From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The words to which I should like to call your attention this morning are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, the first chapter and the fourth verse. The fourth verse in the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."

Now, this verse obviously is connected with the previous verse. The "according as" tells us that. So, I’ll read again the third verse: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."

Now here, the apostle begins to tell us and to explain to us how it is that all these spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ become ours. He started with that great and mighty and magnificent statement which has engaged us for three Sunday mornings: the statement of the third verse. That is the position of the Christian: he is blessed with all these blessings through the Spirit in heavenly places in Christ.

Yes, but one may very well ask a question like this: "That's a great statement, and it sounds very marvelous and very wonderful, but we are here on the earth, and we're conscious of sin and of failure. How are we to be connected with such glorious promises, such vast treasures of grace? How is it happened that anybody—any Christian—ever enjoys a single blessing?" That's the question, a most appropriate question. And here, the apostle begins, I say, to answer that question.

He shows what has happened, what has taken place, what has been done, which results in our being connected with all this exceeding riches of God's grace. "According as," he says. These blessings have come to you in this way: "According as" certain things have happened. And from the beginning of this fourth verse to the end of the 14th verse, the apostle continues to elaborate what exactly has taken place.

On a previous Sunday morning, I indicated to you that this can be conveniently divided into three main sections. The first section runs from verse 4 to verse 6 and describes what the Father has done. Then from the beginning of verse 7 to the end of verse 12, you have the work of the Son. And from there on to the end of verse 14, the work of the Holy Spirit. But here, immediately, the apostle begins with the work of the Father.

Now, I wonder whether this comes as a surprise to anybody. Or let me put it like this: let's imagine that we approach the question in this way. We say, "Now look at a Christian. There is a Christian, there is a person who is enjoying certain spiritual blessings. What is it that accounts for the fact that that person who was once not a Christian is now enjoying these astounding blessings? What is it that leads to anybody becoming a Christian and beginning to enjoy these riches of God's grace?"

I wonder what our answer would be to that question. I have a suspicion that large numbers of people would say immediately that what accounts of course for that is that they have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. But you notice that isn't the first thing the apostle says. He doesn't say that we're enjoying these blessings, that God hath blessed us with all these "according as" we have believed in the Lord or given ourselves to Him or accepted Him as our personal savior and believer. He doesn't start with that. That, of course, comes in, but he doesn't start with that.

Neither, you observe, does he start even with the work of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as I've just indicated. He puts that in the second place. Now, many probably would have put that in the first place. "Ah," they would have said, "all this, of course, has become possible for us because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us when He came into this world, in His life and in His death and in His resurrection, and what He's still doing." They would say, "That's the thing, that's the thing to put first." But again, I'm reminding you that the apostle doesn't put that first either.

Indeed, you notice that he doesn't start with anything that has happened in time at all. He doesn't start with anything that's happened in this world. He doesn't put into the first position, when he's coming to explain how this riches becomes ours, he doesn't start, I say, with anything that belongs to time or this world at all. He goes right away back before the foundation of the world. And he starts with something that has been done by God the Father.

Now, this is a staggering thought, but the moment you do think about it, you will find that, of course, it is entirely consistent with the whole of the biblical teaching. That is where we all tend to go astray. Though we've got open Bibles before us in a language that we can understand, we still tend to formulate our ideas and our doctrine from our own thoughts instead of from the Book.

Because in the Bible, you always and invariably start with God the Father. And we really must not start anywhere else or with anything else or with anyone else. What is the Bible? Well, the Bible is ultimately just this: it is the revelation and the record and the explanation of what God has done about the salvation of men. That's what the Bible is. It's nothing else, it's nothing less.

The Bible is the revelation of God's gracious purposes towards a world of sinful men. It claims to be that; it is that in its every book and in its every part. That's its controlling theme; that's the thing that gives it unity. God's purpose: what God has done, what God has promised to do, what God begins to do, what God actually does, the results of what He has done. I ask you again to look at it from that standpoint, and I think you'll agree immediately that that is the great and controlling theme of the Bible.

And here, Paul is simply conforming to the whole of the biblical revelation. Of course, the apostle here was not simply setting down his own ideas. He was writing under divine inspiration. This is not a mere product of man's ability or understanding or insight. The apostle Peter, you remember, doesn't hesitate in his second epistle in the third chapter to put the writings of the apostle Paul side-by-side with the sacred scriptures. He believed, in other words, that they were as inspired as were the Old Testament documents. And, of course, they are. These men claimed that for themselves. So, the apostle is in obvious conformity with the entire biblical teaching.

Very well, then, what is his teaching? I say, it comes as a surprise to us. Well, what is it? Well, here it is: his great statement here is that those who enjoy these spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ do so because they have been chosen by God and of God to do so. That's what he says. We enjoy these blessings, he says, "according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." That's the explanation.

That's the thing he starts with. In other words, all the other things that follow originate from this. This is the fount, this is the source, this is the real beginning. Now, look at it like this—I find it very helpful personally to do so. Think of man rebelling against God, man in the fall, man listening to the suggestion of the devil and falling away from God, becoming lost and under the curse and under the wrath of God. Now then, how is it that any one individual person has ever come out of that morass, out of that loss? The answer is this: that God has chosen such a person to be delivered and unto salvation. That's the apostle's categorical statement.

Well now, here, of course, we are face-to-face with a great and a mysterious subject. The question that arises at once is this: what is the apostle teaching here? And in the last analysis, there are only two possible answers to that question. I want to put both of them before you. The first is this: that we are chosen by God simply out of His own good pleasure, out of, if you like to use the scriptural terminology, of the good pleasure of His own will.

Apart from anything in us, apart from anything that we have ever done or said or thought. Indeed, further, that we are chosen by God out of the good pleasure of His own will in spite of ourselves, in spite of the fact that we are enemies and rebels and aliens and outside the commonwealth and all the rest. That what Paul is teaching here is this: that God, moved by nothing in us at all but solely by His own grace and love and mercy, has chosen unto salvation those who are saved. That's the first explanation.

The second explanation is that the apostle is here saying that Christians, those who enjoy these blessings, were chosen by God before the foundation of the world because God, with His absolute perfect foreknowledge, saw that they would exercise faith and thereby differentiate themselves from those who did not exercise faith. That God chooses the Christian because the Christian has already chosen to be a Christian. That because the Christian has decided to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and has sought salvation thereby, that God has then chosen him to enjoy these great and rich and eternal blessings.

Now, I say it really comes to one of those two. There is no third possible explanation. It's either the one or the other. So, the question confronting us is, how do we face this? Now, you notice that I say the question is, "How do we face this?" And I put it like that for this good reason: that there are so many Christian people today who do not face it, who do not even believe in facing it, who think that the right thing to do is to avoid it because it's difficult, because it's mysterious, because it is very high doctrine.

To me, there is no doubt at all and no hesitation in my own mind in saying that there are many Christian people today who claim to be believers in the inspiration of the scriptures and to believe in the scriptures from cover to cover who, nevertheless, quite deliberately exclude large portions of scripture simply because they're difficult. They never face them; they never consider them. If a thing is difficult, they don't look at it. "Oh," they say, "it's too much for me, and I'm having all my time cut out to live the Christian life at all. I really can't tackle these great things."

My dear friend, if you believe that the scripture and every part of scripture is the Word of God, such an attitude is highly sinful. It is our business to face the scripture. It is one advantage of preaching through a book of the Bible like this that it compels us to do so, that if we are honest in our attempt as expositors, if we're honest as Christians, we must face every single statement, come what may, and stand before it and look at it and allow it to speak to us.

Indeed, you will find it's rather interesting to notice how, not at all infrequently, therefore, certain persons never face certain epistles at all in their expositions because there are difficulties like this involved. However, let us, I say, consider it and face it. Now, how do we do so? Well, the first thing that is important, of course, is the right approach.

And when I say the right approach, I mean first and foremost our spirit—the spirit in which we approach it. Oh, how important it is. How often has this great declaration of the apostle been abused simply because it has been approached in the wrong spirit. Let me say this quite frankly: the proponents of the views—the two views that I have put before you—have been equally guilty in this respect. Both parties are equally guilty. This is not a question to be approached in an argumentative spirit nor in a party spirit. It's never to be approached with heat or with a human dogmatism.

It is a subject that is to be approached, I say, with reverence, with a sense of worship. More and more, I tend to agree with those who say that there is a sense in which scripture should always be read by us on our knees. If we realize that it's God speaking to us, surely that's the way to approach it. And yet, how often are these great and glorious terms bandied about in arguments and in discussions with all the heat that is engendered. I say the right way to approach this is to remember that we are on holy ground and to take off the shoes from off our feet. If we do not approach it in that spirit, it is certain we shall never understand it, and we shall derive no benefit from it.

Let us remember then, I say, that it's God's Word and not simply the statement of the apostle Paul. You know how the so-called higher critics who flourished so much in the early part of this century and who still flourish, they avoid all this sort of difficulty by saying, of course, that's Pauline theology, that's just Paul. Well, of course, if you believe that and just pick and choose out of your scriptures, you can very easily manufacture a little gospel for yourself. But it will not be the gospel of the New Testament; it will not be the gospel of God. We believe that this entire book is the Word of God. And therefore, this is God's Word and not the apostle's theory.

Very well, then, the next point I would make is this: that it is a statement of truth which is not to be approached in terms of our understanding. We sang that hymn—let me quote these two lines to you again: "I may not reach with earthly wings the heights and depths of God." Oh, how appropriate those lines are as we come to a subject like this. If you think you can rise on the pinions of your little human understanding or mind to a truth like this, my dear friend, you're just betraying an unutterable ignorance of the character and the nature of the truth.

We are concerned here, we are face-to-face here with something that happens in the heart and the mind of God. Earthly wings will never reach you, bring you to this height. Don't come, I say, with mere human understanding. This is avowedly and confessedly a great mystery. And that is why you observe that this truth is only presented in the scriptures to believers. It's not a truth to be considered with an unbeliever. He cannot possibly begin to understand it. His whole attitude towards God is wrong. That is the essential trouble with the unbeliever: that his heart is wrong with respect to God. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." And because his heart is wrong, he can't possibly understand a truth like this.

This is the kind of thing that is only given to the children. The apostle is writing not to the world; he's writing to Christian believers. He's writing to the "saints that are at Ephesus," these people of God who, therefore, are in a position to take such a truth. And it still is the same with us.

Another preliminary remark I would make about the approach is this: that it's a very good thing to approach a truth like this in terms of your experience. Now, what I mean by that is this: instead of approaching it from a kind of detached theoretical standpoint and regarding it as a very interesting academic question and problem this on the borderline between theology and philosophy, and approaching in that kind of way, a very good way of approaching it is this: to say to yourself, "I'm in this church, this house of God this morning. And I know that there are thousands of people who are not doing this. They're in their beds and reading the news of the world or something like that, or perhaps trying wearily to recover from the way they spent yesterday. Why am I different? What has made me different? Why have I an interest in these things? Why do they attract me? Why do I bother myself about them at all? Why am I a Christian?"

Face it like that, my friend, and ask yourself seriously and solemnly what you think it is that separates you from those others, what has put you into this different category. And when you find yourself on your knees praying to God, just search and examine yourself and ask yourself what's brought you to that, what makes you do that. Ask whether it's just yourself or whether it's something else. Approach it, I say, not so much intellectually and by the understanding as from the standpoint of experience.

Very well, with those preliminary considerations, let me go on to a next step. Let's now observe what the Bible really does say, what it states about this matter. My first comment here is that it really simply states it. It never argues it. The Bible never argues about this doctrine. It simply puts it before us, it makes a statement, and it leaves it at that.

I think that's a most significant thing. Because the Bible does argue, and it does give reasons at many points. But whenever it makes this particular statement, it never begins to present it in the form of an argument. It says, "This—here it is, this is the statement," and it leaves it. Indeed, we must go further: we can say in the second place that the Bible reprimands us for arguing on the basis of our failure to understand the doctrine.

Now, that's why I read just now the ninth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. I'm saying that not only does the Bible itself not argue with us about this doctrine, it reproves us and reprimands us when we begin to argue with it because we don't understand it. Listen to how Paul puts it: "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth God yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?" And this is the only answer that is made: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?"

That's all the apostle says. He doesn't try to meet the argument. A person is in difficulty about this doctrine, and he asks his question, "Well, I don't see," says the man, "if that is so, how a man is responsible, or why God can blame a man if that is so." And the apostle doesn't take up the argument and work it out and explain as he could have done up to a point. He doesn't do that at all. He simply says this: "Nay but, O man, who art thou—thou—that repliest against God?"

"Wait a minute," says the apostle, "before I say anything at all to you, do you realize who and what God is? Do you realize of whom you are speaking?" And he says, "Your relationship to the one about whom you're speaking is really the relationship of a potter to clay." That's the illustration he uses, and he doesn't go any further. He says, "Just wait for a minute before you speak too much. Who art thou, O man, that you should reply against God and ask your arrogant question simply because you can't understand? Are you really going on the assumption," says the apostle, "that your little mind is capable of understanding what God does? Are you really suggesting that you—you of everybody—sinful creature such as you are, small and petty as you are even in your human relationships, you who've listened to the devil and have brought ruin upon yourself, are you claiming that your pygmy mind is able to span the vastness of an eternal God?"

That's all he says. Not only does the Bible not argue with us, it reprimands us for our arrogance and unutterable folly in bringing our difficulties and putting them against what God has revealed. There it is, in the ninth of Romans and in many other places.

In other words, I can put it in the third place in this form: the Bible does not answer our questions about this matter. It doesn't give us full philosophical explanations. There are real difficulties about this question. Of course there are, because it's a truth of God. If there were not difficulties, why, it wouldn't be the great truth that it is. There are tremendous difficulties. We're all in difficulties. Everybody who's ever faced this statement is at certain points unable to give explanations and to give final answers. Well, all I'm saying is this: the Bible doesn't pretend to be giving a detailed answer or a full philosophical explanation. It just makes the statement and leaves it.

And we tend to end with the apostle Paul and say, "Great is the mystery of godliness." You can't begin to understand the two natures in one person. You can't understand the three persons in one Godhead. These things are in a realm beyond man's understanding, and so is this. Our minds are too small, and in addition, we are sinful and perverted and twisted, and even as Christians, we still cannot think clearly, or there would never be heresies and errors and scandals in the life and the history of the church.

So let me go on to another statement: the Bible gives us a number of such statements. There are many statements parallel to the statement of this verse we're looking at together this morning. Let me remind you of some of them. If you really want, perhaps, one of the fullest statements in the whole of scripture about this subject, read the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. John's Gospel elaborates this doctrine, I think, more than any other single book of scripture. Read through the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, then read the 15th chapter of John's Gospel, and then read the 17th chapter of John's Gospel—our Lord's high priestly prayer. And you'll find this self-same truth put before you in a most vivid and direct manner.

Indeed, the Gospel of John throughout is a most amazing exposition of it. I say that simply because some people, repeating parrot-fashion things they've heard others say or have read in books, tend to say that this doctrine is only found in the epistles of the apostle Paul and that our Lord never said... Read the Gospel of John, my friend. It has this doctrine much more clearly than the epistles of this particular apostle.

But here is this apostle saying it in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, in the second chapter and in verses 13 and 14. Listen to him: "God," he says, "hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." What a significant statement. He hath chosen you to salvation through—by means of—sanctification of the Spirit. He separated you by the Spirit. What for? To belief of the truth. You've been chosen and separated by the Spirit in order that you may believe the truth. You are not chosen and separated because you believe it, but that you may believe it too. Now, that's the second epistle to the Thessalonians, the second chapter, verses 13 and 14.

Peter says the same thing in his first epistle, in the first chapter and the second verse: "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." You are separated by the Spirit unto this obedience of faith and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. The separating comes before the obedience of believing and the faith, and so on. And there are countless other passages. Indeed, I was tempted at one time to spend the entire morning in just reading to you statements of scripture which are in correspondence with this fourth verse of this first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians.

But then, there are a number of supporting indirect statements. I mean this: I've been referring you to statements which say exactly the same thing in the same form. But there are other statements that say the same thing indirectly or by implication. Let me give you an example. Listen to this: the first verse—first few verses of the second chapter: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." You were dead in trespasses and sins. You're no longer that. Why? Well, He hath quickened you.

In the first epistle to the Corinthians, the second chapter, you've got it again: "The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." Paul says, "We believe these things." Why? "Well, because we have received the Spirit that is of God and not the spirit that is of the world, that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God." The princes of this world didn't recognize Christ. Why not? Well, they were simply natural men. They were great men, they were very able men, but they didn't recognize Him. "For had they known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." But, says Paul, "God hath revealed them unto us by the Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." We believe, says Paul. Why? One reason only: the work of the Holy Spirit within us.

In the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians, you get it again: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest they believe the glorious gospel of Christ." Well, how do I believe? Here's the answer: "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The one god of this world blinds and makes men incapable of believing; the other God shines into the heart, and we believe. There it is there.

And indeed, the whole doctrine of regeneration is surely another way of saying the same thing. Let me put it to you like this: if we become regenerate because we have already believed, well then, where in comes the necessity for regeneration? If I, without being regenerate, can see the truth of God and so like it that I want it and believe on it, why do I need to be regenerate at all? What is the purpose and the object of regeneration, being given this new faculty, this ability to receive God's truth? So I suggest to you that the whole doctrine of regeneration has a great deal to say about this matter. Indeed, I go so far as to say this: that this doctrine should always be approached in terms of the doctrine of regeneration, which suggests that I need a new nature before I begin to understand these things.

Very well, then, let me, having thus put to you the statements of the scripture, put a few further considerations for your further study and contemplation. Is it not perfectly clear that man would never have thought of this doctrine? Man would never have invented it. It's the last thing man would ever have thought of. Let me be quite frank and honest: is it not the simple truth to say that all of us by nature dislike this truth because we feel it's insulting to us? It is a fact. The natural man hates this doctrine of all doctrines, and we've all known something of that hatred. Man would never have thought of it. It would never have come into the life of the church were it not in the scripture.

Or another way I can put that is to put it like this: there is no statement that shows so clearly the real nature of sin and the consequences of sin as this particular statement. It really says this about us: that in sin, we are in such a position that we are absolutely helpless, totally incapable of doing anything for ourselves in the matter of our salvation. Such is what sin has done to man. That is the depth to which sin has taken man, that he is as estranged from God as that.

Indeed, the scripture says that the "natural man's enmity against God," that man left to himself is an alien and an enemy in his very mind by wicked works, that he is totally opposed to God. That is the real picture of sin, and it's brought out by this statement.

My next statement would be that this has nothing, of course, to do with evangelism. Some people think that they can avoid this whole difficulty by saying, "Well, of course, if that is true, there's no point in evangelism." To which the simple reply is this: that it is God who's ordained both this and the evangelism. God has chosen to call out His elect people by means of evangelism and the preaching of the Word.

Which I would like to substantiate by putting it in this form to you. It's a very good rule: whenever you're confronted by a statement in scripture which you find to be difficult and perplexing, it's a very good thing at that point to consult the authorities, to consult the history of the church, to consult the experience and the interpretation of those who have gone before us. We should thank God for that. We should thank God that we've come to a place and to a point where we are in a position of knowing something of what those who've gone before us in the Christian church have taught with regard to these matters.

These two interpretations I've put to you—you remember I put first this interpretation: that what the apostle is saying here is that God has chosen those who are Christians in spite of what they are, not because of anything He's foreseen in them, but simply moved by His own will and mercy and compassion. Now, it's interesting to notice the men in the history of the church who've believed that before, in other words, anybody is tempted to dismiss it with a wave of the hand and feel that it's all so simple.

Let me tell you some of the names that have accepted that first interpretation: Saint Augustine, who stands out perhaps between Paul and the Reformation as the brightest star in the Christian church. That is what he believed. Then I can put next to him Thomas Aquinas, whom the Roman Catholics call Saint Thomas Aquinas, the man who wrote that mighty work, the *Summa Theologica*, that mighty compendium of Christian theology. He took that view.

Then the next name I come to is the name of Martin Luther. He took that view. The next name, John Calvin. The next name, Zwingli, another Swiss reformer. The next, John Knox of Scotland. The next, the men who were responsible for the 39 Articles of the Church of England, especially Article number 17 states it clearly. The next, the Westminster Confession, the confession which all the all the Presbyterian churches of the world base their doctrine upon as their subsidiary standard.

Next, I begin to mention names belonging to that great Puritan tradition of the 17th century: Dr. John Owen, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, and all the great and mighty Puritans. They all took that view. I come on to the next century, and here I mention George Whitefield, perhaps the greatest evangelist since Paul that the Christian church has ever known. That was his view. In America, the mighty Jonathan Edwards, whom some would say and I think perhaps rightly, Jonathan Edwards is the greatest Christian philosopher that the Christian church has ever known, and many others in with him in that land.

And then coming on to the last century, I mention the name of one who was possibly, perhaps probably, again the greatest preacher that London has ever known: the mighty Charles Haddon Spurgeon. That was the view he took. Now there, my friends, are men, you see, who have taken this view.

But let me complete my list. Do you know anything of the history of the men who started the foreign mission work? Have you ever read the origin of the Church Missionary Society and of the London Missionary Society? I’m asking, have you read the origin of such societies? I’m not asking you what you know about them now; I'm asking what you know about their beginnings and of the men who really did begin them. Do you know anything about the origin of the British and Foreign Bible Society? The 150th anniversary has been celebrated this year. How often have you heard reference to the men who really started it and the views which they took of this doctrine?

The simple truth is that the men who started those three missionary societies took that first view. So you see, when people say, "Ah well, of course, if you believe that, you no longer believe in evangelism," the simple answer is that the greatest evangelists the church has ever known, the greatest promoters of evangelism in foreign lands as well as at home, have been men who've taken this particular view.

But let me go on and say something else to you. That was practically the universal view in the Christian church until the beginning of the 17th century when a man arose whose name was Arminius. He influenced very few. The man who has popularized the second view is undoubtedly John Wesley. And it has been popularized by his followers.

But I think it is significant to notice this: that as the higher criticism of the Bible has gained currency and popularity, the first of the two views has receded into the background and the second view has become increasingly prominent. In other words, I would make a statement like this: to me, it's very significant. I have never yet met or heard of a man who takes the first view who is a higher critic of the Bible. Not one.

Surely that has some significance. I'm putting these facts before you in order that as you come to look at this verse and read it on your knees and pray about it, you may quell the tendency of the flesh to argue and say, "Well now, I must remember these facts at any rate before I make any glib or sweeping statement." I'm trying to give you a background. But let me try and sum it up by putting it like this. And how happy am I that I can say this honestly and truthfully in this pulpit.

You are not saved by the view you take on this question. May I repeat that? I've told you there are two possible views: the one is that God has chosen us in spite of us, the second view is that God has chosen us because He has foreseen that we're going to exercise faith. I say without any hesitation that the view you take on this question does not determine your salvation. Thank God.

We are not saved by our understanding of these things but by our simple childlike utter absolute faith and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and His work on our behalf. So that this is not the thing that determines your salvation. I think it does determine, perhaps, your understanding; it does determine your intellectual apprehension. But thank God it isn't that that saves. I am as certain at this moment that John Wesley is in heaven as I am that Jonathan Edwards is there and George Whitefield is there. It doesn't determine salvation.

But then well then, some people say, "What's it matter?" Ah, that's a very false bit of logic that. That's a very false deduction. My friends, this statement is in the scripture. Paul puts it first, as he comes to show us how we become Christians and how we enjoy Christian blessings. He puts this in the first position, and I say it does matter, though it doesn't determine my salvation. It is of tremendous importance. From what standpoint? Well, from these standpoints.

To me, it is of vital importance in connection with the whole sovereignty of God, with the glory of God and the majesty of God. Yea, to me, it is all important from the standpoint of my understanding of the love of God. It is here I see the love of God at its highest and at its greatest.

Not only that, it is in the light of this that I see the certainty of the plan of salvation. If God's plan of salvation were to be dependent upon men and the choice of men, we could be very certain that it would not be a plan that would be carried out as God intended it. But if it is God's from beginning to end, well then, it's certain.

Not only that, it gives me security that I know nothing else can give me. I say humbly in the presence of God and before you good people, I know of no doctrine that is so comforting as this doctrine. This is the thing that gives me security. My security depends upon this fact: that I know that I am what I am solely and entirely because of the grace of God. I'm standing in this pulpit not because of any decision I've ever taken. I've not decided for Christ; I've not decided to be a preacher of the gospel. All I've done in my little life as I look back across it and regret it is to struggle against Him and to try to avoid Him and try not to do what He would have me do. I am conscious of His hand upon me. It was His hand that laid itself upon me and drew me out and separated me in every respect. I am what I am because of Him, and I give Him all the credit and the glory.

And were I to believe that my future is dependent upon me and upon my decision, well then, I would tremble in fear. But I thank God that I know that I am in His hand, that He who has started the work will go on with the work. It is because I know that in spite of me and what I am that He will not let me go, He will not allow His purpose to forgo. It is because I know that there before time, before the foundation of the world, He looked at me, He saw me, He selected me, He drew me out in His mind, He gave me to Christ.

It is because I know that, that I know this: that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature—I myself included—shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Does it matter? Of course it matters. My whole security, my joy—it's all in this. It doesn't determine my salvation, but oh, the joy of salvation that it brings and the security and the certainty. Beloved people, come back to it. Face it on your knees. Put it in the context of the whole of scripture. Remember the names I've mentioned to you. And look at it and look at it and ask God by the Spirit to give you enlightenment and understanding in order that this particular statement may bring to you and to your soul, to your mind, to your heart, and to your experience what God intended it to do. Amen.