2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and
I want to begin reading in verse 1. If you have a few Bibles,
you'll find it on page 1290. I hope you follow along with me
in your Bibles. Verse 1, Now we beseech you,
brethren, by the comment of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our
gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in
mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by
letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let
no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come,
except there come a falling away first. And that man of sin be
revealed, the son of perdition, the son of destruction, who opposeth
and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshipped, so that he as God setteth in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God. Remember you not that when I
was yet with you, I told you these things, and now you know
what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his day, in his
time. For the mystery of iniquity doeth
already work. Only he who now restrains, he
who hinders, he who letteth, will hinder until he be taken
out of the way. And then shall that wicked be
revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all
power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness and
unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for
this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie, that they might all be damned who believe not
the truth. but had pleasure and unrighteousness. I tell you, if men are damned,
they deserve to be damned, don't they? Men don't receive the love
of the truth, and there's only one alternative to be damned,
for the lie. But here's my text this morning
in verse 18, But we are bound to give thanks always to you,
always to God 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. Were unto he called you
by our gospel to the obtainment of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ, therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions
which you have been taught, whether by word or epistle. Now our Lord
Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved
us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through
grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word
and work." Greg, you can adjust this mic if you need to. We've
been having a little bit of difficulty with our mics, and I don't want
to hurt anyone's ears. My subject this morning, you'll
find it really here in my text in verse 13, thanking God for His electing
love. And maybe we'll just say it like
this, to make it just a little clearer, thanking God for His
election. That's what He says in verse
13, isn't it? But we are bound to give thanks
to God, for He hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. God has chosen you to salvation. That's His election. That's my
title. Sometimes I have difficulty picking
out a title for a message, and I've put that burden on Brother
Larry for years now. And I told him the other day
I was going to take the responsibility and start putting titles to these
things so he wouldn't have to be concerned about it. So, Brother
Baker, you've got my title, and it's found in the text. thanking
God for His election. We are bound to give thanks to
God. Not just for you. He was thankful when He saw them
growing and abounding in love and in faith. And no doubt, He
thanked God for them. But our text says, I thank God
for what He's done. He's chosen you to salvation. My text gives us, first of all,
the definition of election. What is election? Well, God choosing
people to salvation. God hath chosen you to salvation. That's what election is. God
choosing. God chooses men to offices all
the time. He's still doing that. I believe
He chose me to be a pastor. He chose Aaron to be the first
high priest, didn't He? He chose David to be a king.
He chose Paul to be an apostle. So God chooses men to offices
all the time. But this is not talking about
God choosing men to an office. This is talking about God choosing
men to salvation. God hath chosen you to salvation. "'Tis not that I did choose thee,
for, Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse
you, but thou hast chosen me.'" It doesn't say that God looked
down through time and saw that we'd choose ourselves. That's
not the election the Bible teaches. The election the Bible teaches
is God choosing. It's God's choice to salvation. God hath chosen you to salvation. And you know why He can do that? Because salvation belongs to
Him. Salvation is not only of the
Lord. Salvation belongs to the Lord,
the Bible says. It's His. And did He not say,
Shall I not give of mine to whomsoever I will? So we find out election
is this, it's God choosing to salvation. He had from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. The text tells us something else
about election and it's personal. Election is personal because
He said God has chosen you. You as individuals. Now we know
sometimes that God saves groups of people. On the day of Pentecost,
He saved 3,000 men at one time. When He saved the Philippian
jailer that night, He saved this whole household. Everybody in
this house was saved. But you know He saves them as
individuals. He may save 3,000 people, but
He'll save them each and every one as individuals. They all
are brought to repentance. They all are brought to believe
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an individual thing, isn't
it? God hath chosen you to salvation. Well, that makes it personal,
doesn't it? We say that salvation is personal, and it is a personal
thing. I must repent myself. I must
believe the gospel myself. I must live for the Lord myself. I must die myself. I must face
Him at the judgment for myself. Salvation is a personal thing,
and so is election. So is election. It's a personal
thing. It's God personally choosing
an individual to salvation. Someone made the statement that
God just chose the church. Well, of course God chose the
church. But more importantly, He chose the individuals that
would make up that church. You know, the body of Christ
is made up of individuals, isn't it? And God sets those members
of that body in the body as it pleases Him. And He not only
sets them in there in time, but He chose every member of that
body that would ever make up that body. The Apostle Paul said
this, You are the body of Christ and members in particular. For as the body, as our body,
is one and yet hath many members, so also is the body of Christ. We're just one body. I'm standing
before you this morning and I'm just a body. But I've got all
kinds of members. There's fingers. There's hands. There's arms. Legs, there's toes,
there's eyes, there's ears, there's a nose. There's many members
in a body. And Jesus Christ's body is the
same way. He has one body, but He has many
members in that body. And God has chosen the members
that would make up that body. Now what does that tell us about
election? There's no small number that
God chose. Brother Mahan used to say when
people said, well, you're telling us that God just chose a handful?
And Henry said, it depends whose hands you're talking about. He
has a big hand. He chose many, many brethren
to bring unto glory. I want you to turn over to Psalms.
I want you to hold my text there in 2 Thessalonians, but I want
you to look over in Psalms chapter 139. David is speaking about the body
of Jesus Christ here, and I want you to look at it in Psalms 139,
and look in verse 14. God has set the members. If you're
in the church this morning, you're a member of Christ's body. And
God has put you in Christ as a member of that body. You are
the body of Christ and members in particular. But before that
body was ever made up, God put all the members of that
body, put their names in a book. I want you to see that in Psalms
139, and look in verse 14. I will praise Thee, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Thy works, and
that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from
thee when I was made in secret, curiously wrought in the lowest
parts of the earth. Thine eye did see my substance,
yet being unperfect, the word means unformed, and in thy book
All my members were written, which in contingence were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them." Now notice what David
said about a body. He said, I am fearfully and wonderfully
made, and I was curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. What takes place when a little
baby is conceived in his mother's womb? A body is being formed,
isn't it? And David could have been included
in that. Nobody sees that. But a little
body is formed. Only God knows all the members
of that baby. He could be speaking of that,
but it's not limited to that. Could be speaking about the body
of Jesus Christ. When He was conceived in Mary's
womb by the Holy Ghost, God saw His body, didn't He? There laying
in His mother's womb. But you know what most people
say this means, and I think it means this too. This is the mystical
body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the members that would
make up His spiritual body. This is His church. And what
did He say about those members? Look in verse 16 again. In thy
book all my members were written, even when there was none of them.
In other words, God wrote down in His book everyone who would
make up the members of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't
we read about the book of God? Don't you read in the Scriptures
about the book of life? It's called the book of life
of the Lamb. And what do we read about that
book? All the names of those who will ever be saved are written
in that book. Isn't that a marvelous thing?
That's a cause of rejoicing, isn't it? The Lord Jesus sent
out 70 disciples to preach the gospel and to heal all manner
of sickness and to cast out devils. And those 70 disciples went out
and preached to people. They healed the sick. They cast
out devils. And they come back and they were
amazed. And they said, Lord, we can't believe it. When we
start preaching that the kingdom is coming, people are healed. And we see somebody that has
devils that we say in the name of Jesus Christ come out of them,
and the devils are subject to us in your name. And you know
what the Lord told them? He said, don't rejoice in that,
that the devils are subject unto you, but rejoice in this, that
your names are written in heaven. That's what He's talking about
here, isn't it? That's what he's talking about. It's a personal
thing. Those who will ever be saved,
those who will ever repent and believe the gospel, their names
have already been written down in the book of life. That's how personal this is.
God hath chosen you to salvation. You. He wrote your name down
in the Lamb's Book of Life. So we see two things about this
in our text. We see it's God doing it. He
chose you. We see it's personal. He chose
you. And something else now let's
look at, look back over again at our text. In 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2 and verse 13, the third thing we see about our text is
this. When did God choose? This is very important, isn't
it? When did election take place? When were the names of all the
chosen written down in God's book? He tells us here in verse
13. Look at it again. We are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brother and beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation. When did God choose them to salvation? He says, from the Beginning. From the beginning. There's different
beginnings in the scripture. We read about the beginning of
the gospel of Jesus Christ. When He come and begin to preach
Himself, they call that the beginning of the gospel of Christ. We read
about the beginning of creation, don't we? In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth. But we read in the Bible about
another beginning, too. We read about it in John chapter
1 and verse 1. Listen to this. In the beginning
was the Word. The Son of God is called the
Word. The same was in the beginning with God. And He was God. And the Word was made flesh.
And listen, listen. All things were created by Him. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. There is a beginning that is
eternal. The old Hebrew writers and Hebrews
used to talk about before time. Anything that took place before
the foundation of the world, they put it like this. That's
eternity. That beginning is eternity. The beginning. Listen to Proverbs
chapter 8 and 22, and this explains it better than I can. He's speaking
here of the Son of God. Listen to this. The Lord possessed
me in the beginning of His way. Does God have a beginning? God
possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works
of old. Now listen to this. I was set
up from everlasting, from the beginning. or ever the earth
was. There is a beginning that is
not a beginning. It's eternal. And the only way
the Hebrew word and the Hebrew phrase could tell us what that
meant was just, there's no beginning to that beginning. And the beginning
is eternal. So when we read in our text here
that God hath from the beginning chosen you, He's saying this,
God from eternity. has chosen you. In the beginning
of eternity, God has chosen you. That's amazing, isn't it? The
eternal God who has no beginning of days. From everlasting to
everlasting. Back in eternity. That knows
no beginning. He chose you to salvation. We sing that old song. We don't
sing it. I hum it sometimes, but people sing that old song,
when Christ was on the cross, you were on His mind. That's
a wonderful thought, isn't it? When He hangs suffering on the
cross, you were on His mind. But here's something even more
wonderful than that. You dear believers here this
morning, you dear children of God here this morning, think
of this. Back in eternity, when the child
whom God dwelt alone, full and free and self-sufficient in need
of nothing. You were on His mind then. And it's back in eternity that He
chose you to salvation. When He dwelt alone and nobody
was with Him and He needed nothing, He chose you then to salvation. He wrote your name down in the
Lamb's book of life back in eternity. Is it Revelation chapter 17,
verse 8 that tells us that their names were in the book of life
before the foundation of the world? When did election take
place? Before the foundation of the
world. My little brain falls and fails. Wayne said this morning before
this great and humble truth, that the Everlasting Father,
the Infinite God, who is eternally different from all His creatures,
had not only purposed salvation at a great cost to Himself, but
listen to this, He purposed all of those whom He would give that
salvation to, He chose them to it. Oh, this humbles me at His
feet. Doesn't it you? Doesn't this
strip you of any human merit? Doesn't it shame you out of self-salvation? Doesn't it make you afraid to
trust in anybody or anything but in the covenant God of all
grace? Oh, what a humbling and stripping
thing this is. It puts such value upon this
great truth that all our hearts can do is bow with this great
apostle and say, we thank you for your election. We thank you
for your election. Boy, let me stop here, brothers
and sisters, to say this, without it, there is no hope of salvation.
There is absolutely no hope of salvation. apart from God's election. Those who are left out of this
election, sin will overwhelm them. They have an enemy, Satan
will overwhelm them. I just read it to you, didn't
I? It's not that those that God left out that He damns without
cause. Election does nobody any harm. But I'm telling you, those who
are left out will destroy themselves. Sin will overwhelm them. They'll
receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. They'll
make their own damnation, sure. Oh, don't you praise God then
for His election. Don't you thank Him for His election.
In a nutshell, this election seals the eternal happiness and
salvation of those He has chosen. And that brings me to this point.
My fourth point this morning is this. Back in our text, the
evidence of election. I tell you, if there's a such
thing as election, I want to know I'm one of them, don't you?
I want to know that I'm one of them. I want the evidence, the
God-given evidence that I'm one of them. And look here what he
says in our text again. Let's just read it again. Give thanks always to God for
you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. And notice this, how does He
say, through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth, were unto He called you by our gospel. What's the first
evidence that God has chosen a person to salvation? He calls
them by His gospel. The blessed Holy Spirit comes
to them and He begins to set them apart and reveals to them
the truth and they believe it. I remember one time I was preaching
on election and calling and there was a A dear primitive Baptist
man there, and while I was preaching on election, he was just rejoicing,
calling, Amen. He just wouldn't keep quiet,
Amen, Amen. And I got off on calling, and
the poor man bailed out on me. They say election is salvation. You may be elected to eternal
life and never know about it until you get to heaven. But
that's not so, brethren. Election is unto salvation. And those that God has elected,
He calls. He begins to work in them. We
can say it something like this. This is why we say salvation
is of a triune God. The Father chose those He was
going to save before time. And then in time, He sent His
Son to bear their sins and to redeem them from sin. To accomplish
redemption for them. But it doesn't end there, does
it? The Holy Spirit comes in time to them, and He begins His
work of grace in them by saving them and giving them grace to
believe. Peter says it like this, Make
your calling and election sure. Now why does he reverse the orders
of that? We know election comes before calling, we just saw here. But Peter says, make your calling
sure. Make sure that God has called
you. Make sure that He's taught you the Gospel of Christ. If
you'll make your calling sure, you don't have to doubt your
election. Because who is God calling but
the elect? He's calling them effectually,
isn't He? Hold that quickly and turn over to 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1. The Apostle Paul makes this clear
here. Look at this. 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1. And look what he says in verse
4. Knowing, brethren beloved, your
election of God. You know it. You know it. It's not that you can go up to
heaven and see your name written in the book of life, but you
can know it. How can you know that God has
chosen you to salvation? Look in verse 5. For our gospel
came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. as you know what manner of men
we were among you." He said, you can know your election because
the gospel came to you. You didn't go get it. You were
just setting one day. You were at work one day. Or
you heard this great apostle preach. You were just there going
along living your life in sin. And the gospel came to you. That's why we just keep preaching
it, Brass. We keep preaching it. Because
it just keeps on coming. And Paul said, it came to you
in word. What does he mean by that? Well, he means that you
understood it. Somebody presented you with the
gospel. Brother Larry's been teaching
on the seed that was sown on good ground. And it's those that
heard the gospel and understood it. And what he's saying, the
Word come to you and you heard it and you understood the Word.
What did they understand? Well, Paul tells them what they
understood. In 1 Corinthians 15, he said, I preached unto
you, first of all, that which I received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the gospel. And he said this coming
Word. I spent all my teenage years,
and I'll be honest with you, the first time was I confronted
with this in my heart, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had died
for my sins. I'm sure somebody told me that.
I'm sure I'd probably read that in the Bible. But it never dawned
upon me, Bruce, the Son of God has died for your sins. And to understand that is to
know something about sin and deed, is it not? Well, there
are different ways that we are made to see the exceeding sinfulness
of our sin. But I tell you one way that God
lets us see it, and when we see the bleeding Savior upon the
cross, bearing our shame. He was wounded for our transgression. Did you ever see that? He was
bruised for our iniquity. What did it take to save me from
sin? A bleeding, dying Savior. How awful my sins must be! How
shameful my sins must be that He took such a sacrifice. Oh,
you're here this morning and this has never dawned upon you.
May God this morning let you understand this. May He open
your heart to see the shame of your sin that the Son of God
would have to suffer Remy told me one time he went
home from the morning service, and he said, I went home and
I was sitting there on my bed, and I was thinking about the
cross, and he said, in the light of that, I saw how awful my sins
were. Paul said, this gospel came to
you in word. Christ died for our sins. But notice, he said, it didn't
come in word only, but notice this, it came in power. That's
what the gospel is, isn't it? It's the power of God to salvation. It comes with force, irresistible
force. You can't resist it. You will
not resist it. Power. I was looking up this
word, power, here in verse 5. And it's translated different
ways in the Bible. Now, I started looking at some
of the other ways it was translated. And another place it's translated
strength. My strength is made perfect in
your weakness, Christ said. Strength. The Gospel comes with
the strength of Christ. Another place it's translated
might. M-I-G-H-T. That He would grant
unto you to be strengthened with might. by His Spirit in the inner
man. Another place, it's translated,
mighty works. If the mighty works had been
done in you, or in Sodom, that's been done in Capernaum. Mighty
works. What was those mighty works in
Capernaum? One of them, Christ walking on water. One of them,
forgiving sins of that man that had the drop sin. Another place,
this word is translated, miracle. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God, by miracles which He did in the midst of you. And
what's Paul saying when he said, this Gospel came to you with
power? It came to you in the strength of Christ. It came to
you in mighty power. The power of God. It came to
you as a miracle. That's what it is, isn't it?
It's a miracle. Somebody said, I accepted Christ
as my Savior. I decided for Christ. Oh, that's
not conversion. A man may decide for Christ until
he dies. But here is conversion. When
the Gospel comes and you understand it, and it comes with power to
your heart, and you cannot resist it. Oh, it comes with such force
that it turns your darkness to light. It subdues your rebellion. It comes with such force that
your carnal mind cannot resist any longer. It comes to you with
such force, you say, Lord, I can't fight against You. You bow! You
bow! That's force. Force. Converting force. Irresistible
force. And He tells us here why it comes
with such force. He says it comes in the Holy
Ghost. It comes in the Holy Ghost, the Sovereign God. That's who
this is. Our Gospel came to you, Paul
says, in the Holy Ghost. Isn't that what we need in our
day? That's what we need in our day, isn't it? We need the Holy
Ghost among us. We need the Holy Ghost working
in men's hearts with this almighty power. We've been trying to talk
people into things too long now. Getting decisions out of people.
Getting people to walk the aisle. And all of this. What does it
take to save a soul? Sanctification of the Spirit.
Separating a man from his family and his friends and his co-workers. And getting him along in his
heart of hearts. And doing a work of grace in
him. That's what it takes. And He sums it up like this,
in much assurance. In much assurance. It came with
power. It came in Word. It came in the
Holy Ghost. And in much assurance. And this
Word has nothing to do at all with feelings. He didn't say
it come in great feelings. It may produce a feeling. But
this Word, when He says here, in much assurance, it means the
sure and full knowledge. That the gospel is true. With full persuasion and complete
certainty. In other words, you are convinced
that's the gospel. And you believe it. And boy,
look at the evidence. Look at the results of it. Look
what he says in verse 6. Chapter 1 and verse 6. And you
become followers of us. and of the Lord." And look in
verse 10, "...for they themselves show of us what manner of entering
in we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols, to
serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from
heaven." Isn't this amazing that here these men were serving idols?
They gathered just like we did, only they had stones and stumps
up here that they worshipped. And Paul said, when the gospel
come to you, It turns you from those idols. It turns you from
the worship of those sticks and stones to the living God. I love the way the Apostle tells
us here in my text. Through sanctification of the
Spirit. And that word means purification
of the Spirit. He comes to purify us. He begins a work in us and it's
a work of purification. Purification. I'm amazed that I love God. Aren't
you? Aren't you amazed that you love
the Son of God? Aren't you amazed that you love
the Gospel? That you love His people? Are you amazed that you love
His Word? I'm amazed that I love holiness and hate sin. I'm amazed that I now love the
things I used to hate. And I hate the things that I
used to love. I'm amazed that I'm inclined
to pray to the Lord, aren't you? Do you wait upon Him? Do you hope in His mercy? Don't
that amaze you? There's a time in your life you
didn't do that. You went on your merry way. All your love and all your attention
is turned to Him. He's all to you now. What's going on in you? The spirits
begin to work a purification through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth. And this is the amazing thing,
that somewhere back in eternity, God chose you to that very thing. He chose you to that great thing. Albert Barnes made this statement,
and I'll hurry along. I'm almost finished. Albert Barnes
made this statement about being thankful for God's election.
He said, this is a reason for Thanksgiving. Why should it not
be? Can there be any higher ground
of praise or gratitude than that God has chosen us to be eternally
holy and happy, and that He has from eternity designed that it
should be so. Whatever, therefore, may be the
fillings with which those who are not chosen to salvation regard
this doctrine, it is clear that those who have evidence that
they have been chosen should make this the subject of great
praise and gratitude. They can have no more exalted
source of gratitude than that they are chosen to eternal life. And this is my last quick point,
and he tells us here in my text, in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2
and in verse 14. Calling us to salvation is the
immediate evidence of election. But I tell you, there is an ultimate
goal of election. And He tells us here in verse
14, Whereunto He called you by our gospel, and here it is, to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimate glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. His glory. Not His essential
glory. That would be impossible, wouldn't
it? Not even His glory as a mediator. That glory He won't give to anybody
else. But this is that personal glory that He will put upon His
people. It's already begun, even now.
Listen to this. Listen to this glory. He shall
change our vile bodies and fashion them like unto His glorious body,
with a working whereby He is able even to subdue all things
unto Himself." What glory awaits every elect soul. Another scripture says we shall
be like Him. Every wit like Him. Our souls,
our spirits, our bodies are going to be like Him. Another scripture
says we shall be with Him. We shall be with Him. We shall
forever be with the Lord. And another scripture says we
shall see Him. We shall see His face. And He
shall show us His hands and His side. And He shall show us His
heart. And He'll make us glad as He
made His disciples of old. And they shall walk with Him
in white. They shall sit with Him in His throne. He shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more death
or sorrow or crying or pain. For the former things are passed
away, and He will make all things new. And Paul tells us here in my
text that there's coming a day when there will be everlasting
consolation, everlasting comfort, glorious comfort. Everything
about being with Him will be glorious. You remember when poor
old Lazarus full of sores, begging for crumbs to eat, was carried
up to heaven? What did the Bible say about
him? What did our Master say? Now he is comforted. Now he is
comforted. Glorious comfort. For takers of Christ's glory.
When all my labors and trials are o'er, and I am safe on that
beautiful shore, just to be near the dear Lord I adore. Oh, that
will be glory for me. When by the gift of His infinite
grace I am accorded in heaven a place, just to be there and
look on His face, that will be glory. Friends will be there
I loved long ago, joy like a river will over me flow, yet just a
smile from my Savior I know And that will be glory for me. When
by His grace I shall look on His face, that will be glory. Oh, that will be glory for me. And when with the saints in glory,
they'll begin to trace their salvation back through this life,
when the Spirit of God call them, begin a work of grace in them,
And then they'll step off into eternity past when their names
are written down in the Lamb's Book of Life. And there in heaven
they'll fall before the throne of Jesus Christ and cast their
crowns down and say, we praise you, we thank you for your election. Bless His name. O gracious, eternal,
merciful Father in heaven, We have nothing this morning but
praise and thanksgiving under your wonderful name. We're glad
that you're God alone, that you're sovereign. There is no other
God beside you. And when we trace our salvation
back to your elect in love, we see then that salvation is indeed
of the Lord. Thank you for saving us. Thank
you for choosing us. Thank You for the end for which
You've chosen us. Our hearts are filled with hope,
waiting, O Lord, waiting for that day and the time when we'll
share in Your glory, the glory that You purchased for us. Oh,
I pray this morning that You have many elects here. I pray
You have many here that You've called And I pray there's others
here that you've not called. And this would be the day that
you'd simply and gloriously and powerfully call them. We ask these things for Christ's
sake. Amen.