SPEAKER_00: Again, very thankful to be at Bethlehem Church this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And we uh do have our meeting announcement.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it will be uh Elder Danny Wisner from Georgia uh will be with us uh this coming Friday of this week, uh the 28th.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he'll be with us at uh we'll have supper at 6 o'clock on Friday night, and then service beginning at 7 o'clock.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll have uh service on Saturday, this coming Saturday, the 29th.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll have service Saturday morning, lunch, and then Saturday afternoon service, no night service, and then Brother Danny will be with us uh also on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he will stay with us uh through this coming Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: So do please pray for him uh and he and his wife Lydia are both supposed to come.
SPEAKER_00: So please please pray for them and their trip.
SPEAKER_00: I think Brother Danny is originally from Louisiana, and uh he's gonna be traveling from Georgia to Louisiana first to see his folks and stop in and see them, and so uh he'll be here uh with them a day or so ahead of time, and so just please pray for their travels as well.
SPEAKER_00: But that is this coming uh weekend that we do have our meeting.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we can discuss that this afternoon, whatever the ladies decide.
SPEAKER_00: If not, we'll make sure he gets fed one way or another.
SPEAKER_00: So but we can discuss that after church.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Brother Mole.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and we do need to discuss that.
SPEAKER_00: Um this morning, brothers and sisters, the uh you know, last Sunday we have uh again been preaching through Baptist teachings, and uh last Sunday we began talking about uh predestination, providence, and permission.
SPEAKER_00: And last Sunday we talked about providence.
SPEAKER_00: This Sunday we are going to begin talking about predestination.
SPEAKER_00: And it is most likely going to take me more than one Sunday to do that, but I want to, with the Lord's help, do this in a very understandable way and uh not a hurried way, uh, hopefully to the Lord's glory, and please pray for me that I would get out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this morning we are going to be, and uh we're gonna primarily look at Ephesians chapter 1 and 2, and then uh we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to read for you before we get started this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I was reminded by one of the songs that we sang early on this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh a song written, uh, it's in our small book, number 23, My Lord, I did not choose you.
SPEAKER_00: And the words read this way My Lord, I did not choose you, for that could never be.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm not going to comment a whole lot on this song, but I do want to point a few things out is that the the writer of this psalm was born in 1789 and died in 1855, and the idea of predestination election is not um it's not exclusive to printed Baptists.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that it was very clearly taught in the Bible that the Apostle Paul taught it.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want you to see that here as a writer who lived and died in the 17 and 1800s, that here he is saying the same thing that we're saying today.
SPEAKER_00: My Lord, I did not choose you, for that could never be.
SPEAKER_00: Why does he say it that way?
SPEAKER_00: What he's basically conveying to us is in his understanding of the Bible, is that man is not able to choose God.
SPEAKER_00: That God had to intervene and choose man.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, My Lord, I did not choose you, for that could never be.
SPEAKER_00: My heart would still refuse you had you not chosen me.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's saying that this man understands his own sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: He understands the depravity of man.
SPEAKER_00: He understands that without the Lord's intervention in his life, that he would have never sought out the Lord, he would have never come to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, my heart would still refuse you had you not chosen me.
SPEAKER_00: You took the sin that stained me, you cleansed me, made me new.
SPEAKER_00: Of old you have ordained me that I should live in you.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Lord, you're the one who chose me for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: You changed my mind, you changed my heart, and that's a work that you did.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: See, the one of the distinguishing characteristics about what primitive Baptists believe and believers in grace believe is that we believe that lost men and women do not choose God of their own choice, of their own volition.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that God, through the Holy Spirit, is the one who chooses them first, bornes them again, literally saves them to heaven, and at that very point their minds are open to see and understand and hear the gospel and the word of God, and they're at that point then and only then they want to seek after God and follow God.
SPEAKER_00: But in their lost natural state, they didn't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: So God had to do the transforming work of grace first.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we believe that God burns again a person first and saves them to heaven ever before he has faith or wants to seek God or follow God.
SPEAKER_00: The songwriter goes on to say, unless your grace had called me and taught my opening mind, the world would have enthralled me to heavenly glories blind.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Lord, unless you dropped the scales off my eyes, I would have been so enticed by the world that I would have never wanted anything to do with you.
SPEAKER_00: My heart knows none above you, for your rich grace I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: I know that if I love you, you must have loved me first.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, brothers and sisters, what's so beautiful about, you know, and some people get real sideways about the doctrines of grace and about predestination.
SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you this morning that, you know, the Bible talks about spiritual milk and it talks about spiritual meat.
SPEAKER_00: And when we talk about things like the gospel, about the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, and about his great sacrifice, that, brothers and sisters, is the milk.
SPEAKER_00: That is the thing that is so nourishing to a babe in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: That we want to hear about the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is the thing that someone who is just now, that their mind is literally being opened by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they crave.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, what you and I are talking about today, about how God actually works out the mechanics of those operations and salvation, what you and I are talking about today is meat.
SPEAKER_00: It is difficult for people to chew.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, uh not only the Baptists, but many faiths and orders have struggled with the concepts in the Bible of God's electing grace, of God's predestination, of God choosing man and man not choosing God.
SPEAKER_00: And even the Apostle Paul, thousands of years ago, wrote about those that would be objectors to the idea that God is the one who is choosing us.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not something that's new.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to be very clear and plain this morning that what we're talking about today, brothers and sisters, is meat.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is like steak, it is roast beef.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean that lightly.
SPEAKER_00: I say that to say that for a spiritual babe in Christ, if you were to full tilt and come and talk about all the mechanics of predestination election, that could actually be very off-putting and offend a little child of God who is not ready to eat spiritual meat.
SPEAKER_00: Now, brothers and sisters, you and I, again, I'm not claiming that you and I are some elevated or high or knowledgeable believers.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_00: You and I at this church are attempting to work through some of the doctrines of the faith.
SPEAKER_00: And the very doctrines of the faith are so very important, they are our foundation.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's been a trend in the last, well, for a long time, that, well, you know, the that Jesus Christ really wasn't born of a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that, you know, you know, we believe that he was a good man.
SPEAKER_00: Some people even believe that he was a savior, but I just can't logically understand that a man could be born of a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: That just can't be.
SPEAKER_00: And so some Christians, in their mind, they have reconciled the fact that, okay, well, I don't believe that Christ was born of a virgin, but yet I still believe he's a savior.
SPEAKER_00: Well, see, there's a tremendous problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: Because, see, we believe that the Bible clearly teaches that man inherits the sin nature through the line of Adam through the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And so, if Jesus Christ was born of man and of woman, then he would have inherited a sin nature from his father, and therefore he would have been condemned under that already.
SPEAKER_00: He would have had to spend all his time redeeming himself and not us.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is, in other words, the idea of a virgin birth, that is a point of doctrine that has to be established, that if that is untrue, then the foundation falls down.
SPEAKER_00: And so, again, what you and I are talking about this morning in predestination election, I willingly admit that this is not an easy subject.
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy to hear, and there's much contention of different Christians about what they believe about this.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord be our help this morning to understand what all this means.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's try not to use as much church language and more plain language.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to see the hymn writer understands that I love the fact that he says, My heart knows none above you, for your rich grace I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: The word grace means the free, unearned, unmerited love and favor of God toward sinful man, and for the man who has been enlightened by the choosing and grace of God to see his sin, it is such a great blessing for him to say, Lord, I don't deserve you, but yet you chose me.
SPEAKER_00: And for that grace I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, I know that if I love you, you must have loved me first.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God, I would not have chosen you because I'm a sinner and I'm depraved, and my mind goes to the things of the world, but because you chose me, now and only now I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the last line.
SPEAKER_00: Your love has been forever, from all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Its drawing power never shall be withdrawn from me.
SPEAKER_00: Now stop.
SPEAKER_00: So God's grace has a drawing power.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it does.
SPEAKER_00: And God is a sovereign God.
SPEAKER_00: And when he draws someone unto himself, they're not going to say no.
SPEAKER_00: Because God didn't start a work, he that began a good work in you will be faithful to carry it on to the day of completion.
SPEAKER_00: If God first drew you unto himself, you are one of his.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be one of his.
SPEAKER_00: When God wants a particular fish, he's going to catch that particular fish.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't try to do that.
SPEAKER_00: He does that every single time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the good shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: He is never.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm not trying to make cliches.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to make biblical statements based on the account of the Bible that if you had a shepherd out in a field and you were a flock owner, and you had appointed a shepherd over your field and you had a hundred sheep, and you came back a day later, a week later, a month later, even five years later, and you're, you know, by that time your flock should have increased, right?
SPEAKER_00: They should have grown.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what if you came back, you know, a year from now and the flock wasn't a hundred, the flock was seventy-five.
SPEAKER_00: Well, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: You're saying that you lost a quarter of the sheep?
SPEAKER_00: That you were put in charge over.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the wolves got some, and some fell in the creek, and well, we went to that far pasture to feed them, and some of them just got so lost, and I wasn't fixing to go chase them up the mountains.
SPEAKER_00: That's a bad shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: You would fire that man.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus leaves the 90 and 9 to go find the one.
SPEAKER_00: He has never lost a single sheep.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a cliche.
SPEAKER_00: That's a biblical concept that Christ has never lost a single one that he set out to save.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is a sovereign God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I feel that I'm kept by the strength of love divine.
SPEAKER_00: Kept by the grace of God, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: And when I wake in heaven, now this is key, and when I wake in heaven, all glory shall be thine.
SPEAKER_00: See, what a lot of people don't think about is this is that if I, as a preacher, had anything to do with people's salvation, true eternal salvation, then I would have something to brag about.
SPEAKER_00: Well, man, I you know what I went and preached at a giant rally, and there was 5,000 people there.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: On that night, 758 people made a decision for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Look, as a result of my ministry and my works and my hard labor, 750 people came to know Christ and are now saved and bound for heaven as a result of my works.
SPEAKER_00: No, no man has ever done that except the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is the only man that has ever saved anybody to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Not a single preacher that is, not even the apostle Paul or Moses the lawgiver or Isaiah the great prophet, not a single one of those preachers of the word has ever saved a single human being to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Now, have all of those men, and I hope myself, helped to timely save individuals here on earth from ignorance and a wayward life?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I hope so, and I know for a fact that all those men in the Bible did.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: But they never saved anyone to heaven because that is not the operation of men.
SPEAKER_00: That is the operation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That is an eternal work of God.
SPEAKER_00: And see, that's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: The preachers don't have anything to glory in because they didn't do that work.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what about the sinner?
SPEAKER_00: What about the young man or young woman who chose in any given worship service, or while he was driving down the road in his car and listening to a gospel song or something like that?
SPEAKER_00: What about the young person, or even the old person who, for 50, 60, 70 years they've run from the Lord, quote unquote.
SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden they've decided to, quote unquote, choose Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Did that individual, that young person or that old person, did they, as a result of their choice, save themselves to heaven in immortal glory, i.e., saving themselves from hellfire?
SPEAKER_00: No, they did not.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happened there, Brother Josh, if that person literally made that actual choice?
SPEAKER_00: What happened is that God first and foremost chose them, opened their mind to see and understand the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the young person in the church or the old person driving down the road listening to the gospel song, for the first time heard something that they had never heard before.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Holy Spirit opened their mind and their heart and their soul and their eyes to have the spirit of faith and understanding, and then therefore they were pricked in their heart to respond to that.
SPEAKER_00: And amen and praise the Lord that they did positively respond to that.
SPEAKER_00: But what you understand is the actual saving, regenerating, born-again work was done before they chose to have faith or to join the church or to confess the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They were bound and saved for heaven before that happened.
SPEAKER_00: And God did that eternal work.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful and I praise the Lord that that person, those persons have chosen to follow Christ, and we should.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that's why I'm here today as a preacher.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to encourage and to equip and to build up and to edify and to preach the word of God so that you understand and so that the Holy Spirit might take that word and he might prick your heart.
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: God did that.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to see more people, old and young, come to know the Lord and come to diligently follow the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, people who believe in predestination and election absolutely 100% believe in evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul, the great missionary and evangelist in the New Testament, was one of the greatest, and he was the one who wrote some of the doctrines of election with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But see, you understand that the Apostle Paul, and we believe that we understand that evangelism is not saving man's souls to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we believe that evangelism is bringing the gospel, the good news, the milk, to those whom the Lord is burning again.
SPEAKER_00: And then therefore they are the ones who can hear and respond to that.
SPEAKER_00: And then we want to come alongside of them and disciple them and help them walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But we didn't save them to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We helped save them here on earth to walk with the Lord from their ignorance to save them out of following the world and instead of following Christ right here and right now.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what evangelism is is helping to save people timely here on earth to an understanding of what the Lord has already done in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Now, so my point is this got this gospel songwriter says, and when I wake in heaven, all glory shall be thine.
SPEAKER_00: See, I didn't save anybody to heaven, and the sinner who chose the gospel and chose to follow Christ, he didn't save himself to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: God did that.
SPEAKER_00: So all the glory goes to God, not to man.
SPEAKER_00: Now, did that man or woman make a godly choice and a choice that will bless their life?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Here and now in time.
SPEAKER_00: But God is the one who saved them to heaven, because if we love him, he first loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive off into Ephesians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: There are, you know, there are passages of scripture that people like to avoid in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And there are passages of scriptures that we love.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 1 and Romans chapter 8 and 9.
SPEAKER_00: Some of these chapters are books of the Bible that some people don't really like to talk about a whole lot.
SPEAKER_00: But we want to talk about them, brothers and sisters, because all the word of God is profitable, right?
SPEAKER_00: For rebuke, for training and righteousness, you know, for our edification, every bit of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's all the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just dive into it.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to understand, and we're going to try to keep all this in context.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to try to not hop around a lot today.
SPEAKER_00: So the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesian church.
SPEAKER_00: And in the Ephesian church, it was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And he is educating both of them.
SPEAKER_00: But some of the language in Ephesians is just that.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about Jews and Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we get to that point, we'll look at that too.
SPEAKER_00: But let's just dive right into Ephesians chapter 1, verse 1, and just see what it says.
SPEAKER_00: So Ephesians chapter 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So in the first verse, we read and understand that Paul is telling the Ephesian church that, he said that he is an apostle by the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That means that Paul himself is telling the Ephesians that I want you to understand that I'm an apostle by the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means that Paul did not choose of his own quote unquote free will and accord to be an apostle and preacher of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Is that not right?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all will remember that Paul was a Pharisee who.
SPEAKER_00: And a very educated young man, and he was very zealous in the Jews' religion, and he was going on the Damascus road to actually imprison Christians and to persecute them, and he was specifically targeting those people who were followers of Jesus Christ because he saw Jesus Christ as an enemy to the Jewish religion.
SPEAKER_00: Someone who claimed to be the Messiah, and Paul thought that Jesus was doing harm to his beloved Jewish religion that he was so zealous in, and he was going to go and make sure that he got rid of those people that were that were propagating such terrible beliefs that Jesus is the Messiah and he's the Savior and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted to stamp out all of that of the Jews' religion.
SPEAKER_00: And then we know that the Lord struck him down on the Damascus road and opened his eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: And who art thou, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, I'm Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, why are you kicking against the pricks?
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is leading you to understand who I am, and you don't see who I am.
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord literally did a dramatic work in calling the apostle Paul to be one of the twelve apostles.
SPEAKER_00: And but what I want you to see is that did the apostle Paul choose Christ or did Christ choose the Apostle Paul?
SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously, the Lord chose Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was actually a persecutor of the church, and Paul goes on to say that he believed himself to be the greatest of sinners because after God did a regenerating or born again work in the Apostle Paul, Paul felt so very ashamed that he had persecuted Christ and the church before in his ignorance when he didn't know about Christ and he wanted to stamp Christ out of the Jewish religion.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul later came to understand through the grace of God that, you know, I'm literally, I was harming the people that are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And if y'all will remember in the beginning of Paul's ministry, there were a lot of people that were fearful about Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't really want to have that preacher come to our church because wasn't he the one that put Christians in prison?
SPEAKER_00: And he had to have other godly men basically come alongside of him and witness on his behalf to say that this man has been transformed by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want you to see that in the beginning of the book, where Paul talks about God choosing people, Paul is actually not only talking about that God chose him to be an apostle, and that Paul wasn't signing up or seeking out that mission, but he's also talking about the fact that God literally chose him and by his electing and predestining grace, chose him to salvation because Paul was actually 100% opposed to that.
SPEAKER_00: So the very opening verse, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, not by the will of Paul, not by the choosing of Paul, but by the choosing of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he's who's he writing to?
SPEAKER_00: To the saints which are in Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So you understand that this book was written and targeted to born-again believers.
SPEAKER_00: He is writing to regenerate people's minds who understand.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: So he greets them Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul doesn't say that flippantly.
SPEAKER_00: Because, see, while God is the creator of all, God is not the saving father of all.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we read in the New Testament, even by Jesus Christ, that there are sheep and there are goats.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus Christ will separate the sheep from the goats.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus Christ did not die to save the goats.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I want you to see is even small language in the Bible is important that when he says, Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, he is writing in the previous verse he's already acknowledged, he's writing to the church, he's writing to born-again believers.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's saying, I'm writing to you people that are like me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm writing to people that have regenerate born-again minds, whom the Lord has opened you up.
SPEAKER_00: So therefore, God is my father, and God is your father.
SPEAKER_00: I believe by God's grace I'm a sheep of his pasture, and I believe you are sheep of his pasture.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the folks that he's writing to.
SPEAKER_00: Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Notice also that he uh puts God, the Father, and the Son together, and so he's giving them both honor, which the Jews would not do.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews didn't want to honor Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They thought he was a usurper.
SPEAKER_00: They thought he was, you know, claimed to be the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Paul recognizes that Christ is the Messiah and he is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: And I want y'all to.
SPEAKER_00: Do y'all know that the doctrine of predestination, which basically means that God before the foundation of the world chose all of his children that he would elect, that he chose them.
SPEAKER_00: His decision, his choice, and he gave that a numerable number.
SPEAKER_00: So many, so many.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us more numerous than the sands of the sea or the stars in heaven, that we can't count them.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a few.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a small number.
SPEAKER_00: But what I want you to understand is that God gets all the glory 100% for every born-again and saved person in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Not any man except the Lord Jesus Christ gets credit and glory and praise for any soul going to heaven except the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not one.
SPEAKER_00: Only him.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul right here says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us, this group of believers, himself included, that he's writing to and about.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: It is a doctrine that gives all glory to God and by and it's showing that man cannot and does not get any of the credit.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say this.
SPEAKER_00: When people that do not understand or believe in God's electing grace, predestination, they hear that word, and their sensibilities get pricked, they get offended.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, I was in that place at one time in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And um, but but why is it that we get offended?
SPEAKER_00: We get offended because we don't like that.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we get offended because we think in our mind that I don't think God should operate that way.
SPEAKER_00: That I don't think God should choose somebody to heaven and not choose somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: And that offends us.
SPEAKER_00: That God, I don't like the way that you did salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I think salvation should be done a different way.
SPEAKER_00: I think you should just offer it to everybody and that everybody should have a choice.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that who do you and I think we are?
SPEAKER_00: No offense.
SPEAKER_00: But yes, please be offended.
SPEAKER_00: Because you just offended God when you said, God, I don't like the way that you chose to do salvation.
SPEAKER_00: You and I, and by the way, in Romans chapter 9, that's exactly Paul's answer.
SPEAKER_00: Paul literally doesn't give an answer in Romans chapter 9 that Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated, and whom he will, you know, he chooses, and whom he will, he hardeneth.
SPEAKER_00: And literally Paul's answer is that does the clay tell the potter what to do?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon said one time, you know, the Bible says, Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a 100% true statement.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm up here preaching the gospel, hoping that the men and women that I'm talking to, whether in this church or wherever this goes on the internet or whatever, I'm hoping that they hear the word of God and they are pricked in their heart and minds.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: That is a true statement.
SPEAKER_00: But I fully understand that behind that statement is the fact that unless God opens their mind to see and understand that they won't ever call upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to do that, they don't want to seek him.
SPEAKER_00: But the person out there, whether young or old, who does want to seek him and does want to follow after him and does feel pricked in their mind and their heart that I need to follow Christ, I need to join the church, I need to be saved, I need to.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You should be, and you should repent, and you should go join a church, and you should surrender and submit your life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the gospel message, and it is good news, but you understand that in doing that, you're not saving yourself to heaven, you're saving yourself to a timely understanding of who Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: He's already saved you to heaven, and yes, you should now go walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: You should forsake the world and follow Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Any man that will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 9, 23.
SPEAKER_00: Predestination does not mean that we don't do evangelism, but it absolutely means that we do evangelism differently because the preachers and the witnesses aren't saving people to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We're saving people to a knowledge of what God has already done in their lives, and now we want them to have the great blessing that we have to understand that a little bit better and walk with him and serve him a little bit better.
SPEAKER_00: And then we want them and us together to grow in grace and in knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: Because what is our purpose here in this world?
SPEAKER_00: To glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's the other thing, brothers and sisters, is that in our sensibilities as human beings, we want to be in control.
SPEAKER_00: Brother Josh, I don't like the fact that you were telling me that you believe the Bible says that God is the one who chooses me.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get to choose God.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't sound right to me.
SPEAKER_00: Or I don't like the way that sounds.
SPEAKER_00: You understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: And brothers and sisters, I've I 100% acknowledge that emotion.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is our default human nature.
SPEAKER_00: But my job as the preacher of the gospel, the word of God, is to tell you the truth of the Bible, and then therefore it's your job not to question how the Lord has gone about his mode of salvation, but instead it is to submit yourself to him, to humble yourself under him, because he is Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the potter and you are the clay.
SPEAKER_00: You don't tell God what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You are the clay.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, not only are you and I clay, you and I are tainted, sinful, despicable clay that deserves to be cast down.
SPEAKER_00: But by the grace of God, by his intervening love, he chose to save me, a wretched sinner.
SPEAKER_00: He chose to save the apostle Paul, a persecutor and murderer of Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And you know why?
SPEAKER_00: You know why you know why I believe that the apostle Paul was so zealous?
SPEAKER_00: Because after the apostle Paul saved him, let me back up, after Christ and the Lord saved the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul probably better than most understood what the Lord had actually done in his life, and therefore he had to tell everybody, everywhere, about it forever till the last breath departed from his body.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the Lord turned the Apostle Paul into the greatest preaching machine that has ever existed on planet earth.
SPEAKER_00: I have to write about it, I have to proclaim it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if people throw me in prison and beat me and cast me down.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if they murder me, I must tell everyone, everywhere, all the time, until the day I die, what the Lord has done for me, what he is doing in you, and I must proclaim that, and that is my mission, and I have a mission, and I will not stop until it's done, until God takes me to heaven and moral glory.
SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly what the Apostle Paul did.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what fired that furnace?
SPEAKER_00: Grace.
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote about it.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul wrote about the saving grace, this God choosing him.
SPEAKER_00: And the Apostle Paul was not mad that God chose him, he was thankful that God chose him.
SPEAKER_00: See, predestination, brothers and sisters, is not some harsh, calloused doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, it is the root of the tree.
SPEAKER_00: It is the foundation by which mine and your saving faith is based on.
SPEAKER_00: For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
SPEAKER_00: You and I have nothing to boast about.
SPEAKER_00: I am a bankrupt sinner without Christ, but now standing before you here, brothers and sisters, I am a son of a king.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Not by my choosing, not by my doing, not by my good works, and oh look at look at I look, I redeemed myself.
SPEAKER_00: I saved myself by a choice I made as a nine-year-old boy to walk an aisle and pray a prayer and to pray the sinner's prayer in a Southern Baptist church when I was nine years old.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That did not save me to heaven in a mortal glory.
SPEAKER_00: You know what saved me to heaven in immortal glory?
SPEAKER_00: The fact that the Holy Spirit born me again before I ever walked that aisle and prayed that prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, am I thankful that I walked that aisle and prayed a prayer and listened to the preaching of the minister in that Southern Baptist church and positively responded to that and joined the church and have attempted ever since I was nine years old to walk with the Lord as best I can?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I am so thankful that I did that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thankful that that minister preached that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thankful that I'm preaching to hear to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to know that God saved me, not me.
SPEAKER_00: God saved.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: You and I aren't saved any different than the Apostle Paul was.
SPEAKER_00: God intervened in my life and yours and born us again and saved us, just like you did the Apostle Paul, except mine wasn't as fancy and dramatic and it wasn't written about in the Bible like the Apostle Paul's was.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: The thief on the cross was saved just like the apostle Paul was by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: He was saved just like I was, except it was different.
SPEAKER_00: Like in other words, the thief on the cross didn't have very much time, did he?
SPEAKER_00: He had hours, not days or years or decades, right?
SPEAKER_00: He had literally hours before he would perish.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord born him again and saved him the exact same way that he saved the apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He saved him the exact same way that he saved Daniel in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Except Daniel didn't have the gospel, the good news of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He was just operating in the knowledge of the Old Testament that he had.
SPEAKER_00: But God saved Daniel the same way.
SPEAKER_00: By the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul is writing to the Ephesians and trying to tell them about this grace.
SPEAKER_00: Now that I'm not even into this, and we have about three minutes left.
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to make it to Romans chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: We're not even going to make it through Ephesians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: And we get to the really, really good stuff even in Ephesians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: But let's just get a few of these verses.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want you to see, brothers and sisters, in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3, when the Apostle Paul says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It means that God the Father is the one who has blessed us with heaven and with salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I did not do that for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is the one who did that in us, and he gets all the credit, he gets all the glory.
SPEAKER_00: Man, the preacher, the sinner, gets none.
SPEAKER_00: Zero, 100% forever.
SPEAKER_00: Only Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Only God, only the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: So here Paul starts teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to get this one thing today, and we're going to have to be done.
SPEAKER_00: So the Apostle Paul tells the Ephesians, hey Ephesians, according as he, that's Father God, has chosen us, he's chosen me, the Apostle Paul, he's chosen you, the Ephesian believers, in him, that's in Christ, because Christ was a lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and also in his electing grace.
SPEAKER_00: According as he, Father God, has chosen us in Christ, when did he choose us?
SPEAKER_00: Before the foundation of the world, that we, as believers, should be holy and without blame before him in love.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father God is not, as according to some preachers of other faiths and orders say, you need to come and you need to get saved today and you need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: You do need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: You and I both.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: They will say that you come and you do that, and then when you do that, at the point that you quote unquote pray the sinner's prayer, that your name will be written in the Lamb's book of life, that is false.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know when mine and your names were written in the Lamb's book of life?
SPEAKER_00: Verse Ephesians 1 4, according as he, Father God, has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
SPEAKER_00: And Christ was a lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, if the Lord allows this earth to last another 10 years or another 10,000 years, let's just say that the earth lasts another 10,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: And again, we'll be flying around in space cars by that time.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever, we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But at whatever point, the very last child of grace is born again by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: If that's 10 days or 10,000 years from now, that person's name was written in the Lamb's book of life before the world was ever formed into an earthly terrestrial ball.
SPEAKER_00: And Christ died for that individual before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: It was a done deal.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has Saved every single one of his sheep without exception.
SPEAKER_00: He's done it, he's accomplished, he's finished the work that God gave him to do, the work of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: And see, therefore, God gets all the glory and all the praise.
SPEAKER_00: Not the preacher, not the sinner.
SPEAKER_00: According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, the literal word means are, that we are holy and without blame before him in love.
SPEAKER_00: You and I don't have a right to stand before a holy God on our own accord.
SPEAKER_00: We can't.
SPEAKER_00: Our only rights are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's made us righteous.
SPEAKER_00: When God looks at the sinner and he sees the shed blood of Jesus Christ on that sinner, God can 100%, without reservation, love that sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's me or you or King David, the adulterer and murderer, he can look at us and say, I love that one without conditions.
SPEAKER_00: Agape love.
SPEAKER_00: How is that, Brother Josh?
SPEAKER_00: Because when the Lord, Father God, looks at that sinner, me and you and David, he says, I see the blood of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the blood of Christ is absolutely spotless and acceptable to me.
SPEAKER_00: You see that?
SPEAKER_00: And brothers and sisters, this is our foundation of why Christians are supposed to be humble.
SPEAKER_00: You and I have nothing to brag about, ever.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, you and I have every reason to be ashamed of ourselves, right?
SPEAKER_00: But now the Lord has shown us who we are.
SPEAKER_00: He's dropped the glasses off of our eyes to see how wretched we are.
SPEAKER_00: And then you know what he did?
SPEAKER_00: Then he bored us again.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, yeah, you don't deserve to be in the king's house, but I want you to 100% know you are in the king's house.
SPEAKER_00: You are one of my children.
SPEAKER_00: You are a son and daughter of the king by my grace.
SPEAKER_00: You come eat in my banqueting table.
SPEAKER_00: You come and you have the spiritual eye of faith and the mind of understanding, the mind of Christ that the world out there doesn't have.
SPEAKER_00: You have been given privy knowledge and direct access to the throne room of God, wherefore you and I, as a child of God, can pray straight to the source, the creator of the universe, and he hears our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows us by name.
SPEAKER_00: He knows every hair on our head, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: And he chose in time when he would save us.
SPEAKER_00: He is directly involved in our lives every day.
SPEAKER_00: That's the providence of God.
SPEAKER_00: But he's also directly involved in mine and your salvation, that's predestination.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to close with this verse, and I won't comment a whole lot on it.
SPEAKER_00: We'll pick up here next time.
SPEAKER_00: So, in case you haven't been following, in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, there is a colon at the end of both of those verses.
SPEAKER_00: So that thought does not end there.
SPEAKER_00: It actually goes for like two more verses before it's concluded.
SPEAKER_00: So it actually reads this way: you can back up to verse 3 and say, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, that's him and the Ephesian believers, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in heaven in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And he's done all of this according as he has chosen us in him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us, that word simply means to decide beforehand, to determine before us, unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, and he did all this according to the good pleasure of his will, and he did all this to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: God gets all the glory.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he did all the work, all of it, every bit of it.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I are just a recipient of it.
SPEAKER_00: So let me close with these words.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you and I glad that by the grace of God, you and I are an adopted son and daughter of God, a son of a king, a daughter of the king, a redeemed, saved, in the house, direct access praying, blessed, bound for heaven and immortal glory.
SPEAKER_00: All done by God's work, and none of it done by man's work except the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 2, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
SPEAKER_00: And say, I'm a preacher to tell you here today, you and I should go now and do the good works.
SPEAKER_00: Now that God has already done a good work in you, you and I should absolutely positively respond to the gospel and join the church and repent and change and follow Christ, because that's what I'm called to do, is to tell you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Your master and your Savior, who's done the eternal work in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now you and I need to follow him all the days of our life.
SPEAKER_00: May God give us grace to do that very thing.
SPEAKER_00: We love you all very much.
SPEAKER_00: Brother Don, if you would come up and help us close in a word of songs.
SPEAKER_00: The church doors will always open if you desire to unite with a membership of our church.