and that they can count on the fact that they will be free when they get out. This time when the announcement is made and the doors are opened, 150 of them step out and are made free. Now that’s election! But can I be justly accused of having kept the other 50 in there? Can’t they go forth just as much as the others? Certainly! All they have to do is believe it and go forth. But they don’t do it. There you have a picture, I think, as close as we can come to what election is like. God has sent His Spirit into this world having provided a full and free pardon for anyone in it who will receive it and when preachers stand before a crowd as I have often done and say, "Whosoever will may come,” there isn’t a word of untruth in it! It is true right to the very last letter. But it is also true, as our Lord Jesus said, "N o man can come to me, except the Father . . . draw him.” There has to be, there will be and there must be that compulsion. But you can’t accuse God of not delivering the others too. They are perfectly free if they want to come but He just has not added that additional persuasion that guarantees their coming, though He has made it possible for any man who will to come. When you seek an answer to this question, "W h y did God choose me and not another,” the only answer is — because He loved you. I f you wonder why He loves one more than He loves another, there’s no answer to that. W e just don’t know these things. These are truths that are be yond the ken of human intelligence. Predestina tion and free will are two pillars of an arch that meet above the clouds and down here below the clouds we just see two pillars going up into the sky and we don’t think they ever meet. But if we could see beyond the clouds we could see how they meet there and form an arch. The Lord Jesus said, "N o man can come to me, except the Father . . . draw him.” I cannot explain that but I will rest forever on His word when He said, "H im that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” I know that having come I have received the gift of eternal life. The won derful part about election is that it guarantees my salvation permanently. I f God had to depend upon my choice, though
everything else was of Him, I might fail. I f you could arrange salvation so that God did every thing but one thing and that one thing depended upon me, then there would be one part of salva tion that depended upon man, and with man there is always bound to be some failure. Ninety- nine of us may choose right but one of us is surely going to fail because we are creatures of failure and therefore there would be some missing out of God’s choice. God doesn’t intend to have any missing. In Romans 8:30 it says, " . . . whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” He starts out with 100 people that He predestinated and He doesn’t lose any along the line; they end up glori fied— 100 of them. The Shepherd is the one who gets us there, not the sheep. W e never could make it; but He undertakes to get us there and He does a complete job from beginning to end. You don’t need to sit at home and wonder whether God has chosen you or not. N o spiritual istic medium or ouija board or astrologer or psy chologist or psychiatrist can tell you anything about it, but God has provided a very simple test by which you can know. It’s amazingly simple. You find it, among other places, in John 6:47. Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” There you have it. Do you want to know whether you are elect or not? Believe on the Lord. I f you believe on Him and commit your life to Him, you are elect. As a friend of mine put it, “This business of election is like going down a road and you see a door that says, 'Welcome, come right in,’ so you go in and when you get inside you look back at the door and it says, 'We expected you all the •__ | 55 time. That’s what it’s like. It’s sort of a family secret. We understand from the Bible that God chooses us but we don’t realize what that is until we’ve come. Once we’ve come we realize that this is what He did and the wonder of it breaks upon our amazed minds. We realize that our salvation rests upon an unshakeable thing: the determina tion and purpose of God before the foundation of the world that we should be in Christ. What a marvelous thing! END-
The King's Business/January 1958
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