Dennis Tuuri

come forward into his temple and into his synagogue today to give him worship and praise. He makes us strong and he gives us mighty voices. I probably should have encouraged you to use those mighty voices before we sang that song. You’ll sing the rest of the song to those mighty voices that God has and that he gives to his people. He imparts strength to his people.

Now, the sermon text for today is found in the book of Matthew. And as I’m looking this up, I will mention that the older children, ages 9 to 11, will stay with us here in the sanctuary today. The younger children will be dismissed in just a moment, but the older children will stay with us. Okay. The sermon text is in Matthew chapter 22. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables and said, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son. And he sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, and they would not come. Again he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. Come unto the marriage.

But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise. And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth, and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

Then saith he to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find, bid to the marriage.” So the servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good. And the wedding was furnished with guests.

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he saith unto him, “Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?” And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, “Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Let’s pray. Father, we do ask that your holy spirit would do his work. That you send him forth into this world to accomplish and teach us the things of our savior and to take our savior’s word now and impress them upon our hearts, write them on our hearts that we might be transformed from the inside out and might transform this world as well. In Christ’s name we ask it and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

Okay, we have been considering and are in the midst of a series on the five points of Calvinism. So-called TULIP is the acronym, the initials that spell out what those five points are, that people easily remember it by. We’ve talked so far, and those five points of Calvinism go back to the Canons of Dort held in the early 1600s in Dordrecht, a city where an ecumenical meeting in a proper sense was called. People from different elements of the Reformation, both from the Church of England and also the Reformed churches in various countries, met together to consider the teachings of a man. They said his teachings were wrong. And they said the scriptures teach these things instead. And they came up with five what are called heads of doctrine.

And they said first of all that God unconditionally elects some to salvation. Not based upon any good in you. Did God choose you? But God rather knew you, loved you from before all time to be his people. And so God unconditionally elects you, chose you, and predestinated you to become a Christian. And if you’re a Christian, that’s why—because God chose you, not because you ultimately chose him.

And secondly, they said that the Lord Jesus Christ died and made atonement. Made actual atonement, not just an offer. He didn’t die so that maybe then it might happen, but rather he died to actually pay for the sins of a particular number of people. Now, we call that limited atonement. It’s not limited in its value. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is of eternal or infinite value, but it’s limited in its application.

Another term people have used, a bigger term, is particular redemption. Redemption means to buy or to purchase for himself. Particular means some people. So God chose you from before eternity. And then he sent his son Jesus to die for your sins. Actually die, making full atonement for your sins. So when you sin, you can’t pay the price yourself. No matter how hard you beat yourself, you’re not going to be able to pay the price. And you can’t blame somebody else for your sin. It was your own sin. But Jesus took your sin upon himself and made atonement.

Limited atonement. Limited not in value again, but in its scope. Who he died for. He did not die for the sins of the world. If by world we mean every last person. No. No. ‘Cause then his death has some other kind of meaning. Doesn’t mean he actually made full atonement. But no, he died for particular people, but he made unlimited atonement for their sins. Okay?

And then we’ve been talking about the depravity of man. We talked about how great man was created. Psalm 8, you know, in the second day of creation, God makes a firmament to divide earth and heaven as it were. And the firmament is where man occupies. Our citizenship is in heaven. He made us a little lower than God, but to rule over the works of creation. High calling. And then tremendous fall in Adam.

Not only did we lose all that, but we became now instead image-bearers as it were of Satan. You like to tell lies. Man likes doing that. Man likes to, you know, slander other people. He loves to hear gossip. Well, that’s the devil. See, slander, slander, slander. That’s our fallen image. And so, the greatness of that fall meant that we were dead in trespasses and sins. And we couldn’t save ourselves. God had to bring us back from the dead to make us Christians.

Okay? We were like Lazarus—we’ll talk about at the end of the sermon today—in that stinking grave, in the place of deadness, and God brings us forth through his mighty power of recreation and resurrection.

So we talk about the depravity of man. You know, it’s not just that you don’t think quite right, and it’s not just that you’re influenced by things you watch. The wrong thing on TV will get you influenced the wrong way. So if you just watch the right stuff on TV, you read the right books, or if you just get your mind straight and go to a lot of school, everything will be okay with the human race. No. No. Apart from you becoming a Christian called by God, you’re going to mess up whatever you put your hand to and you’re going to mess up whatever your thinking processes are.

The great philosophers of the world are stupid. That’s what God says. They’re foolish. There’s no need to be intimidated by them. They have rejected the source of all truth in God. No matter how much you study, if you reject the source of God, you’re foolish. And not only are you foolish, but you like the ways of death, the scriptures say. So, we don’t need to be intimidated by unregenerate man.

And children, if you think that just by studying enough, you’re going to become a good person, forget it. You’re going about it the wrong way. Now, we should use our minds. We should watch good things, you know, and we take things into our thoughts. We shouldn’t watch bad things. But, you know, it’s the Lord Jesus Christ who changes you into this new creation. And the same way we became Christians by the action of the Holy Spirit—that same way we grow. We pray. We try to do what’s right. But ultimately it’s not our efforts that are making us grow in truth or in goodness. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit.

So our problem is not intellectual. Man’s problem, whether before he’s a Christian now or even after you’re a Christian, your problem is not so much your mind. Your problem primarily is your rebellion to God. And when we sin, we’re acting out that old Adamic nature—Adamic of Adam, first man. And that nature hates God. That nature wants to rebel and do bad things. And we feel that tug at us.

But we are, if you’re a Christian, you’ve been brought up from the dead by God. Then you have a nature that wants to obey God. And you don’t like it when you sin. You feel bad when you sin. You feel bad when you yell at mom or dad. And mom and dad, you feel bad when you yell at your children in anger, when you don’t treat each other right. Because God’s made you a new person. Praise God. Praise God for that.

So, we’re talking about that stuff. I want to read you the definition now of this fourth thing we’re talking about. We talked about God unconditionally elects. Okay? We talked about the atonement, the death of Jesus Christ actually making salvation for some people. And we talked about man’s state before the fall and then how terribly depraved he became. He was dead in trespasses and sins. And now we’re talking about the means that God uses to bring us to salvation. How does it work? And we’re talking about what in Calvinism, in the TULIP thing, is called irresistible grace. Irresistible grace. A grace from God that can’t be resisted ultimately.

I mean, you can, you know, Saul resisted Jesus and persecuted his church. But when God decides to make Saul, or Paul in the New Testament, a Christian, it happens. You can’t resist that. Okay? The spirit is sent. The father chose you. The son died for your sins. And now the spirit comes and he calls you irresistibly to God. He makes you a Christian. Doesn’t take your cooperation. In fact, if it took your cooperation, it never would have happened because before the spirit recreates you, you don’t want to cooperate. The last thing you want is to love God.

May not be what you feel like, but that’s what this book says you are. And this book is the standard, not what we feel like. Now, I’m going to read a definition here, and these are going to have some big words, but that’s just the way it is. This is adult language from the Westminster Confession of Faith about irresistible grace. How this works.

All those whom God has predestinated unto life—predestinate means destiny with the goal of somebody, what’s going to happen to him. Pre means he predestinates. He chooses beforehand what we’re going to do, what we’re going to be. And he predestinates some to become Christians. And he says other people, you’re going to be reprobate. You’re going to hell. You’re going to heaven. You’re going to hell. All those whom God has predestinated unto life, that’s our destiny. And those only, he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time effectually to call. That’s like irresistible grace. Effectually to call. He calls you. You hear the gospel preached and it’s effectual. It works. It has an effect on you to bring you to salvation.

He effectually to call by his word and spirit. How do you—how are you called? You’re called by the word of God and the spirit of God out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature. So by nature, in our fallen nature, that is, we’re in sin and death. God effectually—it will work—calls those whom he chose before again out of death and sin and into grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.

Why by Jesus Christ? Because if Christ hadn’t died on the cross and hadn’t lived a perfect life, you couldn’t be called. So all of this is by the action of the Lord Jesus Christ who took upon himself flesh. He became man. He was fully man and fully God. And in the perfect man that he was, he provided for the atonement for your sins and for your goodness. Okay? By Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually. So it has an effect on the minds and enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God.

So our minds now, when the spirit comes through the word effectually calling us, change our minds to help us to understand what’s true about God. You see, before the spirit comes, Romans 1 says that in our minds we suppress, we hold down the truth of God. The birdies chirp every day. God made me. God is triune. God should be worshiped and praised. And when we, before Jesus makes us Christians, before the spirit comes, we say it’s just a bird singing. It means nothing. But we know God has given us a spirit that knows by listening to that bird or looking at the sun or thinking about the darkness of a room and the brightness of the sun flooding into that room. We know that we’re in darkness, and we try to say no, we don’t know, we don’t know it.

Then God makes us a Christian and he changes our understanding. He enlightens our minds to understand now that we were in this dark room and then the light of Christ came bright shining in, made us Christians, taking away their heart of stone. See, before the spirit does his work, your heart is like stone. You can’t, you know, move, do things to stone. Giving them a heart of flesh—a living heart pumping, beating, renewing their will.

And by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, he changes our will. He gives us a new will. The old will rebelled against him. The new one says, “Yeah, I’ll do what you want me to do. In fact, I love doing what you want me to do, Jesus.” He gives us a new will and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely being made willing by his grace.

So he changes our minds, he changes our hearts, he changes our wills. What we decide to do, our affections, our hearts, our thoughts—three things that are described there. He changes all of those. But he doesn’t do it against our will because he begins by giving us that new will. He makes us willing.

Now, why do we know that to be true? Because the scriptures say so. Because in John 5:40, those that reject Christ do it because they want to. He says, Jesus says, “You’re not willing to come to me that you might have life.” Before God makes you a Christian, you’re not willing. It’s not that you want to become a Christian and God won’t let you. You don’t want to. But then in Psalm 110:3, it says about you if you’re a Christian here today, “Thy people, Christians, shall be willing in the day of thy power.”

You see the transition? We used to not be willing. Now we’re willing in the day of his power. What happened? God gave us a new will. So the Holy Spirit effectually calls us. He always gets his man. And he gets his man not by coercing against our will but by changing our will. Changing us from within. You understand that? Very important that you understand that. Okay.

Now it does say in the scriptures. I want to deal with one verse that you might hear as an objection to this and that is in the book of Acts 7:51. Steven says, “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your father did.” And we just said that it’s irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit. But Steven says that you resist the Holy Spirit. What’s he talking about?

Well, he’s not talking about the call of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart to make us a Christian. What he’s talking about is he’s saying, “You’ve heard the word preached and I’m preaching the word again, and Jesus preached the word, and the prophets preached the word, and every time the word was preached, you resisted the teaching of scripture.” That’s what he’s saying. He’s saying you resisted the external call.

Well, external—outside of you. The call comes to all men. The gospel is preached. Everybody here today knows that they should come and worship God ’cause I said so based on what the scriptures say. And the scriptures say, “Hey, come out here now. Worship me. You’re a sinner. I’ll save you and you should worship me in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Everybody hears the external call. But there may be people here today, I don’t know, that haven’t really heard the internal call. That Jesus hasn’t by his spirit taken that call into your soul and changed you, ’cause he doesn’t want to. It’s not his desire to. He saved some, but the others he determines beforehand send to hell, to leave them in their sin and misery. Okay?

So, there’s an external call. The gospel is preached. There’s an internal call. The Holy Spirit with that gospel changes those whom God selects to be his people. And here all Stephen is saying is that just like Jesus said, he said, “You don’t believe me. You don’t hear me.” Why? Because you don’t want to hear me. In John chapter 8, he says, “You do not believe because you’re not my sheep. I didn’t choose you. You’re not my sheep. That’s why you resist the preaching of the word,” Jesus says.

So Steven’s talking about resisting the preaching of the gospel. In John 12, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes and understand with their heart, lest they should turn, turn so that I should heal them. God self-consciously blinds the hearts of some.

Well, that doesn’t sound fair. It’s perfectly fair because they want to be blinded. Their will is to hate God. All men’s will is to hate God graciously, chooses some out and gives them a new will. But if he doesn’t do that, then they’re not going to hear the external call. They’re not going to resist when you preach the gospel to them. They’re going to say, “That’s stupid.” Okay?

So what they’re resisting is the outward witness of the Holy Spirit. Probably the clearest text you want to memorize, one verse, John 6:44. Now we use 1 Corinthians 1, a great chapter to look at the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit. But John 6:44. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. So we preach the gospel. But the only people that can respond to that gospel are those that the Holy Spirit draws to himself. And those that the Holy Spirit draws to himself will be raised up at the last day. No doubt about it. They’ll be raised up. They have life in Christ. Okay.

This word “draw,” the Holy Spirit draws—to exercise authority or superiority over someone. Now, we just said that he doesn’t do it as if we’re kicking and screaming because he makes us willing. But he also doesn’t do it by tickling your ear and saying, “Please come this way.” And then leaving the choice up to you. He draws you. He compels you, as it were. He exercises authority by giving you a new will to come to him. Okay?

So, that’s that. And see, that leads us right into the topic for today, which is the relationship of the external call of the gospel to this effectual internal call in our hearts. And I want to use three texts here. One we just read from Matthew 22, verses 1-14. So turn that text open again if you don’t have it open. Matthew 22, 1-14. And really, in a way, the topic for today is really called and chosen. We are here today called and chosen. At least that’s what I assume about all of you that are here. We’re called and chosen.

Because in Matthew 22, we have this account of the wedding feast. And uh, there’s lots that could be said from this parable that our savior spoke. But you know, the obvious case is the king is arranging a marriage for his son. This is God the father arranging a marriage for the Lord Jesus Christ. He sent forth his servants to call those to the wedding feast. His servants are who? Ultimately, it’s the Holy Spirit who goes out with the external call of the gospel. But it’s his preacher.

“How can they believe unless they hear the word? How can they hear the word unless there are preachers who are sent?” So you and I are these servants who go out as it were, once we’ve been enlisted into the army of Christ, to go out and tell people, “Hey, God says, come to the wedding feast of the Lamb, be married to Jesus, his son, repent of your sins.” We go out to call them which were bidden to the wedding.

But some don’t come. And in fact, they not only don’t come, they actually kill some of these servants. Okay? Now he says by the way that at this wedding feast all things are killed. All things are made ready. My fatlings are killed. The sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ is the basis for his relationship to us. But okay. So they make light of it. They hear the gospel preached. Today people hear the gospel preached. They make light of it and they go about their way to the farm or to the merchandise—distractions, idolatries.

And the remnant took his servants and treated them spitefully and slew them. So they actually killed the servants who go out to preach to them to come to worship Jesus. And he then gets upset—of course the master does—and he destroys their city. And then he says go out and get those other people, as many as you shall find, to come to the marriage supper. Now we have a different group called. They come, but one of those guys doesn’t have on a marriage outfit, doesn’t have on nice clothes. And the master says, “Where are your clothes?” And it’s interesting. The master says “Friend.” He assumes he’s got a good answer for him, but the guy has no answer. He doesn’t have on the marriage clothes required.

And so, he’s taken out and cast into hell like those enemies were as well. And then our savior gets to the point of the whole thing at the last verse. “Many are called. Few are chosen.” Now, those who are chosen are also called. There are no chosen who haven’t been called. You hear the gospel—the call is the gospel being preached. Chosen is that Jesus has chosen you and effectually, irresistibly calls you to himself through the work of the Holy Spirit in giving you a new will, heart, and mind. Okay.

Now, I have to say that the purpose of this parable, there’s a specific reason Jesus is telling this. It’s not to talk about effectual calling. Ultimately, it’s not the purpose of the parable. I mean, it is in a way, but really, what is he talking about? Do you—can you think about what he might be talking about here? In his day and age, in his time, he’s talking about, for the most part, the Jewish church.

He’s saying that the servants go out to call you to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and you kill the servants. You killed the prophets. You’re going to kill me. And I’m going to be real gracious. So, my father’s going to be gracious. He’s going to send more servants out to call you. He’s going to send Paul, and he’s going to send Peter, he’s going to send Stephen, he’s going to send a bunch more people out to witness to you. But you’re going to kill them, too. And then the master is going to kill you. He’s going to burn up your city. He’s going to burn Jerusalem up in AD 70. And that’s what he did. And that’s what they did. They really did kill all those men, most of the church. They kill off, as we reach the year AD 70. Then God burns up their city.

So that’s really the purpose of this—to show that other people will be called, Gentiles are going to be called into the kingdom. But I think that by way of application, we can see very clearly that our savior says in the context of his day and age, when some Jews would come but others wouldn’t. Some Gentiles would come, but they wouldn’t really come because they really haven’t got Jesus’s righteousness.

Remember we said we’re robed with Christ’s righteousness? When you dress this morning, you shouldn’t have thought about, you know, you’re so good and pretty, but rather you should have thought that Christ is beautiful. Now, he does make us beautiful, too. We have the fine linen of the saints or their deeds, but we put on the righteousness of Christ. His goodness. God says you’re dressed in his clothes. And if you try to get to the wedding feast without coming through Jesus, then you’re cast into hell.

This talks about church discipline, what’s going on here. Some men are excommunicated. They’re sent out of the church and they’re speechless and they’re sent into hell. But the point is that in the context of that day and age, why did only a few of the Jews believe and why did some of the Gentiles believe and not others? Because many were called. Many had the gospel preached, but only a few made the choice to serve God. No, only a few were chosen by God.

So, we have an external call—the gospel—but there’s an internal choosing or a calling by the Holy Spirit to those that God chose before him. Okay.

Let’s look at another text. 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14. Turn to that text, please. Okay, 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14. “We give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through the sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth to which he called you by our gospel for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

There are several things mentioned in this text. Notice that at the beginning of it is the love of God. You’re beloved by our Lord. God from the beginning chose you. He chose you. He set his everlasting love upon you from the beginning. Not from your beginning. Not from the beginning of the year or the week, but from the beginning of all creation. God chooses a particular people, and those particular people that he chose from the beginning.

This unconditional—no conditions—that God says. He doesn’t say, “If you’re good enough, I’ll choose you.” It’s an unconditional choice by God that he makes in eternity to save some and is realized through the primary means of the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification means to set apart. So the Holy Spirit sets you apart from other people. That’s the means by which this choice of God is brought to bear in your life. And then the secondary means of belief in the truth.

You’ve come to believe the scriptures because the Holy Spirit set you apart. The Holy Spirit is primary and your belief is a result of that. But both of those two things are connected antecedent to both of these interests is the call of God. You see, you become sanctified or set apart and you believed in the truth because “to which he called you by our gospel.” So God chose you from all eternity and loved you and then by the call of the gospel he effectually sets you apart by the Holy Spirit and makes you believe, or causes you to believe, in the truth.

So God chooses some and those people that he chooses, he effectually calls by the preaching of the gospel of Christ.

And then one final text is Luke chapter 14. A corollary to the first one we used. Luke chapter 14. Turn there, please, beginning at verse 15. Well, verse 15. “When one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, ‘Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.’ Then said he unto him, ‘A certain man made a great supper, and bade many, and sent his servant at supper time to say of them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready.’ And they all with one consent began to make excuses.

See, just like the last parable we read, they’re making excuses. They’re not coming to the dinner. They’re saying, “I got things to do.” The first one says, “I bought a piece of ground and must needs go and see it. I pray thee, have me excused.” The other one said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I have to plow, have to prove them. I pray thee, have me excused.” And another said, “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.”

So the servant came and showed his lord these things. Those are idolatry. You know, wives are good, oxen are good, property is good, but it’s never so good as it should replace the Lord Jesus Christ at the center of our thoughts. If our wives or husbands or our children or our land or our material possessions get in the way of obeying God’s call to worship him, we got to do something about that because it’s idolatry.

Well, the text goes on to say, “Now they said, ‘I’ve married a wife.’” Okay, so the servant came and showed these things—showed his lord these things. “And the master of the house became angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.’ And the Lord said unto his servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in that my house may be filled. For I say unto you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.’”

Supper of the Lamb again being spoken of here. You know, it’s interesting because we were talking in our Revelation class today about the correlation of Passover to bringing some people to blessing and other people are cursed. And at communion, we take the cup of God’s blessing. But the scriptures say in the book of Revelation that while we’re doing that, whether you’re at the wedding feast without a proper garment on or whether you’re outside of the wedding feast.

When we take the cup of God’s supper and his wine and blessing, God pours out bowls of wrath upon those that don’t have wedding clothes on or those who didn’t come to the feast. So, their city is destroyed while the marriage supper is going on. And at the end of Revelation, that’s what we see. We teach two suppers: those who eat with the Lamb and those who are eaten by vultures. Only two way out.

And so, this supper is the same picture here. Some are excluded and some are brought in. But the point of the text is that the external call goes to a lot of people, but a lot of people make excuses. And then the ones that are actually brought in, the text says, are those who are poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. They can’t see which way to go. They can’t walk to get there. They don’t have money to put on those nice wedding clothes that are required for the feast.

What’s the picture? Picture is resurrection again. From darkness to light, from blindness to seeing, from being halt, lame, to being able to walk up into the temple. First miracle of the book of Acts, door of the temple. Boy, guys are raised up. A man is raised up and goes in and worships God. That’s what God does to us through the spirit. He doesn’t do it to everybody. Everybody’s blind and lame. They just don’t know it. The external call goes out. But to those who are chosen, who recognize their blindness, he gives them sight for their eyes and calls them, carries them in. The halt and the lame, right? Carry them in, lead them in by the hand, give them by my grace clothes.

You see the effectual call of God. And the text actually says that these servants are to be compelled: “Compel them to come in.” And in this text, it tells us you are to bring them. You are to compel them. It’s not an invitation in the sense of hoping they’ll come. You go pick those people up and bring them into my wedding feast. And the Holy Spirit came to you and picked you up and brought you to the Lord Jesus Christ and gave you a new heart and a will that you said amen to that. Praise God when you heard the gospel.

So there’s this relationship between the external preaching of the word and then the choseness of those who the Holy Spirit effectually calls through that preaching to himself. Okay.

So we reviewed a little bit about what this doctrine is, and then we’ve talked about the effectual call of the spirit in relationship to the preaching of the gospel of Christ. And now we’re going to look at the Canons of Dort briefly and read three more sections of them. The only ones we haven’t read from this section so far.

Article 7 says this, and it talks about God’s freedom in revealing the gospel. “In the Old Testament, God revealed the secret of his will to a small number. In the New Testament, now without a distinction between peoples, he discloses it to a large number. The reason for this difference must not be ascribed to the greater worth of one nation over another or to a better use of the light of nature, but to the free good pleasure and undeserved love of God. Therefore, those who receive so much grace beyond an explanation of all they deserve ought to acknowledge it with a humble and thankful heart. And on the other hand, with the apostle, they ought to adore, but certainly not inquisitively search into, the severity and justice of God’s judgments on those other who do not receive this grace.”

Okay, couple of things here. There’s a denomination called the Reformed Church in the United States, RCUS. And in order to be an officer in this church, they’ve decided that they want you to say as an officer that you think the three forms of unity—Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort—that those are in agreement, absolute exact agreement with the scriptures in order to be a minister. And that’s what they’re thinking about doing. And that would be a problem to me because there are—I don’t think any man’s document, particularly one that has this many pages in it, is an exact agreement with scripture.

And I bring this up now to tell you that I don’t agree with the Canons of Dort here. I sort of do and I sort of don’t. Because when they begin by saying that in the Old Testament God revealed his secret of his will to a small number and in the New Testament he discloses it to a large number, I sort of agree with that and I sort of don’t. You know, the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament—there’s no doubt but what in the New Testament the gospel is proclaimed in a fuller sense and people come to the Lord in massive numbers in the New Testament. There’s no doubt about that.

But I think it is wrong to think of the Old Testament as having a very few people saved out of all the world. We tend to look at the Old Testament and say that if you weren’t part of Israel, those who were called Israel, then you weren’t a Christian or you weren’t saved. I don’t think that’s true. I believe that just as when we get to the New Testament, in the book of Acts, we see synagogues and we see God-fearers—Cornelius, right? God-Cornelius is every bit as much a believer as the synagogue Jew was, the one who went to the temple. It’s just that he was a Gentile or a Greek.

God had a particular purpose for Israel. They were a priestly nation to minister to the world, to offer sacrifices for the world and to take God’s word to the world. Okay? Now, how do I know that? Because the Bible says over and over again that people are supposed to be drawn to Israel. And by the time of the New Testament, there are synagogues established all over the world. People being drawn to the preaching of God’s word and then going out and discipling the world.

The garden was supposed to be perpetual place of abode. It was supposed to be a place you go out from to take the culture of God. Okay. So, you know, this tends to read like there weren’t really this large amount of Gentiles saved in the Old Testament. I think there were a large amount of Gentiles saved in the Old Testament. You know, in the sacrificial system, there are 70 nations.

In Genesis 10, there are 70 descendants of Noah’s sons. And people correlate those to the 70 nations of the earth. In the sacrificial system leading up to the great one of the great feasts, there were 70 bulls that were offered in a diminishing pattern. It’s interesting. They weren’t all at once. There was a diminishing pattern. You know, you one less, and I don’t remember the exact way it started, but you get to the end, you got like 12, then 11 the next day and 10 and 9 and 8. And the Jewish church understood that as sacrificing for the sins of the world until all the world is ushered into the kingdom of God.

You see, one by one, the nations would be converted and brought into external obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the one who the sacrifice is portrayed. Okay?

Well, let’s look at a couple of scriptures here to show you something that you may not be aware of. Look at Psalm 118:1. “Give thanks unto the Lord for he is good because his mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say that his mercy endures forever. Let the house of Aaron now say that his mercy endures forever. Let them now that fear the Lord say that his mercy endures forever.”

Okay. Now turn to Psalm 135:19. “Bless the Lord, oh house of Israel. Bless the Lord, oh house of Aaron. Bless the Lord, oh house of Levi. Ye that fear the Lord, bless the Lord.”

Okay, same pattern: names the house of Aaron, house of Levi, Israel, then you that fear the Lord. Now turn to Psalm 115, verse 9. “Oh Israel, trust thou in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Oh house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Lord have been mindful of us.”

Okay. Then turn to Psalm 22. We read this responsively last week. Psalm 22:22. “I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord. Praise him. All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.”

Now, it could be that in these repetitive statements articulating the names for Israel and then a separate distinction for those that fear God, calling both groups to praise God and to come before him with their worship, it could be that fearing God is just another name for Israel or Jacob. Could be, but I don’t think it is, because the book of Acts tells us that the way the church interpreted it correctly was that the Gentiles were known as God-fearers in the context of the New Testament church as the church begins to develop.

In the Old Testament, you had Melchizedek, you had Jethro, you had Hiram of Tyre. You had Cyrus and Darius—Darius who probably is the king that married Esther. You have these Gentiles who are not Israel. Okay? And Jethro wasn’t circumcised. Apparently, Moses when he stayed with Jethro wasn’t circumcised. What’s going on? Because there were Gentile nations round about Israel that worshiped and served God. But they weren’t Israel because Israel was a special priestly nation to take God’s word and to minister it to the world and to offer up sacrifices for the world.

So I think that in the context of these Psalms to be used in the worship of the temple that specifically we have in the temple those who are full Israel, the priestly nation worshiping him, and we have the Gentile nations of the earth represented there as well to worship him. That’s why those guys are called “ye that fear God.”

Now that’s a bit of a distraction, but in a way it isn’t, because the point here in verse—in Article 7 of the Canons of Dort—they’re talking about the external call of the gospel. They’re saying what they say is that it’s God’s choice to whom the gospel goes. That is completely true. I mean, we see a progression, don’t we, in the book of Acts? And in fact, we see a progression that our savior himself said to follow as the gospel begins at Jerusalem and works its way out to Samaria and works its way out to the uttermost parts of the earth.

And then we look at the book of Acts and Paul goes in a particular direction, particular countries. The gospel spreads out until he ends up at the end of Acts in Rome and through Rome into all the world. But see, God sovereignly decided that the gospel would be preached here and not here and here and not here. So when we talk about the relationship of irresistible grace, as effectual call, “Many are called, few are chosen,” the chosen nature of the elect in relationship to the external call, the preaching of the gospel.

We must say that God reaches those to be effectually called by the spirit by sovereignly directing the evangelism of the church. It may seem a rather obvious point, but if you go to many missions conferences, this is not an obvious point. Today, it is typical to try to work up guilt in a group of people by saying if you don’t get out there, they’re going to be lost. And it’s your fault that people are dying apart from the Lord Jesus Christ today because you’re not committed enough to world missions.

See, if you understand the truth of the scriptures that God is sovereign and he whom he wants, he gets, but he gets it through the secondary means of the preaching of the gospel, you’re not going to let yourself be manipulated that way, are you? ‘Cause you know it’s not true. You know, it wasn’t Paul’s fault when the people in Bethnia didn’t get the gospel for a while. You know, that was the Holy Spirit’s fault. It’s not fault at all. God sovereignly directs the evangelism of the church. That’s really important for understanding missions and evangelism in the context of the church.

There are two great errors here. One is to be a hypercalvinist, and to say we should only preach the external call to those who are elect. And there are certain Baptist groups notably in England who believe that. And that’s hyperalvinism. That’s what it means. A hypercalvinist is one who says you should only preach the gospel to the elect. That’s one error over here. We get so complacent with God’s sovereignty and evangelism. We don’t send missionaries out. We don’t give anything to world missions.

The other error over here is to think that somehow in our—we’re Calvinists in our thinking of salvation, but we’re Arminians when it comes to evangelism. You see, we got to get out there right now because people are dying. If they don’t hear the gospel, they’re not going to become Christians. And it’s up to us, and they need the chance at least to respond to the truth of God’s word. See, that’s not right because God sovereignly directs the evangelism processes of the church.

And that’s what this is saying. It says that he discloses it to particular people. This is not due or ascribed to the greater worth of one nation over another. God tells Israel over and over again, you’re not better. You’re not more numerous. It’s not why I’m giving you the promised land. It’s my sovereign pleasure. It’s my good pleasure. God says that determines the evangelism of the church.

Let’s look at…