teaching.
He just did not do it. And so operating outside of your
calling is what we call a catastrophe. You are waging war against God
when you claim a gift that God didn't give you. That's what
Proverbs says. Whosoever boasted himself in
a false gift is like clouds without rain. You give promise, but you
can't produce any fruit because the gift comes from God. The
gift comes from God. So it was with the apostle Paul.
The apostle Paul had to prove by virtue of his gift that God
had called him. The other disciples weren't feeling
Paul. They were not feeling him at
all. I mean, prior to his conversion, he was killing up Christians
as fast as he could. He was a straight dog. And then
God converted him. And Ananias and brother Barnabas
had to speak up for him and I accepted on it. Hey man, the Lord actually
saved this man. He's one of us now. And it took
some time for the disciples to warm up to this terrorist who
has now become a Christian. I'm just telling you how it was.
This brother was cold, man. And you know, I can see what
Christians were doing for the first 10 years. They were saying,
why Lord? Why him? Why save him? Every time he's around, I get
nervous. What I'm trying to tell you is
God doesn't ask you, is it all right for him to do something? He just does what he does. And
don't you thank God for the apostle Paul now? You know, it took some
time to warm up to him, but the church loved him by the time
he died. They loved him. You know, Aaron would have never
become the high priest of the children of Israel if it was
up to him. There's no way Aaron would have
taken on the job of being the high priest of that group of
rabble-rousing, hell-raising religious folk. He would have
never done it. But he was called by God. Moses
would have never taken on the role of being prophet to deliver
Israel and shepherd of Israel had not God called him. Are you
hearing me, ladies and gentlemen? And so when we talk about vocational
election, we're talking about what God did. God raised up prophets. Jeremiah was a prophet, wasn't
he? Jeremiah chapter one, God called him. He's about 17, 18
years old. Israel is steeped in apostasy. I mean, Israel is as bad as the
church is today. Worshiping God's on every hill,
Jehovah, Was just a byword in their mouth when they went to
the temple. They went to the temple saying The temple of the
lord the temple of the lord are these we've been delivered to
do all this hell raising that we're doing The arrogance and
pride is jeremiah chapter 5 through 7 just in case you don't know
god told jeremiah to tell the people The hell that you are
living now, you're gonna pay for that See, Isaiah and Jeremiah
were the two prophets that were the trumpets that God used to
blow to Israel to tell them that the north is coming down on you.
Even as you now boast in your relationship with me, which you
don't have, Babylon is on its way. And Jeremiah could see the
horsemen, the nostrils on the horses of Nebuchadnezzar as they
were coming. But Israel in their blindness
and in their idolatry, they thought they were all right. Here Jeremiah
is warning them that Babylon is about to devastate your whole
country, send you to the four winds. The book of Deuteronomy
chapters 26 through 32, Leviticus chapters 26 through 28 are going
to be fulfilled to the T. The nation of Israel didn't believe
it. It's like the church today. The church today does not believe
it's under the judgment of God. I'm here to tell you the church
is under the judgment of God. It's under the wrath of God as
we speak. If one were to examine and analyze
what the Bible teaches concerning the wrath of God, the justice
of God, the reprobation of God, the punishment of God upon his
own people when they sin against him, you would see that the church
is under the judgment of God. The church is not carrying out
its mission today. The church is not preaching the
truth today. The church is not warning the
wicked to depart from its evil ways today. The church is not
walking in humility today. The church is not walking in
holiness today. The church is not preaching Christ
today. The church is not suffering,
I'm particularly here in America, for the cause of the gospel today.
The church has no prophetic voice. When there's a prophetic voice,
people fear and people get mad. When there's a prophetic voice,
two things happen. People fear, and the fear of
the Lord is clean, and people get mad. You know the church
is alive when they're killing Christians. Did you hear what
I just said? You know the church is alive
when the government is killing Christians. But Jesus says, if
the salt has lost its savior, where will it be salted? It's
good for nothing but to be cast out and trod underfoot of men.
If Jesus had already taught the church, a vital church will be
the means of salvation and judgment. There will be some people who
will be saved because they will see the unique supernatural presence
of God in the church and others who will be damned because they
will hate the light that emanates from the church. See, men love
darkness. They don't love light. Men love darkness and men do
not want you to tell them the truth. I'm just telling you how
it goes. Men don't like for you to tell
them exactly what's going on in their dark heart. But when
the Word of God is faithfully preached and expounded, the Spirit
of God exposes you for what you really are, a hell-bound sinner,
and shuts you up to Christ and tells you your only choice between
heaven and hell is bowing to neither Jesus. And that doesn't
sound good to a proud sinner. Am I making some sense? But it's
true. And so until God is pleased to humble the church and bring
about a revival in the church, all the church can do is clown
today. This is why you see the church
on all of your entertainment stations and ready to run into
the White House and ready to run to this convention and running
that convention. You know, all we can do is sing
and dance. We're nothing but sambos today in the church. Sambos. symbols, because we have no voice.
There's no prophetic voice speaking to the government, speaking to
the Congress, speaking to the nation, telling the nation that
it has forgotten God. Are you hearing me? So the church
can do it. All it can do is entertain people,
entertain people on the road to hell. That's where we are.
So vocation, vocational election is the office of prophet, the
office of priest, the office of king. That's the Old Testament
model. And all those vocations, prophet,
priest, king, and we can say New Testament apostles, all pointed
to whom? All pointed to whom? So I'll
help you with this because some of you may have fallen under
the notion that in the Old Testament, believers didn't have the Holy
Ghost. Some of your teachers will teach you that the Holy
Ghost was not given until the New Testament. And so people
in the Old Testament weren't filled with the Spirit of God.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Every believer had
the Spirit of God since the days of Abel all the way up to the
present hour. It was just that under the Old
Testament economy, God was highlighting the offices of Messiah in the
vocational sense, so that when the prophet was called, he took
on an extra measure of the Spirit of God to serve to represent
that office. When the priest was called, he
took on an extra measure of the Spirit of God to serve to represent
that office. When the king was raised up,
this is why David said in Psalm 51, Take not thy Holy Spirit
away from me, O Lord, because he understood he could not operate
in his call as the monarch representing Christ without the Holy Ghost.
He wasn't saying I'm lost and I need to be saved all over again.
He was saying that the office of King points to the office
of Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I cannot properly
execute this office without your spirit. Am I making some sense?
very important for you to know that so when you read about the
prophets and they're doing all these magnificent miracles and
signs and wonders that's because those prophets pointed to that
prophet Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 15 right remember what
Moses says a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up from among
your brethren just like you him you will hear who was Moses talking
about Christ so Every Old Testament prophet pointed to the prophet
of prophets. Every Old Testament priest pointed to the priest
of priests. Every Old Testament king pointed to the king of kings. Am I making some sense now? In
the New Testament, I want you to hear this now. It's very important
to get this established too, because we fall prey to an Old
Testament paradigm in this New Testament era. And this is why
a lot of your pastors are kings. We talked about this before.
Can I talk about it again? See, in a lot of our churches,
and this is really true in our Latino and African-American churches
where their theology is not rightly divided, the pastor takes on
the monarchial role of being the king. And therefore, the
people pay homage to him almost as if he's the Lord Jesus. And
that's why they don't mind calling his wife the first lady. But
I've already told you, if the wife is the first lady, everybody
else in the church is second lady and third lady and fourth
lady. And that don't sound too hot to me. My wife is not the
first lady and neither am I the king. I'm the pastor and she's
the pastor's wife. And she's the first lady right
along with the whole church of God, which is called the first
lady. Am I making sense? And Christ
is the head. Christ is the head. See, this
is part of the Antichrist spirit that has dominated the church
and has usurped the glory of Christ and caused the people
in the church to look at a man rather than Jesus. I'm helping
you. Am I helping you? Yes, very important
for you to know that. So in vocational election, we
see the prophet, we see the priest, we see the king, we see the apostle.
And this is why these false prophets love to arrogate to themselves
or claim these titles, because in these titles, they know an
unusual effusion of the spirit of God was given to the prophet.
An unusual effusion of the spirit was given to the priest. The priest, the high priest,
could go into the presence of God and receive counsel from
God through the Urim and the Thummim that was on his breastplate
of which nobody else could do. He could enter into the Holy
of Holies and commune with Jehovah in the Shekinah glory of which
no one else could do. And he could come out and be
a fool and try to make a commodity out of that approximation to
God if he wanted to be a fool. And so when you're listening
to a man And even a woman today, because some of y'all believe
in women preachers. That's a whole nother story. But if you're listening
to a man or woman and they're aggregating to themselves the
role of prophet or the role of priest, high priest or the role
of king and for women, queen, they have elevated themselves
above New Testament gifting. Let me say it again just to help
some of you, because I know it's Friday night. and you know, you're
slow. When you listen to them and they
talk as if they are royalty, and you are the peasants, trying
to grovel your way to where they are. What they have done is utilize
Old Testament paradigms that were pointing to one man, which
is Christ, and were put away when Christ came, or as Jesus
said, you are a holy priesthood. every one of you bearing the
same accessibility to God, the father, as the Lord Jesus Christ
does by the spirit of God. So that there's an egalitarian
sense of priesthood accessibility to God on the part of every Christian.
You know what that means? You don't have to actually go
to your pastor to get a word from the Lord. Like he goes into
some secret chamber and sits at God's elbow and say, Lord,
give me a word for sister so-and-so. I know y'all, you play these
games in religious churches, but when you do this, you know
what you're doing? You are telling me and other
Christians that you don't have a sufficient knowledge of this
book. Are you hearing me? You're basically saying, I want
to bypass the book and I want somebody to talk to me in God's
stead. That person could lie to you
forever. How many of you have some of
these guys prophesy, the Lord said this, Jacked your life up. And especially
in the area of you getting married to somebody. Or getting a job or this and
that. And they generally flatter you. You know, very seldom do
they say, the Lord said, you on your way to hell. They very
seldom do they say that, right? Very seldom do they say, you
know, you're under the discipline of the Lord. And yet the prophets
of old, they constantly brought judgment, didn't they? So these
so-called New Testament prophets, all they have for you today is
a good word. Which means there's something
wrong. Because Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter 28, all the
prophets going all the way back to the first of the prophets,
Samuel spoke evil of this generation. And then when Hananiah comes
along and wants to speak good, Jeremiah says, you have broken
rank with the prophets because they don't talk like you talk.
When God sends a prophet, that prophet speaks for God to the
people in the behalf of God. And generally what he has to
say for God to the people, the people don't like. But today
all of your so-called prophets have a good word for people,
don't they? Be careful not to be hoodwinked. So we are dealing
with the idea of vocational election, apostles, prophets, priests,
and kings, and they all have their total summation in the
person of Jesus. Acts chapter one, verse 26, go
there. Acts chapter one, verse 26. I just want to read this and then
I want to go on to personal election to underscore the, uh, the clear
doctrinal teaching that if you and I are saved, if God has been
pleased to save us, it's because he chose us in Christ. And that
needs to be reaffirmed as well. But in Acts chapter one, verse
26, are you there? This year is actually talking
about, um, the, uh, destruction of Judas Iscariot. Uh, you know,
Judas Iscariot was prophesied a thousand years before he came
in Psalm 109 and in Psalm 68 as well, that he would betray
Jesus. You guys know he's in the Psalms,
right? And the scriptures say this concerning him as Peter
and them are seeking to appoint another person in his stead. Verse 24 of Acts chapter one. And they prayed and said, thou
Lord, which knowest the hearts of all, men is in italicis, show
whether of these two you have chosen. that he may take part
of this ministry and do you see it? What? Now notice what it
says in verse 24, the last line, show whether of these two whom
you have chosen, that's the word election. Peter and the rest
of the disciples are trying to wrap up the full number 12 because
they understood that the number 12 represented spiritual authority. They understood that in the Old
Testament church, which was national Israel, they were the representatives
of the kingdom of God, that God had raised up the 12 tribes.
They also saw that Jesus was becoming for the New Testament
church, a new Moses, raising up 12 apostles so that they weren't
going to be content with the number 11. They were seeking
to round out the number because they understood spiritual government.
We have 12 months in a year, right? That's the year of the
Lord. This is the cycle that God works with. The heavenly
or spiritual authority in the church represents the moon and
the stars and the timekeepers that operate on a solar and a
lunar calendar. This is why the Bible says that
you and I are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ruling
with Christ over everything. And so the apostles are looking
for that 12th man. You see this in Revelation chapter
21, don't you? That when we look at the New
Jerusalem, it has 12 foundations and it has 12 gates, doesn't
it? On the 12 gates are written the names of the 12 tribes of
Israel. On the 12 foundations are written
the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb, right? 12 times
12, 12 plus 12 equals 24, right? Those are the 24 elders that
encompass both Old Testament and New Testament saints. This
is the way the Bible uses numbers to fill up and give us these
spiritual concepts. And so the apostles are looking
to fill that up. What they didn't know is Matthias,
whom they are hoping or justice would be one of the 12. God didn't
choose neither one of them. They rolled the dice. That's
called casting lots. You know how some of y'all go
to Reno? I ain't going to tell on you, but the Lord see you
and y'all roll the dice and say, Lord, give me a second. Lord,
give me 11. I need to make, I need to get
some milk money today. And then you go home talking about how
the Lord then blessed you with $35. Y'all be coming down from Reno, thanking
the Lord. You didn't make $500. Oh, the
Lord didn't bless me. You know, you're wrong though,
right? You know, you're wrong. You know, you're wrong. You know,
you're wrong. Anyhow, the apostles thought
that they could cast lots because the Proverbs talks about casting
lots and they were into this year is complete. This year is
complete. Idolatry is paganism to the hilt. You pull up straws and you shake
them around and try to find out which one is the longest or which
one is. That's not how God reveals himself. So God didn't even pay
any attention to this, but he let it be written for us to see,
listen, that even the apostles themselves left to themselves
are fallible men. You notice the Holy Ghost didn't
come in on this prayer that Peter and Emma praying, Lord, show
us which of the two, justice or Matthias. I think if he had
come in, he'd have said neither one. Y'all didn't even ask me
who I was determining to have. You just brought, you know, if
this is not politics in America, I don't know what is, right? Now we got who? We got Obama
again, and now we got Romney. Is that the only two choices
we got? Can't we do better than that? Okay, so I'm just sharing
with you how you get locked into what we call the dialectical
process, where the control factors are out of your hand, and they
make you think that you are participating in the political process when
in fact they have determined who the parties are you have
to vote for. And then they tell you to believe
that this is called freedom. So the Holy Ghost didn't say
nothing to the apostles. He let them go. Do you know Justice
and Matthias, the last time you read about them is right here.
You never read about them again. That's it. I said they were probably
running around with the fellas for a while and they tried to
lay hands on people and do some illness and it became very apparent
to them that they had no power and they kind of just snuck on
out the back door and went back to doing what they did because
God raised up a man named the Apostle Paul. Are you hearing
me? God has his own elect. You don't
tell who tell God who the elect he raised up all and made Paul
even more eminent than the other 11, which was a real struggle
for them. You know that because they had
three and a half years with the master and they figured they
could tell Paul something about the Lord Jesus, right? They couldn't
tell Paul nothing about the Lord because Paul had his own relationship
with Christ. And so we read these words, verse
25 and 26. that he may take part of this
ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression
fail. What did Judas fall from? His
apostleship. He fell from his apostleship. Which Judas fell by transgression
that he might go to his watch this own place. Pastor, what's
his own place? Hell. Hell. He went to hell. Judas went to
hell. You can be sure of that. Verse 26, and they gave forth
their lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered
among the 11 apostles. So they chose Matthias, didn't
they? Not the Lord Jesus, they chose him. Personal election.
Go with me in your Bible once again, I want you guys to see
this for yourself, to Romans chapter eight, verses 28 through
30. I just want you to see this again,
and then we're gonna move on to, I've got about 10 more minutes
before I open the floor for questions. I'll close out, I think I'll
close out chapter two, and then we'll go into chapter three.
Romans chapter eight, one of the most, we expounded this,
so I'm not gonna expound it today, I'm just gonna read it again
in your hearing. I do need to go to actually,
I do need to go to Romans chapter nine too. So Romans chapter eight,
I'm gonna read something in Romans eight, then I'm gonna read Romans
nine to nail down this doctrine of personal election so that
you might know. The cause of you being saved is because God
chose you. It's very important for you to
know that. In Romans chapter eight, verse 29 through, let
me start at 28 again and go through verse 30. And we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose. Did you call
God or did God call you? That's right, it's called the
gospel called John chapter five, verses 24 through verse 28. The
hour is coming when the dead shall hear the voice of the son
of God and they that hear shall live. One day you were dead and
God called you by the voice of the gospel and that gospel raised
you from the dead. It opened your ears, it opened
your heart and you found out that you were a hell bound sinner
and God awakened you to your need of Christ and he put you
in a position where you saw that your only hope for glory was
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the preaching of the gospel
was so wonderful that day to you when Christ said, bow the
knee, you quickly bow the knee. When he said, believe on me,
you said, my heart believes, oh Lord. And that was a miracle
of grace. Because the day before you could
care less about Jesus. You remember that? One day you
didn't care about him, the next day you couldn't get your mind
off of him. And you've been thinking about Jesus ever since, haven't
you? You know what that's called? Being in love. I've been in love
for 35 years. with that man called Christ.
Isn't that wild? For 35 years. And the love grows
stronger and stronger every day. Doesn't it? Isn't that amazing
how that works? See, the spirit of God, according
to Romans chapter five, verse two, poured the love of Christ
into your heart, into your heart. And now you can't help but think
about him frequently. longing for him, desiring to
know him better. Isn't that what Paul says? That
I might know him and the power of his resurrection, that I might
be made conformable unto his death, that if by any means I
might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. I want to know this
man as fully as I possibly can. Don't you? I want to know everything
about him. That's called being in love.
That's called being in love. Here it is. For whom He did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren, verse 30.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also what? Called. And
whom he called, then he also justified. And whom he justified,
then he also glorified. What shall we then say to these
things? Here it is. If God be for us,
who can be against us? And then the apostle breaks out
into utter jubilation. He deals with the Trinitarian
aspect of God's involvement in our life, which I'm gonna save
for chapter three, when we get into chapter three. And so go
with me to Romans chapter nine, because Romans nine here will
seal this issue. In Romans nine, the apostle Paul
begins to explain to us that it is a fallacy to look on the
outward appearance to determine where a person stands with God
just because they are part of the group. Remember we're talking
about election in terms of his classification? There are a lot
of people who think that just because folks are blood descendants
of Abraham that they are the people of God. Some of y'all
might hold that notion, but please understand the New Testament
beginning with the Lord Jesus Christ forbids us to draw the
conclusion that a person is a child of God through blood lineage
to Abraham. Did you guys hear that? Let me
say it again and then you can get the tape and you can listen
to it a hundred times. The Bible forbids knowledgeable
Christians to draw the conclusion that just because a person is
a blood descendant of Abraham, that they are therefore a child
of God. The Bible forbids it. It forbids
you and I to conclude that a person can be physically born into the
kingdom of God. It forbids it. The Bible tells
us plainly that we are not born of blood, nor of the will of
man, nor of the will of the flesh, John chapter 1, 12, but of God. It's not possible for us to say,
well, I'm Abraham's seed to the 27th generation, and therefore
I am of God. Jesus said it very plainly in
John chapter eight, did he not? You are of your father, the devil,
and the works of your father you will do. I know that you
are his sperm, but you are not his technon. I know that you
can tie your blood lineage to Abraham, but by the way you are
acting, I know that you are not children of God, because children
of God are only children of God by super nature, not natural
generation. supernatural generation. Are you guys hearing me? The
only way you can be of Abraham's lineage is for you to be in Christ. And to be in Christ, you've got
to be born again. You've got to believe the gospel.
And if you are in Christ and you are Abraham's seed, it doesn't
matter what your ethnicity is, you are a child of Abraham. That's the whole argument of
the New Testament from Romans all the way through the book
of Hebrews. that a true Jew is not one who is circumcised in
the flesh, Romans chapter two, verses 21 through 24, but whose
circumcision is of the what? Heart, and whose praise is of
God, not of man. You cannot go around showing
a person your physical reproductive organ or your, and that's what
they were doing, because it was the physical sign. Circumcision
was the sign. circumcision was assigned, but
Jesus plainly said it. And the apostle Paul, who was
a Jew of Jews said, no, no, no, no, no. This is not the children
of God. The children of God are people
who are born again, whether Jew or Gentile. Now watch the language
in Romans chapter nine. Now this, this model or this
construct is designed for us to also be able to defend election
based on this argument. I'm in a Romans chapter nine,
and I'm going to start at a verse, uh, I'll start at verse 11. Are you there? Here it is. For
the children, and we're talking about Rebecca's children, Jacob
and Esau, being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God, according to what? Oh, so
if you never read election in your Bible before, that's the
first time you read it. Romans chapter nine, verse 11. So there
are two children in the womb of Rebecca, right? They are not
yet physically born. God knows who they are in the
womb, right? That means that their works have
nothing to do with God's choice. Because the works only take place
when you leave the womb and come into the world. So God's already
making choice of whom he's going to love and whom he's going to
hate in the womb. Am I making some sense? Watch
the text. For the children not being yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God, according to election, might stand not of works, but
of him that calls. It was said unto her, to who?
Rebecca, the elder shall serve the younger. You guys remember
that? Now watch this. In that culture, the younger
always serve the elder, but God does what he wants. Do you know
why? Because he's God. I know that blew a fuse right
there, but it's important for you to know. And often God will
turn the tables in order to humble us so that we might understand
that we don't naturally think God's thoughts after him. We
often think in legal terms. We often think in legal terms. Do you remember how Abraham struggled
to have God let Ishmael live before him to be the heir? Oh
my Ishmael live before you God said no Sarah's gonna have a
boy. His name's gonna be Isaac and
Isaac will be the one that I choose See how God does what he wants
Ishmael's firstborn Isaac secondborn According to the law all the
blessings should go to the firstborn God said no with the gospel. It's exactly the opposite He
chose Isaac over Ishmael because Isaac would point to Christ and
this is what he's saying here watch it verse 13 as it is written
now watch this ladies and gentlemen are you ready Jacob have I what
but Esau have I what okay mark verse 13 because here's another
fallacy you got to work through and this is part of this group
hearing that I'm going to talk about on Sunday deconstruct it
a little bit You and I get taught narratives. You and I get taught
worldviews. You and I have inseminated into
our thinking surreptitiously and inadvertently just through
the repeated expressions of cultural norms on a daily basis through
different venues, ideologies and concepts and assumptions
and worldviews. And what we do is we don't realize
that we are formulating set of views by which we interpret things
by things that are passed on to us of which we have never
really critically investigated whether they were right or wrong.
Are you guys hearing me? This is called group hearing.
This is called consensus hearing. I could get into what is called
the psychology of social science in this area if I wanted to,
but I just want you to know the vast majority of human beings
listen so passively that they are taught And they are made
to think things in a certain way just because they are part
of a large group. They never think independently.
They never think ontologically. They never think with regards
to a personal, cognitive, objective, rational, singular responsibility
on their part to determine whether a thing is so. In our human weakness,
what we do is we look around and see how many people agree
with this thought and whether it's safest to draw a conclusion. Should we agree with it because
the multitude agrees with it? Or should we agree with it because
that group agrees with? Are you hearing me? And most
of the time we are like water that seeks its own level because
we don't want to get into any fights or because we don't want
to work hard at finding out the truth. If the vast majority believe
that Santa Claus exists, then hey, that's cool, right? And so what we do is we start
thinking in terms of group consensus, but what God told Israel when
he brought them out of Israel, out of Egypt, into the wilderness,
before he deployed them into the promised land, he told them,
you must not follow a multitude to do evil. He told his own special
people, now, when I send you into the land of Canaan, You're
going to be there to demolish all the idols, all of the false
gods there. In order for you to demolish
those false gods, you've got to be able to think my thoughts
after me. But I know where you came from. You came from Egypt,
which was a polygamous culture that believed on a large consensus
level, a whole bunch of mythical stuff. You have to have all that
stuff taken out of your head and you have to learn how to
think biblically. Now, to think biblically requires effort. It
requires the transformation of the mind. It requires you pouring
yourself into truth. It requires you asking God to
help you think God's thoughts after him. To think biblically
is to think radically. To think biblically is actually
to think contrary to your own intuitive notions. I know you
didn't know that, but it's true. In order for you and I to think
biblically, we have to be ready to betray our own natural predilections. To think biblically, we have
to be ready to go against ourselves. Am I telling the truth? Sometimes
I have to think contrary to how I'm thinking. Because the Bible
says every way of man is right in his own eyes. There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Am I telling
the truth? And so, isn't it amazing how
often God will call your attention to the fact that you have been
passively listening and you have imbibed or embraced ideas and
notions that you thought for the longest were right until
you ran against the wall and then you realized you had bought
into a lie? We naturally believe those things until we start to
be much more cognizant of these things. So here's what this text
says, watch this. As it is written, Jacob have I what? Esau have
I what? If that verse is inerrant and
infallible and it's part of Holy Scripture, Romans chapter nine,
verse 13, if Romans chapter nine, verse 13 is intelligent, intelligible,
if it's perspicuous, if it's clear, if it's proposition is
rational, if the statement in Romans chapter nine, verse 13
is a rational propositional statement that makes intelligent sense,
it's not possible for you to afterwards say, God loves everybody. Stay there for a moment. See,
we like to think here. Can you see what I'm talking
about? We like to think here. I don't mind you getting happy and getting
excited about Jesus, but let's think first before we get happy
and excited about Jesus. I raised the question. Is it
possible as a Bible-believing Christian for us to frame our
words and say that God loves everybody and be consistent with
our knowledge of biblical truth if in fact the Bible says there's
at least one person in the universe at one time ever since the existence
of the world to this very hour that God did not love? I can't
both agree with scripture and then make that universal statement
that God loves everybody, no matter how good it feels. Doesn't it feel good to say,
doesn't it feel good to tell people God loves everybody and
God has a wonderful plan for everybody. Doesn't that feel
good? Watch this, but it's not the
biblical God. Are you hearing me? It's just
not the biblical God. It's the God of this Christian
age. It might be the God of your pastor of your church. Y'all
might have brochures and tracts built on that whole premise.
God loves everybody. But you won't find it in the
Bible. See what I'm getting at? You
won't find it in the Bible. Now I'll share something with
you whether you know this or not. There has been a war going on
for centuries against biblical truth. And the most successful
place this war is being waged is in the church. I want you
to hear this. I'm gonna open the floor for
questions. We'll come back here next week. In the dialectical process,
in the capacity of being able to take one concept and then
another concept, and those two concepts be diametrically opposed
to each other, in this dialectical process, the experimentation
has been to merge two opposing views and cause people to think
that it's rational to embrace integrating two opposing views
and these views not be inexorably in conflict. And what that means
is once a person accepts an ideology or a construct of thinking that
allows them to say one thing to be true, and then another
thing to be true, even though both of those alleged truths
are in contrast to each other. At that point, we call that pluralism,
relativism. At that point, you are now embracing
what we call technically, are you ready? Irrationality and
insanity. I want you to hear me because
this is very important. I'm not gonna veer into the social
sciences But this has been going on for the longest time. And
it's been the job of the people who are the change agents of
this culture to keep people from thinking rationally, from thinking
logically, from thinking in a way that is consistent with logic. You cannot say that God loves
everybody at the same time say that God hated Esau. Are you
guys hearing what I'm saying? You cannot. You cannot coalesce
those two propositions. They are at odds invariably with
each other. You have to choose one or the
other, but you can't have both and be rational and be rational. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
You have to choose whether or not you're going to be the lovey-dovey
people that God loves everybody and therefore your God is not
going to be the God of the Bible. Are you going to accept the fact
that God loves whom he wills and let people be mad at you?
Are you following me? This is very important. If you
and I depict, construct, frame, or build an image of God that's
contrary to God's word, we create an idol and we make war against
God. And what I'm saying is in the
Christian church, this is what has been going on for the last
500 years. so that people are actually sitting
in pews thinking they know God while they are holding views
that are contrary to what the Bible teaches. Are you guys hearing
me? Now, there are people who are
doing it inadvertently, because like I said, part of the group
thinking, it just gets inherited to them. Well, we always believe
this. And then when they get challenged
with somebody that knows their Bible, then they're, you know,
they're lost for words. They don't know what to do. And
while as yet pride is still dominating their life. Here's what they
will do. They will say that doesn't say that This is listen, this is how you
get women in the pulpit Lesbians and homosexuals leading the church
Same-sex marriage and the whole litany of Moral change that's
going on in our culture. Are you guys hearing me? Because
we have failed to accept clear and explicit Propositional statements
for what they say We are now bold enough to say that doesn't
say that and then you know what we do we hire theologians and
scholars to redefine those terms and See, I'm getting into what
we're going to be dealing with down the line, but we have to
deal with that because this is so dangerous. If you and I get
to define the terms. Then we are God and not God.
If you and I get to define terms, ladies and gentlemen, then we
are God and not God. Am I making some sense? If I
get to say a man is not a man. But a man is whoever I want him
to be, then I have just taken God's place, haven't I? A woman
is not a woman, but a woman is whomever I want her to be or
any number of things. Now I can redefine it and I can
reshape it and I can redesign it to fit my own purpose. Listen,
I'm God because God is the author of all things. He's the source
of all things. Everything was made by him and
watch this, it was designed for him. And the problem with our
culture is we're not asking the question, why was that made?
We're asking the question, can we make that thing do what we
want it to do? Are you hearing me? This is a
speculative realm of social science, which is tantamount to someone
taking the DNA and rather than looking for the glory of God
in it and seeing what kind of good potential can come out of
that DNA, we want to manipulate the DNA and create hybrid monsters,
which is what we're doing. Are you hearing? See, I can take
that model right there and apply it to several different disciplines,
one of which is language. If in this deconstructionist
age we can redefine terms, then nothing is true but what we want
to be true. Right? Am I making some sense? Well, your truth is your truth
and my truth is my truth. Sorry, that's a contradiction.
Those are self-negating concepts. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
It can't be your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth.
It's only one true. That's the law of non-contradiction. Something
has to be right and something has to be wrong. You know, the
law is the law, isn't it? I take my pencil, my keys. Newton
says what goes up must what? Now, am I bad enough to take the law of gravity and
redefine it and then jump? See what I'm saying? Now God
gave us that law, didn't he? The law of gravity. And he gave
us a bunch of other laws that we call invariable laws, enviable
laws to help us know that there's a power greater than us. But
what we will do is we will get into the realm of speculative,
intellectual, propositional laws and redefine things because we
know propositional laws have to do with the way we think.
And this is how you deceive the masses. But I'm here to tell
you, take that same pluralistic ideology and construct by which
you can say a truth is a lie and a lie is a truth and test
that by throwing that thing over the building and see if it will
float. It'll fall just as sure as the
law of gravity is there to bring glory to God. And that's what
has to happen with every notion, every idea has to be tested by
the truth to prove That is flaw floors open for a few minutes.
Anybody got questions? Any questions? Okay. Speak up
my brother. Yeah, that's okay. It depends
on what the mothers are doing. If the mothers are running the
church, that's not okay. If the mothers are running the
church, that's not okay. But if the mothers are operating
out of the gifting of mature women who've been in the church
long enough and they know how to function in their calling
as mothers and as wives and as mature sisters in Christ, you
need an upline instructing the downline. Years ago, there have
been great, great ministries of mothers in the church. Today,
unfortunately, often mothers in the church is another sort
of empty suit thing, where just cause she's 70 or 80 years old,
she's supposed to be wise and smart. And you know, just cause
you're 70, 80 years old, don't mean you smart. Can I just be
truthful with you? I'm 52 years now. I'm in the
old category now. Just cause you old, don't mean
you smart. Had to hit that one upside the
head. Now, the Bible is very clear. A gray hair is a crown to a man
or a woman only if it be found in the way of righteousness.
That's the Proverbs. But just because you all don't
give you a right to sit up front and be a senator. OK, next question. You too, my brother. It's real in the first sense.
Let's let's follow the rules of hermeneutics. Okay, so we
can be consistent. We need to recognize how important
it is to believe in the actual crucifixion of Jesus Christ in
terms of his hypostatic union as the God-man. One of the arguments
that's been going on throughout church history is that God was
not manifest in the flesh. He was. He was a human being. And when the centurion pierced
his side and out came blood and water, that first and foremost
proved that he wasn't an apparition. He wasn't some type of miracle
angel. He was indeed a human being. Are you with me so far?
He was indeed a human being. Secondly, when the blood and
water came out, it proved that he was dead. That means he wasn't
swooning. He wasn't in some incognito state.
He was actually dead. Thirdly, when he pierced his
side, he was fulfilling the scriptures in the Old Testament. they pierced
his side. Fourthly, I'm helping you understand
why that passage is there before we get into the symbolism. When
the water and the blood came out, now we have those component
witnesses that testify to the atonement that Christ accomplished
to put away our sins. The blood of and the water is
what John spoke about in first John chapter five, when it says,
and this is he who came by blood and water, not by water only,
but by water and blood, which means he was born a human being
and he died a human being on Calvary street to take away our
sins. So it's critical that we hold
these doctrinal truths in context of the atonement before we make
symbolic application so when we use the term is there something
symbolic in it there's always something symbolic in the scriptures
Jesus said in John 6 63 my word is spirit and my word is true
which means the physical things always convey some spiritual
or redemptive connotation for which you and I should be seeking
the significance of that okay it does that help Good, good,
good. I probably said too much. Next
question. Don't be afraid of the term symbolism.
OK, never be afraid of the term symbolism. He spoke in parables
and without a parable, he did not speak. The kingdom of God
is represented by a lot of things that are in the physical dimension
that point to spiritual realities. And those spiritual realities
are typified by symbols. OK. concerning Judas Iscariot
and him being a disciple and that teaching that you gave concerning
Matthew, Mark, and Luke fixing their nets and God called them
and they're coming forth right and then you're going to that
scripture that That's right get a mic back because your question is good
enough. So this is why I dealt with election in terms of classifications. You guys got that right. So if
we deal with election in terms of the nation of Israel, national
Israel's election is not what we call eternal election. That
was a conditional election based upon their purpose. Israel was
uniquely set aside by God to be at the vehicle by which Jesus
would come into the world. Once Jesus came, the role of
Israel was done. So the Bible says the kingdom
of God was taken from you and given to a nation bearing the
fruits thereof. Israel becomes like all the other
nations in need of a Messiah. Are you guys with me? As Romans
chapter 3 and as Romans chapter 11, he has concluded them all
in unbelief that he might have mercy on all. So their election
was confined to their classification and it was confined to that period
in which God had purpose to use them. Judas Iscariot was called
into the vocational office of apostle, but he wasn't chosen
in the personal sense of election. He wasn't born again. He wasn't
regenerate. So he was able to serve as a
model of men and women who enter into ministry, but are not called
of God. He is the great warning to the
church. that the devil can not only get
into the pews and be the lead singer in the choir, but he can
climb in the pulpit and preach to the church too and still go
to hell. You guys hear what I'm saying?
And so that's, that's what that's about there. Listen, The difference
between Judas Iscariot and the other 11 is that the other 11
were actually elect in Christ before the foundation of the
world and thus born again. And when you and I are truly
born again, watch this now, you can never lose your salvation. You can never lose your salvation.
See, in John chapter six, It's that same chapter where Jesus
said, when he told those people, you're looking for physical bread,
but I'm here to bring the bread of heaven. And the masses of
them were ready to leave. He turned to the disciples and
said, are you willing to go also? And I'm here to tell you, 11
of them said, Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life. But Judas was already scheming
to leave. And this is why he said in that
text, 12 of you have I chosen, but one of you is a devil. That's
John chapter six. He exposed Judas for who he was.
What this does is it tells you that you're not safe in the church,
you're not safe in the choir loft, and you're not safe in
the pulpit. You're only safe in Christ. Did
you get that? You're only safe in Christ. All
right, one more, one more. One more over here. You better raise your hand like
you want to have a question. Over here, ladies first, ladies
first. AJ, we can get AJ next week,
come on. You got to run, Deacon, got to
run. Run, brother, run. Phil Donahue. Pastor, my question
is, I've heard you say this quite a few times when you were teaching. I don't understand. What is the
crucible for? The crucible? Man, you don't
know what the crucible is? Crucible, C-R-U-C-I-B-L-E. A crucible is a container in
which you take something that is impure, like gold or silver
or other commodities, and you place it in it, and it has a
certain compound in there that is heated up so that it purges
the impurities from that particular element, whether it's gold, silver,
precious stone so the crucible is that place of purging the
place of purging the place of purging now you know what I'm
talking about and and every one of God's people are in a crucible
in this life this life you are being purged you've been you're
being purified this this world is full of purification processes
that's why you scream so much and cry Abba Father and say,
Lord, have mercy. You remember those days? Lord,
have mercy. That's why we cry Abba Father. Help. That's how you know you're
in the crucible. It's a good place to be, too,
because the Lord shows up in the crucible. All right, let's
stand for prayer. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for the people of God. Thank you for humbling us to
hear your word. We got to be taught right. and
it requires your grace for us to get it, help us to walk humbly
with it, but we gotta tell the truth, because only the truth
will set us free. As we go our way, we ask that
you give us traveling mercies, take us to our home safely, give
us sweet sleep tonight. May our thoughts be thoughts
of you, Lord. Then open our mouths tomorrow so we can tell somebody
how lovely you are, how great you are, how marvelous you are,
how you are the only savior of the world. In Jesus' name we
pray, amen. God bless you.