Men's Breakfast on Election

January 8th, 2000

Introduction

The subject that I will be speaking this morning God laid on my heart to share with you over 7 months ago. It was during my devotional time that he revealed something amazing to me. The thought came to mind, I need to share this at the men's breakfast. But I thought it was too controversial, I thought about calling Bob to see if I he had an opening then I decided to pray and ask God that if He really wanted me to speak about this topic that He would have Bob call me and ask me to speak. Two days later I got a call from Bob, I wasn't home when He called, so my wife told me he called. I told my wife I think I know why he is calling me. Sure enough when I called him he asked me if I would speak at the men's breakfast. So here I am. The subject that I am going to speak on this morning is the Sovereignty of God and specifically in the area of our Salvation. This doctrine is biblically known as the doctrine of Election or Predestination. This subject is guaranteed to raise blood pressure whenever it is brought up, so I want to start off by reminding you that our duty as Christians is to love one another, even though we may disagree about matters of interpretation. However, before I begin just to play it safe, I want to confirm with Bob that all the knives have been cleared from the tables......They have...Good!

I have been a Christian for over 20 years, and until last year, I was very comfortable with what I understood God to be like. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of who He was and I thought I understood Him fairly well, but after what God has helped me understand about Election....I realize now that I don't really have Him figured out at all. In other words, this doctrine of election has kicked the sides out of the box that I had placed God into. This has been a very uncomfortable feeling for me, not to have a grasp of who God really is. He has been teaching me about His sovereignty and it has been mind boggling to me. He is so much greater in my eyes now since He has given me a better understanding of this doctrine of election. I am convinced that the more we grow in our understand of God, the more we realize that how limited our understanding of Him is. I can relate to John the Baptist when he said, He must increase but I must decrease. Let me illustrate what I mean by that. (Draw chart)

This morning I want to share with you my testimony of how God has been revealing this great doctrine to me. Several months ago during my devotions, I was studying chapter 9 of the book of Romans and little did I realize how God was going to use that chapter to change my perspective of Him. The doctrine of Election had always been somewhat of a mystery to me, to deep for someone as simple as me to comprehend, but God was about to make me dive deeper into this mystery than ever before. When I read verse 16 of chapter 9 it practically jumped off the page at me. God opened my understanding to something new about Himself though this verse. The verse is talking about the Sovereignty of God in salvation and the verse reads, "It does not therefore depend upon man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy." God spoke to my heart through this verse saying, "Your salvation had nothing to do with you. I did it all" It was all God. That is why in Jonah 2:9 scripture tells us, "Salvation is of the LORD." Even my desire to accept Jesus was not from myself. Something in me changed. It was as if God had turned on a light in my mind and opened my understanding so that I could comprehend this truth. To say the least I was humbled by it. The Holy Spirit was teaching me was that my salvation had nothing to do with my desire for God or my effort to reach out to God, but it depended completely upon His great mercy and Grace which gave me everything I needed to come to Him and that I could claim nothing in this process. 'Salvation is of the Lord.' To some of you this may seem obvious and basic, but for me it was eye opening revelation. God's amazing Grace took on a whole new brilliance in my eyes. Ever since I became a Christian, I had thought that I could have either accepted God or rejected him. In other words, It was kind of like God and the devil were having a tug of war for my soul and it was my decision to either accept or reject Christ was what was going to determine the outcome of this spiritual tug of war. But God helped me realize that this was not biblical thinking.

So in other words, I had felt that the decision to be saved was totally up to me. I understood that God opened my understanding, but I felt it was only enough so that I could make a decision to choose or reject Him. So I felt that I was the one who really chose God and in a sense I took pride in the fact that I decided to accept Jesus into my heart. I believe deep down inside I thought that I had a little more common sense than many others who had not made the same decision as me. What God taught me was that it was not so much my decision that I chose God, but it was God's decision and that He choose me. Jesus said to disciples...I chose you...you didn't chose me.

When I came to understand that God chose me I was convicted of that pride that was claiming some contributing factor in my salvation. But the bible tells us... no one may boast before him. "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." 1 Cor 1: 28;30 I was humbled by what God was showing me and I confessed my pride to God and asked for His forgiveness.

I like what A.W. Tozer said in the book "The Pursuit of God" He was commenting on taking credit for accepting Christ; and said,

"We pursue God because, and only because , He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. "No man can come to me, " said our Lord, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him, " and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time that we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand."

One of my favorite preachers of old was George Whitefield - He was greatly used of God in the first Great Awakening in the 1700's. I liked what I read in one of his sermons about the doctrine of election: He said;

"We should not have so much disputing against the doctrine of election, or hear it condemned (even by good men) as a doctrine of devils. For my own part, I cannot see how true humbleness of mind can be attained without a knowledge of it; and though I will not say, that every one who denies election is a bad man, yet I will say, it is a very bad sign: such a one, whoever he be, I think cannot truly know himself; for, if we deny election, we must, partly at least glory in ourselves; but our redemption is so ordered, that no flesh should glory in the Divine presence; and hence it is, that the pride of man opposes this doctrine, because, according to this doctrine, and no other, "he that glories, must glory only in the Lord."

It was Spurgeon who also said in a sermon that he gave in 1860

"I do not hesitate to say, that next to the doctrine of the crucifixion and the resurrection of our blessed Lord - no doctrine had such prominence in the early Christian church as the doctrine of the election of Grace."

If Spurgeon is correct (and he is) there sure have been a lot of preachers successful in avoiding a very important and prominent Bible truth. Spurgeon said, "There seems to be a prejudice in the human mind against this doctrine, and although most other doctrines will be received by professing Christians, some with caution, others with pleasure, yet this one seems to be most frequently disregarded and discarded."

If it were true in Spurgeon's day, I wonder what he would say now when most pulpits are silent about it, and therefore, the pews ignorant of it. The treatment the doctrine of election receives from the hands of its enemies is much like that received by the early Christians from pagan Roman Emperors. The early Christians were often clothed in the skins of animals and then subjected to attack by ferocious wild beasts. So the doctrine of election is often clothed in ugly garb and held up to ridicule and erroneous attacks. 'The attitude of men toward election is the acid test of their belief in salvation by grace. Those who oppose election cannot consistently claim to believe in salvation by grace.

Jesus taught the doctrine of election to the first church established on this earth. He taught that those chosen to Christ were given to him. John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. The reader is encouraged to take a close look at the verse. Notice that these were given to the Son by the Father before they come to him. They come because they were given and not given because they come.

As I came to understand that God chose me, then I started realize that if this is true it means that there are those that God did not choose for salvation. Now I really had a problem with that. But, how could this be? This opened up to me many more questions. How could a loving God have chosen some, but not others. That doesn't seem fair. But then I read further in Romans 9 and it addressed my exact thought and my question. If you read in verses 18-21. Paul repeated the same exact question that I had. If only God can draw a man to Himself and those who will not be saved were never drawn to God, then how could God blame them if they were not saved. God started to show me that I was wrong in my thinking. The fact is: We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Not one of us deserves salvation, all of us deserve eternal separation from God in hell. The amazing part is that God has chosen to save any of us. To me that is truly amazing Grace! As long as we demand that God consult us about our salvation, we slam the door to discovering his grace. But if we are willing to let God be God, and be sovereign in the exercise of his will, then we begin to see what it costs God to save men -- not only the darkness and the anguish and the loneliness of the cross, but, as Paul points out, even today God is long-suffering in his patience dealing with evil men. God is putting up with all the foulness and hatred and enmity of man. In regards to salvation it is 100% God and 0% us. Without God drawing us and enabling us to come to Him, not a single person in this room would desire or make the effort come to Him. Even the faith that we have is a gift of God. God gives us the faith we need to believe in Him. (Read Election Verses - below)

So from the standpoint of God’s sovereignty, a person is saved because he is elected by God (chosen for salvation). But from the standpoint of our responsible freedom, a person is elected because he receives Christ. However a person will not have the desire to receive Christ if it wasn't for God enabling him to come to him.

This is a good illustration that describes our role in Salvation:

A certain man was giving a testimony at a men's breakfast, and he told how God had sought him and finally found him. This man became a Christian, and he was testifying to the grace and joy that was his in Christ. When he sat down, the leader of the meeting, a man with rather a legalistic mind, said: "Now, brother, you have told us about God's part in the way you became a Christian, but you never mentioned your part. When I became a Christian I had to read the Bible, and I had to seek, and I had to pray, and I had to do all these other things, and you have not mentioned anything about them." And the other man was on his feet at once. He said: "Yes, you are right. I didn't mention anything about my part. Well, my part was running away from God for thirty years, and his part was running after me until he found me."

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I like the quote I read of Spurgeon when he said, "I'm so glad that God chose me before the foundation of the World, because he never would have chosen me after I was born."

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"Well," someone might say, "You are teaching that God elects some to be saved and others to be damned." No, not so. Everybody is are already lost, and God is not responsible for that. God never elected man to be damned, that was man's own choice. The only time that man ever exercised his own free will was when Adam chose to accept the principle that the Devil set before him and to act independently of God. The moment that man made that choice he plunged himself -- and the entire race of men following --- into the natural results of that decision.

Let me illustrate it like this:

If I had sitting before me here this morning a glass of poison that I knew would kill me, I would have the choice of whether to drink it or not. But once I drank it I no longer would have any exercise of free will -- I must reap the results -- and this is the condition that God says the human race is in. Having drunk of the dregs of independence from God, at the provolking of Satan, man was plunged into the darkness and the depths of fallen humanity, and it is only God's saving, electing grace that calls any out at all. It is not God's hardening that deprives a soul of salvation; that merely leaves him in the state that he is already in. But if God did not move in mercy, we would all be like Sodom and Gomorah -- blasted, corrupted, ruined, and burned.

Non-believers are spiritually dead until the Spirit of God calls them: that is, they are unresponsive to anything outside the realm of sin (Ephesians 2:1-3). Just as Lazarus was dead until Jesus called his name, so unbelievers are dead until the Spirit of God calls them. And just as Lazarus could not have boasted, "Jesus couldn't have done it without me!", neither can we. Dead men don't have much to bargain with. It is important to note that Ephesians 2:8-9 is in the context of God raising us from the dead spiritually.

re: Evangelism: Some people may say...If God choses who will be saved and they will come to Him no matter what, then what is the use in evangelism? First of all, we have been commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ to go and preach the Good New of the Gospel to the whole world. Who are we to question His command. We don't know who is a child of God and who will respond, God knows, but we don't. However, we must keep in mind that it is a great honor and a privledge to be used by as an instrument of reconciliation in the hand of God. He doesn't need us to bring people to Himself, but he gives us the honor to play a role in the process. What a great honor it is.

Think about this: It was the hopeful doctrine of election that God used to encourage the Apostle Paul when he was afraid to go to Corinth; God said to him, ". . . I have much people in this city " (Acts 18:9, 10).

No, the doctrine of Election does not dampen evangelism if it is rightly held, but rather, it guarantees the success of it and should be the greatest encouragement that we have. So then "Let us preach to men as if everything depended upon them, and then let us pray to God for them as if everything depended upon God."

The Advantages of Election:

Election: Is the most pride crushing doctrine in all of Scripture

It produces in us humility, makes us realize that we had absolutely nothing to do with your salvation.

Spurgeon called it one of the most stipping doctrines in all the world.

CH Spurgeon

"I think election, to a saint is one of the most stripping doctrines in all the world - to take away all trust in the flesh, or all reliance upon anything except Jesus Christ.....I know nothing, nothing, again, that is more humbling for us than this doctrine of election. I have sometimes fallen prostrate before it, when endeavoring to understand it. I have stretched my wings, and eagle-like, I have soared toward the sun. Steady has been my eye, and true my wing, for a season; but, when I came near it and the one thought possessed me - "God hath from the beginning chosen you unto salvation: - I was lost in its luster, I was staggered with the mighty thought; and from the dizzy elevation down came my soul, prostrate and broken, saying, "Lord, I am nothing, I am less than nothing. Why me? Why me?"

God Exalting Doctrine - Gives all the glory to God. Psalm 65:4 - Blessed is the man that you chose.

Eternal Security in Election:

If God's chose you and you did not chose Him, and He gives you all that you need to come to Him. How could you possibly fall from Grace. You didn't do anything to come to Him, how could anything you do cause you to fall away from Him. It didn't depend on you. If you could fall from it, it wouldn't be grace. Plus didn't Jesus say, "All the Father gives me will come to me." and that "no one will be able to pluck them out of my hand. So it is God the Father that gives all believers to Jesus as a gift from the Father to the Son. This reminds me of the traditional Jewish wedding cerimony: Where the Father chooses the bride for the groom. Now all believers make up the Church and the bible says that the Church is the bride of Christ. It is the Father that chooses each individual that makes up the Church and presents us to Jesus Christ the groom as a spotless bride. We are a promised gift from the Father to the Son. We were chosen by the Father, we didn't have the choice, it was pre-determined.

So in closing: How important is the Doctrine of Election?

If it were not for the doctrine of election, no one would be saved!

Election demonstrates the mercy and love of God. It ensures the salvation of the ones He has called. It properly reveals the true nature of man to be utterly sinful, rebellious, and antagonistic to God. It puts God in total sovereign control, where He rightfully belongs. It removes man's ability to take any credit at all for salvation, because even the act of believing could not be self-authored in a sinful free will. And, finally, it reveals the greatness of God's mercy and love and causes the saved to rest in the knowledge that it was God who made their salvation sure, and not their own faulty, sinful wills. It is extremely comforting to hear our Savior say, "I have chosen you." Our Lord Jesus Christ loved us long before we ever loved him. He loved us even when we were dead in sin. Had He not loved us, we would never have loved Him. Had He not chosen us, we would never have chosen Him.

 

 

Verses that Support the Doctrine of Election

Men's Breakfast January 8, 2000

God's Part in Salvation:

Please consider that it is God who: - draws people to Himself (John 6:44,65)

John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

It is God who - appoints people to believe (Acts 13:48)

Acts 13:48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

It is God who - creates a clean heart (Psalm 51:10)

Ps 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

It is God who - works faith in the believer (Rom 12:3; Eph 2:8-9; John 6:28-29; Luke 17:5)

John 6:28-29 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires? Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

Eph 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.

Rom 12:3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Luke 17:5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"

It is God who - chooses who is to be holy and blameless (Eph. 1:4)

Eph 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

It is God who - chooses us for salvation (2 Thess. 2:13-14)

II Th 2:13-14 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is God who - grants the act of believing (Phil. 1:29)

Phil 1:29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,

It is God who - grants repentance (2 Tim. 2:25)

2 Tim 2:25 Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth,

It is God who - calls according to His purpose (2 Tim. 1:8-9)

2 Tim 1:8-9 So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life-- not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

It is God who - causes us to be born again (1 Pet. 1:3)

1 Pet 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

It is God who - predestines us to salvation (Rom. 8:29-30)

Rom 8:29-30 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

It is God who - predestines us to adoption (Eph. 1:5)

Eph 1:5 He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-

It is God who - predestines us according to His purpose (Eph. 1:11)

Eph 1:11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,

It is God who - makes us born again not by our will but by His will (John 1:12-13)

John 1:12-13 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Man's Part:

It is man who - is deceitful and desperately sick (Jer. 17:9)

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

It is man who - is full of evil (Mark 7:21-22)

Mark 7:21-22 For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

It is man who - loves darkness rather than light (John 3:19)

John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

It is man who - is unrighteous, does not understand, does not seek for God (Rom. 3:10-12)

Rom 3:10-12 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."

It is man who - is powerless and ungodly (Rom. 5:6)

Rom 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

It is man who - is dead in his trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1)

Eph 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,

It is man who - is by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2:3)

Eph 2:3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

It is man who - cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14)

1 Cor 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.