God’s Character & Man’s Condition

Transcript

GRM 948
1/15/2006
God’s Character and Man’s Condition
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


I want to talk about an area that I think is crucial and foundational to all that is presented in the scripture and all that goes on in the world. I want to talk generally about the sovereignty of God and His control of all things and His dealings with sinful man. And particularly focus that in on His work of salvation. Always interesting to see where the trends and drifting of theology is going, and there are some very disturbing trends taking place in some circles today among those who claim to be evangelicals regarding the issue of God’s sovereignty. And there are always questions that have to be dealt with, but they have to be dealt with biblically. The tension that exists sometimes cannot be resolved. We must go as far as the scripture takes us, but we must be careful that we don’t go farther than the scripture goes.

And we’re going to talk about the sovereignty of God, and then we’ll have to talk about the freedom of man. And confusion in these areas causes an erosion of a biblical position. And so we want to understand God’s role as a sovereign God. We need to understand what it means that man is free. Is man really able to make decisions that God has not planned for? Is man able to make decisions that create some distress for God?

Reading an article this week, the man was saying God is sometimes distressed. We can be happy that we have a God who is a lot like us, some things don’t work out the way He planned. Some things just don’t work out the way He was hoping. Even His best intentions sometimes get frustrated, and He has to make adjustments and deal with the disillusionment, the confusion, the frustration, and make changes accordingly. And that’s subjecting God to man’s freedom. And yet the Bible does talk about freedom, responsibility, accountability, yet it talks about God’s sovereignty. So we’re going to walk through this, obviously in just a survey fashion, because this could be a whole series. But just to remind ourselves something of God’s character, man’s condition, God’s conduct as a sovereign God in dealing with fallen man, and issues that have to be balanced in dealing with these matters.

I think the starting point has to be the sovereignty of God. The Bible is clear, we are dealing with a sovereign God and as a sovereign God He is in control of all things, He rules over all things, and only His will can and will be done. Go to the book of Daniel in your Bibles, Daniel 4. Some of these are verses that we use regularly and I do that with intention. Not because these are the only verses that could be used, but because I want you to have certain verses at least fixed in your mind. And if you have these verses fixed in your mind, then you can use the cross references in your Bible or a concordance and look through the other verses. We could do a whole study on each individual point and minor point, but we’ll overview them this point. But we just want to get the highlights.

We look at the character of God and the first thing to recognize is He is totally sovereign. That means He is totally sovereign in all the affairs and activities of the world. I was reading an article written by a man who was trying to make the point, and a man in the evangelical world. A number of you have read some of his books. And he was noting that the rulers in power, for example the President of this country, the ruler of another country, weren’t there by divine appointment. They weren’t the kind of men God would have appointed if it were His decision. That’s a serious theological problem, as I examine the scripture.

Look at Daniel 4, and the context here is Nebuchadnezzar is king of Babylon, but he is about to come under the judgment of God for his pride in thinking that he has built mighty Babylon, that he has established the Babylonian empire as the greatest of the empires. And so Daniel must confront him with the message of God. Look at Daniel 4:17, this sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers and the sentence is that Nebuchadnezzar is going to be cut down to size. In fact he’s going to become insane for 7 years, after which God will restore him to power. This sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers and the decision is a command of the Holy One. In other words the angels have communicated it to Daniel, and as God’s representative they have made known God’s will on this matter. In order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom He wishes, and sets over it the lowliest of men. It’s the sovereign God who places men in power, and sometimes they are the lowliest of men, the most undeserving, and at times it seems the most unfit.

Jump down to verse 24, this is the interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream, vision, now it’s being interpreted. Verse 25, you will be driven away from mankind, our dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven periods of time will pass over you. For 7 years he’s going to be roaming through the fields like a wild animal, pulling the grass up, eating the grass. Here’s the man, ruling the mightiest empire on earth and he’s going to be reduced to a groveling animal for 7 years. Now note the last part of verse 25, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes. You see that. Nebuchadnezzar, you’ve got a lesson to learn. You rule because God says you can rule. And when God says you’re done, you’re done. But there is grace in this because after 7 years God is going to restore him.

The end of verse 26, your kingdom will be assured to you after you recognize that it is heaven that rules. Verse 31, Nebuchadnezzar…….. You have to read a statement in verse 30, the king reflected. He’s walking around on the roof of the palace he has, the magnificent hanging gardens of Babylon, and he’s looking around and he just can’t get over how magnificent he is. The king reflected and said, is this not Babylon the great which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power, and for the glory of my majesty? While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven saying, King Nebucadnezzar, to you it is declared, sovereignty has been removed from you, done. Not a big deal with God, if you will. Just a word from heaven, you’re no longer king. You are removed from power. Doesn’t have to be a palace coup, doesn’t have to be a mighty army that comes in and overwhelms him. God speaks the word. You’ll be driven from mankind, you’ll live with the beasts of the field and 7 years will pass, and the end of verse 32, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.

You get the repeated emphasis here that God is sovereign over the nations of the earth? And He places the one in power that He determines will be the one that He wants there for the accomplishing of His purposes. Nebuchadnezzar is not by any stretch of the imagination a godly man. He is a vicious tyrant. You talk about self-aggrandizement—here he is, he sees himself as the greatest of the great. After 7 years of roaming the fields like a wild man you’d think that he would have been replaced and there would be a king in power. And there would be no way for him to work his way back into power even if his mind did return. God is sovereign.

Verse 34, at the end of that period Nebucadnezzar now speaks, I, Nebucadnezzar, raise my eyes toward heaven. My reason returned to me. I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom endures for generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. Now note this, but He does according to His will, in all the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, what have you done? God is above question. He is so totally, absolutely sovereign that no one can even question what He does. No one can challenge Him, why did you do that? He is sovereign. Nebuchadnezzar came to recognize that.

Look at verse 37, now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His way is just. And He is able to humble those who walk in pride. Remarkable transformation in Nebuchadnezzar, isn’t there? And true conversion brings about a total change of perspective on God and who He is, any my relationship to Him, and the desire to give Him all the honor and all the praise and all the glory.

You’re in chapter 4, jump to Daniel 5. And Belshazzar, now, at a later period of time is ruling Babylon. And he is a man taken up with himself, has no concerns about God and no desire to honor God. And he has disrespected the God of Israel and brought in the temple treasures that had been carried to Babylon when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem. Now he is using them for his drunken feast, and the handwriting appears on the wall—MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN. It is all over for Belshazzar. And he’s not going to get 7 years to rethink. He’ll be a dead man before the night is over. So Daniel is called in to interpret the handwriting on the wall, and at the end of verse 21 he reminds Belshazzar of the experience of Nebuchadnezzar. And he had to be a wild man for 7 years in the field, the end of verse 21, until he recognized that the Most High God is ruler over the realm of mankind, and he sets over it whomever he wishes. How can anybody who claims to believe the Bible say that God does not place in power those who are in power? The end of verse 23, but He is a God in whose hand are your life-breath and your way, you have not glorified. So here is what the inscription on the wall means. Verse 26, God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. Verse 27, you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. Verse 28, your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and the Persians. Verse 30, that same night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain.

You know God operates according to His own will. Why did He give Nebuchadnezzar 7 years and restore him to power, and He gives Belshazzar the message and he’s dead that night? God is sovereign, He does as He chooses and as He wills. Belshazzar can’t say, it’s not fair, I deserve 7 years. No, because Belshazzar is not sovereign. Nebuchadnezzar is not sovereign. God is sovereign, and He operates according to His own will.

Back up to Isaiah 14. You’re not talking about a God who is totally and absolutely sovereign over all things, you are no longer talking about the God of the Bible. Now you have real problems. Man makes his own God. Romans 1 says that those who have rejected the God who has revealed Himself, now create their own God. They worship and serve the creation, they worship and serve what they create out of the creation. But the God of the Bible reveals Himself as He is, and He is totally sovereign. Look in Isaiah 14:24, the Lord of hosts has sworn saying, surely just as I have intended, so it has happened. Just as I have planned, so it will stand. To break Assyria in my land, He’s talking about judgment on the Assyrians. We have gone back in time from Babylon to the days of the Assyrians. God will replace the Assyrian Empire with the Babylonian Empire, just like He’ll replace the Babylonian Empire with the Medo-Persian Empire. He is sovereign. But you’ll note, God says, just as I have intended, so it has happened. Just as I have planned, so it will stand. Verse 27, the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? As for His stretched out hand, who can turn it back? I mean God is sovereign. He moves the nations according to His will. He sets up one nation in power, then takes it down and bring another, takes it down, all according to His sovereign plan.

Jump over to Isaiah 43, look at the end of verse 10, before me there was no God formed, there will be none after me. I, even I, am the Lord. There is no savior beside me. The only God is the only Savior, and He is the only one who has ever been or ever will be. Look down at verse 13, even from eternity I am He, and there is none who can deliver out of my hand. I act and who can reverse it? There is no greater power. He is sovereign and it is His will that is always done.

Turn over to Isaiah 46:8, remember this and be assured, recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things long past, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient times, things which have not been done. In other words, in ancient history I told what would happen in the future. Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my purpose from a far country. … again the way He moves the nations here. Truly I have spoken, truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, I will do it. Period. I mean there can be no variation. It will be God’s way, it will be as He has planned, it will be in His time, it will be according to His purpose. There just is no other alternative. He is the sovereign God.

Now that grates on us as fallen beings. Even as believers we can begin to chafe if we’re not careful and say, I don’t know if I agree with that, I don’t know if I like that. Seems to me man is free, and man’s choice. But you understand God is sovereign. It’s humbling, the sovereignty of God is a humbling doctrine. That’s why we chafe against it. Even in redemption the old man want to assert his pride. The idea that God is absolutely sovereign…….. I mean I voted for this man and he didn’t get in, and I think if more people had gotten together and voted right he would have. And that’s the way we think. I can exercise my right to vote and understand God will sovereignly use in our country a voting process. But you understand the votes didn’t determine what would happen. The sovereign God determined what the votes would accomplish. In another country it’s done a different way. A dictator comes to power in a palace coup. Well I’m glad we live in our country where we get to pick our leader. Well I’m glad we do, too, but I’m even more glad to know that we live in a world where the sovereign God appoints all the leaders. And even at times I think that was a poor choice. That’s only on the human level, relationally. It was the perfect choice in the plan of God.

All right, multitudes of other verses we could go through the scripture. But once we establish that God is totally sovereign and it’s His will that is done in the world, and we just looked at the general events because we’ll talk more specifically as we move through this study. But you also understand regarding the character of God, He does all things for Himself. Now sometimes we’ve used the word, He’s totally selfish, which is not quite an accurate use of that word, selfish, because the word selfish carries the idea that you do everything for yourself without any thought for others. But we must understand God does everything for Himself. All things were done ultimately for God and His glory. Now that doesn’t mean He never does things for us and treats us in love and mercy and kindness and grace and goodness, because He does. But even that is done to bring honor and glory to Himself.

Turn over to the New Testament, the book of Ephesians 1—Romans, Galatians, Ephesians. So we get through the gospels and the book of Acts and the book of Romans and Corinthians, and you run into Ephesians. Ephesians 1:12, and then we’ll take some verses before and after. The end of verse 11 talks about that we are those having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will. You see God consults with Himself—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He works after the counsel of His will, He counsels with Himself, works everything according to His will. And He predestined us, to salvation in Christ, to the end that we were the first to hope in Christ (we’ve come to know Christ and now we have our hope in Him) would be to the praise of His glory. You know those who were the first to believe in Christ were saved and given hope in Christ to the praise of the glory of God. So that God’s ultimate purpose and His working even in salvation is not the salvation of man, it is the salvation of man so that He might bring glory to Himself.

Look up at verse 5, He predestined us through adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will. And if you have a marginal note as I do in my Bible, you’ll note in the margin in front of the word kind there’s a little 2. If you go over to 5 in your margin and 2, you’ll find literally it means good pleasure. He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will, literally. He did it this way because it pleased Him to do it this way. And note verse 6, the first phrase, to the praise of the glory of His grace. He saved us, predestined us to salvation in Christ because that was the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

Look down at the end of verse 13, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. You see all that God is doing in salvation has as the ultimate end, the praise of His glory. The ultimate goal of God is not the salvation of man. The ultimate goal of God is His own honor and praise and glory. And the salvation of man is part of that plan. The condemnation to hell of those who are not redeemed will be for His praise and glory, and reveal Him to be a holy God and a God of justice, and a God of wrath, just as He is a God of love and mercy and kindness and grace. He is a God who works all things for His own glory. We chafe against that because we think of it on the human level. And for man to take glory and credit and honor to himself, that’s not right. The reason it is not right ultimately is because only God should get all the honor, the glory and the praise. As God told Israel in the Old Testament, who gave you the ability to give wealth? Who gave you a healthy body to work? Who gave you a sound mind to think? The sovereign God. So when you get a promotion you say, thank you, God, for grace. Thank you that you gave me a body that enabled me to get to work and a mind that enabled me to think and learn these things and grasp them. Lord, you get all the credit for what I am and anything done because you gave me everything. That’s not the way man thinks, because God does deserve all the glory and all the credit for all that is accomplished.

Look over in Philippians, just after Ephesians, chapter 2. Here he talks about the work of Jesus Christ in humbling Himself and coming to earth and suffering and dying on the cross. Verse 9, for this reason also God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name. So at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. All give honor tot he Son, which gives honor to the Father. That’s what God is doing, that’s what God is accomplishing, that’s why God sent His Son to earth. He sent His Son to earth to be the Savior of men so that He might receive glory and honor and the worship of all creation, because He is the sovereign God and the only Savior.

Back up to II Corinthians 4. Paul here is talking about God’s work again of redemption and how God has worked through him as an apostle and is working through others. Verse 14, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. And at the ultimate resurrection of the body, and when we get back to I Corinthians 6 we’ll be talking about the place that the physical body plays in the present plan of God and in the future plan of God. Verse 15, for all things are for your sakes so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. God has saved you and is now using you to tell others of Christ so that more people will give thanks to God for His saving grace. And that will all abound to the glory of God. It’s not all about me, it’s all about Him. And that’s the way it is to all creation—He is the sovereign God who is working His purposes, even those purposes in redemption are so that He might receive even greater glory.

There is an account given in the book of Acts 12, you can turn there or you can just hear me tell you. Herod was ruling in an area of Israel and he gave a speech, and the people were trying to gain favor, just like people today. A rich man, a wealthy man, a man who can do things for you, people want to flatter him and he likes to be flattered. So he gave a speech and the people were all crying out, oh it’s the voice of a god and not of a man. And in Acts 12:23 we’re told, immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory and he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and be multiplied. So much for the mighty man who was like a god—eaten of worms and died. Interesting thing about historical figures like this, we can read the actual account of his death in secular history, that he was suddenly taken ill after giving a great speech. And went into terribly agony and suffered for a time and died a terribly painful death. And what happened here is people say God doesn’t obviously strike a megalomaniac who declares his own greatness and has him eaten with worms. But here is an example of how God sees it. God hasn’t relinquished authority in that sense, he has delegated authority. And those who don’t give God the glory and the credit will pay the price.

So God is operating for His own glory as He sovereignly works His own purposes. That’s humbling. That’s humbling for us as believers. We better not forget it. The inhabitants of the earth, we read in Isaiah, are accounted as nothing before Him. And we need to remember He deserves all the glory, He deserves all the honor, my life is about Him and not about me. My life is about what brings Him honor and glory and praise, not what brings me pleasure, not what would make me “happy,” although God is working in my life as His child to bring His joy, His peace and promise me great blessing. But His glory may mean I have to experience some things that I find unpleasant. Things are not maybe the way I would have chosen, things are not done the way I would have done them if it were all about me. But He is working His purposes in my life for my good and His glory. The ultimate realization of all that He has prepared for those who love Him await my arrival in the glory of His presence.

All right, that’s the character of God. We have to talk about the condition of man. We know what God is like, now we have to understand what man is like. Let’s just start out where he is. He’s a deadbeat, he’s worse than a deadbeat, he’s just dead—dead in sin. In that sense He is useless to God, he never does what God wants in the sense of doing what is pleasing to God. He is constantly fighting against God, even though he cannot frustrate the purposes and plans of God. Romans 6 says it simply, the wages of sin is death. And come to Romans 3, just as a summary, since we can’t go through a lot of passages. From Romans 1:18 through chapter 2 and through chapter 3, Paul has been demonstrating that every single person on the face of the earth is a sinner. Romans 3:9, we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. That includes all Jews, all non-Jews. Then he quotes, and you can see with the bold print or the capital letters in verses 10-18, these are all quotes from the Old Testament. Generally could be referred to as the law among the Jews. There is none righteous, not even one, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless, worthless. So much for self-esteem. There is none who does good, there is not even one, and on it goes. Down to verse 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Man lives without a fear of God. He’s arrogant and boastful and self-righteous and self-centered. Now we know whatever the law says, verse 19, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. In other words, whatever the law says, it says to those under the law. The Jews saw themselves as righteous, they saw the Gentiles as unrighteous. But I just quoted to you from your own law and you’re right, all the Gentiles are unrighteous, for there is none righteous, not even one. But you know what that means? Since there is none righteous, not even one, there aren’t any righteous Jews, either. There is none who seeks for God. You’re right—those Gentiles don’t seek for God, but you understand also, there is none who seeks for God. That’s in your own law, that means that’s true of you, too, as Jews. All have turned aside, altogether they have become useless. We want to write over the Gentiles, useless. Jews are all saying amen. Know what we have to write over the Jews? Useless, worthless to God. Why? Because all are in that boat. There aren’t any exceptions. And the wages of sin is death.

Come over to Ephesians, back to where we were. We go from Romans, jump over to Ephesians—Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Ephesians 2:1, and we’re making progress. We were in the first chapter last time. Paul writing to the church at Ephesus, comprised basically of people who have come to believe in Christ. And he says concerning them in Ephesians 2:1, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Verse 5 he says, even when we were dead in our transgressions, because that’s the way Paul was, too, until God made him alive. Even when we were dead in our transgressions God made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. I now want you to note, we were dead in our transgressions—dead, dead, dead. Now we want to be careful—some try to develop the logic out of this. Well if dead people can’t do anything, therefore dead people can’t believe, therefore God must make us alive so we can believe. Some people are too smart for their own good. They think they have it all logically worked out, the only problem is they’re no longer biblical. For Galatians 3:26 says, we are all sons of God through faith in Christ. Doesn’t say we are all sons of God so we can have faith in Christ, we are all sons of God by virtue of placing our faith in Christ. We are saved by grace through faith. So we’ll talk about this as we move along, but it’s the Spirit of God who moves in a special supernatural way on that corpse and moves it to faith in Christ. Still functioning, but it’s functioning in rebellion. But all of a sudden someone sitting here and the truth of scripture comes clear—understand I’m a sinner and Christ is the Savior. That’s the Spirit of God who is moving on that fallen, sinful being, dead in their sin so that they might believe.

Death doesn’t mean annihilation. Death in scripture is separation. A person spiritually dead is separated from God. He is still active, he is still active in his rebellion against God, still active in opposing God, still active in rejecting God. But he is spiritually separated from God. When a person is dead physically they are separated from their body. James 2:26 says, the body without the spirit is dead, the body without the spirit is dead. What do we mean? When the spirit moves out of this physical body, this physical body will be declared dead, but the person won’t have ceased to exist. In II Corinthians 5 Paul says the tent, which is our body, will just be folded up and set aside for a time, we won’t be living there. Nobody ceases to exist, ever. You are eternal. Every person who has ever lived is eternal, and we’ll never cease to exist. They will live eternally, either in hell or in the heaven of God’s presence. So when we are spiritually dead we are separated from God. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, we are separated from God, we are His enemies. That’s what it means to be dead in our sins, and physical death is when the spirit leaves the body.

And let me give you the third one—eternal death, the second death is separation from God for eternity. And that’s what hell is. Those who are going to be separated from God for eternity will be cast into the lake of fire, that’s Revelation 20. If you name is not in the Book of Life, you’re cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. You are separated from God for eternity in the fires of hell. That will be the second death, eternal death, eternal separation.

Okay we are dead in our sins without the intervention of God. We are enslaved to our sin. You are in Ephesians 2, look at verse 2. You were formerly, would have meant to be dead in your trespasses and sins. You formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, which is the devil, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. Among them we, too, all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. And the contrast as you are aware, in this section, is between God’s mercy and grace and our condition as fallen, sinful beings.

Go back to Romans 6, should have told you to keep something there, but you can find Romans. Now when Jesus walked the earth, He dealt with the religious leaders of His day in John 8. And in verse 34 He said, he who sins is the slave of sin. We already read Romans 3, all have sinned. There is none righteous, there is none who does good. So all have sinned, and if all have sinned and those who sin are the slaves of sin, that means all are the slaves of sin, right? Now follow this because this gets us into the whole slippery slope of free will, and what is free will, and does man truly have free will. Some people have made free will the center, and everything else has to come out from that. So they decide man has to be free. If man is totally free and can do whatever he wants whenever he wants, that’s true and absolute freedom, no restraints in their thinking, that means God can’t be sovereign. Because if God is sovereign in having man do what He determines, man can’t be free and do what he determines. So both can’t be sovereign. And it comes out of a misunderstanding, a misidentification of man’s freedom and what free will is. We’ll say more about that in a moment.

Look in Romans 6, I’ll pick up with verse 16, do you not know when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey. That’s the same thing Jesus said, he who sins is the slave of sin. When you present yourselves, your bodies, what you do, to sin, you become a slave of sin, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness. Thanks be to God, though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I want you to note something here. There is no one who is free in the sense of they’re their own person to do whatever they want independent of any outside influence or internal influence. Because you were either a slave of sin or you were a slave of righteousness. You were either a slave of sin, or you were a slave of God.

Verse 18, having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. There is no third group of people. Jesus said he who is not with Me is against Me. You are either a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness, a slave of the devil or a slave of God. That’s the only two kinds of people there are. So everyone is a slave. Some delude themselves into thinking that they’re free, but they’re not free, because you are a slave of sin until you are set free in Christ to become a slave of God. You say, wait a minute, I want to be set free to be a slave. Didn’t Jesus say if the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. That’s true. Well I thought it just said you became slaves of righteousness. That’s true freedom because true freedom is the ability to function as you were created to function, right? What happens when they have a period of time when some whales come and put themselves up on the beach? They show it on the news and say, smart whales. They show all the people sitting in their lawn chairs on the beach and they say we have to get up there on the beach and get some sun ourselves. And then they say, isn’t it wonderful, the whales are now free, they’re up here sunning on the beach like the crazy humans. No, they say they have to get the whales back into the water. Why? The whales weren’t created to sun on the beach. Now I don’t want to get into whether humans were created to sun on the beach, either. Point is what? When the whales get out of the water they are no longer free, for they were created for the water. We say well then maybe it’s the reverse—maybe we ought to put all the human beings out in the middle of the ocean. Bad idea. Why? They can’t survive out there very long, I wasn’t created for the water like that. I was created for a relationship with the living God, and to serve Him and honor Him. That’s freedom. I can now function in the relationship for which I was created, I can now function as God created me to function, doing His will, manifesting His character and righteousness. So yes when the Son sets you free, you are free, you can function as you were created to function. But you’re not free in the sense that now you can do what you want, because now you are a slave of righteousness.

That’s the whole argument in Romans 6:22, now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God. See what happens as soon as God sets you free from slavery to sin, you become His slave—what a high and holy calling, what an honor. I belong to the living God, I’m His slave. But you understand there is no such thing as freedom, and freedom of the will as many people want to talk about freedom. They say all right I think you’ve belabored that long enough. When I get home from these kind of sermons Marilyn says to me, well I think you may have talked that point to death, and could have summarized it in 2 sentences instead of 432. But it’s characteristic of being a preacher, and it’s an affliction that grows with age.

In theology we have the Arminians. We have the Calvinists who believe God is totally sovereign and it is His will that is accomplished and His will that brings about salvation. We’ll get to that. The Arminians believe that God is sovereign and He’ll bring about His work in concert with the will of man and man’s freedom. But man has to be free to choose. And you get arguments like well, he can’t really love God if he’s not totally free to make the choice. And so you put man into some kind of neutral zone where yes, he’s sinful but he’s not totally sinful. He’s enslaved, but he’s not totally enslaved, he’s dead in his trespasses and sins, but he’s not dead dead in his trespasses. Because man has to have freedom, and freedom means man has to choose independently and freely. And then the next step of that is man is truly free and can make his free decisions. That means God can’t have determined or known what would happen, or man wouldn’t be free to make a totally free decision. This is called open theism, and it is a rapidly growing movement within the group called evangelicals. I question whether you can hold the theology of open theism and truly be a born again evangelical. But that’s the debate that is going on.

If man is totally free, you know where this means God is sovereign? God knows everything that can be known, we’ve talked about this, He knows everything in the past perfectly, He knows everything in the present perfectly, but He cannot know everything in the future perfectly, because that is not yet knowable. But He has some good ideas. He knows everything that happens in the past, He knows everything that is going on in the present, He knows with good probability what will happen in the future. He knows with good probability who may well be the next President, because He knows perfectly how everything went in the last election. He knows perfectly how everyone is thinking today, He can’t know for sure how you’re going to vote at the next election. But He’s got a good idea of how the tendency goes. Sounds like somebody giving instructions on how to play the gaming tables. You know you play the odds and there’s a good probability—God is the God of probability. But sometimes He’s just flat out wrong and He has to adjust, and it’s a great disappointment, but that’s the kind of God we have. Can’t you identify with Him? He has His disappointments like you do.

Now you see where you go with the whole scope. I would say the biblical view is man is responsible, man is not free. And the only ones we can talk about as free are those who have come to freedom in Christ, which is a freedom now to serve the living God. Man has a responsible will, is accountable to God, but man is not free. Man is enslaved to his sin, he serves his sin, he serves the devil, he’s not free. True freedom only comes in Christ.

So all the judgments of scripture, and we’re not going to take the time to go through this. You go back to Romans 3, the end of verse 19. What Paul has established here in his discussion and argument, the end of verse 19, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. That’s it. He talks about judgment in Romans 2:16, on the day when according to my gospel God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. Man is accountable to God, man is responsible for his decisions. As we read in Ephesians 2, we were by nature children of wrath. We are by nature and by action sinful beings. We are sinners by birth and by choice. We say, well what are you going to do? God is sovereign and He chose it all, I guess I can’t be saved. Well do you want to be saved, do you want to be forgiven, you want to have your sins cleansed, you want to be changed from the road that will culminate in hell to the road that will culminate in heaven? Of course. Then turn from your sin and place your faith in Jesus Christ as your only Savior. Oh well, I can’t do that if God is totally sovereign. Well it says God is not willing that any should perish but that all will come to life, come to the knowledge of the Son. God commands all everywhere to repent. He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, having furnished proof to all men by raising that man, Jesus Christ, from the dead. So bow in repentance and believe in Christ and you’ll be saved.

Well what about the sovereignty of God? You let God do what God does, you do what God commands you to do. You know why you don’t do it? You don’t want to do it. You know why people are unsaved? They don’t want to be saved. Oh I think they want to be saved. They want to be saved on their own terms. They’re willing to bargain with God—we’ll both share sovereignty, you and me. We’re not going to totally do it your way, maybe we won’t totally do it my way, but there’ll have to be a meeting of the minds. That’s the problem with God’s plan—it is totally humiliating. There is no room for negotiation. We are the wretched, vile, hell-deserving sinners and we will end up in hell. We have nothing to negotiate. That’s why salvation is by grace, that’s why salvation is related to God’s mercy. That’s why the greatest demonstration of love is that in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Let me be clear before we go any further, we’re going in to talk about the doctrine of election—God’s sovereignty in choosing some to salvation. I want to make it clear, there is no one going to hell who passionately desires to be saved and experience the cleansing of the living God. Understand that—no one. There are no sincere, earnest people desiring to be saved, but just don’t know how. There are some sincerely religious people who are trying to be saved the best they can their own way.

Romans 1, we don’t have time to go back and do that, man doesn’t become non-religious, generally speaking. Man just does not want to worship the living God who has revealed Himself. He determines it has to be his way. Try it, go to lunch after this service and look for somebody who has just come from a church that doesn’t preach the gospel or someone who hasn’t been to church. But if you find a religious person, they come in, looks like they’ve been to church. Have you been to church today? Yes. Oh you must believe in God. Oh yes. Are you going to heaven? Well certainly, I just went to church. Let’s talk about it. Did you know God says you’re a sinner. Well I may be sinner, that’s why I go to church. Well do you know that God says all sinners are going to hell? Look, my church says I’m saved—I was baptized, I want you to know I’m a charter member of that church. No, the Bible says you’re a sinner and on the way to hell, and you can’t be saved by going to church or being baptized or giving your money or being religious or doing the best you can. You know the Bible says all our righteous deeds are like filthy, polluted rags in his sight. The Bible says you can only be saved if you recognize God’s Son died on the cross and paid the penalty for your sin. And you let go of everything else and take hold of Him by faith. Find out how many people really want to be saved. Go down and stand outside a church, you can even leave early. Don’t leave early unless you’re going to do this. And go outside there and wait until people come out of church and work on them. Say you’ve been to church, how wonderful. Did you ever think of what is required for you to get to heaven? Find out how many people going to church really want to go to heaven. Oh they want to go to heaven, but they’re going to do it on their terms. Find out how many people say, oh I’m so glad you came to tell me, I’ve been looking for this. Sometimes in God’s grace you come across these people.

So the condition of man, we’re dead in our sins. So we have a sovereign God, we have a sinful man. Now how do we bring the two together? And that’s where we come to what the Bible calls the doctrine of election. And I’m just going to introduce this, then we’re going to talk about it this evening. And we do that in the evening for a couple of reasons—one, I couldn’t get it all in in the morning, and two, there are only half as many people so I can only have half as many people upset with me. No. But we do need to go through it. It is a biblical doctrine. Everyone believes in election. Everyone who believes the Bible believes in election, let me put it that way. You have to. The various forms of the word election—noun, adjective, verb—they’re used about 50 times in the New Testament. A large number of those used of God’s work. So if you believe the Bible, you believe in election. Now we may disagree on how God’s work of election is carried out. Those who are what we call Calvinists believe that God sovereignly and we might say arbitrarily, because it was only on the basis of what He decides to do, selected from among fallen, sinful human beings some to experience His salvation. The Arminians believe that God used His foreknowledge, because Peter wrote we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, to look down into the future time to see who would, when given an opportunity, believe the gospel and thus be saved. And He elected or chose them. And then there are the open theists who don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going on. They just believe that God was waiting to see and doesn’t know for sure until the decision is made. And those are the basic positions among those who claim to believe the Bible. There are variations within them, but they all have to come to grips with election. And those who believe that it’s totally open, totally free just have to believe that God’s choosing was broad and open. He made the decision He would choose whomever believed, so it was a general election, a choosing of all who would believe without specifying the ones who would believe.

So we’re going to talk about the doctrine of election, because that’s what brings together the sovereign God as He unfolds His plan, and sinful man who is in desperate need but bound in His sin, and has no fear of God, no interest in God, and no desire to be pleasing to Him. But God has provided salvation. We can jump to the end again. If you will recognize your sinfulness and place your faith in Christ, you will be saved. Well what about all these other things? You don’t need to know everything. God is a God of grace. I’m thankful I didn’t need to know everything. But I did need to understand that I was a sinner, the sovereign God had provided His Son to die for my sin and I turned from my sin to place my faith in Him. The best I could, Lord you know me as I am, I don’t know what else to do, you’re my only hope. I want Christ to be my Savior, I believe He died for me. I don’t understand everything. The sovereign God saves, the sovereign God cleanses, makes you new, and then you begin to grow in understanding and appreciation and knowledge. How awesome is this salvation. I had no idea when as a young person in 1953 (think about that), I was trusting Christ and He would save me for time and eternity. I hadn’t the foggiest idea all that was entailed in the wonder of that salvation and the awesomeness of this God, but I knew I was lost and I knew Christ was the Savior. And I could only claim the promise that if I call on the name of the Lord, He’ll save me. And I believed in Him and He did. That’s what he’ll do for you, and you don’t understand anymore than that. But you still should come back tonight and understand the rest, because it’s beautiful.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for who you are. Give us a greater appreciation, fill our hearts and minds with awe that you are the sovereign God who rules over all. There are no accidents, there are no chances, there are no mistakes. Our sovereign God rules over all. We are safe, we are secure in your care and in a world that is opposed to you, a world that has no fear of you, we live without fear because you are working all things for our good as your people and your glory. Even in the realm of fallen mankind none can thwart your will, and even the sin of man is included in the accomplishing of your purposes. Lord, we are in awe and overwhelmed. It’s no wonder that we can’t grasp it all, but by your grace through your Word and the ministry of your Spirit we continue to grow and understand more, and our love for you grows deeper. Pray for any who are here who yet do not know the wonder of your salvation. Lord, precious ones for whom Christ died, precious ones for whom salvation is available. May this be a day of salvation for them. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.