Let me tell you what my subject
will be today. I think you'll be very interested.
I hope that you will. I'd like very much if you'd just
pull up a chair and get your Bible and sit there and follow
with me as I read the scripture and speak on this subject, the
election of grace. Now, that's our subject, the
election of grace. Now, this message this morning
will be on a cassette tape And if you don't get to hear all
of it this morning, you can order the tape and listen to it, or
you can order the tape and give it to a friend, or whatever.
But first of all, we're going to turn to the book of Romans,
chapter 9. I'm going to read about 4 or
5 verses from the 9th chapter of Romans. Now, here's the subject,
the election of grace. In Romans, chapter 9, verse 11,
most of you are familiar with this Scripture, but let's read
it again. speaking of Jacob and Esau, for
the children being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might
stand, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now what shall we say to these
things? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid. He said to Moses, when Moses
asked him, Lord, show me your glory, the Lord replied in this
fashion. He said, I will be merciful to
whom I will be merciful, and I will have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. So then it, that is salvation,
redemption, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Now here's another scripture
I want you to look at for a moment. Romans chapter 11, verse 5. In Romans 11, 5, Paul said, Even
so then, even so then, at this present time also there is a
remnant according to the election of grace. There's a remnant,
there's a handful, there's a little flock according to the The election
of grace. Now, I'm confident that when
I announce a topic such as this, the election of grace, and when
I read this scripture, that there's going to be some objections.
I know that people are going to set forth objections, and
not going to care particularly for this type of message, but
I'm going to preach it anyway. It's my responsibility to preach
the Word of God. It's my responsibility to be
true to the scriptures, and true to the glory of God, and true
to my heroes. I've had many preachers say to
me, no, I never preach on election. I believe it. I know it's in
the Bible, but I never preach on it. I say, why do you never
preach on it? Well, it's split the church. Another preacher
said to me one time, I've got a wife and family to support,
and if I preached election or predestination or particular
redemption or any of these subjects, I'd get fired. So I'd just leave
them alone. Well, now, my friends, The servant
of God, in a sense, is the servant of the people. Yes, in a sense
he is. Paul said that we preach Christ,
Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Christ's sake.
But chiefly and primarily and foremost, we are the servants
of God. And we're to preach the Word
of God. Now, when I announce I'm going to preach on the election
of grace, I'm sure someone says, well, why preach on election?
Why preach on such a mysterious and controversial subject as
election? Why? Why? I'll give you the first
reason. Because it's in the Word of God.
Now that's the first reason why it ought to be preached. It is
in the Word of God. Paul was speaking to the elders
at Antioch and he said this to them. He was leaving them. They
would never see his face again. Paul was going to Jerusalem,
or to Rome rather, and they'd never see his face again, and
he said to them, now since I've been with you, I've kept back
nothing, I've kept back nothing profitable unto you. I have not
shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. And that's
the way I feel about this business of preaching. As far as my congregation
is concerned, and as far as this congregation is concerned, I
must not shun Whether because of fear or because of confusion
or division, I must not shun to declare all the counsel of
God. We must not keep back any doctrine
or any truth because it's offensive. Actually, the whole message of
redemption by grace is offensive. The whole message of substitution
is offensive. It's offensive to the religionist.
That's who it's offensive to. It's not offensive to a sinner
because a sinner knows. That if anything's ever done
for him, God will have to do it. If he was ever saved, God
will have to save him. If he's ever lifted, God will
have to lift him. But it's the religionist. It's
the man who's working out a righteousness of his own. It's the man who's
dependent upon his own works. It's the man that feels he's
worthy of God's blessing. That's the man to whom the election
of grace is offensive. But I said a moment ago, why
preach it? Because it's in the Word of God.
Now listen to these scriptures. In Acts 13, 48, Paul turned from
the Jew and said, I go to the Gentiles. I take the gospel of
God's grace in Christ. I take the gospel of substitution. I take the gospel of the cross
to the Gentiles. And when the Gentiles heard this,
Acts 13, 48, they were glad. They were glad. They rejoiced.
And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Now that's what that scripture
says. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Who
ordained them? God did. To what were they ordained? Eternal life. What was their
response? They believed. They believed. The Lord Jesus
said, All that my Father giveth me shall come to me. All that
are ordained to life shall believe. Now listen to Romans 8, 28. And
we know. Paul said, This is what I know.
I'm confident of this. That all things Great and small,
past, present, and future, all things in heaven, earth, or wherever,
all things work together for good to them who love God, who
are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow,
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son. And whom He predestinated, He called. And whom He called,
He justified. Whom He justified, He glorified.
Now what shall we say to these things? We say, if God be for
us, who can be against us? And then in Ephesians 1 verse
3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in
Christ, according as he chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him. In Christ we're holy, in Christ
we're without blame, before God. In love, having predestinated
us to the adoption of children according to the good pleasure
of His own will. That's the Word of God. And then
in 1 Thessalonians 1, 5, Paul said, Brethren, I know your election
of God, because our gospel came not to you in word only, but
in power, in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. I'm confident
that you were elected of God, because these things are evidence
of God's election. And then in 2 Thessalonians 2.13,
the great Charles Spurgeon of London, England, who pastored
Metropolitan Tabernacle for 38 years, said if this were the
only verse in the Bible teaching the election of grace, he said,
I'd believe it. But there are hundreds of verses
and hundreds of Scriptures. But listen to 2 Thessalonians
2.13. But we're bound to give thanks always, 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. And then in 2 Timothy 1, verse
9, He saved us and called us. Who saved us? He did. The preacher
didn't. The church didn't. The law didn't. God did. He saved us and He called
us. Called us out of darkness into
His marvelous light. Called us out of sin into His
holiness. He saved us and called us with
a holy calling. Not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace. Wait a minute. His
own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the
world began. So you ask me why I preach on
the election of grace? because it's the Word of God.
I preach, you must be born again, and that's only in the Scripture
one time. In John chapter 3, you must be born again. And yet
you hear sermons on it every day. I've stood before you this
morning and read dozens and dozens of Scriptures on the election
of grace. The election of grace. I must
preach it, it's the Word of God. Someone else says, why preach
it? I'll tell you, because my Lord preached it. The Lord Jesus
Christ preached it. In John 15, 16, he said to his
disciples, you have not chosen me, I chose you. Now there's
a sense in which we do choose the Lord, but because He chose
us. We do love the Lord, because
He first loved us. We do seek the Lord, because
He sought us. We do call on God, but He called
first. You didn't choose me, Christ
said, I chose you, and you responded to my call. You responded to
my command. In John 6, 37, our Lord said
this, I quoted a moment ago, All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. I came down from heaven, God
sent me, the Father sent me, I came down from heaven, not
to do my will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is
the will of him that sent me, that of all which he hath given
me I'll lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day. And then
in John 10, 24, some of the religious leaders gathered about him, and
they said to him in anger, If you be the Christ, tell us plainly. Well, he said, I told you. I
told you. The works that I do bear witness
of me. But you believe not, because you are not of my sheep. You
see, I said unto you, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me, and I give them eternal life. And no man
can pluck them out of my hand, my Father which gave them me.
is greater than all, and no man can pluck them out of my Father's
hand." In John 17, too, in that great, high, priestly prayer
of the Master, our Lord said this in verse 2. He said, Father,
the hours come. Now glorify thy Son, that thy
Son may glorify thee, as thou hast given me authority, power
over all flesh, that I should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given me. That's what the Lord Jesus prayed.
And on down in verse 9 of that same chapter, he said, I pray
not for the world. I pray for them which thou hast
given me. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them me. Why preach the doctrine of election? Why preach the election
of grace? It's in the Word of God. And
the Lord Jesus Christ preached it. And then thirdly, because
listen to me, the election of grace stands forth, it stands
forth just exactly like all the other works of God. giving Him
the glory. Now, anything that's of God is
going to bring God the glory. Anything that comes from God
is going to be on purpose. Everything God does, He does
on purpose. There are no accidents with God.
He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. He said,
My counsel shall stand. I will do all My pleasure. None
can stay My hand or say unto Me, What doest thou? He's God.
And being God, he cannot be defeated, disappointed, or frustrated.
Now go back and look at all the works of God. He created the
angels, and the angels fell. You read about it. A third of
the heavenly host, led by Lucifer, who's now Satan. And they fell. Did God Almighty design or purpose
a redemption for the angels? No, sir. According to His own
good pleasure, He says time and again in the Scripture, They
are reserved in everlasting chains of darkness under the judgment
of that great day. And in Hebrews 2.16, the writer
of Hebrews says, the Savior took not on him the nature of angels,
he took on him the seed of Abraham. There was a choice made, and
God made it. And God made it. He passed by
the angels. He rejected the angels, and he
chose the sons of Adam. Now that's so, that's scripture,
and you know it, and I know it. And then secondly, Israel, that
little nation in the Old Testament. Israel is an example of God's
sovereign grace. In Deuteronomy 7, 6, he says,
speaking to the nation Israel, Thou art a holy people unto the
Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself. The Lord did not set
His love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in
number than any people. You were the fewest of all. But
because the Lord loved you, He chose Abraham and called him
out of his father's house. Abraham was an idolater. And
God called him out of Ur of the Chaldees and told him to go to
a place He would show him and make of him a great nation. And
that little nation, Israel, God gave them the law, Amorites and
Hittites and Babylonians and Egyptians and Philistines and
all the other people, they didn't have any law given by God. They
had no tabernacle. They had no priesthood. They
had no Ark of the Covenant. They had no mercy seat. They
had no atonement. God gave it to Israel. He made
a choice. God's works all the way through
the Scripture tell you that God is sovereign, not only in creation,
not only in providence, but in this matter, salvation. I will
be merciful to whom I will be merciful. I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. One day our Lord Jesus Christ
lifted His eyes to heaven and He said, Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and the prudent, and Thou hast revealed them to babes.
Even so, Father, it seemed good in Thy sight. found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. Jonah declared salvation is of
the Lord. Let me ask you three questions. Would you listen to me? Would
you answer these questions from your heart, from the Scriptures?
Let me ask you the first one. Listen to it. Did you choose
God or did God choose you? Now which is accurate? Did you
choose God or did God choose you? You have to say, according
to the Scripture, He chose me. That's what the Word of God says.
He chose me. Alright, the second question
is, when did God choose you? When did this act take place?
When did this choice occur? When did God set His love upon
you? The scripture says His love is
an everlasting love. I have loved you from everlasting
to everlasting. When did God choose you? You
have to say, in the beginning. God has from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. God never does anything in time
that He didn't decree in eternity. Nothing slips up on God. There's
nothing new with God. He knows all things, and everything
that's done now, He declared it from the beginning. That's
when He chose you. Well, here's the third question.
Why did He choose you? Why did He choose you? Why did
He set His love upon you? Do you deserve it? Are you worthy
of it? Have you earned it? Well, you
know you can't answer it that way. You have to say, according
to the good pleasure of His own will. Because all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. We've all, like sheep, gone
astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. Again, somebody says, well, why preach the election
of grace? Why preach the election of grace? Granted, it's in the
Bible. You can't deny it's in the Scriptures. Granted, it's
in the Bible, but preachers, shouldn't we keep some of these
things from the people? That's what a lot of preachers
say. Well, just don't tell the people everything. Just keep
some things from them. Now, you listen to me. My friends,
you can't preach Christ and deny His doctrines. You can't preach
Christ and deny His character. You can't preach Christ and deny
His teachings. How can you preach the Teacher
and deny His teachings? You can't preach Christ and deny
Him His rightful glory. You can't preach Christ and not
talk about His eternal purposes. And I'll tell you this. to keep
the word of God from the people. That's dark age, medieval, religious
slavery. And that's the thing that men
have died for down through the years. Paul said, I have not
shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. I kept back
nothing. I'm not going to keep back some
of the scripture because I think it's offensive, or I think it'll
cause division or trouble. Every preacher of the gospel
of God's pre-grace has always had trouble. Christ said, the
world, marvel not, my brethren, that the world hate you. It hated
me before it hated you. Every one of the apostles were
martyred, except one, that was John, who was exiled to the Isle
of Patmos. The blood of martyrs has flowed
through the years. Why? Because of what they did?
No, because of what they preached. We must preach the truth. Somebody
else says, well, preacher, do not some men abuse? the doctrine
of election. Do not some men misuse the doctrine
of election. Do not some men take that precious
truth and fall into fatalism and fall into antinomianism and
fall into an extreme anti-missionary spirit. Of course they do. Of
course they do. But carnal religionists seeking
an excuse for sin and seeking an excuse for laziness have always
done this. and trying to form a righteousness
of their own. They've always done this. They
make a God out of the law. They made a God out of the Levitical
law. Our Lord gave the Sabbath day,
and He gave the Levitical law, and He gave the feast days, and
He gave the tabernacle, and they made a God out of these things.
They made a salvation out of these things. They even worshipped
the brazen serpent that Moses lifted up. They made a God out
of angels. They worshipped angels. They
made a God out of Mary. who bore Christ and made a God
out of her, a Savior, a Mediator. They've made a God out of the
disciples. We've got St. Mark, St. Matthew, St. Luke,
St. John, all these saints. They've
prayed to these St. Jude and all these, made a God
out of them. They weren't intended to be Saviors.
They were just messenger boys, just ministers of the Gospel.
Well, what are we going to do? Do away with those people? Because
men make a God out of Mary, don't preach the truth about her. Because
men make a God out of the disciples, don't read them. Because men
make a god out of the law, don't read it. Because men make a savior
out of baptism, don't baptize. Because men make a savior, a
sacrament, out of the Lord's table, then don't take it. That's
foolish. You don't outlaw roots because
some fella hangs himself. You don't outlaw knives because
some fella cuts his wrist. You don't outlaw medicine because
some fool makes a drug addict out of himself, and you can't
refuse to preach the truth of God's Word because somebody abuses
it, or misuses it, or twists it, or takes it out of context
and takes it out of a balanced message of grace. So that won't
hold water. Somebody else says, well, I tell
you, I know it's in the Bible, you've read it, but I've heard
that believing in election will destroy evangelism. It'll destroy
missions. I've heard people say, well,
if I preach what you preach, I just quit preaching. I wouldn't
send any missionaries. I wouldn't write any tracts.
That's not so. I'll tell you what it will do. If you see God
on the throne and man in the dust and Christ on the cross
as the only advocate and mediator between God and man, salvation
in the hands of God, salvation not something we do for God or
for ourselves or the preacher the church does for us, but something
God does for us, a miracle of grace. I'll tell you this. It'll
set your soul on fire to preach the gospel more than ever before.
And what it'll do is this, it'll destroy your fleshly carnal methods. It'll destroy that fleshly carnal
methods that we use to get people to walk down an aisle and make
a decision and do this and do that. We'll look to God and say,
Lord, salvation's in your hands. Salvation is a work of your spirit.
Salvation is a gift of your grace. Lord, save us or repair us. Lord,
be merciful to me, a sinner. Lord, remember me when you come
into your kingdom. Our Lord Jesus taught sovereign
grace, and he died for sinners. The Apostle Paul taught sovereign
grace, and he was the first great missionary. What about Augustine? Luther? Calvin? What about William
Carey, who was one of the first great missionaries? These men
believe what I'm preaching. What about Judson, who spent
years in Burma? What about John Bunyan? What
about Knox? What about Spurgeon? Every great
preacher who ever lived, who's ever been used of God, believed
in salvation by grace alone. They believed God was sovereign,
and man was a fallen creature, and that God, in His purpose
in eternity, elected a people to salvation and gave them to
Christ, and Christ came down here and died for them, and the
Holy Spirit, invincibly, irresistibly, calls them to faith in Christ,
and they believe, and they will persevere. Now, every preacher
that's ever mounted to a hill of beans has preached those truths.
All the great books on theology, all the great writers, all the
great preachers of all the past preached these things. They were
not fearful men. They were not cowards. They were
bold men. They weren't building names for
themselves in schools and big churches and followings. They
were not seeking disciples to follow them. They were glorifying
God and preaching the truth. They dared to tell the truth.
God blessed them. God honored them. Their works
lived. They speak now like Abel from the ground. Somebody else
says, well, can't you preach it too much? Of course you can.
Of course you can. If you isolate any scripture
from the other scripture, then you change it into error. God
is sovereign. Men are responsible. God has
a people. He gave them to Christ. Christ
died for them. They will believe. They will
come to Christ. This is what Paul is teaching
in 1 Thessalonians 1. Now listen to this. He said,
knowing brethren beloved, your election of God. And he gives
several evidences. These are ways that he knows
these people are elected. He knows they're chosen of God.
He says in verse 5, listen, he said, I know you're God's elect
because, first of all, our gospel came to you not in word only. Now, it's got to come that way
first. A man can't believe in his heart what he doesn't see
or understand in his head. A man can't receive with his
heart what he hasn't understood in his mind. We can't call on
him in whom we haven't believed. We can't believe in him of whom
we haven't heard. So he said, our gospel, the gospel of God's
grace and mercy in Christ, came to you, not in word only, but
in power, in the Holy Ghost, in much assurance. In other words,
when you heard the gospel, It came to you in the hands of the
Holy Spirit, not just from the logic and argument and debate
of some preacher, the reasoning or psychological movements of
some preacher. It came with God's Spirit. And
you were born again. You received the gospel in power. And then he said, secondly, verse
6, and you became followers of the Lord. You became a follower
of Christ. You walked with Christ. You obeyed
Christ, you glorified Christ, you adorned the gospel, you identified
as a disciple. They took note of these people
that had been with Christ. In verse 7 it says, you became
an example to others. Your life was an example. You
became people that walked before others as God's people. Your
lives showed forth the glory of him that called you out of
darkness into his light. And then in the 8th verse he
said, and you became witnesses. From you sounded out the gospel
in Macedonia, Archaea, and the regions around the world. These
people not only became followers of Christ and examples of the
grace of God, but they became witnesses. They wanted to tell
what they'd heard and what they'd felt and what they'd experienced.
And then He said, you turn from your idols to the living God.
And then He said, you're waiting for His Son from heaven, the
hope of His calling and the hope of our glory. And then you can
take the fruit of the Spirit. That's evidence of sovereign
grace, the election of grace. Take love. We love Him because
He first loved us. Joy. Blessed is the man whom
thou choosest. and cause it to approach to thee.
Peace. God is sovereign and all things
work together for our good. That's our peace. Patience. I
had fainted, he said, unless I had believed to see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living. I knew God would work
it out, so I waited on the Lord. Gentleness. Be ye kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God, for Christ's
sake, forgave you. Faith. Abraham believed God that
he would do what he promised. That's sovereign grace. Abraham
believed God that God could perform whatever he promised. Meekness
and humility. Who made you to differ? What
had you that you did not receive? 1 Corinthians 4, 7. Now if you
received it, why do you boast? You can't boast. If salvation
is a free gift and God gave it to you according to the good
pleasure of his own will for no return on your part, what
have you got to boast about? I boast in the grace of God.
I boast in the sovereignty of God. Paul said, I endure all
things for the elect's sake. Whatever I'm called upon to bear
or to give or to do, I do it for the elect's sake. Now, as
I announced to you, this tape, this message is on a tape. With
another message, I'll be preaching on the sons of God. If you want
this tape, write to me, send two dollars. That's what it costs
to produce it and send it to you, and we'll mail it to you
by return mail. Until next week, may the Lord
bless you, is my prayer.