Today I would like to talk about how God saves through electing a people for Himself, because one of the difficulties or the problems that we have when we come to the Bible and Bible reading is that we find conflicting verses. We find verses that seem to contradict as we look at them. We read one verse and it says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” or “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” and yet we have other information in the Bible. We have information, first of all, that says that we are “dead in trespasses and sins,” as we read in Ephesians 2:1. Genesis tells us, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” They did not die physically; they died spiritually. Mankind, each one of us, died spiritually at that point.
We also have Scripture that points out, “There is none that seeketh after God,” such as in Romans 3. Let us go there and I will just read this in Romans 3 beginning in verse 9. We read in Romans 3:9-11:
What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
This is talking about everyone, Jew and Gentile; so there are no exceptions. It is not just the Jews who are in view. It is not just the Gentiles, which would be the rest of the people of the world. This is all-inclusive.
It continues:
As it is written, There is none righteous…
This is telling us that there are no righteous Jews and that there are no righteous Gentiles, as it continues:
…no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
We have statements like this that are plenteous in the Bible, and then we have statements that seem to encourage us to “believe on the Lord,” “call upon his name,” “seek the LORD,” etc. Seemingly, on the surface, as we look at them, we can see how they contradict.
So what people do is they stick with their chosen verses. For example, they stick with Romans 10. Let us just read this real quick. We read in Romans 10:13:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Then they say, “There is my verse.” We then show them Romans 3:10-11, which says:
…There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Yet they still say, “Romans 10:13 is my verse.” We then instruct them that the Bible tells us that we are “dead in trespasses and sins” and that “there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee,” and so forth. But they insist, “Romans 10:13 is my verse.” People find comfort in saying, “The Bible said it, I read it, and it is so.”
The problem is that we can never come to a conclusion in the Bible over a doctrine and say, “This is what God is teaching,” as long as there is something else out there that is contradicting it, as long as there is something that does not fit, as long as there is something that does not harmonize and there is no agreement. There has to be a fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle and they have to slide neatly into place so that everything comes to a right understanding. Until we do this, we cannot say that we have found truth. Until then, we cannot say that we have a Biblical doctrine.
The Bible is not an easy Book. It is not an easy Book. It is a very difficult Book to understand, and the problem is that many people look at the Bible as though it is very easy to read and understand. They believe that all we need to do is read it; if it says it, that is it.
Turn to 2 Peter 3. It says in 2 Peter 3:15-16:
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles…
Paul wrote many of the Epistles of the New Testament. It continues:
…speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood…
They are hard to understand. God says it right here. It is not easy to understand how these conflicting verses fit into place. We have to diligently pull out the concordance, we have to diligently get our pen and paper, and we have to diligently write them down, pray for wisdom, and compare Scripture with Scripture to see how God has written the Bible and what He is teaching us.
2 Peter 3:16 continues:
…in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
When God speaks here of the “unlearned,” He is not talking about those who do not have a college degree or those who are not a Doctor of Divinity. He is talking about those who are unlearned in the things of God. He is talking about those who are unlearned spiritually. They have no knowledge, spiritually, because they have not been born again. They are not saved.
So when an unsaved mind, a carnal mind, a natural mind comes to the Bible, he wrests with the Scriptures. He makes statements like, “Romans 10:13 says to call upon the name of the Lord and I will be saved, and that is good enough for me. The Bible said it. I believe it. This is the case.”
Well, they are going to perish. They are going to perish if they believe this kind of statement. They are wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction because Romans 10:13 does not fit and harmonize with many other verses as it stands. But we have to fit things together. We have to take the time to do this, because it is of extreme importance that we learn how God has written these things.
So, today, we are going to look at four teachings of those who would profess free will, four verses that they go to, and we are going to try to fit them together. We are going to try to harmonize them and see how they fit with all of the other information in the Bible.
For the first verse, let us go back to Romans 10. The first verse that I would like to look at is in verse 13 that I have already read. We read again in Romans 10:13:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
This is a Biblical principle. It is a Biblical principle. If you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved. God is not lying. He is telling us the truth.
Now let us go somewhere else. Let us go to Isaiah 64:7 where it says:
And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee…
So God says to the world, to each person, “Call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved.” Who responds? None respond, just as Romans 3 tells us, “None seek after God,” and here in Isaiah 64:7, “None call upon His name.” None, no one is going to stir himself up.
However, this is the goal of much preaching today. Their desire is to stir people up within themselves so that they will walk down that aisle and come forward as they ask, “Who would like to be saved today? Would you like to become a Christian today? Would you like to have your sins forgiven? Would you like to have assurance and know that you are going to go to Heaven? Would this not be nice to know this day, right now, this moment? You know that you are a sinner. You know that there is a penalty to pay. God says to call upon His name and you will be saved”; and so the preaching is geared and directed to stir up the emotions of man so that they will respond.
Well, people can respond physically to this. Yes, they can get up out of their chairs and they can raise their hands to let them know that they want to be dipped in water and baptized. They can come forward. They can do all of these things. They can even speak words in accepting Christ, which we will look at later; but, spiritually, they are dead. Spiritually, the sinner is “dead in sins.”
Just because we move physically in one direction, this does not mean that anything happened spiritually. Just because we raise our hands to indicate that we want to become saved and that we want to accept Christ does not mean that our soul has risen up. Our soul is still dead in sin. God says, “Alright, the command goes out to call upon my name, but here is the response. The response is that none call upon my name of themselves.” Then how can anyone become saved?
Let us go to Psalm 80 and read the last couple of verses there. This is really an excellent Psalm that is good for us to look into. In Psalm 80:18, it says:
So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
Do you see the order of events? “Quicken us!” “Quicken” is an Old English word that means, “make me alive.” “Make me alive! Give me a new heart and a new spirit! Quicken me and then I will call upon your name.” This is the order of events. God must first save us.
If we find that we are calling out to God, “O God, save me! O God, have mercy upon me!” and it is earnest, if there is a moving in our heart and we are being drawn to the Word of God and drawn to the Bible, this did not begin with us. We did not stir ourselves up. We did not get so down emotionally and so depressed and so beaten that we finally reached our limit to the point where we would now agree to do things God’s way. This did not come from us or originate within us.
If this is true, if this is something that is truly happening in our heart, then God did it. He quickened us and we are now beginning to call upon His name. We are now beginning to go forth, like Lazarus from the tomb. First, Jesus quickened him, did He not? Did Jesus not quicken Lazarus in the tomb and then command, “Lazarus, come forth”? God gave Lazarus life. He quickened him and then Lazarus came towards Jesus. This is always the order of events, always. There is no getting around this as we turn to the Bible.
So the first verse that many go to is Romans 10:13; and as we look at a couple of other verses, we see how this verse fits in. We see how it can find agreement with the rest of the Bible. Therefore, this verse will never fit in with the idea of free will; but it does harmonize when we see that none can call upon God except after salvation.
The second verse is found in Isaiah 55. If you can find the time to look at Isaiah 55, these are very beautiful verses. In Isaiah 55:6, it says:
Seek ye JEHOVAH while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
This is a lovely verse. This really is a lovely verse:
Seek ye JEHOVAH…
But what did we read a little earlier in Romans 3? You see, here is the red flag for a true child of God. Here is the red flag for a believer. Some people come to Bible and read:
Seek ye JEHOVAH while he may be found, call ye upon him…
We just looked at calling upon God. It continues:
…call ye upon him while he is near:
So this is going to be their presentation. They are not going to compare this with anything else, but what about Romans 3? Many in the congregation will be happy and content and pleased with a message that just points out that we are to seek God and yet leaves out verses like Romans 3 that says, “There is none that seeketh after God.”
Go also to Psalm 14:2-3. It says:
JEHOVAH looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
So the answer is “none.” None. God looks down upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand and seek Him, and none do. None seek after God.
Well, these are troublesome verses because we have conflicting statements. God commands us to seek Him, and yet God says that none seek Him. So what are we to do? How are we to find agreement?
There is a Biblical principle that we find in Matthew 7:8. It says:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
This is the principle: seek God and live. Whoever seeks, finds. Whoever seeks God will find Him. This is a true principle of the Bible, but none seek Him.
Let us go back to Deuteronomy 4 and we will see how God defines the word “seek.” He defines His own terms. The Bible is its own dictionary and God is going to qualify what He means by seeking after Him in Deuteronomy 4:29 where it says:
But if from thence thou shalt seek JEHOVAH thy God, thou shalt find him…
So this is the same principle. Seek the Lord and you will find Him, but there is a condition. It continues:
…if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Okay. Seek the Lord and live, but seek Him half-heartedly and die. Seek Him 99.9% with your heart and die. Seek Him with one sinful thought and die. Seek Him with all of your heart and with all of your mind and you will find Him.
It is no wonder that God says that none seek Him. None seek Him because who can seek God with all of their heart and with all of their mind? No one can. Only the Lord Jesus was perfect. Only He lived a sinless life.
You see, God just makes this statement in Isaiah 55, and yet we have to check other places in the Bible. We have to read other Scriptures that define His own terms. Then we realize that we cannot do this. We cannot do this. We are never going to get saved if we have to do the seeking, if we have to do the calling. We just cannot do it.
So Isaiah 55 was the second verse that many who are free will look to. Now what about receiving Christ? This is another thing that we hear pretty frequently. Some admit that God did all of the work, that Jesus did all of the work, except we have to receive the gift of salvation. They believe that Jesus paid the penalty, and so Jesus has died for us. He has paid for our sins, but now it is up to us to reach out and to accept this gift and to receive Him to ourselves. They might go to John 1:12 where it says:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
We can see that this seems to say that we are to receive Christ, that we are to receive this gift, and then we will become saved. But even to receive something, man cannot do. Man cannot do this. We cannot even put out our hands. If we are dead, we cannot do anything. We are dead and there is no activity of any kind.
In John 3:27, it says:
John answered and said, A man can receive nothing…
This says “nothing.” It continues:
…except it be given him from heaven.
So we cannot receive even the gift of eternal life if we are to take any action of our own. If we are to exercise our own will, we can receive nothing. It must be given us. Even the reception of the gift of eternal life must be given us.
So, once again, all of the glory goes to God. God gets all of the glory in the matter of salvation. He does all of the work. He does all of the saving, and so John 1:12 does not teach at all that man is to reach out and do the work in accepting Christ.
If fact, if we go back to John 1 and read the next verse, it says in John 1:13 in relation to salvation:
Which were born…
This is not talking about physical birth but spiritual birth. It continues:
…not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man…
If there is any verse in the Bible that teaches that we are not born by our own free will, this would be it. This would be it. There is no way that we can say that we must exercise our will when this verse says that we are not born by the “will of the flesh” and that we are not born by the “will of man.”
So whose will is it? How are we born again? It continues on to tell us:
…but of God.
It is “but of God.” It is God’s will. As Robert said in the earlier class, it is God who predestinated us. He elected us. He chose us. He did all of the action. He did all of the work. We, well, we are a stinking, rotting corpse that was acted upon. We are the one who was raised to life if we are saved. We are the one who comes forward after we become saved, but this is the only part that we play. The only role we have is to experience the blessing of God and the mercy of God and the grace of God. In no way do we play any other role.
Let us move on and look at a fourth teaching and some of the verses that seem to teach this. This one is a little bit more difficult to harmonize, but we know that this will harmonize with everything else that the Bible says. Let us go to 1 John 4:2-3 and read this:
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
This is a real nice verse, is it not? All that you have to do to be of God is to confess that Jesus has come in the flesh. Just confess that He has come in the flesh.
Let us go even one further than this. Go back to Romans 10. We read in Romans 10:9-10:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Now this is pretty simple. This is pretty plain. This is clear. What do you have to do? You have to open your mouth and confess that Jesus is God, that Jesus is Lord, and then you are saved.
We can see where many get the idea, “Accept the Lord Jesus Christ.” Just say this. This is all that you have to do. Just say the words, “I accept You, Lord. I accept You. You are Lord of my life,” and now you are saved; the Bible says so. The Bible says this. It says it right here.
But, you see, believers read these verses and we know that they are true, but there are other things that kind of disturb us about this whole idea. We know that man is dead in sin. We know also that men are capable of speaking things and saying words with their mouths when their hearts are far from God. The Bible also points this out.
For instance, go to Matthew 15:7-8:
Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
So we can see the problem. Believers read verses like this and they hesitate. They hesitate to accept this kind of idea too quickly that says that all you have to do is confess with your mouth; because all kinds of people say things with their mouths, but what is going on in their hearts?
Look also at Titus 1:16:
They profess…
This is the same word as “confess” that is in Romans 10:9-10. Titus 1:16 continues:
They [confess] that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
But they confessed, though. They confessed. It is the identical Greek word from Romans 10:9-10, and yet why are they not saved? They confessed with their mouth. Why will the multitude on that day not be saved who say to Jesus, “Lord, Lord! Did we not do many things in Thy name”? Did they not confess Christ? Did they not call themselves “Christian”?
How many of them had actually walked down an aisle who will be found on that day to be standing there with their sins naked and open before God being judged for the things that they have done in their bodies? Many of these are going to be shocked because they thought that they had “confessed” Jesus. They thought that they had fulfilled the requirement of Romans 10 and that if they confessed Him with their mouths, they would be saved.
But no; we have to harmonize these Scriptures. We have to get them to fit together. We have to dig deeper to see what God is saying when He says that we must confess with our mouths.
Let us go to Matthew 12 where I think that we will begin to get an idea. We read in Matthew 12:34-35:
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
So God is connecting the heart to what comes out of the mouth. We are to confess with our mouths, but our mouths should be displaying the abundance of salvation that is going on in our hearts; that is, if God has saved us, we have a new heart and a new spirit and we are going to speak with a new tongue, insofar as we will be speaking the words of the Kingdom of God and we will be speaking things that are faithful and true that the Bible declares. The profession of our mouths will match the condition of our hearts.
In other words, let us go back to Romans 10. It actually said this right there in Romans 10:9:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart…
Do you see the connection? It is not just about what someone is saying, but it is that which is going on in someone’s heart. We believe in our heart, but who is going to believe from their heart when our hearts are “desperately wicked” and “deceitful above all things,” when we have a heart of stone, when all manner of evil flows forth from our heart and when our hearts are dead in sin? Who is going to believe of themselves? Not one; “no, not one.”
So it is after God saves someone, it is after He gives them a new heart that this confession can then be made. We can then speak the words that match our heart condition and we can see that salvation has entered into our lives. This is the only way that we can understand this.
Let us also turn to 1 Corinthians 12:3:
Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
This is a profession that God hears. When someone is saved, they have the Holy Spirit dwelling within their heart. Then they can speak words that are acceptable to God. Then they can make a confession that is pleasing to God and that reveals that they are a child of God, but the Holy Spirit must be involved. In order for us to truly confess the Lord Jesus Christ, He has to be dwelling within our hearts.
If we do not have the Spirit of God, we are “none of his.” We are in our sins, and so we can say things with our mouths. We can say, “I believe You, Lord. I accept You,” or whatever, and yet this does not mean anything. This does not mean anything because our hearts are far from Him and these words will not save us.
We know that salvation is of the Lord. We know that God does all the work in saving. God is the One who must enter into our lives through His Word and bring us a new heart and a new spirit.
So these Scriptures that seem to teach that we can do something do not harmonize with the Bible. It is only when we compare them with other Scriptures that we can see how they fit together and how the teaching of the Bible is in perfect harmony and agreement, which is that God is always the One who saves and that man can never do anything; we can never do anything.
We can cry out to God for mercy. We can beseech the Lord for mercy, but even this is not going to get us saved. We can also read the Bible. We know that if God is going to save anyone, He is going to save them through His Word. But we cannot take any steps.
There is no formula for salvation. It is entirely in God’s hands, and so we go to God with this knowledge, possessing this knowledge. Then the “fear of the Lord” can begin at this point because there is nothing that we can do; salvation is in His hands.
So if God is dealing with us, if He is drawing us to Himself, someone begins to fear. At this point, there is just waiting on God. We wait on the Lord for Him to work, for Him to take action in order to save us.
Let us stop here.