Kennystix's podcast
God's Word Has Not Fallen
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Now Lord I feel keenly aware of my need to organize this exposition of your word in a way that moves us forward lest precious things in chapter 10 and 11 be neglected and so help me and help us to see your word in the way it would most helpfully relate to the needs in this room across the whole spectrum of these three chapters. Like me I pray to leave out precious things that would be less helpful and to include those that would be most helpful in building faith and strengthening hope and clarifying vision and mobilizing mission and purifying hearts and preserving marriages and intensifying devotion for Jesus and blessing churches and having a ripple effect for the culture in which we live, dozens of things you want to do through your word and only you know how it gets from text to the hearts in this room and so I pray for your providence, your supernatural governance over my walk through this text with these friends. Above all make us spiritually alert to the truth that is here and grant that we would see with the eyes of Christ and see Christ clearly, see your work for what it really is and as Paul says beholding the glory of the Lord be changed from one degree of glory to the next, I ask this in Jesus name, amen. This is the next paragraph, here's my plan. I would like to get through chapter 10 tonight so I hope to spend about a half an hour on the remainder of this crucial section on the defense of God in his election and then I have four things to say about chapter 10 and we won't walk through it with every verse but we'll hit on those four things and I think he'll get the big picture if we do that and we'll end by singing softly and tenderly and talking about invitations and how they relate to the sovereignty of God in prayer. What shall we say then? Now he's just said, Jacob I loved, he saw I hate it. I chose one before they were born or had done anything good or evil and so now he says what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part so don't feel like you're alone? If you balk at what you just heard, Paul knows we're going to feel that way so he asked the question for us we don't have to impose it on the text. Is there injustice on God's part? His answer by no means and then he gives an argument here, I say it's an argument because of that little word for and I wrote a whole book to explain that word for. It's called the Justification of God, I think they may have it down there, it's the most unreadable book that I've ever written, I think because it's written like a doctoral dissertation with all kinds of Greek and Hebrew and I did translate all the French and German and stuff but it was written for scholars although some people here have told me it was helpful which really surprised me. But the origin of that book was to explain that argument which is a very puzzling argument so I'm going to very briefly give you 250 pages in about five minutes I'm going to summarize the argument that I understand. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Now that to me sounds like a restatement of the problem, not an answer, I mean how is that an argument? Is there injustice on God's part in choosing Jacob over Esau? No, because the Bible says I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy. I spent nine months trying to understand that argument and I think I've got it but let's read the rest before we do that. So then it depends not on human will or exertion. It is not of man who wills or runs literally but on God who has mercy. Four, here's the argument again, another argument. Four, the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So, so, so, four, four. The structure here is very plain. It looks like this, if you draw it, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. This is the conclusion level and this is the argument level. It's got two arguments and three conclusions, sixteen, so it does not depend on human willing but on God. So he has mercy on whom he wills and he hardens whom he wills and that is not unjust. Two arguments, fifteen and seventeen and the big issue is how do the arguments work? How in the world do the fours here function? He's arguing. He's trying to make a case that there's no injustice with God. This is a defense of God's unconditional election. There's two words, four, and they are quotes from Scripture. This is Exodus 33, nineteen, and this is Exodus 9, sixteen. So what I did was I went back and in context tried to understand what Paul saw in Exodus 33 that makes it obvious enough for him to say, "There's no injustice, get it?" And we look at it and say, "No, I don't get it. How is that a help? How does this quotation of Exodus 33, nineteen remove the apparent unrighteousness of God in choosing one over the other before they had done anything good or evil?" Okay, so there's the text as a whole. So let me try to summarize as best I can what the argument is. I did not make an overhead of Exodus 33. So I'm going to invite you to go there with me in your Bible. Exodus 33, I want you to see some very important contextual elements here. The situation is that Moses very much wants God in his mercy because the people don't deserve this to go up with them to the promised land, and he's pleading with God. Verse 13, chapter 33, Exodus, "Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight." Verse 14, and he said, "God said, 'My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest now, down to verse 17. The Lord said to Moses, 'This very thing you have spoken, I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I will, and I know you by name.' Now Moses presses in for more. He's got God's agreement to go with him. Now he wants more. As verse 18, "Please show me your glory." And God said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name, Yahweh, the Lord. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I show mercy." Now there's the context, "Show me your glory. I will show you my name. I have mercy on whom I have mercy. I am the Lord." And I meditated for months on that, trying to understand what Paul saw there, that caused him to quote that right here, as an explanation for why injustice is not in unconditional election. And here's my understanding. God's name is an essential component, or the essence of his glory. And I draw that out of the fact that Moses says, "Show me your glory," verse 18. And God says, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and proclaim before you my name, Yahweh, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and show mercy on whom I show mercy." And that reminds us, does it not, of chapter 4, where Moses says to the Lord, "You want me to go down there to these people? Who shall I say, sent me?" This is chapter 3, verse 14 of Exodus. God said to Moses, "I am who I am." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you.' I am who I am," sounds very much like, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy." "I am who I am" means, "My being is absolute. I don't derive my being and my identity from anything outside myself. I am the one absolute reality in the universe. Everything comes from me, starts with me, is defined by me. I am not determined by or shaped by or come into being by anything outside me. I am absolute reality." And when he says, "I have mercy on whom I have mercy," I think that is the expression in his volition of the same thing that was said about his being. "I will what I will, nothing outside of me governs ultimately what I do. I consult my own counsel. I do all things according to the counsel of my will." Theesians 1, 11, "When I make choices, I don't come to you for counsel and advice. I am not governed or constrained or coerced or determined by forces outside of me. Therefore, I have mercy on whom I have mercy. That's who I am," which helps us understand now why he responded to the statement, "Show me your glory with that kind of statement." Because he's really saying, "This is who I am. This is the essence of my glory. My freedom to be self-determining and not governed by things outside of myself is my glory." That's step one in the argument. Step two is Paul, following the Old Testament, believes that God's righteousness, which is the word behind this, it's being called into question, God's righteousness, you could translate this unrighteous, God's righteousness is his unswerving allegiance always to uphold and display the worth of his glory. That's the meaning, that's the most essential bottom line definition of the righteousness of God. You could say very simply, if you were talking to an eight-year-old, God's righteousness is doing what's right always, and that would satisfy an eight-year-old. But a thirteen-year-old might say, "How does God decide what's right?" Do you have a book outside himself? Does he consult a list, a law book? How does he decide what's right? And then you're forced into God's essence to say, "What is right?" And of course, God doesn't consult anything outside himself. He is the definition of what's right. And if you ask, "Well, what makes something right?" He would say, "What upholds and displays the fullness of my glory is right." That's the meaning of right. "I am the essence and definition of right. My glory is the essence and definition of good and right and upright, and therefore what upholds and displays, magnifies, shows the worth of, makes much of, my glory is right. I am righteous in that I do whatever I do in order to continue to uphold my full glory." That's the meaning of righteousness. Now, if I had time, and I will not take the time, I'll resist with all my might here, showing you why I believe that's the righteousness of God. I just send you to chapter 3, verse 25, where God puts Christ forward as a demonstration of His righteousness. And if I say any more, I'll get really involved there, and I'd love to, but I shouldn't. So now, here's the argument. Is there unrighteousness on God's part when He chooses Jacob over Esau, Isaac over Ishmael, and chooses you even though you don't deserve it? And there's nothing in you to command it. He's the unrighteous when He exerts freedom and sovereignty and unconditional election in that way. And Paul says, "No, because this freedom is an expression of what His glory is, and His righteousness consists in expressing and upholding His glory, 250 pages, 5 minutes. This is really huge in implication for a pastor, teacher, Sunday school teacher, small group leader, evangelist. Because what it means is, the answer to many questions in the Bible will not be possible for people whose minds operate with man-centered paradigms. I mean, the answer that I just gave you is unthinkable as a satisfying answer to a person who doesn't have God at the center of their universe. If God is not the son of your solar system, that argument will just kind of leave you. God is righteous in exerting His absolute freedom in election because that is an essence of His glory and the upholding of His glory is the meaning of His righteousness, that argument will only satisfy a person who has been broken in half in his own self-exaltation and wants God to be all in all. And the center of his universe, the center of his emotions, the center of everything. And Paul was that kind of person and I think he was inspired by God and therefore my biggest challenge as a pastor is shattering American paradigms of thought and trying to reconstruct people's brains with God at the center, trying to reconstruct a worldview that makes the Bible work for people. Because there's so much of the Bible that just won't work. And when a man-centered person gets an intellectual hold on the Bible and won't let his man-centered business goes, he wrecks everything. Theologies are created that are way off base and evangelistic styles are created and attitudes are created and marriages are created and all kinds of things come into being that are not rooted in Scripture because the centrality of God has been dislodged. I remember my son Carsten, my oldest, married three kids, teaches English at a community college in Worthington, Minnesota when he was doing graduate studies at Boston College in literature and I could tell by a couple of conversations on the phone and a couple of letters he had just gotten married, Shelley, and I could just tell they weren't settled into a church yet and he seemed adrift spiritually and I was starting to worry about him because he'd never, this is the first son, perfect kid, never does anything wrong and way too good to be real, you know? And I wrote him a long letter, like a three-page, type-written letter, sharing my heart of what I was trying to read between the lines, he hadn't said anything, just read between the and the analogy I used was, "Son, if God is dislodged from the center of your solar system, as the sun, all the planets fly out of orbit, wife will fly out of orbit, money will fly out of orbit, sex will fly out of orbit, studies will fly out of orbit, view of government will... Everything will fly out of orbit." And they'll start banging into each other, and emotional problems will come, and I just said, "Is he in the center?" Exerting his massive gravitational pull on every piece of your life, church life, and sex life, and leisure life, and money life, and relationship life. Is he exerting his pull? Because if he is, the planets will work perfectly. He called me immediately. He said, "Daddy?" And I was just trembling. I thought he might say, "Bug off. I've listened to you preach in over 20 years. I don't need to be preached to anymore." And he didn't say that with tears. He said, "That was a really timely letter. Thank you so much." And it just came at a key point. So pray about those kinds of letters. You need to write your kids. Carson's an elder in his church today. He's just a devoted, loving, 32-year-old husband, and I'm thrilled. But I've got to resist telling stories because we'll never, ever get through. One more question on this paragraph. Why this quote from Exodus 9, 16? Why that quote? Because he draws from it. So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills, which is like saying, "Jacob, I loved you, so I hated." And of course you all know the story of Exodus and the ten plagues, and how over and over again it says, "Either God hardened Pharaoh's heart, or Pharaoh hardened his own heart, or his heart was hardened." Why didn't he choose one of those verses that mentions hardening? There's a dozen of them. He chooses a verse. He doesn't have the word "hardening" in it. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up that I might show my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth, so he hardens whom he wills." He could have chosen a verse that really says clearly God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he didn't choose one of those. Why? What's in this verse that he really needs for his argument? Everybody knows. His readers know hardening is all over the place in Exodus 4 through 10. And what he needs is this, that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. This is a missionary text, but here it's a text that's picking up on this issue of there's no unrighteousness on God's part. As he shows his absolute freedom in mercy because he is utterly and totally therein committed to making his name great. That's what his righteousness is. His righteousness is always acting in a way that will make most of his name, his glory. And so that element of the argument is drawn out here as he illustrates again from Pharaoh's life the truth of unconditional election. Namely, it is very purposive and therefore not unjust because the purpose is infinitely wise in displaying the glory of God. Next paragraph, Paul's not done helping us. You will say then, why does he still find fault? See how much he's with us here? How much he's inside our skin, feeling our problems with his teaching? Why does he still find fault? Someone will say, for who can resist his will? The answer, that's nobody. And here's his answer. His answer is first, who are you, oh man, mere mortal man, to answer back to God? Now, I don't think that's an indictment of a humble question to God. I don't get it. Help me. How can this be? Remember the angel Gabriel came to John the Baptist and to Mary with similar messages. John the Baptist, your wife's going to have a kid. Can't happen. Elizabeth doesn't have kids. Mary, you're going to have a kid before you have sex. Now, Zachariah, sorry, Zachariah, John's father, says, how can I know this? And Mary said, how can this be? I'm a virgin. And the angel got mad at Zachariah's question. And said, but I am Gabriel. I stand before the Almighty. You're not going to say a word until that baby is born. It got mad at him. His question was, prove it. Mary's was, I don't understand. How? How? Not prove it, but how can a virgin have a baby? And he said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. And the child be born in you will be called Holy to the Son, the Son of God. He answered her. It's not wrong to ask humble questions to the Bible. Please don't hear this. This word right here is used in the Gospels for talk back. Like a kid, talk back. Don't talk back to your mother that way. You can ask your mother a legitimate question for why you do what you do, but don't sash your mom. Don't get in her face. Don't talk back. I think this is a statement of an indictment of an attitude, not an indictment of humble questions. Now, what's his support? Will what is molded say to its moulder? Why have you made me like this? I think that's an indicting question. Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump before they were born or had done anything good or evil? Out of the same lump, one vessel for honored use and another vessel for dishonorable use. The answer to that question is yes. So his first argument, right there, his first argument is basically potters are wise in how to use their skill to make the array of pottery that displays the full range of their competencies. And we, oh man, are not smart enough, wise enough, or good enough to stand up to God and elevate our values to the point where we call him into judgment. Who are you, O John Piper, or any of you to say that the way I'm doing things is defective. I'm the potter. I am wise. I know how to use my skill to make the whole range of pottery that will display. I'm getting ahead of myself here just a little bit. Display my glory. So let's go to his next argument. And I said this morning that I'd be back here and so we'll just do it briefly. This right here is in my judgment the closest thing you get to an absolute answer to why there's evil in the world, why God decrees the fall, why God does not elect everybody, why there's reprobation, all those ultimate questions, this is as close as you get to an answer in the Bible. It's worthy of a lot of thinking, which we won't devote to it right now, but you can later. What if God, or just the text really doesn't have what in it, it's just if God and then he asks the question and he breaks off. That's why this little dash is here. He breaks off. And remember I suggested filling it in with Abraham Lincoln's, will we then find in this God any attributes that we do not ascribe to the divine being. In other words, there's no injustice here, but what does he ask? What if God, and if you've got an NASB here, contrary to all its usual accuracy, it inserts the word although, which is dead wrong. I am totally persuaded. This is not although. We know that from the way he talked about Pharaoh. It's because he desired to show his power that he raised Pharaoh up, not although he desired to show his power. This is because, if God, because he desired, but literally this is right, just to use the participle, and then you can decide for yourself, which is what a translation ought to do. It shouldn't answer those questions for you. You have to decide what adverbial, what logical relation does this have? And I'm answering causal. What if God, because he desired to show his wrath, that's a first motive, and to make known his power, that's a second motive, has endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. That's Esau, and Pharaoh, and others. So the first rationale for why God does what he does in election is display wrath, show power. That's what he wants to do. If there were no such thing as a fall, if there were no sin in the universe, had Lucifer never fallen, and Adam and Eve never fallen, and there'd be no sin in the world, there would be no wrath anywhere in the universe. And there would be no manifest holiness of judgment against sin. Many of the things that the Bible extols about God in his justice and his judgment and his wrath would never be known or seen. He had a good thing. A lot of people would say, well, that would be all right. Everybody happy, and nobody doing any sin, and you don't need to know any of that about God, because all is well, that's what many would say, and that's just not what Paul says. The Bible says, God wants to display the full range of his attributes. Why? Last piece. In order that, in order to, and this is as high as it gets. If I were to draw these little dohickeys like this, for the whole Bible, the highest level of the argument would be this one right here. In order to make known the riches of his glory, evidently if his wrath were not displayed, and his power were not shown, the riches of his glory would not be on display, would not be made known for the vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand to enjoy that glory. God ordained, and in mysterious ways, rendered certain that I cannot explain the fall of Lucifer, Adam and Eve, he ordained, take Paul as an example. We know from Galatians chapter 1 that Paul believed he was set apart from his mother's womb to be an apostle. He says that in Galatians 1. Then you get how many years? 30? 40? Of murderous persecution and opposition against the church. Not all of it against the church, the last chapter. And then God knocks him off his donkey on the way to Damascus, blinds him, totally takes charge of this man's life. He didn't just kind of ease up to him and say, want to consider Jesus? He just blasts him, just blasts him right out of heaven, blinds him, speaks to him, why are you persecuting me? Who are you Lord? I'm Jesus. Go into the city. I've got something to do with you. I mean, he just took him. He just took him. And he could have done it five years earlier before he killed so many Christians. So God wants to display the glory of his wrath and power and the riches. If I just memorized again this morning, I think, I read through 1 Timothy 1 and Paul said, I am the foremost of sinners because I persecuted the church. Christ had mercy on me as the foremost in order to display his perfect patience on all those who were to believe on him for eternal life. And now you start to get the big picture of what God was up to in choosing him in his mother's womb to be an apostle, letting him become an absolute rascal. The foremost of sinners, he calls himself, saving him sovereignly on the Damascus road for you. To display in me the perfect patience of Jesus for those who would believe on you for eternal life. That's you. God was about displaying the full range of his patience and his wrath in the life of Paul during all that stuff. In other words, it seems, and we say it with trembling, we say it with fear that God ordains, that there be evil in the world in order that the fullness of all that God is in his hatred of evil and his just wrath against evil would be displayed for our stunning worship, stunned, not stunning, stunned worship. That's huge. Those two verses right there are as heavy and as big and as ultimate as you find anywhere in the Bible. And I'm done with that section. And I wish there were time for questions. But if I stop, we won't see some really good things in chapter 10. Some will not read Jonathan Edwards. We're going to go here very quickly. What is, what he does here, we can draw it like this. I don't think I drew that right. Forget it. Chapter 6, chapter 9, verse 6, 1, "The word of God has not fallen, so you can believe Romans 8 and bank your life on it and be radical people who live out Romans 12 in mercy." That's the big picture. The argument, not all Israel is Israel. Now, verse 24 to 29, he returns to that level of the argument. Only he adds one crucial thing. Not only are not all Israel, Israel, some Gentiles are Israel. That's what he's going to say here. Even us, even us, vessels of mercy, even us whom he has called not from Jews, and it's the from that he's been defending. In other words, not all Jews, but some from Jews, but not from Jews only, but also from Gentiles. That's the new thing. He hasn't said a word about Gentiles yet in chapter 9. So here he is, 24 verses into it, and now he's saying, "You were surprised when I said not all Israel is Israel. Get ready for another big surprise. Some Gentiles are Israel." And that's nothing new. That was in chapter 2. A true Jew is not one who is circumcised by the flesh, not one who is born of the flesh. A true Jew is the one who believes in the Messiah. As indeed, he says in Hosea, "Those who were not my people, I will call my people, and her who was not beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God." Now, that's the end of his Old Testament argument for from Gentiles. Now, here comes his argument for only some from Jews. Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved." For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay. And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and like Gomorrah. And so he left us a little offspring, he left us a remnant, and so there are vessels of mercy, vessels of mercy prepared hand for glory from Jews and from Gentiles. He just broadened out the beneficiaries of this unconditional election. Now, what he does beginning at 9.30 and into chapter 10 is ask, "Alright, having just said the startling thing to Jewish people anyway, that Jews are included as his people, his elect, I mean that Gentiles are included as his people, his elect, what should we say then?" And his answer is that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it. That is a righteousness that is by faith. But that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as it were based on works, they have stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written. Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of a fence and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. That is Christ. Think what he is doing here. He has just spent a chapter arguing that not all Israel is Israel and now some Gentiles are Israel because of God's absolutely free divine unconditional election. And then he takes verses 14 to 23 to argue for the justice of that. Now he is back up to the argument and here a major shift is happening. And the shift is no longer in chapter 10, 930 on through chapter 10. Am I talking about the divine sovereign ground of who is saved and who is not? I am talking about what you have to do to be saved. Now he shifted up from the subterranean work of God in his sovereignty, now asking why is it that there are Gentiles in the kingdom? Why is it that there are Gentiles included in the covenant people of God and not all Jews? And he is not answering any longer with God's divine sovereign election. That is why that is the foundation he has just laid. And now he is ready to talk about a way of salvation that accords with the freedom of God in the election. And that is what justification by faith is. The Gentiles, they weren't pursuing righteousness. They didn't have a law. They were just going their merry way. And along comes the gospel and a righteousness that is by faith was imputed to the Gentiles who believed in Jesus. And suddenly the Messiah's righteousness is imputed to Gentiles. They are clothed with Christ's, the Messiah's righteousness and they're in the kingdom by faith alone without works of the law. Romans 3 28 and the Jews. Now here's the practical explanation in life for why they're going to be judged. Remember I said election is unconditional, but judgment and heaven are not unconditional. In order to go to heaven, you have to be a believer. The righteousness that comes by faith. In order to go to hell, you have to stiff-arm God. Resist him. Try to do your own self-righteousness. This is what's coming down here in verse 3. Being ignorant of the righteousness of God that comes from God, they are seeking to establish their own. They did not submit to God's righteousness. In other words, the Old Testament was a testimony. Look away from yourself. Look away from yourself. There's coming a redemption. As they have 53, plain as day, He's coming. You have to put yourself in a substitute, in a redeemer. There's no way you can fulfill this law adequately to measure up to what God's perfect requirements are. It's always pointing away to a substitute and a redeemer and they didn't get it. Instead, they took the law, turned it into a ladder and tried to measure up with a righteousness according to the law, and they stumbled over the stumbling stone. When he came and offered himself as the one who could save them for all their vaunted law keeping, they spurned him. He healed on the Sabbath day. The gospels are just mind-boggling when you read about why Jesus was taken to task. Ziddle awful to heal this person on the Sabbath day and they were silent. And so he said, "You have a son who falls in a ditch. You pull him out. You have a donkey who's thirsty. You lead him to water on the Sabbath. And you will criticize me for healing this woman whom Satan has bound for 18 years, who's a daughter of Abraham." What was it with these guys? The law was the means whereby they could exalt themselves. And to despair of themselves, they did not know how. So you move into chapter 10, brothers. Let me go here. Seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Four Christ is the end of the law. Four righteousness to everyone who believes. It's a gospel. Rehearsing Romans 1 to 8 again. So now I'm going to launch into my four main things I want to say from Romans 10. Instead of walking through every verse, I'm going to step back and draw out four things from Romans 10. Number one, start right here. Here's where 10 starts. Number one, based on unconditional election, rooted in that theology, Paul prays for lost people. The very people that he has just described as not being in true Israel. Brothers, my heart's desire, my heart's desire, and my prayer to God for them, these Jews who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God. These are the ones. My prayer to God is that they may be saved. So that's the first thing I want to stress. And you take it away from this seminar, which has been dominated by the doctrine of unconditional election, that those who know this theology best, namely the apostle Paul, pray hardest for lost people. Don't ever, ever, ever let anyone mock Reformed theology by saying, well, if God predestines, then there's no point in praying. Just don't buy it. Rather take them to the experiential part of Reformed theology, namely irresistible grace, and say, if God can't take out the heart of stone and make a heart of flesh, nobody will be saved. Therefore it's right to ask him to do it. I think Paul said, oh God, I don't know who the elect are. I'm going into Philippi. I'm going into Corinth. I'm going into Thessalonica. I get beat up everywhere I go. And I'm going to preach the gospel and I pray, oh God, draw people to yourself, especially when I go into the synagogue. My kinsmen, according to the flesh, I want to see them saved. Break into their hearts, oh God, and draw them to yourself when I preach tomorrow morning in Philippi. I think that's the way prayed. He left the mystery of who would be saved and who wouldn't totally to God. In fact, when he was very discouraged, do you remember this from Acts 18, 10? He's discouraged in Corinth and the Lord comes to him at night and says, do not be afraid, Paul. Rise, preach. No evil will befall you, for I have many people in this city. What does that mean? That means you don't know who they are. I know who they are. Your job is not to sniff them out either. That's hyper-calvinism, by the way. You want to know what a definition of hyper-calvinism is? Some people use the term hyper-calvinism for real Calvinism, like "pipers"? He's a hyper-calvinist. He really believes it. Historically, hyper-calvinism means you don't believe you should preach the gospel to anyone who doesn't give evidence of being elect. That's hyper-calvinism. It was against missions. It was absolutely unbiblical. And the Bible proves that every page, and Paul walks into Corinth, and God says, I have many people in this city. Your job is to go there and suffer and preach and display me. I'll draw them to myself. You just go preach. And that's all you're called to do. You're not to be in on who's elect at all. That's God's business. Your job is to sow seed like crazy, lay down your life for every unbeliever you know. And pray like crazy that God would open their hearts. And God uses your prayer as part of the means whereby He saves His elect. It pays to pray because God has ordained to answer the prayer as part of the means whereby He saves His elect. That's my first observation from chapter 10. Namely, prayer for the lost flows from the free election of God. Second observation. The law leads to Christ for righteousness. I already said that, but I got out of order. I'll say it again. The law, verse 4 of chapter 10. Christ is the end of the law. And I think they would tell us there would just as well or perhaps better be translated goal. For Christ is the goal or the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Meaning that the function of the law among all of its other functions was to direct people to the Messiah, direct people to Christ for righteousness, Christ for righteousness. And all how I would love to teach on justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ. Let me just direct your attention back to chapter 3 verse 20. Maybe 20 to 22 because this is too good just to speed over. So it's all over chapter 1 to 8. 3 20. Romans 3 20. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified. That means declared righteous and accepted by God. No human being will be justified by works of the law in His sight. Since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. You try to rely upon the law. You'll just find out how much sin you have. Verse 21. But now this is a great, incarnational, redemptive Christ event now. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, namely which law, which righteousness are you talking about? The righteousness, verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. That's what Paul's talking about here when he says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. If you try to make law keeping the ground of your acceptance with God, you will not be accepted by God. Nobody is justified by the works of the law. You must turn away from law keeping. And I mean away from not committing adultery and away from not murdering and away from not stealing and not lying. Not that you do those things. You don't rely upon those things for acceptance with God. There is one righteousness that cuts it with the Almighty. His son's righteousness. It was perfect. He fulfilled all righteousness. By one man's disobedience, many were constituted sinners. By one man's obedience, many are constituted righteous. Chapter 5, verse 19. His obedience was the perfect obedience. Now by faith we are grafted into Jesus and His righteousness becomes our righteousness and we are thus accepted by God. And all we've done for the last two hours before tonight was go underneath that to how God decides to whom that will happen. But please don't let that minimize this. When we preach and when we share the gospel, this is what we talk about first. We talk about how sinful we all are. We put ourselves in the context with other believers. We'll point our finger and say we are all sinners. God is infinitely holy. He cannot accept us in our present condition. Loving us and not just hating us. He inserts a glorious substitute. His own divine son between himself and us, that son not only absorbs all of his wrath and thus enables him to forgive all of our sin, that son performs a perfect fulfillment of the law, a perfect righteousness so that in him that righteousness becomes imputed to us by faith alone. That's the gospel. That's the glory of the gospel. To not only look into an unbeliever and say there's nothing you've ever done that can disqualify you from election since the election is unconditional, that you say later. First you say there's nothing you've ever done that can disqualify you from being holy and just and righteous before God because Christ became a righteousness which you can have imputed to you, counted to you if you will bow despair of yourself and trust in him. That's a big if. It's a condition. You see now I'm talking conditions. You want to be saved. You got to believe. You want the righteousness of Christ. You must believe. But why a person believes and doesn't believe? That's all down here in chapter 9. And it's good to know that eventually because it breaks us of some of our pride, gets all praise for God, takes the roots of our security down deeper, gives God all the glory. But right here we're talking widespread Billy Graham type gospel, which ought to be preached all the time. That's number two. The law leads people to Christ for righteousness Romans 10, 4. Point number three. I'm skipping over verses 5 to 8, which just spells out more of how the law points to Christ. And going here to 10, 9 following. And my main point here is therefore attachment to Christ saves. Therefore attachment to Christ saves. He comes out of his exposition of the law in verses 4 through 8 with cause if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart. Now he got this word heart and mouth from Deuteronomy 30. The word is near you. It is in your mouth. It is in your heart. That was in Deuteronomy 30. And so he's asking now in essence what is in our mouth and in our heart that makes us, excuse me, makes us right with God. And the answer is in our mouth is a confession that Jesus is Lord and in our heart is faith that God, faith and confession. This is just the outward expression of this. Believe and confess. God raised me to the dead. You will be saved. It's attachment to Jesus by faith that saves us. For with the heart one believes and is justified or right with God. And with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, which is the opposite of saved. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. The same Lord is Lord of all bestowing his riches on all his riches, riches of his glory on all who call upon him for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord, Lord now being this Lord right there. Confess your through mouth that Jesus is Lord. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So attachment to Jesus is what saves. And the question was asked me earlier today and I use this to talk about the nature of faith. Let me just draw something out here because I've been seeing it in other places and it feels urgent. My wife and I, one of the practices we do, I felt a burden in recent years that I should have fellowship with my wife and Jesus at the same time. And I've asked myself what does that look like? And I'm going to commend this to you that you consider this and do this or something. It just seems like if Jesus is real, if he's part of the family, if he's as close to us as our children and our wife, then he ought to be included in the family. And just like I date my wife and just like I have devotions with the family and Talitha is included now or just like we'll have playtime with Talitha, you know, that you do special things, you don't just exist and say, you know, I'm married and, you know, we see each other but we don't have doing anything together. That would not be good marriage. You had to plan, do things together, date each other. Seems like God ought to have some special times. So what Noel and I decided to do on this vacation here, we were here a couple of weeks before you guys showed up up in the cabin and we prayed our way through the Epistle of John. And what that means is we took half an hour one night, four or five minutes another night, we've done this often on our retreats, we'll take together and we'll pray through Philippians or through Galatians or through Colossians. And what it means is you take a text, a Bible, and it's got heading breaks like this and you say, okay, here's what we're going to do. I'll pray and invite Jesus to come and be with us in a special, manifest way in which he communicates with us through his word. And then I'll read the first paragraph and we'll just pause and pray whatever comes to mind from that text. And when we feel like we're done, you read the next paragraph, Noel, and we'll pray some more. And then when I feel like we're done, I'll read the next paragraph. And then when we pray some more, and you can fill up an hour that way, fellowshiping with Jesus and each other by just reading a paragraph or two of Scripture. Pray about whatever comes to mind, you see it's family, church, missions, sometimes bigger issues, government, the globe, and often us, marriage. I think why I started this illustration. Oh yes, it had to do with what the nature of belief is. So marginally relevant. This story is just marginally relevant, but I thought you'd be interested in how we do this. Back to the point. The point is, in 1 John, you read things like, "He who confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is born of God." Or, "He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God is a child of God." I remember reading that as I was praying with Noel, knowing full well the devil believes that. Says so. Remember? He showed up and the devil said, "I know who you are. You are the Christ, the Son of the Blessed." And Jesus, you give your mouth shut. The devil knows Jesus is the Son of God and believes it as a fact. So that can't be what this means, right? Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead or believe that he's the Son of God or believe that he died for sins. That can't save anybody as just a fact in your head. Believe must be here, embrace, trust, bank on, be satisfied by. I like to move into the Hedonism language because I really think the Bible is pervaded with it and it calls our bluff better than other language. Are you satisfied with Jesus and the demonstration of his power in rising from the dead? Does that satisfy your soul and we knew off of idolatry, which is where first John ends, children keep yourselves from idols? And so I just want to underline that here again. When I say what saves his attachment to Jesus, I don't mean merely confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, saves anybody unless you really like having him as your Lord, which the devil does not. He hates his worship. He knows he's Lord. Do you remember what the devil said? They said, the Gatorine demoniac said, "Why are you here before the time?" What does that mean? Before the time they know they're doomed. They know there's a time coming when they'll all be thrown into the lake of fire and they're just angry that he came early, messing up their habitation in this demoniac. And they choose pigs. The devil knows well all Orthodox doctrine better than any theologian. And it does him no good. We must delight in Jesus as Lord. When you say, "Isn't it remarkable?" Let me talk about another kind of statement like this. 1 Corinthians 12, 3, "No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." Can you read that? You say, "I can't?" What's this? Jesus is Lord. I can't imagine an unbeliever reading that text. I can imagine the devil reading that text saying, "I can too." Jesus is Lord. I did it. So clearly, when Paul says, "Nobody can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit," he means the same thing as if you confess with your mouse, Jesus is Lord, you'll be saved. He means confess it and say it from the heart with a delight. Yes, he's Lord. He's mine. I love his supremacy over my life. I love his rule over the nations. I love his conquering power over my sin. That's what confessing Jesus as Lord means, not just words. I got the doctrine right, "Lord, ship of Jesus" onto the new topic. That's number three. Now, number four. I'll rehearse them. Prayer for the lost flows from God's free election. Number two, the law was pointing us to Christ for righteousness, not to ourselves in our own lawkeeping. Three, therefore, Christ attachment to Christ is what saves by faith alone. Lastly, missions must and has happened, must still happen, and has happened. Missions, evangelism, global evangelism, cross-cultural missions must happen 14 to 21. But now, but how are they to call on him whom they have not believed? He's just said, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent, as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us, so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ." But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. That's a quote from Psalm 19, but I think he takes the words from natural revelation and applies it to the missionary enterprise to say, the gospel has gone far and wide. It doesn't mean it's finished, but it has already gone far and wide. It needs to go farther. But I ask, did not Israel understand? First Moses says, "I'll make you jealous of those who are not a nation with a foolish nation. I'll make you angry." Then Moses, Isaiah, so bold as to say, "I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me." But of Israel, he says, "All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." The first part of that unit is a very clear, historic, well-known argument that salvation doesn't happen without the hearing of the gospel. Do not conclude from sovereign, unconditional election that God saves people who've never heard the gospel. He doesn't. You must call upon him, but how can you call if you haven't believed? And how can you believe if you haven't heard? And how can you hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless there's an authentic sending from God in probably the church? In other words, missions is paramount. Missions is huge in God's economy. And here's the really striking thing that I've had many people throw back in my face. If I talk about Romans 9 and I don't talk about chapter 10, I remember Clark Pinnock responded to my book on Romans 9 to 11 in a footnote of his and said something snide. I don't think scholars ought to talk snide, but it was snide because he said, "I wrote my book on Romans 9 1 to 23, stopped in mid-sentence. I knew I'd be criticized for stopping in mid-sentence." He said, "Well, if John Piper had read to the end of chapter 10, he would have seen that what he said about chapter 9 is not true." Another reason you can tell that snide is because he knows I've read through chapter 10. I have read chapter 2. I read it before I wrote the book. But this would be what he's referring to. Of Israel, he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." Here's the picture of God standing before rebellious Israel. Like Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks and you would not? You did not know the time of peace. Or like Jesus, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. I'm meek and lowly in heart. You'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy. My burden is light. Come." Or Isaiah 55, "Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. You who have no money, come by and eat. Come by wine and milk without money and wealth, without price." Why would you spend your money on that which is not bread and labor for that which does not satisfy? Harken diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in abundance. And he says, "You can't picture a God doing that if you believe in election." That's just contradictory. If he has chosen whom he will choose, then to have him standing like that before disobedient Israel as though he's inviting them is contradictory. That's what he would throw back in my face. So, I want to draw things to a close like this. See if I can draw something for you. Or maybe before I draw it, we'll do this. Now, Billy Graham has used just as I am for 40, 50 years to close his crusades, and it's an interesting thing. Just as I am without one plea, but that that blood was shed for me, and that thou bitched me come to the o Lamb of God I come. Here's another very remarkable invitation, hymn, that I sing many times growing up softly and tenderly. Sing it with me, you know this. Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. See on the portals he's waiting and watching, watching for you and for me. Come home, come home, you who are weary, come home. Earnestly tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, oh sinner, come home. Now, that's not a trick. I'm not playing a trick on you here. I can sing that and say that without any paying of conscience. I think that's a biblical way to see Jesus, parable of the prodigal son and others. I think that's a good song. And to many people implies, well, if Jesus is standing there just in a portal, in a window or a door waiting and watching and tenderly calling, he's not out there doing any sovereign work to bring anybody. And that's not true. It just implies that to so many people, which is why if you're going to use a song like this, you probably should do some heavy duty teaching. Here's my question. This is the way to get at people's hearts. Ask them that. How do you pray while this song is being sung? I just want you to be honest right now in your own heart. You're sitting in a search service. Somebody has brought a powerful gospel message. You're surrounded by unbelieving family members. Some have grown up in the church, maybe some are outside. They came to the meeting with you for some reason. And this song is being sung. And the portrait of Jesus standing at a portal, a window, a door with his hands extended like Romans 10, 21 says, saying, "Come home. Come home. What are you doing? What are you asking God to do?" I guarantee you are not saying, don't make a move from that door lest you overcome their resistance. Just stay there and watch. Don't act in their hearts. Don't act on their wills. You're not praying like that. You're saying, Father, now maybe you'll split up the Trinity like this. You can do it this way. You can say, Father, would you move on my sonny? Right now. Would you move on my mom, my uncle? Would you come in power? Would you make a shift over to the Holy Spirit? You can say, Holy Spirit, fall upon them. Soften them. Open them. Open their eyes. Take away hardness. You start talking to God like that, don't you? Which means in your heart of hearts, whatever your theology, in your heart of hearts, you know this song doesn't contradict a move around behind them. Yes, he's in the window saying, "Come. Come. Come." And he's also God in heaven reaching out, reaching out and saying, "I'm going to take you. I'm going to overcome your resistance." This song that Billy Graham uses has two verses that don't get sung very often, and they're very interesting. I love this song. This is a very good song. It shifts gears from focus on Jesus to focus on, "Here we are coming. Just as I am without one pre, but that my blood was shed for me, O Lamb." Oh, that's all bits. That all bits me come to the O Lamb of God. I come. This is the answer to that other song. And now here are these two verses. I just got these offline today. You can go to hems.org or whatever it's called. "Just as I am, thy love unknown hath broken every barrier down." I don't know whether that gets sung very often at crusades, but that's glorious. And the person who comes needs to understand that. "Now to be thine, ye thine alone, O Lamb of God." I come. And the last one, "Just as I am of that free love." There's a mega freight behind that word right there, I believe. "Thy free love." Not a coerced love. "I didn't love you first. Your love came after me, broke every barrier down. The breath length, depth, height to prove here for a season, then above, O Lamb of God." I come. So I do not infer from verse 21 here, "God all day long has held out His hands to a disobedient and contrary people." I don't infer from that verse that it rules out the possibility that God not only stands like this, but that by His Spirit He moves out there in the audience. He stands like this in the arms and the voice of the preacher. This is Billy Graham's job. This is your job when you're witnessing. You extend your arms. You expend His voice and invite and woo and long and pray and yearn and gather. But you're also asking, "Now God, move, move." So I want to draw it for you and then stop a close. I'm not an artist and I tried to draw it before I came and gave up. So I'm going to do it right in front of you here. So I didn't know how big to make the letters. That's big enough. Okay, there's God. Here's evangelist. Let's just call him "evange." There's evangelist. And here's, how far over can I go? Right there. Unbeliever. How do you spell unbeliever? That does not look right. Unbeliever. Oops, it's coming off. All right. Now there's our evangelistic situation. There's a situation in 21. And first, how shall they preach unless they are sent? So God calls you. He calls an evangelist and says, "Now I want you to go talk to that person or I want you preacher to preach this message or I want Billy Graham to preach." And then out goes the Word, the gospel, like this. And that gospel is 10, 15. How shall they believe unless they hear? So they've got to hear. This message is, you've got to hear. This is 10, 21. I hold out my hands all day long to a rebellious people. This is Matthew 11, 28. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. This is softly and tenderly. This is the song, softly and tenderly. This is Isaiah 55, 1 to 3, like I quoted. This is all these yearning, longing, wooing. This is the songs. This is the invitation going out to the unbeliever. And what we want from this unbeliever is faith towards God, but I'm not going to draw that arrow yet because it hasn't happened yet. Because that's not enough. This heart right here is the hardest stone, rebellious, fallen, corrupt. And the gospel is landing on it. What must happen? This must happen. This is Romans 9, 16. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. This is John 644. No one comes to me unless the Father draws him, or verse 65. This is Acts 16, 14. He opened the heart of Lydia to give heed to the gospel. And when this, we call this "effectual grace," or "effectual call," when this happens, then the heart is open to this and faith goes to the Father, or to Christ. And I just want to get it all together. I don't want to be little or minimize anything that's happening at this level right here. And I, in view of what I've seen in Romans 9 and all over the Bible, don't want to take away the glory of God by minimizing what's happening there. And I don't know how you survive in evangelism, especially in the hard places of the world, like Muslim places. If you don't believe that God is willing to do this, and if you feel like you're shut up to your own persuasive abilities, your own ability to wring out a tear from an audience and tell a moving story. And there are speakers who can get people to the front in a minute. But if you really believe this is a miracle of transformation here that no human can perform, you know that this dimension is so utterly, utterly indispensable. So I'm going to close. And here's where we're going in the morning, Lord willing. I've been told by many, and I'm so glad it's worked out this way, that one of the things you came to hear about was Israel, and the place of Israel, and the nation of Israel, and the future of Israel. And so chapter 11 has a lot in it, it's a long chapter, 36 verses, but I will try to tackle that among some other things. So let's pray and ask God's help on processing what we've heard tonight and getting ready for tomorrow. I'm going to pray, and then I'm going to put just as I am up here, and why don't we sing those last two verses there to exalt in God's free love for us. Father, I thank you so much for all faithful evangelists, all faithful small group leaders, Sunday school teachers, pastors, laymen and women, little boys and girls who have opened their mouths to speak the glorious gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And now, Lord, we know that every one of us is saved, if we are saved, by grace alone. We were dead in trespasses and sins, but God in the great love with which He loved us made us alive, together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. So thank you that love broke every obstacle down and drew us to yourself so that we could hear the wooing. We could see the open arms as something beautiful and attractive and worth living for and dying for. Now, go deep with us, I pray, and help us to offer ourselves up afresh to you every moment of the day, including this one. Let's sing together, just as I am, thy love unknown, at brooks, can every barrier down. Now to be thine, is thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. But just stand for the last one, just as I am, of that free love, the breath, length, depth, and high to prove. Herefore our season, then above, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Amen, just take that mind with you to bed tonight and just continually come before Him offering yourself up for cleansing, healing, encouragement, rebuke, humbling, whatever you just missed. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringGod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts, and much more, all available to you at No Charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio, and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again, our website is www.desiringGod.org. Call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God, 2601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55-406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
John Piper | The Bible makes clear that God has mercy on whom he will have mercy. He decisively opens hearts — and God he still uses missions and evangelism to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.