Address—Steve Stewart
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Could we start the meeting with the 1St 2 verses of hymn #141?
1St 2 verses of 141.
Indeed eternal.
Can't go before the world was made.
Before and she foundation.
On nothing, that's where laid.
God purpose, God bless.
Nsnoise 711.
PM.
Nsnoise.
Riff, our God and Father's help, our God and our Father, we come before thee. We thank thee.
This afternoon that we have thy precious word.
To shed light on all that we need to know and to understand as Thy children here below.
And we pray, as we open the pages of Thy precious inspired word this afternoon, that Thou give us.
That which is needful to establish our souls more firmly, and Thy truth for Thy glory, our God and Father, for the glory of Thy beloved Son, our precious Savior.
For the blessing of our souls, we ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.
Subject I have on my heart.
Is broad.
We won't be able to touch on all of it. We won't be able to answer all the questions that might come with it.
But it's one that's been a burden upon my heart.
It's the subject of the sovereignty of God, the truth of election and predestination.
And the true condition of man.
As a slave to sin.
And Satan, whose will is bound by those things, and divine intervention is needed to deliver him from his lost condition, Brother said to me a little while back.
That there are hardly any groups of believers left in this world that hold both dispensational truth and the truth of the sovereignty of God.
So I'd like to take that up with the Lord's help this afternoon. And I'd like first to turn to the Gospel of Luke to look at chapters 13 and 14 to get some illustrations.
In the Lord's teaching that we will refer back to as we turn to other scriptures, there's much to cover. So I'm just going to touch on things. I'm not going to read every verse.
Or work.
Chapter 13 starts with a context of judgment that had been spoken of in the end of chapter 12, and consequent upon that one comes to the Lord.
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And he mentions how those who had been unjustly slain.
Uh, in their feasts by Pilate must have certainly been under the judgment of God and the Lord brings out from that and he says in verse five, I tell you, nay, but accept ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. In Luke 13 we get lessons on the true condition of man.
And we get illustrations of the sovereignty of God.
To come in and meet him in his condition.
The very first lesson is that all our sinners all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
And all need to repent.
The next lesson we get in verses 6 through 10.
And there we have a tree and a vineyard.
And that tree is a fig tree and it doesn't produce any fruit and the command goes out.
The end of verse 7 cut it down while cumbereth at the ground.
And so there is man. Will he repent? Will he believe he must?
Do that or he'll perish. The very first fruits that could ever be produced for God in the life of any person are believing in repentance. Can he produce that fruit? There's no fruit on this tree. Cut it down.
Oh, but the dresser of the vineyard says let it alone. I'll dig about and dung it. We'll see if it bears fruit, and if not, cut it down.
It doesn't bear fruit. The story doesn't go on to say that.
But that's the force of it. It does not bear fruit.
No amount of cultivation.
Nothing that man by nature and the flesh can be brought into in the way of giving him at every advantage in this world can produce those fruits of belief and repentance. He's a fruitless tree.
He must be cut down. God is patient and for 4000 years He tested that first man.
In the flesh, with every advantage he could give him there in Israel as the sample.
Of mankind, and there was no fruit produced for God.
Is there no remedy?
There is a remedy, but it must be the divine resources of the heart of God, His divine sovereignty. And that's the next lesson in this chapter. Behold, there was a woman.
In verse 11, which had a spirit of infirmity, 18 years, was bowed together, and could no wise lift up herself.
She is a picture of the of man in the flesh. He cannot lift himself up, He cannot repent. He cannot believe. She's bowed over completely. She doesn't come to the Lord. She's not looking for the Lord. He just sovereignly reaches out. He calls her to him in verse 12 and said unto a woman, Thou art loose from thine infirmity, and he laid his hands on her immediately.
She was made straight and glorified gone.
God must come in in sovereign grace. It's the only resource.
What's the response?
From religious man in this world, man who says that he's going to work his way into God's acceptance.
That by his own laborers and the fruit of his own hands he can become acceptable to God.
The ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation because the Lord had healed on the Sabbath. There's the response from religious man in the flesh. Unregenerate, He is indignant at this display of the grace and sovereignty of God. And the Lord tells him, if he even had an animal that fell into a pit, wouldn't he pull it out in the Sabbath day?
And it says he couldn't answer.
The Lord, all the adversaries of the Lord were ashamed. He couldn't lift himself up either.
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When we find out something else the Lord says of that woman.
This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath found these 18 years, oh, Satan is involved in this condition of man fallen and ruined. It's not just that she couldn't lift herself up.
Satan's power was active in keeping her in that condition, and Satan has so poisoned all the springs.
Of the thoughts of man's heart towards God, that man is willing to listen to Satan and count him as credible and discounts God as being not worthy to listen to his powers involved in keeping man in that condition.
The next lesson is what is going to happen to the Kingdom when it comes into the hands of man in the flesh, religious flesh, like the ruler, the synagogue. It's going to be like this grain of mustard seed that grew tremendously, became a great worldly Kingdom, the fowls of the air lodged in its branches. Who are they? They're the emissaries of Satan. They're those ones in Matthew.
13 that swooped in to ****** the good seed out of the ground before it could produce any fruit for gone. And they lodge in the branches of this great worldly Kingdom. It's like leaven we read in verse 21, which a woman hid in three measures of meal till it was spread through and through that which should have been food for the people of God.
Is filled with evil. It's especially taking up the doctrine of Christ.
That fine flower typified Christ in the Old Testament offerings. Leaveness spread throughout a picture of evil, and evil teaching as to the doctrines of the person of Christ, have well nigh spread from one end of Christianity to the other. What is this become in the hands of those like the ruler of the synagogue, a great worldly Kingdom.
Devil ridden and filled with evil. And an exclamation is made then.
In verse 23, Lord, are there few that be saved?
In the light of that.
But the Lord doesn't answer him directly.
He turns him back to his own responsibility before God.
And he says to him, Strive to enter in at this straight gate, for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in.
And shall not be able. And so he brings him back to his own responsibility before God.
And you know.
If there are those who teach that man has a free will, that he has a free will to come to God, he is a free will to believe and to repent and that he can do so at any time. And I was shopping for cars with my daughter, met a Christian young salesman riding in the back of the car. We're test driving. We got talking about the Lord and the gospel. Isn't it wonderfully?
Said how God sent a son into this world to go to the cross to pay the price for us. And isn't it wonderful that God has given us all the free will either to receive or reject the gospel?
No man is bound in his will. He is a slave to Satan. He's bowed over. He cannot lift up himself.
If I owed you $10,000.
And I came to you and said I have nothing to pay.
Therefore.
I am not responsible to pay you.
What would you say you'd say? I'm sorry, but your inability to pay does not take you.
Out of your responsibility to pay for those who hold that doctrine of man's free will say it would be unrighteous of God to command sinners everywhere to repent as we read an acts if he had not a free will to repent.
That's not true.
The responsibility to believe and repent is not equal to the ability to to believe and repent.
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Two different things, because man is unable does not take him off his responsibility to do so. And so God puts this man back on his responsibilities. Strive to enter in at the straight gate.
While we get in the end, there are those that will come from the east and the West and sit down on the Kingdom of God that come through.
The Strait gate and those in this great sphere of religious activity.
That think they have a place there will find they don't. What is the response to the Lord's words on the part of the leaders of the Jews?
Its threats, its intimidation. You better get out of here. Herod's gonna come and he's gonna kill you.
The unworthy response of the heart of man towards the grace of God. The Lord tells him Herod can't do anything to him. His pathway through this world was determined in the sovereignty of God, that he would go on and fulfill his pathway and his earthly mission and go to that cross and finish the work that God gave him to do. And no, Herod was going to stand.
In his way.
Hell, that fox, he says, And then he presents himself in verse 34. How often I would have gathered thy children together as a hen duck, gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not.
There's man's free will. Ye would not. They preferred the fox to the hen.
That's man's condition.
In chapter 14.
We get 2 suppers and now we are going to get the principles on which God acts and it's contrasted with the way man acts. The Lord goes to the Pharisees house and they watch him.
They're observing him, and there before him was a certain man.
Which had in verse 2 The dropsy. I always thought that was a paralytic condition.
In which someone would suddenly be struck and they just dropped. That's not what it means.
It means an edema, a swelling, a collection of fluids, and sometimes that can be fatal.
Its man in his self inflated self importance. That's what he is.
This man and the the way the expression in Scripture to me is even more beautiful in its illustration of the sovereignty of God than the woman who was bowed over there. He calls her to him.
He tells her she's healed from her infirmity. He lays his hands on her, straightens her up.
But this man, he doesn't call him.
He just reaches out and he took him in verse 4.
And healed him and let him go.
This man wasn't looking for anything.
The sovereign grace of God just stepped in and took him.
And healed him and set him free.
Now the Lord becomes the observer. He observes them. He put forth this parable in verse 7. When he sees, when he marked.
How they chose out the chief rooms.
He looked at the scene in the Pharisees house and it's a the scene of religious man and the flesh in this world. And every one of them has the dropsy, every one of them has a swelling, and they're all elbowing each other out of the way to get to the chief seat, to get to the highest plane. As if religion was this inclined slope that we're all striving to get up to get the best seat in heaven.
But there's no desire for heaven. What's the struggle then? Oh, it's for position, for place, for self, for personal glory. That's what those divine mind is looking on.
In the Pharisees house they all have the dropsy, and he turns to the Pharisee and he exposes him on the principles in which he invited the guests to his house.
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That they would be those who could give him something, recompense him something. But he says God operates on different principles. Look at verse 12.
Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors.
Lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee but down in the end of verse 14. But thou shall be recompenseth the resurrection of the just, if he would go out.
And invite on the principles in which God invites. But man doesn't want to be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. Man wants to be paid now. He wanted payment now.
Why? Because though they were striving for the highest seats, there was number desire truly for divine things, no interest in the Day of the Resurrection of the Just or recompense. There it was for here and for now, and for self.
That's man.
But then he introduces.
God's Supper.
Verse 16 And he said unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many.
And he sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden come, for all things are now ready, and.
They all, with one consent, begin to make excuse. Mr. Darby's translation is better. They all, without exception, begin to make excuse. Many were invited, not one of them.
Came all had an excuse. 3 excuses are given.
But there were many more than three invited. They all without exception.
Began to make excuse.
The first set I bought a piece of ground, I must go, needs go and see it. The other I have bought 5 yoke of oxen, I go to prove them. Another said I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come. Three things operative in man in the flesh by which Satan keeps him bound.
The lust of the eyes I must needs go see it. The pride of life I go to prove them.
And the lust of the flesh. I've married a wife and he's the most honest of the three.
He says I cannot come and man cannot come, and he will not come. Both are true.
What is the response? The servant came and showed his Lord these things.
And he sends that servant goat quickly into the streets and lanes of the city.
And bring hit her, the poor and the maimed, and the hauled and the blind.
And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be full. This stands in contrast to Matthew 22 where we get a similar account. But there's dispensational and it's many servants. And those servants go out there to bid, but they're abused and beaten and.
He sends them out again to bid those in the highways and hedges, but they cannot compel its human servants.
But here the Spirit of God a single servant, and he can compel.
To come in.
He will have his house filled for the satisfaction.
Of his own heart.
In Matthew it's a great supper for the marriage of his Son. It's for the glory of his son, but in Luke it's for the satisfaction of his own heart.
There is not one of us that will be in the Father's house and that day of glory that will not gladly say we were compelled to come in.
That song we sing, Hail's sovereign love that first began that scheme to rescue.
Fallen man. He is a slave to Satan and his own.
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Unfree.
Well, he is not free in his will at all.
Turn over to the Gospel of John.
Chapter 5.
Verse 40 we get it repeated again.
And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
Chapter 6, Verse 44 No man can come to me.
Except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
Man will not come, and he cannot come.
He has no inclination to come, no desire to come.
Brother Little used to give us, and I know this is probably a very well known thing he used to say.
All may whosoever will may come. The invitation went out to all.
None. Will they all?
Without exception.
Begin to make excuse none will.
By sovereign grace, some shall compel them to come in.
God is not going to be foiled in the outflow of His love and grace because of man's condition. Let's look a little more in the Gospel of John as to.
Man in his condition, John brings it out in his own.
Way verse five of chapter one.
The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
Man is darkness. The Lord, the light came in and he did not. The word shouldn't be comprehended, should be apprehended. If I don't comprehend, it means I can't. There's some things I can't get a hold of. If I don't apprehend, I don't get anything.
Nothing. He didn't even apprehend the light. So the Lord had to send a man, John the Baptist, to point and say there is the light.
Because in darkness, man in his darkness didn't even apprehend the light. Chapter 3.
Verse 19 And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world.
And men loved darkness rather than light. It's not just that they were dark, but they loved it. And that's the condemnation. Not just that they were dark, but they love the darkness.
Rather than the Light Chapter 8.
Verse 12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, Ay.
And the light of the world, he that followeth me, shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Man is darkness. He loves the darkness. He walks in darkness. Chapter 12.
Verse 46.
I am come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
Verse 35 Middle of the verse Walk while you have the lightless darkness come or seize upon you.
Man loves the darkness. He walks in darkness, he abides in the darkness, and the darkness is about to seize upon him.
In his portion, unless there is divine intervention in his life, we read in Luke Matthew 22.
Cast into outer darkness. Why outer? Because it's outside.
Of the new heavens and new earth. It's outside of new creation and there's nothing there.
But darkness.
Does not God have a resource?
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We touched on it earlier.
John's Gospel, chapter 3.
End of verse seven. Ye must be born again.
He must be born again. He is not telling Nicodemus. Nicodemus, you gotta go.
Get born again.
Saying Nicodemus, this is the requisite condition.
It's the thing that is absolutely necessary and needed if you're going to see or enter the Kingdom of God.
You must be born again and in James. We read that Well, let's read it. James one and verse 18.
James 118 of his own will.
Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth.
First, Peter.
Verse chapter one. Verse 23 Being born again.
Not a corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Now turn back to the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Sorry we're turning so much.
Is the meeting done at 5:15 or 5:30? I can't remember.
5:15.
Chapter One, verse 10.
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto his own, and His own received Him not.
But as many as received him to them gave me power to become.
The sons are the children of God, even to them that believe on his name which were born.
Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, thought of God.
We took up the subject of being children of God in our chapter in the readings.
The Old Testament Saints were born of God. They were his children, but they didn't know it.
It wasn't until Christ came and those that believed on him.
To them gave he the right, the privilege to know themselves as God's children in relationship to God and to one another.
To them gave he the power to become the children of God, even to them which believe on His name, who believed on His name, those who were born.
Not of blood. Not by any natural descent. Not by any royal family or any other lineage that this world has to offer. Not by blood.
Not, nor of the will of the flesh.
Because the flesh cannot be subject to the law of God.
It it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be the flesh profiteth nothing.
Not by the will of the flesh, not by any inward will or desire of man.
Nor the exercise of the will of another upon him. Nor of the will of man another exercising his will upon him. It is not through baptism as is so often preached.
But of God, those who believed.
Those who put their faith in him, who now knew themselves as God's children, or those who had been born.
Of God.
He intervened sovereignly and imparted a life.
Where there was none before.
He gave we read in Ephesians 2.
In Paul's ministry that even when we were dead and trespasses and sins.
He quickened us together with Christ and there Lazarus lay in the grave. In John Chapter 11. He'd been dead 4 days. They rolled the stone away at the Lords command and at the voice of the Son of God. Well that we read of in the 5th chapter of John. They, they hear the voice of the Son of God shall live at the command of his voice.
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Lazarus come forth. He that was dead came forth. He couldn't hear.
He was dead, but the voice of power imparted life and a hearing year all at one moment. And new birth comes with an ear to hear and with a faith to believe as a bundle package, if I could put it that way. And he that was dead came for.
Visions.
Chapter One.
Who is it?
That he sovereignly quickens.
That he gives that new life were born of God.
Ephesians, chapter one.
Verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who have blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places.
In Christ, according as He has 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, not man supposed free will.
Hiswill.
Of his own will begatty us by the word of truth, but in a past eternity.
He purposed in His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus, and He chose.
You.
That's election choice, God's sovereign choice. An election. His choice is to be before him, according to his own nature, before him, holy and without blame.
And love.
Its predestinate. It's choice.
Election to be in conformity and suitability to his presence.
Election has the thought of a choice of some out of a larger group.
The next word predestinated us unto the adoption of.
Adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. Predestination does not have the thought of the choice of a of some out of a larger group. Predestination has a thought of the place and relationship that the elect are brought into.
And predestination is to relationship, election is to suitability for his presence.
Why nothing in you, nothing in me? Just because he's a God of grace and love alone. We owe everything.
Everything to him.
Perhaps there is this thought that comes in with a doctrine.
That I made the choice in my own free will, that I came to God.
In my own free will that I'm a little better than the ones who didn't figure it out.
No.
It was just his sovereign choice. Not only that, that doctrine says there is something good.
In the flesh, but we read in Romans, there is none good.
There is none that seeketh after God. No, not one.
And in Hebrews we read, without faith it is impossible to please God.
But of man in the flesh could come to God, wouldn't that be pleasing to him if he could repent and believe?
Wouldn't that be pleasing to him? It would be a denial of those scriptures.
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Gauze God has to work to give life and faith.
From a past eternity, He set his heart on you and on me.
To bring us.
Into the very nearest place, the place of his own son, as near to the place that his own son has as possibly could be.
First, Peter.
First, Peter, we read.
And chapter one and verse one elect.
According to the foreknowledge of God the Father. And then we read in chapter 2 and verse nine with, ER, a chosen generation.
The Saints of God are elect.
4.
And Chosen and Peter. Let's look at some verses about the Lord.
Chapter 2.
Verse four. To whom coming is unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen.
Of God.
Verse 6 Wherefore also it is contained in Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone elect.
Precious.
And then?
And verse 20.
End of verse 19. Christ as of the Lamb, without blemish and without spot, Who verily was foreordained before the foundation.
Of the world that was manifest in these last times. For you, Mr. Darby's translation, who was?
Foreknown.
We're bound up in the same bundle of life in Peter's ministry with the Lord elect.
For no chosen. But now I want to look, especially in the little time we have left at that word for no. For no. Like to look at a scripture in the book of Amos.
Isaiah, Joel, Amos, Obadiah. I always have to kind of read them through to make sure I get there.
Chapter 3.
Verse two, you only have I known of all the families of the earth.
You only have I known just that part of the verse.
Now let's turn to Romans and the 8th chapter.
Romans brings before us man's condition once again. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. While we were yet without strength or still the force of it is. After all those 4000 years of testing of man in the flesh, he's found to be still bowed over and unable to lift himself up by any means.
Still without strength, Chapter 8.
Verse 28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.
To them who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow.
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son.
That He might be the first born among many brethren, more whom, moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called them he also justified, in whom He justified them he also glorified.
Four known.
We know that God is omniscient. He knows everything.
He knows everything.
He is also prescient.
He knows everything ahead of time.
He is omniscient. He's prescient.
Whom he did foreknow.
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When God said in Amos, you only have I known of all the families of the earth.
Did that mean that God was unaware of the rest of the nations in this world? Of course not. He knows everything.
But they alone had a special place in His sovereign purpose before Him.
And he could say you only have. I know.
The doctrine of man's free will that has so pressed in to Christianity.
Holds that this expression foreknown means nothing more than that God knew everything and he knew it all ahead of time. That he looked down the long Ave. of time and he saw that you.
Would exercise your free will to receive Christ as Savior, and therefore He predestinated you to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Let's follow that out.
If foreknown only means that he knew everything ahead of time.
And it says whom he did foreknow. Who is it then that he didn't know about?
He knew everyone.
From a past eternity, he knew everyone ahead of time whom he did foreknow, if that's what it means and all.
All are going to be saved, but we know that there are those who will be in a lost eternity.
It cannot mean that he is just omniscient and prescient. It means something more. It means His sovereign choice of you and me in a past eternity. He knew you. It doesn't say what he foreknew. It doesn't say that he looked down the avenue time and saw what you would do. It says He foreknew you.
From a past eternity.
We read that verse in First Peter.
A lamb without blemish and without spot. Verily, Forens.
Is it that he just looked down the long Ave. of time and saw what Christ would do? No.
It was in the purpose of God, and the counsels of God had from a past eternity that the Son of God would come.
And give himself as the Lamb of God in Calvary's cross. It's the same worth.
It's the same thought he foreknew you and me.
Whom he did foreknow, he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son.
And whom he predestinated in time he called.
By the Gospel.
How did he make it effectual? He imparted a life where there was none before.
So there was an ear to hear and faith to believe and receive and repent.
And that is His divine remedy. He had to sovereignly intervene in your life and mine.
Else we would not come.
And we could not come.
We had no capacity to come.
Them, He whom he called them He also justified through the work of His cross, that we might be holy and without blame before Him in love. And what do we wait for them?
He also glorified who but God can speak of the things that are not yet as though they are.
One verse in closing. 2nd Thessalonians 213.
But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God is from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit. That's new birth.
And belief of the truth, the faith that comes with that new life.
Whereunto he called you the means by the gospel.
To the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the end and the object of it all.
My burden this afternoon.
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We didn't read it, Amos. It says how can two walk together except they be agreed.
Rather than we need to hold fast the precious doctrines of the scripture that have been committed to our trust are we will go on divergent paths.
And as that doctrine of man's free will and the debilitating doctrine that comes with it, that you can be lost again because of your free will brought you to Christ, your free will can take you away from Christ.
It's destructive to the life of the Saints of God.
Our God and our Father.
Brave it.
In these things that we have looked at together, we might never lose sight of the preciousness of those words. Whosoever cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.
We thank thee for.
That's sovereign love when we were in dark Egyptian night.
That sovereign love that said, arrest that man.
Rethink the house. Set thy love upon us.
I know it's only the only reason is just within line own heart.
Our God of love and of grace, and we thank Thee. Oh, help us to let these things sink into us, that we might see how we owe everything to Thee.
We ask it in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.