Romans chapter 9 at verse 16. It's not of him that is salvation,
this righteousness that God gives freely. It's not of him that
willeth. Salvation is not by the will
of man, but salvation is by the will of God. It's of God's will.
God who saved us and called us. It's not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth, but of God. That's a key word in
scripture, but. That little teeny word. It's
a key word. But God. We were dead, we were in sin,
but God, who is rich in mercy, wherewith he loved us, even when
we were dead and in sin. God, who is rich in mercy. But God shows mercy. How does he show mercy to us?
in Christ Jesus. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know he's God's mercy seat? That Old Testament high priest
when he went into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement
once a year? He went in there and he put blood on the mercy
seat covering the law that we have violated and broken. And
it is the blood of Jesus Christ that makes atonement for our
sins. The Lord Jesus Christ is our mercy seat. The only place
where God can be just and justify the ungodly is in Jesus Christ. He is the mercy seat for sinners.
Now, here's my study for us today. How does God justify the ungodly? Or, how is a sinner saved? Or, free will or free grace? Is salvation all by the grace
of God, alone, exclusively, or does human merit, effort, will,
creature, work, enter in somehow in the scheme of God's salvation?
Is it all of grace, or works? It can't be both. Well, my friend,
the Word of God declares that salvation is all of the grace
of God, totally, exclusively, all of God's grace. But how many
times have you heard people make these statements in reference
to salvation? They say things like, well, God
has given every sinner a free will either to choose Him or
to reject Him. That's what people say in religion
today, don't they? Everybody has a choice. Everybody
has a chance. I like what Barnard used to say,
salvation is not by chance, it's by grace. It's by the grace of
God. And often times they turn to
that scripture over there in 2 Peter 3 and quote part of it,
2 Peter 3 verse 9, where they say that God is not willing that
any should perish. Well, read the rest of the verse.
What precedes that? God is longsuffering to usward. to his elect. He's writing to
the elect of God scattered abroad. He's writing to the elect of
God, and certainly none of his elect shall perish. We read in
our service this morning from John chapter 6, he said, All
that the Father hath given me, I'll lose not one. So we've all heard that saying,
and we know that's not true. Not according to the Word of
God. Salvation is by God's choice, God's will, God's purpose. How
often have we heard this statement? God has done all He can do and
the rest is up to you. How many times have we heard
that statement? Well, does that hold water with
the Scripture? No. Because all of our righteousnesses
are still to the right. We cannot do. Salvation is not
by doing. Salvation is not received by
doing. Salvation is received by believing. And faith glorifies Christ. How many times have we heard
this statement? God wants to save you, but you won't let Him.
Was that a true statement? Absolutely not. God saves who
He will on purpose. Every sinner God saves, He saves
on purpose. As Barnard told young Preacher
Mahan when he was just in his early twenties, son, if you ever
get a hold of that word, purpose. I can just almost hear him say
it. Purpose! Get a hold of that word, purpose!
God saves sinners on purpose. Not by accident, not by chance,
but purpose and grace. God marries those two words together,
purpose and grace. Now, the Bible doesn't teach
those things that I just recited to you. The Bible teaches this. And here's where we stake our
claim. Here's where we stake our hope. In James 1.18, we read
this, "...of God's own will, beget he us with the word of
truth." Salvation does involve a will. It's His will, not ours. We're dead in sin. He must make
us willing in a day of His power. John chapter 1 verse 13 it says
this, verse 12 talks about as many as received Him, to them
gave He right, the power, the privilege to become sons of God.
But there's not even a period there. There's a colon there.
And then it says, which were born, not of the will of flesh,
not of the will of man, but they were born of God. The reason
we receive Christ and believe Him is because we've been begotten
of God. Faith is a result of a birth.
And a birth comes from God alone. Our Lord said this, You didn't
choose me. You didn't choose me. He said,
I've chosen you. I've chosen, I've ordained you.
that you should bring forth fruit unto God, fruit that glorifies
Him. So clearly we can see that salvation is the work of God,
the grace and purpose of God. It's not of Him that will it
or of Him that run it, but it's God that would show mercy. Thank God He said, I will have
mercy. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. That's what we call sovereign
mercy. Sovereign grace. That's most obvious to any honest
person, that salvation is all of God's will, God's work, and
God's grace alone. The Bible does not teach that
salvation is by man's choice, but God's choice. The Bible does
not teach that salvation is by the sinner's will, but according
to God, purpose and grace. Now, I want you to hold your
place there and find 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 1. Get a hold of this
verse right here. This is a powerful verse. 2 Timothy
1, verse 9. You see what it says in verse
8? It says, Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord, nor of me, his prison, but be a partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God. It's God who saved
us. Now who saved you? If you're
saved, who did it? If you're saved, if you justified in Christ,
what's the cause of it? Well, God's the cause. He's the
first cause of all things, especially in salvation. It's God who saved
us and called us. Notice, He saved us. And then
He called us. When did He save us? Well, in
eternity. And then at Calvary. And then in time, He called us
and told us about it. He called us with a holy calling.
That's the gospel. It's not according to our words,
but, there's that little word again, B-U-T, but, according
to His own purpose. Notice these two words here,
purpose and grace. purpose and grace, two powerful
words that God married together, purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ before the foundation of the world, before
the world began, but now is made manifest by the appearing of
our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel. So we say,
we've learned this lesson today. According to this book, salvation
is by God's purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. God's eternal purpose. His eternal
grace. Now, I've also heard people say
this. I'm going to be real plain now
with you. You've often heard people say this, well, you know,
I think man's a free moral agent. You've heard that before, right?
Any truth to that statement? No. Wrong on all three counts.
Man in his fallen, sinful, wretched state is not free. He is in bondage
to his sin. Whenever people start talking
to me about free will, you know what I talk about? The next thing
out of my mouth is this. Let's talk about man's nature.
Man's nature is he dead in sin. His will, what will he has, is
in bondage to his nature. And his nature is never Godward
and Upward, always Selfward and Downward. His nature is like
free running water. You take your garden hose and
let some run out on the ground, where is it going to go? Going
to go down, isn't it? Not going to go up. Something
has to push it to go up. That's the way our nature is.
Down, down, down. We love darkness rather than
light. So mankind in their fallen sinful state, they're not free.
They're in bondage to their nature. Secondly, nor is mankind moral. Now we don't have any problem
about that, do we? We're wretched. All of our righteousness is our
filthy rag. Man's best faith is altogether
vanity. So we're not moral. We're wicked.
We're wicked people. That's what we are. We're guilty.
We're sinners. Does that offend you? I tell you what, salvation
is for sinners. Salvation is for sinners. Christ
died for the ungodly. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. As a matter of fact, it says in the book
of John, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and
truth's not in it. More than that, he said, you
call God a liar. Now you put that in your pipe
and smoke it a while. Thirdly, the third count is this,
nor is mankind an agent. Is he an agent? If you're a real
estate agent, it means someone has empowered you to act for
them. If you're an insurance agent,
you have the authority to act on behalf of someone else. My
friend, we don't have any authority to act. in the court of God,
our agency is dead. We have no ability or power to
redeem ourselves. We are alien, the strangers,
without God, without hope and without Christ, it says in Ephesians
chapter 2. Is that right? That is what it
is. You say, well why make this an issue? Is it really that important
that we believe that salvation is all of grace? Or whether it
be of works or free will. Isn't this just theological hair-splitting? No. Absolutely not. And here's
the reason why. Paul said to preach any of the
gospel, though it be an angel, angelic being from heaven, then
that gospel that glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ and is all
of God's grace is to be and incur the very wrath of God upon you. It doesn't say that in Galatians
chapter 1. Free willism, works salvation, is a denial of the
gospel of God's grace in Christ Jesus. I'll give you four reasons
why. These are four valid reasons
why. That free willism, works religion,
is a denial of the gospel of God's grace. And here's the first
thing. Free willism is a denial that
God is God. It's a denial that God is God.
They're opposed to God. Now, I know they've got a God
that's weak and impotent, a God who wants to and can't, but that's
not God. Free willism denies that God
is God. They say, free willism says God
cannot do what He wants unless we choose to let Him. We just
heard on the radio coming in, right before your broadcast started,
I won't say what I was going to say, but that dear person
said, God wants to love you, why don't you let him? She doesn't
know anything about the God. She's worshiping another God. She's got another God and another
gospel. God's love is absolutely sovereign,
and it's in Christ Jesus. God has no problem loving whom
He will. As a matter of fact, He'll love
whom He will effectually, irresistibly. He said, I've loved you with
an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness do I draw
you to myself. I tell you, if that's the case,
that God can't do anything unless we let Him. If that's the case,
well then who is God? You or the sinner? God, their
God, the idol that they worship, or you? A God that cannot act
without our permission is no God at all, and simply an idol
of our imagination. Who would worship a God like
that? Dead. You know what it says in Psalm
115? It says that those who have a pray unto of God that cannot
save are just like those idols that they pray unto. How are
those idols that they pray unto? Turn over there. Let's read that.
I wanted to make sure I had the right Scripture. Not unto us,
O Lord, verse 1. Not unto us. Psalm 115. But unto
thy name give glory, for thy mercy, for thy truth's sake.
Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens.
Heath done whatsoever he pleased. Their idols, their gods, are
silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths,
but they cannot speak. They have eyes they cannot see.
They have ears but they cannot hear. Noses but they cannot smell.
They have hands but they can't handle. They have feet but they
can't walk, neither speak through their throat. They that make
them," now look at this, verse 8, "...they that make them are
likened to them, so is everyone that trusteth in them." Dead. If you're God's an idol, you're
dead. You're dead. You don't have the true and the
living God. Do you see what he's saying there? Dead. Dead. Who
would worship a god that is just an idol? Those who are dead.
Those who whittled out a god like unto themselves. The only
place a sinner will do business and worship and reverence is
at the throne of a sovereign king. As Barnard used to say,
don't tell me who your Savior is, tell me who your Lord is.
He came preaching the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our God said,
Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, earth,
and seas, and all deep places. Whatever he pleased him to do.
What I'm saying is this, God is God. Free willism denies that
God is God. They deny that. They've got a
different God. They've got a different God.
We're worshiping a different God. That's the issue right there. You remember the scripture in
Daniel chapter 4. All the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing. He doeth according to his will
in the army of heaven among the inhabitants of this earth. And
none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou? God is God. Arthur Pink summed
it up very shortly in one sentence. God is God. And the scripture says repeatedly
through the book of Isaiah, I've spoken it, I'll bring it to pass,
I've purposed it, I'll do it, I am God. He said there's none
beside me, no, not one. I'm God and God alone. These
scriptures and many others undeniably teach that God is God. That God
is not in our hand, we're in His. And God will have mercy
on whom he will. He said that in John 17. The
Father hath given me power over all flesh and I should give eternal
life to as many as the Father hath given him. So that is the
first point. false religion, free will religion,
denies that God is God. Secondly, they deny the false
gospel and free willism and fundamentalism, whatever you want to call it,
is a denial of what the Bible says about our sinful state.
What is our sinful state like? Well, in Ephesians 2.1 it says
that we were dead. We were dead in trespasses and
in sin, dead, spiritually dead. Now, I know that men are alive
physically and mentally, but spiritually before God, the Word
of God describes us as being separate from God, our iniquities
have separated us from God and we are dead in sin. That is,
man left to himself has no spiritual appetite. We don't have eyes
to see, ears to hear. We don't taste the Word of God. We spit the Word of God out.
By nature, we're dead in sin. We have no spiritual... Attributes. No eyes to see, no ears to hear,
no feelings to touch after Him. We're dead. We're dead. God must
give us eyes to see Him and ears to hear and life. Life. All men
are spiritually born dead in Adam. We're born in sin, in the
shape of iniquity. We're born with a corrupt nature.
We don't grow up to be sinners. We're born sinful. We're born
sinful. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. And Adam all died. Our children
are born in sin. You who have raised children.
I love little babies. Little babies are cute. They're
cuddly. I've raised three children. But
did you ever see a little one when he gets out of sorts, his
face turns red and his fists double up and scream and cry
and if he had a knife he'd kill you. Did you teach him that? It's his nature. my little boys. I raised two little boys, and
I tell you what, I didn't teach them little boys to lie, but
I tell you I had to whip them to tell the truth. Lying, it
can't flow out of him naturally. Out of the heart, deceit, perceived
evil thoughts, murderers, and all these things. Lying heart,
the heart of deceit above all things, and desperately wicked.
Because of our condition by nature, dead in sin, we have no more
ability to obey the gospel than we have ability to obey the law.
Salvation comes by believing Christ, but dead man cannot believe
unless God intervenes and does for the sinner what he cannot
do for himself. You have to be quick in who were
dead. God must give life. A sinner
believes because God has given him life to believe. Now listen
to this carefully. Now if you don't hear anything,
hear this. A sinner believes because God has given him life.
He does not believe to receive life. I can make good on that.
1 John 5, verse 1 says, Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ,
he is born of God. He believes because he has been
given life. He has been begotten and regenerated
and made a new creature in Christ. Faith is the result of life.
Life. And God gives that life. To believe
on Him is the work of God. The work of God to believe on
Him. Free will works religion denies
that God is God. Secondly, they deny that man
is a sinner and shut out without hope, without help, and without
God. They think God has done all He can do. Walk an aisle,
make a decision, raise your hand. Come to the mourner's bench.
My friend, that's not salvation. If you're trusting, looking back,
if you've got to look back to an isolated experience, you're
lost. You're lost. If you've got to
look to a decision or a time or a place, you don't know the
gospel. Saving faith looks to Christ
right now. Always. It's always in the present
tense looking unto Jesus. Believing Him. Coming to Him. It's always because it's alive. It's a continual growth and process
that's going on. I am repenting. I am believing.
I am looking. I am coming to Christ. Thirdly,
free willism is a denial. A denial of the effectual blood
atonement of Jesus Christ. The effectual blood atonement
of Jesus Christ. Free willism and the false gospel
denies what Christ did was sufficient. They deny that. For realism says,
well, Jesus Christ died to put all men in a state or a possibility. He died to make salvation a possibility
for all if they will make a decision to make it effectual. Ah, my
friend, that's not the gospel. That's not the gospel. In that
scheme of salvation, who makes the blood effectual? Christ or
your decision? If He's done all He can do, and
it's left up to you, and if it doesn't really work unless you
add your decision to it, You're more the Savior than He is. You
see, that denies the gospel of God's grace. If you're honest,
you have to answer that question. In that situation, that scheme,
it's the sinner who makes the difference, not Christ. My friend,
it's Christ who makes the difference. It's the blood atonement of Jesus
Christ that makes the difference. The truth of the gospel is that
Jesus Christ through the surety of God's elect from eternity
and in time, He came and lived the life honoring to God, honoring
every precept of that law, and died under the wrath of God. enduring the judgment of God's
wrath for the sin of His covenant people. When Christ made sufficient
payment for their sin, when He satisfied God's justice, the
Lord Jesus Christ actually obtained eternal redemption for His chosen
people. He didn't make a down payment,
waiting on me to make the second payment. He paid it off. All
the debt I owed. Sin left a crimson stain. He
washed it white as snow. He paid the debt. Now the scripture
said in Hebrews 9.12 about this redemption, that not with the
blood of bulls and goats, but with his own blood, he obtained
for us eternal redemption by himself. He purged our sin by
himself. None for whom the Lord Jesus
Christ died will ever perish. Now let me ask you a question.
Put your thinking hat on a minute. Did the Lord Jesus Christ die
for the sins of Peter and Judas? Well Judas Son of perdition,
Judas went to hell. God condemned him. Peter denied
the Lord. But the blood of Christ put away
his sin. You see, the difference of saved and lost there was not
in Judas and Peter. The difference was the Lord Jesus
Christ. And God solved the mercy in Christ
Jesus. God made. Who made you to differ
from another? You remember that scripture?
What is that? 1 Corinthians 4, 7. Who made
Jesus different from another? It's God who's made the difference.
None will perish for whom the Lord Jesus Christ died. Call
His name Jesus. He shall save His people from
their sin. There is no condemnation to those
who rent Christ Jesus. Free will, false religion, denies
the effectual, sufficient, particular blood atonement of Jesus Christ.
He didn't die for all the sins of all men. If that's so, None,
no person will ever, ever be condemned. But my friend, he
died for all of the sin of his people and those for whom he
stood as surety, mediator, representative, covenant head. They'll never
perish. Never perish. God's justice cannot
twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand and then again at mine. That'd make him unjust. Make
him unjust. Well, here's the fourth point.
You with me on the first three? I told you I was going to be
plain. It's time people start being plain. There's too many
folks on their road to hell trusting something they've done or something
they will do without resting in Christ. Here's the fourth
point. Free willism is a denial of the
true meaning of faith. It's a denial of the true meaning
of faith. Faith is a gift of God. The gift of God is purchased
with the blood of Christ. You all know the scripture, for
by grace are you saved through faith. Where is that? You all
know where it is. 2 Thessalonians, hey, Ephesians
2. Ephesians 2, 8, 9. For by grace
are you saved through faith, and that, know ye, is the gift
of God. Free willism makes faith a decision
you make. rather than the gift of God.
You see, faith and repentance are both the gifts of God. If
you believe God, it's because He gave that to you by His grace,
based upon the merit of Christ. The gift of God, not of worth
that any man should boast. Free willism makes faith a decision
you make, something you do. Those who have been taken up
with making a decision will always look back to some experience
of the past as the ground of their assurance rather than looking
to Christ. When they get down and blue and
they need assurance, they run. I hear them say, I had to run
back to the time and the spot and the place. Forget it. Forget
it. What did Paul say? Forgetting
those things that are behind. Forget it. Forget it. Put it
in the past and count it as the apostle did as dumb. Throw it out. Throw it away.
And look unto Christ right now. Look to Christ right now. Look
to Him. You see, my friend, faith, now
listen to me carefully, faith trusts a person, not an experience,
not a feeling. Faith trusts a person, and that
person is Jesus Christ. The faith of God's elect acknowledges
the truth. How do I know if I have true
faith? Well, the faith of God's elect acknowledges the truth,
that in salvation, it's all vested in Jesus Christ, His person and
His glorious work. Salvation is in a person, not
an experience. It's not an experience. It's
in Christ. The truth is we don't choose to believe. We believe
because we have no choice. The sheep of Christ are driven
and drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, we have no option but
to believe Christ. He shut everything else out but
Christ. And then He draws us. He said,
no man can come to Me except the Father which sent Me. Draw
him. Salvation is in a person. Pastor Mahan preached that for
50 years. And yet today he's preaching
that same message. Salvation is in a person, not
a feeling, not an experience, not a decision, in a person. Not in doctrine, in a person.
Jesus Christ. Psalm 65 says this, Blessed is
the man to whom thou choosest, Psalm 65 verse 4, and causes
to approach unto thee. When God in saving mercy is pleased
to regenerate dead sinners and grant them faith in Christ, they
willingly embrace Jesus Christ. God's people shall be winning
in the day of God's power. The absolute worst thing that
could possibly happen to any of us is for God to leave us
to our own depraved nature because we, by nature, love darkness,
not light. Man's will, as I said earlier,
and I stole this from Arthur Pinck, in his book on depravity,
and I read this many years ago, but he said, man's will is always
self-ward and downward, never God-ward and upward. Never, never,
never, never. Matter of fact, free-willism,
you know where it originated? Read Isaiah 14. Satan said, I
will ascend unto heaven. I will be like the multi-god.
My friend is satanic. You say, preacher, you're going
too far. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. I, Lord, pray, Lord, your
will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So then, it's not
of him that willeth. Thank God's salvation by the
free, unchanging, sovereign grace of God, not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saves us. So
then, it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that shows mercy. Salvation is always dependent,
determined, and accomplished by God in Christ Jesus alone.
Always dependent. Determined, accomplished by the
Lord Jesus Christ only. In Christ Jesus. I want to close
by telling you a true story. And I hope this illustrates what
I'm trying to say. Why do you harp on these things?
Why do you say these things? And why do we insist upon preaching
the free grace and sovereign grace of God? It's necessary. Have God set sinners free with
the truth. with the truth. I will tell you
a true story I heard the other day. Jack, you may remember this
story. Pastor Mahan has told it several
times. I heard it again recently. It's
a true story. There was a truck driver. His
name was Rupert Lewis. And he was somewhere down south
in Mississippi, Arkansas, somewhere, and there was a terrible storm.
and a raging flood was coming through the land, and he was
on his truck route, driving down the road in a driving rainstorm.
There was a bridge across this river. I believe it was the Pearl
River. And this raging storm came and washed out the bridge. And here's Rupert Lewis driving
his truck down the highway, went trucking all into the river.
And by a miracle of God's grace, he got out of the truck, climbed
up that old muddy creek bank, covered with mud, all wet, and
you can imagine what he looked like. He said, I've got to get
up there on that highway and warn people not to come. Stop! I've got to warn people
to stop! Don't go in the river! He got
up on that road, as bad as he looked, started flagging cars
down. Oh, they thought he was crazy.
They thought he was a wild man, and they just drove around him.
They ignored him. Beat the horn. Get out of the way! He said,
stop! Stop! Please stop! Don't drive in the
river! The story goes that ten cars and two trucks drove in
the river. Sixteen people died before somebody
finally stopped and listened to that man, Rupert Lewis. He
didn't look like much. He was just a truck driver, a
simple man, covered in mud, messed up, ragged. But he had the message. He had the message. And my friend,
I know I'm not much, but I am what I am by the grace of God.
And my message is to you, my friend, if you're going that
way of free will, free will works, religion, trusting something
in the past, stop. Stop right now. Don't go that
way. Don't go that way. Stop right now and look to Christ. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the
earth. I am God and beside me there is no other.