The Lord God commands every gospel
preacher, whenever he stands to speak to his people, comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. And that's my responsibility
and my privilege. And I have just the text to do
it. Here are the words that God gives to you who are his in 1
Peter chapter 1 verse 2. You who are, by the grace of
God, made to be strangers and pilgrims in this earth, scattered
like sheep among wolves, he says you are elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. What a blessed description of
every saved sinner. With these sweet words, the Spirit
of God inspires Peter to describe every one of God's elect in this
world. These are things that ought to
rejoice our hearts. You who believe on the Son of
God, if God is pleased now to drop His grace in your heart
and right now, you believe on His Son. You are elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Now in this one verse, Peter
declares to us the work of the three persons of the Holy Trinity
in salvation. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. There are three that bear record
in heaven, John told us, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost, and these three are one. Now while we recognize and rejoice
in the fact that salvation is altogether in Christ, Christ
Jesus is our mediator, he is that one by whom God reveals
himself to men. And in no other does God reveal
himself to men. If God speaks to men, it is by
Christ. If you speak to God, it must
be by and through Christ Jesus. But we must never imagine that
God the Father is not equally involved in our salvation or
that God the Spirit is not. The scriptures constantly describe
all three persons in the Godhead as working for our salvation.
In fact, Whenever you read in the scriptures a connection with
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, when all three are
mentioned, the work being done is always the salvation of God's
elect. Anytime you see the Father mentioned
alone, or the Son mentioned alone, or the Spirit mentioned alone,
the work is judgment and condemnation. But for God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the one triune God is involved
constantly in the saving of His people. We are said to be elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctification
through the Spirit, and redemption through the sprinkling of the
blood of Christ. Salvation is God's work alone. It is the work of the triune
God. But whenever we think about salvation, we ought to learn
not to think as we've been programmed to think. We tend to think about
salvation as an isolated event in the life of a believer. We
think about salvation as that time when first we're given life
and faith in Christ and it's limited to that. Salvation is
a big, big word. It includes everything involved
in the saving of God's elect. Everything. It takes in the whole
thing. Not just an isolated event or
experience, but salvation is the ongoing work of God in this
earth and in the lives of his people. When we think about redemption,
we tend to think just about redemption by the blood of Christ at Calvary,
but redemption and salvation are really interchangeable terms.
It is the deliverance of our souls. from the ruin of Adam's
fall into the glorious liberty of the sons of God consummated
at last in the redemption or the deliverance of these bodies
from the grave into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Now notice when you read the scriptures this as well. The
emphasis is always on the work of God not on man. These days you hear men talk
about their experience with religion and you'll hear them give testimony.
I made my decision for Jesus. I came to the Lord. I decided
to start serving the Lord. I got saved. The emphasis always
on I and me. In the Word of God, language
is different. The emphasis is always on God
and His work and His grace. By grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. When it
pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called
me by His grace, He revealed His Son in me. These things here
in 1 Peter 1 verse 2 are soul comforting truths of scripture
and they are matters of divine certainty. All who are chosen
of God in eternity were redeemed by the blood of Christ at Calvary
and shall be sanctified in the regenerating work of God the
Holy Spirit at the appointed time of love. And they shall
be blessed. Blessed with the multiplied blessings
of grace and peace throughout this world and unto eternity. Now this is not something that's
written conditionally. You shall be chosen or redeemed
or sanctified or blessed if you meet this condition or that.
There's not a condition here, there's not an if here, there's
not a but here, there's not a qualification here. If indeed you are gods,
if I am gods, we have been redeemed, we have been sanctified, we have
been chosen of God, and we are blessed of God. The blessings
Often are like the blessings of Jacob upon his sons, they're
cross-handed blessings, but they are proper blessings, and they're
blessed wittingly by God's wisdom, grace, and mercy. Now read the
text one more time. He lacked according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you,
and peace be multiplied. Now if you're taking notes, you
won't have any trouble following my outline or the title of the
message. It's just this. Four points,
four words. Chosen, sanctified, redeemed,
and blessed. Let's look at it together. First
chosen, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
All who enjoy the benefits and blessings, gifts and mercies
of God's grace in Christ are the object of God's eternal choice. In Bible terms it's called election,
the election of grace. And contrary to the notion of
most religious people, election is not a cuss word. It's a blessed
word. The scriptures speak of God's
elect two ways more often than any other. I guarantee you, if
you walk down the streets tomorrow, go anywhere and ask somebody,
tell me how the Bible speaks of God's people. They'll give
you any two words except these two. And these are the two that
are used most often throughout the scriptures, particularly
in the New Testament. Number one, more than anything
else, believing sinners are called elect. Search the scriptures. And yet nobody talks about God's
election. And second, they're called saints. Sanctified ones. And few people have any understanding
of that either. Let's look at the scriptures.
The scriptures plainly declare God's people to be his elect. You turn, if you will, to Ephesians
chapter 1, and we'll read that together in just a minute. The
psalmist sings, blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causes
to approach unto thee. Those who are born of God, those
who believe on Christ are men whom he chooses and effectually,
irresistibly causes to come to him in living faith. Our Lord
Jesus said to his disciples, ye have not chosen me. You didn't,
you wouldn't, and you couldn't. But I have chosen you and ordained
you. The Apostle declares as many
as were ordained to eternal life believed. Some years ago, I listened
to a very popular preacher. He graduated from one of the
schools I attended much earlier than I did. Jerry Falwell. I'm
sure you've heard the name. He's the fellow who started that
thing called the immoral majority in America. I meant to say immoral. Falwell was preaching from Acts
13, 48. Every single time he cited the
verse, this is how he read it, as many as believed were ordained
to eternal life. It was not accidental. Every
single time he deliberately misstated the scriptures to make the scriptures
state what he wanted men to believe. and that is that by your believing
God ordained you to eternal life the book says as many as were
ordained to eternal life believed and this is how that being ordained
to eternal life is described in Ephesians 1 verse 3 Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us, past tense, at one time in the past. There are a people
who were blessed of God, now look at this, with all spiritual
blessings. What does that mean? That means
all spiritual blessings. There are no blessings given
spiritually. No blessings of grace. No blessings
of mercy. No blessings of righteousness
given to men in time that were not given to some men in eternity. And those who enjoy them in time
possess them in eternity by God's decree. Look what it says. He
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. He's blessed us in heaven itself
in Christ. And this is how He blesses. According
as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
He's chosen us in Him for this purpose. That, the word means,
for this purpose. He's chosen us in Him that we
should be holy and without blame before Him. He chose us in order
that we might stand holy and without blame before Him. Now most of the commentaries,
most of the good commentaries, commentaries by men that I highly
admire say that this is telling us that God chose us that we
should live a holy life. Now I highly commend that you
do. I highly urge you live in obedience to God. I highly urge
you live in obedience to God's Word. I urge you live in this
world for the glory of God. But the notion that you're going
to live a holy life before God is ludicrous. It ain't going
to happen. It ain't going to happen. You
or me do something that is holy and without blame before God,
you've never had a holy thought, much less a holy deed. It's not
possible. We are corrupt from the inside
out and all we do is evil. What does this mean then that
we should be holy and without blame before Him? He's chosen
us that when He gets done with us, we will stand before God
Almighty exactly like His Son Jesus Christ Himself in absolute
perfection without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Our Lord Jesus
will present us blameless before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy. Read on. In love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. We were adopted when he chose
us. But He predestined us unto this holy, blameless life that
we shall yet possess in heavenly glory when the adoption of the
children is manifest. And He did all of this. He predestinated
all things so as to secure our everlasting salvation. He chose
us. He adopted us. He blessed us. He predestined us according to
the good pleasure of His will. to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein, his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved. Oh, what a word! God from eternity
in his everlasting purpose and decree. made his people, all
of them, accepted in Christ. The word is highly favored. It's
the same word that she used when the angel spoke to Mary and said
they are highly favored among women. Not acceptable, accepted. Accepted in him before ever we
had any being. Accepted in Him before ever the
earth was made. Accepted in Him before we went
astray from our mother's womb, speaking lies. Accepted in Him
before Adam sinned in the garden and we sinned in Him. We were
accepted in Him and God Almighty never changed His mind. Accepted when we're able to see
with clear eyes of faith that we're accepted. and accepted
when we're not able to see it. Our acceptance in Christ, our
acceptance with God has absolutely nothing to do with what we do
or think or experience. Can you get hold of that? Can
you get hold of that? Our relationship with God as
we experience it has much to do with what we do. But what
we do has nothing to do with our relationship with God. Nothing
whatever. You mean, Pastor, when we do
good, that doesn't change our relationship with God? Not at
all. When we do bad, that doesn't change our relationship with
God? Not at all. It changes our experience and our perception,
but it doesn't change anything before God Almighty. We were
accepted in the beloved in eternity. In whom? We have redemption through
his blood. What does that mean? The forgiveness
of sins. Every sinner for whom Jesus Christ
shed his blood at Calvary is forgiven. Now men can talk all
the nonsense they want to about Christ having died in some sense
for all men. If Christ died in some sense
for all men then there's a sense in which he died for nothing
because lots of folks go to hell. Redemption means forgiveness.
If Christ died for me, I am forgiven freely, fully, completely, immutably
forgiven of all sins. And how is that? According to
the riches of His grace. But Peter, here in 1 Peter 1.2,
describes election in a slightly different way than is commonly
described in the scriptures. He says we're elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Now, babbling free willers
jump up on this text and they spit and snarl and say there
you see election is based on God's foreknowledge. God looked
out through the long telescope of his omniscience and he saw
that some people would believe on his son and others would not.
And he chose us based on his foreknowledge of what we would
do. Nothing of the kind. Nothing could be further from
the truth. And I want you to see this clearly. God's foreknowledge
is not his omniscience. Omniscience is an attribute of
God. He knows all things at one time
because he's God. He never learned anything. He
never forgot anything. He's God. Foreknowledge is not
an attribute of God. Foreknowledge is an act of God. And foreknowledge is not of things,
but of people. As you read through the scriptures,
God Almighty foreknew somebody. Not foreknew what they would
do. He foreknew them. We are elect according to God's
foreknowledge of us. What does that mean? This word
is used in the scriptures in a number of ways. Let me give
you four of them that are very clear. God's foreknowledge is
His act and decree of foreordination. I am certain that's so. If you'll
skip down to verse 20, in 1 Peter 1 verse 20, speaks of the Lord
Jesus who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the
world. The word that is translated foreordained in verse 20 and
the word in verse 2 that's translated foreknowledge are exactly the
same. Exactly the same. So God's foreknowledge
is God's foreordination, or his predestination. Don't ever apologize
for God's election, God's sovereignty, or God's predestination. Don't
be shy about discussing it. Were it not for God's eternal
choice of his people in election, were it not for God's foreordination,
were it not for God's everlasting purpose of grace, no sinner would
ever be saved. Second, God's foreknowledge of
his elect speaks of his everlasting love of his own. Let me see if
I can show you this. In the Septuagint translation
of Genesis chapter 1, or chapter 4 rather, verse 1, when the scripture
says, Adam knew his wife Eve. The root word for knew is exactly
the same Greek word that's used here, knew. It's not talking
about something you just know in your head. Not that at all.
It's talking about love. Adam loved his wife Eve. He went into her and she conceived
and bear a son and called his name King. God's foreknowledge
is God loving his own beforehand. In love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children. The word knowledge at its root
has this idea of love. He says, I have loved you with
an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I grown
thee. Our Lord Jesus speaks of God's elect as those people,
and he says to the Father, Thou hast loved them as Thou hast
loved me. The Father loved Christ as our
mediator, as our surety from old eternity, and he loved us
in the mediator, as our mediator, and as he loves the mediator
from eternity. Third, this word foreknowledge
has the idea of approval. God's approval of us. The Lord
knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall
perish. Well, that means the Lord knows
what the righteous folks do and He knows what the wicked do.
No, that's not it. He says He knoweth the way of
the righteous. He approves of the way of the
righteous. He accepts the way of the righteous
and the way of the righteous is Christ who is our way. He approves of us in his Son. Our Lord Jesus when he was baptized
came up out of the water and the Lord God spoke from heaven
and said this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Why didn't he say With whom I
am well pleased. Now if you've got one of these
modern translations that's been messed up, it probably reads
that way. But it ought not. It ought to
read just exactly as it's translated in our authorized version. In
whom I am well pleased. That's strange language. I have
one grandson. If you give me a chance, I'll
tell you about him and you will find out that I am very pleased
with my grandson. But if I were to stand up here
and tell you I am pleased in my grandson, One of you might
be a little more bold than other folks and you'll say, Brother
Fortner, you misspoke. That's not proper English. And
you would be exactly right. But when God said, this is my
beloved son in whom I am well pleased, that was proper doctrine. That was exactly right. He is
well pleased in his son as our covenant surety and mediator. And he is well pleased with us
in his Son. Oh, my soul, get hold of this.
It will sail your boat through troubled waters. When David took
Bathsheba and murdered Uriah, do you remember how the thing
is described at the very end of 2 Samuel chapter 11? And the
thing that David did displeased the Lord. I wonder why God didn't
say David displeased the Lord. He didn't say that. He said the
thing that David did displeased the Lord. And he showed his displeasure. He killed his son. He showed
his displeasure to David, to Bathsheba, to David's family,
and to the kingdom. But the thing that David did
displeased the Lord. Because you see, David was accepted
in the beloved before ever God made this world. And it didn't
change. God looked on David and his son
and smiled with approval. And God in heaven looks on this
man and his son and smiles with approval all the time. All the
time. When I can't, He does. When you
can't, he does. Because my acceptance with God
is not like my acceptance with you. My acceptance with you varies
by how I speak and how I act and what I do. Because you're
as fickle as I am, my acceptance with God doesn't vary. God accepts
his own in his son. Not only does it speak of God's
for ordination, and His everlasting love, and His divine approval,
but God's foreknowledge speaks of the infallible safety and
security of His elect in Christ. You're familiar with this? The
foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth
them that are His. When my daughter was a small
child, before she got grown up enough to realize her daddy didn't
control everything. You know how to calm her fears?
Anything come along? I said, Daddy knows. Daddy knows. And Daddy knows that means Daddy
will take care of it. Daddy knows you don't have anything
to worry about. Daddy knows you got nothing to
fear. And she was satisfied with that when she was little. Until
she got big enough to realize I don't control much. And daddy
knows now doesn't satisfy her because she's too big. She's
37 years old. God helped me never to get so
big that I can't believe what he declares. The Lord knoweth
them that are his. That means everything is all
right. Everything is alright. It speaks
of the absolute security, the infallible safety of God's elect. Oh, how we ought to rejoice in
God's everlasting electing love. "'Tis not that I did choose thee,
for, Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse
thee. Hast thou not chosen me? My heart owns none before thee. For thy rich grace I thirst.
This knowing, if I love thee, thou must have loved me first.'"
But now let me tell you something. Election is not the first thing
known or the first thing experienced. How can I know my election? People
ask me all the time, how can I know that I'm one of God's
elect? You can't. You can't know it. No way on
this earth for you or me to know it. Until you experience it. And you experience it in sanctification
of the Spirit. This is the next thing. Elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification
of the Spirit. Now sanctification is commonly
thought by men to be something that we do in cooperation with
God. If you're born again, then God the Holy Spirit comes into
your life and you begin to live a new life and He sanctifies
you by you reading the Bible and praying and living a good
life and controlling your temper and dressing right and eating
right and all the right or wrong things folks prescribe in laws
for you to do. And so you sanctify yourself.
Let me tell you something about sanctification. I'll tell you
a few things about it. I challenge you to find any place in this
book any place in this book where sanctification is ever spoken
of as something you do or something that depends on you. Something
depends on how obedient you are. Something that depends on how
much you believe. Something that depends on how
good you behave. Something depends on how much
you read your Bible or don't read your Bible. Now, don't go
out here and say, that pastor from the States, he came in here
and told us don't read our Bibles, don't pray, those things don't
matter. God didn't say any such thing. I am saying your obedience
to God is not your sanctification. Your obedience is the result
of your sanctification. Sanctification is that work of
God the Holy Spirit by which we are made holy in the experience
of His grace. Essentially, sanctification means
to set apart, to cut out. We were set apart from all other
men in sanctification by God the Father. Jude 1 says so. Sanctified by God the Father,
preserved in Jesus Christ. We were sanctified in an election.
We are sanctified by the blood of Christ. Hebrews chapter 10
verses 9, 10 through 14 speak of our being sanctified and made
perfect by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So that when the Father
chose us, we were set apart by Him for Him. When the Son redeemed
us, we were redeemed and made righteous in Him in free justification. But we must be made righteous
personally. And when the Spirit of God comes
in saving grace, He puts a new nature in the sinner. He puts
in the sinner what was not there before. It's called Christ in
you, the hope of glory. So that we're sanctified by God
the Spirit in regeneration. set apart by Him, made holy by
Him, made to be gods by Him, sanctified by the mighty operations
of His grace. Paul puts it this way, if any
man be in Christ, he's a new creature. A new creature. A new order of being. A new being
altogether. Old things have passed away,
and behold, all things have become new. When Christ comes and gives
us life by His Spirit, and we are in Christ livingly, joined
to Christ by a living faith, by a vital union of faith, that
thing that's in Christ is this new man. It's called Christ in
you. It is called Christ living in
me, living in me by His Spirit, by His grace. And that fact declares
old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become
new. This sinner, born of God, now has evidence, the Son of
God redeemed me. And the God of glory chose me,
I know, because I believe Him. And that believing Him is the
fruit, not the cause of His grace. That believing Him is the fruit
of election, the fruit of redemption, the fruit of sanctification.
Alright, look at the third thing. We are elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit. And then it says, unto obedience, and sprinkling of
the blood of Jesus Christ. The object then of the Father's
election and the Spirit's regeneration or sanctification is that we
be brought into the experimental enjoyment of the fact that we
have been redeemed. In preaching the gospel, God's
servants declare redemption accomplished. We do not propose redemption. We do not tell sinners they might
be redeemed. We declare the accomplishment
of redemption. Comfort ye my people, saith the
Lord. Say unto Jerusalem, her iniquities are pardoned. Her
warfare is over. She hath received the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. You're supposed to go tell sinners
that they're redeemed when they've not yet believed? Tell sinners
that redemption is accomplished when they haven't yet done anything?
Yeah, because it doesn't depend on them. Their believing comes
by the Spirit of God applying the blood to them, not by them
applying the blood to themselves. Redemption then is that which
Christ accomplished by His blood. When He said it's finished, it
was finished. All our sins were made his, and
he put them away by the sacrifice of himself, and we were justified
by his shed blood, by his final accomplishment of obedience,
when he cried, It's finished, and said, Father, into thy hand
I commend my spirit, and gave up the ghost. But here, Peter
speaks of redemption as coming after sanctification. Why? Why? Redemption was accomplished
a long time ago. Because you can't know redemption
any more than you can know election until you experience sanctification. And the believer comes to experience
redemption when he's born again and given faith in Christ. See
if I can illustrate it. And I'm sure you who believe
will bear testimony to what I'm telling you. I was fully convinced
that all God's people were redeemed by the Son of God when he died
before I ever experienced redemption. I was fully convinced it was
God. And then one day, I heard the word of truth by the power
of God's Spirit, the gospel of my salvation. And I, believing
on the Son of God, saw my sins were gone. But it speaks here
of obedience. unto obedience and the sprinkling,
or unto obedience even the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
What's he talking about? He's talking about two things.
He's talking about the obedience of Christ as our substitute,
and he's talking about the obedience of faith believing him. First,
the obedience and sprinkling of blood of Jesus Christ speaks
of redemption accomplished. It refers to the obedience of
Christ as our representative and what he accomplished at Calvary.
There's obviously a reference here to the Passover. We read
in verses 18, 19, 20, 21 about the Lamb who verily was
foreordained before the foundation of the world by whose blood we're
redeemed, whose precious blood put away our sins. Obviously
referring to the day of Passover and the Passover sacrifice. When
the high priest would take the blood of the lamb and go into
the holy of holies and sprinkle blood seven times on the mercy
seat. The blood is put on the mercy
seat where God said, I'll meet you and I'll commune with you
right here. the mercy seat on the Ark of
the Covenant. Inside that's the broken law
of God. And when the high priest sprinkled
blood on the mercy seat, the covering of the law by the blood
was atonement finished. That's it. The Lord Jesus Christ
with his own blood entered in once into heaven, having obtained
eternal redemption for us. But still, That redemption must
be sprinkled on our hearts. And that's the work of God the
Holy Spirit giving the sinner faith. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
9 and I'll show you. Hebrews 9th chapter. Verse 11. But Christ being come
and high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not
of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls
and of goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean
sanctify to the purifying of the flesh." Talking about the
ceremonial law, so when those folks experienced these various
ceremonies, they were ceremonially purified. How much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God? When God the Holy Spirit sprinkles
the blood on the heart. When He reveals Christ in you
and gives you faith in His Son, He purges your conscience from
dead works. Conscience. Nothing on this earth
is more tormenting to any human being than a screaming, tormenting,
guilty conscience. Now listen carefully to this
preacher. I'm either telling you the truth or I'm a bald-faced
liar, you make your choice. I'm not afraid of God anymore. I'm not afraid of God anymore.
I am aware of my sin. I am aware of the corruption
of my heart. I'm aware of the vileness of
my being. And in the teeth of all my sin,
I lift my heart to heaven and address the God of glory as my
Father with peace." How come? Because I don't have any sin.
I'm perfectly righteous before Him and His Son. I used to be
terrified of God. I'd wake up in the middle of
the night with the horrible, horrible, horrible sense of God's
wrath pressing me down to hell. And I don't wake up that way
anymore. I am free from guilt in Jesus
Christ the Lord. Free because of His blood. He who was made sin for me put
away my sin by the sacrifice of Himself and I bear it no more. John Bunyan describes how he
experienced it in Pilgrim's Progress. He'd gone to Mount Sinai and
gone here and there. Finally, his sisters told him
to go over to the house of Evangelist. And Evangelist told him to go
to Mount Calvary. And he made his way to Mount
Calvary with that burden on his back. And when he got to Mount
Calvary, he said, I looked up and saw the Lamb of God hanging
on the curse tree. And when I looked on Him, My
burden fell off my back and rolled into the abyss and is forever
gone. That's what faith is. It is looking
to Christ, believing on Christ, trusting the Son of God. I often
have folks ask me, what do you think, I'm a believer? And I
never answer. I wouldn't attempt to tell you.
I sure wouldn't attempt to try to convince somebody that they're
saved when they're not. Ralph Barnett used to say, only
a lost man try to convince another lost man he's saved. I don't
try to do so. But I'll tell you what happens.
If you're God's one of these days, you'll find yourself believing
Him. You will find yourself believing
Him. and believing him, the guilt, the oppressive load of a screaming
conscience silenced by the precious blood of Christ. Chosen, sanctified,
redeemed. And then he assures us of something
else. All of God's elect, every sinner, chosen of God in everlasting
love, sanctified by God's free grace, redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ, shall be forever blessed. Elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the
Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Grace unto you and peace be multiplied." Now this is not Peter's wish
or even his prayer for God's saints. When I Read a benediction
or I quote a benediction to you or to our folks at home This
is what I desire for you or when I pray this is what I'm seeking
for you But when we find these things given in print in Holy
Scripture This is not just what the Apostle wished for God's
people. This is written by inspiration It is an absolute assured promise
to every chosen, sanctified, redeemed sinner. It is an absolute
promise of free grace. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. All grace shall be given to you
and multiplied to you for as long as you need it, for as long
as you live in this body of the flesh. pardoning grace. He is near that justifies me. But Brother Don, justification
you've already told us was accomplished in eternity and accomplished
at Calvary. How can it be in present tense? He continually
speaks free justification by His Word and by His Spirit. He
forgiveth all thine iniquities. Well, forgiveness was already
done. Yeah, but He continually proclaims it in our souls and
declares us forgiven. He cleanseth us from all sin
by the blood of His Son. His preserving grace, kept by
the power of God. The grace that goes before us
and prepares the way for us, protects us. And He declared,
My grace is sufficient for thee. Peace. That which follows grace
is peace. It's given and multiplied to
you who believe because God the Father chose you and the Spirit
sanctified you and Christ has redeemed you. All the peace of
divine pardon. All the peace of having God for
your Father. Oh, the peace of trusting the
Redeemer who has power over all flesh to give eternal life to
as many as the Father has given Him. Peace in life, peace in
death. I enjoy visiting with God's saints
when they're dying. I've had the privilege a few
times. Very dear friend of mine, Shelby,
and I went up to see him. He was dying. Been a friend for
a number of years. We drove, oh, I guess seven or
eight hours to spend a couple hours with him one day. Started
to leave and he said to me with tears running down his cheeks
and a smile on his face beaming as big as he was, thank God for
the blood. Thank God for the blood. Thank
God for that man in glory. Peace. Peace multiplied. Peace at judgment and peace forever. But don't miss this. Look at
the next word. Multiplied. Multiplied. Grace and peace, once given,
are continually multiplied. Multiplied. Every day. Never diminished. Never subtracted,
never divided, just multiplied. So that day by day, God multiplies
to his own grace and peace. Oh, God multiply grace and peace
to you. Brother Don, I'd give anything to have such
grace and peace. Believe on the Son of God. I urge you, come to Christ, believe
on Christ, don't move your lips, don't say a thing, don't move
a muscle, right where you are, your heart, come to Christ. And this is God's word to you,
to believe. Elect, according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, through sanctification of the unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied. Amen. Our Father, bless your
word now to the hearts of these whom you've gathered here on
this occasion to hear it. Make it profitable to their souls
for the glory of your Son, I ask. Amen. All right, Lord willing,
we'll see you tomorrow night.