Irresistible Grace & Preservation
Tom Shrader walks through the final two points of Calvinism—irresistible grace and the preservation of the saints—arguing from John 3, Romans 8, Ephesians 2, and Titus 3 that the Holy Spirit's regenerating work inevitably and effectively brings the elect to saving faith. He explains that regeneration precedes faith, meaning the spiritually dead cannot believe until God first makes them alive, and that this effectual calling never fails because all whom God predestines He calls, justifies, and glorifies in an unbreakable chain. The teaching closes with an assurance drawn from John 10 and Romans 8 that nothing can separate a believer from Christ, and Tom shares that his wife Susan has been diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer and asks the congregation to pray for her.
“God saves sinners. The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father elects before the foundations of the earth, the Son redeems, and the Spirit regenerates.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (2004)
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 54 min
Themes: grace, salvation, assurance, election, faith, Holy Spirit, perseverance, suffering, doubting salvation, facing illness, new believer, questioning faith, studying reformed theology, dealing with fear, seeking assurance, adult learner
Scripture: Ephesians 1:3-5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Matthew 1:21, Titus 2:14, 2 Corinthians 5:8, Romans 5:8, John 3:3-8, Romans 8:28-30, Romans 1:7, 2 Timothy 1:8-9, Ephesians 2:1-9, 1 Corinthians 1:31, Titus 3:3-6, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Acts 13:48, Philippians 1:6, John 3:16, John 3:36, John 5:24, John 6:47, John 10:27-29, Romans 8:31-39, Romans 10:14-15
Theological Themes: irresistible grace, effectual calling, regeneration precedes faith, preservation of the saints, eternal security, Calvinism, predestination, soteriology
Full Transcript
God's Perspective on Salvation
What we're looking at here is not our experience in salvation, but what God did. If I were to sit and speak with you about how you were saved, if you're a Christian, you would have some explanation for me. You would recount some event — maybe it was as a child, maybe as a teenager, maybe as an adult — where someone came along and explained that you were a sinner, that your sin had separated you from God, that Jesus had come and died on the cross, and that if you believe in Him, you have eternal life. That is a very accurate account of what happened in your salvation from your perspective. What we're trying to get at in this study is God's perspective of what took place at that moment, and why it took place.
Yes, you believe — there's no question about that. There is a point in time where you moved from sinner to saint, and your destination was changed from hell to heaven. But why at that moment? Why did you believe? We can really get at that answer by looking at what Scripture has to say.
Ground Rules for the Study
Here are the ground rules we've looked at every week, and you've been magnificent in following them. We are going to use the Scriptures as the final authority in our discussion. There are lots of rabbit trails here — things I want to talk about, things we feel or have always been taught — but we want to see what Scripture says. We're going to proceed logically. Here's a novel idea for discussions: we're going to start at the beginning, move to the middle, and go to the end. It's a very unique way to talk things through anymore. If you watch programs like the McLaughlin Group or Crossfire, they rarely start at the beginning, and if they do, they rarely get to the middle, and they never get to a conclusion.
You all have been extraordinarily patient, and for that I am very grateful — and you've also reaped the benefit of that patience. Every week, people come up after the service or stop me on campus and say they had some questions that got answered that week. That is exactly what we said would happen: legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers, and most of them will get answered in the course of the study. Some won't, and we'll provide another opportunity for those.
We've also said you may have to set aside your background. Some of you have shared with me how you came in resisting this, but as you began to study it more and more, you discovered that it seems like every page has something on it that talks about God's choosing, God's electing, or Christ dying for the church. We'll add a couple of other items to that today as we look through the prism of the five points of Calvinism.
Why We Embrace These Teachings
We embrace these teachings here at East Valley Bible Church not because Calvin taught them, or Luther, or Augustine, or because virtually all the great minds believed essentially the same thing regarding salvation. We embrace them because Scripture teaches them. We have previously talked about total depravity — meaning the natural condition of man — and we said we would come back to that again and again. You'll see again this week that we return to it.
We then talked about the fact that God chose those He would save before the foundation of the earth. We call it unconditional election, and by that we mean that as He chooses, He chooses for whatever reason He sees fit. It has nothing to do with what we have done, are doing, or will do. It has nothing to do with us at all. It is utterly, completely, wholly, and entirely a work of God. When Christ died, He did not die to make salvation possible — He actually died for a specific group of people. Those whom the Father had chosen are the ones He died for. That grace is then applied to us by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit enables us to persevere in the midst of that.
The Triune God Saves Sinners
Here is what we said: God saves sinners. The triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — does everything pertaining to salvation from beginning to end. God is the one responsible for bringing man from a hopeless, helpless, powerless condition — unable to respond to the gospel or to any spiritual truth, unable to comprehend it — and God, through His grace and mercy, reaches down and saves some. Perhaps you are the recipient of that.
The Trinity works together in salvation. The Father elects. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 5: "Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself." Paul also writes to the church at Thessalonica: "We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation." The Father, before the foundation of the earth, chooses those He will save.
The Son then redeems them. The angel said to Joseph, "Mary will have a son, and you will call Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sin." Jesus indeed achieved that. Titus chapter 2, verse 14 says He "gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed." 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 8 states, "Now all these things are from God, who reconciles us to Himself through Christ." Romans chapter 5, verse 8 adds, "But God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Before the foundation of the earth, the Father chose those He would save, and the Son came and redeemed them.
The Holy Spirit's Work in Salvation
Jesus came to this earth to save His people from their sin, and indeed, He achieved that. Jesus reconciled His people, the church, to the Father. Now we look at the work of the Holy Spirit, who regenerates us. The Father's work is complete, the Son's provision is accomplished, and now the Holy Spirit completes His work — initiated by the Father, continued by the Son, completed by the Holy Spirit. This work of salvation never, never, never fails.
We will be spending time today in the Gospel of John, in Romans chapter 8, and in Titus chapter 3. Other passages will be on the screen, but it is helpful to hold them in your hand and read them for yourself.
You Must Be Born Again
John chapter 3, verse 3 gives us the magnificent conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus has come to Him, acknowledging Jesus as a great teacher, and in John chapter 3, verse 3, Jesus says, "You must be born again." Something has to happen to you. You must be born again, or you will not see God's kingdom.
Nicodemus responds with a very logical question: "How can a man be born when he's old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" Nobody seems excited about this whole process. But Jesus is speaking on a spiritual plane while Nicodemus is thinking on a physical one.
Jesus is saying you must be born again spiritually, because spiritually you are dead. Physically, you are already alive — you do not need to be born again physically. You need to be born again spiritually. Verse 6 explains: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," and with it comes sin and depravity and all that goes with it. "But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
Jesus continues: "Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Just as the wind cannot be controlled, predicted, or manipulated by man, so it is with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will blow where He wishes. The Holy Spirit will save whom He wants. This is all part of God's harmonious, divine, preordained plan.
The Father has chosen those He would save. The Son has died for them. The Holy Spirit now regenerates them and causes them to be born again. Those born of the flesh carry the flesh, but those born of the Spirit are born again spiritually — and that is the point Jesus is making.
The Great Chain of Salvation
Turning to Romans chapter 8, when we reach verse 30 we find what is called the great chain of salvation. It sits in the midst of some of the greatest teaching Paul ever wrote, particularly the section running from Romans chapter 8 verse 26 through the end of the chapter. We pick up at verse 28.
Paul writes: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Paul is affirming that God is at work. It is important to note that this does not say God causes everything in the sense that He is the author of sin. We do know that everything that comes into our lives God either allows or causes — otherwise He would not be God.
Paul is in the process of delivering great comfort and encouragement through the difficult times and challenges of life. He says, look, "we know that God causes all things to work together for good." But notice — this is not a universal promise for every person on earth. It is for those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose. In the context of what we are discussing, Paul is talking about the elect, the believers.
"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." Then comes verse 30, the great chain of salvation: "Whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."
These four things hang together in an unbreakable, inseparable chain. It does no harm to the text whatsoever to read it this way: all whom He predestined, He called; and all whom He called, He justified; and all whom He justified, He glorified. Paul is in no way saying that some whom He called He justified, or not many but most, not all but close. This is an unbreakable chain. Everyone whom He predestined — and we looked at what that means two weeks ago — He called. And everyone He called, He justified: He declared righteous. That is our legal standing.
The Unbreakable Chain
Before God, forgiven, cleansed — and all that He justified, He will one day glorify. We will one day have new bodies free of tears, aches, pains, and sickness: a glorified, resurrected body. The thing to see here is that none are lost along the way. It is not that He starts with a group that is predestined, loses some, and now there is a group that is called, then loses a few more, and now there is a group that is justified, then loses a few more, and finally there is a group that is glorified. No — this chain hangs together: an inseparable, unbreakable chain.
What Does It Mean to Be Called?
Now, a key word we want to examine is "called." Let me put a couple of passages of Scripture on the screen. Romans chapter 1, verse 7, and 2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 8 and 9. In both of these instances, Paul is writing introductory remarks — in Romans, to the church at Rome, and in 2 Timothy, to the young man Timothy. In both instances, he uses the phrase we are looking at now: "called."
"To all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." It is hard to read that without noting that grace and peace find their origin for us in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I in this world are never going to experience real peace — the peace of God — until we have peace with God. Grace and peace come from the Father. That is where we find real grace and true peace, and nowhere else. You are not going to find them in any person, any place, or anything other than Jesus Christ.
But the word we want to focus on is "called." Those described as beloved of God in Rome and called as saints are the believers, the recipients of that letter. Then in 2 Timothy, Paul writes: "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, His prisoner. Join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling." Paul is very clear about the nature of this calling. We call it the effectual calling — a calling that comes into a person's life that is absolutely irresistible and that inevitably results in that person becoming a believer and a follower of Christ.
Paul also emphasizes in verse 9 of 2 Timothy 1 that this calling is not according to our works. This is not something that we do. We have been saying it consistently throughout this series: your salvation — which is initiated, continued, sustained, and completed by God — is based entirely on God's good pleasure. It has nothing to do with anything you have done, are doing, or will do. All religion is ultimately about works, but we are not talking about religion here. We are talking about biblical Christianity, and biblical Christianity finds its base not in your works but in God's grace and God's mercy.
The General Call and the Effectual Call
The word "calling" is used in a variety of ways in Scripture. There is, for example, the general call — the call that you and I are to make. It is a legitimate call for us to go into the world and preach the gospel. We can stand before people and declare that God so loved the world that whoever believed in His Son will not perish but have everlasting life. That is the general call; that is the call we make to the world.
Sometimes people ask: if you believe all of this is ordained by God, why would you ever engage in evangelism? If God does all these things, why evangelize at all? We will look more at this next week, but let me give two answers right now. First, because God told us to — and that is reason enough. Second, because just as He has ordained who He is going to save, He has also ordained the means He is going to use to save them, and most often that means is the declaration and preaching of His Word.
If you think back to the moment God saved you, it is likely there was a human involved — a person God used as an instrument. How are you going to believe if you do not hear? How are you going to hear if someone does not preach? How are they going to preach if they are not sent? That is the logic Paul uses in Romans 10.
But that general call is not the word Paul is using here. Here is MacArthur's footnote on 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 9: "The calling is not a general invitation to sinners to believe and to be saved, but it refers to God's effectual calling of the elect to salvation. This is the calling that results in holiness, imputed justification, imparted sanctification, and finally, completed glorification." That is what Paul has in view.
The point Paul is making in Romans 1 and 2 Timothy 1 — and frankly in most of the other books he writes — is that we are called. We are that group of people, those believers who have received the effectual call that inevitably results in holiness, justification, sanctification, and glorification. That is why Romans chapter 8, verse 30 says that all He predestined He called, all He called He justified, and all He justified He glorified. God did it all.
The Spiritual Condition of Natural Man
You were dead in your trespasses and sins. That is the spiritual condition of man. Through these weeks that we have been together talking about this subject, we have established that natural man is dead, helpless, and hopeless. The problem with man today is very simple: we are sinners, and we are born that way.
I was talking to somebody the other day who has a seven-month-old boy. He was saying it is amazing to him how sinful this seven-month-old is. The child is just beginning to get some eye-hand coordination, and you can already see how selfish and self-absorbed and self-centered he is. This father said they have other kids — two, three, and four years old — and they all lie and grab and cheat and steal, and he and his wife have never once sat down and tried to teach them that. They instinctively know it. How does that happen? That is who they are by nature.
Paul makes this plain in Ephesians 2. He writes: "In which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formally lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath." Paul is saying to the church at Ephesus: do not forget who you were. You were a son of disobedience and a child of wrath. That is who you are.
But God
But something took place. "But God" — that is who you were, and there was nothing you could do. You had no capacity in you to change this. You could not morph into something else. You could not will something else. You were dead spiritually. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved."
We talk about miracles all the time, and we throw that word around casually — the miracle of television, the miracle of a cell phone. I was driving back from Tucson a few months ago, and I had the radio on and hit seek. It amazes me that the radio can move from one station and stop at the next. I do not understand television. I do not understand how someone on the other side of the world can send a picture that comes up in four or five seconds. But here is what I know: that is not a miracle. There is physics and some other principles that explain it. We can account for it through the laws of nature.
A miracle is a reversal of those laws. It is when something that is dead comes to life. Paul is talking about a real miracle in Ephesians 2. He is talking about something that was dead in its sins and trespasses that is now alive. Something changed. Something is different. What caused it to take place? Verse 4: "But God in his great mercy because of his love made us alive." We were dead spiritually, and this is the fulfillment of what Jesus was talking about when He said you must be born again.
This new life came not through an act of your will, not through something you have done, not through a sacrifice you have made, not for something you have given up, not from a good deed you performed — but totally and completely a work of God.
Saved by Grace Through Faith
Then in verse 8, Paul says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that is not of yourself. It is a gift of God. Not as a result of works." Why not works? Because you would boast. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:31 that if you want to boast, boast of the Lord. God saves sinners. God did this from beginning to end. It is not about you. It is all about Him.
I think if you talked to the majority of Christians today and asked what saved them, many would say faith. But the text is clear: we are saved by grace through faith, and that is not of ourselves — it is a gift of God. This is really important: the gift is the faith itself. We could never produce this faith on our own. We could never scrape up enough faith to believe, because we are dead in our sins and trespasses.
So the question comes up all the time: how do I know if I am chosen? The answer is straightforward — do you believe the gospel? Yes? Then you are chosen. There is no other way to understand or distinguish it. We are saved by grace through faith, we are justified, and remember: all who were predestined are called, all who were called are justified. Who is justified? Those who were called. Who is called? Those who were predestined. And what is the source of that calling? It has nothing to do with you and me. It is entirely a work of God.
God saves sinners. God did this work. So if I want to boast, if I want to brag, I am going to brag about Him and what He has done.
Irresistible Grace
Turn over with me to Titus 3. What we are talking about is God's irresistible grace — this saving grace that God gives to His people. And it is impossible to reject.
The Spirit's Work in Regeneration
Do you mean we all come kicking and screaming? No. There's nothing we want more than salvation. When God opens our hearts and calls us, that's what we want. We can't wait to believe. Why? Because God has done that work in our life. He has caused us to be born again. He has elected us and chosen us before the foundations of the earth. The Son redeemed us. And now what we're talking about is the Holy Spirit regenerating us.
The Condition We Were In
Here it is again in Titus 3. This is very much an absolute parallel to Ephesians 2. "For we also were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." That's Titus 3:3. Let me unpack that and bring those words to life.
The word "foolish" means to lack understanding. Paul is talking about believers — about you and me — and describing our past. At one point, we lacked understanding: understanding of all spiritual truths. We didn't understand spiritual things. We couldn't understand spiritual things. We were disobedient, rebellious, and deceived — that is, purposefully led astray. We were enslaved to our own pleasures and lusts. The word "lust" means sinful desires, and "pleasure" means sinfully satisfying those desires.
Take sex as an example. Sex is good. Within the confines and limitations that God has given us, sex is good. The motto in this area is: single, celibate; married, celebration. If I am single and I have those desires, I cannot act on them because I am not in the relationship that God has designed for fulfilling them. Some people talk about homosexuality as a perversion — and it is — but so is premarital sex. Any sex other than between a husband and wife, male and female, monogamous and permanent, is a perversion. That is what Paul is saying here.
This is how we once lived. We were enslaved to these lusts, these pleasures, these desires, and we fulfilled them through channels of our own sinful invention rather than through the channels God gave us. We spent our lives in malice and envy. That is how we invested our days. We invested in malice, envy, hateful things, and hatred of one another — very similar to what Paul says in Ephesians 2, that we were sons of disobedience and children of wrath.
Saved by Mercy, Not by Deeds
Now look at Titus 3:4. "But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we had done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit."
We were dead in our sins and trespasses. We were pursuing our own sinful desires and satisfying them in our own sinful ways. That does not mean, by the way, that you could not be religious in the midst of all that.
Dead but Spiritual: The Religion of the Last Days
Consider what Paul writes in 2 Timothy chapter 3 about the last days. By "last days" we mean from the time Christ left until He comes again. The last days have been going on for 2,000 years. A whole bunch of us have been in them for a while, and we may be in them a long time yet. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:1, "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."
Does that sound like your world? But listen to the next verse: "But they hold to a form of godliness, although they deny its power." They will be very spiritual — sinful, dead, lost, and spiritual all at once. That really does describe the world we live in.
A few years ago, I read that the two most spiritual countries in the world are India and the United States. We are a spiritual people. Go into any bookstore and you will find racks and racks of spiritual books, new-age titles, and all manner of spirituality. It is exactly what Paul is describing in 2 Timothy 3. These are people who are dead in their sins and trespasses, who love pleasure rather than God, but who hold to a form of godliness.
They like spirituality, but they deny its power. What is the power? The gospel — the person of Christ, His life, His death, His resurrection. These are people who want to talk about God in ethereal, undefined terms. They are comfortable with that. They want to talk about what is spiritual, what is good for you, what works for you, but they do not want to talk about truth. Use a word like "normal" or "abnormal," and they recoil: "We don't use that — that's judgmental." They hold to a form of godliness but deny its power, and that power is the person of Christ. He says to avoid people like these.
He Saved Us in Spite of Ourselves
But now look again at Titus 3:4. "But the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, and He saved us." Here it is a third time: not on the basis of our deeds. Those of us who are Christians are saved not because of what we have done, are doing, or will do — not by anything that God saw in our past, our present, or our future. He saved us in spite of ourselves. He saved us by His mercy. He washed us. He regenerated us. He cleansed us.
We have been born again — the very thing Jesus said every person needs. We must be born again. How? By the Spirit. That which is born of the flesh does us no good.
Regeneration Precedes Faith
We need to be born of the Spirit. We are born again of the Spirit of God, who caused us to be washed and cleansed and regenerated.
Here is a one-question test — and please do not answer out loud. Does faith precede regeneration, or does regeneration precede faith? Another way to ask it: do I believe and then am born again, or am I born again and then believe? If we went to most churches and asked most people who say they are Christians, they would say faith precedes regeneration. But that is wrong. Regeneration precedes faith. I am born again, and then I believe.
Why must it be this way? Because I am dead. Consider this illustration. Suppose we were going out on an evangelism visit, and on the way to the car I called Faulkner's funeral home and asked Tim to get one of his clients ready for us. We walk in, and there is the deceased. I bring everyone in and say, "All right, go for it — evangelize." There would be that awkward moment where everyone would look at each other, then look at me, and eventually someone would say, "This is stupid." And I would ask why. The answer would be, "Because he is dead. He is never going to respond. He is never going to hear. I can preach and preach and preach, play tapes, share the gospel again and again — but he will never respond, because he is dead."
We take the gospel to people who are dead spiritually, and we are wasting our time unless God opens their eyes and their heart. How would I know if God opens their eyes and heart? They will be born again. How would I know if they are born again? They will confess it, because faith is the first fruit of that salvation. I am saved by grace through faith — it is a gift of God.
How do I know I am chosen? How do I know Christ died for me? How do I know I have been saved? I will say it. And that is utterly a work of God. I have moved from a dead, cold sinner to a living, born-again believer.
Why Did You Believe?
This brings us back to the question: why? Why did he believe? Why did you believe, and he did not? How is it this person and not that one? Why my dad, but not my mom? Why my aunt, and not my uncle? Why this sister, and not that brother?
The answer is found in Acts 13:48: "When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed." Notice the sequence. They were appointed — ordained, predestined — to eternal life, and the fruit of that was that they believed. Why did you believe? Because God chose you, Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit applied that in an irresistible way through effectual calling.
These truths all hang together. All who were predestined are called, all who are called are justified, and all who are justified will be glorified.
The Preservation of the Saints
In the five points of Calvinism, that brings us to the P. The classic formulation is the perseverance of the saints, but I prefer preservation of the saints. Perseverance seems to say it is us hanging in there — that it is you and me gritting it out, being tough, going and going. Preservation says no, it is not about you and me; it is about God.
Paul says it this way in Philippians 1:6: "I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." The picture of perseverance is you and I hanging on to God. It is like those moments when you are holding on to something and your arms begin to tremble and shake, and you wonder whether you can hold on. But it is not perseverance — it is preservation. It is not me holding on to God; it is God holding on to me.
God has hold of me, and He likes to sway you every now and then — but He will never let go. He who began the good work will complete it. You may have moments where the depth of your communion with Him is not strong, but that union is never broken.
I have had people say to me, "I feel dry spiritually. I feel like I am in a desert spiritually." I understand that, but understand this: that is your fault, not His. He has never left. He has never changed. And He will continue that work. That is the preservation of the saints — because all who were predestined were called, all who were called were justified, and all who were justified were glorified.
Eternal Life Cannot End
John chapter 3, verse 16; John chapter 3, verse 36; John chapter 5, verse 24; and John chapter 6, verse 47 all say the same thing. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3, verse 36: he who believes in the Son has eternal life. John 5, verse 24: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life." John 6, verse 47: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life."
When does eternal life end? When is eternal life over? It seems the words themselves define the answer, and from that the answer is easy — it doesn't end. If I have eternal life, it goes on forever and ever. Those verses say that if I believe — and this is not mere mental assent, but an understanding of the gospel and a response to it — I have eternal life.
If I have eternal life today, how could I possibly lose something that, by definition, goes on forever? I can't. If I am a Christian today, I am as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there. That truth is not meant to be a license to sin, as though it doesn't matter. It is meant to bring great comfort, because nothing can break that relationship.
The Good Shepherd and His Sheep
John chapter 10 is a passage you ought to have circled, and you will need to return to it again and again, because it speaks so clearly to the ideas of election, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. Jesus is speaking this parable: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one can snatch them out of My hand."
I remember not having been a Christian very long and reading through Jesus' teaching, where several times He said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." I thought, what an odd thing to say. Here is what He is saying: he who can hear these words in an understanding way. My sheep hear in an understanding way. They know Me, and I know them. We are united — in an unbreakable union — and I give them eternal life, which by definition can never end, and no one or circumstance can snatch them out of My hand.
Now, this does imply difficulty. When I perform weddings, I stop at the vows and say, do you understand these vows anticipate problems — better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health? Jesus is not inferring that we will never face problems or difficulties or challenges, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. He is not saying those times will not come. What He is saying is that this union cannot be broken.
"My Father has given them to Me, and He is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My hand." This brings us back to the great chain of salvation: whom He predestined, He called; whom He called, He justified; and whom He justified, He glorified.
Romans 8: The Great Chain of Salvation
Turn to Romans 8, and we will close there. We have come full circle, back to where we began — that great chain of salvation again. Whom He predestined, He called; whom He called, He justified; whom He justified, He glorified. All the way through, and He did not lose any.
As if that were not enough, look at what Paul writes next. Romans 8, verse 31: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all? Who can bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies." Verse 34: "Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us."
"What can separate us from the love of Christ?" Paul is not talking here about our love for Christ, but Christ's love for us. Then he lists some things. Tribulation — the idea of being squeezed under pressure in difficult times. Distress — the sense of being hemmed in on all sides with no way out and no relief from the pressure. Persecution, meaning affliction for the Lord's sake. Famine, the absence of the necessities of life. Nakedness — and he is not speaking of nudity here, but of being so destitute that you cannot even clothe yourself. Peril, which means danger.
"But in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loves us." Verse 38: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor heights nor depths" — and if he has missed anything, he catches it here — "nor any other created thing," and all things other than God are created things, "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The Assurance of the Preserved
This is precisely what we read in John 10. "My sheep hear My voice and I know them. They follow Me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish." If you are here today and you are a Christian, you are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there, based on God's work in preserving and protecting you.
God saves sinners. The triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — the Father elects before the foundations of the earth, the Son redeems, and the Spirit regenerates. This plan is completely of God.
Man's Ruin, God's Remedy
Man brings to it his sin and his ruin. God brings to it the perfect remedy. What I want to do next week is ask the three questions we encourage you to ask anytime somebody speaks. Number one, what did he say? Number two, is it true? Number three, so what? This is not just some pure academic exercise. I am not trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and I am not interested in pure academic pursuits. If this does not matter to our life, I am not that interested in it.
What I want to do next week is remind you what we have said, remind you that it flows not from Calvin or Luther but from the Scriptures itself, and look at the huge ramifications it has for you and me. We will talk about that next week.
A Personal Word
I need to take a moment and speak with you on a very personal level. We have learned over the years — we have been doing this a long time — that while we have a private life, a lot of our life is also a public life. So I need to take a minute or two and talk to you about something very personal, because in a real sense you are part of our family. I want you to hear it from me, not from someone else.
For the last three weeks or so, we have been trying to work through and understand some physical problems that Susan has. We have been through a whole battery of tests, and last Monday — a week ago tomorrow — she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It is a type called inflammatory breast cancer, which I had never heard of until a couple of weeks ago. If you want a fuller background, the web is filled with information about it and you can check that out there.
One of the things we have tried to do — and we did it when Sarah had her accident — is to avoid the two poles people tend to run to: either minimizing the situation or making it more serious than it is. We strive for the middle. I will tell you this: it is very, very serious, and we do not want to minimize that.
God's Goodness in Difficult Days
God has been very good to us. In a very short time we went from a biopsy to a diagnosis to the oncologist within a matter of days. We have a great team — a surgeon who has been in place for a long time and a new doctor whom we had a chance to meet with as a family. Haley was an oncology nurse for three years and Sarah works in nuclear medicine, so they are both fairly familiar with all of this. It was one of those moments where Susan said, "I'm finally glad we spent all this money on you going to school."
Here is where things stand. We have some tests tomorrow, Tuesday is off, and we have a full test day on Wednesday. Then this Thursday at one o'clock she is going to start chemotherapy. As things stand now, the chemotherapy will be done six times — possibly fewer, possibly more — every third week, so we are looking at approximately eighteen weeks. We cannot do surgery right now because we are not dealing with a tumor; we are dealing with something that has spread through tissue. Our hope with the chemotherapy is to define it, to kill a great deal of it, and to bring it to the point where we can operate.
I will keep you informed. My sense is that there really will not be much to tell you for eighteen weeks — we are simply going to have to work our way through this, and we do not expect to know much before that time has passed. The doctor was straightforward and said, "I will be absolutely candid with you. I am positive and upbeat, and I will be honest with you. If we are doing something and it is not working, I am going to tell you." And so if he tells us, I will tell you. But my sense is that we will not know much for about eighteen weeks.
How You Can Help
The question becomes, what can you do? You are all terrific people and you are going to want to do something, and I appreciate that. What you need to do is pray. Pray for healing. Pray for the doctors. Pray for the girls and for me. We are a fairly tight family and we are very close — just as we marched into the doctor's office as four, I think he was taken back by the fact that we go everywhere together. So pray for us.
Beyond that, there is a team around us and there are plenty of people surrounding us. I know how you feel, and I appreciate that and I know your love. There really is not much beyond prayer that you can do, but having said that, that is a very big thing. So please be praying for us. As soon as I know something, I will let you know exactly what we know.
The Comfort of This Truth
What a magnificent — and frankly, what a perfect — lesson this has been, given an outcome like Susan's sickness, because it reminds us of God and who He is, how He saves us and protects us, and we draw great comfort from that. I wanted you to hear it from me, and that is everything we know. If somebody tells you something other than that, they are not telling you the truth, because that is all we know. If anyone has questions, you can direct them to the website at the end of this message.
Let us pray together. Father, thank you for this truth. Thank you for the love that You have for us, loving us even more than we love ourselves. I pray for Susan, that You touch her heart and heal her of this sickness. I pray for the doctors and the wonderful people You have brought around us. Thank you for the friends and family that are here. God, thank you for the people in this church, who I know want desperately to help us. Amen.
Irresistible Grace & Preservation
Father, just thank you for reminding us that You give us eternal life, and we can never lose that. Thank you for that truth, and we pray to You in Christ's name, amen.
God, just remind them to pray, and to pray for us, especially on Thursday, from one to four, as Susan tackles this first treatment. Pray for the girls, and for me.
We will see you tomorrow night, Tuesday night.