Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you would please a remain standing, and let's turn to Romans, Chapter
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Nine, verses six through twenty nine. The Romans Nine, verses six through
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twenty nine. This is God's word. Let's give our attention to the reading
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of it. But it is not
as though the word of God has failed,
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for not all who are descended from
Israel belong to Israel, and not
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all our children of Abraham, because
they are his offspring. But through Isaac
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shall your offspring be named. This
means that it is not the children of
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the flesh who are the children of
God, but the children of the promise
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are counted as offspring, for this
is what the promise said about. This
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time next year, I will return
and Sarah shall have a son, and
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not only so, but also when
Rebecca had conceived children by one man,
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our forefather Isaac, though they were
not yet born and had done nothing either
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good or bad, in order that
God's purpose of election might continue, not
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because of works, but because of
him who calls. She was told the
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older will serve the younger. As
it is written, Jacob I loved,
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but Esau I hated. What shall
we say then? Is there injustice on
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God's part? It by no means. For he says to Moses, I
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will have mercy on whom I have
mercy. I will have compassion on whom
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I have compassion. So then it
depends not on human will or exertion,
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but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh,
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for this very purpose, I have
raised you up that I might show my
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power in you and that my name
might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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So then he has mercy on whomever
he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.
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You will say to me. Then, why does he still find fault?
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For who can resist his will?
But who are you, Oh man,
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to answer back to God? Will
what is molded say to the MOLDER?
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Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right,
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over the clay, to make out
of the same lump one vessel for honorable
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use and another for dishonorable use?
What if God, desiring to show his
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wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of
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wrath prepared for destruction in order to
make known the riches of his glory,
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for vessels of mercy which he has
prepared beforehand for glory even us whom he
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has called, not from the Jews
only, but also from the gentiles,
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as indeed he says in Josiah.
Those who were not my people, I
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will call my people, and her
who was not my beloved, I will
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call my beloved, and in the
very place it was said to them,
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you are not my people. There
they will be called sons of the Living
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God, and Isaiah cries out concerning
Israel, though the number of the sons
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of Israel be as the sand of
the sea, only a remnant of them
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will be saved, for the Lord
will carry out his sentence upon the earth
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fully and without delay. And,
as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of
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hosts had not left US offspring,
we would have been like Sodom and become
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like go mour. This end us
the reading of God's word, that you
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may be seated. Up until this
point in the book of Romans, Paul
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has been explaining to us what God
has done in salvation through his son.
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He tells us who we are,
as those who are born under God and
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accountable to him, those who understand
his law know it, both Jew and
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gentile, as those who have sinned
against God, who have exchanged the glory
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of God for creatures and creeping things, things that have he got, the
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Creator has made. He's shown us
how our sin is making us. Our
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sin has created the situation in which
we've all fallen short of the glory of
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God and which none of us can
stand before a God and say you owe
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me, in fact, the only
thing that God owes us. Paul has
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taught us his judgment and his wrath, but at the same time, Paul
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has said in so many ways and
so clearly that there is a salvation that
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has come into the world, salvation
in Jesus Christ, one who has come,
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who was this promised child of Abraham, who is the fulfillment of the
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Covenant Promises, who has given us
his very spirit and has blessed US beyond
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anything we can imagine, such that
those who stand in Jesus Christ, who
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believe in him, Paul says,
there is no condemnation anymore. We stand
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before God as those who can share
in his glory, who look forward to
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the glories of the new heavens and
the new earth because of what Jesus has
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done. And all this is simply
given to us freely by God. We
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don't work for it. We don't
strive for it, we don't pay our
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debts off. These kinds of things
are impossible, but God gives us to
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them out of His grace and out
of his mercy and out of his love.
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There are questions, though, that
come up, questions particularly concerning the
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Jews, and Paul wants to address
these old for these next three chapters,
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over chapters nine, ten and eleven, and this is a really wonderful thing.
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Jesus Christ is common. Something has
happened by and large, when Jesus
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was when Jesus came, he was
rejected by his own people. He and
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then in Paul and sending Paul out
and others to go preach the Gospel to
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the gentiles, he starts bringing in
New People. It creates this question.
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Well, what do we make of
all of these covenants and promises and the
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giving of the law and everything that
Paul listed in verses four and five that
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we've been focusing on in the past
few weeks? What do we make of
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all of those things? What of
the Jews? How do we understand them?
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Well, these three chapters God opens
up his plan of salvation to us.
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He helps us to understand what's going
on why it's going on and how
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it will come to pass. Just
as a caveat. I'm God of course
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did this in his wisdom and he
reveals to US perfectly exactly how much we
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need to know. Not Anymore,
not any less. This is a good
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reminder, I think, because we're
often pressing God for four things that he
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won't tell us. We often press
God and feel like we're owed somehow the
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different things, knowledge of his plan
and and many times God says it's not
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up to you to know these things, it's not up to you to know
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why I'm doing this or why I'm
doing that. And yet, at the
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same time, in the very pages
of scripture, these things that these bibles
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that sit by our night stands and
on ourselves and on our phones, we
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have so ready access to God's plan, to what he's doing, why he's
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doing it, his purposes. He
tells us things and we should pay attention,
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and that's what he does in these
three chapters. He tells us what
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he's doing, why he's doing it, he explains some of the background of
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all that's been going on, all
the things that have happened in history.
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Now let me remind you and warn
you as and you will will approach this
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in this chapter. God tells us
these things. He tells us his plan,
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not so that we can inspect it
and decide whether or not we want
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to approve of it. I'm God
doesn't submit his work to us like a
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student submits a test to his teacher
and says, here, what do you
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think? What? WHAT GRADE DO
I get? Do you approve or not?
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No, God submits his plan to
us that we might be filled with
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humility, with gratitude, with the
fear of the Lord. He doesn't submit
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his plan to us. He is
his plan to us. This knowledge of
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himself and of his will he gives
to us as a act of grace and
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of love. It's like when children
are maybe struggling to understand what's going on
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in a household in the parents set
them down and say, Hey, family
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meeting time. We need to explain
to you a few things that are going
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on now. Parents, they may
not tell you everything. Kids, you
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might not hear every particular detail and
everything that's going on, but when your
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parents do this kind of thing,
it's because they love you, they want
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to bring you into something and understanding
of something. They want to bless you,
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and that's what God does hear.
And what he does is he causes
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us, he asks us, he
gives us an opportunity to meditate on his
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great sovereignty. In chapter nine he
calls us to meditate on his election,
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not as a student turning in a
test, not as a bully trying to
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offend us and push us away,
but as a father, drawing US close
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to him so that he m so
that we might know him, so that
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we might fear him, so that
we might love him, so that we
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might be grateful for the things that
he's done. Now, despite these good
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purposes and teaching us and talking to
us about his election, why he chooses
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some in Israel and not in is
real, why you choose, as some
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gentiles and not other gentiles, despite
these good purposes that God has, many
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people do struggle with this chapter,
struggle with Romans chapter nine. I don't
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think it's so much an understanding it, but in understanding and accepting its implications.
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And this was a very true for
me personally. I don't often share
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personal stories, but I will so
hear in the hope that it will be
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helpful to you. Romans nine came
to me I don't know if I'd really
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read it before until someone in college
I came to me and told me about
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some of my friends, some mutual
friends, and they were talking, Maybe
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Gossiping, and said, you know, they're calvinists, and I said they're
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calvinists, what does that mean?
And they said, Oh, well,
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that means that people don't have they's
at someone who believes that you don't have
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to really believe in Jesus. It
means that God has this certain number of
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people that he elects and then he
saves them and it doesn't really matter what
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they do or what they don't do. On this person continued, sort of
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vehemently to explain that this creates it's
this doctrine creates a kind of theology of
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robots. God elects these people.
They have nothing to do with it,
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and so they they're basically robots.
They they God has complete, powerful over
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them, and this in turn takes
away all desires for missions, for prayer,
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for sharing the Gospel with other people, for good works. And you
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know what I said, that's terrible. That is terrible. Our friends believe
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these things. I couldn't believe it
and I was really concerned. These are
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my friends, that I loved,
I cared about, and they were being
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pulled in by this very dangerous doctrine. Well, because I cared about my
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friends, I asked them about this. I talked to them and they said
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I started talking to me and I
said, well, this is things were
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reading in scripture and you should read
them too. And one of them,
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they one of the things that I
was pointed to, is Romans nine.
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Now, Romans Nine, among other
passages, sort of approached me in this
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particular way that God's word hadn't before. This was a particular time in my
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life when I was taking God's word
very seriously. I wanted to understand it,
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I wanted to know it. I
was a Christian, I wanted to
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hear God, I wanted to believe
what he would have me believe, do
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what he had would have me do. And so I'm reading Romans nine and
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I'm reading things like it as it
is written. Jacob I have loved,
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but Esau I have hated. I
read things is like in verse eleven,
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though they were not born yet and
nothing had done, nothing, either good
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or bad, in order that God's
purpose of election might continue, not because
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of works but because of him who
calls, she was told the other older
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shall serve the younger, or verse
eighteen. So then he has mercy on
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whomever he wills and hardens whomever he
heartens. Approaching this I though, I
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read it many times and there were
particular things I asked questions about, I
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would try to look up in commentaries. The more I read it, the
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more it just the sort of very
plainly stated. The Westminster Confession of faith
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says that not all things in scripture
are equally clear, they're not all equally
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understandable, and that's true. There
are very difficult parts of scripture to understand,
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some that require a lot of work, a lot of study, but
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I don't think this is one of
them. This is one of those chapters.
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This is one of those plassages in
scripture, especially taken as a whole,
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that just gets to the point and
speaks very plainly. And what I
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found in myself the more I read
that's chapter, the more I thought about
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it and the what and how it
fit into the rest of the context of
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Romans, the more I found how
my problem and my disagreements was. It
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wasn't in what it said but in
the implications. I thought it men well,
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what does it say? Let's go
through it briefly. In versus one
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through five, Paul expresses his feelings, he expresses his feelings about his his
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people, and in so doing he
lays aside any objection that someone would have
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to this doctrine of election, that
he points out, any objection that would
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say, well, Paul's just saying
this because he doesn't care about his people
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anymore, or at Paul saying this
because he doesn't think the Jews are important,
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or Paul saying this because he doesn't
cont God, because he thinks God
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doesn't continue to love Israel anymore.
All these objections are set aside. And
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Verses One through five, I didn't
read them before, so I'll read them
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now. Paul says, I'm speaking
the truth in Christ, I am not
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lying. My conscience spares me.
Witness in the Holy Spirit that tells us
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he's speaking strongly. Here he's swearing
an oath. Essentially, he's saying,
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listen to me, I'm not lying, I'm telling you the truth. And
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what does he say? That I
have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my
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heart, for I could wish that
I myself were accursed and cut off from
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Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsman. According to the flesh,
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they are the Israelites and to them
belong the adoption, the glory,
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the Covenant, the giving of the
law, the worship and the promises.
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To Them Belong the Patriarchs, and
from their race, according to the Flesh,
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is the Christ, who is God
over all, blessed forever. Amen.
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Paul cares. Paul cares deeply,
so much so that he says,
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if it were possible for me to
be cut off from Christ for my brothers,
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I would unceasing anguish in his heart. Paul cares. And does Paul
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think the Jews are important? Absolutely. He gives us this great litany of
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all these gifts, these massive gifts
that God has given to this people,
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the chief among them being Christ,
who is God, not over the gentiles
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but over all, Jews and gentiles. When Jesus Christ comes, he doesn't
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throw away the people of God forever, that the Israelites. He continues to
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love them. He has not failed, as he says in verse six,
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but it is not as though the
word of God has failed. The promises
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to the Patriarchs, the covenants that
were made, the direction to which the
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law pointed, the reasons for worship, all of these things, the glory
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of God, the adoption he brought
them into, these things didn't fail ail.
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When Jesus Christ came and the preaching
of the Gospel went into the world,
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they achieved their highest point. They
came into into fulfillment. So Paul
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lays aside these objections and talking about
what happened with Israel. God doesn't throw
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this people away. He God gives
them the culminating gift of everything he's been
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doing since Adam and eve and,
as we see in this chapter, even
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before that. That's versus one through
five, then in verses six through seven.
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Paul argues that why some believe in
Christ and others reject him, why
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some are saved and others are hardened. This is not new. This has
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been going on for a long time. That God's people, this sense of
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who is Israel has always been understood
on two levels. There's Israel and then
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there's Israel. There is Israel and
then there are those who truly, spiritually,
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personally deeply belong to Israel. There
are those who belong to it in
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an outward and temporary sense, in
a way because they are of Abraham,
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there of his offspring, they are
born of the flesh. But then there
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is Israel that come through the PROMUS. There are those who believed and what
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Abraham believed, who belong to God. Why does this happen? This gets
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to the plan and the purpose,
the foundation of all of this. God
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says it's because of his choices.
It's because of his will. Not Because
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of the will of Abraham, not
because of the will of Isaac, not
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because of the will of Jacob,
not because of the will of Esaw,
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because of the will of God,
not because of the works of men,
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as it says in verse eleven,
but because of him who calls and he
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gives these proofs in by using these
historical examples in scripture. He says,
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look at Isaac. Through Isaac shall
your offspring be named. And that's what
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happened. The children of flesh were
born through Isaaac, and again it happened
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with Isaac to it was through his
son's as will. There were two sons.
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Neither had done good or evil before
both were born. God chose one.
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I the younger or sorry, the
old. The older will serve the
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younger. This is what he says
to Rebecca, and that is indeed what
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happened. And then when we get
into all the details of the story,
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you remember Jacobs not some awesome guy
who's just this massively holy person that God
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sort of sees and says, wow, look at faith of Jacob, I
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am going to bestow on him my
love. Jacob is a Niver fief in
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some ways, a manipulator, does
all kinds of terrible things, but the
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principle stands. I will have mercy
on whom I have mercy. God doesn't
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Love Jacob either because he's sinful.
That's not the reason God loves him.
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He loves him because he loves him. He loves him because he says that
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one's mine, and we don't know
why, except that it was God's will.
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And we know that it's because we're
talking about in the category of mercy.
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It's not something that God owed to
Jacob or to Esau. Neither one
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of them were deserved the mercy of
God, but God gave it nevertheless.
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So this is what he says in
verses six through twelve. He points at
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the very history of Israel, the
progression of the covenants, the Progression of
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the Patriarchs and the promises is.
It all leads up to Christ and he
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says this is how it's always been, this is the way that it is,
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this is how God does things for
a particular reason, in order that
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God's purpose of election might continue.
God has a purpose and he wants it
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to continue and he makes it known
to us. This is the wonderful thing
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about election. It not it doesn't
merely exist, but it is revealed.
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There are many things that exist that
we do not know about. Some of
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them we discover regularly. I am
I think about the oceans, for example,
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crazy creatures, strange fish and animals, and I probably even other classifications
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that I don't know, living and
swimming and dwelling down deep on the bottom
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of the ocean that none of us
have ever seen or will ever see.
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Maybe someone from a long time from
now we'll discover something new, and yet
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there it is, existing while yet
to be revealed. This is true not
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only of creation, but of other
things to God's will, eternal principle,
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spiritual things. We're waiting for the
revelation of the new heavens and the new
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earth. We're waiting for the coming
of Jesus Christ. There are things that
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are planned purposed exist but we don't
see them. But here God tells us
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about his purpose of election. He
reveals this deep water kind of thing so
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that we might know it and see
it and believe it. God does things
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this way, not only to do
them in that way, but he tells
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us about them. Well, once
establishing this principle, he has mercy,
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on whom he has mercy. He
hardens whom he hardens. This is the
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prerogative of God. Paul then answers
a couple objections. First, verses fourteen
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through eighteen. First he answers this
objection about injustice. What shall we say
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then? Is there injustice on the
part of God? In other words,
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when God is saying Jacob, I
choose Esaw A don't, I don't.
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Can we go and stand before God
and say that's not fair? Can we
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say to God that you are being
unjust unfair in your election? What does
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God say? It's very clear.
By no means because God does what he
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does. He has mercy on whom
he has mercy. He has compassion on
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whom he has compassion. Verse Fifteen. Then the principle behind it. Verse
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Sixteen. It depends not on human
will or exertion, but on god,
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whom he excuse me, but on
God whom has mercy. It gets back
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to this point that I was making
earlier. God is showing mercy. He's
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not rewarding people, he's not sort
of looking at people who all sort of
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stand their mutually and are asking for
something and or he's rewarding these things or
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good works or whatever. No,
God is giving something to people, something
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they don't deserve. Well, I
suppose you could call that injustice if you
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have to, but do we really
want to call that injustice, to say
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that God has given me His grace
when I didn't deserve it? Now we
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call that grace, we call that
mercy, and we know too that behind
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that grace and mercy there is justice. It's not as though God sweeps the
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smit sins under the rug and say, well, I'm not going to pay
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out justice this time. No,
he does pay them out, he does
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seek retribution and justice. He is
good in that way. It's just that
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he doesn't do it in us,
but he does it in Jesus, on
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himself. So is there injustice and
God? Are we going to look at
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the cross on whom he's pouring out
the his own wrath so that we might
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not endure it and say well,
that's not fair, of course not.
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Well then, versus ninth, nineteen
through the end, he says this other
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objection. Will you say to me
then? Why does he find fault for
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who can resist his will? In
other words, it's this subjection. If
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God is electing some and not electing
others, Paul says there's this thought that
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you might have, that I certainly
had when I first bumped into this doctrine.
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Well, how can God, if
he's choosing some and not choosing others,
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make me accountable for my sins or
for his choices? Well, that's
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a big topic, but there's a
simple point that Paul wants to make,
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that you should let settle in your
hearts, and that I had to let
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settle in my heart, and it's
this verse twenty. But who are you,
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Oh man, to answer back to
God? He essentially says you don't
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have a right to ask that question. There's no such thing as a stupid
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question. Well, we appreciate what
teachers mean when the they say this.
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They're trying to encourage us to talk
and be brave and explore and learn,
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but it's also true that there are
such things as stupid questions and this is
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one of them. To Go to
God and say, Hey, that's not
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fair. How can you find fault
with me when we know our ends,
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when we know how much we've offended
him, how far we fallen short of
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his glory, when we know how
supreme he is, how sovereign he is,
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how majestic and Almighty he and his
will is. And then Paul explains
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this using an example. A clay, a piece of clay being molded by
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a potter. Does it have a
right to to stand up and say,
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why are you doing this to me? It's a silly thing, because clay
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doesn't even do that. The created
clay doesn't answer back to the Creator,
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the one who's molding and making the
pot and yet we do. That's what
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we do. We stand on the
plotting wheel as the clay and say to
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God, how come? That's not
fair, that's not I don't like that.
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You're unjust. Paul essentially says,
shot up. Who are you,
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Oh man, to answer back to
God? Will what is molded say to
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the MOLDER, why have you made
me like this? Has the potter no
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right over the clay to make what
he wants. Of course he does.
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God has every right. It's his
plan, it's his mercy, it's our
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sins. And then he points out
prophecies from Josiah, from Isaiah, showing
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that this has been God's purpose all
along, to call the only from the
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Jews, but also from the from
the gentiles. You know, it's amazing
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to me, though, is he
not only says to us sit down and
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be quiet, but then, after
telling us that, he answers the question,
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even after telling us you have no
right to answer that, ask that
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question, he says. Well,
what if God, Verse Twenty Two,
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desiring to show his wrath and to
make known his power, has endured with
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much patience, vessels of Wrath prepared
for destruction in order to make known the
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riches of his glory, for vessels
of mercy which he is prepared beforehand for
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glory? This doesn't tell us everything
about God's will, but it tells us
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something that what God is doing,
in making some pots this way, in
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some pots this way, in choosing
some and not choosing others, is he's
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working things for his own glory,
for his power, so that he might
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be exalted and we who are caught
up in that who are brought along in
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the riches of his glory, we
find joy and salvation. We find that
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God is doing these things in order
to make them known to us, another
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way of putting it, as the
unbeliever is not a person who's going to
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be asking God, why are you
not saving me? Because God says to
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that person, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
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This is freely offered to you,
and the Christian who has been saved is
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the last person who should be asking
God, why have you made me like
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this? Right? Why have you
made me a vessel of mercy and shows
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of me in your great love and
kindness? Isn't that unfair and unjust?
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Do you see why this is crazy
talk? We who have been made vessels
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of mercy, we who have been
cared and loved and who are caught up
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in the riches of his glory,
when we hear about God's purposes of election,
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we fall on our knees and we
say, well, this is an
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amazing thing you have done. The
doctrine of election should not cause us to
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stand like indignant children with our hands
on our hips, but it should cause
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us to fall on our faces before
a merciful God and worship him. It
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took me a while to get to
that point, though. When I was
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first reading Romans Nind it was a
struggle. I remember struggling reading it over
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and over, and the more I
read at the more plain it seemed to
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me, the more I couldn't get
around these very plain truths. But as
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a Christian, I found myself in
a place where simply had to submit.
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I mean, what other option do
we have as Christians? Are we going
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to say, well, God said
it, but yeah, that's okay,
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I'm just not going to believe it. I'm going to do something else.
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We approach God's word, we we
believe it, we do it, whether
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we like it or not. That's
obviously not the best attitude, but it's
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better than not doing it. It's
better than refusing him, and that's the
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place I found myself in. In
some ways, I kind of not to
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compare myself to Abraham, but sometimes
I imagine. I imagine Abraham being in
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a similar situation when God told him
to sacrifice his song God. Abraham didn't
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understand the plan. He didn't know
that the ram would be provided, he
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didn't know what God was doing and
all these kinds of things. There's a
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lot of it that didn't make sense. The implications of sacrificing your son,
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the son of promise, even how
do you get your head around that?
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But Abraham, as a faithful as
one who trusted God and believed him and
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so and and belong to him,
he says okay, and that's what he
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did. He went forward, and
that's what I tried to do and that's
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what I would encourage you to do
whenever you bump into any doctrine of scripture,
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whenever you see something so plainly taught
in God's word, even if you
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don't understand all the implications, even
if you don't can't work it all out
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in your mind, when something is
plainly and clearly taught, when you are
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called to believe something or called to
do something, we should be like Abraham.
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We stand up and we say yes, Lord and we trust him.
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And you know what, God is
good and just like with Abraham and with
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me and I think perhaps many of
you, in our lives, when we
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go forward in a faithful submission and
obedience, he begins to make clear some
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of these things to us. Not
Always, God, ever, lays all
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his cards out on the table and
says here is everything I'm going to do
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and every kind and every way.
Even if he did, we wouldn't be
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able to understand it hold it all
together in our minds. But he does
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tell us things, he does help
wrap things up and he grows US and
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helps us to understand the implications,
and that's true of election as well.
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The more that I understood the doctrine
of election and the more that people do,
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not just me, you'll find these
wonderful comforts and assurances. As I've
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said and hinted at already, it
moves us from a posture of obstinence to
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a posture of love and worship and
prostration, of humbling ourselves before God.
403
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When God says here is the House
of salvation and it sits on this foundation
404
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of election, we find that it's
no longer theologically speaking and as we conceive
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of our salvation. It's no longer
sitting on the sifting sands of our works
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or our faith. Let me read
to you a few of these lines that
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we sang earlier from sixty one.
Thy Work Alone, O Christ, can
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ease the weight of sin. Thy
Blood alone, a lamb of God,
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can give me peace within. Thy
Love to me, Oh Christ, not
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mine, O Lord to Thee,
can rid me of this dark unrest and
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set my spirit free. Well,
that work of Christ is not just the
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work on the cross in time and
space, but it's his will from all
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eternity to choose us. This is
why, this is why our salvation depends
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not on us, not on what
my hands have done. I love this
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line in the first verse. Not
what I feel or do can give me
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peace with God. Not all my
prayers and sighs and tears can bear my
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awful load. It means that our
salvation is not based on the greatness of
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our faith. It means the salvation
is not based on how well we pray
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or read the scriptures or how well
we execute God's decre his will is commands
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in our lives. Because if we
if that's what our salvation depends on,
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if our salvation depends on our works
or our work somehow mixed with God's grace,
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anything in there, it creates a
kind of crumbling. So the foundation.
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God says, that's not the way
it is. Your Salvation stands only
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and always on me and my perfect
will, and that should bring comfort and
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assurance. It means that we who
walk into that door, that door of
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Jesus Christ, into this House of
salvation, we're not going to slip and
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fall. It's not going to fall
out from underneath of us when our prayers
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are less than good, when we
find ourselves falling into sin. It means
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that we stand forever on God and
his will, as Jesus says, and
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John Ten none that the father has
given me will I lose, not one.
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No one can snatch them out of
my father's hand. They belong to
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me and I have kept them and
I will keep them. Another implication of
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the doctrine of election means that we
give all glory to God. All boasting
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and on ourselves is taken away.
It means that in Salvation God gets all
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the glory. And what other way
should we desire? It as Christians?
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Makes US gratitude, it fills us
with worship, it gives us a deep
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sense of the deep grace of the
Gospel that God has chosen us before we
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have done anything good or bad,
that even in spite of our sin,
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in spite of our works, God
has had mercy and compassion on us.
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That is good news. That is
deep grace, and that relates to things
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like prayer missions. In our prayer
we go on our knees and we pray
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to God and we say, Lord, do the things that I am unable
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to do. I'm leaning on you, I'm depending on you because you're the
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rock of ages, because your will
is set from all eternity, because the
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salvation is from you and not from
me. We can and go to a
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god and depend on him because he
is dependable, because he's not shifting and
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changing, because he's what he decides, is is what he decides and because
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of the grace of the Gospel,
the certainty of God, it means that
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00:39:57.440 --> 00:40:04.039
in missions, we go confidently forward, knowing that the lost will be reached,
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knowing that it depends not on the
eloquence of our words or the particular
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00:40:10.070 --> 00:40:17.230
tricks we use or the particular method, but it depends on God. Romans
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00:40:17.269 --> 00:40:22.739
ten will talk about people going forward
preaching the Gospel so that all will believe
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those truths are based on the certainty
of God's grace. We go out into
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the world looking for our brothers and
sisters, people that have been elected from
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all eternity. We go not trying
to figure out which one is which is
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this person electors this person? Not? Oh, I think they might be
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all. Preach the Gospel to them. Know, when we invite people to
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come into this great's healths of salvation. This is borrowing, by the way,
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from a an analogy that our be
Kuiper uses in the sovereignty of God
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and evangelism. I think is the
title of the book, something like that.
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00:41:06.349 --> 00:41:10.670
Ourgue urb Kuiper says when we when
we point people to salvation, where
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do we point them? The foundation
of the House. Well, at the
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door Jesus we say come in,
come in, you're invited to come in.
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When they come in, we say
look at the floor and we can
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tell him ahead of time. You
know, we could say look at the
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floor, this is a strong house, this is a strong foundation. You're
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safe, you're secure. All who
come to Jesus Christ belong in him and
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00:41:35.170 --> 00:41:39.289
will forever. But we don't point
them at the foundation say figure out whether
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you belong to God or not and
then decide. We're not supposed to find
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out the secret will of God.
Were called to believe. And so that's
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our response to the Gospel and it's
what we call people to as well.
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We go into the world with confidence
in this task. Then, boasting not
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00:41:58.760 --> 00:42:01.989
in our work but in pride and
hope and confidence in the work of God,
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we say this House of salvation is
strong, the door is open,
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00:42:07.670 --> 00:42:14.389
come on in, and they do, and when they come inside we see
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00:42:14.429 --> 00:42:21.059
our brothers and sisters and we rejoice
at the mercy of God. I could
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00:42:21.099 --> 00:42:24.420
go on all afternoon, but the
point is this, that the implications of
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the doctrine of election are good and
many. We don't need to suffer under
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00:42:32.010 --> 00:42:37.250
it, we don't need to fight
against it or submit with a kind of
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00:42:38.170 --> 00:42:42.690
you know, lip that sticks out
and go to our room kind of frustrated
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00:42:42.730 --> 00:42:51.320
and pouting. We say thank you, we worship and we go forward in
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00:42:51.360 --> 00:42:54.320
the confidence of the God, that
the that the God's work in the Gospel,
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00:42:55.039 --> 00:43:01.789
will be done, that God has
not thrown his people aside, but
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00:43:01.949 --> 00:43:07.789
that through him or through them and
through his purpose of election, he has
485
00:43:07.869 --> 00:43:13.619
been drawing them to himself and growing
his church ever since the beginning, and
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00:43:14.780 --> 00:43:19.579
he continues to do that today.
If you are here and you don't know
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00:43:19.780 --> 00:43:24.579
Jesus, then come into this house, come into this family, knowing that
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00:43:24.739 --> 00:43:32.969
your salvation is secure from beginning to
end, from eternity, from everlasting,
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00:43:34.090 --> 00:43:39.889
everlasting, come in, enjoy,
belong and know the mercy of God that
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00:43:40.050 --> 00:43:46.840
is given to you. And,
if you are already inside, enjoy yourself,
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00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:54.869
praise God, worship him and thank
him for his sovereign work in your
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00:43:55.070 --> 00:44:00.630
life, work that you didn't deserve, but work that you have received.
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Nevertheless, let us pray
