Let's turn together to Romans
8, 28 again. Romans chapter 8 and verse 28. Whenever you read, quote, or
even think about this text of scripture, be sure that you never
leave out the last four words. You will never understand anything
written in this book You'll never understand anything God does
in his providence. You'll never understand anything
concerning the mystery and wonder of God's secret providence until
you understand that he does everything according to his purpose. Read it now. We know that all
things work together for good. To them that love God, to them
who are the called. That's about all, if they get
that far, that's about all most folks remember to quote in Romans
8.28. But Romans 8.28 means nothing until you get to this. According
to his purpose. That's the secret. According
to his purpose. When I read those last four words
of this text, The first thing that comes to my mind is, what
is God's purpose? That's what I want to know. What
is it that the Lord God has purposed according to which he works all
things at the counsel of his own will? And you might think,
well, Brother Don, it's impossible to know God's purpose. And in
a sense, that's certainly true. It is written in Deuteronomy
29, 29, the secret things belong unto the Lord. And we must never
attempt to pry into the future with regard to those secret things
which God has hidden from us that are not revealed. All of
this silly nonsense and this new age religion of our day when
folks are going to palm readers and soothsayers and spiritists
and all that nonsense is totally contrary to the word of God.
It's nothing but witchcraft. and we are not to be engaged
in such conduct. What God has purposed for us
is His business alone. Our business is simply to trust
Him to accomplish what He's purposed for us. And yet there is a very
real sense in which we have things revealed to us, and it is our
business to seek to understand those things. The text says the
secret things belong unto the Lord, but the things which are
revealed belong to us and to our children forever. That is,
they belong to us as believers and belong to our children who
shall be believers, those who are born in the kingdom of God
after us. Not talking about our physical
children, but spiritual children. Now tonight I want us to Look
in the Word of God and see that which is plainly revealed according
to God's purpose. That which God has revealed to
us about His purpose. And the reason why we look into
these revealed things, according to Deuteronomy 29, 29, is that
we may do all the words of this law. That is, that we may learn
to trust the Lord our God. That's what it means when it
speaks of doing all that's revealed in this book. All the words of
the law of God's book. He's not talking about just the
Ten Commandments. He's talking about the whole revelation of
God. And this is how we do what's revealed in this book. We trust
Him. And the things that God has purposed
are revealed in measure to teach us to trust Him. All right, now
just hold your Bibles open on your laps here at Romans chapter
8, and I want you to see God's purpose. You don't have to do
anything to understand what is revealed about God's purpose
except read the next two verses. Notice the word for in verse
29. It's a connecting word. It connects
what Paul is saying here with what has gone before. He says,
we know that all things work together for good, to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,
for, or because, because 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. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called,
them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified. So when Paul uses that little
connecting word for, he says, now I've told you that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to his purpose. Now let me explain to you what
I mean. And now he explains to us exactly what he means by that.
Let's look at it line by line. whom he did foreknow. All that God designed for our
eternal happiness and our eternal glory, he has graciously decreed
and infallibly will accomplish in Jesus Christ our Lord. I want
to spend a little bit of time here because this word foreknowledge,
as it's used in the scripture, does not mean anything near what
men and women generally think it means. Foreknowledge with
God is something far beyond a mere pre-science or a knowledge beforehand. The counsels and decrees and
works of God do not depend and are not caused in any way by
the will of man and the frail, fickle nature and choices of
men. Well, if foreknowledge doesn't
mean knowledge beforehand, if it doesn't mean that God with
his great omniscience looked out through the telescope of
time and saw what men would choose and what men would do and therefore
acted accordingly, then what does foreknowledge mean? The
word foreknowledge, the word that's translated foreknowledge,
if you could read the Greek text, the word that we get, prognosis,
is the word that's used here. It's almost a direct transliteration. Prognosis is almost a direct
transliteration of the word prognosco. And this word has something to
do with a prognosis, but much more than that. Now, the word
is corrupted somewhat in our English translation. You know
what a prognosis is. Paul's sitting back there as
a doctor. He can explain better than I can. But a doctor examines
a fellow and sees the disease. And after he examines him and
considers the variables and the treatments, he makes a prognosis
and declares, at least in his own mind, if not to the patient,
what the likely course of the disease is going to be for better
or for worse. But the doctor's prognosis is
really a stab in the dark. It's a very fickle thing. And
I say that for this reason. Because it depends on lots of
variables. Lots of variables. Lots of things
can happen. But with God, foreknowledge is
much more than just a prognosis. There are no variables with the
Almighty. With Him, there are no unexplainable
turns for better or for worse. I've said that because I want
you to understand that God's foreknowledge is much, much more
than mere knowledge beforehand of what He will do or what will
come to pass. I repeat myself deliberately.
The counsel and decree of God does not depend even slightly
upon the frail, fickle will of man. These days everybody worships
at the altar of man's free will. What Paul calls it, will worship.
Colossians chapter 2, verse 23. He calls it will worship. Men
set their will in the place of God. I was preaching on this
subject one time down in Louisville and old Dr. Magruder came up
to me after the service was over. He said, isn't it astounding?
that men choose to make for their point of contention and choose
to make their choice of salvation or their doctrine of salvation
and choose to make their God to be the very weakest point
of human nature. What's weaker? What's more fickle
than the will of man? I remember when I was considerably
younger, Lay's Potato Chips made a lot of money on the fact that
man's will's so weak, bet you can't eat one. Man's will is
as fickle as you get, and yet men presume to tell men that
salvation is accomplished by man's will, that God's purpose
depends and hinges upon man's will. Nothing could be further
from the truth. God's foreknowledge of his people
has these implications according to Scripture. Turn first to Jeremiah
31, verse 3. Jeremiah 31, verse 3. Hold your
hands here in Romans 8, but I want you to look at the text with
me. God's foreknowledge of his people is his everlasting love,
wherewith he loved us from eternity. Let me see if I can illustrate
it for you. Our Lord uses this word when he says in Matthew
chapter 7, verse 23, on the day of judgment, Depart from me,
ye cursed, I never knew you. That's strange. What's the basis
of his judgment? He does know them. Knows all
about them. Knows everything they are, everything
they've ever done, everything they've ever thought. So that's
not the meaning of the word. What he's saying is, I never
knew you as I know these, my sheep on my right hand. I never
knew you in this special way. Adam, we're told in Genesis chapter
4 verse 1, knew his wife Eve. The word that is used in the
Septuagint translation of that Old Testament passage is this
very same word. Adam knew his wife in an intimate,
loving experience as his wife. And so the Lord God knows his
people from eternity in the intimacy of his everlasting love. Listen
to it. The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with lovingkindness
have I drawn thee. All right. The word for knowledge
also implies in the scripture ownership. In other words, the
Lord's foreknowledge of us implies his ownership of us as his elect
from eternity. Let me give you a few scriptures.
You don't have to look at them, but you can look at them later.
In Psalm 1, verse 6, the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous,
but the way of the ungodly shall perish. You mean he doesn't know
the way of the ungodly? Of course he does. But he doesn't
own it, and he doesn't approve of it. With regard to his elect,
the righteous, the Lord knows he owns and approves of the way
of the righteous. Our Lord Jesus said, I am the
good shepherd in John 10, 14, and know my sheep. I know them. I know them. Now, there would
be absolutely nothing in that statement. to be of any comfort,
of any encouragement, of any strength, of any benefit, to
any of his sheep, if all he is saying is, I know who they are,
and where they are, and what they're doing, and the danger
they're in. Like I know Judas, and like I know the goats, and
like I know the birds in the air, and I know all the fish
in the sea. That's meaningless. That's meaningless.
What's he saying? I know my sheep. I know them. I know them. I take care of them.
I own them, they're mine. I approve of them, they're my
sheep. Listen to this, 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 19, the foundation
of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them
that are his. Now that's the blessed knowledge
I'm talking about. God loves his people and he owns
his people and he approves of his people as his own. God's
foreknowledge of his elect in Christ is also his foreordination
of his chosen unto salvation and eternal life in Christ. Now,
I want you to look at 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 1. I want you to see this in the
scripture. I want you to see it for yourself. It is in this sense
that Peter uses the word in verse 2. He says, elect according to
the foreknowledge of God the Father. Now, I've heard preachers. I've read commentaries. I've
heard a lot about folks coming to this, they take this passage
of scripture and they say, now there, election is based on God's foreknowledge.
It is. It most certainly is, but not
like you think. Not like you think. That same
word that's translated foreknowledge here in verse two, If you skip
down to verse 20, where it speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ being
the Lamb of God, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, it's exactly the same word. Very same word. So
what it's saying here is that foreknowledge, the foreknowledge
of God, by which he has owned and approved of us as his chosen,
is his foreordination of us unto eternal life in Jesus Christ
the Lord. Just as our Lord Jesus died at
Calvary by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, that
is, by the determinate counsel and foreordination of God the
Father, all of God's elect are saved by the determinate counsel
and foreordination of God Almighty. So foreknowledge is the sovereign,
free love of God determining from eternity the salvation of
His elect. One more thing. God's foreknowledge
of necessity implies the infallible everlasting security of his elect. If the Lord God knows me in the
sense I have just described, that is buddy, if he has loved
me from eternity, if he has owned me as he is from eternity, if
he approves of me as accepted in Christ the beloved, everything's
all right. Everything's alright. Everything's
alright. This is the problem with the
religious slogan, smile, God loves you. If he loves you, everything's
alright. That's just fact. If he loves
you, he's not gonna let anything happen to you, not if he's God.
But the Scripture doesn't teach anything of that kind. The Scripture
teaches that God loves His people. Loves His people in Christ. And
outside Christ, there is no revelation of anything from God except wrath
and justice and condemnation. Until you come to Christ in faith,
you have no reason to faintly suspect that God loves you. If
the Lord God knows me all as well, that means He loves me,
owns me, and approves of me. If He foreknew me, If He loved
me, owed me, and approved me from eternity, then everything
has always been well with my soul and always shall be. For
with God there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Now
think about that for a moment. If you're a believer, a child
of God, you are known of God from eternity. You're one of
those whom he did foreknow. God Almighty, in amazing grace
and infinite love, determined to save you before the worlds
were made. This is God's foreknowledge.
All right, look at the next line. Whom he did foreknow, them he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he, his Son, might be the firstborn among many brethren. Now don't
ever be afraid of that blessed, blessed word, predestination. It is something we ought to rejoice
in. Don't ever be ashamed of it.
It is a blessed Bible doctrine, blessed to those who understand
it, blessed to those who have come to participate in the grace
that's revealed in it. The doctrine of predestination
is full of comfort for the believer's heart. Predestination is God's
infallible purpose of grace regarding His elect whom He foreknew. Now
look what Paul is telling us here. Those whom God foreknew
in electing love, He predestinated to be conformed to the image
of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. There are several things
plainly revealed in that statement. First, salvation in its ultimate
end is conformity to Christ. That's what it is. That's what
it is. Believers are men and women.
who are conformed to Christ in a climactic way in regeneration. When we are born again by the
Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit comes and plants in the center
a new nature. And that new nature is a nature
of Christ Himself. We're said to be partakers of
the divine nature. So that He puts in us that holy
seed which is born of God. And then there is a conscientious
conformity to Him as well. The believer is not only a person
who is born of God, he is a person who seeks to follow after and
pattern his life after and mold himself after Jesus Christ in
everything. Everything. He seeks to live
with the attitude. and the spirit, and the demeanor,
and the faith, and the confidence, and the humility, and the condescension
of Jesus Christ our Lord as he came here, Jehovah's servant,
to do his Father's will. The believer seeks in all things
to mold his life after the image of Christ. It's called growing
in grace. But this conformity to Christ
is something that will not be consummated until the resurrection
morn, when we are at last raised in his likeness, in the perfection
not only of positional holiness and righteousness, not only having
his righteous nature imparted to us in regeneration, but standing
before God in human flesh without sin of any kind. That's what
conformity to Christ is. And the longer I know Him, the
further away that seems to be. But blessed be God now as our
salvation nearer than when we first believed. And it shall
come to pass exactly as God has purposed it. This revelation
concerning God's predestination, It tells us again that God's
chief design in predestination is the glory of His Son. That's
the reason God has predestined everything that comes to pass.
That's the reason He's predestinated us to be conformed to His image.
That He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Now the
firstborn is the first to be born. That speaks certainly of
both our Lord's divinity and of His humanity. In His divinity,
He is the everlastingly begotten Son of the Father. There never
was a time when He began to be the Son of God. He always is
the Son of God. He says, I am He that is and
which was and which is to come, the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end, the first and the last. He is from everlasting,
unchanging, the Son of God. And as a man, he is the firstborn
also in the covenant of grace. Now, I recognize the time came
and our Lord's humanity certainly is not eternal. Don't ever imagine
such foolishness. Our Lord Jesus in time came in
the form of a man. He assumed human flesh. His body
was that holy thing formed in the womb of the virgin by the
Holy Spirit so that he would be a suitable sacrifice for us.
But in the covenant of grace, he who is the last Adam was indeed
the first Adam. And the Lord God looked at his
son as our covenant head and said, let us make man in our
image and after our likeness. As he did, he's not saying let
us make man in the image of God. Absolutely God has no image.
He's talking about Christ as the covenant head who is alone
revealed in scripture as the image of God. And so our Lord
Jesus is the firstborn. He's the first man, the first
man ever raised in the purpose of God for the glory of God.
More than that, the firstborn. is the one in whom the whole
family was dedicated to God under the Mosaic Law. You remember
in the Old Testament, Lord, He claimed the firstfruits and the
firstborn of everything. He claimed the firstborn of everything,
even the ass. He said, either dedicate it to
me or break its neck. The firstborn is mine. And the
whole family is dedicated to God in the firstborn. That's
Christ, our Redeemer. That's what it's all about. The
scripture declares that the firstborn son is the one who is the head
of the family. The father turns everything over
to the firstborn son. Not only is he the head of the
family, he's the one who holds all the inheritance for the whole
family. The firstborn son has it all
and distributes it as he will to his family. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, the firstborn, he ascended up into heaven and took possession
heaven's glory as our forerunner and we are heirs of God and joint
heirs with him. Our heirs of God and joint heirs
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice this too. God has
predestinated many to be his sons in the family of grace.
We look at any particular given time in history, any particular
place, look at this assembly here this evening, all the people
around this town, around this nation, and you say, well, it
doesn't look like very many to me. There always appear to be
a few, always have. Always have. There's never been
a time in history when those who worship God according to
truth have walked in the multitude. Never been a time in history
when they walked in the majority. Never! Don't ever presume it's
going to happen. It shall not happen. Not while
this world stands. Oh, but when God's finished,
when He's finished, now you can take it up with Him about how
you're going to do it, but when He's finished, when He's finished, He'll have
a multitude which no man can number. He's going to bring many
sons to glory. Many. Well, if he's going to
bring many sons to glory, and they're all by nature undeserving,
and they're all by nature rebels against him, and they're all
by nature men and women in enmity with God, then why not me? He'll
bring me to glory as well. This is predestination. God determined
from eternity to save a great multitude of sinners for the
glory of Christ. Let us never cease to be amazed
at His goodness and grace toward us, putting us in the number
of His elect. It's amazing that He should choose
to save any, more amazing He should choose to save many, and
indescribably amazing that He should include us in the many. What manner of love the Father
hath bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of God. And beloved, now are we the sons
of God because He predestinated it according to His foreknowledge
of us in everlasting love. Thirdly, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. Matthew Henry wrote, all that
God did from eternity predestinate to grace and glory, he does in
the fullness of time effectually call. Them he also called that
the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works, but of him that calleth. We are thee called in Jesus Christ. We are called into that great
glory and grace to which we were predestinated from eternity.
Sinners come to Christ when they're called. When they're called. Now that's just fact. God uses the instrumentality
of gospel preaching. He uses all things in his providence.
But no sinner will ever come to Christ until he is called
by the Holy Spirit. And when he's called, he's going
to come. He says, who's going to let it? Who's going to hinder
me? The Lord God said, I'll say to the north, give up, and to
the south, keep not back. I'll bring my sons and my daughters
from afar, and he shall bring them. This word called that's
used here in the Roman world was a legal term. It means to
summons, as a man is called to court. The call of God is not
an invitation. The Holy Spirit doesn't stand
and knock at your heart's door and say, sinner, sinner, won't
you please let me in? Oh no, when the Son of God sends
His Spirit, He knocks the door down, bolt and bow. And first
thing you know, He's there. And He set up His kingdom in
your heart. Blessed then is the man whom thou choosest and callsest
to approach unto thee. That's what the call is, Larry.
It's God. Sticking his omnipotent finger
in your heart and causing you to come to Christ and you'd never
come otherwise Now fourthly whom he called then he also justified
All that are called by the Spirit are justified, absolved from
all guilt, accepted as righteous in and through the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are right in court. That's what the word justified
means. No sin that we have ever committed No sin we are presently
guilty of committing, no sin which we shall yet commit, and
there's an insurmountable measure of sin we shall yet commit and
are now committing, we're not even aware of, none of it shall
be laid to our charge. For it is written, blessed is
the man unto whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. What does
that mean? Justified. It means the debt
book's been crossed out. The bond has been canceled. The
judgment has been vacated. The debt has been paid. The indictment
is reversed. And we are no longer dealt with
as criminals, but as justified in court. Blessed is the man
whose iniquity is forgiven. Justified by God's free grace. Now look at one more thing. Whom
he justified, them he also glorified. I've saved that for the last
and the least because I don't know much about it yet. I hope to know more soon, but
I don't know much about it yet. Of this much I'm certain. Glorification
is the exact opposite of condemnation. There's therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. Is God finally bringing us into
a position and a state where we are totally freed from the
presence of sin and the being of sin and all the evil consequences
of sin? All of them. All of them. You mean, pastor, God will never hold the sins
of his people against them forever? You mean we will never ever have
to answer to God for our sins? Oh no. Not these whom he foreknew
and predestinated and called and justified. They're glorified. Glorified. This is a matter of
certainty because God purposed it from eternity and was in his
mind accomplished from eternity because in Christ it's already
done representatively. Therefore we stand absolutely
certain because God works all things after the counsel of his
own will according to his own purpose of grace which he purposed
in Christ Jesus before the world began. We shall at last be glorified. made completely, completely as
Christ is right now in His glory. That's what He purposed to do
for you, Paul Wendell, before the world began. And God cannot
be satisfied until you attain it. That's right. This is God's purpose
of grace. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. 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. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called,
them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified.