Romans chapter 8. And I want you to look in verse 29
and 30. Let me read verse 28 to you also. Romans chapter 8, beginning here
in verse 28. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are called
according to His purpose. For whom he did foreknow, them
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Moreover,
whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified." I've tried to keep a balance
in my ministry, what little ministry I have, and God knows, none of
us know. If I have dwelt too much on this passage,
then it's because I have lived for thirty years or so greatly encouraged and lifted
up by what I see taught in these verses. And I've come here this
afternoon to share them with you again because I've entitled
this message, and I think this is so, High Doctrine for Simple
Men. High Doctrine for Simple Men.
Because I look at you, and you're just like I am. Most of us, with
a few exceptions, don't have an education. I got a high school
education, and I was trying to help Layla, my granddaughter,
the other morning with her math, first grade math, and I thought
I was going to have to call Joe to help me. If they ever have
a show, Are you smarter than a first grader? They'll probably
have me on it. I don't have enough education,
I'm telling you, it's awful. When I write a letter to somebody,
the first thing I have to do, if I'm not on the computer to
use spell check, I have to get a dictionary out. I can't spell,
I can't pronounce, I can't punctuate, I don't have much of an education.
But you know something? I understand these verses. And then on the other hand, you
have men who are brilliant thinkers. They have their degrees. They
have been to seminars. They have written books. They
write outlines on all the books of the Bible. They can tell you
when these books were written. who the main characters in them
are. They did all this research, and
yet when these brilliant thinkers come here to these two verses,
they seem to lose their brilliance. They seem to lose their understanding. And they make such statements
as this. This is too deep for us to enter
into. And they leave it alone. And
I have come to the conclusion that some of the high thinkers,
especially of our day, it's not that they don't understand these
two verses. I think they don't believe them.
I think they see no need for the doctrine that's taught here. And you know something else I
think? I think just as the ant on the Day of Judgment will judge
the slugger I think on the Day of Judgment, people like us,
simple-minded people, will judge those brilliant thinkers and
leave them without excuse why they did not come here and take
this passage and what it teaches to heart and understand it. If we can understand it, why
can't they? They don't like it. They don't
like it. But you know it's always been
that way for the most part. The common people heard him gladly,
and he confounded the doctrine of the law. I wonder how many
brilliant men were in that crowd that said, this is a hard doctrine.
Who can hear it? But this short passage I read
to you tonight, these two verses, There's no mistaking, as you
and I read it, when we compare it to verse 28, and then verse
29 and 30, that these verses tell us of God's purpose in redemption. That He has a purpose, that it's
eternal, and it concerns the redemption of a great host of
people. And this is one thing here that's
so amazing about it, this high and glorious teaching is condensed
to two simple verses. Only the Holy Spirit can do something
like that. If you have a man that has planned
to build some great monument to somebody, or some bridge,
or some great building, and he gets out his plans, and it's
page after page after page, And there's no way that he can condense
it down and make it say he didn't have any sins. But here, this
great apostle, he puts his pen and with one swipe, almost without
dipping it again in the ink, he tells us what God's eternal
purpose is in redemption. And that's amazing. And I want
you to notice what's not here. And sometimes when the Holy Spirit
leads something out of a verse, He does it for a good reason.
You don't find in here the means by which He accomplishes His
purpose. He says that we're predestinated
to be conformed to the image of His Son, but you won't find
the means here written. You have to go elsewhere to find
that. How are we confirmed to the image of his Son? By a new
birth. By growing in grace and knowledge
of the Lord and Savior. He mentions here those who may
be called, but he never mentions the means of their calling. How
are we called? By the gospel. We are called
to repentance. And he talks here about justification,
but he never mentions the means. How are we justified? By the
blood of Christ. through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And He never mentions here about how we're glorified,
how we'll be glorified. There at the resurrection by
the power of Christ, by His voice. But this text leaves all of these
means out. You have to go elsewhere to find
the means written. And why is that? Well, consider
this. Consider this. There are great
men, and we thank God for them. I've already mentioned some of
them this morning. Those Puritans. Man, they searched. They were
brilliant men. They searched from Genesis to
Revelation. And they set all of these great
truths in order. You're amazed sometimes as you're
reading. You can go and they've got page
after page, and you can read the order in which all of these
things took place. And they take the whole Scripture
and you can just follow them as they go step by step. And
there you can see God's eternal purpose fulfilled. And you thank
God for such men who have the intellect, who have the understanding
and the comprehension to study all of that and remember it.
But we're not like them, are we? We don't have the mind that
those people had. We don't have the understanding.
Man, I read a paragraph and I have to go back and read it again
and read it again. And I've got little comprehension,
apprehension of what I'm reading. There are folks like us, and
some even worse than us, if you can imagine, that can't read
and concentrate and make sense out of hardly anything. They
don't have expository dictionaries. They don't have hours to read
the scripture and devote to study. Would you believe there's people
like that? I went down, when we went down to Medita, Brother
Cody took us all out to the hennequin fields where they make the rope. And those men go in early that
morning and work till late in the evening. Five dollars a day. They work just to live, just
to exist. Those mothers work just washing
clothes. They work just to try to keep
the dirt floors of those little huts clean. They work just to
exist. They don't have the means, they
don't have the time to sit down and read and study. hour after
hour after hour. Some of you can relate a little
bit to that. Some are pretty busy around here,
aren't you? There are people who go to work.
There are men who go to work and work long hours. They come
home and they've got a car to fix or a roof to patch. They're
tired. Mothers who teach their children
and take care of the home and the house. And they don't have
the time. And what I'm saying is this. These short verses, these
two little verses are for such people. God is willing to show unto the
heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel. I mean all the
heirs of promise. Not just the brilliant ones,
not just those who have time to study all day and half the
night, but those poor, common, simple, everyday working people
who labor just to exist and live in this world. He's so anxious
to show unto them the immutabilities of his eternal counsel that he
condenses this glorious truth down unto these two verses. And he says to his poor, simple
people whom he loves, turn in here and be wise. Here is comfort for the poor,
feeble-minded, for the weak in faith, for those who are fearful
and doubtful and pride. You hardly have to move your
eyes. And you can set and read God's
eternal purpose. And as dear Tyndale says, rejoice
in it from the low bottom of your heart. That you, you, a
common simple person, can believe and know the eternal purpose
of this triune God. If you had to start at Genesis
and go through Revelation, could you put it all together? We'd
be confused to death. We'd be saying, well, I thought
I'd learned that, but I forgot it. I can't comprehend all this.
But you come here to these two verses, and here it all is. The eternal glorious purpose
of God is condensed down to these two little verses. You can sit
there and read it and say, there it is. I just had enough time
between fixing the car and patching the roof to read it, but there
it is. And you can go on your way with
joy. That's a wonderful thing to me,
brothers and sisters. Wonderful thing. Consider this about these short
verses. This is amazing. We have in these
two verses recorded the very first contact that the eternal
God had with our human race. You want to know the first contact
that God had with our human race? We're told here in verse 29,
whom he did for no. Not what, not about them, but
them. Only God has the capacity to
foreknow. This word, to know, it means
to distinguish, to mark out, to recognize, to have knowledge
of. But you and I don't have foreknowledge,
do we? I didn't know my wife until I
met her and got acquainted with her. You mothers have had children
in your womb, but you didn't know it. You didn't know the
child. You knew the child was there.
You didn't know the child's personality. Only God has the capacity to
foreknow somebody. He told Jeremiah in Jeremiah
chapter 1 verse 5, Before I farmed you in the womb, before you had
a bed, I knew When you had no personality, I knew you. Only God can foreknow a person. But this word means more than
just recognizing a person, or marking out a person, or having
knowledge of a person. It means to know someone intimately. The word knew, when you see that
in the scriptures, the first time we ever see this word knew,
It's found in Genesis chapter 4, Adam knew his wife. Well, of course he knew her.
God brought her to him and said, this is your wife. He knew her. But when you read
that word, he knew his wife, it means something very intimate.
It's even sexual. He knew Eve, his wife, and she
conceived and bore a son. It has to do with intimacy. It
has to do with love. And when he says here, those
whom he foreknew, he is saying those whom he foreloved. He knew them intimately before
they had a being. You go back to the moment The
eternal God laid the foundations of the earth. Step off that foundation
and soar back into eternity until you find another foundation,
the foundation that is called the foundation of God. The foundation
of God standeth sure having this seal. And what is the seal of
that foundation? God knows them that are You soar on the wings of faith
back and you stand upon that foundation of God's eternal purpose. And what do you see written on
that foundation? I have loved you with an everlasting
love. What was the first contact God
had with our human race? He loved them. He foreknew them. Intimately. Isn't that a wonderful
thing, brothers and sisters? That God, the Eternal Triune
God, first came into contact with us, and the first thing
that's expressed in that contact is, I know you. I know you. I love you. I love you. And I love you so much that I'm
going to make sure you don't perish. I'm going to predestinate
you to be conformed to the image of my Son. Oh, isn't that a wonderful
thought just to think upon? It's no wonder the Apostle Paul
goes on here in the eighth chapter, and he finishes up like this,
I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels or principalities
or powers or things present or things to come or any other creature
shall be able to separate us from what? The love of God. The love of God. What convinced
the Apostle Paul of that? Well, he knew something about
God's foreknowing in his people. He knew something about that
covenant love. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. Bound to Him eternally by love's
strong cord. And Paul says, if He loved us
before we had a being, He'll never cease to love us. The first
contact He had with us was love. Isn't that a wonderful thought?
That's a wonderful thought. Bound to Him by love. Those whom He foreknew. Those
that he knew before they had a being. Those he loved. Greater love hath no man than
this. Something else in these short
verses for us poor and simple people. And you don't have to
go through all the Bible to find it. The Holy Spirit has been
pleased just to condense it here in these two verses. What a glorious
and comprehensible purpose. the purpose of God is. Did you
notice that about this purpose? There in verse 29, He predestinated
them to be conformed to the image of His Son. What a purpose! What a glorious
purpose! To be made just like His Son. If God would have said, I have
predestinated you to be conformed to the holy angels, what a glorious
purpose. I'm going to save you, I'm going
to forgive you of all your sins, I'm going to keep you in this
world and take you to heaven, and I'm going to make you just
like my holy angels. What a glorious thought that
would be. But he goes farther than that. He said, Oh, my purpose
for you is much greater than that. I'm going to conform you
to the image of my eternal Son. I'm going to make you just like
Him. Oh, God loves His Son, does He not? The Bible says He loves
His Son, and He's given everything unto His hand, our mediator. That's no surprise. Here's the
surprise. That he's going to have a heaven
populated with those who look just like him. That's the surprise,
isn't it? And the work begins in the new
birth when there's a new creature created within in the very image
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. If you could see the new creature
that is within, that's created in righteousness and true holiness,
do you know who he would look like? The Lord Jesus Christ. The image-making, the molding,
the farming begins here. And it will be consummated when
the Lord Himself descends from heaven with a shout and chains
these vile bodies and fashions it like unto Him. body. It's even said of us now that
as He is, so are we in this world. Oh, you don't see it. All we
see is in ourselves is what Terence told us a minute ago. How we
feel our sins. How we feel our misery. Sin mixed
with everything we do. When I leave this pulpit, I often
pray, Lord, wash me from the iniquity of the holy things.
I see so much sin and self, even in the pulpit. But I tell you,
when God looks within, He sees that new creature that He's made
in the very image of His Son. And someday He'll finish that
work. And as Christ our mediator is there in heaven, so will we
be. Somebody said the Son of God
was made in the likeness of man, that man could be made in the
likeness of the Son of God. What a wonderful thought. He
has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son. Can you get a hold of that? Well,
sure you can. Sure you can. You just believe
it. You believe it. And you can't deny it. Here it
is in these two little verses. You can't say, well, let me go
searching. You don't have to. Just keep your eyes still and
read it. Yes, you believe it, don't you?
And you glory in it. And you wait in hope of the fulfillment
of it. Being predestinated. to be conformed
to the image of His Son. Let others hate it. I glory in
it. We glory in it. And fourthly, consider this about
these two verses. Turn in here, you four simple
ones, and read these two verses. And read them with full assurance
and quietness of soul. If you're doubtful, Dear child
of God, believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, then come here
to these two verses and be filled with assurance. You say, Bruce,
assurance of what? That your eternal salvation is
fixed. That your everlasting happiness
is secured. That your precious body and soul
will be saved at last. without any doubt. Don't you see that in these verses?
Those He foreloved, those He foreknew, He glorified. Has He called you? Then you're
one of His. Here's the assurance that you
have. Your eternal happiness is fixed. It's settled. I can't repeat
that enough to my own self. And when my faith gets just a
hold of it, oh, my heart rejoices. I used to think I'd love to live
and die with the assurance that that thief on the cross had.
I used to think, boy, nobody in the world has a right to have
the assurance that that man had. Here he was a few hours from
death, and the Son of God, the final authority. The infallible
voice of heaven says to him, this day you shall be with me
in paradise. It didn't matter what he suffered,
did it? It didn't matter what they did to that man. The gates
of hell was closed to him, and heaven's door was open and waited.
This day, heaven is high, but I assure you, poor man, you'll
be with me before this day is over. in heaven. And man, just hang there. Just
hang there and suffer until it's over with, because heaven is
yours. But you know, when I come to these two verses, don't you
and I have the same right to have as much assurance of heaven
as He had? Isn't that what He's telling
us here in these two short little verses? You're as good as in
heaven? Somebody said one time, oh, if
you believe that, that would make a person so presumptuous.
Yeah, that's why the Lord told that thief on the cross. So he
would start being real presumptuous. So he'd hang there and get all
loose. No. No, dear soul. Here's the greatest grounds for
assurance that anybody could ever have. God's eternal purpose
is fixed. And He's included you in it.
Your salvation is fixed. It's settled. Assurance. And not only assurance, but quietness
of soul. Quietness about what? Your struggles. Your heartaches. These fiery
trials that seem to consume you. Your present misery. These things
that you're going through in your mind and in your body, the
weakness, the pain, the doubts, the fears, the uncertainties,
are you going through these things? Don't we face these things every
day? Well, here we can find a foundation
for some quietness of our soul. All of these things that we're
suffering are temporary. They'll live maybe as long as
we do, but they'll die with us. What awaits us as God's children,
God's elect people? Glorification. Eternity with
Him. Rest in His presence. You would think if we knew that
we only had a few days to suffer, And it was going to be well with
us at last. That gives us reason to be quiet.
It don't matter. It don't matter. It don't matter. Everything is well. That's why
old brother Scott Richardson often said, I haven't heard any
bad news since I heard the good news. How could any news be bad? How could it be unbearable? If
we hear such good news as this, God has fixed our eternal happiness. Oh, I really don't know what
this teaches, so we'll just skip over it. Hogwash! How wicked! How wicked! A whole assurance
of happiness and joy from God's people, because a man don't believe
it. Christ lives in us. Since the eternal purpose of
God is fixed, and since all the elect will most assuredly be
saved at last, how encouraged should you and I be, and how
diligent you and I should be to use every scriptural means
to make our calling and election sure with God. I don't want to
miss out on this. I want to know that I'm one of
His. I cannot know that I'm one of
His living in my sins and serving my sins and following after this
world. I can only know that I'm His
If I'm hearing the voice of the shepherd and I'm following him,
all his elect will be saved. There is no doubt about that.
Then make sure that we're one of them. Settle that. Settle that. Let us watch. Let us pray. Let us be sober
for ourselves. And then we can know, then we
can have some assurance that we're one of His. God who has purpose
to save His elect has purposed the means by which He will save
His elect. And let us who can know in our
own hearts these two verses of Scripture are true, and that
all God's elect will be saved, then let us do this, brothers
and sisters. Let us seek out sinners. Let us pray for sinners. Let
us witness to sinners. Because one thing is certain,
if God has any elect people around you, they are going to be saved. And since we know that, let us
be encouraged to use every scriptural means. Let us pray. Let us hand out tracts and tapes. Let us witness to them. Let us
give them Bibles. Let us do whatever we can, knowing
this, that if they are God's elect, they will be saved. It is not in our ability to persuade
them. It's not in our tricking them,
it's in the Holy Spirit calling them through the means that He
uses. And I tell you this, brothers
and sisters, if we're slothful, we're not prayerful, we're not
watchful, we won't take heed to the means and use that means
to win them to Christ. They'll be saved, but God just
won't use us to do it. I want you to notice over in
Esther, and I'll close with this. Look in Esther chapter 14. You go to Nehemiah, just to your
right of Nehemiah, you'll find the book of Esther. Go to the fourth chapter. If
you have to go to the front of your Bible and find it, that's
fine. Don't be embarrassed about that. The Lord had carried the children
of Israel off into Shushan. They were in the Shushan palace. And the king had chosen Esther
to be his wife. You remember that. This wicked
Haman had laid a plot against the Jews that he was going to
kill them. And Mordecai, Esther's uncle,
sent a message to her, you need to go into the king and plead
for your people, to save your people. Let him know who you
are and that what Haman has wickedly done, are they going to destroy
all these people? No, he didn't say that. Here's
what he said. He said, you better go in and
you better witness Because I tell you this, deliverance will come
to the Jews. But you're not going to be a
partaker of it if you don't use the means that God has given
you. Now look what he says. Esther,
chapter 4. Look here in verse 11. And the
king's servants and the people of the king's providence do know.
Here's Esther. When Mordecai sent Esther that
command to go into the king. She said, They do know that whosoever,
whether man or woman, shall come unto the king in the inner court,
who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death,
except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter,
that he may live. But I have not been called to
come unto the king these thirty days. And they told Mordecai
Esther's words, I'm afraid to go in. I'm afraid to go in. But
look what he said to her in verse 13. Then Mordecai commanded to
answer Esther, Think not this with thyself, that thou shalt
escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou
altogether holdest your peace at this time, then shall their
enlargement, relief, deliverance, arise to the Jews from another
place, but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed. And
who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom? For such
a time is dead." Brothers and sisters, we're here for a reason. As a church, we're here for a
reason. And what is it? We say times are bad. Yes, times
are bad. But we're here for a reason,
are we not? And what's one of our reasons? To be a light to those who are
in darkness. To preach the gospel to them.
To speak to them. Helpers of the helpless. And
I tell you, they're going to be saved. The elect of God are
going to be saved. Deliverance is going to come
to them. I just want it to come through us. I want us to be sober
and prayerful and diligent. Speak to lost people. Talk to
them. And if there He is, He'll save
them. He'll save them. God bless His Word.