Bethel Deliverance International Church

Bishop Eric A. Lambert, Jr.: How you going to choose God when the Bible says you're an enemy of God? Now, I know it's conflicting for those of you who struggle with predestination and election and, more importantly, struggle with the sovereign will of God. But if you really understand the sovereign will of God, there are no accidents. God didn't wake up on Sunday and find you at the altar and go, "Oh my goodness, how did they get there?" No, you were placed at that place of receiving Christ before your grandparents met.

But you didn't know it. That's why we present the gospel. We let people know what Christ did for them and then they say, "Oh wow, I should give my life. I want you, Jesus." But it's only because they're responding to the reality that God wanted them. Think back to the days when you first came to Christ, how faithful you were. You were always in attendance, nothing could keep you away. You just felt that being there was the most important part of your Christian experience.

And then, as you experienced other things, your life became a chessboard. You began moving pieces around and the most expendable thing was gathering together for corporate worship. The reason why we don't gather together for corporate worship with the same passion that we did in the beginning is because as we grow, we don't see the necessity of it. And then we begin saying things like, "There's no command in the Bible to go to church. I can do other things." What happens is what Paul tries to teach to us is who we are and the place we're in.

Now, why is that significant? If you go over to Second Corinthians chapter six, Paul tells that church at Corinth to come out from among them and separate yourselves from the world. It's really saying you're battling the cultural pull. We are losing that battle, unfortunately. I know Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against my church. I understand that as a doctrine, as a principle. I understand that. But we are losing the cultural pull.

The reason we're losing is because as human beings, you tend to go with the thing that occupies the most time. You'll find that even if you're married, if you spend more time with a female or male coworker than you do with your spouse, you are going to inherently begin to develop a closeness. So you have to be mindful and say, "Okay, I've got to put boundaries here. I have to put barriers here." We think God is just going to keep us. We say things like, "Oh, the Lord will keep your marriage." No, he won't. Marriage is an institution and God's not obligated to keep institutions.

God is obligated to keep what you commit into his hands. If you don't commit your marriage into his hands, he's not obligated to keep it. But, you know, spending a lot of time studying and looking into the Word of God, I'm hard-pressed to avoid the issues that are pulling you away from God and being pulled away from each other. Strong churches come from strong families. Strong families come from the individual being strengthened in their walk with God. It is unfortunate that we get pulled away and we become casualties of the culture.

So what Paul does when he writes to the church at Corinth in his second letter, which I always call his letter of reconciliation—it's not that he's saying "I'm sorry what I wrote to you in the first letter," he's saying, "But I know that what I wrote fired you up. It upset you. So I'm really trying to help you to understand that my apostolic chastisement was designed to strengthen you." We are so far away from the principles of God, it's a shame. I'm not a defeatist, I'm not an optimist, I'm a realist.

In my world, a realist means I look at the situation, see it for what it is, and then try to determine if there's a way to either fix it or replace it. We cannot replace or fix what's happened to the church. It's done. We will never get back what we had in the '50s and '60s. It's been replaced by the world. There will be no more revivals to the church because Paul said, "See, you can't have it both ways." If you say we're living in the last days, Paul said the last days would be identified by a falling away, not a revival.

But the contrast is where Joel says, "In the last days, I'll pour out my spirit." So I have this pouring out of God's spirit that unfortunately does not lead to revival because the church is undergoing a falling away and apostasy. Satan is very, very crafty. What he did was turn our attention from the relationship with God and caused us to focus on church titles and other things, invoking blessings from God on secular things that don't glorify God. And so what we've done is we've tried to take those secular things and say, "Okay, I'm doing it to glorify God."

Glorifying God doesn't really come from what you do for him, it comes from who you are to him. Now, you have to realize that the inventory of your life has to be asked this question: Am I willing to give this up for Christ? Now, you have to ask yourself. Don't try to answer me. So what Paul does, apparently all Pauline epistles are written to answer problems and questions in the churches to whom the letter is addressed. So apparently the problem at Ephesus is that they really don't know who they are and where they are and what they should be.

They really don't know, or else the Apostle wouldn't write it. He would write something else if that were the problem. But it is very clear that they have no knowledge of their predestinative plan of God in their lives. So he takes a tremendous amount of time in chapter one and part of chapter two to tell them who they are in Christ. And we highlight that by saying "The Believer's Wealth." Not the money in your pocket, not the car you drive or the house in which you live, but your wealth is in your position.

You can pretty much determine the way the church is going by how we interpret scripture and connect them to secular mindsets, cultural mindsets. For example, when Paul writes in chapter one that we're seated in heavenly places with Christ, the same way you take that and you think about it and you hear it preached and taught, and they give you the impression that being seated in that place causes you to be above or away from trials, tests, tribulation, and failure. No, that's not what it means.

I will forever be Eric Lambert, Jr. Even though my dad is dead, I will forever be Eric Lambert, Jr. There's an "A" in my name, but you don't need to know what that is. I know many people, my mother used to say that and people would come up to her and say, "What's his name? What's his name?" And she loved to tell people my middle name. So I will forever be that person. If I go to jail, I will forever be Eric A. Lambert, Jr. If I go to the White House, I will forever be Eric A. Lambert, Jr.

If I discover a cure for cancer, I will be Eric A. Lambert, Jr. If I become a bum on Skid Row, I will be Eric A. Lambert, Jr. Chapter one of Ephesians says, whatever you do, whoever you are, you will always be a child of God. You never lose that identity. That's why he links it in to predestination and election right there in chapter one of Ephesians. Your wealth in God is not what you possess, it's in who possesses you. Your wealth is your identity, that no matter what you go through, you will forever be a child of God.

Now, listen carefully. When you responded to the pull of the spirit and said yes to the Lord, a couple of things happened. You walked away from a life that you were comfortable living because you didn't know anything better. You just fell into sin. It was normal and habitual. Then you heard the gospel. When you heard the gospel, it awakened you to the principle that you were being courted by God. Elected. Once you entered into the elective process, you looked back at the wall, and across the top of the wall it said, "You were predestined to be here."

On the sin side of the wall, there's no revelation of predestination. No revelation of election. You're presented with "Choose." And so you, like the apostles, thought you chose God. But let me show you the contrast. The scripture says, there is none that comes to you. There is none that seeks after you. There is none that chooses you. So how'd you choose him? If Jeremiah's prophecy is correct, and it is, there's none that seeketh after thee. You did not possess the ability, being a sinner, to seek God.

So how'd you choose him? How could you choose him? How could you choose a holy God, being as nasty as we were? Now, I know I've got some deep people out there. I can look in your faces now. You just ready to tear me up, burn the heretic, because you say the Bible says God said, "Choose this day." But the choice that he talks about there and in every situation, it's always after you're in. Let me show you. Before you get married and you go over to see your girlfriend, she asks you what do you want to eat because she's trying to win you.

"What would you like, baby? Oh, if you could cook me up some fried chicken, make some black-eyed peas or some collard greens." After you get married, you have no choice. After you get married, meals are prepared based on their convenience, their schedule, and what they know you like. You come in and say, "Oh, I got my mouth all set for such and such." They say, "Well, that's not what we're having. Tuesdays is meatloaf." Because the relationship now dictates the treatment.

How you going to choose God when the Bible says you're an enemy of God? Now, I know it's conflicting for those of you who struggle with predestination and election and, more importantly, struggle with the sovereign will of God. But if you really understand the sovereign will of God, there are no accidents. God didn't wake up on Sunday and find you at the altar and go, "Oh my goodness, how did they get there?" No, you were placed at that place of receiving Christ before your grandparents met. But you didn't know it.

That's the why we present the gospel. We let people know what Christ did for them and then they say, "Oh wow, I should give my life. I want you, Jesus." But it's only because they're responding to the reality that God wanted them. You ask that lady, "Will you marry me?" She says, "Yes," because she wants you. You think God was surprised? Well, here comes Paul writing to the Ephesians, "Wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence." God reached out to us.

Abounded towards us. Paul loves that word. It means a growing expectation for his own result because he does everything for his own pleasure. In verse nine, he made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself. In other words, he saved you because he wanted you. That's why there are so many people that are not saved. He doesn't want them. You all got to stop presenting God as standing around crying, "Oh my goodness, oh my God."

Even the scripture in First John, if you're really bibliocentric, it says God is not willing that any should perish but that all would come to repentance. Okay, and we take that to mean he wants to save everybody. That's not what it means. A careful exegesis of the text, there are two words missing after "God is not willing that any." There's two words missing after the word "any," and those two words are "of his." He's not willing that any of his should perish.

And that's why he waited on you and pulled at you because you were elected. Some of you can testify how God put up with you longer than he did anybody else. And there are some people that God waited for for years and years and they finally come in and they die two weeks later. Because he's not willing that any of his should perish. So you're saying, "Oh, well, God doesn't send anybody to hell." Nope, he sure doesn't. There's not one shred of scripture to validate God sending anybody to hell.

I'll prove it. Number one, we're all born going to hell. God didn't send you to hell, Adam did. So when you see him, when you get to heaven—I believe he went to heaven because of the blood sacrifice and God covered him with the animal skin. I think that was a type of Christ and I think Adam's up there. And I think Adam, when he's up there, he comes over to apologize to everybody. And he's walking over to you eating a handful of grapes and you ask him, "Didn't you get enough fruit?"

But I think we should get a whip on him and say to God, "Can I just have five minutes with him? Five. Just five." Especially if you had a child and went through the hell you did to bring that child into the world, you look for Eve and say, "Can I just get five minutes with the Lord? Five minutes." But the Lord forgave them. So here we are now, Paul says in Romans we were enemies of God. But yet through his loving-kindness he selected you. Here's the problem: now that he selected you, how do you live?

Let's use marriage again. There are things that we erroneously call pre-marital counseling. It is not pre-marital counseling. What it is is pre-marital planning because you've already determined that you're going to get married and you're looking for a minister to validate your choice. And the two of you could be in a position where you just don't need to marry that person. This person could be the antithesis of you. But because you are in love, the minister is now hard-pressed to find legitimacy for your decision.

So we call it pre-marital counseling. And they go over a myriad of things, they talk it through. "How long have you been dating? This is what the Bible says." And all this stuff just goes in one ear and out the other because in your mind you already know what your marriage looks like until the honeymoon is over. That illusion lasts as long as the honeymoon lasts. Once you get home, you begin to see things you didn't see before. And it's painful.

It's painful to see things that you didn't see before. It's painful to realize the responsibilities and the roles that you are expected to live in. It's painful. There's a rebellion, a natural rebellion that comes in time. Brothers, you remember if you've been married for more than 10 years, you remember when she used to walk you to the door when you would leave to go to work. "Goodbye honey, have a great day. And remember I love you. What you want for dinner tonight?"

Now you leave, she don't even come downstairs. "I'm going, see ya!" "Take the trash out with you!" "What's for dinner?" "There are coupons on the table. Stop and get some Popeyes chicken." Now, this is just normal evolution. Why? Life gets in the way of life and the starry eyes you had down at the altar have been replaced by the glimmers of reality. Now you use phrases like, "I love him but I'm not in love with him." The definition of that is I have no more passion for him.

Don't you know how life mirrors your walk with God? How much passion do you have for God anymore? Particularly when you rise to a level of grandeur and greatness. You remember the days when you used to rush to get to church to get a parking space close? Now the security saves you a space. You come late. You're not anxious for the worship anymore because you already have your space. So you aren't coming for God then. You're coming for a parking spot.

Paul says he has abounded towards us in all wisdom, making known unto us the mystery of his will, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him. He's still in the wealth that you have, that ultimately God is bringing us all together with Christ. How marvelous is that? The goal of God is that we all become little Jesus. Not that we ever will be Jesus, but at least we demonstrate his attributes, his character.

When the Bible declares that we're to be the light of the world, what is the purpose of light? To give guidance. Where are we guiding them? To Jesus. We are the salt of the earth. What are we supposed to do? We're supposed to be the preservatives, the one that God plants in areas of decay. To do what? Bring everybody to Jesus. It is the work of Satan to separate us, to isolate us, to keep us from caring for one another. Unfortunately, because of logistics, we've had to create an early morning service.

But it's become a god and I don't like it. "Well, let me go and get this service over with. I like going early because then I got the rest of the day for myself." But there's a whole other group of members of the church that you don't know and you don't care to know because they ain't part of the 7:30 worship. And the 11:30 people feel the same way. "I go to 11:30. I go to 7:30. I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos." You're all carnal.

God is trying to make us one. I understand we have a bit of a space problem, but it wasn't the intent of God for us to solve our space problem by building two congregations. Bethel isn't one. We used to be three. But then I became 39. And so the body of Christ is not one. In the mind of God it is, but in practicality, we're denominationally driven. We give levels of respect to those who have ministerial titles when the Bible says we should express that same love and respect to those who have nothing.