Chosen by God

Tom Shrader examines the doctrine of election, teaching that all humanity is spiritually dead due to sin and unable to come to God on their own. Using passages from Ephesians, Romans, and Titus, he explains that salvation is entirely God's work - He chooses whom to save before the foundation of the world, not based on anything we do but according to His mercy and grace. Shrader addresses common objections to this teaching while emphasizing that we are saved to be display cases for God's grace.

“The view one takes concerning salvation will be determined to a large extent by the view we take concerning sin and its effect on the human race.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Grace for Life, Grace for Living

Recorded: 2008

Duration: 41 min

Themes: grace, salvation, election, mercy, sin, death, faith, works, new believer, questioning salvation, struggling with doubt, pastor, bible teacher, feeling unworthy, young adult, seeking assurance

Scripture: Ephesians 2:8-10, Ephesians 1:3-6, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 6:44, Romans 3:23, Romans 5:12, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 3:3-5, Romans 9:10-18, Romans 1:18-28

Theological Themes: predestination, election, total depravity, spiritual death, regeneration, born again, unconditional election, sola gratia

Full Transcript

Let me invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians in the 2nd chapter, verses 8, 9, and 10. These three verses form the basis for the series titled Grace for Life and Grace for Living. I made the distinction there—grace for life, meaning I need grace to bring me from this point of death, spiritually, to life. And then I need that grace to sustain me, and we see that in these three verses.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Our salvation is moving from death to life, and the source of it is grace—unmerited favor. Paul could not be any more clear: it has nothing to do with anything that we have done or are doing or will do. It's not on the basis of our works; otherwise we would boast. So when we talk about grace for life, that's what we're talking about.

When we talk about grace for living, it's verse 10. If all God wanted to do was get us to heaven, then simply at the point of conversion, He could have taken us there. But He left us here, and He left us here for a reason. It's there in Ephesians 2:10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."

Grace for life—He moves us from sinner to saint, He brings us into His family. We're dead and He causes us to be born again; that's what we're going to look at today. And then grace for living—now we have the privilege of being His hands and His feet here on this earth. Yet we cannot do that on our own; we need that grace to sustain us. To bring us into His family and to sustain us in the midst of this.

The Reality of Sin

This is our third week, and the first two weeks we've really focused on how did we get this way—meaning sin. Paul tells us in Romans 5:12 that it was through one man's sin, that's Adam, that sin entered into the world and death through sin. And then he says all have sinned. He says it in Romans chapter 3: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Then we went back and said this really started through this man Adam. When Adam sinned, he plunged us all into ruin. So we went back and did a kind of a flyover of Genesis chapter 3.

But we are at really a key point in this discussion about salvation. And here's the issue: What effect did Adam's sin really have on us? That we all sin—we all got it, all the heads go up and down. I can get all the Christians together and they all go, "Amen, brother." Romans 3:23. Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 6:36: "There is no man who does not sin." Ecclesiastes 7:20: "For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin." We got it—we all sin.

The Effect of Sin on Humanity

The question is: what is the effect of that sin on us? In the passage you're looking at in Ephesians chapter 2, Paul uses some pretty strong imagery in verse 1. He says, "You were dead." Past tense—we were dead, which means we are now alive. We were dead, but now we're alive. How did we move from death to life? This comes back as we answer this really important question. This comes back to: what's the effect that sin had on us?

There are two really key passages of Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 2:14, Paul tells us, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him." And then he kind of ups the ante. He says, "Nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Here's the effect of sin on our life: Though we are alive physically, we're dead spiritually. And as natural man, as the condition we are born into this world, we don't receive the things of the Spirit. We are not open to the things of God. In fact, they are foolishness to him. Paul says it this way a little bit earlier in 1 Corinthians: "To those who are perishing, the cross is foolishness, but to those of us who are being saved, it's the source of power."

The effect of sin in our life is that we cannot receive the things of the Spirit, and we cannot know them. That's the condition that we're in. We're dead.

Different Degrees, Same Condition

Though we may look at various things around us and say, "Well, we see some people who are a little bit better than others"—that's the argument, by the way, that Paul makes in Romans 1, 2, and 3. Paul looks basically at three categories of people. He looks at those in Romans 1 who are deeply depraved and deeply lost, and it's evident. In fact, there's a progression there. We'll talk about it in a little bit. Then he talks about people that we would perceive as basically good people. They mess up a little bit, but overall they're good people. And then he talks about religious people. After he talks about all three groups of people, he ends with this: "There is none righteous, not one." Though they may look different.

The other day I had a conversation with a guy. I have the best but strangest conversations with people. This guy said to me, "I'd love to die in my sleep." I don't know why we talk about this stuff. "I want to die in my sleep." I said, "Really? That's how I want to die." Then I thought about it in the context of Romans 1, 2, and 3.

Imagine you walk into a funeral home, and there are three slabs there, and on them three bodies. The first one is a guy who died in his sleep. You've probably seen bodies. It just looks like you could just wake him and go, "Wake up!" But he's still dead. Next to him is a guy who was trying to get across the street out here and just miscalculated and got hit by a car and kind of threw him up and roughed him up a little bit. He's got some cuts. You can see the lacerations. A little bruise, a little swelling, and he's laying there. Then there's this third guy who was out riding his motorcycle, and they just took a spatula and slapped him down on the third slab.

Here's the question. Key question. Huge question: Which one of these

Three guys is the deadest? That's the key question. And on the chance that there's someone here from Tucson, let me help you out with the answer here. They're all dead, equally dead. You can only die. You can't get any deader.

But that's Paul's whole point about mankind. Some of us, you just look at them and go, whoo, that guy's lost. Others of them, you look, he's a pretty good guy, but you can see there's no religion about him. And then there's these religious people, and Paul says though they look different, they're all dead. They cannot receive natural or spiritual things because they're from the Spirit.

No One Can Come Unless the Father Draws

Now, then the second verse that we spend some time on is John 6:44. No one, this is Jesus now, no one can come to me. So we talked about people come to Christ. No one can come to me unless something happens. The Father first, who sent me, must draw him. The word means to compel.

And this now is at the very crux of this issue. I will tell you from thousands and thousands and thousands of conversations on this that this is a key point right here. What we're talking about here is natural man, our ability, apart from Christ, apart from the Spirit of God, our ability to come to Him, not permission.

So somebody will say, well, you always talk about this, but listen to John 3:16. You understand what that verse says, don't you? It says, if you believe, you have everlasting life. But it has nothing to do with this discussion. It simply says, if you believe, you'll be saved. You have the permission. That's why we preach the way we do. We preach to everybody that will listen to us. We share. We share and proclaim the truth and pray that God's working in that person's life. But that's permission.

There's not one verse in the entire Bible that says natural man has the ability to come. In fact, the Scripture teaches specifically that natural man doesn't have the ability and doesn't have the desire.

The Reality of Spiritual Death

Why is this important? I wrote these two sentences. As a result of Adam's sin, all mankind is spiritually dead, unable to either comprehend or believe spiritual truth. Man is blind and deaf to the message of salvation. Not even interested.

He may be interested in spiritual things, but He's going to create his own God or be attracted to a God that meets his parameters, not God's parameters. One author writes this: the view one takes concerning salvation, and that's what we're talking about in this Grace for Life. How are we saved, redeemed, delivered from this effect and bondage of sin? The view one takes concerning salvation will be determined to a large extent by the view we take concerning sin and its effect on the human race.

I wrote this six years ago: when you come to grips with what the Bible teaches about our condition, namely that we're dead, it's obvious that if God doesn't do something in our life, we never could or would respond to any spiritual truth, including the gospel.

A Personal Recognition

So it just so happens, though I don't believe in circumstance, that I'm now teaching the foundations of the Christian faith, Christianity 101, in the study through the week, and we're just dealing with the depravity of man. And though I didn't spend near the time in there that we spend in here the last two weeks, and already 15 minutes this morning, didn't spend near that much time, I'm all done, and this guy comes up to me, and He says, I believe that's true because that's what the Bible says, and if that's true, then how could I be saved?

I don't say, I'm just listening. And now He's answering his own question. Then for me to be saved, something had to happen to me because I couldn't do anything. And it would seem to me that if it was the gospel and something happened to me, that God must have done something in my life. What do you think, Tom? That's what He said. What do you think, Tom?

And I said, well, you know what? It really doesn't matter what I think. What does the Bible tell us? And that's the quest in this, it's not what you think. What I think and feel and how I respond has a tendency to mess the discussion up, not enhance it. What's the Bible teach?

The Foundation: God's Sovereignty

Well, the Bible tells us that after mankind sinned in Adam, that we were lost and we needed a savior. The Bible tells us, remember the first week, we spend a whole bunch of time on this, that God is sovereign. Here's what that means, that He is above or superior to everything else, supreme in rank, independent of all others. He does as He pleases. He is God, so that everything that happens in this world is either caused by or allowed by God, that He's all-knowing and all-powerful, that He's immutable, that He's a God of wrath and a God of love and justice and mercy and grace, but He's sovereign.

Now that's that big picture of God. Is that important to understand? Yes.

The Comfort of God's Sovereignty

Just this week I was talking to somebody who five years ago faced just a tragic event in their life, and as I walked with this person through some of this, I saw the importance of the theology of the sovereignty of God and the comfort in being able to say, I don't have all the answers, but I know God is sovereign, and my admiration for and respect for and love for this person was enhanced about a thousand times as I watched Him walk through this event steeped in theology of the sovereignty of God and comfortable to let God be God and not have the answer of why this tragic event took place.

I will tell you, on the other hand, I meet people all the time, not so much from the church, that's not to say we got it all together, but I meet people from other churches who an event like this comes into their life and it absolutely destroys them and sends them into a tailspin, and they're angry at God and they're spinning down and they're trying to figure that out, and boy, I understand it, I do, but ultimately I come to rest on my theology and I'll push and say, well, what do you think about God, and they'll go, I don't really know, I don't know why God would do that, and oftentimes we'll even reconstruct our

The Sovereignty of God in Salvation

Theology and make God a little bit weaker so He doesn't have to take the guilt for this. I'll change it around, maybe He isn't all-knowing, maybe He isn't all-powerful. No, He is. Everything in your life is either caused by or allowed by God. That's what makes Him God.

Now that's that big macro view. We narrow it down now to salvation, coming to faith in Christ. Here's what we know: that God's going to do as He pleases. He's God, and He doesn't need anybody's permission to intervene in any life.

That man sinned, and the sentence was a death sentence, and God is under absolutely no obligation to save anybody. He could very easily say, "You sinned, you live with it," and saved absolutely no one. He could have intervened and said, "You know what, I'll save all of you." He did neither of those.

We know there are people who care nothing about the things of God. We don't for a second think that there are people who are not in fact going to spend eternity in hell. We know that, and we realize then that He didn't save everyone. But we also know people who love God, love Christ, and we know some were saved. So we know that God moves in the lives of certain people.

God's Choosing: Election in Scripture

And then we get into words like election, God's choosing. Well how did God choose? I'm going to just take you through some passages, and I'm going to not have you turn there for right now. Just make some notes of it. Just listen.

2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13: Paul's writing to this church, and he said, "But we should give thanks to God for you, because brethren, beloved by the Lord, because He has chosen you from the beginning for salvation." We are dead. We now know that there are some who are alive. How did they come to life? God has chosen them for salvation.

It was an eternal decree. Ephesians, you're in the book of Ephesians, go ahead and let's look even at chapter 1 verse 3: "Blessed be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Here we go, just as He chose us in Christ, in Him, before the foundations of the earth, that we be holy and blameless. In love, here's His motivation now, love and mercy, in love He predestined us to adoptions as sons through Christ Jesus Christ to Himself, how, according to the will of His kind attention to give praise and the glory of grace which He freely bestowed on the beloved."

God chose to save some, we would call them His church or the elect, and He did that before the foundations of the earth. Predestining us to move into the family of God and He did it for His glory, for His pleasure, for mercy.

The Illustration of the Blind Man

John chapter 9, I just love this scene. Jesus and the boys are coming into town. There's a blind man, and the boys say to Him, "Why is this guy blind?" And then they give Jesus two options. It was kind of the traditional thinking of the day: either A, he sinned and that's why he's blind, or B, his parents sinned and that's why he's blind.

And Jesus said it's neither of those. He is blind that he might become a display case for the work of God. And then Jesus intervenes and the blind man can now see.

So Jesus is saying in His essence the same thing to you and me about our salvation. We were dead because we had sinned. Why were we saved? Because God chose us from the very beginning. He chose us not because of anything that He saw in us.

Second Timothy chapter 1 verse 19: "God saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our works, but according to His own good purpose."

Our Condition Before Salvation

I'm going to change, kind of turn to two passages for the rest of our time together. Here's the first one. Go to the right, you're in Ephesians. Kind of start flipping to the right and you're going to hit eventually 1 and 2 Timothy. Slow down, the next book is Titus.

Paul's writing to Titus and he says, Titus chapter 3 verse 3, kind of a mini version of what we see here in Ephesians 1 and 2: "We also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasure, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." Okay, that's who we were, dead in our sins and trespasses.

"But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us. Not according to the basis of the works which were done in righteousness, but according to His mercy," driven by love and grace and mercy.

The Right Question to Ask

So now we begin to attack really the appropriate question. The appropriate question, to me, is not somebody processing this going, "Well I don't understand this. Didn't God save my mom or my dad or my husband or my wife or my kids?" That's not the appropriate question.

The appropriate question is, why did He save you? Why did He save me, us? Well He was driven by His love and His mercy for us.

And Paul, I don't know how you can be any more clear than dealing with this again and again and again and again and again, where he emphasizes it's not on the basis of works. It's not on the basis of things that we have done or are doing or will do.

God was not attracted to you because He looked at you and said, "Boy, there's something really special there. I can really see, she's a diamond in the rough. If I can just get her on my squad and take off those rough edges, who knows what she can do for Christ." That's not how God worked. God chose us before the foundations of the earth so that we would become display cases for the grace and the mercy that He extends to us.

Addressing Lingering Questions

Now for many of you, this is familiar territory. I hope you never grow tired of hearing it. I never grow tired of talking about it. But I know, even if you've been around a while, you still have these questions in there.

Let's see if we can kind of attack some of those, not based on what Luther says or Calvin says or Spurgeon says, but what does God say about this? Let's turn to Romans chapter 9, and then we'll spend the rest of our time in this section.

Paul has issued this blanket indictment of all mankind. We're all guilty. We are justified before God and reconciled. While we were still

helpless, Christ died for us and demonstrated His love for us. While we were yet sinners, He died for us. We who were dead to sin are now alive to God. We now have the power to battle sin and have been freed from the bondage of sin.

Romans chapter 8, beginning around verse 26, really takes it up a notch in verse 28 when Paul talks about how we know God causes all things to work together for good. We'll spend a whole chunk of time there next week or the following week. Then this beautiful chain of salvation starts there in verse 29: whom He foreknew, He predestined. Whom He predestined, He called. Whom He called, He justified. Whom He justified, He glorified.

This is God moving all the way through that process. He determines who He's going to save. He predestines them. He calls them. He declares them righteous. And He takes them to heaven. Paul asks that wonderful question: if God's for us, who can be against us? What can separate us from the love of God? We'll unpack those truths in a bit.

A Compelling Illustration of God's Sovereignty

As if to illustrate this whole point, Paul in Romans chapter 9, verse 10, gives us a compelling, powerful illustration of the sovereignty of God in salvation—in all of life, but specifically in salvation. "And not only this, but there was also Rebecca. When she had conceived twins by one man..." You see what he's doing here? He's setting up these conditions. Here is one woman, one man, so the same heritage. This isn't based on something distinct about their heritage.

Then there are these two kids born into this same family. So anybody that's hanging on and saying, "Well, I'm chosen because I'm part of this family or part of this nation or part of this church"—no. They're two twins, one father Isaac. The twins were not yet born. I don't know how you could put a stake in the heart any more clearly than this.

So they were not yet born, so they hadn't done anything good to merit salvation or anything bad to lose it. "So that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls," it was said to her, "the older will serve the younger." Total reversal in that culture. Always the younger would serve the older. No, the older is going to serve the younger. Why? "Because Jacob I loved and Esau I hated."

The Hard Truth About Divine Choice

You get this? Two in the womb, same conditions, and God says, "You know what? Jacob I love, Esau I hate." On one I'm going to show extraordinary favor. On the other, I'm going to leave him for divine judgment. One is going to get exactly what he deserves—justice. The other is going to receive mercy.

Now Paul knows how that settles in our heart. He knows that's tough to listen to and digest. He anticipates that response. That's why he says in verse 14, "What shall we say then? There's no injustice with God, is there? May it never be." We're immediately thinking, "Well that's not fair!" And Paul's saying, I would take a deep breath at this point.

I would understand that one gets justice and one gets mercy, but no one gets injustice. Because God decides that He's going to give mercy to one person does not obligate Him in any way, shape, or form to give mercy to everybody. At that point it's not mercy anymore. It's not based on something that we've done, or it would be a reward. But it's grace—unmerited favor. It's God shedding mercy on Jacob in spite of Jacob, not because of him.

He knows how hard that is for us, and it is, isn't it? We're thinking, "That just doesn't seem fair to me." Paul jumps all over it and says, "Man, you better understand something here. We're talking about God."

God's Mercy Is Not Man's Choice

Verse 15: "For God says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on the mercy of God." This idea of salvation and grace is not driven by man and man's desire and man's choosing.

Remember this now? At this point, this is what we do. We flip back to what we know. Here's what we know: natural man can't understand spiritual things. No one can come to the Father unless the Father draws him. That's a given. That's a known. Paul reinforces it. It's not man's will. It's God's grace and God's mercy. It's God who gives us the desire and indeed compels us to come to Him in repentance and faith.

"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.' So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires."

The Path to Judgment

If you turn back—and it's not just Pharaoh—turn back to the beginning of the book of Romans. Romans chapter 1, there's this beautiful truth that's being taught. "The wrath of God," verse 18, "is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth." That is, they actively hold it down. They have all the evidence they need.

That's what he says in verse 19: "That which is known about God is evident within them." They're made with this spirit, and they understand this, and it's evident to them. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

So sometimes we ask the question, "What do I need to do to go to heaven?" Paul tells us, here's what you need to do to go to hell, verse 21: You don't need to do anything. You're doing just fine. Just keep going. "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools." Then they made an exchange. Have you ever made a bad exchange? Maybe you're upside down in a house or a car, or you've put some money in something...

and it's gone bad. Here's the worst exchange of all time. These people have exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the image in the form of a corruptible man of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. They said to God, and then in verse 24, 26, and 28 is a phrase, and in your Bible, I would just suggest put a box around the phrase or a line or something so your eye is drawn to it in these three places quickly, so you see the pattern and your mind will go back to this very moment.

And He says, God gave them over to their lusts, verse 24. Verse 26, God gave them over to their passions. Verse 28, God gave them over to the depraved mind. And they just begin to down cycle. And they get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

Understanding Total Depravity

So this is so important. It's not that the Bible teaches that we are as bad as we can possibly be in every action. Even Hitler didn't kill his mother. What the Bible teaches is we're as bad off as we can possibly be. We're all dead. Some of us exhibit that sin more than others and every once in a while God will simply pull back His restraining power and let you see something like a Jeffrey Dahmer.

Remind you what Dahmer would do is have sex with men and boys and then cut them up and eat them. Now there's a whole bunch of people that go I don't understand why we'd have a Jeffrey Dahmer. Let me tell you my thought. I don't know why we don't have more of them because God restrains.

By the way that's why public policy is important. Do I think you can legislate morality in terms of changing someone's heart? No, but God gives us government to at least have some sort of restraint around people. That's why voting yes on marriage on 102 is important. That's why policy is important. That's why government that's a legitimate role for government to fulfill to help restrain evil within the culture. It's legitimate. Does it change a heart? No, but sometimes alter behavior based on those restrictions.

But God just gives them over and when you see a Jeffrey Dahmer or when you see a Adolf Hitler you go ahead and fill in the blank on whoever that is. When you see that person all that is is who you really are without God's restraining you. That's all that is. So when you say oh there but for the grace of God go I that's exactly true even though you don't believe it. That's exactly true.

My rule of thumb on this is we kind of think God's okay but we don't think He's that big and we don't think we're that bad. Man this stuff starts weighing on you doesn't it?

Returning to Romans 9

Now let's go back to Romans 9 we've got five minutes or so to kind of put a bow on this at least get us ready for where we go from here. So let me remind you here's what He says He's talking about Pharaoh I just let him do his thing. Verse 18 so then God has mercy on who He desires and hardens who He desires and you say to me why does He still find fault for who resists His will?

Here's Paul anticipating the next question. This isn't fair. If God's going to choose who He's going to save how can He hold me responsible for not coming? That's the argument that Paul's dealing with here. And that's a normal natural thoughtful semi profound thought right? How can He hold me responsible if He didn't choose me?

There's two points. One I don't know but I know this Paul sets them side by side and lets them hang there. I don't need to know. It's really important we're really starting to push on this truth. Here's what we're saying is that we're going to let God be God. We're going to let God do what God does.

He chooses to send no one to hell because they refuse to come to Christ. He chooses them to go to hell or they go to hell because they're being punished for their sin. See that? It's not like they want to come to Christ. Do you see that? And God's in there going no no no no no. Am I responsible? Yes. And yet I'm born with this nature? Yes. How does that work? I don't know. But He's God and He said it.

Letting God Be God

That again takes us back to really a fundamental principle. Somewhere in here we got to get away from what I think and what I feel and say I don't know but that's what it says. That's intellectual suicide. No. Intellectual arrogance would be try to explain away something that God just leaves hanging in tension to me.

On the contrary verse 20. Who are you old man who answers back to God? The thing molded won't say to the molder why did you make me this way? Or does not the potter have the right over the clay? To make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use another for common use. What if God although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known endured with much patience vessel of wrath and they were prepared for destruction.

Here's what He's saying. You're not God.

A Scene from Job

There's this wonderful scene in the book of Job. Job reminds you the story even if you don't know hardly any scripture you know Job. Here's what you know. Suffering like Job. Patience of Job. And I love to point out Job didn't have the patience of Job until chapter 42. It took him a long time to get those patience.

He's starting and life's going good and now Satan with God's authorization begins to bring these attacks against him. Takes away a little bit. Takes away a little bit. Takes a whole lot. Takes more. And right when they're saying well at least you have your health. He takes his health away.

And Job stops now and he has lost everything he has except the one thing he wants to lose. Which is the wife that he still has. That says to him what? What does the wife say? Curse God and die. Everybody needs support like that.

Well that's the whole scene. And Job's hanging in there. Now his friends are going you must have done something Job. You must have done something Job. You must have sinned Job. It's got to be you. It's got to be you. It's got to be you.

Finally Job has this breaking point where he now wants to take it to God. God I want to ask you something. There's this beautiful moment where

God says, "Okay Job, just one thing. Let me ask you something, Job." And then there's this litany of questions. Let me read you just some of them and you get a flavor. He says to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you know so much."

Here's what I love. I did not know how godly I was until I realized that God's sarcasm here is very attractive to me. One of the godliest people you know. Much more godly than I ever dreamt until I read this. "Do you know where the gates of death are located? Have you seen the gates of utter gloom? Do you realize the extent of the earth? Tell me about it if you know. Where does the sun come from? Where does the darkness go? Can you take it home? Do you know how to get there? But of course you know all this. You were born before it was created. You're so very experienced." I love this.

And then He just goes on and on and on. Finally He's done with His questions now. I think they take three chapters. And then He says, "All right Job, what was it? What did you want?" And Job said, "You know what? I forgot. I don't know what it was. I don't remember anymore. I'm just going to go back."

The Bible Teaches What It Teaches

And that's the same thing here. I can't fully explain these things. But I know this—it's what the Bible teaches. I thought that's what everybody wanted. Every time I start these discussions we say, "I want what the Bible teaches." Well this is what the Bible teaches.

The Bible is not something that owes you an answer to everything. It just doesn't. He has an infinite God and an infinite mind, and you're a finite little creature. So He either didn't tell you this because either A) you don't need to know it, or B) you can't understand it. But that's what the Bible teaches about salvation.

And let me say it again. It doesn't matter what you think or feel, or what I think or feel. That's what the Bible teaches.

The 90-Year-Old Father's Story

The last time I taught this I got this email. It said, "I want to share this with you." It talked about in the small group, they talked about a couple that had been asking for prayer for their 90-year-old father. He grew up in a church that didn't accept any of this doctrine at all. They said he's been very cranky and very difficult to live with. They've been bringing him to church the past few years. They were surprised he wanted to continue to come when he heard you were teaching the doctrines of grace.

Sunday after church they went out for breakfast after the service. All of a sudden the father burst into tears and sobbed for five minutes. When he stopped crying they asked him what was wrong, and he said, "I'm chosen, and I can't believe God chose me." He went on and said he believed God allowed him to live this long just to experience that day so he could know this truth. They said he's been a completely different person this week. It's as if somebody had lifted the weight of the world off his shoulders.

I got so carried away in that that I read that the first hour and I didn't read the last paragraph. They've asked me not to share this story from a pulpit. But I figured if I did it at 8:30, I might as well keep going at this point. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, I understand. And you know what? It's hard for me to honor that because this story so glorifies God there'd be no reason not to tell it except to rejoice in what He's done in these people's hearts. And He's done the same thing in your heart and mine.

Let the Bible Say What It Says

I have all sorts of friends who want to argue about this and they get all hung up on all these terms—Calvinism and limited atonement and total depravity and all this other stuff. I'm willing to say, and this is what I've tried to say in this series, that's fine with me. Let's just let the Bible say what the Bible says about this topic. In the places where it speaks, let it speak clearly and let us accept it as our final authority, even if we don't fully understand it or like it. Because that's what He says.

Here's what we've done over the years—we've condensed the doctrines of grace into one sentence with three words: God saves sinners. Next week we're going to pick up right there and go, "Okay. Now here's what's happened. We're dead. Now God's chosen us for salvation. Now what happens?" We'll pick up right there.

Ministry Opportunities

Can I remind you almost every week now? We hear all sorts of stories about life things, praises like this, hurts and pains. We want to be there to help you the best we can. One of the ways that I think we can do that is to have our staff here. We have asked our pastoral staff to be in the front of every service, and they are here strictly to minister to you, to pray with you. There may be something that requires more than that. They can't do a lot of counseling as it were, but they'd be happy to arrange a time to meet with you or point you in the direction of the right person. But they're here in the front of the service to pray with you. So please take advantage of that.

Would you please, let's pray together. Father, thank You for these amazing, wonderful truths. God, I pray that we would indeed become a display case for Your grace and mercy. Father, I confess all sorts of questions along the way, and I also can confess really a desire to try to answer them outside of the scripture. But we let the Bible say what it says.