Matthew 15:22-28: "And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David; my daughter is grieviously vexed with a devil. But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying, Send her away,' for she crieth after us. But He answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me. But He answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."
In this Scripture we have the story of a Gentile woman approaching our Lord, and at first He didn't say anything to her, and when He does say something He brings up the doctrine of national election, but instead of that stopping her, she came and worshipped Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" The doctrine of election did not discourage her, and it does not discourage any person who is seeking help from the Lord.
I read a sermon by Mr. Spurgeon about this story. He suggested perhaps one reason the Lord confronted this woman with a very stern doctrine, it looks like is to discourage her, but He just wanted her to get the truth about the matter before she heard it misrepresented, as she later would. Somebody was bound to tell this seeking woman that our Lord's ministry was confined exclusively for a while to the Jewish people and He wasn't looking for Gentiles. And they'd tell it in a way to make error out of truth and discourage a woman who needed encouragement.
One of the things that I hear so many times each week – it seems that religious people, including preachers, are making a terrible bugaboo out of the fact that the little new church we are trying to start believes in the doctrine of election, national election for the Jews and individual election for the Christian believer. And I hear all manner of things about this terrible truth. Now and then I feel impressed of the Spirit to address myself to any who are present who are in earnest about your soul's relationship to God and to say a helpful word.
We want to encourage you not to join the ranks of people who are ashamed of what is in the Bible, but also to encourage you that it is not simply this truth, but it is every truth in the Bible that you must approach as a little child willing to be taught. And your conception of any teaching in the Word of God will be guided by your conception of the God of the Word. If you've got a little God that you can comprehend, that you can understand, then you will expect to understand His teachings.
The Apostle Paul of all the writers of the New Testament is the one who devotes more time than anybody except our Lord to what we call the doctrines of grace. And the Apostle Paul is in agreement with what Christ taught – he didn't learn something our Lord didn't know. But Paul is responsible for setting forth the doctrines of grace, and when he gets on these things he has a word for us that would be very helpful if we paid attention to him.
Every great truth in the Bible is subject to faith, but none of them to understanding. There is no man living that can explain how God is one yet three – He is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. There is no man living who can explain that the Lord Jesus Christ is one and yet two – He is God and He is man. There is no man living that can understand a single basic teaching of the Word of God. The Holy Ghost led Paul to bring out election and the sovereignty of God in Romans chapters 9, 10 and 11. And Paul has a word of caution for us; this should be our reaction to these great truths, as given in Romans 11:33-36: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.' to Whom be glory for ever. Amen." Now this is a good place to camp and I use this before coming to the text. These wonderful truths are too deep for you to fully understand.
I like the words of Barnhouse, that good teacher of God's Word, that while we cannot understand, while we wait for more light, we can worship. That sounds like a Christian, that sounds like somebody who has some conception of the Majesty and the Glory of the Lord. "For who hath known the mind of the Lord?"
The Apostle Paul was a graduate of the greatest university of his day. As a young man he was a member of the Sanhedrin and you had to know something to be in that body! He was a student of the greatest teacher of the day. And after he was saved, he went to school to Jesus Christ personally by the Spirit down in Arabia for some three years And after Paul had expounded in all its richness and fulness of these great truths, he threw up his hands and worshiped a God Whose ways are so far above our ways that it behooves us children of the dust to shut our mouths, quit criticizing God and worship. Quit trying to reason out the great truths of the Bible in such detail that we would dishonor God and make our wisdom to equal His. Romans 11:34-36: "For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be glory for ever. Amen."
Every truth in the Bible is going to bring glory to God, and every truth in this Bible is going to bring glory to God by being a blessing to mankind. When God says He does all things to promote His glory, He is not pulling His rank like they do in the Army. He chooses to promote His glory by promoting the good of men. 1 Corinthians 2:7: "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory."
Now with this word of caution, I want to approach the subject of election and be like a teacher. There is such a vast ignorance today as to what the doctrine of election is. My God, isn't it awful to take a doctrine, even take it in its truth and use it to discourage men and women from seeking with their whole hearts to know Christ as Lord and Saviour?
The first time the glory of God is mentioned as a truth in the Bible, we find in Exodus 33 that God promotes His glory. Moses asked the Lord, "Show me Thy glory," and God said in verse 19, "I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the Name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." Now that blessed truth is being used today to discourage and deceive people. I've been in Baptist churches where the very mention of it caused confusion, for people who say they know the Lord immediately begin to accuse God of being a devil and accuse God of being a monster! I hear this precious doctrine that is a blessed doctrine in the sight of God, that was used by my Lord as a source of encouragement when He faced people, I hear it so misrepresented today. If we believed what God says instead of some of these preachers, we wouldn't have all this confusion about the doctrine of election. I say to you the way back to the power of God is not by letting these who pervert the truth have all the say! We must come to the Lord and find the truth!
I say it again, that God Almighty is sovereign; He is sovereign in creation. Colossians 1:16-17: "For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist."
He is sovereign in providence. He handles the nations as seemeth good in His sight. Psalm 22:28 reads, "For the kingdom is the Lord's: and He is the governor among the nations." Psalm 47:2-3: "For the Lord most high is terrible: He is a great King over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet."
Our Lord is sovereign in salvation. Romans 9:18: "Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." He is gracious to whom He will be gracious. He shows mercy to whom He will show mercy. God Almighty has a right to do that very thing, and whether you believe it or not, it is so! I do not apologize for the glorious doctrine that God sovereignly and according to His own will chooses those whom He will save. I am not ready to apologize for that!
Ephesians 1:3-6: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will, To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." Also 2 Timothy 1:9: "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 2 Thessalonians 2:13: "But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctificaton of the Spirit and belief of the truth."
This truth instead of being jeered at – this truth instead of being ignored – this truth instead of being used as a club to discourage people who are seeking the way – this is the grandest truth of all! For the wisest person in all of creation is Almighty God, and I'm glad that the One in Whom is all wisdom is running everything! I am glad that God is sovereign, but if He were not supreme I believe the wisest men on earth would hold a meeting and elect Him to be sovereign. We've got to have God as sovereign or the devil as sovereign, and I had rather have God, wouldn't you?
God is perfect in wisdom, and it is a disgrace to call anything that He says He does a "damnable doctrine," when God Almighty is full of wisdom. And anybody that would talk that way is showing more than his ignorance, he is showing that he isn't acquainted with God. For anybody that wants to have a saving relationship with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will bow and say, "Lord, Thou art all-wise, whatever You do! Job 36:5: "Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not any: He is mighty in strength and wisdom." Psalm 104:24: "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches. "Psalm 18:30: "As for God, His way is perfect: the Word of the Lord is tried: He is a Buckler to all those that trust in Him." Praise God for it! Thank the Lord, for He giveth and He taketh away, and blessed be the Name of the Lord. He is all-wise.
The God of the Bible is represented as having the name Holy. Note Isaiah 57:15: "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, Whose Name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Luke 1:49 says, "For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and Holy is His Name."
Then He is perfect in holiness. He is so perfect in wisdom that He cannot do wrong. He is so perfect in holiness that He will not do wrong. He is too wise to make a mistake and too good to do wrong.
The essence of the God of the Bible is, "God is love." The old-time theologians were right when they said that every attribute of God streamed from His love. God is holy, but God Almighty is love. Everything that God does has for the basis of His doing it: L-O-V-E, love. If He damns a man, sends him to hell, He does it out of the basis of love – for there is no such thing as perfect love that just loves everything. You may say you love your wife with a perfect love, but if there is no difference between your love of a pure woman and your hatred of a wicked woman, then there is nothing to your hatred and there is nothing to your love. God has His essence in love, and being LOVE, bless God, He is fit to do as He pleases!
God is sovereign in the dispensation of His grace. Our Lord Jesus Christ tell us in Luke 4:25-26, "But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Serepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow." This was a Gentile heathen woman! And in verse 27, our Lord said, "And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elieus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian." God went and picked out Naaman, the Hitler of his day, and a Gentile, but God picked him and sovereignly saved him!
Our Bible is clear about one thing – that God has made sovereign choices between men and angels. The angels that !eft their first estate, from that day until now, God has not made one move to save them or make salvation possible to them. 2 Peter 2:4: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment...." Hebrews 2:16 says of Jesus, "For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." Romans 4:16: "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all."
You say you don't believe that God is sovereign in His choice. Well I tell you that He dead sure is, and for reasons that He hasn't explained to us He chose to allow the angels to sin and be cast out, and He has never made one move to effect their salvation. He is sovereign between angels and mankind. Do you think there was anything in Zacchaeus that was good and appealed to Christ? No, he was a sinner and a thief. It was the sovereign choice of a Sovereign God Who acts as He pleases. Read Luke 19:9-10: "And Jesus said unto him [Zacchaeus], This day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Do you mean to tell me that as old Saul went down that road to Damascus to kill some more Christians, that the Lord looked down and saw that Saul was a nice sort of fellow, and if He could just get him saved, he would do a lot for God! No, sir! God didn't say, "I'll save him so he will serve Me." There was no reason on earth why Jesus Christ was pleased to reveal Himself to Saul, except that God Almighty had set His love upon him and went there and struck him blind and saved him by His wonderful grace! Read that story in Acts 9, verses 1 through 6.
Go with me yonder to Jacob's well, and tell me what you see in the life and heart of that harlot woman who had five living ex-husbands and was then living with a sixth. As she comes there to draw water at Jacob's well, tell me what our blessed Lord saw inside of that wicked harlot woman that caused Him to save her. You can't do it! Listen! If anybody gets Saul saved, it will have to be God! If anybody gets that old harlot woman saved, the Lord will have to do it! If anybody saved a thief like Zacchaeus, God will have to do it! No need to talk about cooperating with God here. Zacchaeus was stealing, Saul was killing Christians, the woman at the well was committing adultery, AND YET GOD IN HIS SOVEREIGN MERCY arrested them, stopped them, crossed their paths and saved them by His marvelous grace.
Sinner, you are not to be occupied with God's secret decrees. You can study them from now till you are blue in the face and you'll never know anything about God's electing grace until He is pleased to reveal it to you. That will be after He saves you. As far as you are concerned, it doesn't come under the head of your immediate business. Your business now is to face your lost and ruined condition and look to the Crucified and Risen Christ. We are not trying to get any sinner to believe any doctrine. We are trying to get you to surrender to the glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The doctrine of election has been abused in this country. Your duty is to obey the revealed will of God. The Lord has told you to repent. My Lord has told you to believe. That's your duty; you better start facing it. Jesus said in Mark 1:15, "The kingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe the Gospel." Acts 26:20: "That they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance." Your duty is to repent of your sins and turn to God. That is as plain as it can be.
The only evidence anybody has that he is one of those that God chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, is that the Gospel came and made a change in his life. It came to you in power. You just forget about God's secret decrees and began to pay attention to what He tells you in His blessed Word. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent – to repent now. Have you repented? He doesn't tell you to take your time about it. In the words of Christ Jesus or Paul, they always tell you to repent right now. Do you mean to tell me you are willing to continue living in open rebellion to God Almighty's command for you to repent toward God now? Are you not afraid to go to sleep another night without repenting? Only God can wake you up in the morning, and you might wake up in hell!
If you can plow through the many church members who are making fun of these great truths, you might come to the real truth. Many of them disturb you because they are using these great truths to hide their unwillingness to come clean with God. All this fuss about this being a "damnable doctrine" is not coming from honest hearts. It comes from hearts that are using what they think it teaches as an excuse for their unbelief and failure to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just listen how this blessed truth of election is misrepresented. Somebody says, "Preacher, don't you think that if a father had two sons and he was good to one of them but he was mean to the other one – he just blessed one of them and cursed the other one – don't you think that would be terrible?" Certainly I do. But that isn't the way it is with God and man. It is not a great loving Father being nice to one son and being wicked and mean to another son. It is a Holy God and a just God dealing not with sons but with criminals – criminals who have broken His Holy Law and are subject to nothing but the judgment of a Holy God!
A man said to me, "You can't tell me something like this, that God would make a man and then send him to hell." Leave out one thing and you've got it right! Ladies and gentlemen, if God made you in the shape you are now in, and then sent you to hell, He is a monster. If you could prove to me that God is responsible for that old wicked heart of yours, and for that old wicked body of yours, and you could prove to me that you are in the shape God made you in, that would be different. But you love sin, you drink iniquity like it is water, you are prone to do evil and adverse to do good. Job 15:16: "How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?" But you can't prove that God made you like that. According to the Bible, God made man upright. Ecclesiastes 7:28 and Genesis 1:27 says God created you in the very image of God. By your own sin you changed that image and it is now marred.
But now God is not dealing with men and women as His erring sons, but He deals with them as criminals against His Holy Law. Oh, it behooves this generation to be silent in the presence of that! The only claim that any sinner this side of hell has, and can stand up and say, "God, I demand what's coming to me," is hell. All on earth that any of the sons of Adam has coming to him is exactly what God promised us in Genesis 2:17: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The only demand that anybody has on God is "Kill me and send me on to hell." And if you are not willing to do that, lost man, don't join this gang of unsaved church members who are telling God how to run His business and who refuse to believe the Bible because it's too deep for their puny little minds!
This world is a giant prison house full of people, not on probation, full of people that have been brought into God's courtroom, been tried, and they've been found guilty! They have been sentenced to eternal death.
Unless God will grant them a pardon, this whole world will go to hell! Thank the Lord for the glorious truth that God does the saving. He does it because He purposed to do it. That truth is precious and it does not oppose any other truth in the Bible. I've heard so much the last ten years about the goodness of God. They say, "Brother Barnard, the kind of God you preach isn't good. I believe in a good God." So do I. Read Exodus 33:18-19: "And he [Moses] said, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory. And He said, I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the Name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." You say, "Brother Barnard, I believe God is good to everybody." I do too. If He hadn't been good to you, you would have been in hell a long time ago. He tells us how good He is in Matthew 5:45: "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
Oh, how longsuffering God is to all mankind! I believe that in virtue of the death of my blessed Lord, the throne of grace and judgment is stayed. A man gets out on the street tomorrow, opens his mouth and with the breath that God gives him blasphemes the holy Name of God, and the earth doesn't open and he doesn't drop into hell. Why? The goodness of God.
This generation is going to hell, trusting in the goodness of God apart from being vitally joined to Christ. I believe in the goodness of God, sending His blessing on all mankind, but you will go to hell if you don't find out that trusting in the goodness of God apart from vital connection with Christ is not enough. There is no salvation in the fact that God is so good He sends rain on the just and unjust! The only salvation is in the fact that God is in Christ saving sinners. God is good, yes, He is too good to be unjust to anybody, but He is so holy and so just that unless you come to terms with the terms of His Gospel – and unless you come in full surrender to Christ as He is freely offered in the Gospel – goodness or no goodness, hell is your doom!
And the doctrine of election simply agrees with that. The doctrine of election hems you up so that there is salvation only in Christ. Salvation is not in the fact that God deals in mercy toward all mankind. Salvation is not in the fact that God is longsuffering. Salvation is in Jesus Christ, the Well-beloved Son of the Living God. And goodness or no goodness, there isn't any salvation anywhere else! The doctrine of election that they make fun of us for believing is simply this: That God does what He does in Christ. I am so glad there are two ways to spell elect. One is E-L-E-C-T. and the other is B-E-L-I-E-V-E, believe in Christ.
I am glad the Gospel is the story of Jesus Christ purchasing the salvation of everybody that God chose in Christ. I am also glad that the Gospel is a blessed story of Christ hanging on a cross and being raised from a glorious grave, that everybody who believes on Him shall be saved. Acts 16:31: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Everybody that God chose in Christ is going to get saved – I'm glad. But nobody is going to get saved out of Christ! Everybody that gets saved will get saved as he is vitally joined to Christ.
Most of the church members will talk about how good God is, but the doctrine of election tells us this is how good God is: He is good enough to save every vile sinner that gets to Christ! This is a hopeful doctrine. How it does give hope, for "Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:13).
Somebody said, "We believe in praying." So do I. I don't believe a sinner is saved by doing like the evangelists tell them now: "If you walk down this aisle and get down on your knees and pray the sinner's prayer, God will save you." No. No, that's not true. It's a lie of hell to deceive people. I forbid no sinner to pray; I keep saying, "Go home and get alone with God and cry to Him for a new heart. Cry to Him for the grace of repentance." Yes, keep on praying. You're not going to hurt anything by praying.
The Bible doesn't say that God told the sons of Jacob to seek Him in vain. We want to look at Romans 10:13-15: "For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" Notice verse 17: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Praise the Lord for these Words of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe the man who prays was given a desire to pray, and God gave it. So I say, "Pray on, sinner. Seek on, sinner!" The doctrine of election doesn't speak against that. I believe that God chooses those who are saved; I also believe what Matthew 7:7 says: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I am dead certain that if you ever start seeking the Lord, it proves what I am preaching! Before you ever started seeking Him, He was seeking you!
This blessed doctrine of election certainly does not oppose the invitations of the Gospel. Oh my, wouldn't it be awful if we couldn't quote such Scriptures as Revelation 22:17: "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Or Isaiah 55:1: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Or Matthew 11:28-29: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls." What wonderful invitations! These invitations are as wide as the thirst of mankind, they are as wide as the need of mankind, and they are as wide as the guilt of mankind. Oh, the glory of the Gospel invitations. God is sincere, and I believe them.
But I am not going to get you to thinking that coming to Christ can be done with your feet or your hands or your lips. Coming to Christ is not walking down an aisle; it is not a physical matter, it is a spiritual matter. All the light that you will ever have is what is revealed in the Gospel, and you will have to come to Him believing what the Gospel says about Him. You are not going to receive a revelation of some light shining. I believe that Christ must be revealed to your heart, but He will be revealed to your heart as you by faith act upon the Gospel. This is according to the Scriptures in John 17:3: "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." And Luke 10:22: "No man knoweth Who the Son is, but the Father; and Who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him."
No invitations of the Bible are opposed to this glorious truth of election. What is the Gospel? Christ is the Gospel, and the Gospel is Christ. What is the Gospel message to anybody? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." John 6:47: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." Just as clear as it can be. Listen: Election or no election, if you can believe on Christ, you're saved!
This great but perverted truth has a marvelous effect on people who do not know Christ. The old-time theologians always divided their congregation of sinners into two groups – the awakened sinners and the ones who were still asleep. The awakened fellow is one who says, "Oh, I wish I could be saved. I wish I could know the Lord!" Something has happened to that fellow. Probably a year ago he walked the streets and whistled by the cemetery of his sins. But something happened, he's awakened now, he's worried, he's afraid, he's interested, he's meek, he's seeking the Lord. Nobody will ever be saved apart from that. Oh, my soul! Hell is going to be filled up not with sinners who were trying to be saved, but with sinners who were sleeping the sleep of death!
This blessed truth of God's sovereign election has a marvelous blessed effect on the awakened sinner. In the first place, it is used in the hands of the Holy Ghost to strike to death all your self-effort. Listen, sinner, if you don't quit listening to the preachers of this day, you are going to hell working as hard as you can to do something yourself to be saved! The Arminian preacher stirs up your flesh with "You do this" and "You do that." Then we come along and say, "You will never be saved until you quit doing everything." "Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9). Psalm 37:39: "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord."
I am trying to get you to look to Christ. God says in Isaiah 45:22, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for lam God, and there is none else." Get you to repent yourself? No! Get you to look to Him to grant repentance! Get you to think that in your own strength you can get to Christ? No! Get you to quit in your own strength and just fall prostrate in the arms of Him Who is mighty to save! We tell you, if you are ever saved, it is because God will save you. Everything you need is in Christ. God has nothing for you except in Christ. You have just one need – out of self into Christ! Look to Him. If I can get a sinner to where he is dead to all self-effort, I've got him half saved; the battle is almost won.
Election is a very blessed truth because it brings hope to the hopeless. Here is this prison house full of criminals. The doctrine of election comes along and says, "If any will save you, it must be God, but Oh, that is His business!" And there is rejoicing in heaven, according to Luke 15:10: "over one sinner that repenteth." And just think! All without any money or any price! Just think how many souls He has saved. Was there such a man as Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, yet God saved him! Oh, my! That's hope, that's hope to the vilest. If he saved a man like that, why won't He save me? I'll tell you what I'm going to do, sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, salvation or damnation, I'll cast myself at the feet of the Lord. Here I am. If I go to hell, I'll go to hell depending on You Lord. If you go to hell with that attitude, you will be the first one that ever did.
Oh, what hope! This blessed doctrine brings a wonderful word to a sinner that is interested and awakened to his need. You say, "Preacher, I wish I could be saved." This glorious doctrine that we preach, the foundation of the Gospel, comes to tell you about Somebody that will get to you, for you can't get to Him. Well, fall where you are. He will get to you. You can't make it yourself, so surrender right there. His everlasting arms will pick you up. Bless God, that's right.
Then this truth has a word for you sleepy sinners. You are just getting along all right. You say, "Preacher, I don't intend to go to hell; some of these days I'm going to repent and get to God." Listen! You are in the prison house; you are condemned already. You are in the hands of Almighty God. If you get out of that prison, He has got to get you out. If you get saved, God must do it. God must do it! "Salvation is of the Lord." Well, I am encouraged again at the vast numbers through the ages that He has been pleased to save. As wicked as I am, the Lord had mercy on me and saved me by His marvelous grace. Are you saved?