It's good to be back with you in a midweek service. And Lord willing, we'll pick up where we left off last time in Romans chapter eight. I'll read shortly verses 29 and 30. And hopefully our Lord will help there and bless. Would you pray with me? Our Father, we open Thy Word. We know that natural understanding cannot comprehend the things of Thee. Too far above, too high, too holy, and we are of clay. So Father, would you give us understanding? Would you give us a clear sounding voice, clear declaration, a rightly handling of thy truth and presenting it to thy people? I pray that you might give them hearing ears and an understanding heart, Father, and above all things glorify Christ. In his name we pray, amen. In Romans chapter eight, verse 29, for whom, speaking of God that he did foreknow, not in his omniscience, that is knowing all things at all times, nothing escaping that, this is different. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, but he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. For the last three times here, we've been looking at God's eternal decrees. Today, I would like for you to consider with me God's works following his decrees. Now, there are some decrees that our God has made that stand alone in and of themselves. others works will follow. God elected a people, but he also determined the means into which those people would get to him, and that is by the preaching of the gospel. So we're looking at God's works that follow his decrees. Now, because God did decree, in the things that we consider today, there will be God's works in time. He decreed this in eternity. And when we come to the end of the way, we will be able to say, or God say to us, as Joshua said to the children of Israel, not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord spake, all came to pass. And at the end of the world, all things will have accomplished the purpose of God. He will have done his complete and perfect will with all men. Since I'm confined within the boundaries of time, I must speak as such using only language that I'm familiar with. I do not know anything about eternity other than it continues on forever, never having an end. It was this thought that tormented me night after night in my preteen years. I did not know God, but I needed no one to tell me that this being called God did not exist. There was never a doubt in my mind as to his existence. All I knew of his attributes were that he was powerful, could do whatsoever he pleased, and that he was eternal. He had always been and always will be. I did not know any of the decrees which God had set forth, those that he had issued out in eternity. I just knew that there was a God. No one had to tell me, no one had to convince me. I knew deep within that there was a God. Now, whenever these existed as to His decrees, that would be brought about in time They all contained within them the means for the fulfillment of their accomplishment. And just as Israel settling in the land of Canaan, and Joshua could look at all of them and say, everything God told you, it came to pass. There's not one thing that he said to us that has failed, and so that will be. our language at the end of time. Now everything that God decreed before the first man created, before there was ever an Adam, the man Adam, then all this must come to pass in time. Since God gave a people to his son, All that the Father giveth me shall come, John 6, 37. They will come in time. God did not elect, predestine, choose a people, then watched, hoping, perchance or maybe these would all make the right choice one day, and would accept Jesus. No, these things were settled from the foundation of the world. Jesus also said, John 6, 44, no man can, that is, no man has the ability to come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. God decreed a people. God gave his son a people. before time began. But God had determined that that decree would come to pass, though man had not the ability to come to the Lord Jesus, unless it was given, except the Father which has sent me draw him. Now there are decrees of God that require no works to follow. Job 28, 26, he made a decree for the rain. Saying was sufficient. It would happen. Proverbs 8, 29, when he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandments. Now we come speaking particularly on these verses of the predestination of God, ending up with all the children of God in eternity with him glorified. Now as far as God's decrees and God's works that follow in time, they're all one and the same. Being a creature of time, as I said, these things are hard to discuss, even more difficult to understand. So it is not as though one can say A million years before God created Adam, he had established his decrees. That point out in eternity, prior to time, One thing about God, unlike us, is God never did exist in time. God being uncreated, always has and always will be, was not confined within the boundaries of time as you and I are. You and I dwell within the boundaries of a 24-hour day. of a seven-day week, of a 52-week year, and on and on until God has completed all his works. A public job, if you have one, often you are given tasks that have to be accomplished in a given amount of time. You that teach, you would like for your students at the end of the nine months of school, you would like for them to have learned this, to be able to pass the test associated with the subjects that you have taught them. But unlike man, when God made his decrees, There was a specific day which Darius, King of Persia, issued a decree. You're going back and you can build the house of God. Or in Luke one, when Caesar Augusta issued a decree that all the world should be taxed. Then both these men and all kings, all in authority that decree something, they have to have the means to carry out or have to have those responsible to them to see that it is done. But God, always existing, Therefore, the decrees of God always were. Though God will use man to accomplish these, God never needed any one particular individual. He's pleased to call. He's pleased to use men to declare the gospel. He's pleased to use you and your mothers in the home and teaching the children. He's pleased to use you and your fathers, but he doesn't need any of us, just pleased to use us. So God decreeing, and this God having no beginning, then when can we say that God decreed? Has not there always been such a thing, such a book as the Lamb's Book of Life? Did God take down a pen one day and begin writing down all the names of those that he had given Christ? Absolutely not, there will be no literal book or books in glory. So there never was a point in time when God chose his children in Christ. Time didn't exist. According as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1, 4. Some thousand, eight years ago, God, the great creator of all things, started a clock ticking that brought about the days and the months and the years and the centuries and the millenniums that man has existed since Adam. Time will continue. Until that mighty angel sets one foot on land and one foot on sea, and declared emphatically, time shall be no longer, then in eternity we all will exist. Wherever is dependent upon what you do with Christ in time, here in the gospel, believing the gospel, obeying the gospel. All of these are included in the works of God following the decree that God gave to his son, a people that would love him, would follow him, would be subservient to his will, hearing and doing his will throughout time. So from the first moment when God said, let there be, to the end of day five, this old world and all worlds and all things created therein were brought into existence by the end of day five. Then on day six, God would make one in the very image of the coming Son of God that would be the Son of Man. In Adam's seed, all people, billions would in that body come into existence. all of them having their identity in their father, Adam. But Adam had sinned before ever a son was born. It is said of Levi in Hebrews 7, 9, that he paid tithe in Abraham. That's before Levi. was ever born in the world. But he would have to have life, physical life, and the boundaries of time. In the nature of Adam, as was Abraham, as was Levi, the descendant of Abraham. So from the first man and woman, all God's children would be born into physical life. And then all those that would be children of God by redemption were born, birthed into spiritual life. But not only was the church, the people of God, the elect, the children that God had given Jesus, not only were they in Adam when he sinned, but all those that one day God would reprobate and send to an eternal hell. Now sometime over a thousand years from the creation of Adam, Noah was born. About 2,000 years after Adam was created, then Abraham was born. Now some 2,000 years after the Lord Jesus, you and I are on earth or in this old world today on the earth. Of every single individual, predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ, had to be conceived, had to have life, though some would never reach the first birthday. Some, many would never reach their teen years. But all shall be in eternity when the ransomed church of God has been redeemed from all her sin. Isaiah, God said through him, chapter 46, I am God. There is none like unto me, declaring the end from the beginning. and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying this, my counsel shall stand and I shall do all my good pleasure. Paul said Hebrews 4.3, the works of God were finished from the foundation of the world. God knowing, all things at all times is not capable of something new originating in his mind. Unlike you and I, God has never or will never have a thought, a new thought. We can have that and after consideration and thought, maybe the original thought that we had could be advanced. Not God. So it was not after that Adam had taken that fruit from his wife's hand that the Godhead had to call a conference, a special meeting held within the Trinity where the question was raised. Now that we have elected all these individuals from the foundation of the world to be with Christ in eternity, then we must settle upon a different course other than that that we had originally set out. Adam has ruined our original plan. That was never, never in the Godhead. Adam taking the first bite did not catch God by surprise. For Calvary had always been the course that the Son of God had been determined that he should go to save his people from an endless hell. After all, he is identified as the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. To comprehend To understand such a being as God, we cannot. For all of us are creatures of time, creatures of learning, taking a different path. God knowing all things at all times, never a new thought, never having to reconsider because one thing failed. No, we learn. We learned our ABCs. And then we were able to pronounce words, and then a sentence. And as we progressed on through the elementary schools, we learned what the subject of a sentence was, and the verb, and soon after the phrases, the prepositions, and the conjunctions. And all these things began to be added in our minds. since the time that they were set forth, probably by moms with their little ones, preschoolers. We learned numbers the same way. Oh, we were very proud when we could count to 10. And then one day we had achieved a milestone and we were able to count to 100. By the time we'd finished 12 years, a possibility that many of you had already completed algebra courses, geometry, trigonometry, and others. So you see that our knowledge in a particular area can be increased, like in English, like in math, by the accumulation of facts beyond facts that we already have learned. Do you realize that our blessed Lord Jesus learned exactly as we? For when he came from heaven, born as that little infant, not even able to care for himself, he who created and had held all worlds by his own power, Couldn't even hold his own little head up to stabilize it. He had to be cared for by his mother. Didn't know anything, but he began to grow. And with that growth, Luke talks about it being in wisdom, in knowledge. He talked about it being in the physical. He grew in statue. And then in favor or in grace with God and in favor or grace with man. So the little infant Jesus that by the word of his power had created all things had no power. had no wisdom. He was just that tiny little babe that his mother held in her arms. And he that had cut the water streams through the mountains and in the valleys to take care of all his creation could not feed himself. Surely someone would look after him. Yes, they would. And now you come through all of that, Romans 8, 29, for whom he did foreknow, that is that God had knowledge beforehand of everything. Now the Armenians teach that God predestinated and that God knew, had foreknowledge of all things. They can't deny that in scripture. But they said of man being saved, as to the foreknowledge of God and the predestination of God. It was based upon what God saw that that man would do. No, dear soul, dear sign of God, while we were yet dead in trespasses and sin, not knowing God, not loving God, not knowing anything about salvation, God had already determined, blessed be His holy name, that we, the children of God, would be with Him throughout all eternity. And that same God had determined that after 33 years on earth that the Lord Jesus Christ would go Pilate's judgment hall and all that happened there the night before. God had determined that the Lord Jesus go to the cross. Not only taking my sin, but taking the sin of every individual that will be with God throughout eternity. paid the entire debt, not only that I owe, but that the millions upon millions in glory that they as individuals knew. The pain, the anguish, the suffering, we cannot entertain such thoughts as that. how he paid my eternal debt. I can't even understand that. How in six hours on the cross and the days prior to, as the judgment of God began to bear down upon and in that holy soul, an eternal debt. that I owed was paid. But not only mine, but yours if you are a Christian. So away with this thinking that man did his part after God had done his part. From beginning to end, it all is of God. Now we do have works, they will follow our salvation, but there wasn't a one of us saved because God saw that we would have good works. But the Armenians teach that man's salvation is due partly to God's work in providing salvation, and partly in man's work in accepting what God had provided. No. Whether we do in this lifetime or not, I think most will come to acknowledge, like as Jonah in the belly of that fish for three days and three nights, he cried out, salvation is of the Lord. Me being delivered. from the bars of hell, the old ribcage of this animal that has shut me in, down in the lower parts of the ocean. It was impossible that I could ever be free. God had to save me. And so also me and you. So our confession of faith that we read a couple of weeks back, although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future. God wasn't looking down and seeing that Well, this one might do good deeds, therefore I will save him. This one, when he hears of salvation in Christ, will accept the Lord Jesus, so I'm going to elect him to salvation. It worked like that, dear friends. God based no foreknowledge upon what he foresaw that you and I would do. Now here in verse 29, the foreknowledge of God means far more than his omniscience. And here it deals only with his works. Remember our title. the works of God following his decrees. So here it deals only with his works specifically for those, not one more or one less than God had given to his son in eternity. specifically for that group of people, God predestined, not according to our works, not according to what he foresaw that we might do, for none of us would have done anything in regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. Have we not heard? And none of us could have heard unless God gave us ears. And even if we had ears, somebody had to come preaching the gospel to us. And there was no one that could preach unless they were sent of God. So all this is pre-Adam, everything. John 6, 37, all that the Father giveth me. Now those were given Christ before Adam was created. Matter of fact, chosen in him before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1, 4, verse 11 said, being predestinated according to the purpose of him that worketh all things. after the counsel of his own goodwill, all things. And none of the works of God are based on anything that a child of God would do to be saved. He couldn't be saved without God first giving life, for we were all dead in trespasses and in sin. So again, the Armenians say, well, we believe that God elected a people. He chose a people in Christ for he saw that they would accept his son, would believe on him when he was offered to them in the preaching of the gospel. Well, there you have the basis of man's works. as the reason of God's choosing. Not of works, lest any man should boast. All is of faith. A lot of people think that all men have faith and that they can exercise it at their own discretion. Paul said, all men have not faith. No man has saving faith until it being the gift of God is given them. God didn't see that they would believe and that they would accept. God knew that they would believe and they would accept only after He, in His sovereign mercy, had given faith and had sent the gospel, giving them ears to hear. I want you to look, and I want to come back to Romans 8, but look with me at 2 Timothy chapter one in verse nine. 2 Timothy chapter one and verse nine. Who had saved us, God, and called within holy calling, not according to our words, but according to his own purpose and grace. Now, Paul, When was this given as to his purpose and grace? It was given us in Christ Jesus. You had not even been born for Adam was not even here according to the inspired language of the great apostle. which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Some shall be called the we, the us, those that make up his church, those that were given to the Lord Jesus Christ before the world ever began. saved us, He called us. He didn't call us because He foresaw, He foreknew. No, but according to His own purpose and grace that God the Father had given us in Christ Jesus before God's clock of time ever ticked off the first circuit. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. But before ever, there is one in Adam's race that comes to life. They had to be awakened from death and this must precede the call of God. Probably the best illustration that you can ever have is when Lazarus is buried in Christ four days later after his death, gets back, buried dead for four days when Jesus got to the tomb. So prior to the call of the Lord Jesus, Lazarus had to be given life to hear. Dead men can't hear. Those that hear not only had to be given ears by God to hear, but they had to be given life and a heart that God had worked in wherein they would respond to the call of God and holy calling. not according to our words. Many in our day hold the theory that God created all things, set the world in motion, and then step back and let nature run its course. If you think that, look at the condition of our country. wherein the living God has stepped back. When we begin telling God that we did not need him, his Bible, the preaching of the gospel, or his church. See how things begin to deteriorate in nature as well as in society, in government, and in all countries when God leaves them to themselves. Do you think there would have been one soul in eternity after Adam's sin? If God had turned all this over to nature, and a few might accidentally run into the gospel. Nope, none of that. Or God decreed in eternity, must and shall come to fruition in time, all based upon his works. In our lifetime, all God predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son must get to the Lord Jesus in a hearing of the gospel, must get to the Lord Jesus in a setting where the gospel is declared to them. And this must be in the time frame that God has given them on earth. Not gonna be anybody laid in the grave or go off into Hades and prayed out and prayed into heaven. As a tree falls, so shall it lie. As you die, so you will spend eternity. A lot of people think that eternity is going to change us. No, it will only be a continuation of that that God started in time. We, the saints of God, will always be learning God, but those in hell will always be as they were in time. You've heard it said that the rich man became a soul winner when he went to heaven. He died without any concern over his brothers. All he was concerned about was the next dollar, the next thing he could sell or buy and get gain and store up. Do you think when he died and got to hell that his nature was changed from bad into a little better? And now all of a sudden he's, Praying that Father Abraham sent Lazarus back so that they won't come to hell. No, no, dear soul. He was forever the same as he was throughout life. He didn't care enough for them in life that that's not gonna change when he gets in eternity. He just didn't want them going to hell knowing that the life he had lived before them would bring greater punishment upon him. So election, predestination, God's eternal decrees. That's in the children. That's the works of God that follow. All those given to the Lord Jesus. If you, one last, if you would like to read along with me, Acts 17. Acts chapter 17. And we'll begin with verse 26. Speaking of God, and it's made of one blood, all nations of men have the loins of Adam, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and that determine the times when you get here, when you got here, I should say, when you will leave this old world, determine the times before appointed Not only when you get here and when you leave, but the bounds of your habitation. God's determined the little globe on which you will move. Many get out of the United States to travel abroad. Some never get 100 miles away from their birthplace, especially a couple of generations prior to my time. Now the reason that God did this, determine the bounds of your habitation, that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us. Ordained is another word. for determined or appointed. God hath determined, God hath appointed, God hath ordained, or God hath marked out our boundaries, the limits of our boundary. And all this was in the mind of God prior to time, or affixed, or you would be born, to whom you would be born, The place where your parents would be when you were born and the movement in your lifetime until death. And for God's children in that timeframe called life, all of them will encounter the gospel and all of them will have the work of the Spirit of God speaking to their hearts. They will bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. Following the work of the Spirit, wherein first of all, they're brought into an awareness of their lost condition and eternal consequences. Until that occurred, No one had a need of the Savior. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, not only a medical doctor, but he gave that practice up and had such a wide preaching ministry. And one of his little quotes, is not this practice, he was referring to the altar call, based ultimately on a distrust of the Holy Spirit and his power and work? Does it not imply that the Holy Spirit needs to be helped? We know that the altar call came into existence here in the 1800s. Never been one, but we fixed that. Weren't seeing men saved as we thought they ought to be. We hoped they would be. We've even going so far as to do away with the altar. Just getting men and women at the end of the service all stand and bow their heads. And those that are sinners, to raise their hands. And those that would like to be saved, raise their hands. Oh, we won't embarrass you by asking you to come down front, If you would like, literature will be given to you. My soul, how we've taken from the Spirit, the Spirit's works, and we've put it in the hands of men. Since God has chosen them in Christ, then he fixed the time. and the place that he had predetermined where the good news, that is the gospel, would enter into their ears and then into their hearts, that is the hearts of every awakened soul. And every awakened soul will in time have that work done because God predestinated, ordained, and called them. That's back to our text in Romans 8.30. Whom he did predestinate, then he called. Now our church fathers distinguished between what they call the common grace and special grace or the general call and that specific call of the spirit. They said that the general call goes out in every place that the gospel is preached. But there never has been one soul that responded to the general call of the gospel being sounded. Now that can be seen in the words of our Lord Jesus in Matthew 22, many are called. Many have at one time or another sat under the gospel. But only those under that gospel that the Spirit convicts and convinces of sin will ever have a need to seek a savior and salvation. Many are called, he said, but few are chosen. That's the specific call of God. So to the few chosen, a distinct sound was made in their hearts. Lazarus, come forth. You might remember, I'm quite certain you do, the time that you sat on the church pew and you wondered how the preacher knew what was in your heart, how he had been speaking to you throughout the message, laying open your heart. Surely somebody must have told him about that. No one had to. That was just the Spirit of God awakening you. I am a sinner. judgment awaits at the end of my life, and then an eternal punishment. To those chosen where the specific call of God goes out to them in the preaching of his gospel, then that person, like Bunyan's Christian, they head out to find the one that will get that weight off his back. And that effectual call was as specific to that individual as was the call of Christ at the tomb of Lazarus. Lazarus come forth. Only name Now when the Lord Jesus, the risen Savior, met Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, it is said that the men with Saul heard a voice, but Saul heard his name. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? So God predestinated in eternity, chose in Christ those that he had given to his son, brings them to the Savior by bringing them out of Adam's original death. In Adam all die, 1 Corinthians 15, 22. In Christ shall all. Now there's not but one thing you can conclude with the all there, and that is the children of God. In Christ all shall be made alive. And that's where that heart of stone was removed and a heart of flesh was given. That heart of flesh being very sensitive to the workings of the spirit, to the sound of the gospel, to the drawing of him and making you willing in the day of God's power. Previous to that work in your heart, whom he called, previous to that work, There wasn't a one of us that had a desire to come to the Lord Jesus, nor did we have the ability, even if we did have the desire. No man can come to me, John 6, 44, that I quoted. How'd they get there? Except the Father which hath sent me, draw him. Only ones God will ever draw and give the ability to come are those that were chosen in Christ, elected, predestinated. And whom he did predestinate, Romans 8.30. Then he called, in time, and all that he called He justified, we say we are, in the greater sense of the word, we all are justified, completely justified in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only justified, but glorified. Now we are not coming, we do not know that of glorification. We do not know anything about that state after life. What God's saying and God's doing is all one and the same. So that which the sovereign God does in time, all these will be glorified in eternity. Now Paul is stating these events from the viewpoint of God that sees everything from the very beginning. And the works of God and the decrees of God are all one and the same when it is over with. I'll give you one last passage that I hope will clear this up somewhat. 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. And verse 24. Children, the works of grace, as I've stated, they're never separated from each other. Once God begins a work, God will conclude that work, and the conclusion of it, your glorification. Now in I Peter 1.24, for all flesh is as grass. and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth off. Now the flower falling off does not take place at the same time that that grass withers. The flower falling off is a result of the grass withering. So all the called are justified, and all the justified are the glorified, but are being called justified and glorified, all springs from the eternal decrees of God that take place in time by the works of God in his children. There's no possibility of one given to Christ in eternity not being with him when God concludes and has completed his work in time. Not only will they be with him, but they all will be justified and they all will be glorified. May God add His blessings to your heart in the hearing of this.