Transcript

Grab your Bibles and go to Luke 14. Would you do that? Luke 14. We are in a series entitled “The Unbreakable Eight Strand Cable of Sovereign Grace.” There are eight grand strands that are woven together and they dovetail together. You really can’t separate them and that’s why I’m really not real fond of series of messages like I’m doing today. If you’re a visitor here today, this is unusual. We are most of the time verse by verse, chapter by chapter, expositional preaching through books of the Bible, but just for this topic I wanted to bear in on the topic of sovereign grace, but be careful that you take each session and think it stands alone, they just can’t. In the Scriptures, they intermingle and overlap and dovetail and lock together and that’s why I think that cable illustrates it so vividly.

Now the first strand that we talked about was the all-encompassing purpose of God to manifest his own glory. That’s the center strand. That’s what everything else is built upon that God has an all-encompassing passion to manifest his own glory to show forth his wisdom, his power and his beauty to all the universe, and thank God he’s got that passion because that’s how we get in on being converted.

Then the second strand was God’s invincible love for his children; that in the heart of God there is a love that is radically in contrast to any love you and I can comprehend or experience down here. It’s God love. It’s so unique that the New Testament writers invented a word, “agape,” for this kind of love because it’s not like any love man knows. In the heart of God there is this capacity to love that we are just learning and experiencing as his children and will continue to learn and experience the dynamics and the depths of it for all eternity.

The third strand was the irreparable fallen condition of man. Since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, man is in a fallen corrupted position or standing before God. Every part of man’s being is irreparably corrupted. He cannot fix, repair, restore, turn over a new leaf, there is nothing he can do to fix himself.

Strand 4, God’s bold choice to grant favor toward men. Here God is in infinite holiness, perfect righteousness, looking on this fully and totally corrupted fallen human race and yet in that position, God makes a bold choice to cast divine favor toward men and he has cast favor toward all mankind, and we studied in the Scriptures how he has cast unique and special particular favor for his children called the elect.

The last time, we looked at the fifth strand, a perfect redemption. There had to be a price paid, there had to be a ransom, if you will, paid to purchase us from the household of Satan and the corruption and condemnation of sin. We couldn’t pay it. It was a debt we could not pay but Jesus went to the cross and wrought out for his children not just a good, certainly not just a potential but a perfect redemption for us. The price has been paid.

Now we come to the sixth strand, that’s today’s message and I’ve entitled it “The Unfailing Call to Faith.” The unfailing call to faith. Now our forefathers called it irresistible grace. God did all of this work but there is a time when it has to be applied to individuals and that’s when God, the initiator, calls us to faith in Jesus Christ.

Let’s look at that today. I’ll be honest, I have no idea whether this is going to take one session or two. Years ago I knew how to write sermons and knew how long they were. I don’t know that anymore. I’ve lost the capacity to know how long it’s going to take. Sometimes you listen faster and that helps us.

Luke 14, Jesus is giving a parable beginning in verse 16 and here’s what he says as he’s illustrating two different groups of people and their relation to being invited to this big dinner. Verse 16, Luke 14,

16 But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; 17 and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’

Now pause right there for a moment. Two times he uses the word “invite.” This man gave a great dinner, it’s a great formal dinner. I mean, you have to be prepared for a dinner like this, especially in the ancient world. You had to come dressed in the right clothing. You didn’t just come to dinner. You’d get prepared, you had to come, you had to present yourself appropriately. And he says twice here “invite.” A great many people invited. A great many people invited.

All right, here’s what happened, verse 18,

18 “But they all alike [how many?] they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ 19 Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ 20 Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ 21 And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ Now stop there for just a moment. These are the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. These are people who are of their own means could likely not get to the supper or afford the attire to be properly presented at the supper. But he didn’t say go and invite them in, he says go bring them in. Are you with me, church? The first group invite, invite, but now this second group who from every human observation would not qualify or be capable to make it to the dinner, he said when you go out there and you talk to these guys, bring them here. The word “bring” can actually have the idea of pick up and carry.

Verse 22,

22 And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges [just go out everywhere now], and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.'”

Here’s his point, “I’m going to have a full room full of guests at my dinner. If you’ve got to carry them or you’ve got to convince them and compel them, bring them in here to the dinner.” So we have a very different contrast here. The first group is all generally speaking are invited, but then the second group, a very specifically and particularly caused to get there. Bring them in. Compel them to come versus invite them.

Now from time immemorial, this parable has been interpreted as the Jews were the invited and they rejected it so God turned and the Gentiles are now invited in. I believe that’s true but I believe that’s not all that the parable is teaching. The parable is teaching that the revelation of God primarily to Israel was there, they knew the truth, they had the Old Testament writings and the prophets, and the typology of the temple and everything else that pointed to Jesus, they were invited by all of that revelation and they didn’t respond but now I’m going to go out and I’m going to find people whom I will bring in to my dinner. Two groups. One group is invited and what does the text say here? None of them would come. The next group wasn’t necessarily invited, they were to be brought in and compelled. Do you know why? Because this great man was not going to have a dinner without the appropriate number of guests present. That’s a picture of salvation, that God has determined he’s going to have his children at his supper.

Now, there is one imperative condition that practically all of Christendom would agree is essential for salvation, and of course that is faith. Faith. The Bible says if you’re going to come to God, you come by faith. The Bible says if you’re going to please God, you please God by faith. The Bible says if you’re going to receive blessings from God, you receive those blessings in faith. When God called Abram from Ur of the Chaldees to start his nation, Israel, he told Abraham he had to believe. He required faith. The last call we see in the book of Revelation is a call to faith. The judges of the Old Testament work wonders through faith. The apostles as recorded in the New Testament marched onward against fierce persecution in faith. All the promises of God are contingent upon faith. Glorious revelations came to men as recorded in Scripture, godly men, who would receive those revelations by faith. The Psalms are filled as the psalmist speaks of the glories and the wonders and the promises of faith. And Jesus himself made a demand of all the world, “Place your faith in me.”

Now two aspects to faith I want to talk about. True saving faith must have an intellectual or a historical knowledge of the truth. You must know enough about Christ, there must be a knowledge that he lived, he was perfect, he died on the cross to pay for my sin, he rose again from the grave, and I know those facts and I embrace those. That’s part of saving faith but just embracing the historical facts, intellectually giving assent is not true conversion. You need that, that’s essential, but added to that there must be a heart trust. An intellectual grasp at least of some of the truths about Christ, and then a heart personal trust. We don’t just trust in abstract story or abstract cold doctrine, we trust a person, the man, the God-man Christ Jesus. A personal heart embrace and trust. Some of you sitting here this morning, you’ve been as genuine as you know how to be and you are conscientious about your devotion to the things of the Lord and your religion, but so far in your pilgrimage, you haven’t journeyed past embracing a system or a teaching; you haven’t crossed over to say, “But Christ I look to. Christ I treasure. Christ I trust. Christ, personally him, I rely on for my salvation.”

Now continuing in our introduction, let me remind you that the entire Godhead is active and involved in rendering your salvation. The entire Godhead is involved in seeing that you get to heaven if you are one of his. The Father, he authored the plan of salvation. He elected those who would be saved. That’s what the Father did. The Son, he executed, he procured, he redeemed us primarily and centrally his work on the cross. Now we come to what we’re going to look at a lot today, the Spirit. The Father authored and elected those to be saved. The Son went to earth, went to the cross and procured or sealed, settled their redemption. Then the Spirit of God applies to individual lives the effects of that salvation. Salvation authored. Salvation procured. Then the Spirit of salvation applied.

Now folks, this is basic soteriology that goes back many many centuries in Protestant, evangelical and Baptist understanding. There is a problem, though, the heart of man is irreparably fallen and he is corrupt, and in that fallen corruption, his natural inclination and continual and unwavering inclination is to resist God, to resist God’s will, and to resist God’s purposes. Now pause just a moment. Man in his fallen corrupt position will gladly put on religion. He will gladly become a good evangelical or a good Baptist. He will gladly jump through the hoops, dot the i’s and cross the t’s of whatever you tell him he can do. That just makes him feel good but that’s not salvation. He can do all of those things and still resist treasuring and trusting God’s Son Jesus Christ from his heart.

The Spirit is sovereign. Can I let you contemplate on that for a moment? The Spirit is not a force you dictate to. The Spirit is not some cosmic higher power you can manipulate if you chant the right mantra. The Spirit is not some entity that you can control if you walk to the front of a Baptist church and find the magic spot. He is the sovereign third person of the Godhead as very much God as God the Father is God, and as very much God as God the Son is God. He’s God the Holy Spirit which means he is sovereign. He does what he wants, how he wants, the way he wants, and he has no influence upon him that coerces him or causes him to do anything or thwarts his purposes in any way. The sovereign Holy Spirit produces a miracle in the heart of some, birthing new life within them, and when he births this new life within them, he gives them a new heart, and as a result of this sovereign work of the Spirit in the heart of God’s children, they are changed, they are inwardly changed, and because of that inward change, they believe the Gospel evidenced by the fact that they start becoming repenters about sin and everything that dishonors and displeases God as they understand it, they become repenters about sin and they become faithers in Jesus Christ. Now at the beginning you don’t understand a lot about it, you just know sin is bad and Jesus saves me, and then as you grow, your repentance grows and your faith grows. But how does your faith grow? Your faith grows not by studying faith, your faith grows by studying him. He is the object and the procurer and the gasoline you throw on your faith.

Now, I want you to turn over to the book of Acts. Would you turn there? Acts 7, now look at verse 51. Turn to Acts 7, look at verse 51 as the writer here gives us a vivid description of what all men are like naturally speaking before God. Acts 7:51, now look, you’ve got to think. Don’t get in the doldrums. You think and work at understanding by the Spirit’s aid what God wants you to see. “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” Now notice that you are stiff-necked, uncircumcised, in other words, you’re not right in your heart, uncircumcised in your heart and ears, and you are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just like your fathers did.

Verse 52, “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.” Now the Jews were more guilty than most because they knew these truths. They should have known who Christ was but the preacher here says, “But look what you do, you always push aside God’s Spirit.” In other words, left to yourselves, you will never find God and never find salvation.

But now let’s contrast that to Acts 9. Go over to Acts 9 and look at verse 1. Here’s a vile human being, here’s a rebel, here’s a resistor of God and God’s truth. Verse 1, chapter 9, “Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and,” he decided to believe on Jesus. No, that’s not in the text. That’s not there. Forget that phrase. “He was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him,” God initiated this, verse 4, “and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?'” How do you think he knew this was the Lord? The Spirit showed him that, and if you are going somewhere and God strikes you down with a bright light and you’re laying on the ground looking up at heaven, the best thing to do is say, “What do you want, Lord?” Well, that’s what happened. God took the initiative, brought Paul to his senses or Saul to his senses, then verse 6, “but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” “You don’t belong to yourself anymore, I just made you mine,” God said, “The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.” So here we have Saul of Tarsus radically being initiated upon by the Spirit of God, struck to the ground, and he becomes an immediate faither in Jesus Christ.

Now the Baptist Faith and Message is a confession of faith, a statement of faith that Southern Baptists put together in 1925 that very very closely was drawn from the 1833 New Hampshire Confession that some of the earliest Baptists in America put together. Now our confession of faith here at Grace Life is primarily the New Hampshire Confession, not that the later Baptist’s Faith and Message is not good. It’s good, it’s just that the New Hampshire is a little more thorough and I like thoroughness, okay? But our Southern Baptist forefathers got together, esteemed men that were good men and we all respect, and they wrote out from the New Hampshire Confession, that was written 100 years before their time, and they wrote out in 1925 what became known as the Baptist Faith and Message, and now this Baptist Faith and Message has been reaffirmed at least three times with slight revisions over the last 25 or so years. Now in latter years, an addendum was put on it defining marriage and God’s intention for sexuality, which I thought was a wonderful and good thing, and we put that same type of addendum on our statement of faith. As the world changes, sometimes we have to make more clear what we believe, amen? But what I want to point out to you, are you listening to your pastor this morning? What I want to point out to you is you and I in our journey to reform this church to sound doctrine and sound practice endured a lot of persecution from other Southern Baptists who would tell us, “Well, what you’re teaching and believing is not Baptist and it’s certainly not Southern Baptist.” Here’s what I would challenge them: read your own statement of faith. Your forefathers went to these convictions and voted for this statement that says this is what we believe, and by the way, it passed every time they voted on it unanimously. Not one person stood up and said, “Well, I don’t know if I believe that.” The latest Baptist Faith and Message was primarily authored by Adrian Rogers, a good man; Jerry Vines, a good man; Dr. Al Moehler, preached here in our pulpit, a good man. Others contributed, those men were primary movers in the document.

Well, what did they say in that document? Well, first of all under the Holy Spirit, here’s what they wrote. They said, “We believe the Holy Spirit, he calls men to the Savior.” Now just stop right there. How do you get saved? The Holy Spirit has to call you to the Savior. That’s what our Baptist forefathers wrote. That’s Calvinistic. Real strong Calvinistic. You see, when people say, “Well, you’re Calvinistic,” they don’t know what they’re talking about. They actually are condemning the whole backdrop of Baptist faith and profession. He calls men to the Savior and effects regeneration. Who causes a person to be changed inside so that they can repent and believe? Who does that? The Holy Spirit does that, our forefathers said. The Holy Spirit does that. At the moment of regeneration, he baptizes every believer into the body of Christ. Believing occurs after regeneration and the moment you are regenerated, in that moment you believe and in that moment you are added to the eternal body of Christ. Your name is added to heaven’s roll. Did you get that? Your name is added to heaven’s roll.

Alright, let’s read a little bit more of Dr. Adrian Rogers and Jerry Vines and Al Moehler and all of our Baptist forefathers, what they said we as Southern Baptists believe concerning salvation. Regeneration, that’s what we’re talking about, the Spirit comes in and he has this unfailing call on our life and part of that call is regeneration, or the new birth is a work of God’s grace. Who does this work? God does all of this whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It’s a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin to which the sinner responds. The sinner responds. God initiates, the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. You and I begin preaching, Bob Pittman preached that faithfully from this pulpit and it wasn’t a problem for years but all of a sudden it started being a problem to hold to these sovereign grace doctrines, sometimes shortly called Calvinism, and when I came along and began to preach it, all whatever broke loose and, man, at the undermining, the criticism, the condemnation we received, but do you know what? That’s got out a whole whole lot. Do you know one of the reasons why? Are you listening to me? Because every graduate school of theology that Southern Baptists have to train preachers now agrees with us. I’m not saying this to be boastful, we were already there before they got their schools cleaned up and now they call up to us. Folks, when I’m leading you to be biblical, just stand on it. They’ll catch up eventually and that’s exactly what happened.

Now let’s go to another section, God’s purpose of grace. Uh-oh, election. Now that will really get you in trouble in Southern Baptist life. Do you know there are Southern Baptist preachers that tell you, “Don’t even mention the word, it just causes too much trouble.” Well, Adrian Rogers, Jerry Vines and Al Moehler and all the other forefathers of ours, wrote this statement of faith for Southern Baptists and we unanimously affirm that’s what we believe. Election is the gracious purpose of God according to which he, that’s the person of the Holy Spirit now, he regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and all the way to glorify sinners. He does it all from start to finish. Could anything be clearer? If you still bump into somebody that says, “I don’t know why y’all believe what y’all believe,” you can just say, “Have you looked at your statement of faith?” And here’s the thing, it’s not that people are against the truth, they just don’t know the truth. They are a-theological, they just haven’t been taught sound doctrine. They have been taught pragmatism, gimmicks, witty, clever stuff, creative stuff; the preachers learn how to be contemporary and relevant and witty and all this other stuff, but they are leaving out the sound doctrine part of it. This is what builds your faith. This is what causes you to lay in bed at night and say, “O God, this is wonderful beyond compare.”

That’s my introduction. Two parter.

So here we have our God who says, “My Son and I in eternity past, we’ve planned a great dinner. We’ve planned a great dinner, and by the way, all are invited.” Jesus stretches out his nail-pierced hands and says, “If you receive me, you can come to dinner.” In Luke 14, just what it says, but every one of them rejected it. The Lord said, now this is an anthropomorphic expression because God can’t do this but I’m putting it in human terms to understand it, God said, “Time out. You mean my Son is going to die on the cross and we’re going to have a big dinner and nobody is going to be here? No way. I’m going to see to it that all my children get here and so I’m going to send my Son to redeem every one of them on the cross, then at the perfect set time in time and space history, I’m going to allow them to hear the Gospel, I’m going to send the Holy Spirit of God. He’s going to birth new life in them by which they will respond,” we just read that in the Baptist Faith and Message, “they will respond with repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ, and every single one of them will make it all the way home to dinner.” There is an unfailing call to faith. It can’t fail because God the Holy Spirit cannot fail and that’s what the Bible presents us with.

Before we elaborate on that any further, though, let’s talk about the other call. It’s not the unfailing call, I call it, I.: the general invitation to come. Theologians from time immemorial have simply called this the general call. Now, four ways God sends out a general call to all mankind. 1. Through the Gospel. It’s not the only means but we know his primary means of reaching his children with the Gospel is the preaching of the Gospel. That’s why in Anchored In Truth missions, all we do is support the preaching of the word of the Gospel and building churches to put out more preachers and build more churches. There are other good things, we just don’t do them because we can’t find them in the Bible. That’s all the Bible shows us. That’s God’s primary means of inviting all through the preaching. Church, Grace Life Church of the Shoals, listen to your pastor: we will never never never shrink back from our conviction to share the Gospel with every creature everywhere, urging every man to repent and place their faith in Jesus Christ. We are not hyper-Calvinists. You say, “Pastor, I don’t know how those two go together.” You don’t know how the Trinity goes together either but you believe it. We are urging all men everywhere to repent and come to faith in Christ. That’s the general call.

The preaching of the word is the primary way that gets out, but also the Bible says and I’m lumping in the preaching of the word, you sharing the Gospel personally or Bible studies, all of that together, there is the witness of conscience. God has put a conscience in every man’s heart that convicts him that he’s not right with his Maker but man resists that and does not respond and go forward in that. The Bible says God has written his law in every man’s heart which works with man’s conscience. He knows stealing is wrong. You can go to any culture anywhere that’s never heard of the Bible and they’ll tell you, “We know stealing is wrong.” How do they know stealing is wrong? Because the law of God is written in their hearts. And they know they are wanting because they know it’s wrong but they still steal. They know it’s wrong to lie but they still lie. They know it’s wrong to take another man’s wife but they still take other men’s wives. And you can name the culture and they all believe it but they violate it. In other words, God’s witnessed to them, again to all, and they refuse to go forward with it.

Not only conscience and the law but through nature, the Bible says. A man can look at nature itself and know there’s a great Designer that I need to be right with, but he pushes away from that and he does not step forward so that the parable truth of Luke 14 is true again: none take God up on it. Jesus said in John 7:37, he was at one of the feasts there in the temple, or at least in Jerusalem and he said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” That’s all inclusive, isn’t it? He says it. “If you thirst for the water that I am, you can have it.” But to a man, they all said, “We’re thirsty but we kind of like this religion the Pharisees worked up for us. It kind of works for us a little bit better. We’re thirsty but we’re thirsty for a little bit of orthodox Bible teaching with some Baal worship mixed in because Baal worship is fun and exciting and lets us get in our flesh more.

We’re thirsty but we’re not thirsty for you, Jesus.” For Jesus as, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come.”

Listen to your pastor: anyone and everyone who will respond with repentance and faith in Jesus Christ will be saved. That means they are God’s elect. But this invitation to all or what theologians call the general call, is what theologians also call an ineffectual call. Effectual means it gets the desired effect. It accomplishes what it meant to accomplish. So this call goes out to all men, the invitation is to all, but it’s not effectual. As the parable points out and many Scriptures point out, we’ll look at some more of those in a moment, all reject it. For example, Romans 3, beginning in verse 9, “What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” Now Paul is writing from the perspective that this whole thing of salvation isn’t just singled out to the elect nation of Israel, God’s elect now extends beyond them. As a matter of fact, his particular point here is the guilt of sin affects all men everywhere all inclusively.

Here’s how they respond, verse 10, “as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one.'” How many? Not even one. Verse 11, “There is none who understands.” We don’t understand what to do. Of course you don’t because you are fully corrupted by sin. You can’t understand what to do by yourself. “There is none who seeks for God.” The invitation is to all but none will seek him. None will take him. None will respond. Verse 12 instead, “All have turned aside,” in other words, they’ve got their own philosophy they want to live by. And by the way, they are glad to put Jesus in on their philosophy. We’ll add him into our viewpoint. Some of you men sitting here this morning, you are so full of pride you’re going to go straight to hell in your pride because you’ve worked out your approach to life and your religion and you added Jesus on, and you listen to me, you don’t add Jesus to anything. You take him fully and wholly as Lord. Period. You don’t add Jesus onto anything. That’s what he says here, “They all turn aside,” all turn aside to do their own idea of what they think is right around, good or bad, “together they,” all of them, “have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” The call went out to all, all are invited but none respond.

Boice and Ryken wrote a good book that is very helpful on the doctrines of sovereign grace and they have this illustration in there. They said they was a major news organization and it has this logo, a lighthouse. Just brilliant lighthouse and under the lighthouse beneath it there are these words, “Give the people the light and they will find their way.” It sounds good but men are too fallen to find their own way. As a matter of fact, the newspaper was likely not putting out the light of the Gospel anyway, so it’s not just like, it’s the Light that men need. John 8:12, Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world.” I am the Light of the world. But in John 3:19, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” I am the Light of the world, I have spread out my hands, I have left men to their own good and wise dictates, will you choose me? All turn aside. All we like sheep have gone astray. All of them, the parable in Luke 14 says, all of them began to make excuses and wouldn’t come.

That’s the general call. That’s the invitation to all but none will take God up on it. So what’s God going to do?