God rules over all things. How important is that to your eternal destiny? John MacArthur connects one of scripture's most important and most often misunderstood concepts, the sovereignty of God, with your hope for heaven. That's next on Grace to You. Welcome, friend. Thanks for being here for Today's Grace To You. John MacArthur continues his brand new series called The Gospel According to Paul. Now, perhaps you're wondering why John is looking exclusively at the gospel that Paul preached. Well, as you're about to see, to understand Paul's gospel is to know the clear, consistent salvation message of Scripture. Could say that your destiny depends on how well you know it, the gospel according to Paul. That lesson is coming up in just a moment, but before we get to that, John, let's see. I can't believe it's already February 1st, and we have some great days ahead here on Grace To You. Tell listeners what they can expect if they stay tuned in this month. Thank you, Carl, for the opportunity to do this. We're going to have a great month of February. Well, every month, of course, studying the Word of God is rich and wonderful and even divine, because this is from heaven, the Word of God. But it is a special month, and starting today, of course, the first of February through next Monday, we're going to continue our study on the gospel according to Paul. Some people think that Paul had a different gospel than Jesus. Which, of course, he didn't. Paul clarified the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the gospel, according to Paul, is in perfect agreement with everything else in the Bible everywhere. Then on February 7 to 10, we're going to do a classic study called Salvation Survey. Saved or self-deceived? This is the most important test you will ever take. That's February 7 to 10. Then from 13 to 24 of this month, I'm going to walk you through the Bible's guidelines for singleness and marriage. And then starting February 27 and continuing into March, we're going to take a look at a radical alternative to political activism. Wow, what a great month! You need to be here every day, and grace to you. Truth that can deepen your love for God. Truth that can transform your relationships with others. That's what you'll get this February as you make Grace to You a part of your listing schedule. Now, let's start off the month as John MacArthur continues this new study called, The Gospel According to Paul. There is a component to the gospel according to Paul and the gospel according to the other Apostles and the gospel according to Jesus and the gospel of God and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel of salvation. There is a component to it that cannot be ignored and, of course, Paul makes a major issue out of that and it is that this is a sovereign gospel...this is a sovereign gospel. It is dispensed. the power of the gospel, the saving work of the gospel at the will of God...at the will of God. Not only does righteousness come down from above, as we have learned, but faith comes down from above, conviction comes down from above. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. It is the Holy Spirit who grants repentance, Paul says. It is faith itself which is a gift of God. All the elements of salvation come down from above. None of them rise from within us by our own will, our own works, our own intuition, our own good intentions. We are the recipients of salvation granted to us in every sense by the sovereign grace of God. Now Paul makes this very clear in Ephesians 1, and let's start there, Ephesians chapter 1, and we're going to look at a number of passages to help you to understand the sovereign aspect of salvation and how it relates to human responsibility. How are we to harmonize divine sovereignty with human responsibility? How can we understand that salvation is a matter of God's will and God's choice and God's purpose and God's timing and at the same time make man in any sense responsible for what happens? This is the inevitable question. And I might just say to you that you should get comfortable with that question. You will not in this life have a sufficient answer, so your comfort must come in the question. Every major doctrine regarding salvation in the Scripture and many beyond salvation have within them an apparent paradox that cannot be resolved on the human side. This is one of the evidences that God wrote the Bible and not men or they would have eliminated all of those unsolvable paradoxes. So you have to get comfortable with the question and I'll help you with that comfort a little bit. Let's look at Ephesians 1 and I just want to drive you down to verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And it all started just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. Is that clear? Why are you saying? Because you had the sense to believe the gospel? No. Because God had the grace to choose you before the foundation of the world. The ultimate end of that choosing would be that you would be holy and blameless before Him, that's justification, imputed righteousness. It was by His love that He predestined us to be adopted as His sons, all this according to the kind intention of His will so that all the praise and all the glory would go to Him. And that is repeated through this long sentence, verses 3 through 14, one sentence, all of it according to verse 12, to the praise of His glory, all of it according to verse 14 to the praise of His glory, all of it according to verse 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace. The whole plan of salvation then is to be understood as the outworking of a divine purpose. before the foundation of the world. God determined who would be saved. Their names were inscribed in the Lamb's Book of Life, the Lamb who Himself was slain before the foundation of the world in the sense of divine intention. Matthew 25-34 is such a beautiful verse, it says this, "'Come you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" Well the Apostle Paul understood this. He understood the words of Jesus in John 15, "'You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.'" This is the great doctrine of predestination, the doctrine of election. It is resisted. It is hated by some, rejected. It's one of those unacceptable doctrines to people who are used to living in a democracy and being told that life should be conducted by your own free will and your choice. People who grow up in monarchies have a little more understanding of sovereign power and authority over their lives. Those of us who have been raised in this great republic, this great democratic experiment, the likes of which had not occurred in the history of the world until our nation was founded, think we should be able to choose everything for ourselves. We've never lived under a sovereign. Well you are living under a sovereign when you come into the Kingdom of God. And the sovereign has determined everything. It is by His will that we will become wholly blameless and stand before Him in perfection, justified. Based on His predestined purpose, we are adopted as sons, all of this according to the kind intention of His will. The language of Paul in verses 3 through 6 is unmistakable. It is by His will that we have redemption. It is by His will that we have been given forgiveness of our trespasses, in verse 7. It is by His will that He lavished all of this on us. It is by His will, verse 9, that He has revealed to us the kind intention of what He has purposed for us in the future. In other words, He's given us in Scripture a full understanding of our future hope, what is awaiting us. The inheritance, he refers to in verse 11, is a result of His predestining us according to His purpose. And this goes on down into verse 14, the inheritance yet to come. Everything from election to glorification, all the things in the middle, justification, sanctification are according to His divine will and purpose. This is inescapable also in the 8th chapter of Romans. Look at 8 of Romans for a minute and this is just kind of the introduction. I want to take you to some texts in a minute that you probably haven't looked at in the way we're going to look at them. Verse 29 of Romans 8 says, Whom ye foreknew, foreknowledge is not God knowing something before, it is God predetermining something before. for whom He predetermined." The word to know can have an intimate sense. Adam knew his wife and she bore a child. It doesn't mean he knew who she was. It means he had an intimate relationship with her. Jesus said, My sheep hear My voice and I know them." It doesn't mean that He knew who they were, it means that He had an intimate relationship with them. This is a predetermined intimate relationship that God has designed and because of it, He predestines us to be conformed to the image of His Son. And verse 30 says, whom He predestined, He called and whom He called, He justified and whom He justified, He glorified. Predestination, effectual calling to salvation, justification, glorification. In the sixth chapter of John, all that the Father gives to me will come to me. Whoever comes to me, I will not refuse. Whoever comes to me, I will receive, I will keep, I will raise and the last day I will lose none of them. That is the way to understand this great doctrine of predestination which is so much a part of Paul's theology and it comes out in a lot of other places as well. Now the question that I want to have you think through with me a little bit is, does the truth of divine sovereign election eliminate human will? Does the truth of divine sovereign grace, divine sovereign predestination and election, which is unmistakable in the Bible, eliminate human will? That's the prevailing question. It is a popular criticism, of course, of those of us who teach biblical theology. It is a nagging issue among those who are offended by the doctrine of predestination, sovereign election, that we are guilty of removing human freedom and human will. There have been many pastors that I've talked to through the years who feel that if you teach this doctrine, it will take the passion out of evangelism, it will make your people indifferent toward the lost. Well we've already learned from 2 Corinthians 5 that Paul says, my life is lived for one thing, it is ruled and controlled by the love that Christ has for me and it's not just for me that He died, but He died for all who died in Him and therefore I am an ambassador for this glorious gospel. and I am preaching and giving my life to the ministry of reconciliation." So it didn't have a negative effect on his passion. In fact, his passion for the gospel and preaching the gospel to the lost took him all the way to martyrdom. But the accusation is that this sucks the life out of evangelism if we say that this is all a work of God. Turn to John 3. I want to show you this. This is so important. There's a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. ruler of the Jews, the ruler of the Jews, which really means the teacher of the Jews. This is a man who was a notable teacher, one of the leading teachers, came to Jesus by night, said to Him, Rabbi, we know You've come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. So he's affirming the fact that everybody affirmed this, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the whole leadership of Israel, even though they rejected Jesus and crucified Him, never denied His miracles, okay? They never denied His miracles, they were not deniable. They were ubiquitous, they were everywhere. They were every day. They were all over the place. They were not deniable. They never tried to deny them. But here's the testimony of one who speaks for all and says, no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. It's obvious. Miracles, power over demons, power over disease, power over death, power over nature. But Jesus knew there was a question in the heart of Nicodemus that Nicodemus hadn't verbalized and so He went right to the heart and He said, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he can't see the Kingdom of God. And Nicodemus said to Him, how can a man be born when he's old? Now he understands Jesus is speaking metaphorically. You need to be born again. You need to go back and start all over at the very beginning. It's not about religious advancement, it's about birth. So he asks the question, how can a man be born when he's old? How do I do that? How do I go back to the beginning? I'm an old man now and I've been in this legalism all these years, my whole life. He can't go a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? And he's talking metaphorically. He understands it. He's not talking physically. He's not making a joke. Jesus said, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, and he's borrowing from Ezekiel, right? the New Covenant passage. that you need to be washed with water, cleansing, and be given a new heart to replace the stony heart. He's talking Ezekiel talk to a teacher of the Old Testament. You need New Covenant experience. You need what even Jeremiah 31 talks about. You need to be cleansed and you need to have a new heart, you need to have the Spirit planted within you before you can enter the Kingdom of God. That's the New Covenant. You need to be regenerated. You need to be transformed. Because that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. You're flesh and you're just continuing to continue the process of the flesh until you go back to the very beginning, are born again spiritually by the Holy Spirit, then you can enter the Kingdom of God. So don't be amazed that I say you must be born again. Now at this particular point, you would say to someone, I'm telling you, you need to be born again. And if the person said to you, how do I do that? You would say, ah, pray this prayer, right? Repeat after me, pray this prayer. Oh well, you just need to repent and believe. What did Jesus say to Nicodemus? The really strange thing, verse 8, the wind blows where it wishes. and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it's going, so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." What is that? If somebody came to you and said, I think I need to be born again, I think I need to get out of this sort of relentless life of the flesh, I need a new birth, I need a new heart, I need a new spirit, what do I do? What do you say to them? You can't do anything. You can't do anything. This is the work of the Spirit. And He comes and goes when He wills, on whom He wills. What? So much for formula evangelism. So much for pray this prayer. This is Jesus, this is not some novice who doesn't quite get evangelistic technique. This is Jesus. What He's saying to Nicodemus is, I just have to tell you, you need to be born again, you need to be born anothen, literally from above and you're not in charge of when that happens. What a statement. I recognize what you need. I also recognize that you are not in charge of its reality." Wow! The Spirit comes and goes as He wills. And that's why people are born in the Spirit. You see, that may be the most overlooked statement in Scripture on divine sovereignty in salvation. Wow, divine sovereignty, you can't argue that. But let's look a little further into this chapter, okay? Come down to verse 27. Listen to what John said. Verse 27, a man can receive...what?...what's the next word?...nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. He can't receive anything unless it comes down from heaven. Yet John knew that. And John is the last of the Old Testament prophets. Divine sovereignty, absolutely, in salvation, it's a divine work. It's a work that heaven does. Now let's go back to verse 15. Are you ready for this? So that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. What? What's that whoever doing there? Whoever believes? Will in Him have eternal life? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God didn't send the Son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be judged through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." Why are people judged and go to hell? Because they aren't elected? No, because they don't believe. This is the judgment that light has come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, doesn't come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed, but he who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifest as having been wrought in God." Drop down to verse...well, verse 36, he who believes in the Son has eternal life. He who does not obey the Son will not see life but the wrath of God abides on him. The eternal wrath of God falls on people because they do not...what?...believe. Are you having a little trouble putting that all together? Because you need to have that trouble. That means you understand both. Don't find some middle ground that wipes out both of these truths. There are other passages of Scripture that do this, and I'm only trying to point out to you that the Bible doesn't try to explain this, it mixes it. There's a good illustration in Acts 2, men of Israel, says Peter on the Day of Pentecost. His theology was so accurate. Men of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst just as you yourself know. This man...listen to this...delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death." Godless men did God's work. You delivered Him over. And by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross this man by godless men, putting him to death. Was Israel guilty? You better believe it, Jesus on the last day of Passion Week looks at the temple and says, not one stone will be left upon another, right? Your house is left to you desolate. Judgment came in the form of the Romans in 70 A.D. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were massacred. They were massacred in following years in 985 towns across the land of Israel. The Romans went and left dead bodies. Judgment came in a massive way. And you have to understand that the judgment against Israel and its rejection of Messiah goes on even today. I don't know what you think when you look at the nation Israel today. It is not a nation under divine favor, it is a nation under divine judgment. And it will continue to be under divine judgment until it looks on him whom it has pierced and mourns for him as an only son. And in the words of Zechariah, a fountain of cleansing will be opened to Israel. But until that happens, that nation is under judgment, but it's the same judgment precisely that any unredeemed sinner is under for the rejection of Jesus Christ. In the case of the crucifixion of Christ, they did the will of God and yet they were godless men who were held fully accountable for what they did. I'm so comfortable with divine mystery because it means that God is so much greater than I am and that His ways are not my ways. Look, we have to understand this, that every one of us bears responsibility to believe and we're held accountable if we believe or if we don't believe. It has consequence eternally. As believers, we're responsible for living our Christian lives. And yet, inexplicably, anything good in us is the work of the Holy Spirit, anything bad is us. On the other hand, we must also persevere in faith. But at the same time, we are being kept by the power of God in the hands of Christ. This is profound stuff. It's consistent through all of Scripture. And I celebrate this. Look, I've been at this a long, long time. And the longer I live, the more I rejoice in these doctrines that I can't resolve, because they speak of the greatness of God. Who is ultimately responsible for your salvation? God or you? John MacArthur's lesson today answered that question, showing you that your salvation begins and ends with God. The Gospel According to Paul, that's the title of John's current study, here on Grace To You. Now keep in mind that this study is available on seven CDs or on seven MP3 downloads. For both believers and non-Christians, this could be a critical tool for digging into what Scripture says about salvation. The title again, The Gospel According to Paul. Get your copy as you contact us today. Now, if you'd like to place the study in the hands of a friend, let me encourage you to order the 7-CD album. The cost of that is $31. Shipping is free. To order it, ask for the Gospel According to Paul CDs, calling 1-800-55-GRACE, or going to the website gty.org. By the way, the MP3 downloads are available there at gty.org. You can download them free of charge and can get one message, perhaps You want to review today's sermon only or download all seven for the Study of the Gospel According to Paul. You'll also find recent series like A Plea for Personal Purity or The Bible-Driven Church. All of John's sermons, there are 3,000 in all, are available free on mp3 at gty.org. And as you access those resources, thanks for remembering that we're listener funded. When you give, you help us minister across the globe. Your support helps us strengthen churches, feed spiritually hungered Christians, and encourage folks who rarely hear God's truth. Express your support today as you write, Grace to You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. or call 1-800-55-GRACE. And now, for John MacArthur, I'm Carl Nutter, inviting you back tomorrow for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, here on Grace To You. Perhaps you've wondered, if God chooses whom he saves, what's the point of evangelism? We'll consider that as John MacArthur continues the study on the gospel according to Paul, tomorrow, here on Grace To You.