I did choose thee. Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. I'm going to read a passage of
scripture from 2 Samuel chapter 7 verses 23 and 24 and I've entitled
this message, Discriminating Grace. I think you'll see why
I that when I read this passage of Scripture, discriminating
grace. David says in verse 23 of 2 Samuel
chapter 7, And what one nation in the earth is like thy people,
even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to Himself
that and to make him a name, and to do for you great things
and terrible, for thy land before thy people, which thou redeemest
to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods, for thou
hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel, to be a people
unto thee forever, and thou, Lord, art become their God." discriminating grace. Now I read a passage of Scripture
from the Old Testament. Some people dismiss the Old Testament
as useless and they almost think of the God of the Old Testament
as being a different God than the God of the New Testament.
The God of the Old Testament more of a God of wrath and the
God of the New Testament more a God of love and grace. But
my dear friends that's foolishness. The God of the Old Testament
is the God of the New Testament. The God of the New Testament
is the God of the Old Testament. God is as He is and He reveals
Himself in His Word and there's really no understanding of the
New Testament without the Old Testament. And there's no understanding
of the Old Testament without the New Testament. both equally
inspired by God. And you can't read in the Old
Testament and see where God did something for Israel that He
didn't do for anybody else. He drove out the Amorites, and
the Hittites, and the Canaanites, and all these other nations.
He was against them, but He was for Israel in a special way. He discriminated toward Israel. He gave them favor that He didn't
give anybody else. And this is recognized in the
Scripture. Listen to this Scripture in verse 16 when Moses is praying
to the Lord. He says, "'For wherein shall
it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy
sight? Is it not that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated,
I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face
of the earth.'" Now Moses said the people of Israel, God's people,
are separated from all other peoples. Now when David said,
what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even Israel? Our answer is nobody. is like
Israel. God discriminated between Israel
and everybody else and He did for them things that He did for
no other nation. And they're given to illustrate
discriminating grace. God's discriminating grace. How God makes a difference in
grace. And I hope by the end of this
message you'll rejoice in this. You know the very word discrimination,
causes us trouble, and indeed it should. God is no respecter
of persons. The Scripture makes that clear.
He does not show people favoritism because of something about them.
He does not show favoritism because of race, or because of looks,
or because of wealth, or because of or anything else that men
make distinctions between other men about. God's not like that
at all. God is absolutely no respecter
of persons, but He does discriminate. And if He didn't, no one would
be saved. He does show special favor for
people, and if He didn't, no one would be saved. Now, usually
when we think of discrimination, We think of the unjust or prejudicial
treatment of different categories of people, especially based upon
race, age, or sex. And indeed any kind of discrimination
like that is evil. It's sin against God and it is
wrong. But you know discrimination is
not always, doesn't always have a bad meaning. we read of a discriminating
taste or a discriminating eye, people who can tell the difference,
people who can break something down and see it where other people
might not be able to do that. Discrimination means to be able
to recognize the difference between one thing and another, and that's
very important. Now while God is no respecter
of persons, thank God He's not, He is a discriminating God. His grace is discriminating. Now what does that mean? I Corinthians
chapter 4 verse 7 Paul is speaking to believers and he says, "'Who
maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou
hast not received?' Now that tells me that if I am a believer
The reason I'm a believer is because God discriminated with
me. He made me to differ from somebody
else. He made the difference. Now this is seen throughout the
Scripture. In Genesis chapter 6 verse 5
and really the whole Bible can only be understood in the context
of this verse. This is right before He destroyed
the earth. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth. imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually." Now that's God's testimony of
mankind. Every imagination, He's not even
talking about the works right now, He's just talking about
the things that go on through the mind. Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil nonstop. And that's God's testimony of
every man. That's His testimony of me, and
that's His testimony of you. That's what we all are by nature,
by nature brought into this world dead in sins. But in verse 8
it says, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord
made a distinction. The Lord made a difference. The Lord discriminated between
Noah and everybody else. He gave Noah grace. He did something
for Noah that he didn't do for the rest of the world. What about
Abraham? When Abraham was called out,
he was an idolater, an heir of the Chaldees. And God said, I
called him alone. I didn't call other men. I just
called Abraham. What about Ishmael and Isaac?
Did God make a difference between those two men? Well, God said
regarding Ishmael, cast out the bondwoman and her son. the son
of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free
woman." What about Jacob and Esau? God said in Romans 9, verse
11, and this is a quotation from Malachi 1, for the children,
being not yet born. These two twins in the same womb
had the same mom, had the same dad, had the same upbringing
for the children. Being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. It was said
unto her, The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written,
God says this, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. Now, I've heard people say, well,
that means he loved Esau less. Does God do anything less? No. He said, Jacob have I loved,
and Esau have I hated. And before somebody gets upset
and says, how could that be right for him to love one and hate
the other? God's hatred's not like our hatred.
His hatred is with regard to his justice. Esau didn't think
God was worth a bowl of soup. He sold him for a bowl of soup.
He didn't care anything about the birthright. He didn't care
anything about God. He was utterly evil. He had no
care for God. And God's hatred of him was a
just hatred and a righteous hatred. And I'll tell you what, I'm more
amazed by God's love for Jacob than I am for his hatred for
Esau. I mean, Esau deserved the hatred of God, and I deserve
the hatred of God, and you deserve the hatred of God. Jacob certainly
didn't deserve the love of God. But oh, God said, I love Jacob. God made a difference between
Egypt and Israel. Listen to this scripture in Exodus
chapter 11 verse 7, but against the children of Israel shall
not a dog move his tongue. against man or beast, that you
may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the
Egyptians and Israel. And Israel is given to picture
God's special love for His elect. I Corinthians 4, verse 7, I've
already quoted it, now let me comment on it some. I Corinthians
4, verse 7 says, "'For who maketh thee to differ from another?
And what hast thou received." Now who, if you're a believer,
who makes you differ from another? God did. God did and God does. If you're a believer, God made
you to differ in eternal election when He chose you to be saved
before the foundation of the world, before time ever began. Ephesians 1-4 says, according
as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him. If you are
made to differ, if you're a believer and that person beside you is
not, it was the blood of Christ that made you to differ. Christ
represented you. When He walked upon this earth
and kept the Law, He did it for you. When He died on Calvary's
tree, He did it for you and put away your sins. When He was raised
from the dead, He was raised from the dead for you. I don't
believe for a second that Jesus Christ shed His blood for every
human being without exception, because He did. Every human without
exception would be saved. No, His intentions were to save
the elect. He said, I pray for them. I pray
not for the world, but for them which you've given me. He said,
I lay down my life for the sheep. Everybody's not a sheep. They're
goats. He didn't die for any goats. He only died for his sheep.
If you're made to difference, it's because God the Holy Spirit
made you to differ in the new birth. He regenerated you. He
gave you life. He gave you a new heart that
was not there before. God makes the difference. If you persevere all the way
to the end, it's because He caused you to. He makes the difference. God does in fact discriminate
in grace and the Bible does not even hint at anything different
from that. Now the message that is preached
in our day can be summarized like this. God loves you. Christ died for you. God the
Holy Spirit is knocking on your heart. But God cannot save you
unless you, as an act of your free will, decide to let Him
and allow Him to save you. He wants to save you, but He
can't unless you accept Him and make Him your personal Savior. Now, that's a fair representation
of what is preached. And I say to you that there is
no gospel or truth that, that takes away salvation by grace
and makes salvation dependent upon you, and not upon what God
does for you. Now let me ask you four questions,
and I want you to think about these questions very carefully. questions for thoughtful people.
You know most religious people, very intelligent, intellectual
people, it seems like when it comes to religion they check
their brains out at the door and just swallow anything. So
I want you to think about this. Please think about these four
questions. Now let's take Peter and Judas. We know Peter was saved, and
we know Judas was lost. Now if God desires the salvation
of all men the same, if He desired the salvation of Judas just as
much as He did the salvation of Peter, what does the will
of God have to do with salvation? If God willed the salvation of
both of them and one of them was saved and one of them was
lost, it wasn't the will of God having anything to do with their
salvation. makes the will of God meaningless in salvation. Here's another question, remember
Judas and Peter. If God loved Judas and Peter
equally because God loves all men the same, what does the love
of God have to do with salvation? If He can love somebody and they
end up in Hell anyway, one and other one he loved is saved.
It wasn't his love that saved him, it was something one did
that the other didn't do. Now if God loves all men the
same, what does the love of God have to do with salvation? Third
question, if Jesus Christ died for all
men the same, if He died for the sins of Judas and He died
for the sins of Peter, What does the blood of Christ have to do
with salvation? In reality, nothing. If Judas'
sins were paid for and Christ died for him, but he wound up
in hell anyway, the blood of Christ didn't do him any good.
Salvation was dependent upon him. And fourth, if God the Holy
Spirit calls all men the same, he's knocking on the heart's
door of every man. And some are saved and some are
lost. The same men that he's calling,
some are saved, some are lost. What does the Holy Spirit have
to do with salvation? Absolutely nothing. That entire
kind of thinking is salvation dependent upon man. Salvation
by works. Now, if you do not believe discriminating
race, you do not believe the gospel. It really is that simple. You see, the only hope a sinner
has is discriminating grace. The leper understood this. He
said, Lord, if you will, it's all up to you. There's nothing
I can do. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Now, if I don't believe discriminating
grace, I don't believe the gospel, I believe salvation is by works,
And I'm obviously not paying any attention to what the Bible
actually says. Now, why would someone object
to discriminating grace? Because many do. Well, they'll
say it doesn't seem fair for him to show favoritism. It doesn't
seem fair for him to show favoritism to one over another. But that's
just a smokescreen. That's just a smokescreen. What
somebody is really saying is, is it's not fair for him to save
somebody else and pass me by. And when I say that, I say I
deserve salvation. I deserve to be saved and it's
not fair for him to pass me by. Not only that, do I begin to
say that I'm more fair than God is and that I have, I'm sitting
in judgment on God and saying I don't like the way he is and
I don't like what he's doing. And it's saying, I'm more merciful
than God. But listen to me. Listen to me
real carefully. If it was up to me or you as
to who would be saved, we say, well, we'd save everybody. We'd
save everybody. But the reality of the matter
is, if it was up to me who would be saved, I'd be the only one. Because at some point, after
the millionth time you sin against me or anger me, I'd say, I've
had it, no more. But not God. Not God. I'm so thankful that salvation's
not in my hands and in your hands, but it's in God's hands. And
because it's in God's hands, there's a great multitude which
no man can number that shall be saved. He's redeemed a tribe
out of every kindred, tongue, and race, and people. And a lot
of folks are going to be saved because He saves. Now if I object
to this, I'm like that fellow in Romans chapter 9 when he says,
let me read it, Romans chapter 9 beginning in verse 13 where
he makes the statement, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated. What should we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? Is God unfair? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I'll have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. So then it's not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Now that completely destroys
the idea of free will. 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. Now this is who God is, my friend.
What I'm speaking of, this is who God is. Therefore hath he
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardens. Thou wilt say unto me, why does
he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will?
How can he hold me responsible for my sin and punish me if he's
the one who's hardened my heart? How can he find fault with me?
That's not fair. That's not right. And I love
Paul's answer in verse 20. Nay, but O man, who are you to
reply against God? Since when do you have the moral
authority to sit in judgment on God and say, I don't agree
with what he's doing? I don't think it's right. Now
if God ever breaks me, if He ever breaks you, instead of being
angry with His discriminating grace, we'll be crying out for
Him to save us and have mercy upon us. Now look what David
says in 2 Samuel chapter 7 verse 23 about Israel which represents
all of God's elect. And what one nation in the earth
is like thy people, even like Israel, No one is. God did something for them, whom
God went to redeem for a people to himself. Now, redemption. You'll remember the Passover.
Was the blood over everybody's door? No, it was only over Israel's
door. Now, if somebody wanted in one
of those houses that was not an Israelite, a part of the mixed
multitude, they were allowed in. They were allowed in. Anybody who wants to be under
the blood, anybody who wants to be saved by Christ only, they
can't say, well, Christ didn't die for me. He wouldn't save
me, although I wanted to be saved. That's never happened. Anybody
who was under the roof of the house with the blood on the door
was saved. And that blood was only for Israel. And the difference between a
believer and an unbeliever, redeeming work of Christ. He redeemed His
people. Now you can call it definite
atonement. He saved a definite people. You
can call it particular redemption. You can call it limited atonement.
His intentions were limited to the elect. Somebody says, I don't
like that term limited atonement. Well if you believe in free will
you limit it to man's will. Everybody believes in a limited
atonement of some kind unless you believe in universal salvation.
And you know the Bible doesn't teach that. But what this is
is substitution. He died for me. That's my hope. That's my hope. He died for me. That's my only hope. And if you
tell me he can die for somebody and they wind up in hell anyway,
you've taken away the only hope I have because the only hope
that I have is his redeeming work. He is the difference. Note, he says, whom God went
to redeem for people unto himself, and to make him a great name."
Now, why does God do this? For His own glory. Now, in my salvation, you know
who gets all the glory? God does. Christ does. All glory goes to Him, and none
goes to me. I think of that scripture in
Romans chapter 5 verse 6, for when we were yet without strength,
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Now, in that scenario,
you have somebody who's without strength and somebody who's ungodly,
and you have Christ dying for that person. Who gets the glory
in their salvation? They don't have anything to glory
in. They don't have any strength and they're ungodly. And Christ
gets all the glory. This is why God does what He
does. He does what He does to glorify Himself. And any other
Moses would be beneath the dignity and the excellency of the God
of glory, the God of the Bible. And next it says He did this
to do for you great things and terrible." Oh, the great things
that God has done for the believer. He stood as my surety before
time began and guaranteed my salvation. He became flesh. God was manifested in the flesh.
God became a man and walked upon this earth and kept the law for
me. He died for me. My sins became His sins, and
His righteousness becomes my righteousness, and He justified
me. Oh, the great things God has
done for the believer. He redeemed me. He has promised
that when I die, I'm gonna be perfectly conformed to the image
of Christ, that I'm gonna be just like him. Oh, the great
things that God has done for the believer. Oh, I can't even
describe the greatness. I could go on and on forever
about that, but I love what the Lord said to that Gadarene demonic
whom he had healed. He said, you go home to your
friends and family and tell them the great things God had done
for you. That's the message of the gospel,
the great things God hath done, not will do if I know the great
things God has done for his people. For thy land before thy people
which thou redeemest to thee from Egypt, from the nations
and their gods, for thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people
Israel to be a people unto thee forever, and thou, Lord, art
become their God. Now this is speaking of the covenant
of grace. David put it this way right before
he died, "'Although my house be not so with God, yet hath
he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things,
and sure. And this is all my salvation,
and all my desire, though he make it not to grow.'" Now here
we have the Gospel, "'Whom he did foreknow, Them He also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many creatures. 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. What shall we say then to these
things, if God be for us? Who can be against us? Thank
God for discriminating grace. Can you say that? Thank God for
discriminating grace. If He didn't discriminate, and
if He didn't do something for me that perhaps He didn't do
for somebody else, I would not be saved. The only hope any sinner
has is to discriminate grace of God. To request a copy of the sermon
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