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Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2023 18:34:44 GMT -5
Election is the simplest of all doctrines to understand, because it just says that God is the one who took the initiative and he chose us. There was once a lady who came to a minister and said to him, “I’m really confused about this business of election. Can you help me?” “I can surely try,” he said, asking her, “Now, Mary, are you sure you are saved?” “Yes, pastor,” she said, “Thank God, by his grace I know that I am.” “Did you save yourself, or did the Lord save you?” “Pastor, you know it was all of the Lord.” “Did he do it on purpose, or was it an accident?” Mary paused . . . “I reckon he did it on purpose.” “That’s the doctrine of election,” her pastor told her. Let us begin with the basic truth of the words of our text:
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Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2023 18:44:09 GMT -5
Do you see why I’m returning to this theme of God choosing us today? It teaches us that God (all by himself), saves (not just attempts to save), sinners (the most undeserving and helpless of people). “Election” means “God saves sinners.”
You will protest and say, “But I was the one who believed in Jesus Christ. I repented of my sin. I confessed him as my Saviour.” Of course you did, but it was God’s grace that enabled you to do so wasn’t it? Predestination does not take away our liberty. Please understand that. God hasn’t merely foreordained what we shall choose. He has foreordained that we shall choose freely. We will know, afterwards, that we could have chosen differently.
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Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2023 18:47:14 GMT -5
Listen to the testimony of Charles Haddon Spurgeon: “One weeknight, when I was sitting in the house of God, I wasn’t thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I didn’t believe it. The thought struck me, ‘How did you come to be a Christian?’ I sought the Lord. ‘But how did you come to seek the Lord?’ The truth flashed across my mind in a moment – I shouldn’t have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. ‘I prayed,’ thought I, but then I asked myself, ‘How came I to pray?’ I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that he was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make my constant confession, ‘I ascribe my change wholly to God'” (Charles H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, Vol. 1, ‘The Early Years’ 1834-1859, Banner of Truth reprint, 1973,
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Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2023 19:01:38 GMT -5
3. GOD CHOSE THESE MULTITUDES BECAUSE HE LOVED THEM
Paul makes this glorious statement: “He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us” (vv. 4&5). Because he loved them he chose them and predestined them to all the blessings of salvation. The logic of the whole foundation of God’s election is God’s love. Paul goes back behind God’s election to God’s love. Then, should we ask the further question why did God love them, to that question no answer exists. We can get back behind his election to his love, but I can’t get behind the love to anything. The love is the bedrock. The love is ultimate reality. The love is the foundation. The love is the great source of all of God’s redemption. It is like the throne of God. It is the controlling centre of heaven and earth whence God works all things after the counsel of his own will. Someone may ask, for example, “But what lies behind the throne of God?” Nothing. That is the heart of the divine omnipotence. You can’t go behind that to something more powerful. Nothing more powerful than the Sovereignty of God exists. All the rivers of life flow out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. They all come from that sovereignty.
So it is with the divine love. That is the alpha and the omega. That is God himself. Who created God? No one. God is unoriginated and uncreated. He is from eternity to eternity. There never was a time when there was no God. There never was a time when he was not omnipotent. There never was a time when he was not love. I cannot get beyond the love of God to something more rational, more involved, more understandable. The love is the headwaters. God’s love is the source. The love of God is the ultimate reality of God. God is love, and beyond that we cannot go. This vast creation was made by God, and this God is infinite love. This God has loved his own people, and if we ask when he began to love them, Paul tells us before he created the world he loved them. In the beginning he loved them. He has loved them with an everlasting love. I cannot conceive of God as not existing. I cannot imagine God not being eternal. I cannot think of God as not being Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. I cannot speak of God not in love with his people. That is part of the reality of God. Of course it is voluntary, and gracious, and so it is an act of God, but it is still an eternal love, the only way God has been, always in love with his people, always having a bride to present to his Son, always completely passionate for their salvation. It is in that fact that our election is rooted. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world because he loved us.
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