right where I left off this morning
in Mark chapter 10. There are three things clearly
established in the story of the rich young ruler which are established
without any question at all, repeatedly throughout the scriptures. I realize that folks think I've
gone to seed on sovereign grace. I hope that none of you are divisive
in that regard. I hear it frequently. Well, I
don't hear it. I always hear things secondhand.
Fortner's going to cede on sovereign grace. Well, it's time somebody
did. It's time somebody went to cede
on declaring God's free and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. And if
it sounds like a broken record, it's going to continue to sound
that way. I don't intend to change at all. These three things are
clearly established in the story before us and throughout the
scripture. First of all, all men, without
question, every one of you, listen to me now, I'm talking to you
about that which you are going to meet up with in the day of
judgment. All men are responsible before God to believe the gospel. You're responsible to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. God holds you responsible. If you think that that's something
to be laughed at, to be mocked at, I suggest that while you
lay in your bed tonight terrified at God's judgment, you turn and
read Proverbs chapter 1 and understand that God holds you responsible
to believe on his son and to believe him right now. Secondly,
no man can believe. That's just fact. That's just
fact. No man can believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, than for a man loaded with the
riches of his imaginary goodness and righteousness to enter into
the kingdom of God. And that's the problem with every
man. That's the problem with every unbeliever. That's the
problem with every person. I don't care whether he's a drunk,
a dopehead, a thief, a murderer, or whether he's the best preacher
in the world. That person who does not believe God has one
problem. He is loaded with the riches
of his old imaginary goodness, and as long as you are, you'll
never enter into the kingdom of God. No man can believe on
the Son of God. But thirdly, salvation is by
God's free and sovereign grace. Therefore, with God it's possible,
maybe even you shall be saved. Maybe even you. God may yet have
mercy on you. God may yet grant you life and
faith in Christ. God may yet step in your way
and stop you in your mad rush toward hell. Now with that in
mind, let's look at verses 26 and 27 of Mark chapter 10. When the Lord Jesus taught these
things, they were astonished out of nature. I've seen folks
like that. You get done preaching these
things to them, they just sit with their mouths wide open just,
what is this? What kind of strange doctrine
is this? We've never heard these things in all our lives. They
were astonished out of measure and saying among themselves. They weren't frank enough and
honest enough, plain enough to come to him and say it, but they
said, what he's saying is so. If every man's responsible to
believe, and no man can believe, and salvation is altogether by
God's work of what he's saying, so who can be saved? They don't. And Jesus, looking upon them,
said, with men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God
all things are possible. Now just as our Lord's disciples
were astonished and confused by his doctrine, I'm sure that
some of you are as well. You've heard numerous, numerous,
numerous conflicting teachings about the gospel and salvation
and eternal life from sources all your life, varying sources
everywhere. You've heard about man's responsibility
and God's sovereignty and you hear those things and they sound
like conflicting stories and conflicting messages in your
ears. the letters that I receive and
the conversations I have with people, literally from all over
the world or any indication of things, then such confusion is
utterly universal. Satan, it appears, has again
been turned loose to deceive the nations of the world and
has managed to do just that, for the whole world seems to
be deceived. If someone does get some grasp
of God's sovereignty, the fact that God has mercy on whom he
will have mercy, and that God gives grace to whom he will give
grace, that God has compassion on whom he will have compassion,
a man hears that, gets some grasp on that, then the fact that men
are responsible to repent and believe appears to him to be
a contradiction. And in this message this evening,
I want to answer just one question. I'm going to speak plainly and
clearly. simply and distinctly. I know
that although men are responsible to repent and believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, with men it is impossible. And I know that
all things with God are possible. So then the question is this,
who shall be saved? Does the Word of God tell us?
Does the Word of God distinctly and clearly and unmistakably
show us who shall be saved? Look with me at two texts of
scripture. The first is in Romans chapter 9. Both texts are inspired. Both are in the word of God.
Both are written for our learning and our admonition. Here in Romans
chapter 9 and verse 13. The Lord God says, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but he saw have I hated? That bothers some
folks. I know it does. It needs to be
preached. And if it bothers you, take the
problem up with God. He's the one who said it. Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated? Verse 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? That's every man's natural response. You tell them that
God says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated? And they say,
well, that's not right. This is exactly what Paul says.
Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. Don't even imagine
such a thing. For he said to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
will it. nor of him that done it, but
of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy, on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will be heartened." What a
glorious, glorious gospel message. God saves sinners. He saves sinners
exactly as it pleases him, exactly according to his sovereign will,
exactly according to his everlasting love. Jonah, when he was in the
belly of the whale, learned to confess and make this sacrifice
and this vow to the Lord. He said I will sacrifice unto
thee with the voice of thanksgiving and I will pay that that I have
vowed and we will make the same sacrifice to pray. Salvation
is of the Lord. Salvation in its entirety is
the work of God Almighty and does not to any degree in any
way at any point depend upon us. Salvation is of the Lord,
we rejoice in it. He planned it, he purchased it,
he performs it, he preserves it, he perfects it, and he shall
have the praise for it, and he alone. Now look at another text,
Romans chapter 10, just the next chapter over, just one verse,
verse 13. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Now that's good news. That's
good news. I've often told you I prefer
that that word whosoever be there than if it said Don Fortner.
I met another Don Fortner after I came to town. He's a little
old short red-headed fellow, looked like Ronald McDonald,
miniature version. Don Fortner. That's a different fellow. But
if I read this text and it said, if Don Fortner shall call on
the name of the Lord, I'd have been sure it was him, not me.
But this says whosoever. Then that includes you. And that
includes me. That includes anyone who shall
call on the name of the Lord. Whosoever shall call upon, or
worship, or trust in the name of the Lord shall be saved. Anyone
in all the world who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ. This promise
is made without exception, without condition, and without qualification. Oh, I say to you tonight, put
nothing between your soul and Christ. No feeling, no experience,
no knowledge, nothing, put nothing between you and Christ. Anything
that comes between you and Christ is an idol and must be destroyed. Look to Christ, call on him,
believe on him, but I don't know whether I'm prepared to do so
or not. Don't put any preparation between you and Him. You don't
prepare to come to the Son of God, you just come. You don't
make yourself ready to come, you come to Him for readiness.
You don't make yourself fit to come, you come to Him for fitness.
Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life
freely. I know you sit up there and sometimes,
that glass sure looks good. You want a drink? Are you thirsty? Well, just come take a drink. I'll take another. At that point
you should ask, are you thirsty for pardon? Thirsty for righteousness? Thirsty for grace? Thirsty for
acceptance of God? Thirsty for ease of conscience
that no longer terrifies your soul with guilt? Thirsty for
rest in your soul? Then come and drink from the
fountain of the water of life everlasting. In Romans 9, we
have a clear declaration of God's sovereign grace. In Romans 10,
we are given a clear declaration of man's responsibility. Both
are true. Both need to be understood. Both
must be believed. And both must be preached with
clarity. God Almighty is totally sovereign
in the salvation sentence. And we are, every one of us,
responsible to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, these
two facts, as I intend to show you, are clearly set before us
throughout the Scriptures. We cannot believe on Christ without
God's sovereign grace. Faith is the gift of God, it
is the fruit of the Spirit, it is the operation of his grace
in us. And yet, God's sovereign grace
will not save you if you do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
You got that? You cannot be saved without His
grace and His grace will not save you if you do not believe
on the Son of God. Folks, hear the message of grace
and say, well, if God's going to save me, He's going to save
me. I just, I just wait. If God's going to save you, He's
going to save you by faith. in his dear son. Regrettably,
there are some who have such a distorted view of God's sovereignty,
such a distorted understanding of the doctrines of grace, that
they become hard and uncaring, negative in everything. Their
preaching, their attitude is just, there's no mercy, there's
no compassion, there's no empathy, there's nothing in them that
seems to care for the souls of men. They are opposed to everything. I meet with them every now and
then. They're in favor of nothing, like a big wrecking ball, they
can tear anything down, that's easy, but not capable of building
anything up. They're anti-missionary, anti-evangelistic,
anti-responsibility. They seem to care more that we
have our doctrine well ordered and precisely stated than they
do for the souls of men. They, I hear fellows sometimes
preach the doctrines of grace And God's sovereignty like the
scared to death one of the non-elect is going to get saved. It ain't
going to happen. Just go ahead and preach freely
and declare to all men, whosoever will, let him come. And anybody
who comes, God chose them. They came because God brought
them. They believed because God gave them faith. The spirit that's
hard and uncaring, it is not the spirit of our Lord. You read
that in Luke just a little bit ago, God. Matthew gave it this
way. Oh, Jerusalem. thou that killest
the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how
oft would I have gathered thy children together, even as a
hen gathers her chicken under her wing?" You wouldn't ask. The Lord Jesus says, how oft
would I have gathered your children? I would I came here to gather sinners.
I came here to seek and save that which was lost. I came to
gather sinners to me. How oft would I have gathered
your children? But you would not. Not only have you shut the door
of mercy against yourselves, you've shut it in the face of
your children too. Behold your house is left unto you desolate.
It's not the spirit of God's servants in the past. The Apostle
Paul said, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
Israel is that they might be saved. This hard, untiring spirit
does not speak as Paul did in the book of 1 Corinthians when
he says, to the weak I become as weak that I might win the
weak. I am made all things to all men that I might by some
means save some. How could a man dare say that
I might by some means save some? He was telling what was in his
heart. Paul was sent for the saving of sinners. He was the
messenger of God for the saving of sinners and he cared that
the saving of sinners was accomplished. He said I've come and I make
myself subject to everything that I might by some means save
some. Our Lord looked at this rich young woman and Jesus beholding
him. That's the spirit of the New
Testament. Now, if that seems somehow not to fit with our orthodoxy
and somehow doesn't fit with our understanding of God's sovereignty
and doesn't fit with our understanding of predestination and doesn't
fit somehow with our understanding of election, then let me tell
you something. Our understanding is messed up as well as our hearts.
This is the spirit of the New Testament. This is the spirit
of the Son of God. This is the spirit of Christianity. And then there are others who
totally deny God's sovereign grace, his purposes of election
and predestination, who totally deny the efficacy of Christ's
atonement and the effectual power and irresistible grace of God's
Spirit. Everything to them must be understood
and interpreted in the light of, or in their case in the darkness
of, those words, whosoever will, no matter what you tell them.
No matter what you show them from the scriptures, no matter
how clearly you preach to them, they'll meet you and say, I believe
in whosoever will. Well, I believe in the son of
God. And until you start believing
in him, you're going to perish in your sins and die under the
wrath of God. Salvation is not to be understood
as that which is accomplished by man's will or by man's doing. I contend that free will is the
religion of Satan and the religion of Antichrist. If you read the
14th chapter of Isaiah, you'll find out the first free willer
was Lucifer himself. And all free will doctrine is
damning to the souls of men, arises from hell and will take
you to hell. Now that's as plain as I can
make it and I want you to understand it. all free will doctrine, every
branch of it arises from hell and will take you to hell and
there is no possibility of things being otherwise. In this message,
I want us to look into the word of God. It'd be wonderful, it
would just be wonderful if men and women, in attempting to understand
spiritual, religious, biblical things, would open the word of
God. If I were wanting to understand
what some man believed or what some man taught concerning nuclear
physics, and I had sense enough to know what nuclear physics
were, and this fellow had written a book, I'd go get his book. I'd read it. I wouldn't ask you
what he taught. I wouldn't ask you what he said.
I wouldn't ask you what your opinion was of what he taught.
I'd go get his book and read what he said, find out for myself.
If I had a chance to, I'd read his book in his presence. If
I had any questions, I'd ask him. Now, here we are in the
presence of God Almighty. We want to know the way of life
and salvation. We want to know what it is to
know the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the truth of God, the
gospel of God. We're in God's presence. with
God's book. Now, let's look in his book.
If you've got any questions, ask him. He'll answer them for
you. He'll answer them as you go along. What does the Word
of God teach concerning this matter of who shall be saved?
Let's bring our opinions, our customs, our traditions, our
thoughts, our reason, our philosophy, all that Mama and Daddy taught
us, all that we've heard all our life, bring them to the Word
of God and that which is according to the Word of God, hold it dearly. And if it's not according to
the Word of God, throw it away. Just throw it away. I believe I'm prepared to do
that. Are you? Just anything that's contrary
to this book, just kiss it goodbye. Just throw it away. If it's in
this book, cherish it, believe it, and ask God for grace to
understand it. All right. Here's what the scripture teaches.
God has mercy on whom he will have mercy. And whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let me give you
several answers to this question from the Word of God. Who shall
be saved? I know that no one can be saved
by anything he does or imagines, but with God all things are possible. And those who are chosen of God,
God's elect, every one of them shall be saved. Turn to, well
let's just look at one text. Let's go back to where Lindsay
was this morning. in Romans chapter 8. Last couple of weeks he's
been teaching from Romans 8, doing an outstanding job. The
scriptures without question. I mean, there's not even the
slightest possible remote question about this. The scriptures teach
the doctrine of God's sovereign election. Here in Romans chapter
8, verse 28, we know that all things work together for good. to them that love God, to them
who are called according to his purpose. Now here's his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, that
means that's whom he loved from eternity, whom he knew in the
experiential expression of his love and sovereign electing grace. Then he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his son. That's the object
of election. The basis of it is God's everlasting
will. The object of it is that those
chosen ones be made just like his son. And the purpose is that
his son might be the firstborn among many Election guarantees
the salvation of God's people. It is as necessary to salvation
as redemption and regeneration. Election is the eternal, unchangeable,
unalterable purpose and will of God Almighty concerning the
salvation of his people. Now, I don't know who God's elect
are. You don't know and they don't
know till God calls them. Nobody does. But God knows who
they are, where they are, what they are. He knows what he's
going to do with them. He knows what it will take to
save them. And by one means or another, he will see to it that
they hear his word and are brought to faith in Jesus Christ. Some
of you may wonder why we labor and go at Considerable expense
preach the gospel to just a handful of people here there. I've been
going down to Wichita Falls preaching for 11 or 12 years now. I've got a letter while I was
away this week. If you want to I'll let you read
it, but it's several pages long. From a fellow named Ken Wilson.
I preached to him since he was in high school. I baptized his
brother a few months ago and Ken would come periodically,
and he'd get wrapped up, you know, get interested in something
else. Somebody helps, and he'd quit coming, and attention would
wane. Finally, he got disgruntled with
everything, got through college, and joined the Peace Corps. Boy. And I'm gonna tell you what
I haven't told him. That's brilliant. You know, he'd
get a college education, go to Africa, and join the Peace Corps.
That's smart. On his part, it was real smart.
He got out there in the middle of nowhere and started listening
to tapes. And God has done a wondrous work in grace. God knows who
his elect are. He knows where they are. He knows
what it will take to get them. And if he needs to, he'll send
them to Africa to get them. He knows exactly where they are.
We don't have to concern ourselves with that. God has chosen the
people and he will call them by his grace. of the Pharaoh
Griswold years ago. I heard him preaching one time.
He told about a time when they, at Minor Heights Church in Birmingham,
had published a bunch of tracts, thousands of them. And they had
sent them out for years. I mean, just mail them out. Every
time you write a letter, they're like we do here, mail them out.
Friends and folks in the congregation pass them out. And he hadn't
heard anything from them. I mean, they'd gone on for years.
But he had forgotten about the tracts. They were all gone. He
got a letter from Nigeria. There was a young man, 16, 17
years old, out doing his morning running, running down a path,
and somebody had dropped one of those tracks right in the
middle of that red clay in Nigeria. And that boy picked it up and
read it, contacted Pharaoh, and the folk was over. He, too, was
brought to faith in Christ Jesus the Lord. God knows who His elect
are. It's our responsibility to do
what God allows us to do. To proclaim the gospel and don't
count numbers. Just wait on God. Will he get
any response? Nah. What you gonna do? I'm gonna keep doing what God
told me to do. Anybody paying attention? Don't
seem to. Somebody's gonna pay attention. We're not gonna labor
in vain. Not in the cause of Christ. Secondly,
we understand that no man can be saved without Christ's atonement,
but every sinner who has been bought, redeemed, and purchased
by the precious blood of Jesus Christ shall be saved. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be saved. Maybe I can better illustrate
that than preach on it. Y'all know the difficulties faith
has had with his pregnancy. Nothing serious presently. We're thankful. God seems to
have overruled taking care of those things. But if the time
should come that our daughter goes into labor to give birth and brings forth a lifeless child
that will never kiss her cheek, hugged her neck, nursed at her
breast. The travail is in vain. No satisfaction. No satisfaction
ever to be gained this side of eternity. You listen to me. To say that about the travail
of the Son of God is blasphemy of the highest power. He shall
see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." What
does that mean? That means the cross of Jesus
Christ shall never be discovered in miscarriage. That means every
soul for whom the Son of God shed his blood under the wrath
of God at Calvary shall be with him in glory. Thirdly, we understand
no man can be saved Apart from the sovereign, irresistible call
and the operations of grace by God the Holy Spirit, no one,
no one. And every sinner called by God's
Spirit come into Christ. Everyone of them. Him that cometh unto me, I will
in no wise cast out. It'd be nice if folks would read
the rest of the text sometime. And that passage in John chapter
6, look at it. John chapter 6 and verse 37.
The Lord Jesus says, all that the Father giveth me shall come
to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. And he says down in verse 44,
I will raise him up at the last day. That is, those who are called
are going to come, coming according to the will of God. And so certain
is it that they shall come, that everyone called will be raised
up by me in the last day. This operation of God's grace.
is that which grants to men life everlasting in Jesus Christ.
And then the scriptures teach us plainly, whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you right now, oh
God give me the grace, right now call on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, believe on him, it's because God from eternity
chose you. And the Son of God at Calvary
did do. And the Spirit of God now has
called you and is bringing you to Christ the Lord. And there's
no possibility that a believing sinner shall be bad. God help
you all to believe the Christ's Word. Amen.