Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff necked (Deut. 10:14-16).
He who preaches the whole truth as it is in Jesus will labour under continual disadvantages; albeit, that the grand advantage of having the presence and blessing of God will more than compensate the greatest loss. It has been my earnest endeavour ever since I have preached the Word, never to keep back a single doctrine which I believe to be taught of God. It is time that we had done with the old and rusty systems that have so long curbed the freeness of religious speech. The Arminian trembles to go an inch beyond Arminius or Wesley, and many a Calvinist refers to John Gill or John Calvin, as the ultimate authority. It is time that the systems were broken up, and that there was sufficient grace in all our hearts to believe everything taught in God’s Word, whether it was taught by either of these men or not.
I have frequently found when I have preached what is called high doctrine, because I found it in my text, that some people have been offended; they could not enjoy it, could not endure it, and went away. They were generally people who were best gone; I have never regretted their absence. On the other hand, when I have taken for my text some sweet invitation, and have preached the freeness of Christ’s love to man; when I have warned sinners that they are responsible while they hear the gospel, and that if they reject Christ their blood will be upon their own hearts, I find another class of doubtless excellent individuals who cannot see how these two things agree. And therefore, they also turn aside, and wade into the deceptive miry bogs of Antinomianism. I can only say with regard to them, that I had rather also that they should go to their own sort, than that they should remain with my congregation.
We seek to hold the truth. We know no difference between high doctrine and low doctrine. If God teaches it, it is enough. If it is not in the Word, away with it! away with it! but if it be in the Word, agreeable or disagreeable, systematic or disorderly, I believe it. It may seem to us as if one truth stood in opposition to another, but we are fully convinced that it cannot be so, that it is a mistake in our judgment. That the two things do agree we are quite clear, though where they meet we do not know as et but hope shall shew forth his praise, we do believe to be a doctrine legible in the Word of God to every man who cares to read that Book with an honest and candid judgment. That, at the same time, Christ is freely presented to every creature under heaven, and that the invitations and exhortations of the gospel are honest and true invitations-not fictions or myths, not tantalisations and mockers, but realities and facts-we do also unfeignedly believe. We subscribe to both truths with our hearty assent and consent.
Now, this morning it may be that some of you will not approve of what I have to say. You will remember, however, that I do not seek your approbation, that it will be sufficient for me if I have cleared my conscience concerning a grand truth and have preached the gospel faithfully. I am not accountable to you, nor you to me. You are accountable to God, if you reject a truth; I am accountable to him if I preach an error. I am not afraid to stand before His bar with regard to the great doctrines which I shall preach to you this day.
Now, two things this morning. First, I shall attempt to set forth God’s Election; secondly, to show its practical bearings. You have both in the text. “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day,” And, then, in the second place, its practical bearings, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no more stiff necked.”
Election has a particular people in view.
In setting forth election, I must have you observe, first of all, its extraordinary singularity. God has chosen to himself a people whom no man can number, out of the children of Adam-out of the fallen and apostate race who sprang from the loins of a rebellious man.
I have given you, then, some reasons at starting, why we should regard God’s Election as being singular. But I have to offer to you others. Observe, the text not only says, “Behold, the heaven, even the heaven of the heavens is the Lord’s,” but it adds, “the earth also, with all that therein is.” Now, when we think that God has chosen us, when you, my brethren, who by grace have put your trust in Christ, read your “title clear to mansions in the skies,” you may well pause and say in the language of that hymn-
Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!
Ask, “O why such love to me?”
Kings passed by and beggars chosen; wise men left, but fools made to know the wonders of his redeeming love; publicans and harlots sweetly compelled to come to the feast of mercy; while proud Pharisees are suffered to trust in their own righteousness and perish in their vain boastings. God’s choice will ever seem in the eyes of unrenewed men to be a very strange one. He has passed over those whom he should have selected, and he has chosen just the odds and ends of the universe, the men who thought themselves the least likely ever to taste of his grace. Why were we chosen as a people to have the privilege of the gospel? Why, again, I say, in the case of each individual, why is the man chosen who is chosen? Can any answer be given but just the answer of our Saviour-”Even so, Father, for it seemeth good in thy sight?”
Yet one other thought, to make God’s Election marvelous indeed. God had unlimited power of creation. Now, if he willed to make a people who should be his favorites, who should be united to the person of his Son, and who should reign with him, why did he not make a new race? When Adam sinned, it would have been easy enough to strike the world out of existence. He had but to speak and this round earth would have been dissolved, as the bubble dies into the wave that bears it. There would have been no trace of Adams’ sin left, the whole might have died away and have been forgotten forever. But no! Instead of making a new people, a pure people who could not sin, instead of taking to himself creatures that were pure, unsullied, without spot, he takes a depraved and fallen people, and lifts these up, and that, too, by costly means; by the death of his own Son, by the work of his own Spirit; that these must be the jewels in his crown to reflect his glory for ever. Oh, singular choice! Oh, strange Election! My Soul is lost in thy depths, and I can only pause and cry, “Oh, the goodness, oh, the mercy, oh, the sovereignty of God’s grace.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
