Voddie Baucham - Election and Predestination

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we look at Genesis chapter twenty five, and as
we begin here in verse nineteen and look at what
is a very familiar passage of scripture and also a
difficult one for us to comprehend, to sort of wrap
our minds around. So if you'll join me there in
Genesis chapter twenty five, there is an overlap here in

(00:24):
this series, we're looking at the life of Isaac and
the life of Jacob. There's an overlap in this moment
between Isaac's life and Jacob's life because we are introduced
to Jacob, and it's very important. Just like it's important
for us to understand Abraham in order to understand Isaac,
it's important for us to understand Isaac in order to

(00:47):
understand Jacob, and vice versa, because much of who Jacob
is is really caught up in the identity of his
father and the identity of his grandfather. So we don't
have much information about Isaac. Unfortunately, we know very few

(01:07):
things about Isaac, and most of them are not very positive.
You have thought about that. You look at the information
that we have about Abraham, tons of information about Abraham.
A whole lot of Genesis is devoted to the life
of Abraham. When it comes to the life of Isaac,
there's just this small sliver, as though he's a kind

(01:30):
of speed bump to get us from Abraham to Jacob,
if you will. And most of what we see in
Isaac's life is an unfortunate repetition of many of the
failures of the life of Abraham. In fact, one of
the only positive moments in the life of Isaac is

(01:50):
a moment that we'll examine here in Genesis chapter twenty five.
Other than this moment here, most of the moments in
Isaac's life are not very positive. Look here, beginning at
verse nineteen. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son.

(02:13):
Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when
he took Rebecca to be his wife, the daughter of
Bethuel the Aramian from Pandanna a ram the sister of
Laban the Aramian. By the way, that name Laban is
going to occur again. We're going to see Laban not

(02:37):
only involved in this process of Isaac finding a wife,
but we're also going to see Laban involved in the
process of Jacob finding a wife. And Laban is an
absolute scoundrel in the process so there's a little foreshadowing

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here of what is yet to come for isaac son.
And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because
she was barren. Here here's what's interesting. We already see
a parallel and a distinction between the life of Abraham
and the life of Isaac. Both of them are dealing
with barrenness in their wives in light of a promise

(03:20):
from God. God has made a promise to Abraham. He's
going to make Abraham a great nation, the father of
many nations. And yet he has no son. His wife
is barren. Now we see Isaac, who has the same promise.
He is the fruit of the promise and the next
step in the promise. So he's got to have some kids, right, Well,

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not for the first twenty years of his marriage. There's nothing.
Wait a minute, my father dealt with this and God,
you miraculously intervened, and so here I am. And now
you mean to tell me at the next step in
the juncture, I can't have kids either. But there's also

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a distinction in the midst of the parallel. Here's the distinction.
The distinction is Abraham, you're going to have a son,
what for real? And his wife Sarah. She laughs, that's
funny to her. They don't trust God. In fact, eventually

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they go off and there's Hagar and you know, and Ishmael,
and there's not trust in God. Right here. Immediately there's
a distinction between Abraham and Isaac. Isaac, they're not able
to conceive. What is his response To get on his
face before God, not to try another route, but to

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get on his face before Almighty God and beg that
God would bring forth a child through his wife, not
to find another woman like his father did, but to
trust that God would provide the way God said he
would provide. Now, that's interesting. The Bible doesn't tell us this,

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but it's hard not to believe that Isaac's experience with Ishmael,
the older brother who despised him, may have had a
little bit to do with this. Amen. He saw that
friction between Hagar and his mother. He did not want
to do that to his wife. He saw the friction

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between Ishmael and him the seed of promise, who came
not from Hagar but from Sarah. He did not repeat this, No, no, no,
no no, I'm going to God. We're not going to
mess this up like that. God's got to fix this.
It's got to happen. Here's the other thing that you
need to recognize. Well, let's read here a little further.

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And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebecca, his wife, conceived,
that's just good. The Lord granted his prayer, and Rebecca,
his wife, conceived that a lot of people will read
that and we'll say amen. So I thought God had
already said that there was going to be, you know,
the multiple nations, and so there had to be an heir.

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So God's really just doing what God was going to do.
What the text says that God answered his prayer. So
was God not going to do what God promised to
do unless he prayed? Or was he you know what,
not your department? God answered his prayer. God answered his prayer.
By the way, when we pray in accordance with God's will,

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God answers our prayer. Amen, God answers our prayer. Do
I know all the inner workings of how God answers
my prayers when their accordance with His will? Nope, don't
know that. Not my department. My department pray, that's my department,
that's Isaac's department. The Children verse twenty three struggled together

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within her, and she said, if it is thus, why
is this happening to me? So she went to inquire
of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, now
stop there. Twenty years she couldn't get pregnant, twenty years
in time, Isaac's forty time, Isaac sixty. Twenty years, Now

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she gets pregnant, and it's rough. God, thank you for
answering prayers and all, but this is not good. I mean,
I know I want a child, I really do, but
there's something going on in here that's just not right.
I'd almost rather not. You gotta explain this to me, please, Lord.

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I don't know if there's any of you in here
who ever had pregnancy like that before. Amen, sick all
the time, baby, just acting like a you know, an
Olympic gymnast. Was not good. And it wasn't just normal,

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not good. This was so bad that she went and
inquired of the Lord. Something is wrong here, God, something
is not normal here, something is beyond unusual here. Please
explain to me why I'm having this kind of experience

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in this pregnancy. Lord said to her, two nations are
in your womb, two peoples from within. You shall be
divided by the way. I want to pause here. We
alluded to this on last week, but we need to
pause here and address this issue again because some would
like to make God the author of sin by saying, well,

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God said to Abraham he was going to be the
father of many nations, and so you have Ishmael, who's
a separate nation. So actually, what Abraham did was really
what needed to be done anyway, because otherwise, how are
you going to get multiple nations. Here's the answer. One wife,
one pregnancy, two nations, No adultery necessary. Amen, there is

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no excuse for what Abraham did. It was sin, plain
and simple. The end doesn't justify the means. You don't
go and help God out by sinning in order to
bring about the promises that God has made, and it
doesn't matter how it turns out. In the end, Sin
is sin, and we see here that God is more

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than capable of bringing about multiple nations without the help
of adultery. Two nations are in your and two people
from within you shall be divided. The one shall be
stronger than the other. And then here's a twist. The older,

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contrary to tradition, shall serve the younger. The oldest son
is supposed to be the primary heir and in line
for a double portion blessing. He is supposed to be
the primary means through which the family name is carried on.
God says, I got some news for you, Number one.

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There's two nations in your womb, not one. That's highly unusual, Jacob.
There's going to be twelve sons from two wives and
two concubines, and there's still all going to be one nation, Israel.

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Here we've got twin same mother, And God says, two nations,
not only the unusual twist of two nations. But let
me throw this monkeyr Ech in there. It's not going
to be the normal order. The younger son, contrary to tradition,

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the younger son will be the stronger. The older son
will be the servant of the younger son. In other words,
the promise is not contingent upon birth order or man's tradition.
The promise is contingent upon predestination and election. Verse twenty four.

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When our days to give birth were completed, behold there
were twins in her womb. The first came out, read
all his body like a Harry cloak. So they called
his name Esau. Now his descendants are called Edom, which
refers to redness. This name Esau refers to the hairiness.
So you got this baby who comes out and he's

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red and harry. Afterward, his brother came out with his
hand holding Esau's healed. His hand was clutching to his
older brother's a cave. It's the word in the Hebrew,
a cave. His hand came out clutching to his brother's

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a cave, to his brother's heel. So his name was
called Yakov, which is a derivation of a cave, which
means heal, grabber or deceiver or conniver, swindler. Isaac was

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sixty years old when she bore them. When the boys
grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of
the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling intense.
Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but
Rebecca loved Jacob. Read between the lines. This family has problems, Amen.

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Not only is there contention between the brothers, but between
mom and dad as well. And here's what we know.
We know that this contention between the brothers is going
to grow. We know that this contention between the brothers
will define the two of them will define their relationship,

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and it will also at times define the relationship between
the two nations that they become. We'll hear about edom
again throughout the Bible. We also know that this conflict
is going to come to a head between the mother
and the father, and there's going to be conflict as
to whether or not they obey what God has spoken

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clearly about these two sons. All of this foreshadowed right
here in these few verses about the birth. I'm Jacob
and Esau. Here's what else is foreshadowed. One commentator has written,

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there's not much about Isaac's life that we know, and
perhaps that's because beyond the fact that he was a
man of faith and prayer when it came to his
wife conceiving, ultimately his life degenerated into a thirst and
hunger for wild game and being a horrible parent whose

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favoritism and inequity caused ripples for generations to come. And
yet predestination and election tagged him and not the son

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of Hagar, not the sons of Kature. And yet when
it comes to Jacob, when he starts out, of course
his name has been redeemed. But when he starts out
even his name. Even his name is a reference to
the kind of character that we're going to see in

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the life of this young man who grows up into
an older man who is a schemer and a conniver,
so much so that when he gets schemed and by Laban,
the response when you know his character is good for you,
it's what you get. And yet, and yet this was

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God's plan. Well, we'll have much to say about this
issue of Isaac and Jacob and Esaw and the relationship
between Jacob and Esaw. However, before we go beyond this
paragraph here, there's a doctrinal issue that we must deal with.
You guys know, I don't bring out the computer and

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the slides all that often, but there's some work that
we need to do here in order to lay some
theological groundwork. Otherwise there will be confusion and questions and
misunderstanding and a bunch of other things as it relates
to this issue of predestination and election. Because this is

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the seminal portrait, the seminal portrayal of the doctrine of
predestination in the scriptures. And I'm not suggesting that the
New Testament suggests that Romans Chapter nine is an exposition
of this passage of scripture Romans chapter nine. The seminal

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section in the New Testament on the doctrine of Predestination
and Election is an exposition, a doctrinal theological exposition of
the Jacob and Esau birth narrative. So before we go
beyond and continue to look at the life of Isaac,

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and go beyond and continue to look even more closely
at the life of Jacob, rounding out our understanding of
the patriarchs, there is an issue that has been bubbling
beneath the surface all along that now comes to fruition.
It was a little bit easier to see as it
related to Isaac and Ishmael. I mean, of course, you

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know God made a promise to Abraham and Sarah. Hagar
is not part of that promise. Hagar is outside. We
got the of course, But again, the doctrine of predestination
and election is under the surface even there. Now it
is full blown and it is in our faces, and

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it must be dealt with. So what we'll do is
we'll we'll explain the doctrine. We'll see the source of
the doctrine, will defend the doctrine, and will apply the
doctrine of predestination. This is a discussion that most churches
would rather not have, amen, I mean it really is.

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It's a discussion that most Christians would rather not have.
In fact, what we much rather do is something like this. Well,
you know, we really can't understand predestination and election, so
it's really of no benefit to sort of delve into
those things at all. Folks. If you don't delve into

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predestination and election, you don't delve into the Gospel. You
must delve into this issue, and we will do just that.
The explanation of the doctrine. That's where we'll start. Let
me explain this doctrine of predestination and election, and we'll

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explain it from our confession of faith, the London Baptist Confession.
We've read this issue of the doctor in predestination election,
but I want to go through this and take a
few moments to explain this for you. Okay, and let
me say this already as we start, because here's the
position that some people will take. Well, you know, of course,

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you know, you go to the Confession of faith. That's
man's word, that's not the scriptures. Absolutely, we're going to
get to the scriptural explanation. But we need to have
these synthesized for us. And that's the only reason that
we have a confession of faith in the first place.
This is the position to which we hold as a church. Okay,

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number one. This is Chapter three in the London Baptist Confession.
God hath decreed in himself from all eternity, by the
most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely
and unchangeably, all things whatsoever come to pass, all things
whatsoever come to pass. Yet, so as thereby is God

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neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein,
nor is violence offered to the will of the creature.
Nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second cause
is taken away, but rather established in which appears His
wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in

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accomplishing his decrees. In other words, there is no contradiction
whatsoever between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. Man is responsible,
man is accountable, Make no mistake about that. This is
one of the greatest problems that people have when it

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comes to the doctrine of predestination, and that is, we
believe that somehow it removes accountability, and it removes some
issue of man being responsible for the sin that he commits.
Nothing could be further from the truth. That is not
the doctrine of predestination. We'll make this clearer as we

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go along, but for now we're just stating the doctrine
number two. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come
to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not
decreed anything because he foresaw it as future or as
that which would come to pass upon such conditions. In

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other words, God did not choose Jacob over Esau because
he looked down the quarridor of time and saw that
Esau would be the one to respond favorably. That's the
prescient view of election. Yeah. Yeah, God chose people to
be saved, but only because he foresaw that they would
choose him. That's not sovereignty. That's God being a time traveler.

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That's God having a special trick that he can do.
That's God having no power whatsoever, no control whatsoever. He
is absolutely helpless and just happened to saw something and
then made a decision in order to lie to us
and make us think that he was sovereign. That's not predestination.

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There is no predestination when you see something and then
make a decision based upon knowing the outcome. That's like
believing that a newscaster has some special powers because the
newscaster is showing you a video clip that they saw
before you saw, so they know exactly what's happening, and

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they say, now watch this in a second. You're going
to see this on the right side of your screen. Wow,
they're sovereign. No, they just saw it before you did.
And by the way, that's the presient view of election.
God's not sovereign. He just saw it before you did.
And then after he saw it, he came back and
he said, here is what I have declared is going

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to happen because I'm God. No, you just saw the
video clip before everybody else. You have no power, you
have no authority. That is not the doctrine of predestination. Three.
By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory,

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some men and angels are predestinated or foreordained to eternal
life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace,
others being left to act in their sin. That phrase
is important. Well, God just chose some people to go
to Hell, being left to act in their sin to

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their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice.
Every human being who has lived or will live, deserves
to die and go to Hell. All have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God. Predestination is not

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about God saying, well, I'm gonna make you good, and
I'm gonna make you bad so that I can make
you go to heavin and you go to Hell. No,
here it is all of us fell in Adam and
from Adam on. Every man is born in sin and
shaped in iniquity and deserves death, hell and the grave.
Here's the glorious grace of God and predestination. God says,

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I'm not I'm not gonna allow them all to go.
I'm gonna save some. Why, just to show off my grace.
That's why. That's why. What about the others? They will
get what their sin deserves and what they desire. It's

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not God's injustice that sends men to hell. It's man's
sin that sends him to hell. And the fact that
God and his grace and mercy has elected to save
some shows his grace and mercy, not his guilt for
punishing sin. God makes no man sin. Every man sins

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because he wants to sin. He's bent towards sin. What
about We'll get to those questions. Number four. These angels
and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designated,

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and their numbers so certain and definite that it cannot
be either increased or diminished. How many people are going
to heaven the exact number that God chose before the
foundation of the world, not one more, not one less.

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Number five those of mankind that are predestinated to life.
God before the foundation of the world was laid according
to his eternal and immutable purpose and the secret counsel
and good pleasure of his will. His purpose, his will.
This is why had chosen in Christ under everlasting glory,

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out of his mere free grace and love. That's the
other problem with the prescient view. There's no grace in
the precient view. There's no love in the prescient view.
I love you and I saved you. No, you didn't.
You just saw that I was gonna be smarter than
other people or more pious than other people, and choose you.

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And because you saw that I was going to choose you,
then you decided to love me. Then you decided to
save me. That's not your glory, that's my glory. Hath
chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere
free grace and love, without any other thing in the

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creature as a condition or cause moving him. Thereunto nothing
in the creature made God choose him. Why there is
none who does good? There is none righteous, There is

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none who seeks after God. By the way that destroys
this whole concept of the precient view of election, there's
none who seek after God. Really, well, then, if there's
none who seek after God, how did God look down
the corridor of history and see some who would seek
him and then predestinate them based on the fact that
he knew that they would seek him? If none seek God, answer,

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he couldn't. He couldn't. We're dead, and our trespasses and
sins dead men seek nothing, not almost dead, not close
to dead, not kind of dead, dead, dead and trespasses,

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dead in sin. And it is the power of God
that makes us alive together with Christ, to the praise
of His glory, and not our own six As God
hath appointed the elect under glory. So He has, by
the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained
all the means thereunto. Don't miss this one because this

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answers the question that people ask. People say, well, if
that's the case of God has already elected people, why
should we preach the gospel? First of all? Because he
told us to is good enough answer for me. Amen,
But listen to this. Wherefore, they who are elected, being

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fallen in Atom, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called
under faith in Christ by His spirit working in due season.
Where does that come from the preaching of the gospel.
God has decreed that it's the gospel that he will
use to call forth His elect are justified, adopted, sanctified,

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and kept by His power through faith under salvation. Neither
are any other redeemed by Christ or effectually called justified, adopted, sanctified,
or saved, but the elect only. This doctrine, far from
teaching that we shouldn't share the Gospel, gives us the
only reason to ever expect any success in doing so. Amen,

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It is the means that God has decreed. It's the
process that God uses to call his elect unto himself. So, yes,
repentance and faith, we call for it. Well, why would
you call people the repentance and faith if it's only
God that would allow them, because that's the way they're saved. Repent, believe,

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cry out to God. Yeah, well, if he hasn't chosen me,
then I can that's not your business. Repent, believe, stop
trying to do other people's business in their department, and
just worry about yours. Well, I want to cry out

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and ask God to save me. But what if He
hasn't chosen me? Really? Really, First of all, how will
you ever know that unless you repent and believe? Secondly,
why would an non elect person even care? That's evidence

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of your election, not reason to question it? And then
people who weep, and well, I just I want so
desperately to be saved, and I love Jesus and I
want him to save me. And Okay, seems like God
has brought regeneration into your soul. Yeah, but I just
what if he just doesn't? I mean, what if what

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if he what if he want He's calling you to himself,
He's giving you a yearning for him. So wait a minute, wait,
this is what you believe? About God. You believe God
goes around going watch this, I'm gonna make this one
want me, and I'm not gonna save him. That's what
you say when you act like that, That's what you're

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accusing God of. When you act like that, you're asking
a question that you're not capable of answering, and that
you've got no business asking in the first place. And
you're accusing God of being like a kid who uses
a magnifying glass to burn ants. What's this? Stop already repent, believe,

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cry out to God. Seven. This doctrine, or the doctrine
of this high mystery of predestination, is to be handled
with special prudence and care, that men attending the will
of God revealed in His Word, and yielding obedience thereunto,

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may from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured
of their eternal election. There it is, be sure of
their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence,
and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant
consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel. An arrogant

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Calvinist ought to be a contradiction in terms the attitude
is not, well, I'm one of the elect. No, the
attitude is I'm one of the elect God be praised.
There is nothing in me. There is nothing about me.

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God should have been interested in saving but to the
praise of his glory, according to the counsel of his
own will, not because of anything that he saw in me.
But in spite of everything that he saw in me,
God called me out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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I'm humbled, I'm overwhelmed. That ought to be the response
to the doctrine of predestination. Now the source of the doctrine.
We've seen the source of the doctrine here in the
texts that we've already examined. But let's look here. It's
some mother Passages of Scripture. First in Romans chapter nine.

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Romans chapter nine. You want to see intellectual gymnastics, watch
and Armenian teach through Romans chapter nine. There's so much
that has to be explained away in Romans chapter nine.
If you don't believe in the doctrine of predestination and election,

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and we'll just see it. Let's just look here. Okay,
But it is not as though the word of God
has failed for not all who are descended from Israel
belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham
because they are his offspring. But through Isaac, shall your
offspring be named. Okay, he's going right back to Genesis.

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This means that it is not the children of the
flesh who are the children of God, but the children
of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is
what the promise said about this time next year, I
will return and you shall have a son, or Sarah
shall have a son. And not only so, but also

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when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather, Isaac,
though they were not yet born. And look at this,
it explodes the prescient view and had done nothing either
good or bad in order why did this happen before
anything was done? In order to show that God was

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really good at seeing the future. No, that's not what
the Bible teaches, in order that God's purpose of election
might continue, not because of words, but because of him
who calls. Where do you get the precient view from
in that? Well, no, he just saw who would choose him.
You've got to rip this out of the Bible in

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order to believe that the New Testament goes out of
its way to destroy that. It had absolutely nothing to
do with who Jacob was or who Esau was. They
were both dirty, rotten scoundrels. She was told the older
will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved,

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but Esau I hated. What had they done? Nothing? Completely
a matter of election and predestination. In fact, Jacob doesn't
get his act together until God meets him and breaks
his hip. God takes him by force. So much for

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all those folks who you know, the Holy Spirit is
a gentleman. He would never force himself on anyone. Help you.
He broke Isaac's hip. That's forcing yourself on someone. Amen.
Holy spirits a gentleman. He would never force himself on anyone. Really.
How about that John the Baptist fella in the womb? Yeah,

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he was begging for the Spirit in there? How about Mary?
Overshadowed by the most time. The Holy Spirit is the

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second third person at the Trinity. Holy spirits a third
person in the Trinity. He's God. He's not running for God.
He's God. He needs permission for nothing. He's God again.
In Romans nine. I love the way Paul handles this

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in Romans nine, because he answers the questions that people
always ask about predestination. In other words, our culture is
not the first in which people ask these very same questions,
and he answers them. What shall we say, then? Is
there injustice on God's part? Is that the question people
ask election and predestination? Somehow God, he's unjust by no means.

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For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it depends
not on human will or exertion, but on God, who
has mercy. Again, does not depend on human will. For
the Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I
have raised you up that I might show my power

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in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in
all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever
he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. He's God, folks,
How about this one? You will say to me? Then,

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why does God find fault? Aren't men just sinning because
God made him sinful? Didn't he just decree all of that?
And who can resist his will? How's God going to
find fault? Nobody can resist his will. But who are you,
oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is

(40:23):
molded say to its molder, why have you made me
like this? Has the pot or no right over the
clay to make out of the same lump, one vessel
for honorable use and another for dishonorable use. What if God,
desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power,
has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for

(40:43):
destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory,
for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory,
even us, whom he has called, not from the Jews only,
but also from the Gentiles. As indeed, he says in Joseah,
those who were not my people, I will call my people,
And her who was not believed, who who was not believed,

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I will call not beloved. Excuse me, I will call beloved.
And in the very place where it was said to
them you are not my people, there they will be
called sons of the Living God. And again he continues.
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the

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sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
only a remnant of them will be saved, for the
Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully
and without delay. And is Isaiah predicted. If the Lord
of Host had not left us offspring, we would have
been like Sodom and become like Gomorah. If it wasn't

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for what God did and his plan of election and predestination,
all of us would have been like Sodom. All of
us would have been like Gomorrah. There is not one
person who deserves the mercy of God, and the only
way anyone gets saved is by the grace and mercy

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of God. In Ephesians, chapter one, verses eleven through fourteen,
another amazing section of scripture as it relates to the
doctrine of election. Look here, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as He chose us in him before the foundation

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of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before him in love. He predestined us for adoption as
sons through Jesus Christ, according to his ability to see
who would choose him, No, according to the purpose of
his will, to the praise of his gold glorious grace

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with which He has blessed us in the beloved. In Him,
we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to
the purpose of Him who works all things according to
the counsel of his will. That's the God we serve,
the God who works all things according to the counsel

(43:23):
of his will, so that we, who were the first
to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of
His glory in him. You also, when you heard the
Word of Truth, the Gospel of your Salvation, and believed
in Him. There are those means. Again, why preach the gospel,
because that's what God uses. We're sealed with the promised

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Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until
we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.
That's very important. If we don't believe in a God
who's powerful enough to predestine people, then we probably won't
believe in a God who's powerful enough to keep those
whom he saves. Here's some other verses Saw'm one fifteen three.

(44:10):
Our God is in the heavens. He does all that
he pleases, that goes to for those who say, you know,
God somehow out there and he's just hoping, he's just pining.
He just really you know, oh, he just really needs you.
He desperately wit to just please. I hope you will. Please,
would you please just believe in me? Please please please. No,

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that is not my God. Our God is in the heavens.
He does whatever pleases him John five twenty one. For
as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,
so also the Son gives life to whom he will
John six sixty five. And he said, this is why

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I told you that no one can come to me
unless it is granted him by the Father. Jesus said,
no one can come to him. Not no one will,
No one can. No one is able to come to
Jesus apart from the Father working in them bringing them.

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Predestination and election are absolutely necessary or there is no salvation.
So again this completely refutes the precient view. God just
looked down the corridor of history and he saw the
ones who would be good enough. He saw the ones
who would be smart enough. He saw the ones you
know who would hear preachers that were persuasive enough, and

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he made his choice based on that, No, not at all. Again,
in John six thirty five to forty, Jesus said to him,
I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall
not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
But I said to you that you have seen me,
and yet do not believe all that the Father gives

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me will come to me. A lot of people think,
for example, that John three sixteen is a problem for
those who believe in the doctrines of Grace. No, it says,
whosoever will absolutely right, whoever believes. But who's gonna believe

(46:26):
be elect? Jesus says it here Listen to him again.
He says, I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to
me shall not hunger. Amen. I believe in the doctrines
of Grace, and I believe that wholeheartedly. Whoever comes to
Jesus will not hunger, whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.
I believe in that whoever comes to Christ, whoever believes
in Christ, whoever repents of their sins, will be saved.

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You get no argument from me whatsoever. However, I also
know that all men are born in sin, shaped in iniquity,
and that they're dead in their sins, and unless a
supernatural act of God occurs first, they cannot believe, they
cannot have faith, they cannot repent of their sin. They're incapable.

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So do I believe the whosoevers? Yes, but it's predicated
upon predestination and election. Otherwise. There are some people who
are smarter than others, more righteous than others, more godly
than others, and are somehow able to figure this thing
out unlike other people, and they are to be praised

(47:36):
for their salvation. Not God. All that the Father gives
me will come to me. Whoever comes to me I
will never cast out, for I've come down from heaven
not to do my own will, but the will of
him who sent me. And this is the will of
him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of
all that he has given me. By the way, you
want an eternal security passage there it is right there.

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But raise it up on the last day, For this
is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks
on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life.
And I will raise him up on the last day.
There's whoever's all over that passage of scripture, and there's
election and predestination all over that passage of scripture. There
is no contradiction between the two. Whoever believes will be saved,

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but you cannot believe. You cannot believe in and of
yourself apart from the grace of God making you alive.
Unto Christ John fifteen, you did not choose me, but
I chose you. Amen, hollow your praise the Lord. We
could just stop right there, okay, and appointed you that

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you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit
should abide, so that whoever so that whatever you ask
the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
By the way, this flies in the face of those
who say, oh no, when you believe in the doctrines
of grace, you know that whole one saved, always saved,
and live any way they want to know. Part of
election and predestination is that you will bear fruit in

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keeping with your salvation. If you're not bearing fruit, that's
evidence that you're not elect or at least you're not saved.
But to all who did receive Him, who believed in
his name, he gave the right to become chosen of God,
who were born not of blood, Isaac, not Ishmael, Jacob

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not he saw, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man. Being
born again is not a work of man. Being born
again is not a work of the flesh. And being

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born again, by the way preceeds our faith, is not
a by product of our faith. Here's what modern American
even Juncalism has said. You need to walk thisile and
pray this prayer. And if you walk this out and
pray this prayer, then you will be born again. In
other words, you will born yourself again. It's not what

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the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches you have to be
born again in order to come to faith in repentance.
And being born again is not something you do. It
is a supernatural act of God. Your hands are not
on it. That's why in John three Jesus compares it

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to the wind that blows wherever it wills. John seventeen
one and two. When Jesus had spoken these words, he
lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the
hour has come. Glorify your son, so that the Son
may glorify you, since you have given him authority over
all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you

(50:57):
have given him to whom does Jesus give eternal life
all that the Father has given him. Here's the other beauty.
Salvation is not just about the love that the Father
has for the elect, but the elect are in fact
a love gift from the Father to the son two

(51:23):
timoty one, eight and nine. Therefore, do not be ashamed
of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,
but share in suffering for the gospel by the power
of God, who saved us and called us to a
holy calling, not because of our works, but because of
his own purpose and grace, which He gave us in
Christ Jesus before the age began. And here again in
John seventeen. I've manifested your name to the people whom

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you gave me out of the world yours. They were,
and you gave them to me, and they have kept
your word. Now they know that everything that you have
given me is from you. For I have given them
the words that you gave me, and they have received
them and have come to know in truth that I

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came from you. In other words, they are those means.
Again He gave him the word, because God uses that
to save and call his elect. They have believed that
you sent me. I am praying for them. I am
not praying for the world. I am praying for them.
I am not praying for the world. Jesus is praying

(52:30):
to his father, thanking his father for the ones that
have been given to him. Jesus is not saying, oh, Father,
I just hope. I just hope that there's more. I
just hope that there's more. No, he knows who he
came for. Not praying for the world, but for those
whom you have given me. For they are yours, all

(52:52):
mine are yours, and yours are mine. And I'm glorified
in them. And I'm no longer in the world, but
they are in the world, and I'm coming to you,
Holy Father. Keep them in your name, which you have
given me, that they may be one, even as we
are one. Finally, Romans eight were so familiar with this.

(53:17):
We know that for those who love God, all things
work together for good, for those who are called according
to His purpose, for those whom he fore knew. Noticed
that the text does not say for those who he
foreknew would choose him, those whom he foreknew, not those

(53:42):
whose actions he foreknew, not those whose faith he foreknew,
but those individuals whom he foreknew or whom he foreloved.
Those whom he knew he also predestinated to be conformed

(54:03):
to the image of his son in order that he
might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom
he predestined he also called. Those whom he called, he
also justified. Those whom he justified, he also glorified. Cannot
separate salvation from predestination and election defense of the doctrine.

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Let me share this with you. This is from Lorraine
Bettner in his book The Reformed Doctrine and Predestination. Listen
to this now, if future events are foreknown to God,
they cannot, by any possibility take a turn contrary to
his knowledge. Follow this a line at the time. If

(54:49):
future events are foreknown to God, then they can't take
a turn contrary to what God knows. If things take
a turn contrary to what God knows, then God I
didn't know. Okay. If the course of future events is foreknown,
history will follow that course as definitely as a locomotive

(55:10):
follows the rails from New York to Chicago. The Armenian
doctrine in rejecting foreordination rejects the theistic basic for foreknowledge.
Common sense tells us that no one can that no
event can be foreknown unless by some means, either physical
or mental, it has been predetermined. You can't forekno it

(55:36):
unless it's been predetermined. If it's unfolding and there are
multiple possibilities, you can't foreknow the outcome. You can only
foreknow the outcome if the outcome has been predetermined. Okay,
that's the only way. If the outcome hasn't been predetermined,
you do not have foreknowledge. Our choice as to what

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determines the certainty of future events narrows down to two alternatives.
Betna says there's only two possibilities, the foreordination of the
wise and merciful heavenly Father or the working of blind
physical fate. That's it. Here's my problem with the prescient view.

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God doesn't determine the future. He can merely see into it,
and as he sees into it, things work themselves out
according to what fate blind physical fate. It's either fate

(56:52):
or the forordination of our loving heavenly Father, in which
do we believe? If it's the former and God just
looks and watches things sort of work themselves out, and
it makes his decisions based upon what he sees. How
on earth do we argue against the evolutionists because that's

(57:17):
a form of moral and ethical evolution. Is it not
just sort of works itself out and God makes a
decision based upon the outcome, so that he ends up
on the winning team. That didn't work, folks, that didn't work.

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There is predestination, and forordination. What about the application of
the doctrine? What do we do with this number? One?
Turn your adoration toward God as you celebrate his grace
and not your ability. That's the first application of his doctrine.

(58:12):
The beauty of the doctrines of grace is that it
gives us cause to praise God and not man. If
we believe that our salvation is merely a byproduct of
God having seen something in us that pleased him, then

(58:34):
we have a reason to boast. God saw something in me.
God saw that I was going to choose him, and
he said, good job voting. You soften your heart more
than other people. You were smarter than other people. You

(58:55):
figured out the gospel, and because as you did, I'm
going to apply the blood of Jesus to your life,
and you will come to heaven, and you and I
will share glory together. Jesus paid a lot, some to him.

(59:26):
I owe sin had left the crimson stain. We washed
it white as snow. No, Jesus paid it all all
to him. I owe sin had left the crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. The only thing I

(59:47):
brought to the party was the sin, that it would
be forgiven. Secondly, share the Gospel with confidence, knowing that
God is guaranteed the salvation of his elect and success
does not depend on us. Amen. This is freedom, folks.

(01:00:10):
People are going to be saved. We know it. Why
because of the predetermined, pre destinating work of God, the
foreknowledge of God, the forordination of God, the election of God.

(01:00:33):
God's got a people out there. And when we preach
the gospel, the gospel is what God uses to call
his elect to himself. So we when we preach, and
we preach with confidence knowing that the Spirit of God
will do his work. Now here's what's interesting. Some will

(01:00:55):
argue that believing in the Doctor of predestination will kill evangelism,
because why should we evangelize because we already know what's
going to happen? Because God has already made this determination,
So why should you go evangelize? Let me ask you this.
If you take the prescient view, people are chosen or

(01:01:17):
elected based on what that God already saw in the
future that they were going to choose him, which means
you end up at the same place, just for a
different reason. So we could ask the same question, why
preach the gospel if you hold to the prescient view?
If God has already seen something in that person? Do

(01:01:40):
you see what I'm saying? What's the difference there? The
only difference there is where the glory belongs and what
the scriptures teach. Because in the prescient view, we believe
that men are saved, and they're foreknown and predestined and
called and justified and sanctified and glorified because of what

(01:02:02):
God looked down the corridors of time and already saw.
How is that not an issue for our motivation for
preaching the Gospel and the idea that God from the

(01:02:23):
foundation of the earth has elected and predestined the people
for himself to the praise of His glory. As far
as motivation for the gospel, do you see the point
don't fall for the why we should share the gospel lie.

(01:02:43):
Another way we need to apply this doctrine, avoid introspective
navel gazing as a means of discovering whether or not
you are elect. Just repent and believe the gospel. All
this pining over whether or not God has chosen you
is that. Let that go. God has not called you

(01:03:07):
to determine whether or not. Before the foundation of the earth,
he has decreed your salvation. You don't get to see that.
Deal with what you know? What do you know? You
know that whoever believes shall be saved. You know that
whoever comes to repentance and faith will be saved. So

(01:03:31):
what do you do? Repent, believe, cry out to God,
beg him to wash you with the blood of His
beloved son and save you from your sin. That's what
you do. Forget to what ifs. That does nothing for me,

(01:03:52):
That ties me up in knots. It accomplishes absolutely nothing
except taking my eyes off of responding to the gospel.
Don't do that also and relate it to it. Avoid
spending more time worrying about whether or not your children

(01:04:14):
are elect than you do sharing the gospel with them.
You got parents who pine over. What if one of
my babies is not elect? What if God hasn't chosen
one of them? Well? What if God has it well?
What if God has it well? What if God has
it well? What if God hasn't? I know nothing of that.
Here's what I know. I'm not ashamed of the Gospel

(01:04:36):
of Jesus Christ because it is the power of God
under salvation to all those who believe. Therefore, all I
know is I'm sharing the Gospel regularly, continuously with all
of my children, because that's the means that God uses
to call forth his elect That's what I'm doing. It

(01:05:00):
is of absolutely no benefit for me to twiddle my
thumbs and worry about whether or not my children are elect.
That is of absolutely no benefit, And that is not
what I'm called to, not at all. Because here's what
I'm saying. We read about these unreached people, groups who

(01:05:23):
don't have the Bible in their language, who don't have
a single church or a single Christian in their land,
and then here I am a Christian with more Bibles
in my house than I can shake a stick at,
know the Gospel, been saved by the Gospel, committed to
sharing the gospel in my home, and God sent that

(01:05:45):
baby to my house. How about I work with that? Amen,
God's called me unto himself, given me the gospel, a
passion for this young person, and every day to preach
to them. How about I work with that instead of

(01:06:11):
twiddling my thumbs and pining over whether or not. And again,
that's not the question. Don't ask the question that you
can't answer because you can't answer that question. What if
this person is elected with this person is not elect
and we all do it, we all do it. I
can't answer that question. You can't answer that question. So

(01:06:39):
what do we deal with? We deal with what we know.
Preach the gospel. That's what we know. These people have
an opportunity to hear the gospel. That's what we know.
That's what we work with. That's what we spend our
time on. That's what we spend our energy on. Not
asking questions that I can't answer. I can't figure that out.

(01:07:04):
I don't know that. I'm too busy working out my
own salvation with fear and trembling, Amen, working on my
own assurance of my salvation. Don't tie yourself up in
nuts about that, And certainly don't let it hinder you
from preaching the gospel, from sharing the gospel again and

(01:07:28):
again and again and again and again. We're not in
the department of seeing. That's not The question. Question is
not is this person one of the elect? The question
is is this person hearing the gospel, believe in the gospel,
resting on the gospel, bearing fruit as a result. Those

(01:07:51):
are the questions, and those are the only questions. I mean.
The fact of the matter is, it could be a
long long time from now. Your children can be long
gone out of your house and you dead and gone
before they come to faith in Christ. So what do

(01:08:14):
you gain by pining over whether or not they're elect? Nothing? Nothing.
Just give them the gospel, trust God to save them.

(01:08:37):
This is something that adoptive parents often struggle with too.
You know, these children coming into our home from other places,
and you know, other families and this and that and
the other, and what if we just what if we
go out and we grab one who's not elect? Really,

(01:09:00):
how about we just go our home is a gospel
out post. God's gonna send us kids that he believed
need to be raised in a gospel out post. I'm
liking those odds. Amen. I know that all of this

(01:09:21):
is easier said than done. I get that it is
much easier to say we need to turn our praise
and adoration toward God and not ourselves. It is it's
much easier to say that than it is to do,
because the fact of the matter is all of us.
When we share our testimony, it's I I, I grew

(01:09:46):
up here. I used to live like this, then I
trusted Christ. Then I got saved. Then I started living
like this, then I I I. That's the way most
people share their testimony. You'd never know that Jesus saved
them again. It's easier said than done. It's easier said

(01:10:10):
than done. You know, share the gospel with people, knowing
that God has his elect out there, and the gospel
is a means that will call them forward. Do it.
That's easier said than done. Because we don't like the
whole rejection thing. We're scared we're gonna say the wrong thing.
We're scared we're gonna mess it up. We're scared, we're
gonna lose friends. We're scared. We're scared. We're scared. I

(01:10:32):
realized that it's easier said than done. Yea, I realized
that avoiding this sort of introspective navel gazing is easier
said than done, because every one of us does things
from time to time and thinks things from time to
time that make us go at, no way, I'm saved.

(01:10:53):
If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch.
Every last one of us we have those days where
we just go, you know what, I may just be deceived,
this stuff that I'm wrestling with, stuff that's gone that
comes back, stuff that you even said. I'm getting praised

(01:11:15):
God he delivered me from ABC and X y Z.
And then all of a sudden, one day, it could
be years later, and there it is. Trust me, I
realized this is easier said than done. And the last one,
of course, is easier said than done. Which parent among
us who believes in the doctrine of election and predestination

(01:11:39):
can say that we've never had that moment where we've
questioned that little baby's there and you know, kind of
cooing and eyeing and everything else, and and then all
of a sudden, out of nowhere, it just comes across
your mind, what if this little precious thing is not
one of the elect that happens to us? Folks, I

(01:12:01):
realize that happens to us, It happens to us all.
That's why we have sermons, Amen, because you need to
be reminded of this stuff, and I need to be

(01:12:22):
reminded more, which is why I get to live with
this for weeks before I share it with you. For
whatever time we have. Thank you very much. So whatever
you're thinking right now about how much you needed this,
just remember I've been living with it ten times longer

(01:12:43):
than you've had to live with it here today, Amen.
That's why we have sermons, because we need to be
reminded again and again and again and again and again
of all of these things, because they're all much easier
said than done. Nevertheless, by the power of the Gospel,

(01:13:08):
and according to his grace, we're going to get there
for His praise, his glory and his namesake. Does everybody
at this church understand all of this? No, I understand

(01:13:34):
it better today than I did two weeks ago. Does
everybody at this church fully agree with all of this? No? No.
Is everybody at this church finished wrestling with all of this? No? No,

(01:13:58):
absolutely not. But this is the doctrine upon which we stand.
This is who we are, and here's what unites us.
Remember this as we go. Here's what unites us, even
folks here at this church. Some members of this church

(01:14:21):
who are not here, who are not here have said,
you know what, we're not there. But that's the doctrine
of this church. So I'm going to keep searching. I'm
going to keep learning, I'm going to keep reading, and
I'm going to keep walking with my brothers and sisters,
praying that God will reveal his truth to me. What

(01:14:44):
more can we ask for? So we don't have classes
of members here, those who are special, full fledged members
because they embrace the doctrines of grace, and others who
are not quite there yet who have to be endured
with patients until they finally walk into the second blessing.

(01:15:06):
Help you if you believe that, Okay, trust me, trust me.
We know that there are people who wrestle with this
and who struggle with this, But here's the good news.
Nobody has to wrestle or struggle with. I wonder where
the church stands on this, amen, Because I don't know

(01:15:29):
about you, but I'm a whole lot better when I
can say, you know what, We're in a little bit
of disagreement on this little thing over here, and that's
okay because we know where it is and we can
work through it. I'm much better there than I am.
You know. I really hope we're unified. But I have

(01:15:50):
no idea whatsoever what the stance is on fill in
the blank. Boy, it's hard to have unity there. So
we don't present this in order to say with arrogance,
this is us, take it all away or leave it.

(01:16:14):
But we communicate it with confidence, saying this is where
we stand, and we want you to know with clarity
and assurance that this is what you're going to get
from us. And I hope today is there maybe some
of you who've been here for a while and you

(01:16:35):
know that this is where we are, but I hope
today that you understand that it's not only where we are,
but there's a reason that it's where we are, because
we believe that it's what the scriptures teach rather clearly,
I hope you also understand this relationship between our confession

(01:16:56):
of faith that unites us and our belief that the
Scriptures are completely sufficient and they are our standard for
faith and practice. Because some will ask questions, some will
last questions like this, and we deal with this in
our sixteen eighty nine class, You know, oh, why have

(01:17:18):
a confession at all? No Creed but Christ? Really, what
do you mean when you say Christ? Well, we just
believe the Bible, really, apocrypha in or out. See, it's
real easy to be flippant, you know, and to knock

(01:17:40):
the idea of having a confession. We just need to
center around Jesus. Well, he has to be defined. We
just need to center around the Bible. Well, that has
to be defined. So our confession of faith doesn't supersede
the scriptures. It just basically boils down our stream of

(01:18:01):
thought and tradition and position on the key scriptural doctrines.
So that you know what this church means when it
says we believe the Bible and we believe in Jesus. Now,
I hope you've seen that today. I hope you've also
seen that the reason we love the London Baptist Confession

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of sixteen eighty nine, which is not the confession of
faith for most Southern Mattress churches at all, is because
of how thorough and how biblical. I hope you see
that as we read the confession, we came back and

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we read all those passages, and if you looked carefully.
You saw where every phrase in the confession came from.
As we examine those passages of scripture. That's why it's
our confession. Let's for it.