I've entitled this message, Free
Will, Faith, and Fatalism. Free Will, Faith, and Fatalism. All three of those things are
found in this passage of scripture that I just read. These are men's
responses to the gospel. free will, faith, and fatalism. Luke chapter 19, verse 11. And as they heard these things,
he added and spake a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem
and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately
appear. Now they were very excited about
the Lord Jesus Christ at this time. They thought he was going
to Jerusalem to establish his kingdom. They'd seen the miracles
that he performed and they were excited about having such a king
who would deliver them from the yoke of Roman rule and oppression
and would bring them back to being the top dogs. Jerusalem,
Israel would be the most powerful nation in the world once again
under his kingship. They were very excited about
this and they thought he could bring this to pass because all
they saw was his fear of physical miracles. So they thought he
can do this. And so our Lord corrects that
wrong thinking. Verse 12, he said, therefore,
a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for
himself a kingdom and to return. Now, this certain nobleman is
the Lord Jesus Christ. And this far country that he's
going to is his return to heaven to receive the kingdom he had
earned while he was here on earth and he was going to return. He
was going to come back again. Isn't it wonderful to think that
the Lord is actually physically going to come back again? I love thinking about that. Now
him receiving this kingdom speaks of him receiving the rights that
he achieved from his father as absolute Lord. King of kings
and Lord of lords. He's going to receive this kingdom. Oh, the lordship of Jesus Christ. You know, he earned something
by coming here. Listen to this scripture from
Revelation. I mean, Romans chapter 14, verse eight. For to this
end, Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be
Lord. both of the dead and the living. You see, He's everybody's Lord.
He's the dead's Lord. They might not know it, but He
still is. And He's the living's Lord. His Lordship, I love, I
just, He's Lord of creation. That means all things were made
by Him and for Him. He's Lord of Providence. I love
what the disciples said. What manner of man is this that
even the winds and the seas do obey him? You see, everything
that's taking place is acting in obedience to his sovereign
will. Most especially, he's Lord of
salvation. Oh, I love the way the leper
understood that. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. He is the Lord. And he's gone
to receive this kingdom and to come back. Now, verse 13. He called his 10 servants and
delivered them 10 pounds and said unto them, occupy till I
come. I'm going away and I'll be coming
again. You occupy till I come. Once again, he will return. And he's delivered to his servants
these 10 pounds and said, occupy, gain by trading until I come. You see this one who is Lord
is a God of means. And everything he does, he does
through the means he employs to bring about his purposes. Now, he has given us a pound. Everybody in here, you've been
given a pound. You've been given a mind. You've been given ability. You've been given resources for
the advancement of his kingdom while he's gone. And he says,
occupy. You take the pound I've given
you and occupy until I come. Read my word. Hear my word preached. Preach
the gospel. Support the gospel. Having been
shown mercy, be merciful. Having been forgiven, forgive. Be light, be salt. Be a witness in this world until
my return. Occupy until I come. Now that's the watchword for
me and you this morning. Occupy until I come. Now, there are three responses
to our Lord saying he's gone to receive a kingdom to himself,
his absolute Lordship, and he's going to come back and you occupy
until I come. There are three responses. The
first response is that of free will. We will not have this man
to reign over us. There's the response of man's
free will. The response of faith is verse
16. Then came the first saying, Lord,
thy has gained 10 pounds. Now, what
I want us to notice is the absence of the word I. Lord, I have, through my diligence
and my efforts, been very careful in how I use your pound, and
look, through my use of means, your pound has gained 10 pounds.
He didn't say anything like that, did he? Just, I love the simplicity
of this, thy pound. thy pound hath gained ten pounds. The absence of the word I. And
here is the response of fatalism. Verse 20, And another came, saying,
Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in
a napkin. For I fear thee, because thou
art an austere man. Thou takest up that thou layest
not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. I'm giving your
pound back safe and sound. Now there we have the three responses
to the gospel. And I want us to judge and see
which response is ours. First, free will. It's found in verse 14. But his
citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying, we will not
have this man to reign over us. What do men mean when they speak
of free will. These people thought they had
a free will. They thought, we're not going to let him reign over
us. We will not have this man to reign over us. Most people think it's a given
that man has a free will. It's just a given. And by that,
they mean Man's will is the deciding factor
in man's salvation. That's what is meant by free
will. Man's will is the deciding factor in man's salvation. God wants you to be saved. The
devil does not want you to be saved. And your salvation is
dependent upon the choice of your will. If you choose to let
God save you, you'll be saved. If you choose to not let God
save you, then you'll end up having to go to hell. God loves you, Christ died for
you and wants you to be saved, but as to whether or not you're
saved, your will is the determining factor. Now that would accurately
describe most of what goes on under Christianity. Is that a
caricature or is that an accurate representation? That is an accurate
representation. And I love what Martin Lloyd-Jones
used to say to something that was wrong. Tommy rot. Tommy rot to all that. There
isn't any gospel. There isn't any truth to it. None at all. Now, let me tell
you what's behind this belief of free will. According to verse
14, it's a hatred of the king. His citizens hated him. That's what's behind free will.
A hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ and a hatred of his reign. I think it was in Sunday school
I said this, men don't hate a Christ that they can control. Everybody's
fine with that Christ. But the Christ who has absolute
control, the one who rules and reigns right now, that is the
Christ that men hate. Now, the reason behind this belief
in free will was hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ, not really wanting him to reign,
and a very high opinion of man's will. and his power. We will
not have this man to reign over us. You know, we can almost laugh
at that, can't we? He's going to reign whether you like it
or not. Now, free will is an absurdity. There is no such thing. Your will is controlled by your
nature. God's will is controlled by God's nature. God has a holy
nature. He can't lie. He can't sin. He can't choose to do that which
is wrong because His will is controlled by His awesomely holy
nature. There is no such thing as free
will even with God. His will is controlled by His
nature. And man's will is controlled
by his nature, a sinful, wicked nature. Now, I've heard people
talking about man being a free moral agent. You ever heard that
word? A free moral agent. Well, man's not free. He's a
slave. He's not moral. He's immoral. He's not an agent, he's a servant
of the devil. That's what all men are by nature. The very idea of free will is
ridiculous. And to say man has a free will
is to say that he's free from God's sovereign will. That makes
man in control and not God. If you believe you have a free
will, that means you believe your will's sovereign over God's
will. That means you think you have control over him. Now, if
I believe in man's free will, I deny God's sovereign will. And let me say this once again.
I want to be unmistakable about this. The belief in free will is evil
and rebellious. It's contrary to the gospel.
And if you believe you have a free will, you have a pygmy, worthless
God who is not worthy of worship, a false God and idol. That's just the truth. A God that cannot save. But here's
the bottom line when we talk about free will, what's scripture
say? Listen to this scripture, Romans
chapter 9. Well, go ahead and turn with
me there, because I want you to see it too. It's not just me quoting.
I want you to read it with me. Romans chapter 9, verse 16. So then, it is not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. We're free will there. I love
what John said in John 1 12 and 13. But as many as received him,
to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even
to them which believe on his name, which were born, not of
blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man,
but of God. James 1.18 says, of his own will
begat he us through the word of truth. Now, these men said,
we will not have this man reign over us. What happened? Verse 15, and it came to pass
that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, Now, they
didn't want him to have this kingdom and they said, we're
not going to have it. Did that stop it? Absolutely not. He received the kingdom. They didn't want him to, but
they didn't have any choice. I love to, I love to think of
somebody saying to the Lord, we're not going to have you reign
over us. You don't have any choice. He does reign. and you're in
his hands. Well, I don't believe that. That's
all part of his sovereign purpose. He's in control of everything
and everybody and every thought that goes through your mind.
He is Lord. Verse 16, here we have the response
of faith. Verse 16. Now he's come back,
verse 15, and it came to pass that when he was returned, having
received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be
called unto him to whom he had given the money, that he might
know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the Pharaoh
saying, I love this, this is so important. They didn't say,
Lord, I've taken what you've given
me. And through the diligent use of means and all my effort,
I've been enabled to take this pound you've given me and gain
ten pounds out of it. You know, faith just wouldn't
talk like that. Not real faith. Because faith knows that salvation's
of the Lord. The simplicity of this statement,
thy pound. Thy pound. That's all that needs
to be said. Thy pound. hath gained ten pounds."
The fellow with five pounds said the same thing. I pound hath
gained five pounds. Now, when it comes right down
to it, what these fellows did is they did what the master told
them to do. He said, occupy till I come. They occupied. He said, believe
my gospel. You know what they did? They
believed. They believed. Trust my son. They trusted his son. Love one another. They loved
one another. Preach the word. They preached
the word. Repent. They repented. Forgive. They forgave. Give. They gave. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel. They went into all the world
and preached the gospel. But were they thinking the things
they did? No, didn't even enter their mind. Didn't even enter
their mind. Viper. hath gained ten pounds."
Now this is what we call the obedience of faith. Faith hears
the word and faith obeys. The best example of this, I think
in the scripture, and the scripture gives this as the great example,
is Abraham. Abraham. God said to Abraham, take now
your son, your only son, who you love, and offer him up as
a burnt offering to me on a mountain that I'll tell thee of." Can
you imagine hearing that command to you? What did Abraham do? He did what God told him to do.
He took the fire, he took the wood, and he knew his son was
gonna be the lamb for the burnt offering. And off they go up
the mountain to obey God. Now, you think, could I be obedient
to that command? Well, let's look at Abraham's
obedience. God promised him the Messiah is going to come through
your son. And Abraham believed God. He simply believed what God said.
And so when God said, go kill your son, he believed that God
would raise him from the dead. If he would have said, no, I
can't do that, then your promise won't come to pass. All he would
be saying by that is I don't believe you. This would mess
up what you're saying. But when he showed his willingness
to kill his son, knowing that God would raise him from the
dead, and remember he said, I and the lad go yonder and worship
and will return to you. He told those people that. He
really believed even then that God, after he killed him, God
would raise him from the dead. So he did what God said to do. Now, if you believe the same
thing Abraham did, you'll do the same thing Abraham did. you
will do what he did. When he says, trust my son only
as everything in salvation, you know what you're gonna do? You're
gonna trust his son only as everything in salvation. When he says, preach
the word, you're gonna preach the word. This is the obedience
of faith. Lord, thy pound hath gained 10
pounds. Now it's interesting, I read
several commentaries on this and they were talking about the
ten and the five, it's talking about different rewards in heaven.
Some are going to get to reign over ten cities and some are
only going to get to reign over five cities. If you look at Matthew's account
of pretty much the same parable, he said he gave them pounds according
to their several ability. Some may have 10 pounds worth
of ability. Some might have 5 pounds worth
of ability. But whatever it is, it's what
God gave. It's what God gave. It doesn't make any difference.
And just the very use of rewards in heaven is a complete denial
of the gospel of grace. I wish men would quit doing that,
don't you? I mean, it's just, why do we
want to put a work in anywhere in salvation? Well, at least
I earned a, I get to reign over 10 cities and you only get to
reign over five. You know, that's so contrary
to the gospel. But it does teach that people
are given different abilities and they're expected to use what
abilities God gives them. So first we have free will. We will not have this man reign
over us. And we see how ridiculous free will is. And then we have
faith. Thy pound hath gained ten pounds. Now look in verse 20. Here we have fatalism. And another came saying, Lord,
behold, Here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin. Now, as soon as we see the word
I, we know it's suspect, don't we? As soon as we see the word
I. I, I, I. You can just bet whenever I is
used, it's wrong, unless it's I'm the chief of sinners. Another came saying, Lord, behold,
here is thy pound, which I've kept laid up in a napkin, for
I feared thee. because thou art an austere,
harsh man. You're absolutely sovereign.
You do whatever you want, and there's not a thing I can do
about it. You take up where you didn't lay down, and you reap
where you did not sow." Now, here's what this man is saying.
He's saying, Lord, I knew you were sovereign, so I didn't do
anything with that pound that you told me to occupy with. I
wasn't going to take a chance of messing anything up, because
I knew you're sovereign. I laid it up in a napkin. I know
works don't enter anywhere into salvation, so I didn't work.
I didn't read the Bible. I didn't hear according to your
command. I don't want to be legalistic about that. I don't want to be
legalistic about hearing the gospel. I don't want to do anything
like that, so I'm not going to do anything. Here's your pound,
brought back the way you gave it to me. I didn't try and pray
or witness because I know you're sovereign. I didn't seek to do
what you said to do because I can't. I'm a sinner and I won't be so
presumptuous as to do what you tell me to do. Can you see where
this man's coming from? And look at the way he speaks
so harshly of the Lord. He didn't love his sovereignty.
He said, I knew you're a harsh man. You're an austere man. You reap where you didn't sow.
He's actually, he's also all of a sudden become the Lord's
judge. He's judging the Lord. He's saying, you reap where you
don't sow and you lay down where you didn't put it there. It's
not right. He was showing what he really
thought of the Lord. He didn't rejoice in his kingship,
in his lordship. He makes a harsh accusation against
the Lord, and it's all a lazy excuse to be a do-nothing. That's
all it is. It's an excuse. This is, I don't
believe in works, therefore I'm not going to do anything. I'm
not going to, I'm not going to, that works are out. I'm just
going to, here's your pound back. I didn't occupy, like you said,
because I knew that was works. What corrupt reasoning. What
corrupt reasoning. It's fatalism. Fatalism. What will be, will be. Nothing
I can do about it. Therefore, I'll just wait and
see what happens. And here's your towel or your pound back. Now, it's interesting how what
this man says about the master, nothing could be further from
the truth. For I feared thee because thou
art an austere man. Thou takest up that thou layest
not down and reapest that thou didst not sow. And you know,
I love this. The Lord will meet me and you
on the ground we come to him. If you want to come to him on
that ground, he'll meet you on that ground. If you want to come
to Him on the ground of pure, free, sheer mercy and grace,
He'll meet you on that ground too. He'll meet you on the ground
that you come to Him. And He says that much to this
man. He said in verse 22, out of thine
own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. He knew
this man for what he was. You can't fool the Lord. We can
use all kinds of religious talk about God's sovereignty and so
on, but he sees the heart and he knew that this man had no
true bowing before Him and worshiping Him for who He was. He could
see right through this man. He said, O, He said, Out of thy
wicked heart, out of thy own mouth will I judge thee, thou
wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking
up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow. Wherefore
then givest not thou my money into the bank? At my coming I
might have required my own usury. You knew this. And He said unto
them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to
him that hath ten pounds. And they said unto him, Lord,
he hath ten pounds, for I say unto you that everyone which
hath shall be given. Do you have Christ? You're going to be given every
blessing of God's salvation. Nothing will be withheld. He
that hath shall be given. I was preaching at a funeral
Monday, and I ended up saying, if all you have is Christ, is
that enough? Yes, if He's all you got. And
if He's all you got, you're going to be given and given and given. Oh, he's so gracious. And from him that hath not, even
that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies,
verse 27, those mine enemies, which would not that I should
reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me. Now,
is that the way the Lord would talk? The Lord Jesus? Yes. Yes. Those mine enemies. You see,
someone that does not love his will and his reign, they are
his enemies. They are his enemies. And you
know what he says with regard to all of his enemies? Bring
them hither and slay them before me. Now the gospel is about the
kingship of Christ. You know, He's called the Eternal
King. Now unto the King Eternal, Immortal,
Invisible, the only wise God, Jesus Christ is God's Eternal
King. The King of Kings and the Lord
of Lords. He's the King. And when He came
to this earth, He came, yes, as a Savior, but He never quit
being King. Yes, he came to be made flesh,
but he never quit being king. He lived as a king. He died as
a king. I love it when they came to arrest
him. Whom seek ye? Jesus of Nazareth, I am. And
they went backwards, falling backwards. He's letting them
know, I'm no victim in this thing. I'm in absolute control of you
right now while you're arresting me. Pilate said, don't you know
that I have power to crucify you, and I have power to release
you? He said, you could have no power at all over me, except
it be given thee from above. You see, he's the king. Even
when he died, when he died, he gave death permission to come
and get him. Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit. He's the only one to ever do
that. Death couldn't even come until
he gave it permission. And oh, he was raised as a mighty
conquering king. I love to think of the king opening
up his eyes in that tomb, don't you? And that stone being rolled
away. And him walking out as a mighty
reigning king. And Him ascending back to glory,
as the King of Glory, Psalm 24 says. And right now, as a great
King, He is the intercessor for all of His people, controlling
everything that happens in Providence. And beloved, one day, He will
return as King. And everybody's going to see.
Now, what is my response? When God looks in my heart, what
is my response to his kingship? Well, some will say, we'll not
have this man reign over us. Sorry, he does, whether you like
it or not. Some say, Lord. That's the response of the heart.
Lord. You see, he's the Lord and he's
my Lord. As Thomas said, my Lord and my
God. He's the Lord and he's my Lord. Thy pound has gained 10 pounds. No Speaking of my merit or anything
I've done, thy pound. Salvation's of the Lord. And
everybody who believes knows that and responds just like that. I is not in their testimony.
It's just not there because they know enough about themselves
to know it doesn't belong there. Salvation is of the Lord. And
then you have that one who said, Lord, here's your pound that
I kept in a napkin. I know you're absolutely sovereign.
Therefore, I wouldn't dare do what you told me to do. I wouldn't
dare hear the gospel or preach the gospel. No, that'd be works. I'm not going that direction.
That's legalism. No, here's your pound right back. It's yours. Take it. And what does the Lord
say to him? He says, you wicked servant. And in Matthew's account, it
says you wicked and slothful servant. Oh, I want to be in
that middle group, don't you? I don't want to be on the free
will. Oh, no, not that free will bunch,
not that fatalistic bunch. I want to be of faith. Lord,
die pound. Free will, faith, and fatalism. Which one is it with you? Let's
pray. Lord, we're aware of how easily
we can deceive ourselves. Lord, deliver us from deceiving
ourselves. Deliver us from being deceived. And Lord, may each one of us,
by your grace, exercise the obedience of saving faith, looking only
to your Son. Lord, we pour contempt on free
will. And we pour contempt on fatalism. And Lord, we ask in Christ's
name that you would deliver us from them both. This is above the strength and
energy of the flesh. We ask that you would do this
for us and in us for Christ's sake. In His name we pray, amen.