I'd like to read the first three
verses of Malachi chapter 1. The burden of the word of the
Lord to Israel by Malachi, I have loved you, saith the Lord. I have loved you, saith the Lord.
And the religionist of that day said, yet we say wherein hast
thou loved us? Seeing that Esau was Jacob's
brother, saith the Lord, yet I love Jacob. And I hated Esau, and laid his
mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. The Lord proclaims here to the people of Israel, I have
loved you. I have loved you. We read out
of the fourth chapter of 1st John this morning in verse 10,
herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
God loved us. But that God loved us. I have loved you, saith the Lord. I have for over 40 years been trying to preach about the love
of God, and trying to, as best I could, to reconcile that with
God's right to do whatever He would with His own. God's sovereign
prerogative to love whomever He would. God's love is a sovereign
love. It's just like God Himself. God
is a sovereign, and His love is a sovereign love. and he says
I have loved you and yet you say wherein hast thou loved us
beings that you have hated Jacob or hated Esau beings that you've
hated Esau and God says well I've loved Jacob I've loved Jacob
now we know that Jacob represents all the elect of God in every
generation and we know that Esau represents all of the non-elect
that's ever lived in this world. And God says, I've loved you.
I've loved all my Jacobs. I've loved them all. I've loved
them from eternity. I've loved them with an everlasting
love, and I've drawn them with cords of kindness. I love my
Jacobs. I love them. But he said my Esau's
are the Esau's of the world. I hate them. I hate Esau. Now, beloved, all the talk we
hear in the religious world about God's universal love is not true. It's not true. It's nonsense.
To declare that God loves all men is to speak in direct contradiction
to what God Himself says through the mouth of His prophet here
in Malachi chapter 1. And Paul the Apostle used this
in the ninth of Romans to set forth God's sovereign love for
his Jacobs. And so we know that God declares
very plainly, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. Not only does the assertion that
God loves everyone contradicts the word of God, as it is spoken
here to us today, but it also has other very serious, I think,
implications. For one thing, it makes God subject
to change. Now if God loves men in time,
while they're in this world, while they're living in this
world, now you know the Arminian theology is that God loves everybody
in the world. God loves all men equally the
same. That's their theology. God loves
everybody without distinction. God loves everybody as He loves
all men the same. But now, if God loves men in
time, while they're alive in this world, but when they come
to die, and when they leave this world, He ceases to love them,
and then sends them off to hell, then God must have changed. God
has changed. God has changed in His love toward
those people. Well, we don't believe that.
We believe that whoever is sent to hell in eternity, that the
love of God was not upon them or set upon them from old eternity
and that they were Esau's and they were not God's Jacob's.
Well, that cannot be for in Malachi 3 and 6 He says, for I am the
Lord, and I change not. God could not change. He cannot
change. Now God can do anything, but
He cannot change. And God can do anything, but
He cannot lie. God can do anything, but He cannot
do anything contrary to His nature or to His Word. God is a God
true to His nature and true to His Word. Now to imply that God
is changeable is to imply that there's no God at all, because
the God of the Bible, if He were a changeable God, He would not
be God. For immutability is a must to
the character of God. You cannot have God without having
his character be immutable. He cannot change. Now he says,
Jacob have I loved. Now any honest exposition of
these verses here in Malachi and the verses that you could
read in Romans chapter 9 that uses these very words here of
the prophet Malachi must recognize that Jacob that Jacob indeed
does represent God's elect and that Esau represents the non-elect. You say, Preacher, why do you
tell us that? Why do you keep telling us that? I'll tell you
that because the religious world today would lie to you about
this. The religious world knows nothing about God's sovereign
election. They know nothing about reprobation. They know nothing about the God
of the Bible doing what he will with his own and having the right
to do that. And that all men ought to bow
before him and worship him as a God who is able to do according
to his own mind and a God who cannot be turned from his own
purpose and mine. For over forty years I've been
trying to preach the sovereign grace of God. Preach the elective
grace of God. And I would like that the Lord
would raise up someone faithful even out of this group that would
be able in the years to come to stand up and say that Jacob
represents the elect of God and Esau represents the non-elect. To be able to say it with conviction
and hold to it for 40 or 50 years on down the road as God is pleased
to give this church perpetuity. I'll tell ya, this is a very
serious teaching here that we have in this text. I think this morning that the
thing that stands out to me most in this text here and along with
the text in Romans 9 is that the purpose of God is that we
might understand that the purpose of God according to election
stands not of works but of him that calleth. That the purpose
of God according to election stands not of works but of him
that calleth. Jacob have I loved. Now beloved
the question comes in as to how it is that God cannot be compelled
somebody asked me the question one time do you mean to say can
you explain what is it that you're saying here are you saying that
God cannot be compelled to love somebody beloved what we learn
from this text of scripture when God says I have loved you I've
loved my Jacobs I've hated the Esau's is that God Almighty cannot
be compelled to love anybody. You say, well, I believe that
if I were to do such and such and so and so, if I were to quit
doing wrong and always do right, that I would compel, that God
would be compelled to love me. The love of God is unearned.
The love of God is unpurchasable. The love of God cannot be earned.
It cannot be purchased. You cannot compel God to love
you. Now see, these religionists said,
well, the Lord don't love us because He didn't love Esau.
And Esau was Jacob's brother, and if God was a God of love,
then He would have loved Esau as much as He did Jacob. And
God says, no, I love Jacob. That's my sovereign right. Now,
Jacob was no better than Esau. Now, I know that God is good
to all men. I think you know that too, that
God is good to all men. Now, and that common grace is
abundant throughout the world. The common grace of God is everywhere,
and all men are the recipients of God's goodness to men in Providence. But the providence of God, the
goodness of God in providence, the common good that God bestows
upon men in this world is the result of His special love for
His own elect. The Lord sends the sunshine and
the rain upon the righteous and the wicked, but he sends those
things for the good of his elect. Others receive the benefits of
these only because they live in the same world as God's elect. Now to agree that God's providential
goodness to the wicked is an evidence of his love to all men,
as some men teach, would be to argue that righteous men who
suffer in this world, drought and famine and reversals, pestilence
and war, that this is God's wrath being poured out upon His own
people in this world. As I said before, the assertion
that God's universal love, that God universally loves all men
the same, is nonsense. To say that God loves everyone
is to reduce the love of God to nothing. Universal love would
be meaningless as far as what I'm able to understand the teaching
of God's Word. God's love for His elect is a
special, it's a distinguishing, it's a sovereign love. Now, thoughtfully
consider these questions and you will see What I'm talking
about, I believe. If God loves all men, why are
some men not elected to salvation? Matthew 22, 14 says, For many
are called, but few are elected. Few are chosen. Now, not all
men are chosen to eternal life. And that's because God loved
his Jacobs. from before the foundation of
the world, and hated his Esau. And their works had nothing to
do with it. Before they had ever done any
good or evil, Paul said, God loved Jacob and hated Esau. In other words, there was nothing
about Jacob that caused God to love him, and there was nothing
that, as far as Esau was sent, he wasn't even taken, as we'll
see here directly, under consideration. But God did choose a people.
He chose a people. In Ephesians 1 and 4 we're told
that according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. And in the book of 2 Thessalonians
we're told that God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of His people and the belief of the
truth. So, in the providence of God,
God has chosen a number that he's ordained to eternal life,
but he has not chosen all men. Not all men, but he's chosen
a specific number that he will save. Secondly, why in the providence
of God do many people never hear the gospel of Christ? There are
many communities, even in America, which has been evangelized from
coast to coast that still people have not heard the true gospel
of redeeming grace. Why is it that some men never
hear the gospel and others hear it over and over if God loves
all men the same? Why does he not send a true preacher
of the gospel to every nook and corner in this world to spread
forth the gospel feast to men and women? Why is it that that
doesn't occur? Well, it's because God in his
providence knows who it is that he will save, and God is not
in the business necessarily of just going out. Somebody said,
well, God's got to give everybody a chance. God must give everybody
a chance. Well, beloved, God gave all men
a chance in Adam, and when we were in Adam, we had our chance.
We had the main chance when we were in Adam. We stood in Adam. He was our representative, and
all he had to do was obey God, and he didn't do it. He was our
father, our representative. He was our substitute in the
Garden of Eden. He called the shots. He had a
free will, if you please. His will was unbiased by sin
and evil, but he still chose to disobey God and to die. And
you made that choice in Adam. All men made that choice. Now,
if anybody lives, It's because God, in His sovereign prerogative,
says, live! And He says, live over here,
and live back there! And He causes men and women to
be resurrected spiritually, and causes them to live, to have
eternal life. But God is not in the business
of giving somebody, they've already had their chance. Somebody says,
oh, I think He ought to do it again. Why? Why should He do
it again? God is sovereign. Somebody said,
yes, but everybody has a free will. My friend Adam had the
only free will that ever existed. A will that was unbiased towards
sin and evil. It was an unbiased will. And
he exercised that will and look what it got the human race the
trouble it got us into. And I'll tell you there isn't
anything in this business of free will. Your will is in bondage
to your nature. You cannot will to do anything
contrary to your nature. Somebody says, just love God
and He'll love you. Just love God and He'll love
you. But then we'll find out that
we only love Him because He first loved us. And all the Jacobs
loved God because God first loved them. and they do love God, but
God's love is not a caused love. God loves because He will love,
and because He is a God of love. He will love somebody, and He
has loved His Jacobs. Now then, there are many that
don't hear the gospel. Many never hear it. But does
that mean God hadn't given them a chance? No, we just explained
that. They all had their chance. in their daddy Adam in the Garden
of Eden. That's where they went bankrupt.
And they're still bankrupt spiritually. They're dead spiritually. And
only those to whom God says live will live. Only those who hear
the voice of the Son of God in the gospel, only those who are
regenerated by the sovereign Spirit of God will live and will
have eternal life. Another thing, another question
I ask, is if God loves everybody the same, why did he refuse to
pray for some? In John 17 and verse 9. He said,
I pray for them, I pray not for the world, but for them which
thou hast given me, for they are thine. He said, I don't pray
for the world. Well, you would thought that
the Lord Jesus, if he was like the Armenian preacher tells us,
that he's Sitting up in heaven wringing his hands and he's weeping
because men will not cooperate with him and they will not come
to him and they will not believe on him you would think that he
would have surely prayed for them in his intercessory prayer
you'd have thought that he would have included them and said father
I pray for the world I pray for the world but he said distinctly
and specifically I pray he said not for them I don't pray for
the world I pray for them that you've given to me in the eternal
covenant of election. I pray for them because they're
mine. You give them to me and they're
thine. They were thine before they were
mine. You chose them. You chose them.
You purposed their salvation. So beloved, we see clearly then
that Jesus did not pray for all the world and that's because
he loves his jacobs and he hates his esau's well why do some perish
under the wrath of god without mercy perish without a ray of
hope if god loves everybody what does the love of god have to
do with the salvation of a soul well you know as somebody recently
i read where that somebody was talking about the people who
perished in the flood that multitude that were swept away in the flood
in Noah's day. And then they mentioned also
the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of the plains when
God rained hell out of heaven and destroyed those cities. Talking
about God loving everybody universally. And then they mentioned the sons
of Korah and Dathan and Abiram and all of their followers that
were swallowed up, you remember, and sent to hell, as old brother
Barnard said, without having time to pack a suitcase. God
sent them off to hell. and they said well you know i
i i think that they were questioned these you believe god loved all
of those people all those degenerate sodomized you believe you love
them as much as he loved his people and and and and and they
were forced to say well yes i i i believe that god loved them but anyone
who imagines that god loves those multitude might well pray to
be forever hidden and excluded from the love of God. If God
loved them, I'm not too sure that I want Him to love me. Now,
I don't know how you feel about that, but if God loved them,
then I'm praying that God don't show me quite that much favor,
quite that much love. I would that God would love me
and that He would deliver me from my sin and deliver me from
the results of my sin and rebellion. God loves his Jacobs. Now, when
you talk about people perishing under the wrath of God without
mercy, it's evident that God does not love those that perish
finally. Well, what does the love of God
have to do with the salvation of anyone? If according to the
Armenian theology, God loves everybody, but that does not
assure their salvation, then what does the love of God have
to do with it? I'm telling you, it has everything to do with
it. I'm telling you, if God set his
love upon you, if God ever said, your case, I'll take it up, I
love you enough, I will take your case up, then my friend,
it means eternal salvation. It means that God already has
glorified you in his mind. It means that God has given up
being influenced by anything you ever did do or anything you
ever will do. He has given up on being influenced
or compelled by you. He said, I'll save you because
it's my purpose to do it. And it's according to my purpose
that election stands and not works. I purpose your salvation. You know, that'll shock a person's
system. That's where the religious world
gets up into arms against the Lord's people. When you tell
them that God does not take into consideration anything that they
did or did not do, that that's not it, then they get fighting
mad at God that you're not going to keep a record I'll tell you
what the last thing on earth I want brought out of the judgment
is the record book. How about you? I don't want it
brought out. I want this thing to be determined
by a sovereign God from all eternity. I want His love that He set upon
me to determine my eternity with Him. I want it all to be determined
by something else besides what I did or didn't do. That's what
I'm trying to say. Because if it had anything to
do with what I did or didn't do, then I am in trouble. And so is every other man. There
is no hope for salvation unless the purpose of God according
to election stands not of works, but of him that calleth. There
is no hope for any man. No hope for any soul outside
of that truth. Well, God said, not only have
I loved Jacob, but I've hated Esau. I want to talk a little bit about
that. Paul, he mentioned that because it's so important and
he mentioned it because it's mentioned in Malachi here. Well, we know that God owed nothing
to Jacob. He didn't owe anything to Esau
either. Now, I thought the other day, I was driving down the road
and I thought, well, you know what I could say someday is,
that God don't owe me anything. He does not owe me anything.
He owes me nothing. Is there anybody here this morning
that feels like that God owes them something? If there is, then my friend,
you've got a good piece to go. We know that Jacob, he was a
sinful wretch. He was. Now, if you read the
Bible, you might have read just one time hurriedly over the life
of Jacob, and you might have thought, well, he was a pretty
good fella. But if you read it again and read it again, you'll
find out old Jacob, he was a deceiver, and he was a wretch. And I think that old Jacob would have stood up
here this morning and said, God don't owe me anything. He would have stood up here grateful
from the depth of his soul that God had had anything to do with
it, that God in mercy touched him, that God in mercy spared
him. I don't know how Esau would have
felt about it. I know Esau, he got real religious and done a
lot of crying about his situation. And you know, the Armenians say,
well, you know, God i believe is refusing to save
me according to your theology they say a lot of people really
wants to be saved you know i don't think he saw even though he he
he repented with tears i don't think that he saw i don't think
he ever really wanted a relationship with god the only thing he saw
wanted was to get back what he had lost by his foolishness and
by his refusal to do what he ought to do in
the beginning. He wanted to get that back. The birthright. He
wanted the birthright back. And whatever blessings that would
bring. He wasn't looking for a fellowship
with God. He wasn't looking for a union
with God. He wasn't looking for God's blessing
in that respect. He wanted what he had lost. Well, let me just hurry on here I want
to talk a little bit about Esau. I haven't been quite right for
a few days mentally, health-wise, and my head's not working really
this morning quite like I'd like for it to. When I talk about this hatred,
I want to talk about this hatred that's spoken of. The Lord said, and I hated Esau. What is that hatred? Well, it's
a negative hatred, which is God's will not to give eternal life
to some persons. It is a neglect of them. God taking no notice of them.
God passing them by when he chose others. So the word hate is used
for neglect. It is the sovereign prerogative
of God to pass by some people, to take no notice of them, to
leave them alone, to leave them in their sin, to die in, just
simply to ignore them and to neglect them and to leave them. Now this is the same way that
our Lord used the word hate in Luke 14 and 26 where he said,
If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and
wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple. Now we're not commanded to treat
our families or ourselves for that matter with contempt, anger
and wrath. We're not commanded to do that,
but we must, as we seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ as the
servants of God, as a child of God in this world, we're to follow
the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, we're to be disciples of Christ,
we're to forsake all that we have and be his disciples. We are to give no consideration
to our earthly relationships. We must pass them by and choose
and cherish the will of God. We must not take notice of human
relationships in regard to those relationships wanting to have
the preeminence in our lives as the people of God. We must
neglect them from the standpoint that we give no consideration
And we must hate them from this standpoint, that we take no notice
of them. We must pass them by when they
would attempt to be God in our lives. Now the flesh, and along
with many, Scripture says, a man's enemies can be those of his own
household. And many of those that live around
us and live in union with us, many, many times want consideration. They want to be noticed. They
do not want to be passed by. They want to be considered. But
God's people have to do toward them just like God has done in
electing His people. There are those that He chose
and loved, and then there are those that He neglected, and
there are those that He gave no consideration to, that He
just passed by. Nobody can have all of one of
God's children. God reserves the right to the
obedience of His children and to having their hearts knit to
Him. God reserves the right to have
your heart. He reserves that right. And He
says, I want you to understand this word hate. It was not that
I, you see, it wasn't that God had poured out, or that God's
wrath upon Esau, because he said, I haven't even took into consideration
anything old Esau did. I haven't taken that into consideration.
I didn't have anything to do with it. I just passed him by
from eternity because I purpose to do it. I will to do it. I'm
God, and I can do whatever I purpose to do. I just passed him by.
and the Lord's people. Oftentimes, when you follow Christ,
you many, many times run into a great deal of problems in this
world because people do not want you to neglect them. They don't
want you to pass them by. But when it comes to the will
of God and the purpose of God for your life, you must adhere
to that at any cost. And there are some people, and
Jesus said that, he said, unless you come to me and hate your... I quoted it to you a few minutes
ago, let me just turn to it. There I want to make sure that
I've got it straight. Verse 26, especially this morning. If any man come to me, and hate
not his father, his mother, and wife, and children, and brethren,
and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
It's the same word as when God said, Esau have I hated. Same
word exactly. And so, it means that you pass
them by, that you neglect them, that you give no consideration
to there uh... if they say to you you believe
it's god's will and purpose that you go a certain direction that
you lead the family in a certain direction and then there's rebellion
and said no we can't do that we won't do that don't you care
anything about us my friend you must go straight ahead as a child
of god and do exactly what you believe god have you to do you
must do that and There's a great deal of trial that comes with
that and a great deal of suffering that comes with that. And you
know what? You're misunderstood. And is
there anybody more misunderstood than the God of the Bible when
it comes to His sovereign prerogatives, God's elective grace, and God's
purpose? Is there anybody more? Listen,
most people don't think God ought to have a right to do what He
will with His own. that God has a right to do what
he will with his own. Well, God loved Jacob. God considered
Jacob. God chose Jacob. Let the Jacobs
rejoice, all God's Jacobs rejoice that God has set his love upon
them. Now, I just want to say a word
or two about the love of God because this is so important
that we understand this. We have mentioned that God loves
sovereignly. And we've tried to enforce that
by the verse that we read in 1 John 4 and 10 where it says
here in His love, not that we love God, but that He loved us.
Not that we love God, but that He loved us. He loves whom He
will, because He will, and He loves them forever. He loves them eternally. Number
two, God loves sinners. This stands out to me in this
text when it says that God loved Jacob even though he didn't consider
his sins. I know that God loves sinners.
If he loved anybody in this room, it's proof that he loves sinners.
And I know that God loves his people. And we can preach fully,
without reservation, unlimited the unlimited love of God toward
His elect, the unbounded mercy of God to the vilest of men.
We can preach it because we have nothing in us worthy of consideration. We deserve the utmost extremity
of God's wrath, but we are here to say that He loved us and we
can express I think our heart's appreciation
for these words. He loved us. He loved us. Hearing his love, not that we
love God, but that he loved us. He loved us. Jacob, I have loved. Jacob, I have loved. So I know
that God loves sinners. I know that he does. And there's
hope for you this morning. You say, well, I know I am a
sinner. Well, beloved, it's your sinnerhood that will commend
you to God, not your righteousness, not your holiness, not what you
think is good about you. But if there's anything that
would commend you to God, to Christ, it would be your sinnerhood. And then to God loves sacrificially. God loves sacrificially. It says
that here in His love, not that we love God, but that God loved
us and gave. And gave. that sacrifice he that
spared not his own son delivered him up for us all all those that
would believe on him and trust in him this is sacrifice God's
sacrifice John said we have known and believed the love that God
hath toward us greater love hath no man but that he lay down his
life for his friends and Jesus Christ laid down his life for
us and this is the way we know this is how the love of God is
manifested we read it right there in that ninth verse in 1st John
4 and this was manifested the love of God toward us because
that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might
live through him that we might live through him this is the
evidence of it and then The verse that I quoted to you, we have
known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love,
and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
We've known and believed it. We've known it in regeneration. We knew it when we first suspected
that God had reached out and touched us. That God had crossed
our path. That God had laid hold of us.
That God had took up our case. that God said live to us. We know, we've known the love
of God and we've known it in His providence. Oh, how many
times have we been convinced of the love of God toward us.
The scripture says that the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost. But the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ on our behalf, His love is a sacrificing love. He loved His people so He gave
His Son for them. He gave His Son to stand in their
room instead and place to suffer and die upon the cursed tree
to save the multitude of His elect. He gave His Son to save
them, to die for them. And then we'll say that God loves
savingly. God loved His elect. God loved
them before the world began. But in order for them to be reconciled
unto Him, His justice had to be satisfied. Therefore, our
loving Heavenly Father sent the Lord Jesus Christ to be the justice-satisfying
propitiation for our sins. All the sins of God's elect were
washed away when Jesus shed His blood. And so this is the love
of God. The love of God is more than
a helpless passion. The love of God is the saving
commitment and the determination of a sovereign God toward his
elect people. He said, I've loved Jacob. I've loved Jacob and I hated
Esau. Father, we thank you for your
word and I pray this morning that the Jacobs of this room
and the Jacobs of this world might rejoice in their God today
and be glad because of His power, be glad because of His love,
be glad because of His sacrifice which He made, gave up His own
Son in order that we would be delivered from our sin and have
everlasting life. Give us, we pray Thee, a greater
determination, our Father, to hate those things which You have
exhorted us to hate neglect those things, to not consider those
in this world that would hinder us toward the will and purpose
of Almighty God. Give us strength to separate
ourselves, seeing that you separated us in old time by election, and
then you separated us in time by giving us a new nature in
regeneration. You separated us by your work
in our lives. Lord, help us to separate ourselves
more fully to that purpose that you called us to and await your
daily deliverances to enable us to go forward as you have
purposed that we go. In Jesus' name we pray and for
his purpose and cause we ask. Amen.