Amen. Well, we are at the last paragraph of the third chapter, which is decree, the chapter on the decree. Not decrees, I would remind you of that. It is one decree. What God does, he's a simple being. And I know that might sound extremely funny to you, because surely he is one that is not, one that is not understood. Everything he is is above us and beyond us. And yet, but everything he does, he doesn't do it as we do it. He does it with one act of decree, which is his first work. And then, of course, we will move in the next paragraph or next chapter to the second work, and that is the work of creation. And then we will move to the work of providence, And then we will move for the rest of the time, the work of redemption after talking about the condition of man. And so that's how it falls out. And indeed, as I said this morning, the confession is not just simply redundant, but it builds upon itself. And that's why you will hear these truths over and over again expressed from different angles and vantage points throughout this confession. And at the end of it, if the Lord's so pleased for us to get through it, then at the end of this, you will know more about God and the work of God than you have ever known about it. And you will see how it relates to itself. I've heard many illustrations about this, but one in particular, It's like, all of this is like a diamond. That as you turn the diamond in the light, it throws off different refractions of the light, and you can see the different areas of beauty in it. And so that's basically what we're dealing with here. We must, and see, it is the most neglected maybe I could say the most, but it surely is a most neglected doctrine. I mean, I was an adult before I heard anybody. Now, I mean, obviously I knew it was in the Bible, but it was just left alone. No preacher really delved into it. And if I remember, Jay Vernon McGee, I used to listen to Jay Vernon McGee when I was a young man, you know, from a teenage years, from about 17, 18. I didn't listen to music, I didn't listen to pop music, but there was a station owned by Jimmy Swagger in Baton Rouge, and they would, you know, it was a Christian station, religious station, and they would run they would run these preachers. And so I heard J. Vernon McGee through the Bible broadcast. Did any of y'all listen to J. Vernon McGee? Well, anyway, maybe I'm so old, you know, might not be as old as I am. But then I come here and Sharon called J. Vernon McGee, she was from California, he's from California. What are the chances of that, that Sharon called him Uncle Vern? It wasn't her real uncle, but he was a close friend of her father to such a degree that they were in the homes. Anyway. You know, when you hear somebody on the radio, you never see them. You have a mental image of them, right? And when I saw him, he looked just like I thought he would look. I thought he might've been a little heavier, but he had that voice. This is J Vernon McGee, who the Bible broadcasts. And we're on the gospel car now. We're driving through, anyway, on and on and on. And then Sharon's, I just couldn't believe it. A lady in Baton Rouge, Ouida Daniels, who's now in heaven, gave me all. She would give me money, and he would send her. So I have all of his outlines somewhere in my office in these cabinets, all of his outlines. Well, anyway, I listened to J. Vernon McGee, Lester Roloff, Oliver B. Green. It's really before MacArthur got It's before MacArthur got more popular, so I didn't listen to a lot of MacArthur. But anyway, there was a guy across the river from Baton Rouge in Livonia. That's a good Louisiana name, Livonia. And he owned a radio, W, or KPAE, and because it was across the river. The W's, I don't know if y'all know that, but in the call letters of radio stations, that the W's are on the east side of the Mississippi and the K's are on the west side. So he's just barely on the west side, K-P-A-E, Willie Kennedy, and he would run sermons by, you know, He would run them by Roth Barnard, and he'd run the sermons of Dr. Morton Lloyd-Jones, and so I was able to listen to them. But anyway, I remember listening to J. Vernon McGee, and he came to these, the section, I think it's in Ephesians, if I'm not mistaken, and he came to the idea of predestination. He was handling it very carefully and wasn't, you could tell, very uncomfortable with it and didn't want to say much about it. But other than that, I never heard anybody, no preacher that I sat on, and I was not just simply a casual attender. I attended church every Sunday. We didn't go Wednesday, because we lived kind of far from the church that we were, But every Sunday I was there, morning and night, listening to the preaching and paying attention to it, but never heard any of these things preached until I was an adult. I think probably that's some of your similar experiences, except for some of the young ones here. They never heard any other gospel. Aren't you happy that you learned something? You don't have to unlearn. I don't know about you, George, but I had to unlearn a lot, right? We knew some, we thought we knew some things, but I had to learn some things. But this idea of predestination, it's not just something that is a play toy of the Calvinist, but it is a doctrine that has to be mastered in order to understand the rest of the Bible. And that's why you have so many different poor understandings out there of the Bible. Because there's some people that just pick the Bible up and think, you know, that they know what to do with it and they surely don't understand it. In fact, we were just talking today about the concept of replacement theology. You know, and that's the idea, and it comes out of dispensationalism, that replacement theology is the theology, as they put it. Now, it's a misunderstanding. I would never submit myself to the understanding of replacement theology. But the idea behind that is, is that God is dealing with the church now, not with Israel. So the dispensationalists say that those of us who believe that, that we believe replacement theology, that the church has replaced Israel. But I would never submit to that. If I had to have a discussion concerning this, I would say, no, I don't believe in replacement theology. I do believe in fulfillment theology. We are the sons of Abraham, the spiritual sons of Abraham. We are not Ishmael, we are Isaac. We are the children of the promise. And it is not, see, that's the deal about when I talk in my devotions, when I write something on the tithe, Invariably, somebody's coming at me against the tide, and I'm not even really per se pushing the tide as much as I am pushing the promise of God in Malachi 3.10. Trust me, try me, prove me, saith the Lord, and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour down Well, the guy's trying to take that away. He said, no, no, that's not a promise to us. What do you mean that's not a promise to us? If that's not a promise to us, then no Old Testament promise is to us. Not one. That they're all just to the Jews and we happen to slip in. You say, no, that's not, that's not the truth. From the beginning, It was this. And you see, the reason that they don't know it's from the beginning, because they neglected this great doctrine of predestination. They think that God is trying different issues and that's all dispensationalism is. It's a hermeneutic saying that he moved from one dispensation to another because all of these dispensations failed. That is not covenant theology. In fact, you cannot be a dispensationalist and believe this document. This document is a document of Covenant theology. The old covenant and the new covenant. Now what does it mean to be the old covenant? Of course, I've jumped up many chapters there, but what is the old covenant? Well, it doesn't mean old in the sense that it's decrepit. It is old in the sense that it's first, you know, antiquity. It didn't pass away, I mean, it moves, antiquity moves to the present, you see. So then we're in the new covenant. What is the new covenant? Well, all of this apocalyptic language teaches us that something happened in the heavens that was a fulfillment of what was, and the apostle Paul is saying this about Abraham, that which was shown to us in the Old Testament with all of its promises. They don't believe that there are evangelical applications to this, but they are. We can go to all the promises in the Old Testament to the people of God, and we can see the fulfillment of them in the church of Jesus Christ. And so you must understand this, you see, that this is not plan B. This is the work of God through history. Now, since it is a neglected doctrine, and since it is a doctrine that can be misunderstood and lead you to wrong conclusions, our forefathers, our Baptist forefathers following the Westminster following the Savoy, Westminster, Presbyterian, Savoy Congregationalists. They're Pato Baptists, but they were Presbyterian Congregationalists, and now Baptists following our forefathers saying that it is a high mystery. Now again, 2 Peter chapter one, verse 10 says this, wherefore the rather brethren, Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you. So there's an entrance unto Christ this word ministered is diakonos. It is brought to you, you know, the idea of diakonos as a table waiter. This is brought to you abundantly. Okay, so he says, I mean, King James, this language might kind of throw you off a little bit, but this is what he's saying. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." Whose kingdom? And it's an everlasting kingdom. Okay. So here, I mean, if we read into this verse nine, he says, but he that lacketh these things is blind. Or verse eight says, for if these things be in you and the bound they make you, that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, again, what is he talking about? Or verse five, and besides this, giving diligence, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue. And to your virtue, knowledge. And to your knowledge, temperance. And to your temperance, patience. Literally, perseverance here. Hubo mano, to persevere. And to perseverance or patience, godliness. And to godliness, brotherly kindness. And to brotherly kindness, charity. agape, love, for these things be in you and abound. They make you that ye shall neither be barren, could be translated idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but he that lacketh these things is blind, cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather, brethren, instead of forgetting, be blind, give diligence. This is a very interesting concept that the Apostle Peter is saying to us. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. We have nothing to do with our calling. We were dead in a grave, a spiritual grave. And the spirit of the living God, even as Jesus did before the tomb of Lazarus, came to our spiritual grave and called us to life. That's what this calling is. It's not an unfruitful calling. And indeed, when we get to the concept of effectual calling, we'll see this. It's not an unfruitful calling. It's not like, and I use the illustration, when we were kids, we didn't want to come inside. We didn't have devices. We had one TV, black and white, and two channels. And during the day, nothing was on anyway. except on Saturday, there was some baseball games or football games. Okay, so we were outside. We wanted to be outside. We played, and then our mother occasionally, because I think life has changed on me. When I was young, I didn't want to eat. Now I'm old, that's all I want to do is eat. But we didn't want to eat, we wanted to play. But our mother would come to the back door, and she would say, come to supper. Well, sometime that calling was effectual. We got there because we were hungry. Sometime that calling was ineffectual. She'd have to do it over and over and over again and we wouldn't listen. I mean, we finally came in because of the fear of punishment. But this effectual calling, when we sing the hymn, Jesus is tenderly calling today, calling today. You see the concept of some of these people you know as you sing these songs some people believe that Jesus is standing there and in fact there have been some hymns that are just blasphemous in my opinion. The Savior's waiting to enter your heart oh why won't you let him come in time after time he's waited before And now he's waiting again to see if you're willing to open the door. Well, the only problem is who's behind that door? That'd be a dead man. The calling is the power of God on your life. We could name it other things. We could say it's conviction. We could say it's conversion. We could say it's confession. We've been called to these things. not by anything in our power. And that needs to be understood. And surely your election, the whole idea of election is passive. I mean, no politician elects himself. He has to be elected by those who vote. And so this, and we actually get the term, this is not really a translation. This is a transliteration, this election, you know, is just simply taken out of the Greek. The whole word is taken out of the Greek. We do not control our calling nor our election. And yet here is the Spirit of God moving the Apostle Peter to say to us, don't lack knowledge, don't be blind, Don't forget these things, but give diligence. Work for, agonize over your calling and election. Now, of the five points, and of course, you know, Not a lot of Baptist preachers broach this subject, but of the five points of Calvinism that spell out TULIP, which is interesting, the Senate of Dort, right? Took the remonstrance, which came from the followers of Jacob Arminius. They had five points of the remonstrance that was really speaking against the gospel of the New Testament. And when the theologians met, the pastors met in the council or in the Synod of Dort, they took these five points and they answered them. Now that was in Holland and it spells out TULIP. That's kind of quaint, isn't it? Here we are, something comes out of Highland and the acrostic is TULIP, T-U-L-I-P, right? Total depravity. unconditional election predestination, irresistible grace, better probably to call it effectual calling, but that kills the acrostic, but irresistible grace, or I should say limited atonement, limited atonement is the third point, and really the atonement, again, it's not limited, it's particular, I mean, it accomplishes exactly what God wanted it to accomplish, what he purposed it to accomplish. But anyway, it's limited in the sense that not everyone is redeemed by it. But everybody limits it, unless you're universalist, and then you can't believe the Bible. The Arminian says man limits it. The Bible teaches us that God has limited it or has established it as a particular redemption. Christ knew for whom he is dying, and he did not attempt to redeem, he redeemed. He didn't attempt to atone, he atoned. And then irresistible grace, or what we would call effectual calling, And then the final one is perseverance of the saints. Not preservation of the saints, but perseverance of the saints, you see. Without that fifth point, these other four points could be, could lead one to what we would call antinomianism. Okay, so God has done it for you. There's not anything you could do. And that would lead people to inactivity. That's why we are accused, as Calvinists, and the reason people don't wanna believe what we believe, because they accuse us, if you believe these things, you will be moved to inactivity. But that's not historically been true. Who started the first modern missionary society? You know the name of it? It was the Particular Baptist Missionary Society. William Carey, Adoniram Judson. These people were particular Baptist, meaning Calvinistic. They believe, and it's amazing that they took the name, their name from the most hated point of these doctrines. The most hated point of these doctrines. Particular. Redemption. But let me say this to you, and I'm out of time, but let me say that without that fifth point, we would not be what we should be. We would lean toward inactivity, let God do it. See, God will do it for us. And we don't have to do anything, we don't have to worry about it, don't have to pray, don't have to witness. Now that's what we've been accused of. But a true evangelical application of these doctrines would never lead you to that because of perseverance. Now, I told the Sunday School class, I think I might have mentioned in a sermon this morning also, John Owen, who was probably the most brilliant of all the Puritans, at least he was among the most brilliant, Here's what he said, our responsibility as Christians, as the elect, is not to figure out predestination. It's not to get into a philosophical discussion of these things. Our responsibility is obedience. How do you give diligence? Well, you obey. These things are added to you, you see. You add these things, you seek these things, you give yourself to these things. And that's what this paragraph says, that it should lead us to praise. Okay, you want to make sure, you want to be assured of your eternal election. How do you know? Because your mouth is filled with praise. that flows from your heart. How do you know? Because you reverence God. You don't treat him as some casual thing. And some of this modern music, though it may be good in the sense it's not filthy, it's not dirty, you don't have to worry about some concept of coming to your children's ears or to your own ears, but it's just often so irreverent. Like Jesus has got your back. How irreverent a statement about our Christ. What are you talking about? Got your back. Well, if you want to talk about what Jesus has, he has your being. Reverence, admiration, humility, diligence, diligence. It doesn't lead us to inactivity, but to greater activity. So what is our responsibility? What is, what is our reaction to this great doctrine, this high mystery that must be handled with great care? It's simply this, obedience. Ask God to help us. to work out our salvation and fear and trembling. For it's God in us, both willing and doing of His good pleasure. Let's pray.