Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: You see, in the Bible, election is always unto something. It is a privilege that carries great responsibility to the believer because God calls you, he elects you. I like what Charles Spurgeon said. He said this, if God hadn't chosen me before the foundation of the world, then he wouldn't choose me now. You better believe that.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Reese in Diamond Bar, California. As we continue with our study of being fully committed to God, Raul will lift our hearts today with assurance of the Lord's eternal love through his divine election. It is a difficult doctrine to fully understand, but as Raul leads us through the opening verses of Ephesians, we'll get an up-close look at one of the most mysterious and wonderful truths in all of scripture. Here is Raul Reese with the study Elected by God. Join us in Ephesians chapter 1.

Raul Ries: We're going to be sharing on how we have been elected by God. We're going to be speaking on election, a doctrine that is not only hard to understand, but also it is something of divine blessing as God not only has elected you, but has elected me, and has elected all those that will come to him and receive him as Lord and Savior of their life. This is what Paul the Apostle says, beginning with verse 3, blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.

Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his own will into the praise of the glory of his grace by which he has made us accepted in the beloved. I don't know if you realize what I have been learning just in the past weeks is going back in time when I first came to the Lord and read the book of Ephesians. And as I sat down and I studied it, and I began to see that the book of Ephesians was an important book for the believer because it spoke to believers.

It should do with the Christian life. And as I shared before in the first three chapters of Ephesians, what he does is he tells you what you are in Jesus Christ. And in the last three chapters, he says, now that you know who you are and what you are, then this is not what you're supposed to be doing in Christ Jesus. But as believers, whether you be rich financially or whatever possessions materially you may have, the Bible says that if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and we have become believers through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we are super billionaires in Jesus Christ.

We are super rich. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection made it possible for you and me to be saved. That's the reason that we call ourselves believers or Christians. You see, Jesus wrote us into his will, then he died so that the will would be enforced in your life. He secured it. He secured you, he secured me. And from the foundations of the world, he elected you, he elected me. As God was standing in all eternity, and as in his thoughts, he was thinking of you and creating the world and the heavens and the earth.

Already God knew what was going to happen in your life. But yet he made you and he created you with a will either to accept or to reject. Think about that. That's important. That God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. All. Every person gets an opportunity either to accept or to reject Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. You see, when Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, he did it so that he might become the heavenly lawyer or paracletus to make sure the terms that everything he's done according to his will would be correctly followed not only by you, but by himself as he stood at the right hand of the Father to make intercession for you and me.

The book of 1 John chapter 2 verse 1 says that if you and I sin against God, that it's not how when the enemy comes and Satan tries to condemn you, that the moment you sin, you have a lawyer at your defense. That lawyer is Jesus Christ. He's called the paracletus. And what's incredible about Jesus Christ, the advocate, he stands at the right hand of the Father, and he sits there as Satan stands before God the Father, and he is the accuser of the brethren, and he uses your name, and he accuses you exactly what happened to you today.

And as he stands there, he tries to bring a case before the Father. But Jesus stands up as your lawyer and he says Father, that person belongs to me and he calls you by name, and the Father says not guilty, and Satan has to depart. That's the power that Jesus has over your life and over my life. Satan has no power over my life or your life. Everything that happens in my life is according to the will of God. And whenever Satan wants to come against me or wants to come against you, the Bible says this that he has to ask for permission.

And permission has to be granted. And then when permission is granted to him, the Bible says that God will not tempt you far and beyond or to destroy you, but the only reason that God uses Satan as an instrument to buffet you or to actually harass you or to tempt you is to see if you will obey or disobey. God doesn't use Satan to bring you to sin. You see, God loves you. God cares about you. But at the same time, God wants you to choose what's right or what is wrong. Why? Because you've been created with a will to choose or to reject.

Imagine if God would have made us puppets and we would have no will and no rights. But God didn't do that. God allows you to make that decision to discern from right and from wrong, from black and white. You see, when Jesus Christ stands as our lawyer or our advocate, it is actually as he stands is because he wants not only to defend you, but he wants to bless you. He wants to bless you with spiritual wealth in Christ Jesus, just as we read in verse 3. Can you imagine what God's storehouse contains in Jesus Christ?

Only eternity will be able to reveal it to you and to me. I can hardly wait till I get to heaven. I don't think that we can our mind can comprehend. Even though I can read books and I can hear tapes, and I can even see movies about heaven, I don't think even as I read my Bible, as I come to the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter 12 where Paul the Apostle was actually in Lystra and they took him out and they stoned him and he died. And Paul the Apostle went to heaven. And when he went to heaven and he came back, he writes in that second Corinthians chapter 12 about verses 4 down.

He writes about his experience and he says he says if I told you what I saw, he says first of all, there are not even any words in this life that can actually describe what I saw because it would be sinful for me to even speak about heaven. Heaven is a beautiful place. The Bible tells us that the believers are not only strangers and pilgrims on this earth, but this is not our home. This is not my home. And this is why it is so important that you and I understand that God has chosen us.

You didn't choose him. How many times you hear people say, well, I accepted the Lord. No, no, I'm sorry. He chose you. He accepted you before you ever accepted him. He is the one that was convicting you by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's the one that drew the circumstances and the problems and the situations so that you could look up instead of looking down at your problems. And then you finally gave and submitted to the lordship of Christ and you asked him to come into your life and he came, and now he rules and reigns over your life.

God chose you as he chose me. This is what Paul says here in Ephesians 1:4. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, to what purpose that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. This is a marvelous doctrine of election that he's talking about here. It is a doctrine that has confused some, and others have been confounded by this doctrine. Dr. Worsley says try to explain election and you may lose your mind, but try to explain it away and you may lose your soul. That's true. You can't play with the things of God.

I don't fully understand election. I don't fully understand predestination. I don't understand foreknowledge, but I accept it by faith. I believe what God says. I accept it biblically. And I've tried to study the doctrines, and yet you know what? When we get to heaven, we shall be known even as he is known. We will understand all things. There is a mystery here concerning election and choosing. God is infinite, we are finite. We're temporal, he's eternal. And we don't understand some things, the things that he talks about. We are creatures of time. God inhabits eternity. We operate under 24 hours and minutes and seconds and hours and days, weeks, and years.

That's it. Not God. God already knows what's going to happen from beginning to end. He saw the whole picture already. He knows what's beyond eternity because he is God. He's creator of all things. Salvation begins with God and not with men. John 15:16 says this. Jesus said, you did not choose me, but I chose you, and I have appointed you that you should go out and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you and that's of course according to his will.

God says he chose us. You didn't choose him in John 15:16. You see, the lost sinner left to his own way does not see God unless the Holy Spirit begins to work in his heart. But it's so important that we understand that God is the one that is seeking the lost sinner. The lost sinner is never seeking after God. It's always God by the power of his Holy Spirit.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Reese. Visit somebodylovesyou.com for resources to help deepen your faith and grow your relationship with the Lord. You can also email Raul your Bible questions and prayer requests. His address is pastor Raul at somebodylovesyou.com. Let's continue with the final part of our study Elected by God.

Raul Ries: In Romans chapter 3 10 11 he says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one person. There is none that understands. There is none who seeks after God. Look around. Look around your jobs. Look in the schools and the colleges. But I mean, think about all the people that are not really seeking after God, and yet God in his love seeks the sinner, seeks you, seeks me. In Luke 19:10 he says, for the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. I love that. That which was lost.

You were lost, I was lost, and God found me. I couldn't find myself, but he found me. You see, in the Bible, election is always unto something. It is a privilege that carries great responsibility to the believer because God calls you, he elects you. I like what Charles Spurgeon said. He said this, if God hadn't chosen me before the foundation of the world, then he wouldn't choose me now. You better believe that. If God, I mean, God chose us way before he knew what kind of individual person you were going to be like. And yet look how much God has put up with with you and me.

And yet he's willing to forgive us and to cleanse us and wash us and give us heaven instead of hell. You see, when you read Matthew 25 41, you find out that hell was never created for man. Did you know that? Not for man. You say, wait a minute. Now you're really getting off. That's what the Bible says. If you go to that scripture, it says that hell was created for the devil and his angels, not for men. The only reason that men will go to hell is by one choice, rejecting the love and grace and mercies of Jesus Christ because God gives everyone an opportunity to be saved.

God is not willing that any should perish. All should come to repentance. So important that we understand the sovereignty and the grace and the mercies that God extends to each one of us. When God chooses us, when God chose you and God chose me, it was the result of God's own sovereign act and election. It was by election that he elected me and he elected you. The word that Paul uses here in the New King James version in verse 4 we says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. You see that word just there?

That is the Greek word cathos. It means just as or because. Just as or because. Because God loved you that he chose you. He chose you and he chose me. The word elect is the Greek word ekletos. It signifies to pick out, to choose from ek or leo. It means to gather or to pick out. The word that he uses here, he had chosen, is the word in Greek it means first it's actually it means to pick out, to choose in the middle voice where the subject of the verb acts in his own interest to pick out or to choose out for oneself.

God chose you for himself. God chose me for himself. That's the love that God has for you and for me. It literally describes the act of transcendent God throwing down a universe into space, speaking material universe into existence before he could ever say anything. Hebrews 11:3 says this, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. God said let there be light and there was light. God said there be light and what happened as he created everything by his word.

He just spoke it into being. But then when it came to men, he created men. And then what did he do? As he created men from the ground, from the dust, from the dirt, then he took his breath and he breathed into him the spirit of life into him. He didn't do that with animal. He didn't do that with anybody else. He did it only with men. He chose you and he chose me. Tremendous, tremendous thing that God has done. And then when he says and he uses the word holy here, holy without blame, this is not in reference to the Christian standing as a justified person, but it's to his character as a child of God, what God already has called you to be, to be holy, to be separate, to be without blame standing in the presence of God.

Paul the Apostle perhaps had in his own mind when he spoke of this word blameless or to be without blame from Deuteronomy 7:6 and Deuteronomy 14:2 where he says this, Moses, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the people who are on the face of the earth. And of course, that's in reference to who? To the nation of Israel. But as the nation of Israel rejected God, now we get that opportunity as Gentiles to receive that grace and love and mercy of God.

The root mean of the Greek means to separate from things secular and dedicated to God. And so it's important that we in our character as Christians are separated people separated from evil and dedicated as to the worship and to the service of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. That's what God has called you and called me too. Let me give you the characteristics of election. Number one, in verse 4, the first characteristic, it is eternal, not temporal. Just as he says Ephesians 1:4, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, you see eternal, that we should be holy without blame before him in love.

Secondly, it is personal. It is personal to you and me. In Acts 9:15, listen to what Luke says, but the Lord said to him, go, for he, speaking of Paul, is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. Just as God chose Paul as a special vessel, God has chosen you as an individual person. Everyone of us are special before God, and yet God is not a respecter of persons. God is a personal God in his election. Thirdly, our characteristic for election it's also in its sovereignty.

It is sovereign election by God. In Romans 9 11 through 16 he says this, Paul, for the children not yet being born, not having done any good or evil for the purpose of God according to election may stand not of works, but of him who calls. And it was said to her, the older shall serve the younger as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I loved the less or hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not. For he says to Moses, I have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.

So then, it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows his mercy. I like that. It is all of God as he elects you and elects me. And fourthly, it is God's foreknowledge. In 2 Peter 1 3 and 4 he says this, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue by which has been given to us exceeding great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through the lust of the flesh.

And I love the fifth one. It is through grace, not of works as any man should boast as he said in Ephesians, but here in Romans 11 5 6 looks at what he says. Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of God's grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace. Otherwise, work is no longer work. When God chose Israel, many will tell you today, well, God has given up Israel.

Israel is thus no they're not. God says in Romans 9 through 11 that God speaks of their past, present, and future, and that God is going to work in the last days upon the nation of Israel. For the last 2,000 years, God has been working by election, predestination, foreknowledge, and grace and mercy to the Gentile nations. Why? Because the Jew rejected the knowledge of the truth, so the gospel was given to the Gentiles. And now that the Gentiles have belief, right before the Lord comes back, God is going to give the nation of Israel one more chance to receive his love, his grace, and his mercy.

And according to Paul, Paul tells us that in the last days, once the church is taken out of the way, in the last seven years of world history, when the anti-crisis here, the Jews, the Jewish nation, that nation that today is in existence in Israel, the Bible says that two-thirds of the Jewish nation are going to be wiped out by the anti-Christ, and only one-third will survive as God will protect them divinely and watch over them, and he will fight against the anti-Christ to preserve the nation of Israel. Otherwise, every Jew would be killed. But because God has elected and God loves the Jews, God is going to spare them.

And God is going to save them eventually. That's what God speaks about in Romans. And then sixthly, it is through faith. Through faith. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 says that we are bound to give thank you to God always for you, brethren. Brethren, be loved by the Lord because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Holy Spirit and believe in the truth. You see, when we were convicted by the Holy Spirit, then by faith we accepted and confessed Jesus Christ and our sins, and he came into our lives. And then seventh, it is recorded in heaven when you came to Christ.

Luke 10:20 says this, nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Imagine that. Your name, my name are written in heaven the moment you come to Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): It is amazing to know that our lives change for the better for all eternity the very moment we receive Christ's gift of salvation. You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Reese. Our message today was titled Elected by God. For a donation of $5 or more, we'll be happy to send an unedited version to you. Just call us at 800 634 9165. Now to further bolster your confidence in the future, we'd like to tell you more about Raul's 10 lesson series Called, Chosen, and Committed. It's available on CD and thumb drive. Challenging you to entrust yourself to the Lord in genuine surrender and faith, this resource underscores the joy that comes from walking in step with Christ.

You'll also learn how to maximize your resources and talents for God's kingdom. Visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800 634 9165 to order Raul's 10 message study Called, Chosen, and Committed. We'll send you the CD set for $22 or the flash drive for 13. That's 800 634 9165 or write to Somebody Loves You Radio, PO Box 4440 Diamond Bar, California 91765. We're a listener supported ministry and we're always grateful for your partnership as we spread the good news of the gospel. Next time, we'll continue this series exploring a faith rooted in personal surrender. We'll see that it's important to regularly take stock of our priorities and reset if it's needed, constantly making sure that the Lord has the first place in our lives.

Guest (Male): I am falling in love with you.

Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.