Open your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians,
Chapter 2. And I feel the same way. I sit
in there thanking. There's two or three men that
God has blessed me to know, like David and Jonathan. And that kind of a love that
men have for one another. And Todd's one of them. Todd
and Lynn, his family. And God's dear saints here. It's
just wonderful to be here, to be with the Lord's people. And
I always enjoy coming up here, even when I don't do so good.
I still enjoy coming. You know, if you don't take storyboard
or something, you know, so if you strike out, and I ain't got
none of them, but I certainly hope I don't strike out. I'm
like Scott Rich, I don't want to embarrass God, and certainly
don't want to embarrass myself. It is a joy to be here. I want
you to read verse 13 with me. 2 Thessalonians 2, 13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. He called
them beloved of God in Romans chapter 1, verse 7. to all that
be in Rome, beloved of God, to be loved of God Almighty, for
God to set his affection on you, for God to say, You are my beloved,
you are mine. And we are bound to give thanks
for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth. Now, why he says he is giving
thanks here is because there are some back up in verse 10
and 11 that says they love not the truth, didn't receive the
love of the truth, that they might be saved. God sends them
a strong delusion that they should believe a lie and be damned.
And then he turns around and says, God sends them a strong
delusion to be damned, but we're thanking God for you because
God chose you for salvation. He didn't leave you to believe
a strong delusion. He didn't send you a strong delusion. He
didn't send you a hatred for the truth. He does something
for you that he didn't do for those other people. And that's
why he says we're bound. Bound. Have to do it. Give thanks
to God for you. I'm going to preach this evening
and say a few things about election. Unconditional election. And if
it's election, it has to be unconditional in this matter of salvation.
And I maintain without any fear or trepidation or apology that
the gospel cannot be preached without certain elements, without
certain truths being presented to the minds of men. It just
can't do it. Without these truths of the gospel, without these
truths, the gospel is not preached. You can't preach the gospel unless
you preach man's absolute, utter ruin, total inability to please
God in any way, total inability to change his state before God.
When our Lord Jesus says, They that are whole need not a position,
but they that are sick, go ye and learn what that means. I'll
have mercy and not sacrifice. Our Lord's saying, Don't bring
me no sacrifices. Don't bring me any works. Don't
bring me anything that you've got, because nothing you can
do can make you whole. I'll have mercy. I don't want
anything you've got. I'll show mercy. And so man's
utterly and absolutely ruined. If he's not ruined, he doesn't
need salvation. He doesn't need a Savior. He
doesn't need help. And then the second thing that
you can't preach the gospel without is unconditional election. If
a man's absolutely, utterly ruined, totally unable to come to God,
totally unable to see God, know God, understand God, desire God,
then if he's going to be saved, God's got to choose him to salvation. God's got to set him apart. God's
got to do these things. And the third thing that you
can't preach the gospel without, if there's an unconditional election,
man's totally and absolutely ruined, then there has to be
a limit to the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, not limited
in his power to save. It's got power. It's got power
to satisfy God. It's got power to cleanse a man
from all of his sins. It's got power in the atonement
of Christ to satisfy your conscience, to turn the wrath of God away
from you and give you acceptance in the Beloved, to cleanse you
from all sin. The power of Christ's atonement
is unlimited in what it does for who it was shed for. But
it only has power for those for whom it was shed. And then there's
this. So if there's a limited atonement,
unconditional election, total ruin, then how in the world are
you going to take part in this? There has to be irresistible
grace. Irresistible grace. Now everybody
resists grace until irresistible grace comes and makes them quit
resisting it. I've never met anybody that didn't
resist it. Never met anybody that didn't resist it when they
first heard it. And irresistible just means it affects your calling.
If Christ shed His blood for you, God chose you, and you was
totally and absolutely ruined, God chose you, then when Christ
died for you, He's going to call you to Himself. He's going to
call you. In the day of His power, His
people are made women. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest. It's one thing to be chosen,
but how in the world are you going to be brought to God? Blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee. Causes to. And then, beloved,
the perseverance of the saints. And I maintain, without these
things being present, we are not preaching the gospel. You
can't preach the gospel. And some say that the gospel
is the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ. No,
that's not so. Those are facts. Those are facts. It's a fact Christ died. It's
a fact Christ was buried. It's a fact Christ was raised
again. That's facts. But the gospel says that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried
and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
So we're not presenting facts to men, and I hope that I'm not
just presenting a cold, hard doctrine to you, because anything
divorced from Christ, anything divorced from what He does for
His people is just a lifeless, cold thing. But, oh, this blessed
truth, this glorious truth, that's why Paul says we're bound Bound
to do it. Bound to give thanks to God for
you, brethren. Why? Because God loves you. God
chose you. And He chose you under salvation. And He done it through the sanctification
of the Spirit and believing the truth. Now, what is the cause
of the election? What's the cause of this unconditional
election? This unconditional election of
certain individuals. You know, when Todd prayed and
Bob prayed, they both said, Lord, save your people in this place.
We're not praying for the world. We're not trying to win the world.
Christ didn't die for the whole world. But what's the cause of
election? Why does some certain individual
call? Well, first of all, the cause
of election is the will of God. It's the will of God. Ain't that
what it says there, brethren? We're bound to give thanks unto
God because God hath from the beginning chosen you unto salvation.
It's the will of God to do that. Huh? God done it. Look over in
Romans 9 with me just a minute. I know you've looked at this
many times over the years. But look in Romans 9. You know,
for whom he did foreknow, Vimy also did predestinate. And whom
he did predestinate, Vimy also called. And oh, beloved, it's
God who chose us unto salvation. It's God who hath from the beginning.
From the beginning? When's the beginning? When God
said there was a beginning. And we've never been in a beginning
had not God said, let's start. There's a beginning and ending
to everything, but nothing started without God saying, this is the
day we're going to start on. There was no time at all until
God said, we're going to start time. And He started time on
the first day, and stopped it on the seventh day, and He rested.
And from then on, we've had to cross and watch it, trying to
figure out what time it is and what time we're supposed to be.
But I know that for that, God chose a people in Christ before
the foundation of the world. Way back yonder, my salvation
started. Way back yonder. And look what
it says in Romans 9. And not only this, that Sarah
would have a son, but not only this, but Rebecca also had conceived
by one, even by her father Isaac. Now watch this now. For the children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election. It just blesses me to read it.
According to election, my staff, not of works, but of him that
calleth. It was sent to her. Now, God told her, told the mama,
said, you know what? I'm going to love Jacob, and
I'm going to hate your other son, Esau. I'm going to name
that, I'm going to do something for this other, and I ain't going
to do something for that one. Ain't that what he told him? Oh. First, there's election. First,
according as He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. First thing God does is chooses. And then predestination. When you find predestination
in the Scriptures, it's always predestinated to something. To
conform to the image of Christ, predestinated to the adoption
of children, predestinated to obedience, predestinated to knowledge,
and all these things. You're predestinated to something.
But election comes first. Election comes first. Now, let
me tell you something about election. There was one who was elected
before we were elected. And let me show you that. Look
over in Isaiah 42. Now, this is what makes election so glorious
to me and so precious to me in Isaiah 42. You know, there's the head of
election. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. God was Christ. And I don't know how to say this
other than this, that God elected Christ, chose Christ to an office. He said here in Isaiah 42, 1,
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him,
he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not
cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
And he shall not fail, nor be discouraged. Now, beloved, there
is God's first elect. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, what I mean by this is that God chose Christ to be the head
of a chosen people. God chose Christ to be the head
of an elect race. Just as Adam was the head of
a fallen race, God put Christ the head over his elect race,
over a race that no man could number. They say, well, you all
think only a few's going to be saved, only a handful's going
to be saved. Well, there is a handful, but
it's God's handful. It's not our handful, and when
you measure by God's handful, it's a bigger. But nevertheless,
Christ was chosen to be head over the church, head over the
body, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things
He might have the preeminence. God chose Him to be the Savior. God chose Him to be the Mediator. God chose Him to be the Redeemer. God chose Him to be everything. God chose Him to be everything
to us. And without Him, we have nothing. And God chose us, that's why
it says, in Christ. Election's not outside of Christ.
Election's in a person. There was a body God saw before
the foundation of the world. A whole body, a whole race of
people. And Christ is going to redeem
those people and love those people and bring those people and present
a multitude to the Father eternally holy and sanctified and pure
without spot and without blemish. Oh, I'm thankful that God chose
me in Christ. Oh, bless His holy name. Had
not God gave us a Savior, there'd be no need for election. Had
not God gave us a Redeemer, no need for election. Had not God
gave us one who was shed His blood and by our sins, no need
for election. Had not God chose one to satisfy
Himself, there'd be no need of election. Had God not chose one
who was sinless, holy, harmless, undefiled, higher than the heavens,
there'd be no need for election. For I haven't been one to make
atonement for our souls. No need for election. You see
what I'm saying? Bless His holy name. Knowing,
knowing us what we were, did He stand back and say, I will
not do it. I will not be the head over that
people. I will not lay down my life for those people. I will
not suffer for those people. I will not shed my blood for
them. No, no. I delight to do Thy will. Yea,
Lord's written to me in the volume of the book. I come to do Thy
will. Oh, you see, that's where election's
at. It's in Christ. We're chosen
in Him as members of His body. Chosen in Him as the pattern
we're going to be conformed to. Conformed to the image of His
Son. Chosen in Him to the glory of Christ. That's the first end
that Christ gets all the glory. that He gets all the honor, that
we get the praise and the glory of those who first trusted in
Christ. Vessels prepared for glory. You see, our Lord Jesus
was chosen over angels. And you go through the Old Testament,
and oh my, Abraham was chosen over Abraham, and then Isaac,
then Jacob, then the twelve tribes, and then Judah was chosen, out
of whom came Christ, our Redeemer. Why does God elect certain individuals
to salvation? Why does He do it? Well, first
of all, it pleased Him to make you His people. That's the reason
why. It just pleased Him to do it.
Just pleased Him. How many times you told your
child when you told them to do something, they said, why? I
said, because I told you to. You want to know why God chooses
people? Because He wanted to. Because it pleased Him. It pleased
the Lord to make you His people. And also, it says in Ephesians
1, 6, it says, to the praise of the glory of His grace, and
thirdly, according to the good pleasure of His will. And there
are three questions you can ask anybody that just don't like
election and don't like the fact God sovereignly chooses some,
passes by others. First of all, you answer these
three things scripturally. Did you choose God, or did God
choose you? You've not chosen me, but I've
chosen you. When did He choose you? When you believed? When
you joined the Church? The Scripture says, in Christ
before the foundation of the world. Then why did He choose
you? According to the good pleasure
of His will. Huh? That suits me, don't you? Even so, Father, it seemed good
in my sight that God hid these things from the wise and prudent
and has revealed them unto babes. Oh, so let's test the cause of
election. It's the will of God and Christ, God's first elect.
Then there's the justice of election. The justice of election. How
many people object to God's electing grace? Oh, you hear objections
to it all the time. It's unjust. It's unjust. That makes God a respective person,
and my God's not a respective person. Oh, it's just not fair. It's just not fair. He's got
to give everybody a chance. What about all the good we've
done? Don't that account for something? My God, He's a God
of love. Like love is something, whatever
it is, God attains to it. He gets up there to it. But,
oh, beloved, listen. Isaiah 45, verse 9 says, Woe
unto him that striveth with his maker! Let the partridge of the
earth strive with the partridge, that all shall the thing formed
say to him that formed it, Why did you make me like this? Huh? Oh my, listen to this. God said
this, Did you think I was altogether someone like you? And we've got
to be careful never to set God's attributes against each other.
Love against His grace. or against His wrath, His sovereignty
against His mercy, His justice against His love. All of God's
attributes are manifested in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in a glorious way. And, O beloved, we don't exalt
one perfection above another. God's sovereign, no doubt about
it. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto Thy name be glory, for Thy truth's sake. They said,
Oh, Lord, where's your God at? He's in the heavens and He's
done whatsoever He pleases. And so we don't set these things
like people do. He's a respected person. It's
not fair. It's unjust. Well, let me ask you this. Can
they make good their charge? All these charges? Can they make good their charges?
Let the burden of proof fall on them. Is God unjust? Is He
unfair? Huh? Is He going to pass by you because
you've done something good and it's not right because you've
done something good? Huh? Is your God God of love and it's
not right? Let me say something. If God
is unjust in electing some to salvation, let men show how.
Let them show how. How is God unjust in doing that?
How could He be wrong to do that? I'd be like me. Going out here
and breaking the law, and then the law stops me and gets me
and gets ready to take me to jail and say, that's not fair.
And that's what men do. They stand in opposition to God
from the day they're born until the day they die, with their
fists raised in God's face, and they say, we will not have this
man to reign over us. They say, well, we don't want
a God of love. We don't want this God of sovereign mercy and
this God of sovereign grace and this God who chooses some and
pass by the others. Lawbreakers want something good
at the hands of the lawgiver. Oh, and let me tell you, beloved,
God's salvation is not a matter of justice. It's a matter of
pure grace, pure grace. He does what he wants with his
own. Thank God. It's not a matter
of district justice, but pure grace. Pure grace. Look over in Psalm 110 with me
just a moment. Excuse me, 103 in verse 10. You know that our Lord Jesus,
He went out early in the morning. gave a parable about a man who
went out to put people to work early in the morning. Went out
at 6, hired some fellows and said, if you work all day, I'm
going to give you a penny at the end of the day. Went out at 9 o'clock, hired
some more. Went out at 12 noon, hired some more. Went out at
3 o'clock, hired some more. Went out at 5. Eleventh hour
and hired some people to go to work. Well, those fellows that
started that morning, they got in line to get their penny. And
the fellow that started at 11, he got there first and the Lord
gave him his penny. That fellow said, that's not
fair. That's just not right. We've borne the burden and the
heat all day long. We have been something. We have worked. We've labored.
We've been good people. We've been faithful people. We've
done our prayers. We've read our Bibles. We've
paid our tithes. Oh, we've been good to our wives,
been good to our dogs. Oh, we've just been the best
people. And it's just not fair. We've been here all day. And
you're going to give us these fellows that's only been here
an hour the same thing? You know what he said to them?
He says, is your eye evil because mine's good? Is it not lawful for me to do
what I will with my own? And that's what folks say, they
got an evil eye. God can do what he wants. Look
here in Psalm 110, excuse me, 103, verse 10. Oh, this is what
this is. Salvation is a matter of pure
grace. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded
us according to our iniquities. Boy, if He had, where would we
be? If He had, where would we be? If He dealt with us after
our sins and rewarded us according to our iniquities, where would
we be? You know, if salvation wasn't of grace, and salvation
wasn't of the Lord, I pray thee, tell me who in the world could
ever be saved. If salvation was not of the Lord,
entirely and completely of the Lord, and if salvation is not
of the pure, free grace of God, who in the world could ever possibly
be saved? All the things that go through
our minds, all the temptations we go through, all the hard thoughts
that we ourselves have about God, all the times that we fought,
all the times that we're self-righteous, all the times that we got in
our mind, in our heart that we're going to get even with somebody,
going to take things in our own hands, all the times on and on and on,
on and on and on. And if salvation wasn't of the
Lord and His grace, is there anybody in here could be saved
at all? Huh? You know, just to not... You know, this morning I was
telling the folks that I've never gave one... I never... God's
worthy of my whole, utter, absolute being. every fiber of my being,
and yet he's never got it. He's never got it. He's never
got absolute devotion from me. He's never, ever got all the
glory from me except what he takes for himself. I've never
done anything in my life strictly, entirely for the glory of God.
So you tell me, if men want justice, and be dealt with. If God dealt
with me today, in this service, in this service, on the basis
of strict justice, I'm going to hell. But He deals with me on the basis
of what Christ did. And on the basis of His pure,
free grace given to me in Him. Huh? Oh, bless His holy name. And He hasn't dealt with me after
my iniquities and after my sins. And all right, let me move on
to another point. To whom, it's out of this unconditional
lesson, to whom has God ever refused His mercy when it was
sincerely sought? Do you ever know God ever turned
away a man who's seeking His mercy? Did you ever find anybody
in the Scriptures who came and asked for mercy? You read it
tonight. That He will turn us again. He'll subdue our iniquities.
You see, beloved, Man refuses. You know, God's more ready to
give mercy than man is to receive it. Man refuses to lay down his
weapons, divorces sin. You know, in the Civil War, when
Lee went to meet Grant at Appomattox, it was an unconditional surrender. You know what unconditional surrender
means, don't you? You don't set any conditions on it. You lost
the war. You're beaten. You're defeated.
But, you know, I'm not going to give up unless you give me
this, unless you give me that, unless you give me this other
thing. But no, no. You stack your arms right there.
Unconditional surrender. I want your sword. I want your
gun. I want everything you've got. And you're going to surrender
and you're going to own allegiance to the United States of America. World War II was over. Unconditional
surrender. Don't want you to have an army.
Don't want you to know how to Unconditional. And that's the
way it is in this matter of salvation. If God had not chosen us and
given us mercy, we'd have never stacked our arms either. Wouldn't
we? Huh? Oh, no. So, God never refuses
mercy to anybody when it's sincerely sought. You know, how many times
has somebody told us, well, somebody couldn't even get saved if they
wanted to, according to your doctrine. Well, That's the dumbest thing since. Dumb as a box of rocks, you know. And they say it's unjust for
one to be saved and for one to be lost. Who made men to be lost? You ever know God to make a man
to sin? You ever know God to make a man to do wrong? No. Has
God ever caused anyone to sin? When Adam sinned, God never made
him sin. But bless His holy name, He had
a Redeemer and a Savior before Adam ever sinned. And who made him to be lost?
Christ God sent His Son into the world that the world might
not, that those who believe on Him might not be condemned because
the world was already condemned. Already. And who makes men to
be lost? God doesn't. Man's born lost. And if God chooses to choose
some out of His fallen race, and some, when all of them's
lost, and it's like a king goes down, I'm going to adopt this
one. I'm going to adopt that one. It's my choice. And if He
leaves the other to themselves, doing just what they want to
do, how's He unjust in that? How's He unjust? And, oh, beloved. And people
say, well, He's a respecter of persons. You know, in Romans
2.11 it says that God is no respect of persons. Well, I know this, if He is a
respect of persons, He'd have never chosen me, because there
is nothing in me to respect. I know that. But when He talks
about being a respect of persons, He's talking about that nobody
impresses Him. Nobody absolutely impresses Him.
When He chose Abraham, where was Abraham at? Heathen idolatry. When they found Noah, Noah found
grace. Now, do you think he was any
different to people in his day? And look at Lot down in Sodom
and Gomorrah. Had to drag him out of there. And if God had been a respecter
of persons, he would have went and got the wise, he would have
went and got the mighty. I was helping a fellow dig a
ditch the other day and bust rocks with a sledgehammer. And
I thought, man, I told them fellows, a fellow ought to get an education,
he would have to be doing this stuff. That's why, you know,
dumb people go around busting rocks with sledgehammers. And
God wouldn't have respect to somebody who got no more sense
than that, if you take their way of doing it. God has to respect
me because I'm good. Now, we respect people's office.
I respect the President's office. I respect his office as a pastor.
I respect Bob's office. I respect Rich's office. Everybody's
office here. I respect their office. I respect
their positions. Senators and that, I may not
like them personally, but you've got to respect their office. But their persons may not be
worth the salt that goes in their biscuit. And you know, and that's what,
that's what God, let me listen to it. Mary, the mother of Christ,
has to have the same grace as Mary Magdalene, out of whom God
cast seven devils in order to be saved. Ain't that right? And that woman that's out there
selling her body is going to have to have the same grace as
you mothers who've been married to the same man, never known
anybody but one man, and raised your kids and been faithful.
It's going to take the same grace to do something for you as it
will for that heart. And that drunk that's down there
in whatever this place is around here, that you fellas here that's
work every day and provides for your family and provides a good
home for you, it's going to take the same grace to do for you
what it will for that drunk down there that's got a bottle of
Thunderbird wine stuck to his lip. So there's no difference. So if anybody's going to be saved,
it has to be God doing it. And so God's no respective person
until He had passed by all of us. And He would have went and
got somebody who's somebody. And oh my, that's That's why
they said, Don Master, we know that they aren't true. We know
that you teach the way of God in truth and you don't care for
any man's person. You don't care for any man's
person. That's the truth. That's the truth. You know whose
person he cares for. And I pray for God up here. I
said, Lord, please don't let me offend one for whom Christ
died. Oh, I don't want to offend one for whom Christ died. I don't.
Oh, I don't want to offend one for whom the Lord Jesus died. But why believe in the pre-selection?
Why believe in preaching? Well, it's distasteful. It's
distasteful. It makes the enemies out of people.
They say it hurts the church. And those who believe it, they
always get ridiculed. There was a lady who came to
the service this morning. She was there a few weeks ago
when I was gone. And she had just moved to our
community, and she called around churches and asked, you know,
looking for a place to go. And one person told her, says,
go to any church you want to in town, but this is the one
you don't want to go to. And that's what they told her.
She called to go to any church that don't make no difference.
They're all good churches, but there's one you don't go to.
So they over there, they believe that they believe in election
over there. They believe that man has no good about him whatsoever.
And when they told her that, well, she had to go. She had
to go where they told her not to. And that's, why is that?
Why is that? You know, the biggest lie the
devil's ever told to the human race was that God loves everybody. Second biggest lie was Jesus
died for everybody. And when somebody comes along
telling the truth, they just look like somebody's slapped
them across the face. They don't know where they're
coming or going. So why believe it and preach it? Well, first
of all, we believe and preach it because it's scriptural. It's
in the Bible. Huh? Brethren, beloved, knowing
your election of God. Huh? As many as were ordained
to eternal life, what did they do? They believed. You go through
the scriptures and they're full of verses with elect. Chosen,
predestinated, foreordained, preordained. Illustrations of
elections all the way through the Bible. Abel was chosen over
Cain. Enoch was chosen. Noah was chosen. Abraham was chosen. Isaac over
Esau. Jacob over all the other sons.
On and on and on and on and on you go. Election over and over. And Job and Jacob and all over
the place. Election is chosen and elected
over in the scriptures and synonyms over 100 times. In the New Testament,
you have the word believer twice. You have Christians three times,
elect fourteen times. So evidently, it's important
for God to mention it fourteen times or better. You know, when
our Lord Jesus, and this is what made the folks mad in His day,
when He first started His ministry, just started, And people said,
boy, he wasn't very wise. But the first thing he done when
he preached at Nashville, he says, you know, there were many,
many widows in Zarephath in the days of Elisha. But you know,
Elisha was only sent to one. He said, there was lots and lots
and lots of lepers in Syria in the time of man, but Elisha was
only sent to one. And they understood what he said.
You know what? They got mad at him and were going to take him
out. One minute they say, what gracious words, forth from his
lips, and the next thing they're taking him out and fixing to
throw him over a cliff. That's how quick people change.
And not only are we going to preach it and believe it because
it's Scripture, but because it glorifies God entirely. God gets
all the glory. What are we going to boast in?
What can we boast in? Who maketh it a different? What
have you got that you didn't receive? God made Christ unto
us wisdom. How are we going to know God?
Christ in Christ we're going to know Him. Made Him righteousness
unto us. Made Him sanctification. Made
Him redemption. And reason is that no flesh should
glory in His presence as it is written, no flesh should glory
in His presence. To God be the glory, great things
ye have done. And let me ask you, can we give
God too much glory? Can we? It doesn't give God any
glory to make Him gambling for the souls of men, rolling the
dice, giving folks chances. Being a checker player, you know,
now, God made a move, now you make a move. God will make a
move and you make a move. And here's the next thing you
know, whoever makes the best move, that's the one that's going
to have the glory and salvation. If you make the right move, you'll
get the glory, because God gave you a chance and you partook
of it. But oh no, that don't glorify Him. What glorifies Him
but salvation is of the Lord from start to finish. And I tell you this too, the
gospel cannot scripturally be proclaimed without preaching
election. You can't do it without preaching election. When it says
that Christ died for sinners, yes, He did. His elect, God commended
his love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. But it also says Christ laid
down his life for who? The sheep. Romans chapter 7,
excuse me, John chapter 17, six or seven times, it says, Those
thou hast given me. Ain't that right? And oh, beloved,
he laid down his life for his elect. He accomplished salvation
for his elect. And God saves on purpose. He
doesn't save by chance or accident. And the success of the gospel
is not left in my power or your power. And that is great comfort
to me. That's great comfort to me. God
shall see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And by
his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. He shall
not fail nor be discouraged. And you look at all the people
in the Scriptures. Look at Saul. who became Paul. God smote him down on Damascus
Road. And you know what Anna and I have told him right off
the bat? The God of our fathers has what? Chosen you. And then when he got a little
older and began to write, he says, Would it please God who
called me by His grace and separated me from my mother's womb to reveal
His Son in me? Oh, and how about Zacchaeus?
Looked up the tree How many other people you think is in that tree
that day? You know, if Zacchaeus is up there because he's a little
statue, that means that tree is probably full of boys, too.
Young boys climbing that tree, you know, and everybody's wanting
to see what's going on, all the commotion's going on. Climb up
there, see, Zacchaeus climbed up that tree. The Lord Jesus
stopped. I know my sheep and I call them
by name. Zacchaeus. Come down. I ain't going to do
it. I ain't going to do it until you give me one more verse and
just as I am, I'm going to hold on until I just... No, no. Man, he's skinny down out of
that tree just like that. And you know what our Lord said
to him? Today, if you'll let me, if you'll invite me, if you'll
exercise your free will and you'll be a gentleman, I'll come to
your house. No, no, he said, today I must,
I must abide at your house. He embodied himself. And not
only that, but he says, today, today salvation has come to this
house. Did you see him asking? Did you
see him begging? Pleading? No. How about the thief
on the cross? How are you going to explain
that thief on the cross apart from the electing grace of God? One thief perished. The other
thief was called, understood, called on Christ. So you can't
preach the Gospel. And when we talk about God choosing
whom He will, having mercy upon whom He will, being gracious
to whom He will, men will lose this idea, you
know, that God owes them something. They'll quit patronizing God.
Quit patronizing him. Every chance I get, I tell people
that. Every chance I get, every time
somebody starts talking about what they do, I say, what about
what Christ did? What did Christ do? And you see, beloved, Christ
is the one who saves sinners. And as long as man thinks he's
got a vestige of hope within himself, if a man thinks he's
got a ray of light in himself, And I tell you, beloved, and
had not God chosen some, all of us would have perished. There's
no doubt about that. There's no doubt about it. And
you cannot explain salvation for any man apart from God's
electing grace. It can't be done. And another
thing why we preach the blessed truth of sovereign election is
it produces true humility. It really does. Nothing so humbles
a man as when he studies and looks at why in the world would
God choose me? Why me? How can it be, how can
it be that thou, my God, should die for me? For me, Him, to death
pursuit? Why me? I've thought of this
so many times over the years. I've got a brother. You're younger
than me. We look like twins. passed by
him. My mother sitting in the nursing
home, don't know her name, don't know me, don't know any of her
children, could not tell you her own name. There she sits. And here I am
preaching the gospel. My father perished without God,
without Christ, and here I am preaching the gospel. Far back is on my father's side
or mother's side. How are you going to explain
that? You read it tonight. He made
haste. He made haste and fell on his face before God and worshipped. Worshipped. Oh God, in the sovereign
mercy, you passed by multitudes and yet you went down and plucked
a brand out of the burning. Picked a worm, a grasshopper,
a nobody, a nothing. A zero, a zip, a nothing, nada. It's Him that done it. All He had to do to let me perish
is just let me live. But from the foundation of the
world, there was a time when I would be born. And before I
was born, there was a time I was chosen. And then there was a
time that Christ would come into this world. and that Christ would
bear all my sins and all my judgment and all my wrath and everything
due me so that God, when I was born and I grew up, that God
justly could come to where I am and call me by His grace because
my sins had been atoned for, because my wrath had been borne,
justice had been satisfied, and all of that was because God from
the beginning chose me under salvation and provided me a Savior
and called me at His time. And I had absolutely nothing
to do with it. Right? And this trips me into their
boasting and vain confidence in the flesh. Because reliance
can only be on Christ. Job said it this way. He said,
He has taken the crown off of my head and stripped me of my
glory. And the blessed truth of election,
it makes men fearless. It makes them fearless. Bold. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Who's going to be against us if God be for us?
Huh? People think you ought to apologize
for God because He's sovereign, because He chooses some and passes
by others. You ought to apologize for Him. No. He ain't done nothing
wrong. We're the ones that's wrong.
He's the one that's right. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect
as Christ had died for? And oh, beloved, this blessed
truth of election, it promotes holiness. Oh, holiness of heart
and life. Shall I live in rebellion? Shall
I live in sin? Shall I lift in a high hand after
God has chosen me, set His affections on me, gave His Son for me? I
was talking to Maurice Montgomery the other day, and Maurice says
that he's got two things on his mind, just two things, stays
on his mind all the time. He says the first one is that
I can't help but thinking all the time that I want to see Christ
face to face. I want to see Him face to face.
And the second is, is that I'll be without sin when I do. He
said, I want to be done with sin. What in the world puts it
in a man's heart that he don't want to sin? that he don't want
to sin anymore, wants to be done with it. Longs for the day when
he'll never sin again. He said, 68 years I've lived
and ain't been a day went over my head that there wasn't sin.
But he said, one of these days I'm going to get up and it ain't
going to be there anymore. What puts it in a man's heart
to do that? And then this blessed truth of election promotes praise
and thanksgiving. We're bound, bound to give thanks
to God. And whenever you find men in
the Scriptures, they said, Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren, we give thanks to God for you
knowing your election. They talked about love. They
talked about sanctification and holiness. They talked about means,
the belief of the truth, sanctification of the Spirit. And of all the
blessed truths of the Bible, I think this truth of unconditional
election is the most hated and most ridiculed by man. If the world and carnal professors
hate it so much, it must be so. Satan fights truth, not error,
and he despises it. I've been around people who have
made fun of it. Talk to us, say, you think you
won God's elect? I don't know, maybe I will. A girl like that.
And I know we cannot maintain the grace of God without election. If it's of grace, it's not of
works. If it's just works, it's not of grace. And God said, I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. And ain't that sovereign mercy,
ain't that sovereign grace? What are we going to do without
the grace of God? Sovereign election. Unconditional
election. That means there was no condition
set on it. If God hadn't chosen you, you
reckon you'd have chose Him? Huh? I don't think so. Our Father.