[BBC List] preach it

[Mike Abendroth]

Preaching the Gospel Message (Part 2)

by

John MacArthur

General Session #6

SC1008

 

It is a very difficult task to be preached to and then, instantaneously,
turn around and preach, because my mind is no longer on my passage.
Furthermore, can you imagine how difficult it is for me to cope with the
reality of a man actually covering 73 verses in one message?  For me, that
is two years worth of preaching-just trying to figure out how to get through
it!  I love those kinds of overviews: sweeping through the text at the pace
that the events occurred.  For me, that discussion took two years, although
we know it didn't.  But anyway.  Where am I and what's going on here?

 

Open up your Bible to I Corinthians 1.  It does amaze me how God-always
amazes me-how God orchestrates everything, strengthening us and giving us
fortitude-I love that word-for the task that is at hand for us.
Strengthening our commitment and our resolve to be faithful and true to the
purity of the gospel has become the sort of unplanned theme of this
conference.  And we are intersecting at all points; the Spirit of God is
blending all of this together in wonderful ways.  What has been on my heart
in the messages that you've already heard from me is this matter of how hard
it is to believe, that it is impossible to believe if one is left to himself
or herself.  We saw in the first message that the invitation itself is, from
the human viewpoint, impossible because it calls for total self-denial, the
taking up of the cross daily, and a life of obedience from the heart.  The
demand that Jesus made is just very hard.  For a person to deny all dreams,
all hopes, all ambitions, all desires, all longings, all wants, all
possessions, all relationships-all everything that constitute the whole of
human life-and to be willing to give it all up for Christ, is as hard as it
can possibly be made.  Then we are finding that compounding the difficulty
of the invitation is the difficulty of the message, and that shameful cross
that we started talking about a couple of nights ago.  

 

I want to take us back to that.  We remember the words of Isaiah, that first
glimpse of the suffering Servant on the cross in Isaiah 51, and Isaiah says,
"There is no beauty that we should," what?  "Desire him."  There's nothing
about the crucifixion that draws out normal desire.  There's no beauty
there.  There's nothing attractive there.  So, we began to look at I
Corinthians 1 and the unattractiveness or the shame of the cross.  We talked
about the shameful stigma of the cross, as we started out in verse 18, that
"the cross"-preaching about the cross-"is, to those who are perishing,
foolishness."  We noted over in verses 22 and 23, "the Jews want a sign, the
Greeks want wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, which is to the Jews a
stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness."  We talked about the fact
that the cross itself-crucifixion itself-had such a stigma in the first
century that nobody rationally could come to the conclusion that you could
have a crucified God.  Neither Jew nor Gentile.  

 

So, there was the shameful stigma of the cross, that acted as an almost
impossible barrier to belief in the gospel, and then there was the shameful
simplicity of the cross.  And we talked about that a little bit, how that
"the cross, in its foolishness, destroys the wisdom of the wise and the
cleverness of the clever."  The question then, in verse 20, is asked, "Where
is the wise man?  Where is the scribe?  Where is the debater of this age?
They bring nothing to bear on this."  The questions, of course, are
rhetorical.  What do they have to offer?  They have nothing to offer.  God
has rendered all of their most erudite musings as absolute folly.  God has
determined that by means of human wisdom, man cannot come to know Him.  

 

So you have this shameful stigma, compounded by a shameful simplicity, and
then there is that shameful singularity of the cross.  That is to say that
the cross is the only way that anyone can be saved.  Those who are being
saved, according to verse 18, are being saved by the power of God, through
the Word of the cross.  Paul says we only have one message, in verse 23
again, and that is "we preach Christ crucified."  That is the only message
that can save; there is no other saving message.  

 

We could even add to the stigma and the simplicity and the singularity-I
won't take too much time with this, but just the comment struck me-we could
even add the shameful sentence of the cross.  That sentence is indicated
back in verse 18: "The Word of the cross comes to those that are perishing."
It rescues the perishing.  The perishing are the damned, they are the
doomed, they are the ruined, they are the destroyed, they are the lost,
having been rendered so under the judgment of God for endless violations of
his holy law.  The cross, in itself, proclaims a verdict on fallen man, does
it not?  The cross says that God requires death for sin.  While it proclaims
to us the glory of substitution, on the other side of that it proclaims the
necessity of death for sin, and if one doesn't embrace the substitute then
one bears that death himself or herself, and that is an undying death that
lasts forever.  So, there is that shameful sentence of the cross that
exposes the true condition of the sinner.  "Christ crucified" was Paul's
message.  When he said, "We preach Christ crucified" in verse 23, that was
simply a summary statement; there was a whole message to go with that!  Why
He was crucified, of course, would be at the heart of that message.  The
message of the cross is not about felt needs.  It is not about Jesus loving
you so much, He wants to make you happy.  It is about rescuing you from
damnation, because that is the sentence that rests upon the head of every
human being.

 

So, the gospel is an offense every way you look at it.  There's nothing
about the cross that fits in comfortably with how man views himself or his
condition.  The gospel confronts man and exposes him for what he really is.
It ignores the superficiality of life.  It ignores the disappointments that
he feels.  It offers him no relief from the struggles of being human.  It,
rather, goes to the profound and eternal issue of the fact that he is damned
and desperately needs to be rescued, and it is a rescue that can only be
accomplished through death, and God, in his mercy, has provided a
substitute.  The indictment of the sinner then, adds another component to
the barrier of believing in this cross, therein the sinner must come to the
attitude of the publican in Luke 18 and pound his breast and cry out for
mercy.  So, we're just trying to paint the picture a little bit that it
doesn't matter how lofty and elevated and powerful and influential in the
culture the preachers of the gospel are; posturing ourselves for positions
of prestige cannot mitigate the distastefulness of this message.  

 

But somebody might, at this point, say, "Well, it would certainly help if we
had people like that."  Well, that takes us to the next point-and I gave it
to you a little bit last time, I'll just reiterate it and we'll look at it:
we have to compound this dilemma of the shame of the message itself by
adding the shameful society of the cross.  Let's go to verse 26, "For
consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.  But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of
the world to shame the things which are strong; and the base things of the
world and the despised God has chosen-the things that are not-that He might
nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God."  

 

For all those who feel the only hope of this very difficult message, the
only way that it could possibly advance, was to somehow get it in the mouth
of the rich and the famous and the powerful and the influential, and maybe
they could somehow be more believable, and therefore cause people to somehow
get across the barrier-for those of you who are hoping for that, that is not
the plan.  Not the plan.  

 

I just want you to look at the language here, "Consider your calling,
brethren."

  

"Not many WISE" (sophos; not many "intellectuals").

 

"Not many MIGHTY" (not many dunatos; not many "wielding power").

  

"Not many NOBLE" (eugenes; that is, "aristocratic").

 

In 178, Celsus wrote that Christians were "the vulgarest and most
uneducated."  Not many intellectuals, not many wielding cultural power, not
many aristocrats.  In fact, verse 27 says just the opposite: 

"God has chosen the FOOLISH" ("the non-intellectuals") "to shame the wise."

 

"God has chosen the WEAK" (asthenes; "void of strength, void of power").

 

And then, I love this one.  Verse 28, "He has chosen the BASE" (agenes;
"people of no birth, without any significance").  I always think of the most
insignificant person I ever heard of being born-and I read this somewhere
years ago-was a baby, and the mother wrote on the birth certificate his
name, "Nosmoking."  And somebody said, "Where did you get a name like that?"
Well, it turned out the mother was illiterate, so she just copied down the
"No Smoking" sign.  Nos-mo-king.  There is a nothing person, named after a
"No Smoking" sign.  This is the nobodies.  And if that's not bad enough, I
mean, we're the foolish, we're the weak, we're the people of no birth (that
is, with no significance).  

 

He adds, in verse 28, "the DESPISED" (exoutheneo is the verb; it means "to
consider as nothing"-we're going deeper here-this Perfect Passive
Participle: "those who were and continue to be nothing").  

 

Well, I mean, we're just sinking here.  You say, "We can't get any lower!"
Oh, yes we can.  Verse 28: "THE THINGS THAT ARE NOT"-that's a great phrase
(tamaonta?; "the nonexistent ones").  You've got to understand, in the first
century, being somebody was a really important thing!  Still is, isn't it?
So the Lord said, "Well, I'm just going to do it a different way: the
non-intellectual, impotent nobodies who are considered as nothing because
they are nothing."  

 

You say, "Well, wouldn't God want to choose the somebodies?"  I mean, you've
got enough to get over with just the message and the invitation; wouldn't it
help if there were just some really important people?" and I've heard this
through the years, you know, "If just this famous person could get saved,
just think about their testimony, what it would be like" or, "If this famous
person in athletics or the media or the arts or politics or whatever could
just be a Christian, just imagine the power of their testimony!"  Well,
occasionally-it doesn't say, "There aren't any"; there're just not
many-occasionally, though, such people are converted by the grace of God,
but the gospel has never moved, through history, fulfilling the redemptive
plan on the back of influential people.  It moves with us.  And here we are:
the non-intellectual, impotent, nothing nobodies.  

 

Why does God do this?  Well, to shame the wise, to shame the strong, to
nullify them (end of verse 28, katargeo; "to neutralize them; to render them
inoperative").  The gospel is taken away from the world's somebodies and
given to the nobodies so that, in the end, verse 29, "The advancement of the
gospel can be credited to no person."  There will never be any human credit
for the advancement of the gospel.  

 

I think last year, at the end of the conference, I addressed this passage on
Sunday a little bit, and somebody suggested I might touch on it again, so
turn to II Corinthians 4 if we can digress.  This is really good for us to
relate to this.  II Corinthians 4:5, Paul says, "We do not preach ourselves,
but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus'
sake, for God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who
has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God and the face of Christ.  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from
ourselves."  If I signed a book or something for you this week, you'll
notice that I put that passage under my name.  

 

I just want to pick out one little term there: ostrakinos  (in the Greek).
It's in verse 7, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels."  "Earthen
vessel" is, frankly, too dignified a term.  It's not very dignified, but
it's too dignified to translate the word ostrakinos.  It's a clay pot is
what it is!  It's a clay pot!  Baked clay.  Cheap, unrefined, ugly,
breakable, replaceable, valueless.  It's that pot that a plant comes in.
That's it.  And the contrast is staggering!  "We have this treasure"-what
treasure?  The treasure of the glorious light of the gospel, the one shining
in our hearts: "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and the face
of Christ."  I mean, he's picking up all the brilliance, all the glory of
the Shekinah, of the true revelation of the glorious light of the essence of
the nature of God, manifest in Christ.  He's trying to describe what is most
indescribably and inexplicably beautiful, and saying, "This treasure, the
treasure of this glorious reality of the gospel is carried around in clay
pots."  We're baked dirt.  That's what we are.  Baked dirt.  

 

Paul was scorned for his unimpressive persona, wasn't he?  His presence was
unimpressive and his speech was absolutely contemptible.  He had a bodily
condition that was repulsive.  Some scholars think he had some terrible
stuff oozing out of his eyes.  I mean, he would not have had the look that
you sort of have to have to be the slick entrepreneurial guy today.  He was
just baked clay, but that was okay with him because that was the way God had
designed it, and that made it very evident where the power was.  

 

I've been reading David Daniels' book on William Tyndale.  I read it and
then I go back and read it again.  Then I go back and read it again.  It's
just cathartic for me!  Thomas Moore was a great defender of Roman
Catholicism in England, and he felt himself the servant of God in taking on
William Tyndale and doing everything he could to destroy his work.  William
Tyndale did the horrible thing, an absolutely horrible thing: he determined
that the Bible ought to be in a language people could read.  And so, that's
what he did-in exile, in Antwerp-because he knew if he went back to England,
he'd be killed, because the people who read his New Testament were being
killed.  

 

Well, Thomas Moore not only attacked William Tyndale, but he was very good
at attacking Martin Luther.  Part of the condemnation of Tyndale was that he
was a Lutheran, that he followed Luther ("Now Lutheran" in the sense of what
it would have been then, not now).  So, Thomas Moore came up with a title
for Luther.  He called him a "privy-pot."  Do I need exegete that?  He
called Luther a privy-pot!  Thomas Moore wrote things of a scatological
nature, the likes of which I will not speak.  He said things that are
absolutely beyond belief, demeaning Luther.  But, you know something?  He
was close to being right.  

 

If you would look, for just a moment, at II Timothy 2:20, we can take this
brief excursus into scatology one step further, if not any more than that.
In II Timothy 2:20, "In a large house, you've got to have some containers!
You have some containers in a large house that are gold and silver, but you
also have other containers that are wood and clay pots.  The ones that are
gold and silver have honorable purposes, and the ones that are wood and clay
have dishonorable purposes."  Now, just use your imagination.  The food came
in on the gold and silver, and it went out on the earth and wooden.  Paul
knew what he said here-go back to II Corinthians-he knew what he was saying
here.  We're privy pots-baked clay-so that the explanation of the advance of
the gospel is never going to be us, is it?  

 

You know, none of the early preachers, among the apostles, was important.  I
just wrote that book-I think you got it, didn't you-Twelve Ordinary Men.  I
mean, they were so ordinary; it was painful to go through those guys.  Not
one priest, not one rabbi, not one scribe, not one Pharisee, not one
Sadducee-not one anything!  Not even an archon!  Not even a synagogue ruler!
Nobody!  Half of them or so were fisherman; the rest of them worked with
their hands; one was a terrorist who went around with a little knife trying
to spear Romans (Simon the Zealot); then there was Judas, the loser of all
losers.  What was the Lord doing?  

 

He picked people with absolutely no influence.  There aren't any of the
great intellects from Egypt or Greece or Rome or Israel.  During the New
Testament time, the greatest scholars, we understand, were very likely in
Egypt.  The greatest library was in Alexandria, the most distinguished
philosophers were in Athens, the powerful were in Rome, the biblical
scholars were in Jerusalem-God disdained all of them and just picked clay
pots.  And He's still doing it.  He passed by Herodotus the historian, He
passed by Socrates the great thinker, He passed by the father of medicine,
Hippocrates, Herodotus the historian, Socrates the great thinker. He passed
by Plato the philosopher, Aristotle the wise, Euclid the mathematician,
Archimedes the father of mechanics, Hyparcus the astronomer, Cicero the
orator, Virgil the poet.  Do we need more?  He didn't pay any attention to
any of those people, and He's still in the business of picking up clay pots.


 

Now, just to kind of take this another step, turn to I Corinthians 4.  If
you don't feel bad already, I'm going to make you feel worse.  If you came
to try to find your self-esteem, you're in some trouble here.  Verse 6, I
Corinthians 4, "These things, brethren, I figuratively applied to myself."
He's been talking about the fact that he doesn't want anybody to consider
him as anything.  Verse 1, you know, "Let a man regard us as servants of
Christ, stewards of the mystery of God."  Don't make anything out of me.
Don't name cathedrals after me in cities in Minnesota or any of that stuff.
I'm just a servant of Christ.  I'm a steward of the mysteries of God.  I'm
an under-rower, a third level galley slave; I pulled my oar, that's enough.
It doesn't matter what you think about me (verse 3).  It doesn't matter what
human court says about me.  I don't even care what I say about myself.  You
don't know the truth, and I'm biased in my favor, and neither one of us is
likely to be accurate.  Don't pass judgment; let the Lord do that.  Verse 6,
he says, "These things, brethren, I figuratively applied to myself and
Apollos for your sake, that in us you might learn not to exceed what is
written, in order that no one of you might become arrogant in behalf of one
against the other."  We can't be thinking about each other with regard to
who's more important that the next person; we're just clay pots!  

 

Verse 7, "For who regards you as superior?  What do you have that you didn't
receive?  And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not
received it?"  He's starting to get a little sarcastic here: "You are
already filled, you've already become rich"-you're really something, aren't
you?-"you've become kings without us; I would, indeed, that you had become
kings, so that we also might reign with you."  

 

And then he says this in verse 9-an amazing statement-"I think, God has
exhibited us apostles last of all, lowest of the low, like criminals on
death row; we have become a spectacle to the world."  They would drag the
criminals through the streets in a parade on the way to the execution in the
arena, headed for death.  We're viewed as the lowest of the lowest of the
low.  

 

In fact, just skipping over to verse 13, he says, "We have become as the
scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now."
Scum.dregs.really interesting words.  Perikatharma is the word for "scum."
Katharma, related to catharsis, is "to cleanse."  Peri is "around," right?
What that word means is scum-the perikatharma is "that which is removed by
thorough cleansing."  It's the scum that sticks to the bottom of the pot.
Used metaphorically in the ancient world, it was describing criminals-the
lowest class of criminals, who were offered as human sacrifices to appease
the deities.  If you wanted to get your god off your back because you had a
famine or you had a plague or you lost a war, you found some scum in your
society, something filthy that you wanted eliminated, and you put him on an
altar as a sacrifice to your deity.  Paul says that's who we are.  We're the
scum.

 

And then he says we're the "dregs" (peripsoma).  This even goes down deeper.
I mean, Paul-he's at the bottom.  The perikatharma is what was removed by
cleaning thoroughly; the peripsoma was what didn't come off until you
scraped it.  The caked crud.  Feeling better about yourself?  I mean, this
is really amazing, isn't it?  It's the last of the refuse to cling!  I mean,
are you beginning to feel the hopelessness of this task?  

 

We are offering an invitation to people that makes them literally commit
suicide, with all their dreams, ambitions, desires, felt needs, all.you name
it-it's all gone.  And then we're presenting them a gospel of salvation that
is absolutely against the grain of every normal human impulse.  And to
compound our problem, the people who are offering this are the scum of the
world!  If I were planning a plan to do this, this would not be my plan: to
come up with an impossible message, an impossible invitation, and we'll
spread it around with the most despicable people in the world, the ones that
are most likely to be hated and vilified and belittled and demeaned.

 

Well, go back to II Corinthians 4, from the "scum," to the "clay pot."  II
Corinthians 4.  Let's just pick this up, and I just want to bounce through
this really quick here.  Paul says, "We have this treasure in earthen
vessels."  At this particular point, you might say to yourself, "You know,
we've got to figure out a strategy here.  We've got to overcome these
obstacles.  I mean, this is really pretty disastrous.  We need somehow to be
able to survive in this kind of environment.  What could we do?"  Well, I
want you to hear Paul.  Here are the things he will not do, right here.  

 

One: we will not surrender in cowardice.  Verse 1, "Therefore, since we have
this ministry, as we received mercy"-we have this ministry by mercy-"we do
not lose heart."  What does that assume?  It assumes rejection.  It assumes
hostility.  It assumes hatred.  We will not enkakoumen (?).  We will not
[literally means "to] give in to evil."  To lose courage.  We will not
become faint-hearted.  We will not crumble under this-and in our crumbling,
of course, we are useless.  False teachers in Corinth were market-savvy.
False teachers in Corinth were selling their image, packaging their message
with what the people wanted to hear.  The people want their religion a
little metaphysical, a little oratorical, a little philosophical, a little
transcendental, a little allegorical, and a little legalistic, and they
wanted it in the mouths of the slick.  Paul says, "I will not be a coward.
We will not lose heart."

 

Two: we will not tamper with the message.  Verse 2, "We have renounced the
things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating
the Word of God, but by manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God."  It is tough, it is impossible, it is
hard, it is painful.  One: we will not become cowards.  Two: we will not
tamper with the truth.  We will not walk in panourgia.  We will not walk in
trickery, adulterating the Word of God, tampering with the gospel to be
commended to men.  But we will be faithful to the gospel, manifesting the
truth, in order to commend ourselves to every man's conscience with God
watching.  

 

We will not surrender.  We will not change the message.

 

Thirdly, we will not manipulate the results, verse 3 and 4, because we know
this: "If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing."
The problem-listen-is not the seed; the problem is the what?  The soil,
isn't it?  It's the condition of the human heart.  "If it is veiled, it is
veiled to those who are perishing," in whose case "the god of this world has
blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of
the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."  Paul says, "We
will not manipulate the results because we understand if they don't believe,
they don't believe because they are perishing and blinded by Satan."  Our
gospel, if it is veiled, it is veiled because they are unable to understand.
In the language that we heard in the last message, it "has not been granted"
to them to understand.  There's nothing wrong with the message.  

 

We will not become cowards.  We will not change the message.  We will not
manipulate the results.  

 

If they don't hear, cool music won't help.  If they don't hear, PowerPoint
won't help.  If they don't hear, drama won't help and video won't help.
They're blind-and dead.  So we just go on preaching-not ourselves, not our
manipulated message-but Christ Jesus as Lord.  The message never changes.
We have this supernatural message, we're nothing more but privy-pots, but we
will not surrender that message, we will not lose heart, we will not
manipulate results (number four) because we will not seek popularity.

 

[Fourth], we will not seek popularity.  Verse 8, "We are afflicted in every
way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.  Always carrying about in the body
the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our
body.  For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for
Jesus' sake, in order that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our
mortal flesh.  So death works in us, but, as a result, life works in you."
And here's the key, verse 13: "We have the same spirit of faith, according
to what is written"-back in Psalm 1:16 'I believed; therefore, I spoke'-"we
also believe; therefore, we also speak."  We don't expect popularity!  What
do we expect?  He gave you the list: affliction, crushing, persecution,
being struck down, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus-that
doesn't mean some spiritual thing; it simply means that he's always on the
brink of death, always ready to die, always being delivered over by some
plot to death.  He knew every day that he awakened that it could be the day
he died.  Death was working in him as a daily experience, in anticipating
it.  I know what he means by that.  He had to live through his own funeral
every day, because it could have happened any day.  But, this never changed:
"I believed; therefore, I spoke."  That's it, men.  If you believe, you
speak.  

 

One more commitment: we will not look at earthly success.  We will not look
at earthly success.  Why do we do this?  Verse 14, "Because we know that He
who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will present us
with you.  For all things are for your sakes, that the grace, which is
spreading to more and more people, may cause the giving of thanks to abound
to the glory of God.  Therefore we do not lose heart.  But though our outer
man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.  For
momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory,
far beyond all comparison.  While we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are unseen.  For the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are unseen are"-what?  "Eternal."  We're not
into the temporal.  

 

What standards for ministry!  We will not lose heart.  We will not alter the
message.  We will not manipulate the results, because we understand that
there is a profound spiritual reality at work in those who do not believe.
We will not expect popularity; therefore, we will not be disappointed.  And
we will not look at earthly success, but at that which is unseen.

 

Then, back to verse 6 and 7, "The light shines, the glory of God and the
face of Jesus Christ, and we have this treasure in earthen vessels" and I
love this, the end of verse 7, "that the surpassing greatness of the power
may be of God and not from ourselves," and then we're right back where we
have been all along in these messages.  At the end of the day, there is no
human explanation for us, is there?  The world thinks we're odd and bizarre,
as Dr. Mohler was saying.  They think we're strange, and yet the church
moves with immense power through the history of the world.  Not to be
explained by us.  If we brought the elite university professors of Los
Angeles into this room, they'd look at us and laugh.  "These people can't
change the world!"  No, but God is changing it through us.

 

Well, I have to take you back for one final note to I Corinthians 1-and this
is a good place to sort of wrap up in the next couple of minutes.  

 

We have been dealing with all the shameful elements of the cross-the
shameful stigma of the cross, the shameful simplicity of the cross, the
shameful singularity of the cross, the shameful sentence of the cross, the
shameful society of the cross-I just want to give you one more.  

 

There's one more thing that stands in the way, that's really offensive, and
it's the shameful sovereignty of the cross.  You know, I used to hear, years
ago, people say, "Don't ever preach the doctrine of the sovereignty of God
when you have nonbelievers there."  I was literally warned against that!
But here is another offense to tell the unbeliever: salvation is limited.
So, how is it limited?

 

Well, go back to verse 18.  It's limited to those who are "being saved."
Okay, "being saved".  Go down to verse 21.  Those who are being saved,
according to verse 21, are those who "believe."  Those who believe-go down
to verse 24-are those who are the "called" (efficacious call; always, in the
epistles of the New Testament, the call is efficacious).  This salvation is
only for those who are being saved, because they are believing, because they
are called-go to verse 27-"because God has"-what's the next word?-"chosen."
That's the second time, in verse 27 ("because God has chosen"). Third time,
in verse 28 ("because God has chosen").  Eklegomai: "picked out for
Himself."  

 

Do you mean to tell me.this gospel assaults everything about me.  It
assaults my emotions with the stigma of the cross; it assaults my intellect
with the simplicity of the cross; it assaults my human affections with the
singularity of the cross, by attacking my tolerances; it assaults my sense
of well-being and dignity with the sentence of the cross; it assaults my
nobility with this mucky, scummy society of the cross; and now, all I have
left is my autonomy, and now you're telling me it doesn't have anything to
do with me!  Well, that's an overstatement, in a sense.  "Him that comes to
Me, I will in no way"-what?  "Cast out."  

 

But, it's really true.  I love this, verse 30.  How could anybody get saved?
How could anybody get saved under those terms?  You've got nothing left;
you're absolutely stripped of everything.  Verse 30, "But, by His doing, you
are in Christ Jesus."  What else can be said?  So, if it's His doing anyway,
why would I tamper with the message?  Why would I manipulate the results?
And to seal that, verse 29, "That no man should boast before God," verse 31,
"Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."  It is by his doing that you are in
Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness from God
and sanctification from God and redemption from God.  

 

R.C. Sproul said that God's favorite doctrine is sovereignty, and if you
were God, it would be yours.  I'll tell you something, it's my favorite!  I
just get a sick feeling when I hear contemporary people within
evangelicalism attack the sovereignty of God-his elective purpose in
salvation-because if God isn't saving people, they can't get saved!  

 

This is a quote from a very famous evangelical: "To suggest that the
merciful, longsuffering, gracious, and loving God of the Bible would invent
a dreadful doctrine like election, which would have us believe it is an act
of grace to select only certain people for heaven, comes perilously close to
blasphemy."  He's saying that God sovereignly saving people by his power is
close to blasphemy!  How else are they going to get saved?  

 

Another head of a national ministry writes, "The flawed theology of
pre-selection," as he calls it, "is an attempt to eliminate man's capacity
to exercise his free will, which reduces God's sovereign love to an act of a
mere dictator."  

 

Another writer says, "Election makes our heavenly Father look like the worst
of despots!"  

 

Another says, "This is the most unreasonable, incongruous,
self-contradictory, man-belittling, God-dishonoring scheme of theology that
ever appeared in Christian thought!  No one can accept its contradictory,
mutually exclusive propositions without intellectual self-debasement.  It
holds up a self-centered, selfish, heartless, remorseless tyrant for God and
bids us to worship Him."  

What a twisted understanding of God. 

 

Another says, "It makes God a monster."  These are evangelicals; some,
pastors.  Another says, "It makes God a monster, who eternally tortures
innocent.removes the hope of conciliation from the gospel.limits the atoning
work of Christ.resists evangelism.stirs up argumentation and
division.promotes a small, angry, judgmental God."  

 

I'd be worried to be saying things like that.  

 

"To say that God sovereignly chooses"-here's another one-"who will be saved
is the most twisted thing I have ever read, making God into a monster, no
better than a pagan idol."

 

Well, I don't need to read any more of that, but that's the kind of stuff
that I found in the flyleaf of Dave Hunt's book What Love Is This? 

 

What in the world is going on here?  The gospel is impossible for the
unregenerated man, until he has been regenerated.  The gospel is impossible
for the blind man, until he's been given sight.  There's nothing about it
that's attractive; there's "no beauty in Christ that we should desire him."
The invitation is impossible.  It's self-suicide.  Believing in this cross
gospel is just fraught with shame.  It's just unreasonable, illogical.  It
assaults everything that is human about us, everything we love about our
fallenness.  And then, to make things worse, it is espoused by the scum and
the dregs and the nobodies.  

 

So, what do we do?  What are we left to do, with this impossibility?  Look
at chapter 2: "When I came to you, brethren, I didn't come with superiority
of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.  In spite
of all of that, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified.  I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.
And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but
in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith should not rest on
the wisdom of men but on the power of God."  And that's where Paul landed.
He said, "Look, I'm not looking for a popular position, from which to
proclaim this message, somehow thinking it can ride and advance on the back
of public favor.  I preach the shameful cross, because that's what I've been
told to preach, and I leave it to the sovereign power of God to work through
that message to produce a faith that rests, not on the wisdom of men, but on
the power of God."

 

I'll just close with one more comment.  Mark 12:13-14.  This is one of those
just marvelous moments with Jesus and the Pharisees and Herodians, and the
Pharisees and Herodians came to Him and the idea was to catch Him in his
words, as always.  Listen to what they said to Jesus, Mark 12:13-14, "And
they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him, in order to trap Him
or catch Him in his words.  And they came to Him and said"-I love
this-"'Teacher, we know that you are truthful and defer to no one, for You
are not partial to anyone, but teach the way of God in truth.'"  What a
commendation!  Write that somewhere in your Bible, and follow in the
footsteps of Christ.  They killed him for it, and God overruled and provided
salvation.

 

 

Prayer:

 

Father, we do thank You for these wonderful days together and this glorious
evening that we have shared.  We have been taught and we have been inspired
and we have been convicted and we have been motivated and we have gone
through the cleansing of the Word as it prunes us-and we've also rejoiced
and celebrated.  We are so full of your truth and we are enjoying so richly
the sweetness of this fellowship.  Lord, somehow, we know that it can't
continue, but somehow, Lord, conserve this in us and translate it into
power, as we live and preach to the glory of our Christ, in whose name we
pray, Amen.

 

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Shepherds' Conference Collection" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board 
Box 119
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Our websites: www.biblebb.com <http://www.biblebb.com/>  and
www.gospelgems.com 
Email: tony at biblebb.com
Online since 1986

 

 

Thanks.

 

Charis,

 

Mike Abendroth

 

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

 

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