Divine Election
Every soul on earth today knows how we are "saved." Just repeat the sinner's prayer. Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. By His death He made salvation possible. If you will just come to Him. Not true. We don't find Him. He finds us. He's the Shepherd. We're the sheep. Thats the picture in scripture. The picture is not a sheep finding the shepherd. You know this to be true.........
NO MAN SEEKS AFTER GOD. Romans 3:11......
As God's children, we exist to tell His people what Christ did. Who his people are. How they stand before Him. Holy. Unblameable. Unreprovable in His sight.Spotless. We have been commissioned to present these truths before the ears of God's people where the HS can remove the veil.....
The doctrine of Predestination and Election is not a new thing that began with Calvin and has since gradually lost favour with the passing of the years until, today, it is believed by only a few and understood by even fewer. It is synonymous with the Gospel of salvation by grace. It is the Gospel, in fact.
Any departure from the doctrine of Election in any degree is a departure from the Gospel, for such departure always involves the introduction of some obligation on man's part to make a contribution towards his own salvation, a contribution he simply cannot make. When its a salvation that comes to him purely by grace. This is unrealistic with respect to man and dishonouring with respect to God.
There are no shades of truth here. This is an all-or-nothing doctrine. Election and the Gospel are alike in this. There are no halfway positions that are not a total betrayal of the truth of God. Paul is very explicit and completely logical when he says regarding the method by which man is to be saved, "If [it is] by grace, then it is no more works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work" (Romans 11:6). There simply is no way out of this equation. If man contributes anything to his salvation, even his own responsiveness of heart..... or the exercise of his own faith..... then salvation is no longer by grace. Instead it becomes a co-operative effort between man and God in which the decision of man and not of God determines the issue. That is called Synergism. Its not synergism. Its monergism GOD ALONE.
But grace goes FAR beyond redemption. New birth. The same grace carries us through life.
Most christians today believe God makes decisions based on decisions we make. Not true........
Has He not declared everything from the beginning? ......"I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’ isaiah 46:10
WHY DO SO FEW Christians actually BELIEVE God concerning these truths........
God said to His people Israel....My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge......Hosea 4:6. The greatest selling book in all of history..... is sadly the most neglected.
Dearly beloved....Think of what it cost God for us to hold that Book in our hands and hide its truths in our hearts.
Mere mention of the words Election or Predestination today almost always brings to people's minds the name of Calvin as though it all began with him and was an unheard-of doctrine before his time. Very few are aware of the continuity of the tradition during the centuries following the close of the New Testament. Even fewer people are aware of the fact that John's Gospel probably contains the most explicit and most frequent statements on the subject to be found in the Bible. The Old Testament is also full of it. It is, in all truth, the heart of the Gospel..... the whole of Scripture declares this fact in symbol, parable, and plain declaration.Calvin was continuing a very scriptural tradition by his insistence on the absolute sovereignty of God in the matter of man's salvation. So I'd like to draw your attention to passages of Scripture which need few words of explanation. They represent the tips of icebergs. Just below the surface is a mass of evidence if one cares to look. Open your heart to these verses. And you may wonder how you could have been reading the Word of God for so many years without becoming aware of the true nature of its message.
In the Old Testament there are numerous references to the Total Depravity of man, to the absolute sovereignty of God in the life of the individual even as God is sovereign in the history of the human race, and that salvation is an act of pure grace on the part of God.
I wanna go over the following passages from the Old Testament. First, those which underscore the total sinfulness of human nature:
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? (Job 14:4).
What is man, that he should be clean? And he who is born of a woman. that he should be righteous? . . . How much more abominable and filthy is man, who drinks iniquity like water? (Job 15:14, 16).
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that does good, no, not one
(Psalm 14: 2, 3).
Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; in sin did my mother conceive me (Psalm 51:5).
God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy. There is none that does good, no, not one (Psalm 53:2, 3).
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, nor bound up, neither mollified with ointment (Isaiah 1:5, 6).
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we do all fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:6).
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
The good man perisheth out of the earth, and there is none upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asks, and the judge asks for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desires, so they weave it together.
The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. . . . (Micah 7:2-4).
Then we have those passages which declare the sovereignty of God not only in the general sweep of history but in the particulars of individual lives:
The kingdom is the Lord's: and He is governor among the nations (Psalm 22:28).
For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge:
He puts down one and sets up another (Psalm 75:6, 7).
Surely the wrath of man shall praise You: the remainder of wrath shalt You restrain (Psalm 76:10).
The Lord has prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom rules over all (Psalm 103:19).
Our God is in the heavens; He has done whatsoever He has pleased (Psalm 115:3).
Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that He did in heaven, and in the earth, in the seas, and all deep places. (Psalm 135:6).
A man's heart devises his way: but the Lord directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9).
There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand (Proverbs 19:21).
Man's goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way? (Proverbs 20:24).
The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turns it whithersoever He will
(Proverbs 21:1).
There is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work and who shall hinder it? Thus says the Lord
(Isaiah 43:13).
Who is he that says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord commanded it not? (Lamentations 3:37).
Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre; and every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyre, for the service that he had served against it: Therefore, thus says the Lord God; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil and take her prey; and it shall be wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought [worked] for Me, says the Lord GOD (Ezekiel 29:18-20).
Daniel said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. And He changea the times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings (Daniel 2:20, 21).
. . . . that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomsoever He will and sets up over it the basest of men (Daniel 4:17).
[Nebuchadnezzar blessed and honoured Him] whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and [whose] kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say unto Him, What are You doing? (Daniel 4:34, 35).
The Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and He appoints over it whosoever He will
(Daniel 5:21).
As far as Election goes.... consider the following:
. . . the Lord will show who are his, and who is holy; and will cause him to come near unto Him: even him whom He has chosen will He cause to come near unto Him (Numbers 16:5).
I have reserved to Myself seven thousand which have not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18).
Blessed is the man whom Thou chooses, and causest to approach unto Thee (Psalm 65:4).
Quicken [revive] us and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts . . . and we shall be saved (Psalm 80:18b, 19).
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power (Psalm 110:3).
The preparation of the heart in man, and the response [answer] of the tongue, is from the Lord
(Proverbs 16:1).
Lord, Thou will ordain peace for us: for Thou have wrought all our works in us (Isaiah 26:12).
Oh Lord, I know that the way of a man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps
(Jeremiah 10:23).
Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned; for Thou art the LORD my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented. . . (Jeremiah 31:18, 19).
I will pardon whom I reserve (Jereniah 50:20).
Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned (Lamentations 5:21).
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them (Ezekiel 36:26, 27).
It should not be too surprising then, in the light of such passages as these, that the Gospels should reflect the same truth. When man approaches God in search of salvation in God's way, it is only because he has FIRST been called of God. What is perhaps more surprising is that the clearest of all of the Gospels in this respect is The Gospel of John, which is certainly the Gospel of love in most people's eyes. In view of the fact that popular opinion holds Election to be a cold and even repugnant doctrine, reflecting the harshness and unfairness of God rather than his love and graciousness, many Christians never even look for evidences of Election in John. But the doctrine is more firmly established there than in any one of the synoptic Gospels, and it is for the most part the words of our Lord Himself rather than John that the truth is best established.
In John 6. Putting together the words of verses 37, 39, 40, 44, and 65, we have this clear proclamation of Election by grace initiated entirely by the Father:
All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. . . . And this is the Father's will who has sent Me, that of all whom He has given Me, I shall lose nothing. . . . This is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one who sees the Son, and believes on Him, may have everlasting life. . . No man can come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day.
The result of these statements, made with such force and repetition by the Lord, was that many of his disciples were highly offended. And why not? These statements simply reduced the disciples' price to zero. For if they were to be saved it was to be in no sense to their personal credit. But how did Jesus respond to their offence?
He repeated his words, in no uncertain terms: "Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
Think about how this must have humbled them when it dawned upon them that He really meant it. We are told, in fact, that "from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with Him" (verse 66). John 6. Verse 66. 6:66.
There is no doubt about it. The opening chapters of John bear out the implications of this pronouncement. We are not born again by the will of man, nor by the will of the flesh, nor by blood relationship — but of God. It is God, and God alone who gives us power to become his children (John 1:12, 13).
Equally clear is the Lord's statement in John 15:16: "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you."
Peter is no different in his first sermon when he says in Acts 2:38, 39: "Repent and be baptized every one of you.......every one of you...... in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off.......... even as many as the Lord, our God, shall call.
