Let's turn together to Romans
8, verse 28 again. 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. 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 the quote of 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 The 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. He's not talking
about our physical children, but spiritual children. 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
he 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 lap 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
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, I told you that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are 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. Poor
knowledge 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 forces of man. Well, if foreknowledge doesn't
mean knowledge beforehand, if it doesn't mean that God, with
his great ambitions, 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, sitting back there, is a doctor. He can
explain better than I can, but a doctor examines a fellow and
sees a disease, and as he examines him and considers the variables
and the treatment, 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 face 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, Ladies Potato Chips made a lot of money on the fact
that man's will is so weak. Man wills as thickly 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, 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 7, verse 23, on the Day of Judgment, "'Depart
from me, you Christians! I never knew you.'" That's 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 thee, 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 this. 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." The word foreknowledge also implies in
this picture ownership. In other words, the Lord 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 fail him. You think 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 feet. 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 know all the fish in the sea. I know my
sheep. I know them. I know them. I'll take care of them. I owe them. They're mine. I approve
of them. They're my sheep." Listen to
this, 2 Timothy 2, verse 19, "...the foundation of God shall
be sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are here."
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 text
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
that, it's actually based on God's foreknowledge. It is. It
most certainly is. But not like you think. Not like
you think. That same word that translated
foreknowledge, here in verse 2, If you skip down to verse
20, where it speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ being the Lamb of
God, who barely was foreordained before the foundations of the
world, it's exactly the same word. Very same word. So what
he'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 has from eternity, if
he approves of me as accepted in Christ to be loved, everything's
all right. Everything's all right. Everything's
all right. This is the problem with the
religious slogan, Smile, God Loves You. If he loves you, everything's
all right. That's a fact. If he loves you,
he's not claiming he's God. But the Scripture doesn't teach
you 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 think or suspect that God loves you. The
Lord God knows me all as well. That means he loves me, he owns
me and approves of me. If he foreknew me, if he loved
me, owned 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 valuelessness, 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 world
were made. This is God's foreknowledge.
All right, look at the next slide. Whom he did foreknow, then he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he, his Son, might be the firstborn among many brethren. 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. He is 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 conviction 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 mourns, 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 is nearer than when we first believed, and it shall
come to pass exactly as God has purposed it. This revelation concerning God's
predestination tells us again that God's chief design and predestination
is the glory of his Son. That's the reason God has predestined
everything to come to pass. That's the reason he has 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 Mosiah's law. You remember in the Old
Testament, Lord, he claimed the first fruit 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 of heaven's glory as our forerunner, and we are
heirs of God and joint heirs with him, 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. 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 by this
world's hands. 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 with no man to number. He's going to bring many sons
to glory. 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 of 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 could choose
to save any, more amazing than he could choose to save many,
and indescribably amazing that he could include us in the many.
Behold 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. Then he also called that
the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not
of works, but of him that calleth." We are be-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. 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 him? Who's going to hinder
me? The Lord God says, I'll say to the north, give up, and to
the south, keep not back. I'll bring my son and my daughter
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, Send a sinner, won't
you please let me in. Oh, no, when the Son of God sends
his Spirit, he knocks the door down, bolts and bolts, and first
thing you know, he's there, and he's set up his kingdom in your
heart. Blessed then is the man whom thou seekest and callest
to approach unto thee." That's what the call is there. It's
God sticking his omnipotent finger in your heart and calling 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 is 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 side, for it is written, Blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord will not impeach iniquity. What does that mean? Justified. It means the debt
book has 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. by God's free grace. Now, let
me say one more thing. When we justify, then we also
glorify. I say 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. Therefore now, no condemnation
is entered into Christ's Church. is God finally bringing us into
a position and a state where we are totally free from the
presence of sin, and the being of sin, and all the evil consequences
of sin. God will never hold the sins
of his people against him 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
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
Because God works all things at the counsel of his own will,
according to his own purpose of grace, which he perfected
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 Wenzel, 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, then he also called. And whom he called,
then he also justified. And whom he justified, then he
also glorified.