In order for reason and emotion and will to function. As God wants them to function, they cannot be left to themselves. The only way we'll ever get an uncorrupted. view of God is to go to an uncorrupted source and what is that? It's the word of God.
Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. We're continuing John MacArthur's series called The Doctrines of Grace. In 10 messages, John is walking you through some crucial yet controversial aspects of salvation. And in today's lesson, he'll tackle a question that perhaps you've wondered about: how is it fair if God chooses to save some sinners and not others?
When respected teachers hold opposing viewpoints on this teaching, the doctrine of election, how do you know where to stand?
Well, step one is to see what God Himself says about the issue, and John explores this doctrine today and will help you see the amazing benefits that come from embracing it.
So now here's John MacArthur to continue his study, The Doctrines of Grace. We're going to return now to the uh I trust refreshment of the Word of God. We are talking about the doctrine of election, chosen by God. Who chose whom? And this is not without controversy, as you well know.
For many people, Rationally, it seems unfair. That God chooses who will be saved. For other people, it is emotionally hard to accept and endure that God would. Decide Who he would save. To other people, and maybe to the same people as the first two.
It seems like some kind of assault on free will. human choice which Many people are convinced as some kind of human right. And I understand those feelings. It is a hard doctrine. to accept.
All of us who have come to understand what the Bible teaches about the doctrine of election have had to deal with the rational arguments. That says this doesn't seem fair, this doesn't seem just, this doesn't seem equitable, this can't be the way it is. We've all had to deal with the emotional issues of. It's tragic, it's sad that God passes by some sinners. We've all had to deal with the fact that while we have volition and we have choice, ultimately it is not.
independent of God.
So, I understand how you feel. I understand. How you think? I understand all of those things because no one comes to a biblical understanding of the doctrine of sovereign election without working through those. issues.
But then again, What satisfies my reason, and what satisfies my emotion, and what satisfies my sense of freedom is not the determiner of truth. And so we have to come back to that point. I'm not God. And while things may not make sense to my reason, my reason is fallen. And while things might not make sense to my emotion, my emotion is fallen.
And while things might not seem to square up with my sense of freedom, my freedom is fallen too. Therefore, In order for reason and emotion and will to function As God wants them to function, they cannot be left to themselves. Because they're fallen. They must be brought under the authority of what? Scripture.
What is truly reasonable is not what seems reasonable to us. What is Truly Satisfying. May not be what is Satisfying to us, what is truly an expression of our will may not be what our fallen will most longs for. The only way we'll ever get an uncorrupted. View of God.
is to go to an uncorrupted source, and what is that? It's the word of God. And so, in every issue that relates to God, we go to scripture. Last time I gave you a long list of scripture texts. Because it's so very important to help you understand this.
The doctrine is not isolated. Let me give you a few more, okay? Let me have you turn to 1 Corinthians 1, and I can illustrate this for you. I think if you're dealing with someone who doesn't like. The doctrine of election.
If you're dealing with someone who doesn't like the doctrine of predestination. If you're dealing with someone who is uh what is known as Pelagian or Arminian from Arminius. Who denied this doctrine? If you're dealing with those people, here's a passage that really. stops them cold in their tracks.
Verse twenty-six. 1 Corinthians 1. For consider your calling, brethren. That there were not many wise according to the flesh. Not many mighty, not many noble.
Just take a look at the congregation, all right? You're sitting there in the church and corner and look around. Look around. See the ones who've been called effectually into salvation. How many of the world's wise are there?
How many of the world's mighty are there? How many of the nobles are there? How much royal blood is there in your church? Verse 27. But God has chosen the foolish of the world to shame the wise.
God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world, and the despised, God has chosen the things that are not, that he might nullify the things that are, in order that no man should what? Boast before God. I'm telling you what, folks. Arminians.
are up a creek without a paddle in this passage. This says God wanted to be glorified. God wanted to receive all the glory. No person who was saved could ever boast. About his own salvation.
And it served God's glory best. For him to choose. The foolish And the weak And the base and the despised and the nothings and the nobodies. If the weak And the foolish chose God This passage doesn't make any sense. If the weak and the foolish chose God, then who gets the credit?
The weak and the foolish.
So, how does this end human boasting? It turns the whole passage into nonsense. And verse 30, he says, But by his doing. His being God. You are in Christ Jesus.
You're in Christ Jesus because God did it.
So that verse 31 says, if you're going to boast, boast where? Ghost in the Lord. I mean, it's all over the Bible. This passage isn't about Man's choice? This hasn't anything to do with man's choice.
This is about God's choice. And if it's about man's choice, then how does it end human boasting? Turns the whole passage into utter nonsense.
Well, while I'm on the subject, go back to Romans 9. Romans 9.
Well, this is just obvious stuff. In the verses uh Verse uh Well, 8 through 13 talks about Jacob and Esau. And down in verse 13, it says, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Back in verse 11.
It says, though the twins were not yet born, Jacob and Esau. Hadn't done anything good or bad. In order that God's purpose, according to His choice, might stand. God chose Jacob not because of anything they had done, not because of any merit, not because of any good work. purely because of his own purpose.
Did I say anything about Jacob choosing God. And verse 14 seals it. Look at verse 14. What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?
May it never be. Do you understand the importance of that issue? Yeah, yeah. Jacob was choosing. And if people were choosing, And if anybody could choose, and if it was up to us, why then would you have to defend the justice of God?
Yeah. Why would you ever have to say, oh, there's no injustice with God? I mean, if it's us choosing him, then why is Paul worried that we might think God is unjust? If it's just our choice. If Paul is saying God just chooses those who choose Him.
That's not unjust. Nobody needs to defend God's justice. I mean, nobody would accuse God of being unjust if He just chooses whoever chooses Him. But Paul knows. That people will accuse God of injustice because it goes against the grain of our fallen reason when we hear that God makes the choice according to his own purpose.
And then down in verse 20. He says Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?
Well, why would anybody talk back to God? They wouldn't be talking back to God if God just chose whoever chose him. It's that there are people who are so offended by the fact that God chooses. That they answer back to God. And he says, You're like a thing molded, saying to the molder, Why did you make me like this?
Which makes the point. If God hadn't been the one who made you what you are, then you wouldn't be answering back to him about that. The whole argument here. would be utter nonsense. if it weren't crystal clear that this is a divine choice.
And it does raise the question of God's justice. And it does raise the question. of the rights of the pot. in the hands of the potter. If it is a human choice, there's no need to object.
If it's a human choice and God just chooses whoever chooses him, there's no need to defend divine justice. There's no need to defend God's sovereign authority to do whatever He wants with whoever. You see, if you deny sovereign choice, if you deny the doctrine of election, you turn all these texts either into nonsense or outright deception.
Now in Romans 11 There is a doxology that puts it where it should be. Verse 33, great doxology. And this is where you just have to rest, folks. Oh, the depth. Of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
Do you understand that you can't plumb the depths of God's knowledge and wisdom? Do you understand that? Don't overestimate yourself. What might not seem reasonable to you, might not seem emotionally satisfactory to you, might not seem fair to human will and freedom. Do you just understand that you can't even begin to challenge with your mind the depths of wisdom and knowledge that belongs to God?
And do you not know how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways? Don't ever put yourself in a position to be questioning God. Verse 34, for who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became his counselor? I mean, that is outrageous. You're going to tell God what he can or cannot do, and what to you seems reasonable, emotionally satisfying, and fair to the human will?
Have you forgotten verse 36 that from him and through him and to him are all things? To him be the glory for ever. Amen.
Now, even some of you who are a little bit, you're a little bit squeamish about this doctrine still. I understand that. I really do. I mean, it takes time to work this through, and when we get done, you'll. You'll see it differently.
But you know, even you that are I'm having a little tough time with this. Do you ever congratulate yourself on your salvation? Have you ever done that? You've ever just looked up to heaven and said, God, You must be really proud of me. The choices I made.
The way I decided to turn from sin and and believe the gospel. I mean, th that thought ever entered your mind? Have you ever thought, you know, look at all these stupid people around me. Who reject the gospel, I'm smart enough to see it for what it is. I buy the whole thing.
Have you ever thought, look at all of the riffraff. I tell you, I found some holy longings and I pursued the gospel. You don't think like that. And what do you say to someone that you love that's outside of Christ? Do you say, come on, man, get smart.
Come on, reach down deep, man. Use your faculties. You don't talk like that. What do you do when you want to see somebody saved? What do you do?
You pray. Why? Oh, you're hoping God will choose them if they choose him? And when anybody is saved, who do you think? You see, you're all closet Calvinists.
You understand you were drowning and he saved you? You were dead and he gave you life. You were blind and He gave you sight. You were deaf and He gave you hearing. You understand that?
That's why Titus 3:5 says, He saved us. It was by his power. By his will. according to his purpose. We came because It isn't apart from our will, he moved our will.
He chose you. He saved you, but not apart from the Holy Spirit activating all those. true spiritual responses. Penitence, humility, love. Hunger for righteousness.
No, you chose him because he chose you. Or to put it in the words of John, we love him. Because he First loved. Uh It is inescapable. In the Word of God.
Absolutely. Inescapable. It doesn't violate your personal freedom. It activates your freedom. And when we want somebody to come to the Lord, we pray, we pray, we pray, we pray that the Holy Spirit would turn their hearts to Christ, that the hurricane of the Holy Spirit would Come through their soul.
We pray that the Spirit would make them willing to repent and willing to believe. Never, when we pray that, do we think we're violating their will.
Well, you wouldn't pray like this, Lord. It's got to be their deal. It's got to be their deal. So don't you be messing around with them. It's got to be their deal.
They got to do it from their own heart. That's absolutely absurd. You know that no sinner is going to do that. Unless the spirit moves.
So, the fact that God chose us is all over the Bible. It isn't that he chose us because he knew we'd choose him, because if he hadn't chosen us, we'd never have chosen him. I told you when we talked about the doctrine of perseverance or preservation or eternal security, if I could lose my salvation, I'd lose it.
Well, I'll tell you this, if I could lose my salvation, I'd lose it 10 times a day. Every day. I can't save myself or keep myself saved. God chose me. He awakened my heart.
In my will. He activated them all. That I might embrace him.
Some say God can't choose because he doesn't know.
Okay, really important doctrine floating around out there.
Well, God can't choose. God doesn't know. The reason God doesn't know is there's nothing to know because nothing's happened. You can't know what hasn't happened, they say. That's their opinion.
They have therefore created other than the true and living God. But anyway, for the sake of argument, he can't know what hasn't happened, since what hasn't happened hasn't happened. It doesn't exist, so how could you know it? That's their little argument. It's called open theism.
God is open like everybody else. He needs to read the morning paper just like everybody else to find out what's going on.
So they say, God, their way out of this emotional trauma that the doctrine of election produces in them is to say he can't choose anybody because he doesn't know what they're going to do until they do it.
So God doesn't know the future. That's how they get God off the hook.
Well, how is it that Isaiah 46:10 says he knows the end from the beginning? What does that mean? Or how is it that Isaiah 41, 21 and 22, Isaiah 44, 7 and 8 say his knowledge of the future is what distinguishes him from false gods? Or, how is it that through the Bible he foretells events centuries before they ever happen? How is it, for example, in Isaiah 44, 28, that he names Cyrus?
As the ruler who will build up Jerusalem, yet the name of Cyrus and even his existence as a human being. Depended on an unimaginably long and complex series of human decisions separating the prophecy from its fulfillment. How did God know that?
Now, these open theists say, well, you know, God's really sharp. He's really good at analyzing trends. And he's good at sort of predicting with accuracy what might happen because he kind of gets the flow. It's absurd. This doesn't work.
You're talking about prophetic events that are the end of. Millions. of human choices. Ridiculous. But I'll tell you what makes the whole thing most ridiculous.
If God doesn't know the future, are you ready for this? If God doesn't know the future... He doesn't know Jesus is going to die. That's a problem. This is where the whole openness thing goes down the proverbial drain.
Acts 2.23 says, Jesus was handed over to his enemies according to The definite plan, determined plan, and foreknowledge of God. Did God plan Jesus' arrest? Did God plan Jesus? Crucifixion, did God plan that? in detail They did to him, according to Acts 4:28, what God's hand and plan had predestined to take place.
That's what it says in Acts 4:28. Come on, you don't believe that God was just reacting to what was happening to Jesus. As it happened. I think he was a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, don't you? It's what the Bible says.
Now, if God does not, listen to me, if God does not. exercise power, control over human beings and their actions And if God does not control those actions or work those actions into the fulfillment of his plan, and if God doesn't even have a plan because he doesn't know what's going to happen, Then how did he know? Jesus would end up on a cross. If God doesn't know the future, then God doesn't know that His Son is going to die for your sins. That's ridiculous.
He not only knows the future, he ordains the future. And the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, one writer puts it this way: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the hinge pin of history. And the indispensable condition of our salvation was most certainly not left up to the vagaries of human decision. It was ordained from the foundation of the earth, and it is impossible that it might not have occurred. The Bible nowhere suggests or even permits the interpretation that Judas, Caiaphas, Pilate, and the soldiers were unwilling pawns forced by God into the commission of a horrible crime.
They acted freely in accordance with their own motives and purposes, yet they did exactly what God's hand and plan had predestined would happen. It's a great statement. God ordains it all. He knows the future because he's written it. All the choices are his.
Certainly. The choice. of salvation. For lost, dead, Blind. Sinners.
And again, I say what John said: we love him. Because say it. He first loved us. Pray with me. Mm-hmm.
Father, what a joy it is to Celebrate the glories of this immense doctrine. It's not just about you sovereignly determining our salvation, it's about you being sovereign and determining everything. This is just one component. But how rich it is to understand this. You do what you do for your glory.
We don't question you. We would never. Ever. Have a thought that you might be unjust or unloving. But you are God.
And we cannot plumb your knowledge. We can't go as deep as your wisdom. Your ways are past finding out. They are unsearchable. And we're content to leave your decisions with you for your own glory.
What we do know That even with this wondrous doctrine of sovereign. election. You also have said, Whosoever will may come. And him that comes to me, I'll... Not Turn away.
We don't understand the secret decree. We don't understand history. Until it unfolds. We don't have that ability. But we do know.
that the gospel has come to us. and that we have been told to believe. And for some of us, the Spirit of God is moving in our hearts. And we need to be obedient and respond in faith. knowing that you will hear and you will save all who come to you.
We thank you for that promise. We don't need to worry about. The things we can understand. We just need to respond. to the gospel.
And if we don't... As mysterious as it is, your word says It's our fault. It's our responsibility. It's our guilt. It's our rejection.
It's our unbelief. that will doom us. How that fits with your Sovereign will and glory is for us perhaps in eternity to understand, but for now. to cry out to you for mercy. and salvation while we can.
We thank you, Lord, for the grace that has come to us in Christ and shall come to others. Until all the church is redeemed and we enter your presence forever. We look forward to that with joy in Christ's name. Thank you. It's comforting, isn't it, to know that God loved you before the foundation of the world.
That's just one encouraging truth about salvation that John MacArthur is unpacking here on Grace to You. Our current study is titled The Doctrines of Grace.
Well, friend, subjects like election are complex, to say the least. You won't have all your questions answered in just one sermon.
So to dig even deeper into these important and comforting truths, Pick up a copy of the latest book from John MacArthur called The Doctrines of Grace. Get in touch and order John's book on the doctrines of grace today. You can order by phone when you call 80055GRACE or visit our website gty.org. The Doctrines of Grace costs twenty dollars and shipping is free. Again, to order, call our customer service team during regular business hours.
That's Monday through Friday, 7.30 to 4 o'clock p.m. Pacific time, at 855 GRACE, Or you can shop online anytime at gty.org. And when you get in touch, be sure to let us know how John's teaching is encouraging you spiritually. Your comments are more important than you might think. And thanks for letting us know you're listening, whether it's on your local radio station, online, through the Grace2U app, or a combination of ways.
Let us know when you write to letters at gty.org. That's letters at gty. Or you can send a physical letter to Grace2U. Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412.
Now, for the entire Grace DU staff, I'm Phil Johnson with a question: If salvation is predestined by God, Why bother sharing the gospel? For the answer, join us tomorrow as we continue John MacArthur's study called The Doctrines of Grace with another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. Grace to you.
