Is Election Fair? – Part 2
Romans 9:1-33 (14-33)
June 25, 2017

As you know we are in the middle of our study called “500 Years of Reformation”
And as such we are looking at those 5 pillars that came out of the reformation.
• Sola Scriptura
• Sola Gratia
• Sola Fide
• Solus Christus
• Soli Deo Gloria

And we are currently looking at what it means
To say that we are saved “By Grace Alone”
We are not saved by “Grace A lot”, but by Grace Alone.

And through our study of the word of God,
We have seen WHY true salvation is in fact by grace alone.
And so we are looking at these doctrines of grace.

We started by examining Man’s Absolute Inability,
• Namely that in Adam we were all condemned and thus spiritually dead (Ephesians 2) and incapable of coming to God on our own (John 6:44).

• In fact, we learned that it’s not just as though man is a cripple in need of assistance, man is a corpse in need of total divine resurrection.

• And since that is the case then salvation is a monergistic effort, (the sole and total work of God). God must do it.

And that then has opened the door for us to this doctrine
Which has been called Unconditional Election, or Sovereign Election,
Or even predestination.

Now we also noted that this is a VERY CONTESTED DOCTRINE.

And the main reason is because it seems to
Somehow infringe upon our sense of FAIRNESS.

So that is what we’ve been looking at.
IS ELECTION FAIR?

And in order to deal with that issue we are looking at the 9th chapter of Romans where Paul has just revealed that Israel is lost.

They are lost of course because they have rejected every form of revelation which God has ever given them. (From their original adoption all the way down to the coming of the Christ)

And so, we learned quickly that Israel is lost,
But you most certainly cannot blame their lostness on God.

It is as we have learned in that parable of the vineyard from Isaiah 5.
Isaiah 5:1-4 “Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones. “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge between Me and My vineyard. “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?”

We can all see that the vineyard is worthless,
But we can also see that it is not the fault of the vineyard owner.

This idea is the same concept behind that Parable Of The Sower which Jesus gave us in Matthew 13.
• The farmer was fine,
• The seed was fine,
• The problem was the soil.

And so it is with Israel.
They are lost, but you certainly can’t blame it on God.

Now, that brought about A QUESTION that Paul felt the need to answer.

(6) “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.”
See, Jews believed they were all saved
As a result of that promise God made to Abraham.

Genesis 17:7 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.”

And Jews took that as proof that so long as they could prove their genealogy back to Abraham, then they were good to go.

And yet, Paul is now saying that in spite of that promise, Israel is lost.
How? Why?

It is because that promise God made
Had nothing to do with a physical lineage.

God’s salvation is not a genetic salvation.
You aren’t physically born into it.

John 1:11-13 “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Another great passage about God’s sovereign election.
People aren’t physically born into the kingdom, they must be born of God.

And this is the very essence of what Paul is talking about here.
SO PAUL EXPLAINS GOD’S SALVATION.
(saw this last week)

1) IT IS A SPECIFIC SALVATION – not universal
(vs. 7) “nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.”

2) IT IS A SUPERNATURAL SALVATION – not something man can attain
(vs. 8) “That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.”

3) IT IS A SOVEREIGN SALVATION – salvation is totally up to God.
(10-13) “And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.” Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”

That verse forces us to see
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD in salvation
The boys hadn’t even been born yet, and already God had determined, according to His sovereign will how their lives would play out.

So we saw again that God is absolutely sovereign over salvation.
He does in fact elect, He does in fact choose,
And that is all done according to His sovereign prerogative.
It is all done according to God’s Free Will.

We call that grace because we recognize that apart from God’s intervention, neither of those boys would have been saved.
(Not Abraham, Not Isaac, Not Jacob)
It is not as though Jacob received justice and Esau was shafted.
On the contrary, Esau received justice, and Jacob received grace.

AND YET, AS WE HAVE SAID:
That flies in the face of what we humans continually try to believe.

We like to paint salvation as TOTALLY UP TO MAN
As though the offer is always on the table,
And the only issue is can we persuade men to accept our God.

We as humans still like to believe that somehow, someway,
We still have control of our destiny.

And when someone paints a picture of God as sovereign like Paul did,
IT IS BOUND TO START A FIGHT.

How can God say, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”?

And immediately A SELF-CENTERED WORLD
Raises their fists in the air and says:
“That’s not fair.” “God shouldn’t have done that.”

AND IN DOING SO, THIS SINFUL FALLEN WORLD
ACTUALLY SITS IN JUDGMENT OF THE TRUE AND HOLY GOD.

You will notice that Paul expected this argument,
He knew people don’t like to think that God can choose
In regard to salvation.

(14) “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!”

Selfish men may cry out in rebellion and say:
“That’s not fair! God shouldn’t have done that to poor old Esau.”

Remember Job’s wife?
Job 2:9 “Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!”
She thought God was wrong and deserved to be cursed.

Well Job knew better.
Job 2:10 “But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”
Job knew that God was never unjust.

And that is what Paul wants to know.
Was God wrong? Was God acting unfairly? Was God being unjust?

“There is no injustice with God, is there?”

“May it never be!”

Of course there is no injustice with God.
Psalms 119:137 “Righteous are You, O LORD, And upright are Your judgments.”

Psalms 119:142 “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth.”

Psalms 89:14 “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Lovingkindness and truth go before You.”

Psalms 97:2 “Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.”

Psalms 71:19 “For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You?”

Isaiah 45:21 “Declare and set forth your case; Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me.”

Revelation 15:3 “And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations!”

Time and time again the appraisal of God comes back the same.

In fact, when one enters the most intimate presence of God,
THERE IS BUT ONE RESPONSE.
Isaiah 6:3 “And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

We are NOT HERE TO DEBATE the righteousness of God.
He is holy, He is righteous, He is just.

Psalms 92:15 “… the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

This is precisely the premise that Paul stands upon this morning.

What God does according to His sovereign will
Does not mean that He is in any way unjust.

To make his point,
Paul is going to give us two illustrations.

One is an example of what happens to a pagan life
When God determines to be merciful.

The other is an example of what happens to a pagan life
When God determines to judge.

But neither reveals that God is unjust,
And that is precisely what Paul wants you to see this morning.

#1 CONSIDER HIS MERCY TO ISRAEL
Romans 9:15-16

Notice he begins with the “For”
He is giving you a reason why you can know that God is not unjust.
“For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.”

Paul is quoting from Exodus 33:19

When Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to receive the Law,
You know what happened.
“the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play”

AND GOD WAS INFURIATED WITH THE PEOPLE
Exodus 32:7-9 “Then the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. “They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘ This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!'” The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.”

At this point, you and I understand justice.
Not 40 days after physically hearing God say: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.”

Justice is easy to find. Justice equals that they all die.

BUT MOSES INTERCEDES AND BEGS FOR MERCY

And part of God’s answer to Moses is:
Exodus 33:19 “And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”

LIKE HE DID WITH JACOB, God chose to be merciful and compassionate.
It is not what the people deserved.
But God CHOSE to be merciful and be compassionate.

And to that Paul responds
(16) “So then it does not depend upon the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”

In other words.
It doesn’t matter how hard you work for mercy…
It doesn’t matter how bad you want mercy…
It doesn’t even matter how hard Moses prayed for mercy…

MERCY WAS STILL UP TO GOD’S WILL.
ONLY GOD HAD THE RIGHT TO GIVE IT OR NOT.

No man could claim it… No man deserved it…
But God gave it according to His will.

And what Paul wants to know is this:
IS GOD WITHIN HIS RIGHT TO DO THAT?
Does God have the right to be merciful?
Man I hope so.
Of course the answer is yes. There is no injustice in this.

First the Mercy to Israel
#2 CONSIDER HIS HARDENING OF PHARAOH
Romans 9:17-18

Now notice the word “For” again.
Paul is giving you a second scenario
By which you can evaluate the justice of God.

“for the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.”

We all know who Pharaoh was.
He was a pagan worshiper who held God’s people in bondage.
PHARAOH DESERVED JUDGMENT.

BUT LOOK AT HOW GOD USES HIM.
Exodus 7:1-4 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. “You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. “When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments.”
God determined it and it happened.
After every plague, the result was a hardened heart.
Sometimes Scripture says that Pharaoh hardened his heart
Sometimes Scripture says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart

But that really doesn’t matter,
Because God had already decreed that it would happen.

And notice why God was hardening Pharaoh’s heart
Exodus 10:1-2 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed My signs among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart for His own purposes.

Even to the point that God had so hardened Pharaoh’s heart,
That he would rush after Israel into the midst of the Red Sea.

Pharaoh was an unrepentant Gentile who afflicted His people,
And by all accounts God could have totally judged him at any point.

However, God had a sovereign purpose
In not immediately judging Pharaoh.
WHAT WAS THAT PURPOSE?
Exodus 9:15-16 “For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth. “But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth.”

And that is the verse Paul quotes here:
“FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.”

Paul says God hardened Pharaoh because that was His will
In order to glorify Himself in the whole earth.

It was God’s will to harden Pharaoh so that:
God could give the plagues…
God could deliver by the Red Sea…
God could put the fear of Him in the Canaanites…

God destroyed a man who deserved to be destroyed,
He merely destroyed him at a time and in a way
In which He could demonstrate His own power.

AND TO SUMMARIZE THOSE TWO ILLUSTRATIONS PAUL SAYS:

(18) “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”

AND HERE IS WHERE PEOPLE LOSE THEIR MINDS
IS GOD WITHIN HIS RIGHT TO DO THAT?

They cry out, “THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

Well, boy is Paul ready for you!

(19) “You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”

Lest you miss the point.
This is not a person who is mourning over their sinful state,
And desperately desiring repentance.

This is a person who loves their sin,
And wishes to justify it, but condemning God.

The Movie: “Ever After
“If you suffer your people to be ill-educated and then punish them for those very crimes which their infancy first disposed them; what is to be concluded but that “You first make thieves and then punish them.””

Now that sounds good doesn’t it.
That is the precise argument that these people are taking to Paul.

They are accusing Gods justice by saying:
“God can’t make sinners and then punish them.”

“Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”

How could God punish poor old Pharaoh,
Since God is the one who hardened Pharaoh?
(It is back to the whole, “That would make God a monster” argument)

So look at how Paul answers:
(9:20-21) “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”

Now please pay special attention to how Paul starts.
“On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?”

Paul doesn’t correct their theology, He reprimands their disrespect.
That is arrogance beyond degree.
And notice the choice of words.

He says, “who are you, O man, who answers back to God?”

The insinuation is that no creature
Has even the slightest right to question the Creator.

Paul says, before you go accusing God of being unfair in His election,
You’d better realize who you’re talking to and shut your mouth.

Remember when Job finally questioned God just a little?
Job 38:1-3 “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge? “Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!”

Paul’s attitude is the same.
So God hardens whom He desires, what of it?
He is God, and who are you to question Him?

“The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?

I mean, the audacity here is unbelievable.
Where do humans think they get the right to question whether or not God is fair in the exercise of His own sovereign prerogative?
That’s what we talked about last time.
The obvious problem is that as humans,
We don’t know who we are and we don’t know who God is.

Have you ever heard of such a thing as a human questioning whether or not God has the right to do what He pleases?

Paul uses a good illustration.
Have you ever seen a clay pot that threw a fit on the potter’s wheel?

And that even applies to human beings who are also created,
And created from the same basic substance as clay.

But yet these people in their arrogance
Accuse God of doing something wrong.

So Paul continues.
(21) “Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another vessel for common use?”

Can’t the potter do anything he wants with the clay?
Has anyone ever spanked their children
For making something ugly out of play-dough?

This is the idea we looked at to begin last time.

Jeremiah 18:1-6 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”

Isaiah 29:16 “Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay, That what is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”; Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?”

Isaiah 45:9-10 “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker — An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? “Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?'”

The potter can do whatever he wants with the clay
Because he is the potter.

And Paul even gets a little specific.
“to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”

Notice Paul says “same lump”.
He is reminding that the difference is not found in the quality of the clay,
But in the choice of the Master.

And can’t He make “one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”

The fact of the matter is, houses need all sorts of vessels.
Some clay was made into pans to cook gourmet meals…
Some clay was made into pitchers to pour the finest wines…
Some clay was made into platters to serve the finest fruits…
And some clay was made into chamber pots, some into ash
trays, and some into containers to hold old grease.

THE REASON?
1) The Potter chose to make them that way
2) The Potter needed all these vessels

THE POINT IS GOD CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS
BUT THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO QUESTION IT
BECAUSE THE WILL OF THE CREATOR IS INFINITELY HIGHER THAN THE INTELLECT OF THE CREATION.

God’s will is Preeminent.

And really, that right there should stop all of this “fairness” stuff
Right in its tracks.

NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY:
God’s election does not make Him a monster.
• We already saw last week how His sovereign election actually makes Him
gracious.
• After all, if He didn’t sovereignly choose some, then none would be saved.

Sovereign election DOES NOT make Him a monster.
BUT EVEN IF IT DID…
Who do you think you are to deny it on those grounds?

Would you really be the one human who would dare waggle his finger in the face of God and tell Him He ought not do what He is doing?

And yet that is what people do.
They don’t like a God who sovereignly chooses,
And so they seek to put God on their own potter’s wheel
And reform Him into something more palatable for sinners,
And it is disgraceful!

Martin Luther said in his book “The Bondage of the Will” (which was his counter argument to Erasmus assertion that man has free will)
“God is a Being whose will acknowledges no cause: neither is it for us to prescribe rules to His sovereign pleasure, or call Him to account for what He does. He has neither superior nor equal, and His will is the rule of all things. He did not therefore will such and such things because they were right and He was bound to will them, but they are therefore equitable and right because He wills them. The will of men can indeed be influenced and moved but God’s will never can. To assert the contrary is to undeify Him”

It doesn’t matter if it’s FAIR, it doesn’t matter if it’s JUST,
It doesn’t matter if it’s POPULAR.
THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE WILL NEVER ANSWER TO YOU.

Man have we forgotten who it is we stand before.
“Who are you, o man..?”

So first and foremost before you tell God, “That’s not fair”,
You ought to stop and rip your tongue out of your mouth
So that you don’t overstep your bounds.

BUT BEYOND THAT…
Could it be that the reason you question the fairness of election is because perhaps you don’t understand it?

Do you think it’s possible that maybe, just maybe,
God is doing something that is beyond your comprehension?

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

I’d say there is a pretty good chance you don’t get it.

In fact, when Paul finally finishes up this 3-chapter segment, he will attest that God’s wisdom far exceeds ours in every way.

Romans 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

So, let’s just consider for a moment that
The reason you don’t think election is fair is not because God is unjust, but because you are too limited to comprehend it.

There’s a humbling thought.
And that is what Paul capitalizes on next.

He gives us a hypothetical.
(Paul is not saying that he understands all that God is doing, he merely gives you a hypothetical of what He might be doing, in order to prove that just because you think something is unfair, maybe you just don’t know everything you should.)

Notice the “What if..?”
This is the hypothetical.

(22-24) “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.”

Ever think of that?
What if God’s election is not about condemning the innocent, but rather patiently enduring the wicked so that He can prove to the elect how much He loves them?

There’s a question for you to ponder this week.
And we’ll have to come back to it next time.

One Final Invitation
Revelation 22:14-21
June 25, 2017

This morning we come to the end
Of our study of the book of the Revelation.

And after studying our text last week,
I hope you have a grasp as to what this book is all about.

We have here
• An absolutely reliable revelation directly from Jesus Christ, to His
bond-servant John.
• Primarily it reveals that Jesus is in fact going to return to this world to
bring judgment.
• In seeing these things, every true believer should absolutely be
motivated to worship Him and to share this truth with an
unbelieving world
• For here we undoubtedly learn that when Jesus returns He will in fact
reward every man according to his deeds.

Those are the basics and those are the essentials.

The last time this world saw Jesus He was a humiliated man hanging shamefully on a Roman cross.

The next time they see Him, He will be in glory with a sword coming out of His mouth with which He will strike down the nations and crush them under His feet.

This has been the Revelation we have seen.

This morning the revelation comes to a close
And it does so with one final invitation.

You should know that beginning in verse 12,
We actually have JESUS HIMSELF SPEAKING.

He said,
Revelation 22:12-13 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

He reminded the world that He is about to return
And render judgment and recompense.

And in light of that fact,
Jesus continues on with one last invitation to the world.

We can break it down into 4 points to help us better understand it.
#1 THE REMINDER
Revelation 22:14-15

I call this the reminder because
This is not the first time you have heard this truth.

We are talking here about the reality of judgment and eternal retribution.
And it is a CONSTANT THEME not only throughout the Revelation,
But indeed throughout the whole of Scripture.

In John’s gospel Jesus said:
John 5:22-29 “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”

Paul said:
Romans 2:4-11 “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.”

And of course, coupled with the reality of judgment and retribution
COMES THEN EMPHASIS THAT MAN SHOULD REPENT
In preparation of that coming judgment.

Matthew 4:17 “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Matthew 5:25-26 “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. “Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.”

Paul said:
Acts 17:30-31 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

I think you get the point.
We’ve heard it many times before,
And Jesus reminds us of it one last time here.

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.”

All throughout the Bible, garments represent character.
• Perhaps you remember the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22
and the man who was kicked out for wearing his own clothes.

• Or maybe you remember how when the prodigal son returned his father
immediately put a new robe on his back.

Garments represent character and we find here according to Jesus
That every man’s robe is dirty and needs to be washed.

The idea is that as sinful humanity we are all wicked.

Isaiah nailed it when he wrote:
Isaiah 64:6 “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Our filthy garments represent our sinful character.

The beauty of the gospel is that when a man comes to Christ,
His garments are washed spotless.

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

This is the reality we saw with the tribulation believers back in chapter 7

Revelation 7:13-17 “Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. “They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

And this is what Jesus is referring to here one last time.
“Blessed are those who wash their robes”

He is referring to repentance.
• It is people who “deny themselves”
• It is people who forsake their love of sin and love of the world
• It is people who humble themselves before God

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO
• Realized their own sinfulness before God
• And who realize their utter hopelessness at ever doing anything to
fix it.
• People, who, in their desperation run to Jesus for forgiveness,
cleansing, and His imputed righteousness.

Those people, Jesus says, are blessed.

WHY?
“so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.”

• Do you remember the heavenly city?
• Remember that massive wall around it?
• Remember what we read regarding who gets to enter that city?

Revelation 21:27 “and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

You don’t get to enter that city in filthy garments.
You must have been cleansed.
You must have been redeemed.

That man who tried to sit in the wedding banquet
Without wearing the wedding clothes the king provided
Was cast out into the outer darkness.

And so you see why people with washed garments are blessed.
• They get to enter that city.
• They get to take hold of life and life abundant
• They get to dwell forever in the presence of Christ

On the other hand, those whose garments aren’t washed
Do not receive such privileges.

(15) “Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.”

Many times in the Bible we find the same word describing how God currently deals with sinners, and that word is PATIENT.
God is not ok with sinners.
God is not fond of sinners.
God is merely patient with sinners.

He allows them to live and endure,
Not because He accepts them as they are, but because He is patient.

It is the picture illustrated in the Ezekiel 4
As Ezekiel literally had to bind himself to the ground for 430 days
Bearing the iniquity of the sons of Israel.

It is that often quoted passage out of 2 Peter.
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

Of what Paul wrote to stubborn sinners:
Romans 2:4 “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”

Right now God’s creation is littered with sinful men
Who spurn God and offend Him at every turn,
But He patiently endures them and lets them live
As He waits for their repentance.

However in the city which is to come there will be NO SUCH TOLERANCE.
Sinful men do not get in.

“Outside are the dogs”
• Dogs were not domestic pets in John’s day, they were filthy scavengers, today I think the comparison would be to a wild pig.

And the term “dogs” is used to describe sinful people in general,
Who bring no value to the world nor glory to God,
But who only succeed in further desecrating what God has created.

For example:
“sorcerers…Immoral persons…murderers…idolaters…everyone who loves and practices lying.”

God may patiently endure those people today, but not in heaven.
They aren’t getting in unless they wash their robes.

And Jesus reminds of that.
• There are many in this world who hold to a faulty assumption that
God won’t really judge sinners.

• They assume that on the day of the great judgment they can sort
of “call His bluff” and He won’t really do it.

THAT IS A FAULTY ASSUMPTION.
If you don’t repent of your sin and place your faith in Jesus Christ,
You will not enter into heaven, but will be judged for all eternity.

The blessing is that Jesus has made provision
For those who do repent to enter into this life.

That is a reminder given one more time.

The Reminder
#2 THE INVITATION
Revelation 22:16-17

In view of the reality of Judgment which Jesus just reminded us of,
He now moves to the invitation.

That invitation begins with an ANNOUNCEMENT OF WHO HE IS.
“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

Here Jesus identifies Himself by three titles,
And they all represent the same thing: HOPE

“the root” reminds us of Jesus that prophesied Messiah of the Old Testament.

Isaiah 11:10 “Then in that day The nations will resort to the root of Jesse, Who will stand as a signal for the peoples; And His resting place will be glorious.”

Jesus is more than just the offspring of David,
Jesus is the beginning of David.

Jesus is the sovereign one who first chose David.
This whole idea of a Savior began with Him.

He is also “the descendant of David” which is also a messianic reference of hope.
Since He is the One who will come to save.

And of course He is “the bright and morning star” symbolizing the end of night and the coming of the dawn.

They all picture hope.
Isaiah 9:2-7 “The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness; They will be glad in Your presence As with the gladness of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”

This is Jesus.
He identifies Himself with these analogies of hope.
And that helps us better understand the invitation.

In view of the coming judgment,
There is hope even for the most wicked of men.

Verse 17 is the invitation, but it is a two-part invitation.
• The first half of the verse speaks of an invitation given to Jesus.
• The second half of the verse speaks of an invitation given to the lost.

After identifying Himself as the giver of hope it stands to reason then why “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”

Of course they do!
• No doubt the Spirit of God longs to see Jesus glorified for all eternity, since that is one of His key functions to bring glory to Jesus.

• It is also no surprise that the bride says “Come” as true believers have always been marked as those who love Jesus and long for His appearing.

Paul said:
2 Timothy 4:8 “in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

NOW LEARN FROM THAT.
This is Jesus giving the final invitation of the Bible
And He LETS IT BE KNOWN without any confusion
WHAT IS THE POSITION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCH

They long for His appearing.
That speaks volumes for the number of people in church today
Who have absolutely no interest or desire for the return of Christ.

LET ME JUST STATE IT CLEARLY.
ALL OF THE TRULY REDEEMED LONG FOR THE RETURN OF CHRIST.
(and naturally because He brings hope)
And Jesus makes that clear.

He goes on to say, “And let the one who hears say, “Come.”

Now this is actually part of the invitation.
He just revealed the position of the Spirit and the church regarding His coming; they want it.

Now He invites you to join that choir. (and adopt that same position)
“let the one who hears”
…that would be who has heard the message of this Revelation.

And Jesus wants them to what?
“say, “Come”

That is, He wants everyone who hears this Revelation
To walk in agreement with the Spirit and the Church
And to long for His appearing.

• Be like the blind man in the road who longed for Jesus to walk by his way.
• Be like Zaccheus who climbed a tree just for a glimpse at the Savior.
• Be like the four friend who tore a hole in the roof just to get their friend near
Jesus.

I have never seen a redeemed person yet
Who did not earnestly desire the nearness of Christ.
JESUS WANTS YOU TO ADOPT THAT VIEW.

And in the spirit of invitation, He continues.
“And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.”

That is a direct invitation to all men from the lips of Jesus.
• Do you thirst?
• Do you want eternal life?
• Would you like to be granted access into the heavenly city?

Then “come”

Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”

What does He mean by “come”?

He means exactly what He said earlier…
“Blessed are those who wash their robes…”

Repent of your sin…
Place your faith in Christ…
Choose Him over the world…

It means the same things it’s always meant.
“Come to Me”
• Not come to church
• Not come to morality
“Come to Me”

And Jesus promises that all who do this
Will be allowed to “take the water of life without cost.”

Go back and read John 4 about that woman to whom Jesus offered living water.
Read how once she found Jesus, even after He exposed her sin,
She left her bucket and ran into town to spread the word.

Jesus offered her life and she jumped at the chance.

That is the offer here.
Even at the very end, after you’ve seen all that is coming,
Jesus is here holding out His hand to any and all
Who will turn from their sin and trust in Him.

The Reminder, The Invitation
#3 THE WARNING
Revelation 22:18-19

I find this fascinating, and it is so important.

Immediately after giving an invitation to all who thirst
Jesus goes into one of the most intense warnings in the whole Bible.

(18-19) “I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.”

Certainly you understand what He was saying.
DON’T CHANGE THE MESSAGE

Don’t add to it
Don’t subtract from it

And incidentally this is quite a warning to people of our day, who seem quite content to do just that.

Here we have God’s one authenticated revelation about heaven, and yet how many in our own day have taken it upon themselves to publish their own personal and private revelations about heaven.
• Books like “90 Minutes in Heaven”
• Or “Heaven is For Real”

What else can you call that but someone adding to this revelation?

Or how about those people who do their best to lead people to believe that judgment is a myth?

I know our world went nuts over “The Shack”, and God’s message of love.
But if you want to know what that guy believes, read his non-fiction book entitled “Lies We Believe About God” where He denies that God would ever really judge anyone, including Jesus on the cross.

What else can you call that but a denial of this revelation?

Jesus emphatically said,
Don’t add to this and don’t take away from it,
Or you will be punished.

In short, “God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book…
[and] “will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city.”

If you alter this revelation in anyway,
You will suffer horrifically for all eternity.

NOW WHY SUCH A STIFF WARNING?
Because the glory of God and the eternity of man hangs in the balance.

Suppose you go telling man that heaven is not what God reveals it to be.
• Suppose you fill his head with notions of heaven being all about him and his
fleshly pleasures (and we have clearly seen that it is not)

That man is likely to get the idea that all God really wants
Is for him to be happy for all eternity
And he may never learn of his need to repent and please God.

Suppose you tell a man that the judgments mentioned in this book aren’t literal.
• Suppose you tell him a loving God would never do these things.

Then again you’ve removed his need for repentance.

GOD GAVE THIS REVELATION EXACTLY AS HE INTENDED IT TO BE.

In this life, he didn’t want us knowing anything more or anything less.
Even when Paul went to heaven
He was not permitted to speak about the things which he saw.

THIS IS WHAT GOD WANTED YOU TO KNOW.

Scripture is the perfect revelation
Through which we know who God is and what He desires.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

God’s word is absolutely perfect.

It is not lacking anything
And there is not anything in it that needs to be removed.

God is not asking you to soften the blow, dumb it down, or improve it
He merely wants it proclaimed just as He inspired it.

And that is what Jesus is reminding of here.

He has an invitation to all who thirst,
But let them know for sure that the terms of the offer are clear
And binding and eternal and will not change.

When God says repent, He means it
When God says trust Christ, He means it

You may indeed be forgiven and take from the water of life without cost,
But you must come to God as He has prescribed
And not on your own terms.

The Reminder, The Invitation, The Warning
#4 THE PROMISE
Revelation 22:20-21

And here we have it again from the mouth of Jesus.
“Yes, I am coming quickly.”

Don’t you love that there is not ambiguity or confusion here.
There is nothing cryptic about what Jesus said.
There is nothing left for interpretation.

“Yes, I am coming quickly.”

It is His promise.
And that promise gives all the force to this invitation.

THIS IS NOT SOME HYPOTHETICAL INVITATION,
It is an invitation given to sinners which allows them
To skip a promised judgment which is on its way.

IT IS FOR YOU.

And once again we see the response of the church.
John said, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

That’s what I want.
Come today!
Come now!

And until that day John adds, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.”

For until He comes that grace will be sorely needed.

BUT FRIEND, HERE WE HAVE IT.
The final invitation of the Bible, and it couldn’t be clearer.

• Jesus is returning for judgment, and yet before He comes He offers salvation to anyone who will repent of their sin and trust in Him.

• You don’t get to change the stakes, and you don’t to negotiate, but if you will submit your all to Him then you will be forgiven, you will be washed, and you will be granted access into the heavenly city.

• And since all true believers already long for his appearing, this invitation is for anyone who doesn’t.

So friend, be honest with yourself.

• When we say that the true church longs for the return of the Lord, can you honestly say that is you?

• Or would you more honestly say that your heart is still very much attached to this world and the pleasures it offers?

Jesus offers so much more.
He offers forgiveness
He offers hope
He offers eternal life

But He doesn’t offer it forever.
He will soon return and then the offer is off the table.

I would simply invite you to let go of your sin and run to Jesus
That He might forgive you, cleanse you, and make you new.

Heaven – Part 2
Revelation 21:9 – 22:5
June 11, 2017

Last Sunday morning we actually started our look at Heaven,
But if you will remember, before we made it very far into the description
There was a pause for God to offer yet another invitation.

Revelation 21:3-8 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

It was important to God that we all understand
The main point of what we are seeing.

1) All things will be made new.
Nothing from the old is being salvaged, in fact nothing is salvageable. God must start over from scratch and he will.

2) God Himself will dwell among men.
This is certainly something beyond what mankind has ever experienced, and is quite literally beyond our comprehension.

3) Anyone who is thirsty can come and partake in this glorious reality.
Of course the thirst we are talking about is the hunger and thirst for righteousness, which drives men to Christ.

4) Anyone who refuses to overcome their love of this world and love of sin will not be allowed into this heaven, but will instead spend eternity in the lake of fire, which is the second death.

And that was the message God wanted you to know.
When we talk about heaven
We are not talking about universalism.

All people do not go to heaven.
In fact, according to Scripture, most men do not go to heaven.

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

According to Jesus many who go to destruction and only a few go to life.

The reason of course is exactly what God revealed.
Even though heaven is great,
There are a host of men who refuse to overcome.

TURN TO: MATTHEW 22:1-14
This is a fitting parable, because like the imagery John is using in Revelation 21, we also here find the imagery of a “wedding”.

• This was the massive celebration that the Father is throwing for His Son, and
literally the call goes out everywhere.
• “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock
are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.”

That is the equivalent to God’s call which we saw last week as God appealed to “the one who thirsts”. Do you want to come? Come on.

However, even though the wedding feast was real and ready and open,
Most declined the invitation.

Why?
• Because they were preoccupied with their own lives and plans.
• They went to their farm and to their business.
• Some were even enraged at the invitation and actually beat the slaves who
invited them.

So, the king attacked those murderers and set them on fire.
That, of course, pictured the rejection of the Jews and the fall of Jerusalem.

After the Jews rejected, then the Gentiles were invited,
(Who are represented by those in “the main highways”)
And the “wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.”

So we have those who responded to the invitation.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.
As the king looks over the guests, he finds a strange man in attendance.
(11-12) reveals a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes.

• Did he want to go to the wedding feast? Yes
• Did he try to go? Yes
• But he tried to go on his own terms.

And notice what the king did.
He threw him out.

(14) “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
And if you really want the depth of that statement you’re going to have join us on Sunday nights as we are diving into the truths about God’s sovereign election.

The point you should see again however is that just because heaven is available does not mean that all men are going.
Even though heaven is clearly the better option
It is staggering the number of people who will reject it
In favor of their current lives of pleasure.

That was the announcement that God wanted everyone to understand.

And now that the announcement has been given,
We move back to the description of this wonderful place called heaven.

(9-11) “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.”

That is John’s way of getting us back on track.
Let me get back to showing you this city I saw coming from God.

Up in verse 2 it was described as “a bride adorned for her husband.”
Here in verse 11 it is described as “having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone of crystal-clear jasper.”

The stone we are talking about here is comparable to a diamond.
Clear, unblemished, and sparkling with the very glory of God.

Now we are back to that city.

This morning we are going to walk through what we see,
And then we’ll see if we can’t gain some understanding
As to why men do not choose this place.

But let’s break down what we see into three points.
#1 THE OUTER APPEARANCE
Revelation 21:12-21

The first thing John mentions is (12) “It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels;”

Very interesting that this new holy city actually has a wall around it,
And according to John it is no insignificant structure.

In Bible times walls were for security, but that is not the purpose here,
As you will see later that the gates are never shut.

RATHER, HERE THE POINT IS EXCLUSIVITY.
The presence of a wall and the presence of gates
Indicates the need for access to be granted.
Not just anyone enters this city.
Certainly this is the point of the angels there guarding the gates as well.

In fact, in a moment you will see (27) “and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

So we have here a walled city.

However on this wall is given an indication
Of exactly who is granted access inside.

Because on each of these gates there are names written.
(12b) “and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelves tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west.”

• It is a picture reminiscent of the camping instructions given to the children of Israel as they camped in the wilderness.

• And the fact that the names of the 12 tribes of Israel reminds us yet again that God has never forgotten His covenant with Israel.

• Israel was broken off for a time as we saw in Romans 11, but from the standpoint of God’s sovereign choice, Israel has never been totally forsaken.

• That was clear with the sealing of the 144,000 and it is clear again as we see their names recorded on the gates.

Redeemed Israel will be in heaven.

But those aren’t the only citizens of the city.
(14) “And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

If the twelve tribes represent Israel,
Then certainly the 12 apostles represent the church.
Also present there are the redeemed from among the Gentiles.

And this is nothing new to you at all.
Ephesians 2:19-22 “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

Paul calls us “fellow citizens”.

So there is a wall indicating that not everyone has access,
But certainly the redeemed of Israel and the redeemed church
Do have access into this great city.
And then, as John is looking at the city,
We actually get a surveyor coming to measure.
(15-17) “The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its wall. The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements.”

The purpose of surveying is to denote ownership.
We see this throughout Scripture.
This is God’s city.

This is the city we heard about in the book of Hebrews,
“whose architect and builder is God.”

And the city measures like a cube.
• 1,500 miles wide
• 1,500 miles long
• 1,500 miles high

We are told that the wall measures “seventy-two yards” which most likely refers to it’s thickness.

That is certainly beyond our comprehension how men live in a cube since all we really understand is surface area, but it is heaven.

What is interesting I think is that the Holy of Holies also measured out as a perfect cube, and that is the best way to see this holy city.

This is God’s dwelling.
This is God’s city.
And it is coming to dwell among men.

And then the MATERIALS being used on the city are described.
(18-21) “The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.”

And honestly, this description is beyond us.
All John can really do is describe a new creation with old terms.
The best he can do is describe it using the finest jewels he knows to use.
This is a beaming and glowing city.

A city of “pure gold, like clear glass.”
“the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single Pearl Those are giant pearls!

It is really beyond human description or understanding,
But I think the beauty is an obvious point.

Now, that is John’s description of the outer appearance.
#2 THE INNER TOUR
Revelation 21:22-27

Here John is granted some sort of access
To see beyond the walls and into the city.

And as we mentioned last week, since we so are limited by our own imaginations, it is easier to describe heaven BY WHAT WON’T BE THERE.

(22) “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”

Everything in Jewish culture revolved around the presence of the temple.
• That was their worship site
• That was the place of their sacrifices
• That was the presence of God

And yet, in heaven, there is no temple.
God is not hidden behind a veil, the presence of God is readily accessible.

(23) “And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

That is probably the best way for the glory of God to be described;
It is so brilliant that it renders the sun obsolete.

We also find some of the business that is occurring in this new holy city.
(24-27) “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

What we have here is all “the kings of the earth” and “the nations” bringing “glory” into this new holy city.

Those verses have caused some confusion for many.
• Does that indicate that there will be distinct nations on this new earth?
• Does that indicate that there will be kings (indicating classes of people) in heaven?

Well, the most honest answer is, I don’t know,
Because I’ve never been there.

But the point is, whatever distinct nations there were,
And whatever distinct rulers there were,
There will be no longer for they are all brining their glory and their crowns and laying them at the feet of God.

Everyone who enters this city does that same thing.
The people who don’t submit all glory to God don’t get to enter that city.

So you see the outer appearance – You see the inner tour
#3 THE BENEFIT OF THIS CITY
Revelation 22:1-5

It is obvious that there is tremendous benefit to being in this city
AND THE BENEFIT IS LIFE.

“Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of the street.”

Some question if it is a literal water river since there is no sea in heaven and the water based ecosystem seems to be obsolete, but I don’t think it really matters.

For us (and for John) water represents life
And that is clearly used at the very least as a symbol here.
LIFE IS FLOWING FROM GOD.

And it’s not just the river.
(2b) “On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

WE DON’T JUST HAVE LIFE, WE HAVE HEALTHY LIFE.
“healing” here does not indicate sickness in heaven.
• The Greek word is THERAPEIA from where we get our word “therapy”
• The life God is giving is a life free from sickness or pain.

Life in heaven is not sick and broken life.
I think we can all agree that there are people on earth who are alive, but sickness and pain make life less than enjoyable…not in heaven.

AND IT’S NOT JUST HEALTHY LIFE, BUT EVEN ENJOYABLE LIFE.
(3a) “There will no longer be any curse;”

Adam had an enjoyable life until he sinned and the curse came upon us.
• Then pain entered for the woman and work entered for the man.
• You even have people lamenting how hard life is trying to scratch a living out of the ground which God has cursed.

Well, not in heaven.
Life is easy.

AND LIFE IS FULL OF PURPOSE.
(3b) “and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him;”

Today we see people who just can’t get a handle on their purpose.
What was I meant to do?

NOT IN HEAVEN.
• Life has purpose, and everyone knows what that purpose is.
• It is to enjoy God’s presence and serve Him before His throne.

WE SEE THAT LIFE IS ALSO FULFILLING.
(4) “they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.”

Many times today we serve and we give and work
But don’t quickly see the fruit of our labors
Or even feel the satisfaction of our success.

Even serving God, it can certainly feel like we are spinning our wheels.
Perhaps you remember Paul writing about the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 reminding us that “we know that our labor is not in vain”. But it can feel that way sometimes here.

But not in heaven.
We see the One we serve and we have the immediate fulfillment of His approval and satisfaction.

Life has a purpose and it is fulfilling.

AND LIFE IS CONTINUOUS.
(5a) “And there will no longer be any night, and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them;”

Night time now can certainly represent many things.
It is used as an analogy for the deeds of evil or even the ignorance of man.

But night time also represents the slowing of activity
As humanity goes to bed and takes a break.
Not in heaven.
There is no night.

I can remember as a child (before the hardships of life began to soak in) how much I hated night time or bed time.
The setting sun represented the end to the day and the time to go home.
As a kid you go to bed wishing you’d already slept.

People with that mentality are those who enjoy their life to the fullest. That will be the life of heaven.

BEYOND THAT, IT WILL BE ETERNAL.
(5b) “and they will reign forever and ever.”

It will absolutely never end.

The simplest way to put it is that in heaven there is LIFE!
• Not sickly life
• Not difficult life
• Not meaningless life
• Not unfulfilled life
• Not fleeting life
• Not mortal life

Heaven will be (as Jesus put it) “life and life abundant”.
That is John’s description of the heaven he sees coming down from God.
A glorious city of worship were life is lived the way it is meant to be lived.

BUT AGAIN I WANT TO REMIND YOU THAT
God paused half-way through this revelation to remind us
That the invitation to this city is open and yet there are still many
Who refuse to come because they will not overcome.

AND AFTER SEEING A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN,
I THINK WE CAN BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND WHY.

1) IN HEAVEN GOD IS THE MAIN ATTRACTION, NOT THE FLESH

Did you notice how everything there is set up to enhance His glory?

• Verse 11 says the city has “the glory of God” and the entire city is built to showcase that fact.

• Verse 18 says “The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.”
“jasper” was listed earlier to describe the city and it was also said to be “crystal-clear”.

• Then we get all the foundation stones around the wall which would all reflect the light of the glory of God.

• Verse 21 says “And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.”

Are you getting the point?
GOD IS THE MAIN AND ONLY ATTRACTION.
EVERYTHING IN HEAVEN IS TO SHOWCASE HIM.

I hear so much talk today about heaven and how so and so is up there playing golf, or fishing (hard since there is no sea) or doing whatever else.

I even hear the outlandish like, smoking a cigar or drinking a beer with his buddies.

All of that is ridiculous, as though the appeal of heaven is to your flesh.
Heaven has nothing to do with appealing to the flesh.
In fact, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

THE ATTRACTION OF HEAVEN IS THE NEARNESS OF GOD!

Psalms 73:25-28 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.”
Asaph understood the attraction and it was all God.

If you’ve noticed, this has been continually pointed out in this chapter.
Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,”

Revelation 21:22 “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”

Revelation 22:3-4 “There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.”

That’s the point.
Christ is the attraction!
The nearness of God is blessing!

And this makes perfect sense.
How often we are told that in this Christian life we suffer the loss of all things that we main gain Christ!
• He is the pearl of great value.
• He is the treasure hidden in the field.

Our inheritance is not some gaudy mansion (the word in John 14 is “rooms”),
Nor is it some beach front property or some manicured golf course.

Our inheritance is God, it is Christ!
Romans 8:16-17 “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

God is the reward!

Listen to what Paul said about heaven.
Philippians 1:23 “But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;”
• Do you see the treasure?
• Do you see the attraction?

I THINK YOU’RE SEEING ONE OF THE REASONS
THOSE PEOPLE DIDN’T WANT TO GO TO THE WEDDING FEAST,
AND WHY SO MANY REFUSE TO OVERCOME TODAY.

It is because we have all these people who claim to want to go to heaven
But they don’t even love the One whom heaven is all about.

All they really want is just another place where their flesh can be gratified,
And so they reinvent heaven to be some place
Between Disney World and Las Vegas and then claim to want to go.

THAT’S WHAT PAGANS DO!
• Islam talks of a place where you get your 72 virgins…what could be more
carnal or fleshly than that?

And I simply want you to know
• If your main treasure isn’t God, if Christ is not your sole desire,
• Then let me confidently tell you that you wouldn’t enjoy heaven,
And that’s ok, because if Christ isn’t your sole desire
You’re most likely not going there anyway.

Many today just want this world and they want God to give it to them,
And then they want to go to an even better world called heaven
Where God will give them even better things.
That is blasphemous!

Christianity says on this earth I will suffer the loss of all things that I may gain Christ, and when I get to heaven, Christ is all I long to gain.
There is no doubt who the attraction is.

Let me show you a second reason so many won’t overcome.
2) IN HEAVEN WORSHIP IS THE MAIN ACTIVITY

You saw that when you saw all the nations entering the city.
• They weren’t entering to go shopping…
• They weren’t entering to play golf…

They were entering to bring glory to God.
It was all about worship.

And notice, they were doing it without the presence of a temple.
How often have we found Israel to be so preoccupied with their temple and their ceremonies and yet have absolutely no love for God?

That fact saturates the Old Testament.
“For this people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from Me.”

And sadly we see this reality all too often in the church.
• We’ll attend (if we don’t have anything else to do)
• We’ll sing (when we feel like it)
• We’ll give (if we have a little extra)

But you let anything at all come up…
• Or you let the air conditioning go out…
• Or you let the weather outside get too bad…
• Or let the song man pick a song you don’t like…
• Or let there be something else you want to do with your money…
AND WE PUT WORSHIP ON THE BACK BURNER

All of that simply screams that we love ourselves more than we love God.

AND THAT IS NOT THE WAY IT WILL BE IN HEAVEN.
In heaven, everything worships!

Psalms 29:9 “The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everything says, “Glory!”

We certainly saw that with the 4 living creatures in chapter 4 who “day and night do not cease to say, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”

And again I tell you this because
If you don’t have a heart that longs to worship God,
You aren’t going to enjoy heaven in the least.

In heaven, God is the attraction and worship is the action.

Again we see why so many people wouldn’t attend that wedding feast.
They didn’t have time to come and celebrate someone else,
They had their own priorities and desires to fulfill.

And that is why so many won’t accept God’s offer of life in heaven,
Because it interrupts this comfortable life here on earth.

It’s amazing the number of people who say they want to go to heaven.
• They don’t want to be in church
• They don’t want to fellowship with God’s people
• They don’t want to serve God
• They don’t want draw near to God
• But they say they want to go to heaven.

All they are really saying is they don’t want to go to hell.
Heaven is all about worship, if you don’t have a heart of worship
Then you aren’t fitted for heaven.

BUT IT’S CLEAR WHY SO MANY REFUSE GOD’S OFFER
EVEN THOUGH HEAVEN IS CLEARLY BETTER.

It is because they are unwilling to overcome
Their love of self and their love of the world
And become submissive servants and worshipers of God.

OBVIOUSLY THEN MY ENCOURAGEMENT TO YOU IS TO OVERCOME.

In Philippians 3 Paul talked about how
He had suffered the loss of all things, but that’s ok.
He considered all that stuff dung so that he might gain Christ.

And then let me show you his advice to you.
Philippians 3:17-21 “Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

His advice was that you also overcome your love of the world and your constant desire to gratify the flesh and that you become fitted for heaven.

Those who are inheriting the kingdom of Heaven
Are not those who are currently clinging to this world.

Let me just give you this one last text to chew on.
Hebrews 11:8-16 “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants AS THE STARS OF HEAVEN IN NUMBER, AND INNUMERABLE AS THE SAND WHICH IS BY THE SEASHORE. All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”

Who Chose Who? – Part 2
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
June 11, 2017

Well, last time we met started looking into this idea of Sovereign Election.

Having already settled the issue of ABSOLUTE INABILITY
• We saw in Romans 5 that Adam killed us all.
• We saw in Ephesians 2 that we were all dead and incapable of responding
• We saw in John 6 that no one can come unless God draws him

So we saw that man is incapable on his own.

This then led us to our next question.
If man cannot initiate salvation then who does?
• And of course the only possible answer is: God.

If God does not breathe at least some life into the dead
Then he cannot even hear the gospel call, let alone respond to it.

So salvation then is a matter of God’s sovereign prerogative
To give life to whom He chooses.

We are talking then about GOD’S SOVEREIGN ELECTION.

And as I told you last time,
This is not a doctrine that comes without massive argument.
I even read you some quotes of prominent evangelical leaders
Who see this as the most evil and blasphemous of doctrines.

Tim Lehaye even said:
“And to suggest that the merciful, long-suffering, gracious and loving God of the Bible would invent a dreadful doctrine like this, predestination, which would have us believe it is an act of grace to select certain people for heaven and by exclusion others for hell comes perilously close to blasphemy.”
(MacArthur, John [The Doctrine of Election, Part 1, a sermon on www.gty.org,] code: 90-273)

And perhaps you’ve had similar thoughts on the matter.
• No way God chooses…
• No way God elects…

Well, that’s why we went on our little Bible journey LAST WEEK
To see that God is in fact a God who chooses.

We started with Israel (God’s chosen people)
And walked right into the New Testament
Where we saw over and over the reality that God does have His elect,
Whom He foreknew, and whom He chose.

You just can’t escape the language.

So what do people who reject this doctrine do with all of those verses?

That is simple: they reinterpret them.

They simply take the word and say it means something
Other than what it means.

Let me give you an example.
Ephesians 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

That passage seems pretty clear to me, so what do Arminians or Semi-Pelagians do with a passage like that?

They simply interpret it as groups of people instead of as individuals.
So, “He chose us” doesn’t mean He chose me and you,
It means He chose a group of people.

Well that then begs the question, WHO IS “US”?
• Everybody (well not everybody is saved, so I guess not)
• Gentiles? (obviously not)
• Jews? (couldn’t be)
• Ephesians? (they weren’t all saved)

The only possible answer is that God chose believers.

Let me give you another one, and this one is probably the most famous.
Romans 8:29 “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;”

Perhaps you’ve heard this point.
Foreknowledge simply means that
God just knows ahead of time who will be saved.

Now, the problem there is that in Romans 8:29 “foreknew” is a verb
Which means it is something God does. He foreknows people.

When people try to say that God just knows ahead of time they are using “foreknowledge” as a noun, which doesn’t work.

But perhaps you’ve heard that foreknowledge simply means
God knows ahead of time.

Well, can I tell you that this still doesn’t solve the problem?

So God just knows ahead of time who will be saved.
You say, “Yes”.
Then I have to ask: If God knew that some people would not be saved, then why did God create them?

So people say, “No, God didn’t know specifically.”
And you just jump into the “open theism” debate and say,
“No, God doesn’t know ahead of time who will and won’t be saved, He just creates men and hopes for the best.”

Well surely by now God has to have seen that the majority of men love sin and reject truth, so at what point would you call God cruel for not doing a better job of reading the data and just pulling the plug on the whole thing?

See, you never escape it.

But because it doesn’t taste well,
We try to say election is just a broad term for a group of people,
Foreknowledge simply means God knows ahead of time
And predestination just means that
God determined for you to hear about Jesus.

I know that’s how I grew up hearing it
And that’s how I believed it for many many years.

God doesn’t choose, God doesn’t foreknow (in the verb sense)
God doesn’t’ elect, God leaves all that up to the sinner’s free will.

Well, LET’S SAY THAT’S HOW YOU BELIEVE IT,
And even though we saw all those verses last week,
You still want to hold on to that way of thinking.

Then tonight I want to challenge your thinking a little.

Let’s now get to 1 Corinthians 1.

And just to save some time, the backdrop here to this passage
Is the boasting of the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 1:10-11 “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.”

And that isn’t the only time their boasting is mentioned in this book,
But you get the idea.

• They were looking for ways to distinguish themselves as more important or
more holy or more devoted than the person in the pew next to them.
• It was a bunch of people flexing their pride and their spiritual resume, seeking
to feel superior to their fellow brothers and sisters.

Paul’s answer to that arrogant boasting comes here.
And he simply seeks to point out to them
Who they were and why they were saved.

And there are 4 things we learn in our text tonight.
#1 THE ELOQUENCE OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:26

I do want to help you see a natural progression.
This text has a definite skeleton or structure to it.

Paul takes three characteristics and follows throughout the text tonight.
1) WISDOM
2) ABILITY
3) WORTH

Paul will continually refer to these three characteristics in this text.
And you will notice first tonight,
That those who are called of God had NONE OF THEM.

“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;”

One could almost say, that in order to succeed in life,
A person must have 1 of 3 things.

1) BE SMART – and education
2) BE SKILLED – a skill (such as sports)
3) BE SPECIAL – have a rich family

And in general those are three areas that make a person successful.

But notice what Paul says about what type of people
The Corinthians were.

“were not many wise”

In other words, these were not the brainiacs of ancient Greece.

It could mean they did not have a formal education,
But it could also mean they lacked the street smarts simply to survive.

There were not many who were deemed as “wise according to the flesh”

“not many mighty”

The word here is DUNATOS, and it is sometimes translated “mighty”

For example:
Acts 18:24 “Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures.”

Many times, this word is translated
“possible” as in “with God all things are possible”

And it carries the idea of a person with ability.
Someone who has the ability to do something else.
They are skilled in an area.
They can do something that perhaps someone else cannot do all that well.

But as you will notice,
The Corinthians didn’t have much of that going for them either.

Paul also notes that:
“not many noble”
The word here is EUGENES (you-gen-ace)

“Eu” = well
“Genos” = family

So it would speak of a person who came from a good family,
And was ahead in society because of their family status.

And yet Paul says that there weren’t many of those in Corinth either.

And so the point is that when God called the Corinthians,
It wasn’t because they were worthy to be called.

AND THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MOMENT.
WHAT DO YOU THINK GOD SAW IN YOU?
John 2:24-25 “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”

God didn’t call you because
He saw in you something exceptional and special.

Our world has spent billions on the notion of “SELF-ESTEEM”
Trying to convince people of their inner goodness, and their inner worth

It plays right into the ego driven society that we have.

Where everyone is looking for an area
In which they can boast in regard to their goodness.

BUT SELF-ESTEEM MAKES PEOPLE FURTHER FROM SALVATION.

But when Paul asked the Corinthians to look back over their lives, do you know what they found?
NOTHING.
• They weren’t smart…
• They weren’t skilled…
• They weren’t special…

And yet God called them anyway.
For when it comes to salvation,
God calls those who are down and out.

In fact, look at the first beatitude.
Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

But you see Paul’s point.
Don’t boast about being something special.
God didn’t choose you because you were special.

I KNOW THAT IS HARD TO SWALLOW, BUT LET’S GO ON.

The eloquence of the called
#2 THE EXPLANATION OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:27-29

Paul just said that when God called you,
There wasn’t much noteworthy about you.

“but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,”

Paul’s second reference to WISDOM
And he points out that God didn’t choose you because you were wise,
Instead God chose you because you were “foolish”.

God chose “foolish” people on purpose.
WHY? – “to shame the wise”

He goes on
“and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong”

Paul’s second reference to ABILITY

God didn’t choose you because you were strong,
But rather He purposely chose you because you were weak.

WHY? – “to shame the things which are strong”

And look at Paul’s third point.
(28) “and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,”

Paul’s second reference to WORTH

“base things” translates AGENES (a-gen-ace)

“A” = not
“GENOS” = family

In other words, you were of no reputable family,
And that is why God chose you.
You were a nobody, a figurative orphan in the world.

“despised” translates EXOUTHENEO

Paul will use this word later.
1 Corinthians 6:4 “So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church?”

You were literally of “no account” in the world

Then Paul really drives it deep.
“things that are not”

Meaning you had no worth.
It wasn’t that you were rejected,
You weren’t even noticed to begin with.

Reminiscent of that Ezekiel 16 forgotten baby
We saw a couple of weeks ago.

And Paul says that God specifically chose us like that.

WHY? “so that He may nullify the things that are.”

• God chose the dumb on purpose…
• God chose the weak on purpose…
• God chose the despised on purpose…

To make a point that man’s wisdom, man’s ability, and man’s status are of absolutely no benefit in regard to salvation.
His choice was a slap in the face
To man’s wisdom, man’s ability, and man’s status.

DON’T YOU EVER GET SICK OF THE ARROGANCE OF MANKIND?

People who think they are important because they are so smart?
And yet none are smart enough to figure out how to get to heaven.

People who think they are so talented?
And yet none are talented enough to avoid the grave.

People who think they are so important?
And yet none are so important that they get to remain forever.

Well God is sick of their arrogance as well.
Instead God chose the dumb, the weak, and the despised
In order to shame them.

God purposely selects the rejected
In order to shame those who think they are so special.

(29) “so that no man may boast before God.”

Could you imagine heaven of God called those who thought they were worthy?
Every conversation would be about why I deserved to get here,
Or how I got here, or the way I figured it out.

THAT IS WHY HE CALLED THE WEAK.

The eloquence of the called
The explanation of the called
#3 THE EQUIPPING OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:30

Now here you will notice Paul’s third reference to:
WISDOM
ABILITY
WORTH

First notice the grace involved.
“By by His doing you are in Christ Jesus”

If there was ever a verse
That squashed the notion of works salvation, this is it.

The only reason you are in Christ is because God did it.
Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

• You weren’t smart enough to choose Christ…
• You weren’t strong enough to claim Christ…
• You weren’t important enough to deserve Christ…

You are not saved because you did anything at all.
Salvation is “by His doing”

And look at what He did.
“by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,”

We did not have anything the world thought was noteworthy in an intellectual sense, and yet God chose us, and instilled wisdom to us.

He gave us Christ.
He gave us the Holy Spirit.
He imparted wisdom to us.

Earlier Paul told the Corinthians
1 Corinthians 1:4-5 “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge,”

God took the foolish, chose us, and then gave us wisdom.

Paul continues.
“who became to us…righteousness and sanctification”

We had no ability.
We had no way to distinguish ourselves at all.

Not to fear, God gave it to us through Christ Jesus.

Mike Trout appears set apart on a baseball field…
Tom Brady is set apart on a football field…
Michael Phelps is set apart in a swimming pool…
Ussain Bolt is set apart on track…

But I am set apart in this world because I am righteous.
I didn’t achieve it, God gave it to me through Jesus Christ.

And still Paul continues.
“who became to us…redemption.”

We had no worth, until God bought us back.
And now, we are members of the most esteemed family every born.

When Bill Gates dies I will not inherit a penny of his estate,
But when I die, I will inherit all of creation, for I am a co-heir with Christ.

We were literally like that China-baby on the sidewalk.
No wisdom
No ability
No worth
And that is why God called us.

So that when He gave to us wisdom, and ability, and worth,
The only One who could receive any glory from it would be Him.

The Eloquence of the Called The Explanation of the Called The Equipping of the Called
#4 THE EXPECTATION OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:31

Notice that “so that”
It is vitally important.

“so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boas in the LORD”

DO YOU SEE PAUL’S POINT NOW TO THE CORINTHIANS?

You are all running around looking for a reason
To boast in something you have done.

1 Corinthians 1:12 “Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”

You constantly run around trying to prove
• Why you are important to this church,
• Why the church could not go on without you,
• Why we should all bow before you, give you your way, and worship the ground you walk on.

BUT YOU HAVE MISSED THE POINT

• You would not even be worthy if God hadn’t given you worth.
• You would not be here if God hadn’t chosen you.
• God wouldn’t have chosen you if you in yourself weren’t worthless.

None of us have one single thing
That we can boast about in this life.

Christians ought to have
The absolute worst self-esteem
And the highest God-esteem in the world.

That is the problem with the Church.
We all run around looking for ways to esteem ourselves,
When we are commanded to “boast in the LORD”.

Romans 3:27-28 “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”

Paul will tell the Corinthians later:
1 Corinthians 4:7 “For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”

And that is precisely Paul’s point.
Quit elevating what you have done,
And start bragging about what God has done!

God did it all, and He deserves all the glory!

1 Corinthians 1:30-31 “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”

SO YOU SEE THE TEXT.

Here is what I want to do now.
For just a moment I want you to DENY the doctrine of divine election.

Go ahead and take the other side of the issue.
• Tell me that God does not choose individuals for salvation.
• Or Tell me that God just chose everyone and the reason not everyone is saved is because everyone didn’t choose God in return.
• Tell me that God merely foreknows ahead of time what choice I will make.
• Tell me that predestination is nothing more than be being exposed to Christ so that I will have the opportunity to choose Him.

Take that train of thought.
That is the Arminian position, that is the Semi-Pelagian position.

By chosen it just means that God chose you after you first chose Him.

SO TAKE THAT DOCTRINAL VIEW.

NOW:
EXPLAIN THIS TEXT TO ME

If it doesn’t mean God chose me when I was incapable of choosing Him, then what does it mean?

I mean what is Paul’s point?

Stop boasting!
• You’re not wise (even though you were smart enough to choose Christ)
• You’re not mighty (even though you were strong enough to overcome the flesh)
• You’re not noble (even though you took the high road when everyone else didn’t)

I mean that kind of kills the whole point doesn’t it?

Paul gives the point as “So that no man may boast before God.”

But if I chose first and if God only knew what I would do,
And I was willing to respond after being predisposed to the gospel,
Then absolutely I have something to boast about.

SO WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES THIS TEXT EVEN MEAN?

It can only mean one thing.
• It can only mean that God chose me, the man too dumb to choose Him.
• It can only mean that God chose me, the man too weak to choose Him.
• It can only mean that God chose me, the man too unimportant to choose Him.

That’s all it can mean,
Any other doctrine and this passage makes no sense at all.

Furthermore, how can a person only boast in the Lord
If salvation is a cooperative effort?

Maybe they boast mostly in the Lord, but they can’t boast only in the Lord.

Do you see?
There is no other way to see it.
• When the Bible speaks of God choosing, that is what it means.
• When the Bible speaks of God electing, that is what it means.
• When the Bible speaks of God foreknowing, it doesn’t just mean He knows ahead of time, it means He brings to pass that which He desires.

You can hate the doctrine of divine election, but that doesn’t make it false.

GOD CHOOSES THOSE WHO WILL BE SAVED.

Now, that doctrine is met with cries of “That’s Not Fair!”
Some come back next time and we’ll talk about that.

Is Election Fair? – Part 1
Romans 9:1-33 (1-13)
June 18, 2017

As you know we are currently knee deep into our conversation
Regarding the sovereign election of God.

Because we looked at the Scriptures and learned that
Man is spiritually dead by reason of the fall,
We have learned that the only possible way for man to be saved
Is if God sovereignly chooses to save him.

Man cannot (and would not) initiate salvation on his own.
It must be done according to the divine prerogative of God.

This reality is commonly known as:
• Sovereign Election
• Predestination
• Unconditional Election

Now we have also noted that this doctrine is not without its opponents.
Indeed there are many, however, one thing that cannot be denied
Is the presence of this reality everywhere in Scripture.

• We’ve seen the O.T. and Israel as “God’s Chosen People”
• We’ve seen the N.T. and the many passages referring to God’s elect.

And last week we looked at what I believe to be the most compelling argument for election in all of Scripture in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Where we encountered a passage that makes absolutely no sense
If it does not mean that God chooses whom He will.

However, as I told you in closing last time,
There is ONE CRY THAT SEEMS TO DROWN OUT ALL THE OTHERS.

When people hear of sovereign election we continually hear the cry: “THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

And those who take issue with the fairness of election
Inevitably assume that to hold to election
Is to portray some sort of evil reputation upon God.

One pastor on the radio writes:
“This doctrine makes our heavenly Father look like the worst of despots.”
(MacArthur, John [The Doctrine of Election, Part 1, a sermon on www.gty.org,] code: 90-273)

A Calvary Chapel pastor writes:
“Five-point Calvinism, makes God a monster who eternally tortures innocent children. It removes the hope of consolation from the gospel. It limits the atoning work of Christ. It resists evangelism. It stirs up argumentation and division and promotes a small angry judgmental God rather than the large-hearted God of the Bible.”
(ibid)

Another says:
“To say that God sovereignly chooses who will be saved is the most twisted thing I have ever read that makes God a monster, no better than a pagan idol.”
(ibid)

A website from theological students in Canada:
“This doctrine makes God a diabolical monster and reduces man who was created in the image of God to a mere robot.”
(ibid)

Dave Hunt:
“This doctrine’s misrepresentation of God has caused many to turn away from the God of the Bible as from a monster.”
(ibid)

Well, I think that just about sums up
What many think about the doctrine of election.
If sovereign election is true, then according to these men,
God would be a monster.

But this is where we all have to be very careful.

We are not afforded the liberty of setting the definition
Of fairness or justice or even love
And then using our definition to define who God is.

On the contrary, we learn who God is,
And that changes our definition of fairness, justice, and love.

We don’t define God by our terms, we define our terms by God.

But this is commonly the problem.
Men like those we just quoted are so worried that
God may be considered “unapproachable” by sinners.

They are afraid that if we uncover the truth about God’s sovereign election
That sinners might think Him to be some sort of monster, be turned off by Him,
And then not want to come to Him.

But do you understand that the goal has never been to make God acceptable to sinners?
The goal has always been to make sinners acceptable to God.

So we aren’t really concerned about how the world perceives God,
We are only concerned about who God is,
That we might accurately proclaim Him to the world.

Now, that being said, I certainly believe in sovereign election,
And I most certainly do not think this makes God a monster
Or the worst of despots.

But none the less, the question remains:
IS ELECTION FAIR?

In order to answer that question, I must really first ask you another one.
And that is: WHO IS THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY; YOU OR GOD?

Because we have already seen that election is real.
If we are now asking if it is fair then we must be at a point where we are now going to put God on trial as to whether or not His methods suit us.

• You either have to deny that God is a God of election (which you
cannot do according to all the Scriptures we have seen over the last two
weeks)

• Or, you have to put yourself in the chief seat of authority, and put
God on trial, and ask Him if He is right in what He has chosen
to do.

And that really is the heart of the problem.
In the end, we think too highly of man, and too little of God.

Or as R.C. Sproul put it, “We don’t know who we are and we don’t know who God is.”

IT IS HUMANISM
Where we believe that this whole thing is somehow about man.
After all, if it doesn’t seem right or fair to man
Then it just can’t be because it really is all about us.

The reality is that it is all about the glory of God, not man,
And since God is the ultimate authority then whatever He does
Is always right because God answers to no one but Himself.

I know our text is supposed to be Romans 9, but first
TURN TO: JEREMIAH 18:1-6

Now there is a question for you.
“Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?”

Now in that passage we aren’t talking about their election, but rather God will either discipline or bless them, but the question remains.

Who is the potter?
Who is the clay?
Who is in charge?

If you look at the end of the book of Isaiah,
• Isaiah sees the coming (and future) salvation of Israel.
• Key to their salvation is understanding of who God is and who they are.

One passage speaks volumes about the day when they return to God.

Isaiah 64:5-8 “You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, We continued in them a long time; And shall we be saved? For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.”

You can pick up on several attitudes of salvation there.
• We definitely see “poor in spirit”
• We definitely see “mourning”
• We definitely see “meekness”

These people finally reached a point where they realized who was God and who was not, and they decided to submit fully to Him.

That is salvation.
• It always has been.
• It is to fully confess Christ as “Lord”

So I really need to ask you who is the ultimate authority here;
You or God?
Before we ask if election is fair
Then I need to know who is getting to decide what fair is.

Because if we are taking the definition of fair from fallen sinful man, then the answer is, “NO” because man thinks he deserves far more than he actually does.

But if we are taking the definition of fair from holy God, then the answer is still “NO” because no man deserves to be chosen.

That is why I told you last week, God is not fair.
If He were, no one would be saved.

But in God’s sovereign prerogative this holy and just God
Has graciously determined to save some who don’t deserve it,
And we believe that as the Potter, He has every right to do so.

Romans 9:21 “Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”

Well, let’s look at this 9th chapter of Romans
And talk about the fairness of election.

Because I think what you will find is that God is NOT FAIR,
And for you and I that is a very GOOD THING.

Now, just some background here.
Romans 9,10, & 11 are all about Israel.
• Romans 9 – The Present state of Israel (they are lost)
• Romans 10 – The Possible state of Israel (salvation through Christ)
• Romans 11 – The Promised state of Israel (salvation, for they are chosen)

You should also know; this is a very difficult portion of Scripture for Paul.
He is attempting to be the Jew who chronicles that Israel is lost.

Imagine that for a moment…
• He is already considered a traitor
• He is already hated
• And now he is about to just stop way over the line and talk about how Israel is
lost.

Because this is such a hot topic Paul leaves no stone unturned,
And the benefit for us is absolute doctrinal treasure.

The chapter begins with Paul first off revealing that though Israel is lost,
He has nothing in him but DESIRE FOR THEIR SALVATION.

(9:1-3) “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,”

You can’t read a statement like that
Without coming to grips with the great missionary heart of Paul.

I point that out because it is important to know that
Paul believed in sovereign election as much as anyone
And it did not affect his missionary zeal.

One of the criticisms of Calvinistic doctrine is that
It kills evangelism and kills prayer
(after all if God has already determined it, why bother?).

BUT A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY
Does not kill evangelism, it motivates it,
Because the evangelist understands
He is being used by God to call out the elect.

AND A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY
Does not kill prayer, it drives men to it,
Because we understand that
Nothing occurs apart from His divine intervention.

You certainly see that with Paul.
He is not indifferent toward unbelieving Israel,
He is passionate about their salvation.
And that isn’t hard to prove, if we had time.
• Just look at the book of Acts at the number of times this apostle to the Gentiles first went to the synagogue to do his preaching.

But you see Paul’s heart.

The next thing we see about Israel is THEIR PRIVILEGE.
No nation can ever say that they were ever
As spiritually blessed as the nation of Israel.

In fact, I have often called these “The 8 Great Rejected Privileges of Israel”
(9:4-5) “who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”

You see their privileges.
Adopted, the presence of God, the covenants, the Law, the temple, the promises, the patriarchs, even the Christ.

SO WHAT ARE WE TO DEDUCE AT THIS POINT?
Well simply this: Israel is lost, but it is not for lack of revelation.

Can we agree there?
Israel is lost, but it is not because they didn’t have access to the truth.
To put it another way, Israel is lost, but it is NOT GOD’S FAULT.

And that is the next point of Paul.
(6) “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.”

See Paul already knows where the argument is going.

If you step out and say that Jews are lost then you have every Jew breathing down your neck saying that is not possible because God promised that He was going to save Abraham’s descendants.
(The Jews very much believed in sovereign election)

I mean we saw that confidence even in the New Testament when you have John the Baptist talking to the Pharisees, “And do not suppose that you can say, ‘We have Abraham for our father.’ For I tell you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.”

There was a supreme confidence in the fact that we are all saved
Because of the promises God made to Abraham.

So… Paul, if you’re going to insinuate that Israel is now lost then we need to ask you about all of those promises in the Old Testament.
• Was God lying?
• Or was God just not able to follow through on His promises?

Paul anticipates the question.
And so after revealing that they are lost,
Paul immediately reveals that the lostness of Israel
Is not at all due to weakness in God or to some lack of integrity in God.

“But it is not as though the word of God has failed.”

Well then Paul, you’re going to have to explain
How God could promise the salvation of Israel,
And yet not be a failure
Even though you now suggest that Israel isn’t saved.

Well here it is:
“For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;”

Now what Paul is about to do
Is explain to you THE PARTICULARS OF GOD’S SALVATION.

Let’s look at it together, there are 3 points Paul wants you to know.
#1 A SPECIFIC SALVATION
Romans 9:6-7

As already noted, Paul began by saying:
“But it is not as though the word of God has failed.”

In other words, the reason we see lost Jews today
Is not because God lied, or was unable to finish what He promised.

The reason it appears like God’s word failed
Is because people failed to understand what God really said.

Many read that statement in Genesis 17 to mean that God’s salvation
Was a UNIVERSAL salvation to anyone who came from Abraham’s seed.
This is absolutely not true.

“For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;”

In other words, just because you are a descendant of Jacob,
Does not make you a true Jew.

And to a degree Paul already dealt with this in chapter 2.
Romans 2:28-29 “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”

Outward creeds, outward ceremonies, even outward ancestry
Does not make you a true follower of God.

And Paul elaborates on that by what he says next.
(7) “nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.”

He is quoting Genesis 21:12.
SETTING
God has promised a child to Abraham.
Abraham was impatient and went in to Hagar.
But Abraham’s impatience did not hinder the will of God, for Sarah did have Isaac

Genesis 21:8-12 “The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, “Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.” The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.”

Abraham was distressed about forcing Hagar and Ishmael away.
The context seems to suggest that at least part of Abraham’s anxiety
Was due to the fact that he was worried about his descendants.

God set Abraham’s mind to ease by revealing that it is ok to send Ishmael away, “for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.”

It is that point Paul uses to reveal that being a physical descendant of Abraham means nothing in regard to salvation.

All we have to do to reveal that is ask about Ishmael’s descendants.
Jews did not consider his descendants as God’s chosen people,
And yet they were descendants of Abraham.

GOD’S SALVATION IS NOT UNIVERSAL, IT IS SPECIFIC.

But now, honestly, at this point,
The Jews would have been in wholehearted agreement.

But then we must ask a very important question.
WHY ISAAC?

That will lead us to the 2nd attribute of God’s salvation
#2 A SUPERNATURAL SALVATION
Romans 9:8-9

Some would argue, that it may be through Isaac,
But how does that prove that Jews are lost?

The reason is because they miss the point
To what salvation through Isaac reveals.
IT IS NOT that God chose Isaac’s blood line
Over the blood line of Ishmael or one of Abraham’s other sons.

It is still not a hereditary thing.
It is still not a genetic thing.

And so here Paul explains why Isaac is important.
“That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.”

This of course is what separated Isaac from Ishmael.
Ishmael was of the flesh. Isaac was of the promise.

The birth of Ishmael was no miraculous thing.
Take a fertile man who goes in to a fertile woman,
And it is no surprise that you get a child 9 months later.

But Isaac is a completely different story.
Abraham was able, but Sarah was not.
Sarah was barren.

But God intervened for Isaac.

(9) “For this is the word of promise: “AT THIS TIME I WILL COME AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.” He is quoting Genesis 18:10
CONTEXT

God had already made the promise about Abraham’s descendants
That we read at the opening of this sermon.
(“I establish My covenant between you and your descendants after you”)

Of course Abraham didn’t know how that was possible,
And at the end of chapter 17 tried to get God just to take Ishmael.

Genesis 17:15-19 “Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. “I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before You!” But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.”

After this, God would appear to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre,
And Abraham would prepare a dinner for them.
(It was at the same time that God revealed His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah)

It was then, that God made a promise again to Abraham.
Genesis 18:9-14 “Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” He said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing. Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” And the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, when I am so old?’ “Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

NOW WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT THAT?

Well look at what Paul chose to quote out of that passage.
“AT THIS TIME I WILL COME AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.”

The way Paul reveals the culmination of the promise
Is that ONE IS AFFECTED BY THE OTHER.

The idea is that “SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON” because “I WILL COME”

Now I am not insinuating a virgin birth,
Or even that Isaac was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

What I am saying is that God intervened directly in Sarah’s body
To enable her to have a child.

This child was born by a legitimate miracle, of supernatural means.

THIS IS WHAT MAKES ISAAC SPECIAL.
• His birth, his life, his descendants
• Are not those who are so by the work of man,
• But those who are so by the promise of God.

And this is what Jews failed to understand.
It was not those who are genetically linked to Isaac who are saved.
But those whose birth is of the same kind as Isaac’s.

This is why Paul wrote what he did to the Galatian church.
Galatians 3:6-9 “Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.”

Abraham’s children are children of the promise, not children of the flesh.
Genuine salvation is both SPECIFIC and SUPERNATURAL.

#3 A SOVEREIGN SALVATION
Romans 9:10-13

“And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”

Let’s make sure we see what Paul was saying.

Rebekah had conceived twins from Isaac.
Paul calls him “our father Isaac” based upon the previous point,
that we are children of the promise.

And once Rebekah had conceived, before she gave birth,
God came and told her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”

He is quoting Genesis 25:23.
CONTEXT

Genesis 25:21-23 “Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. The LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”

And so you see that before the boys were ever born,
God had elected who would serve the other.

Notice what Paul adds in his text.
“the twins…had not done anything good or bad”

In other words, what God decreed
Was not a matter of consequence, but a matter of choice.

This was absolutely 100% the sovereign selection of God.

In order to prove that
Paul quoted another Old Testament passage
written several thousand years later which recounts the story.

(13) “Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Malachi 1:2-3 “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.”

This verse was not a prophecy, it was merely an appraisal of history.
When you look back to trace what happened to Jacob’s line,
And compare it to what happened to Esau’s line,
There is no doubt that God favored Jacob over Esau.
Israel is continually blessed
Edom is continually rejected

Paul is revealing that God’s salvation is a sovereign salvation.
• Salvation exists because God chose to give it.
• It only exists by His supernatural power,
• And it only exists for those He chooses to give it to.

Now the reason God’s sovereignty gets a bad rap
Is because people read that verse wrong.

There are two ways you can read this verse.
You can read that verse as though Esau gets shafted,
And Jacob gets what he deserves.

Or you can read that verse as though Esau gets what he deserves,
And Jacob is a recipient of grace.

The fact of the matter is, if man is born,
Suffers his entire existence, and then spends eternity in hell,
He has only gotten exactly what he deserves.

Justice has been played out with extreme accuracy,
If man only inherits judgment.

You’ll see, that’s where Paul is going next:
Romans 9:14 “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!”

Esau was NOT treated worse than he deserved.

But if a man somehow has a life of blessing,
Which ends in eternal glory,
The only way to explain that is that God must have
Bestowed some sort of unmerited favor upon that individual.

We call it GRACE.

And we are out of time here, but at this point we are already answering the question as to WHETHER OR NOT ELECTION IS FAIR.

The obvious answer is: NO, IT IS NOT.
Fair equals that because of the fall, all humanity is an offense to God and deserves to suffer for their entire existence, first on earth and then in hell.

We don’t want fair – we want Grace.

And this is really Paul’s point to Israel.
• You are lost, but you cannot blame your lostness on God, you certainly had enough revelation.

• In fact, the only reason any of you are saved is because God refused to let you all go and saved some in spite of what they were.

• Election is not about God being fair, it’s about God being gracious.

Out of all the people on the earth,
God specifically chose whom He would save,
And then He supernaturally saved them
Apart from any ability of their own,
And this was not done according to their worth
But according to His sovereign choice.

Salvation is SPECIFIC
Salvation is SUPERNATURAL
Salvation is SOVEREIGN

That means it isn’t fair, it is pure grace.
We’ll continue on with this next time.