Address—Steve Stewart
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All right, brother Jim, you get here again.
Every uh.
Thing #141.
141.
And crouched down and crying down and then and and and and then roasted. And there's a good flowers. And then yeah, yeah, yeah.
Umm, let's get it. We're just, we're ready to go to the hospital. I'll tell her. Oh.
I I don't know what the grass is, the blossoms of everything and we need to get out of the way and then we.
We pray as we.
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Open thy gracious word this afternoon.
Let our hearts might be more firmly established in that very degree in which we stand from day-to-day while we wait to come of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we need our help, or God's Father need the help of the Holy Spirit. Open high words and make it good to our souls.
And Lord Jesus as the head of the Body, from whom all ministry flows to each member.
Regarding our Father, we ask it all in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Subject on my heart this afternoon is one that has been occupying me quite a bit.
Of late, and that is the subject of the sovereignty of God and the salvation.
Of lost men. Lost men.
And to see that the scripture.
Shows that man is not free in his will to make a choice for God.
The doctrine of free will has come in in a strong way and fundamental Christianity.
It was a doctrine that was brought in even in some of the early days of the Church's history and era. That man has a free will.
That he has a measure of grace. Every man has a measure of grace from God to make a choice either for or against God's offer foundation.
It's generally.
Known under the term Armenianism.
On the other hand, there is.
A doctrine of.
That does identify itself with the sovereignty of God and the truth of election. That goes too far the other way.
And it says not only as God sovereignly chosen some for blessing, he's chosen some for lost untenance. And so the pendulum swings from one side all the way to another, and Christianity is largely divided into those two tents, so many of them. And the other one is called Calvinism because his.
Writings largely gave rise to systematizing.
That error, well, I don't know how much time we'll have to spend touching on those errors in themselves because I'd like to just really get our hearts established and the truth as it is from God's Word. And the first thing I'd like to do is look at the Gospel of Luke, chapters 13 and 14, and we're going to touch on a few things. We could take a whole meeting.
To do uh on those chapters.
So we're just gonna touch on a few things and we're going to, uh, look at the Gospel of John and then condition that's presented there. And the subject of new birth occasions was quicken and, uh, herbs, election and predestination.
And then especially a word born from Roman factory. Well, Luke chapter 13 begins with the backdrop of the thought of judgment. From the end of chapter 12, the Lord brings in, uh, judgment that was hanging over Israel. And there were those that were there at that time in verse one of chapter 13.
We hear the Lord speak and they say, well, you know, there were, uh, some there in Galilee.
Who, uh, pilots shed their blood? They must have been pretty bad. Looks like they came under the judgment of God and the Lord says, do you think they were sinners above all the rest?
In uh, verse two, because he's got all the ends with sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things, I tell you, nay, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. And then the Lord himself refers to a current event of that day.
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There were those on whom a tower and Siloam fell. 18 Do you think they were sinners above all the others? Oh.
No, I tell you, he says, nay, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. We're going to look at a few lessons over these two chapters that bring out man's condition on the sovereignty of God. And the very first lesson is this All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Everyone needs to repent.
Of their sins, else they will perish. There is the need.
There is the need. The question is, will man repent?
Will he repent? Will he turn to God? It is a necessity if he is not to perish.
The next lesson is about a fig tree in verses 6 through 10. Here's a fig tree planted in a vineyard, and the man who owns that vineyard, he comes in verse six. He came and sought fruit there on and found none.
And what is the first group that any man could produce for God?
Is to turn to God and repentance, but will be.
Well, there was number fruit on this tree. It was vineyard owner says cut it down, white cumber to the ground in verse 7, the keeper of the vineyard, he pleads the case, let it alone this year. I'll think about Nugent. I'll fertilize it. We'll see if it produces anything and if not, then cut it down. Well, it doesn't go on to say it's a picture of man in the flesh that didn't produce.
Anything. The lesson is this. No amount of cultivation.
No amount of bringing man into the best of circumstances or any other thing that can be applied outwardly to man will produce that needed fruit for God, turning to God in repentance.
No, he's going to have to be cut down. Cut down?
Is there no resource then?
Well, the next lesson gives us the resource.
Verse 11 And behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years, and was vowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.
And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, Thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.
Here's this woman. For 18 years she has been bowed, it says. Not just over, but together. She is so completely bent over.
Her face is just almost to the ground.
She couldn't no wise lift herself up, and that is man's condition. He cannot lift himself up. He cannot come to that place of Lieutenant and turn into God.
She could have no wise lift up herself and the Lord reaches them and he takes her and he just straightened her radar. He healed her. She didn't come and ask the Lord to be healed. She wasn't looking for that.
She was just there and the Lord reaches out in sovereign grace, calls her to himself, and he feels himself. That is the needed resource, the sovereignty of God's grace. He just reached out and sovereign grace and healed.
The next lesson, there's a ruler of the synagogue in verse 14. He answers with indignation because he sees this display of the solemn grace of God.
And the healing of this woman, but it's on the Sabbath day. Or offend him because he's a religious man.
Who says no? The only way to come to God is by works, not by grace. Come some other day and that way the only way to come is by the law. He was insisting that sadness don't come at another time and be healed with that.
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He had no appreciation for the sovereign grace of God. And the Lord says to him all even if you had an animal on a Sabbath that was thirsty, you'd let him loose and you'd give him a drink, you'd protect your investment. You'd at least have some kind of mercy on your animals.
How much more than the three verse 16 Ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham, when Satan hath bound lo these 18 years, the loose from this bond on the Sabbath day?
His adversaries were put to him. They couldn't say anything. This ruler in the synagogue had nothing to say. He couldn't lift himself up any more than that woman could.
This is the response a religious man who thinks he's approaching to God on the basis of his own works. When he sees the activity of the sovereign grace of God, he has no use for it. But we find something else. And the Lord addressing this man as to this woman's condition, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these 18 years Satan was involved.
In keeping her in the condition she was in.
Unable to lift herself up and Satan is involved and man's lost condition and his inability to come to God to repent of his sins in terms of God.
Satan is so poisonous brain and of the thought of the heart of man, he is so convinced man with his misrepresentation of the character of God is lying misrepresentation of the character of God that man counts Satan's lives more credible than the truth of God.
He's involved.
Well, the next lessons we get.
Really take up.
The results of.
Those who are like this, ruler of the synagogue.
And the day of the manifestation of the grace of God, this time of the Kingdom. And he says, what is the Kingdom of God like? Well, first he says it's like a grain of mustard seed which a man took.
And puts it in the ground, it grows, it becomes a great tree, the fowls of the air lodged in its branches. The second he says, it's like 11 which a woman's heart.
And hid and three measures of meals, so the hole was 11.
The Lord is presenting a picture of what Christianity is going to become like in the hands of those who have no use for the grace of God but are seeking to approach God on the basis of their own righteousness.
Which they don't have and their own good works as they support.
Oh, it's going to become a great earthly Kingdom. It's a man that took this mustard seed. It's the outward aspect, the public aspect of things in the Kingdom. It becomes a great tree and the fowls of the air lodge in the branches. There are pictures of demonic spirits.
That find their home in this great earthly Kingdom, and then the inward aspect of it, the hidden and unseen that a woman took.
And put in those measures of meal the food of the people of God. Christ is the food of the people of God. She's introducing something that pictures evil. 11 until it spreads through the whole thing. The pure doctrine of Christ corrupted from one end of Christianity to the other. What is the Kingdom of heaven going to become like in the hands of men like the ruler of the synagogue? It's going to become filled with.
And feeble from one end to the other. And one hearing the Lord says to them, Lord. Verse 23 Arthur Hughes, that he saved.
In light of that, are the few.
That'd be good.
The Lord doesn't answer the question directly.
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He picked in his concern for the soul of the questioner and he turned him back on his own responsibility before gone and he could drive to enter in at the straight gate.
Here once because God is sovereign and that is the only remedy.
For a man and his lost condition, unable to look up himself, does not take away the fact that man stands responsible before God, though Satan is involved.
And keeping them in that position, he still stands responsible before God as to the state of soul and mind that incapacitates him to receive Christ.
And the Lord puts this man back on his responsibility before dawn if.
Brother Rob, if I owed you $10,000 and I came to you and I said I can't pay, I'm broke, therefore you'll have to completely excuse me and consider me no longer liable for that debt. You would say even if you can't pay, it doesn't take away your responsibility to do so.
You're still responsible.
Those of all that man has a free will.
Say that if God commands men everywhere to repent.
Then therefore, man must have a free will.
To receive Christ to repent of his sins. Otherwise God would be unrighteous to command men everywhere to repent.
If they did not have the ability to do so, but.
The inability to do so does not remove the responsibility to do so, and God is righteous to command men everywhere to repent even if they don't have the ability to do it.
We're gonna skip over.
Just at the end of the chapter.
We get a little picture of those coming from the East and West and sitting down in the Kingdom of God at a rich feast of the grace of God in the coming days, enjoyment of himself and.
Having heard all these things, the Pharisees respond Him in verse 31 with threats and intimidation, and they tell him, get out of here.
You know hair is going to kill you.
They expected the Lord to run, you know.
He says in the 32 Go, go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected, and the captain of our salvation.
Nevertheless, I must walk today and tomorrow and the following day, day following it. For it cannot be their prophet perish out of Jerusalem. His whole path was under the control of the sovereign will of God. And no Herod, no Caesar, no power on earth, even energized by Satan, was going to turn him aside from that path that was governed by the sovereign will of God.
Go tell that clock. Oh, he says. I would have gathered you together. How often?
I would have gathered my children together as a hen.
Doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not.
Man's will is cut again.
Not only he cannot come.
Oh, they prefer the fox or the hen. Man prefers Satan's lives to the truth of them.
Chapter 14 Trevessa the Lord Another picture. It follows on perhaps from the feast that's given to us in the end of chapter 13, where many come from the east and West and sit down.
Recline that table for the rich feast of the love and grace of God.
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And the Lord comes to a feast that is Pharisees house, and they're watching him, they're observing him to see how he would behave.
Woody Hill on the Sabbath day again.
There is a certain man before him which has the dropsy, the Lord knowing their hearts answering. Interesting how often in scripture when nothing said and the Lord said answering, He reads the heart and he answers, even though the words were never spoken. Answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal?
On the Sabbath day they held their peace, and He took Him.
And healed him and let him go with a woman earlier that was bowed over. He called her to him, and he healed, laid his hands on her and healed her. This is even more simple.
So plain, so beautiful.
And its character, the the display of the sovereign grace of God. He just takes him, He heals him, and he lets him go.
You have the drops, see? You know what the dropsy is.
Doesn't mean he would just fall every once in a while like a paralytic or have an epileptic seizure.
Drop seat means a swelling. It means a collection of fluids. There's another word for it in medical terms called an edema. And it could get so large they would be rehabilitated. He had a swelling. Man has a problem.
That is pride.
He is as well. That hinders him from coming to God, and so the Lord just sovereignly.
And in the Pharisees house, no matter where it is his sovereign right Trump everything else he can do as he does.
And he feels this man. But now he turns and he looks. He becomes the attorney and he looks in this house and what does he see? Everyone in the house, that's the drops. They all have a swelling. They're all striving for the better seat, elbowing each other out of the way to get to the good spot in the house.
The highest place. The honorable place.
Driving the whole house, it's full of them. Oh, what a picture for the divine mind to look down on this house. He marked how they chose out the chief room.
And monster God, the eye of God, looking down on this world, especially the religious world and man, as if it were an inclined plane, trying to get higher and higher, better place and position.
There is all an effort.
Fry's.
He brings out to the Pharisee, and he had bidden his guests based on the principle that they would give him something back.
Well, not only the guests were looking for a better place and a better position that he had invited on the same principle that he would get something for himself.
Verse 12 When thou maketh the dinner or supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also.
Busy again in a recompense he may be, But when thou make this, the feast called a four, and the mane and the blind, and thou shalt be black, for they cannot recompense thee.
But that shall be recompense, that the resurrection of the just. And so he brings out the principles in which God makes his sovereign choice to bring into his house to his feet.
How he makes his choice.
Sovereignly of sins, it is with no thought that they can bring anything to him.
Where is he looking for recompense? Oh, that wonderful day of glory when the Lord Jesus comes and the dead in Christ are raised and they're all brought in to his house.
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He's going to be logically recompensed than the resurrection, isn't he?
But you know, man wants payment now.
He's not willing to wait for a resurrection that he has no faith to believe in. He wants payment now, and so he makes his choice based on what he's going to get.
How opposite of the heart of God.
Well, one of them that sat at meet with them, they heard those gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth, and he just exclaimed, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God.
Somehow those words affected him and he responded that way.
Oh, it's true, less of the truth. And I will sit at that table and eat bread and the Kingdom of God in the coming day.
What will man have it on God's time?
Will he have it on God's terms?
And this little series of lessons through these trappers culminates then, with the parable of the Great Sun.
Lord, give this parable, 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. Well, this certain man is God himself given to us in this picture form. He's made all things ready. Send his beloved son into this world to go to the cross.
And propitiation was made at the cross, and wherein God has been so satisfied with the work of his Son, that he's come out in grace to loss and ruin man, and says, Whosoever will.
All things are ready and here in contrast to Matthew 22 it's a single servant that's sent out in Matthew 22 its many servants.
That are sent out, those are the human instruments that bring out the gospel of God. But here it is the Spirit of God. There in Matthew if some man a king who made a great supper for his son.
For the honor of his son. But here it is, a man who just wants to fill a house for the satisfaction of his own heart.
The heart of God.
They all, with one consent, began to make excuses. Mr. Darby's translation is more accurate. They all without exception.
Began to make excuse.
Not that they consented together to make excuses, but every single one that was bidden made an excuse. 3 examples are given, many more were bidden.
Oh, without exception. Not one single exception.
Began to make excuse.
And the excuses are given. The 1St I bought a piece of brown, I must need to go and see it. Another I have bought by the yoke of oxen I go to proven.
The third I married a wife, therefore I.
All the first he has to see it, the lust of the eyes.
The other I gotta go prove it.
Well, I need a good deal.
So pride of life and the last I've married a wife. I can't come. The lust of the flesh.
Three things that Satan uses, three things that are in this world that are not of the Father, and which Satan uses to keep man in that condition, that he is then lost and ruined and sent. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes.
And the pride of life.
The first two say have me excuse, they will not come.
The last is the most honest and he says I cannot come. Both are true.
Men will not come, and he cannot come as he is.
Well, that Cervantes comes and he shows the Lord, and what does he do? Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring hit her before the main, the halt and the blind.
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The services, Lord, it is done as thou's commanded, and yet there is room.
And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and come, tell them to come in.
That my house may be full.
Well, it's the divine resource of the heart of God. My house will be filled for the satisfaction of my own heart. Go out and compel them to come in, and not one of us who will be there in the glory in the Father's house will be anything of it than a compelled 1.
Can't help.
5000.
Why is it?
As that is the case.
Gospel.
And John, the Lord Jesus is presented as light.
Relax, it came into the world.
When did these clients in the world?
First five was round one and the lights trying to pin darkness and the darkness.
Comprehended or apprehended it. Not a little difference between comprehension and African, but comprehension. It's not just that he comprehended it, not he didn't even apprehend it. He didn't even get a hold of a little bit of it. Nothing.
So much so the light came into the world, and if you turn the lights on in this room, the darkness goes away. But the light came into the world and the darkness stayed. It didn't go away.
And so God had to send a man named John the point at the light and say, there's the light.
There's the light to the darkness after him, is it not?
In chapter.
Three.
Before we read that, is it just referred to?
We're 1011 of chapter one. But he was in the world. The world was made by him and the world knew him.
Oh man finished because he is darkness himself. He works sometimes Darkness, but not.
But not only is man darkness, we read in chapter 3 and verse 19, and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world.
A man loves drawing.
Man who loved gardening.
Rather than light, because their deeds were evil, Everyone that doeth evil hated.
Darkness. Tonight. The lights go out in this room and it'll be dark. It's passing.
But this darkness wasn't passive.
This darkness hated the light. It was opposed to the light. It wouldn't come to the light. It hated it.
Man love the darkness chapter 8.
Verse 12.
Don't say Jesus again to them, saying I am the light of the world. He that called me shall not walk in darkness that shall have the light of life.
Madam, not only our darkness.
I love the darkness.
They walk in the darkness.
Chapter 12.
Chapter 12 and verse 46 I am comma light into the world, and that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
The appliance and the darkness. And then in verse 35, Jesus saith unto them, Yet a little while the light is the light with you. Walk while you have the light, less darkness come upon you, or darkness.
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Seed upon men love lost man in this world. He loves the darkness. He walks in the darkness, he abides in the darkness, and the darkness is about to seize upon him. And to whom it is appointed. The blackness of darkness forever. And that one in Matthew chapter 20 was bound hand and foot in half of the outer darkness, his portion for all eternity. Life outer.
Darkness because it's outside of the creation of God. It's outside of the new heavens and the earth, and there's no light there.
All that is why men cannot and will not come.
In John chapter 5, the Lord tells us that very explicitly.
Verse 40.
And he will not come to me that he might have life. Man is not God of free will.
Ye will not come to me.
Chapter 6.
Verse 44. No man hath come to me.
Except for fog which had sent me draw him.
It's going to take.
Chapter 3.
And verse 3.
Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, I stand to the except a man before again.
It cannot see.
Of his own will, James says we get here with the word of truth. Of his own will they won't be us. For the word of truth, Peter says, being born again out of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. That is how God works by the Holy Spirit.
Using the instrumentality, the Word of God to impart a life where there was no life before and that is the beginning of the sovereign work of God and grace in the soul.
It starts with a new burn.
It is, as the Lord says to Nicodemus, an absoluteness.
All nicodemus.
Didn't have, and you and I didn't have anything more to do with our spiritual birth than we did with our natural birth of His own. Will began to us by the word of truth.
Let's turn over back to John, uh, John's gospel chapter one.
Verse 12.
But as many as received him to them gay he power.
To become the sons of the children of God, even to them which that believe on his name. I want to read it in the new translation.
To those that believe on his name who have been born.
Not of blood, nor flushes well, nor of man's will, but of course.
Those who received him, who was rejected by this world that he came to and it knew him not.
So that were his own, that he came to and received him not.
Those who didn't believe him were those who were born.
It's important to notice the order. It's not that they came and believed in order to be born of God.
But he knows everything ahead of time as well, doesn't he? And there's a word for that called president.
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He knows everything ahead of him.
Those who deny.
The sovereign election of God.
Salvation of lost men.
Make this verse to be that just God knew what you would do out of time because He knows everything ahead of time. That's true. He knows everything ahead of time.
But is that the point of this verse, That God just knows everything ahead of time?
That God just looked down the long tunnel of time and saw what you would do, and then chose you because he saw you. With exercise, you're supposed free will to receive Christ, no?
He foreknew youth up accent personally before you if it just meant then he knows everything ahead of time and we look at it as person. He knew every person ahead of time. Who was it that he didn't know ahead of time?
And if that's what it means.
That he knows everything ahead of time then whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. And there isn't one man, woman or child that was ever born in this world.
There will not be conformed to the image of the sun at all of the IT. All it means is he knew everyone ahead of time.
It means a specific class of persons that he foreknew.
From a past eternity, it's involved with his Father's choice.
Those that he foreknew, he did predestinate to be conformed to the ancient.
This, yeah. And in time, he called you.
And through the finished work of Christ, He justified you.
And is the day coming when He's going to glorify you with He who can speak of everything that is not yet as if it already is as glorified? Only God could see that. Only God could do that.
2nd Thessalonians.
Chapter 2.
Uh, inverse 13.
But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you brethren, the love of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you through salvation. That's the election.
Through sanctification of the Spirit, the setting apart through the action of the Spirit of God. That's the new verse of quickness.
And belief of the truth, the faith that is the gift of God, that comes with that new life.
Same here, whereas who he called you by our gospel.
Oh, the way in which he has brought you in is through the means of the gospel.
To be a paling of glory.
The glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the end.
Of the past for every believer in his object.
And his sovereign choice of you.
This was the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So many things we didn't have time to touch on and our time was done.
And all this doesn't answer every question and doesn't touch on many other things.
But I want to add one more thing remember.
That even though these wonderful truths.
Are there in the word of God, of God's sovereignty and election. It never ever will take away from those.
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Most precious words.
Him that cometh unto me I will, and no one has nothing.
Our God and our Father who prayed the God bless our time and nightmare, feel our evilness.
It might be more established in contributing so we just can let ourselves kidding the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.