If God chooses whom he saves, what's the point of evangelizing, of calling others to repent and confess Jesus as Lord? We'll consider that today as John MacArthur continues his look at the gospel according to Paul, here on Grace To You. Maybe the question has come up in your church or in a conversation with a friend who is ultimately getting the credit for your salvation, you or God. Where do you fall in the debate? Why does it really matter? And how can today's message, an explanation of the sovereign gospel, Help you understand salvation better, love Jesus Christ more, and explain his saving work more clearly to others? We'll consider all that today on Grace to You as John MacArthur continues his brand new study called The Gospel According to Paul. And with today's message, here's John. And how do we harmonize the issue of divine sovereignty, human responsibility with our evangelistic duty? We have been given the ministry of reconciliation. We have been given the word of reconciliation, the message about a reconciling God who has provided a way for sinners to be reconciled to Him. We are controlled, constrained, compelled, motivated and ruled by the love that Christ has for us which love goes to all those for whom He died. We are to go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. We are, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, 11, to persuade men because we understand the terror of the Lord, divine judgment, eternal hell, all of that. So we know it has been laid upon us to be faithful in our evangelistic responsibility. At the same time, sometimes we struggle with this reality of divine sovereignty and what it is that we can do when everything is predetermined by God and worked by the Holy Spirit. Well the simple answer to the question is God has not only ordained whom He will save, but He has ordained that we in our faithful evangelism would be the means by which He would save His own. To be useful to Him is the purpose in the fulfillment of His sovereign plan, to be an instrument that He can use, to be a vessel and honor fit for the Master's use, to be obedient because that brings, of course, blessing, reward in this life and eternal reward as well. But in trying to harmonize this issue of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, which seems to me to be the number one issue that people who study the Bible grapple with trying to harmonize that, my answer to that through the years has simply been to clarify the issue because the Bible doesn't really give us a resolution to that because this is something that is beyond us, it is a transcendent reality that is perfectly harmonized in the mind of God, but a dilemma for us. Our responsibility is to give God the glory for salvation and to give our lives to calling sinners to repentance in the ministry of reconciliation. Now a great illustration of how these two things are juxtaposed against each other will be found for us in the ninth, tenth and eleventh chapter of Romans. Having given us a look at the gospel in chapters 1 through 8 in Romans, that is really the full unveiling of Paul's understanding of the gospel. Now in these three chapters, 9, 10 and 11, he reveals the passion that moved him, passion for the salvation of sinners. And they were both Jew and Gentile, as we know, because though he had this particular desire for the Jews, he was the Apostle. to the Gentiles. As these chapters unfold, they disclose, I guess you could say, four essential components, four realities, four truths regarding evangelism. They are all necessary and yet they are apparently paradoxical. They are putting us in a position of tension. So let's just take them one at a time. Chapter 9 emphasizes divine sovereignty. Pick it up in verse 6. The fact that Israel has not believed, the fact that Israel is not saved, the fact that they have rejected Christ, verse 6, it is not as though the Word of God has failed. Why? Because they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. You know what that means? God never intended all Jews to be saved. That's what he's saying. The explanation establishes divine sovereignty, nor are they all children, verse 7, because they are Abraham's descendants, that is children of God. But through Isaac your descendants will be named. That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. This is the word of promise, at this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son and not only this. There was Rebekah also when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac, for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her by God, the older will serve the younger and it is also written, Jacob I loved and Esau I...what?...I hated." You know, the first five verses here might make somebody think that everything had gone wrong, that God had in the beginning intended to save all the Jews and the plan had failed. And Paul's answer is the unbelief of Israel is perfectly consistent with God's sovereign purpose and promise. God's promise did not fail. God's power did not fail. from the beginning, God was making choices as seen even before Jacob and Esau were born. Verse 14 then assumes the immediate criticism that's going to come. Huh, what shall we say then? There's no injustice with God, is there? This doesn't seem fair. It's not fair that God chooses. That's not just. So do we say there's injustice? No, no, no. And He answers with sovereignty, verse 15, He said to Moses, I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion. So it doesn't depend on the man who wills or the man who turns, but on God who has mercy. The Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate My power in you and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth so then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires. That is clear as it can be that God makes choices. You say, is that fair? Fair would send everybody where? To hell. You want fair? I don't think so. There is no equivocation in Paul's understanding of the sovereignty of God, none. Verse 19 then, another criticism will be levied against this. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who resists his will? How in the world, if this is all decided by God, can you blame me if I don't believe? How can you do that? And here's the answer, verse 20, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? Shut your mouth. Don't call God's justice into question. The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this, will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? Can't the potter do what he wants? Isn't God absolutely sovereign? Why are you asking Him? Why are you questioning Him? In fact, verse 22. It's like saying, so what? What's it matter to you? Why should you think you need to weigh in if God, willing to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known, His judgment power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy which He prepared beforehand for glory." You don't have a right to tell God what He can do, what He can't do. There's an interesting use of the verb here. He endured with much patience vessels of wrath, passive verb...passive verb. Endured those prepared for destruction. God is not the active agent, the verb is passive. This is not double predestination. They are prepared for destruction by their sin. The agent is not named in the process of the destruction. There is not a subject for the passive verb. But obviously the agent is the person. The agent is the sin that indwells the person. Whereas, in verse 23 and 24, the verbs are active and God is the one doing it. He is the one prepared...who has prepared beforehand glory for those whom He called from the Jews and from the Gentiles. So what you have here is this strong, strong statement on salvation being a work of God based upon His divine, sovereign, uninfluenced and eternal choice. Now Paul wants to prove this from the Old Testament, so in verse 25 he borrows language from Hosea and Isaiah. As he also says in Hosea, I will call those who were not My people, My people, and her who was not My beloved, beloved. And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, You are not My people, there they shall be called sons of the living God." Verse 27, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved for the Lord will execute His Word on the earth thoroughly and quickly. And just as Isaiah foretold, unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity or a remnant, we would have become like Sodom and would have resembled Gomorrah. He borrows from the prophet Hosea and the prophet Isaiah Old Testament texts that saw the unbelief of Israel in the future and also saw the salvation of the remnant. The salvation of the remnant. Verse 27 is the key one. Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved. That's the doctrine of the remnant. It cannot be mistaken what he is saying. Did Israel have no human responsibility in this? Of course they did. Look at verse 30, what shall we say then? That Gentiles who didn't pursue righteousness attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith. But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, didn't arrive at that law, it would be better off to be a Gentile. Here are all these Jews that have been working their heads off pursuing righteousness by the law. are eliminated and Gentiles who pursued it by faith received the salvation that the Jews couldn't find by pursuing it through the Law. The reason is they didn't pursue it by faith, but as though it was by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone who was Christ. Just as it is written back again in Isaiah, I lay an eye on a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed. The statement is unambiguous. Gentiles attained righteousness by faith. Israel did not attain righteousness because they sought it by works. They sought it by works. So, on the one hand, It is a sovereign decision of God who will be saved. On the other hand, people are condemned because they sought salvation in the wrong way. Gentile Jew had to believe. Salvation was going to be by faith, always by faith, and faith had to be placed in Christ Jesus. The Jews refused to do that. They stumbled over Christ. They are therefore lost. Does that mean the plan of God failed? No, God never intended that all Israel would be the true Israel, but that there would be a remnant. And if God determines to put His grace on display in a remnant, He has a right to do that. If He determines to put His judgment and His wrath on display and His holiness on display, In condemning sinners, He has a right to do that. So there you have the issue of divine sovereignty. And in chapter 10, there's a dramatic change here, just a dramatic change because the subject now is human responsibility. We get a hint of that at the end of chapter 9. Brethren, my heart's desire, my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. This desire, deesis in the Greek means pleading, passionate, kind of begging desire. He's not thrown into indifference by the doctrine of sovereignty in chapter 9, he just wrote the chapter. He's not thrown into indifference by the doctrine of election, predestination because he understands the parallel truth of human responsibility. It unfolds magnificently in chapter 10. I mean, it's just shocking really that these are just placed against each other and they aren't adversarial, they're parallel. What's the problem? What is the issue here? I want them to be saved, he says, verse 1. I want them to be saved. My heart cries out for their salvation so that I could almost wish myself damned if they could be saved. What's the problem? Well, verse 2 he explains it. He doesn't say, oh, they're not elect. He says they have a zeal for God but not in accordance with what? The first problem is they lack knowledge. Well they lack knowledge about what? Verse 3, not knowing about God's righteousness. The first thing, this is very important, that they lack is they have an inadequate understanding of God and particularly of the righteousness, the holiness, the absolute perfection of God. They think, listen, God is less righteous than He is. They think God is less righteous than He is. How do you know that? Because they are seeking to establish their own righteousness. It kind of works like this. They think God is less righteous than He is so that they can be as righteous as God requires. They lack the knowledge of God. They lack the knowledge of sin. They lack the knowledge of Christ. Verse 4, they don't understand that Christ is the end of the Law. Christ is the only one who fulfills the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes. In other words, we're right back to the active righteousness of Christ, the character of Jesus Christ. They don't understand that the only one who can and has fulfilled the Law perfectly is the Lord Jesus Christ and it is His perfect righteousness imputed by God to the one who believes in Him. They don't understand that. They don't understand the character of God. They don't understand the nature of their own fallenness. They don't understand the righteousness of God that comes by Christ. They also don't understand that salvation is by faith, end of verse 4. And then he goes on to talk about that in verse 5, even Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on Law shall live by that righteousness, okay? You want to come by the Law? Then you will be held accountable to the perfect keeping of the Law and you're damned by that. But, verse 6, the righteousness based on faith. That's what Paul wants to communicate. Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down. Or who will descend into the abyss? That is to bring Christ up from the dead. Who do you think you are? You think you can pull Christ down out of heaven? You think you can bring Christ up from below and bring Him to your rescue and your aid because of some self-generated righteousness? You don't get it. What have we been preaching, he says in verse 8? The Word is near you. in your mouth, in your heart. It's not any new message, that's borrowed from Deuteronomy 30, the word of faith which we are preaching. This is what we preach. Here it comes. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Now there's no sovereignty in that. This is calling on the sinner to confess with his mouth Jesus is Lord, believe in his heart that God raised Him from the dead. So after the singular strongest statement made in Holy Scripture on the doctrine of absolute divine sovereignty and salvation, chapter 9. You have chapter 10 in which the Apostle says that the sinner who confesses Jesus as Lord believes in his heart that God raised him from the dead, which is the divine affirmation of the perfection of his life and work, will be saved. For with the heart, verse 10, a man believes, resulting in righteousness. With the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. You want righteousness, you can't achieve it, you can't pull it down from above, bring it up from below. It is a gift of God to the one who believes. And it even goes beyond that. Look at verse 11. Whoever believes, whoever believes will not be disappointed, which is an echo of verse 33 in the last chapter. Whoever will call upon the Lord will be saved. And then comes this very important portion of Scripture starting in verse 14 that takes us to the third point that I want you to see this morning. First Paul talks about divine sovereignty. Then he talks about human responsibility to believe. And here he talks about gospel duty. Look at verse 14. Does he say, how will they call on Him if they're not elect? What does he say? How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they're sent? Just as it is written back in Isaiah, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. Don't you feel that way about whoever brought you the gospel? We don't deserve the credit. But nonetheless, the hearts of the one who has been reached is full of joy and love toward the one who reached Him. They didn't all heed the good news, verse 16 says. Not everybody. What went wrong? Well, some were skeptical, like Isaiah says, Lord who's believed our report. But verse 17 sums it up. Why didn't they believe? Why didn't they receive salvation? Because faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. And we're not talking about simply audio, we're talking about heart hearing. The problem is they didn't listen deeply. Faith comes from hearing...hearing by the Word of Christ. So Paul has set for us this evangelistic duty, this gospel responsibility right in the middle of these great truths of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. As we come to chapter 11, just briefly, a couple of comments, we go back to the issue of divine providence. And I can't go through this chapter, we don't have time to do that with much other than just kind of a general look at it. I say then, verse 1, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be. And here we go back to divine sovereignty. For I, too, am an Israelite. That's proof He hasn't rejected His people because individual Jews are being saved during the church age. I'm a descendant of Abraham. I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? They have killed Your prophets. They have torn down Your altars and I am alone left and they are seeking My life. And what is the divine response to Him? Are you kidding? I kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. So the answer is this, ultimately we see Israel's unbelief, but that's not the end of the story. And I guess a fourth point we could throw in here would be divine promise...divine promise. There will be a future salvation for Israel. And that is the promise of chapter 11. It is unmistakable. It is unequivocal. You really can't get around it. You can't get around it. It is verse 5. A remnant according to God's gracious choice. God will save, ultimately, His people Israel. So it all comes back to God's promise. And that all comes back to God's power. And in the end, that comes back to His glory when it's all said and done. Here is the conclusion. O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways. Do you know what that means now? Beyond our ability to fully understand. You're tuned in to Grace to You with John MacArthur, a pastor and author and president of the Masters College and Seminary, both in the Southern California area. The lesson you just heard was a part of John's brand new series called The Gospel According to Paul. Now friend, if I could turn the corner right now, we've just celebrated an anniversary that you should know about. It was just over 12 years ago that a large and spiritually hungry audience was first able to tune in and listen to Grace to You, but Grace to you by another name. So John, if you could fill in the blanks for us. Well, Carl, mi espanol es muy poquito. What that means is I'm very limited in my ability to speak Spanish. But what you're talking about is gracias a vosotros. That's the Spanish language version of grace to you. And just last month, Gracia A vosotros celebrated a significant milestone 12 years since it began, initially on about 100 radio outlets throughout Central America and South America. And today, GAV, as we call it, is heard about 900 times a day in 25 countries in the Americas and in Europe. I just came back from Spain. We are on the radio in 22 different cities in Spain, and I met a lot of people who are greatly affected by the ministry of Gracia vosotros in that great country in Europe. What makes Gracia vosotros unique? It's not simply an English to Spanish translation of my sermons. Like many broadcasts do, they take a written manuscript of the English and then they have an announcer in another country translate it and read it. We don't do that. Rather, one of the elders at Grace Church, Henry Tolopilo, my friend and fellow elder, a skilled Bible teacher and pastor in his own right, adapts my sermons for his Spanish-speaking congregation, and then he preaches them. And so Gracia a vosotros captures the actual preaching event, and it's powerful, and then a radio program comes out of that, and off it goes around the world to those who speak Spanish. And thank you for making it possible for verse-by-verse Bible teaching to be available in both those languages all over the globe. Friend, if you'd like to see all the resources that we have available in Spanish, I'd encourage you to visit the Grace To You website, gty.org. 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