First letter of John, chapter 1. And on Wednesday evening we will
continue in the 25th chapter of Matthew's gospel. The first chapter of the first
letter of John, that which was from the beginning, which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life.
For the life was manifested, and we have seen it. And bear
witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the
Father, and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and
heard, declare we unto you, that he also may have fellowship with
us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his
Son, Jesus Christ. And these things right we utter
to you, that your joy may be full. May we bow for another
brief prayer. And our Father and our God, we
come now to open thy Holy Word, and We open it with a sense of
lack of ability to look into these mysteries that Thou hast
written here and caused Thy servants to write by inspiration. We pray that Thou wilt grant
us the illumination of the Spirit of God. May it please Thee to
open our minds that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy Word.
Teach thou our hearts, and instruct us in thy way. May again we see
thy great love, and mercy, and grace. We beseech thee to look
upon those who are outside of Christ, who have never tasted
the Lord as gracious, and please thee to bring them to thyself.
We shall praise thee for this, in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen. From our text we come to
Romans chapter 8 and verse 28, where the apostle wrote, and
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the call according to his purpose. We have seen that all things
work together for the good of those who have these two things. First, they love God. to them
that love God. And then the second qualification,
to have all things working together for our good, is to them who
are the call according to his purpose. Now God designates his
people throughout his word in that expression, the call. When Paul wrote this letter to
the Roman Christians at Rome, he addressed it to those who
were the call the call of God. And here in this text that we've
been using for a number of large days, and we've brought about,
what, eight or nine messages on it, referring to other scriptures,
bringing out the doctrines and teachings of the text, here the
apostle speaks of those who are the call according to his, that
is, God's purpose. And we tried to point out the
difference between that outward call where the preacher preaches
the gospel and the sinner merely hears with his outer ear and
is able maybe to pick up something with his natural mind and thereby
make a profession, not really possessing Christ and truly embracing
him. But there is that second call
which is referred to here as the effectual call of grace,
the irresistible call of the Lord, whereby sinners are brought
to Christ and they are made partakers of this holy calling, this heavenly
calling. Now, we have shown you, too,
the state we were in before we had this call extended to us,
bringing us to Christ, a state of darkness and lostness and
enmity against God. We have shown you also that God
uses means to bring sinners to the effectual call. The Word of God, God speaks through
the preaching of his Holy Word and applies that Word to hearts
of sinners. The Holy Spirit is used. He uses his power to draw sinners
to Christ. And of course the prayers of
God's people are also used to that extent according to God's
will. Now, I want to continue talking
about the description of this call. We gave you three designations
of this call. What kind of a call is it? We
call it an irresistible call. That is, when the Spirit of God
applies the Word in this way to a sinner's heart, he cannot
resist. In fact, he is made willing to
come, and he's glad to come. Then in the second place, it
is a holy call. God calls us to himself. He calls
us to a holy God, a holy service, a holy heaven. And he calls us
to righteousness, to follow that calling in our lives. And we
said it was a precious call, a sweet call, how precious this
call is. Do you realize how precious it
is, brethren? There are many who have never
had this call. The call that is outward, that
speaks to all men by nature and by the Word of God, by conscience,
is to every person in the whole wide world. But the call which
is here extended to the election of grace, is only extended to
that peculiar people, those whom God has chosen. And therefore
it is a precious thing that we're included in this call. And certainly
we're no better than those who do not have that call. And sometimes
I think we're not as good as some of them. A lot of good folks,
outwardly speaking, and morally speaking, perish without ever
having this call extended to their heart. So it's a great
mercy that God has elected us and selected us to receive the
call of grace, irresistibly, invincibly, to be brought to
him, to come to him because he brings us to himself and draws
us by his blessed grace and power. Now, continuing that, in the
fourth place, this is an exalted calling, an exalted calling Paul
said in one of his writings, he said, I press toward the mark
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He was pressing
toward that mark. What mark was that? In fact,
it was the mark of affection. And he called it the high calling. In fact, this verse of Scripture,
or the verse following, says, for whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. Now that indeed is a high calling,
isn't it? That we are called, we are predetermined
and called to come into the blessed image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what Paul said, I'm
pressing toward that mark. And unsatisfied with himself,
until he reaches that, nor shall any Christian truly be satisfied
with himself. It's a high calling. It is an
exalted call. I read you here from the first
letter of John, and did you notice those words? That this apostle
was writing the inspired word of God, and he said in verse
3 of that first chapter, that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you,
that he also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship
is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." The apostle
then is writing to people that they might be brought into the
fellowship of the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. This indeed is a high-calling
thing, exalted, that we are blessed to be brought into union and
fellowship and communion with our Holy God, with the Holy Trinity,
the Father, the Son, and really the Holy Spirit, as well as the
communion of saints and the communion with the apostles of our Lord
Jesus Christ. So we're called to live by faith. We're called out of darkness.
We're called to die to sin, to the world, and to die to ourselves. And we're called to serve Him.
We're called to be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, to
be justified, to be adopted, to be regenerated and made a
member of the family of God. And that indeed is an exalted
calling, isn't it? If you were called to be in our
earthly king's family, or in our noble family, or adopted
into that, you would feel that you were highly called and greatly
blessed. But here God takes unworthy sinners'
wretches under the wrath of God and condemnation, and in their
perishing state, and calls them unto himself. brings them into
his holy family, and says, I want fellowship with you. The Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit want fellowship with sinners,
saved by the grace of God. It's an amazing thought. It is
really astounding. We can hardly realize it, but
yet it's so. And the apostle says, this is
why I'm writing to you, that you might come into fellowship
with the Father, with his Son, Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian,
you are privileged to have that fellowship and that communion
with him. Sometimes we think our fellowship
is cut. There are some who do not believe
like we do. They don't believe in the God
of the Bible as we do. And the doctrines that we love
and embrace and proclaim without apology And so they, though they
claim to be Christians, they cut us off. But the Apostle says
here, we are calling you, we are writing you, that you may
have fellowship with the Father. You know what that is? And with
his Son, Jesus Christ. And the moment you were called,
actually, effectually, by the grace of God, you came into that
fellowship. And I trust you, dear friends,
have been growing in that fellowship with the Father and with the
Son, as well as with the Holy Spirit of God. Let me call attention
to this, and we mentioned it, that it is a distinctive call. I mean by that, that it is a
discriminative call, because as we said, God doesn't call
everybody. It is a gracious call. It is
a call out of God's free and sovereign grace, calling whom
he will. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians
1 and verse 26 about that. He says, but for you see your
calling, brethren, this is our effectual call of grace he's
talking about. And he said, you see this, you
understand this calling now. You've experienced it. And how
that not many wise men are to flesh, not many mighty, not many
noble are called. God does call even some of those.
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty. and face things of
the world, and things which are despised have God chosen, yea,
and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are,
that no flesh should glory in his presence." Why has God called
you there and not somebody else? He said it's because that no
flesh should glory in his presence, but that those who should glory
in the Lord, not in themselves, not in anyone else. So God has
this right to discriminate. He's got a right to call whom
he will. In fact, it's a matter of mercy
and grace that he calls anybody. You remember that? God isn't
obligated to call any other human race, whatever the salvation,
and to bring them to himself. But out of his divine wisdom,
power, and marvelous grace he has chosen to call son. And if
we are one of those, my dear friends, there can be no greater
mercy extended to us. Let us rejoice in that and give
glory to his name. Then, too, it's a glorious call. It's a call, actually, to glory. Peter says in 1 Peter 5 and 10,
or is it, yes, it is 1 Peter 5 and 10, "...who hath called
us unto his eternal glory." So I say then, it is a glorious
call, unto his eternal glory. We're called to enjoy, actually,
the glory of God. We're called to know God. We're called, dear friends, to
have fellowship with the all-glorious God. All men know not God. Everybody that speaks about God
or Christ, we understand, really are not in the knowledge of the
truth of the person of God in Christ. There are many of them
ignorant of God and worshiping another God, another Christ,
and embracing another spirit. But Those who are flexibly called
are called to his glory. They actually are brought into
the enjoyment of this all-glorious person, the creator of the universe,
the eternal God, the everlasting Father. And they're called to
everlasting bliss, to enjoyment now, with of course pain, persecution,
and trials in this life. But nevertheless, they're called
to everlasting happiness. and bliss to salvation, to his
family, to be a member of his kingdom, and actually to be like
him, to be like God. For everyone he calls, he is
making him into the image of his Son, predestinated to be
conformed to the image of his Son. And it's an impossibility
that any person that sexually calls shall fail of that. Now
that will not make you careless. And then let me say this, brethren,
that it is an uncommon call. Our Lord said in Matthew 22 and
14, few are chosen, many are called, but few are called out
or effectually called. So in reality it's an uncommon
call, isn't it? You notice this, how many of
you yearn to gather with your pastor to see others called into
this way. We'd love to see people coming
to Christ, wouldn't we? Indeed, this is something that
our hearts ache for. And we preach for this, and long
for this, and pray for this, and witness and live to the glory
of Christ, that others may be brought to the knowledge and
fellowship of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of glory. Our
Lord told us that few are effectually called. We better be thankful
that that is even so, that that few are called and that we are
in that number. As we worship here, how many
millions of people are in the darkness of sin and the ignorance
of the true and the living God. They know him not. Many who profess
his name, when you open the scriptures, they say goodbye. Not that kind
of God for us. And so, while millions, yes millions,
could we say billions in this world too, many in this world
are left in the darkness of sin. There are many professors who
are not true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, but thank
God there are a few who are called out. A few who are really brought
and embraced And so it's very rare that actually we see anyone
called into this grace. The Lord's doing his work, and
he's calling whom he will. Let's praise him for that. The
last thing on this point is this, that the effectual call is a
permanent call. I mean to say that when God calls
a sinner into this grace, that's forever. It's permanent. The
gifts and calling of God are without repentance, the word
of scripture says. God doesn't change his mind.
He said, I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob
are not consoled. So God doesn't call us and then
later on become dissatisfied with us and then take back or
change his call. It's a permanent call, unchangeable. One that cannot be altered. And
so a believer's condition, as far as his call of grace is concerned,
is unchangeable. It is permanent. And I'm glad
this is so. How awful it would be if God
were changeable. And I say this without going into being irreverent about
it, if God were changeable and were like we are and a giver
and then want to take the gift back sometime, wouldn't that
be awful? And Christians might fall away
and perish without hope. This is a blessedness then, that
when God calls us, watch, it is forever, for time and eternity. And it means that person is going
to be in heaven at last and be there with God and be in the
image of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that's some of the descriptions
of the call of grace, that effectual call. It's irresistible. It's a holy call. It's a precious
call. It's an exalted calling. It is
a discriminating call. It's a glorious call, it is an
uncommon call, and it's permanent, thank the Lord. Well, let's come
to one other thing here, and talk about this for just a moment.
Why we are called. Why are we called, dear friends?
Well, actually the next part of that verse tells us, doesn't
it? to them who are the call according
to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his Son." Now there are other
scriptures that put it in other ways, but comes out the same
thing. For instance, Ephesians chapter
1, the apostle puts it this way in verse 12, that we, let's read
verse 11 also, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should
be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.
So God called us effectually, dear friends, to bear witness
unto his glory, that we should be appraised to him who saved
us and called us into this way. And then we're told that in the
text too, that we're called in order to love him. Paul puts
to those who love God before he puts to those who are the
called of God first. But the calling comes first.
And only those who are actually called of God really come to
love him. No one else really loves God.
for those who are graciously and effectually called of God
to love Him. We didn't love Him until He called
us, dear friends. Let's remember that. We were
haters of God. We fled from Him, dreaded His
presence until He did in His grace do this for us. And He
called us not only to appraise Him, but to bear witness for
Him, to worship Him, and all of this, of course, is part of
that praise. and to seek to make him known
to others. As the Apostle wrote in 1 John
1, he was writing these things that we might come into a blessed
fellowship with the Father and with the Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now the way you and I make him
known, of course, is by our witness to his saving grace, giving forth
the evidences of the fruit of the Spirit within us. actually
bearing witness to Him who saved us, not claiming anything for
ourselves, assuring that salvation is entirely of the Lord, and
that He saved poor, wretched, hell-deserving sinners. This
is the only kind of sinner He saved. So then, the reason we
are effectually called is that we should love Him, praise Him,
worship Him, seek his faith, serve him, and fellowship with
him, and make him known to others. And every Christian, of course,
is growing in grace. And whether he's able to speak,
whether he's able to talk about it, lively or otherwise, yet
the image of Christ cannot be hidden in a child of God. It eventually comes out. It eventually
is made known whether you are a Christian or not. The ungodly
will see that. They'll understand that something
happened to you. Now, the last thing I'd like
to speak about for our time together this evening is the power of
God in effectually calling sinners. And for that, let us look at
John chapter 6. In verse 44, of John chapter 6, our Lord said,
no man can come to me except the Father which has set me draw
him, and I will raise him up at the last day. In that scripture
our Lord tells us that a sinner by nature is powerless to come
to Christ. He is powerless. to embrace the
Lord Jesus Christ in true faith and repentance by his own nature. Now, we do preach that all sinners
may come to Christ, and we invite sinners and plead with them to
come and command them by Scripture to come. And it's right and proper
to say, you may come to Christ, but out here our Lord Jesus Christ
is saying, you are not able to come. You're not able to come. Sometimes maybe your child will
say, can I come upstairs or do something? And you'll correct
his grammar there, will you not? You'll say, well, you may come
if you're able. And you put it right. And our
Lord Jesus Christ sets it right here. Senators may come to Christ. That is, they're invited. There's
nothing in the world keeps them from coming but themselves, their
own enmity, their hatred, and their powerlessness to will to
come to Christ. And so he said, though you may
come, and you're commanded to come, and you're responsible
to come, and you'll perish unless you do come, no sinner, no man
can come to me. without the drawing of the font. So the power of God in the effectual
calling of the center must be extended. It must be in operation
or that center will never come to Christ. You realize that,
don't you? Let's ever do that because I
feel sometimes that we think that if we present the message
in a certain way If we use the proper words, the niceties, and
we're sweet, and all of that which ought to be in courteous
and kind, and the understanding that we're going to get that
sinner in. But that isn't what brings him in, is it? It is the
power of God, through the operation of the Spirit of God, through
the Word of God upon that sinner's heart. It's good to keep that
in mind. Because a great many evangelists
and preachers today, they set themselves up as great soul winners,
and they're getting a lot of folks following. They're getting
them to office, and they're getting them into professions. But you
have to preach a certain type of gospel, which is no gospel
at all, to that kind of person. Peter tells us this. In fact,
he commands us to give diligence to make your calling and election
sure. to make your calling and election
sure. He isn't telling us there that
we can elect ourselves, as so many believe. But he's telling
us to make it sure. And the only way we can make
our election sure to ourselves is by being sure of our calling. You see that? Sometimes people
say, well, I don't know whether I'm elect or not. I don't know
if God elected me from eternity. Well, my dear friends, the question
is, Has God called you? Have you come to Him? Have you
really repented toward God and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? If that be true, you may be sure
that you're an election of grace, because God doesn't call anyone
but the election of grace. And no one comes to Him, actually,
embracing Him by faith and love. but who are called, who are the
elect of God. So let's put it clearly this
way. If you can be sure of your calling,
you can be sure you are elected. That's it. Nobody can look back
in eternity and see God choosing him. Nobody can go up to heaven
and look at the Lamb's Book of Life and read his name there. But you can, in this sense, read
your name in the Lamb's Book of Life and the electing and
predestinating love and grace of God. In this, if you know
that you're truly called of God and you are following Him, you've
really embraced Him as your God, your Lord, and your Savior. What
the Scripture is calling us to do, then, is get sound evidence
of our election, and calling is that. So if you're not called,
you're lost. If you're not called, you're
a stranger to grace. If you're not called, you're
at enmity with God. You're at enmity against God
at the present time. But if you are called, there
has been a change wrought within you. That change might be stated
by the blind man, you remember, whose eyes the Lord opened. And
he didn't know much. He didn't even know whom the
person was that opened his eyes, because the Lord put clay on
his eyes, you remember? And then told him to go wash
in the pool of Shalom, and he did it. He came seeing, and they
said, who did that? Who opened your eyes? He said,
I don't know. It was a man called Jesus, but
I don't know him. But he said this, whereas I was
blind, now I see. I was blind, now I see. And you
can say that if you're truly saved. You may not be able to
say much, but you can say, I see, I understand, he's my God, he's
my Lord, and he's my Savior. Life has come in with the effectual
call of grace. So not only that your understanding
has been open, to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, and
your ignorance and darkness had been dispelled by the light entering,
but your will has been affected, your will has been changed. Your will to begin with was contrary
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You were ever saying, I will
not, isn't that right? I will not come to Christ. I
will not allow him to ruin and rule my life. I'll do what I
want to do. I'll do as I feel led to do. For beloved, when the effectual
call of grace came, that all changed. And there was a submission
to the Lord Jesus Christ willingly. And it is then, Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do? So you have a new mind. a new
will to do what the Lord wants done, not what you yourself want. And then, of course, your conduct
changed, too, did it not? Naturally, if your understanding
of the ignorance and darkness of sin was taken away and your
will was brought in sweet submission to the Lord Jesus Christ as your
Lord and Master and your Savior, then the conduct found a change. Because conduct comes from within,
you know? Not from without to within, but
from within to out. As a man thinks it in his heart,
so is he. And those things that defile
the man, said our Lord Jesus Christ, come from within the
heart. Such as evil thoughts, adulterous murders, thefts, and
all those evil things come from within the heart. They're already
there. So then, When the will is changed, when the understanding
is wrought upon by the grace of God and the image of Christ
is stamped within, the conduct is bound as a result of that
grace and mercy to change. So your walk of your new life
is different from the walk of your former life. The Word of
God says we walked in envy, malice, jealousy. hateful and hating
one another. That was our state of nature. But how that changed when the
effectual call of grace was wrought within us. All of a sudden, that
envy and malice and hatefulness began to move out, did it not?
Well, you may say it hasn't all gone, but it's going. And there's
a lot of corruption still left, but it's going, dear friend.
And we're ever putting off the old man and putting on the new. And love is taking the place
of hate. Humility is the place of pride.
And compassion and pity is the place of envy and jealousy and
malice. And all of this is by the grace
of God. It really is. Not only is that
effectual call into salvation by the grace of God, but that
continuance in the grace of God is by the grace of God too, dear
friends. It's all of grace all the way.
So this is a wonderful call that the word of God has given us.
I want to close with the passage I read this morning and didn't
get back to, and that was Ephesians chapter 4, where the apostle said this,
I therefore the prisoner of the Lord He was a prisoner of wrong. He was in jail for the testimony
of Christ, but he says he's a prisoner of the Lord, or in the Lord,
as you would read it that way. He said, I beseech you that you
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you call. Well, what kind of
a walk is that? He describes it. With all lowliness,
that's contrary to pride, you see. Whereas we were proud beings
to begin with, now, because God has affectionately called us,
we are commanded and called to walk in all lowliness, that is,
in all humility. And meekness, what's that? That meekness is that quality
in a Christian, by the grace of God, whereby he submits to
everything that God calls him to. When the Word of God speaks,
he said, Amen to that. And with longsuffering, we're
called to this, and you have some of it if you're a child
of God, but Paul's calling to more of it. Longsuffering. Suffering long with people. Now I know it takes a lot of
long-suffering to get along with even the people of God, but we're
living in a world that hates God, and that's an enemy of God,
and yet we're to understand why they're enemies of God, and the
grace of God that's been wrought in us and not in them, and therefore
to be filled with compassion and long-suffering toward these
people, because Exercising this long-suffering to those who hate
God and hated people may actually eventuate, God willing, in their
salvation in the day of the visitation of grace to them. He says, forbearing
one another in love, putting up with one another in love.
We have to do that because we're so imperfect ourselves. We're so full of faults and sins. ourselves, even as the children
of God. And verse 3 says, endeavoring to keep, not to make, but here
he says, putting forth his effort to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. So the unity of the Spirit is
here, the bond of peace. has united all the people of
God in Christ by this effectual call of grace. And what he's
calling us to do here as the children of God is to endeavor
to keep that unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And this
is the nature of a child of God, his new nature, that he wants
peace. He didn't want to go out and
fight. He is now pugilist. He isn't a rough type of person.
He wants peace. And he'll do everything within
reason and in accord with the word of God to have peace. He will not have peace at the
expense of the truth. A Christian will not, and we're
not. Men may persecute, men may fight us, but we must, dear friends,
stand for the truth. As children of God with one another,
we seek to keep this unity in the bond of peace. It's a terrible
thing to break the peace in the family of God or in the church
of God to bring division. We must know that if we're dear
children. And that we have to put up with
a whole heap of stuff from all of us because we're not yet perfect
and we're all difficult to get along with. Now you are. You're
difficult to get along with. You are and you know that. And
I am too, and I've discovered that. Some people have told me,
but they didn't have to tell me. The Word of God tells me. And I know it in my own life.
And I know others are. But there is that endeavor, that
is that love and compassion and understanding and pity that moves
in a child of God and enables him to live at peace with others
as far as possible in the truth. Well, there then is their call,
their factual call up until this point, briefly explained. Now, the question is, have you
been called? Have you been called, dear friends?
Let's be sure that it's not just a walking to the front of the
church. It's not just some preacher calling us and saying, come forward
now and shake my hand or kneel here. And do you believe this
verse of Scripture? or even that you believe Jesus
Christ died for your sins. No, sir. You believe that, but
you know that God has moved upon your soul in a way that he has
called you to himself, and you belong to him. He bought you
with a price, and he says, I'm going to have you, and you're
his. Is that so? How happy you are
then. And if not, may the Lord extend
that call to you in his own grace and way and will, for his name's
sake. Let us now turn to hymn 273.