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The Mystery Of Case D. Luc - Kids Series The Mystery Of Case D. Luc - Kids Series

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  • Author: Beverly Lewis
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About the Book

"The Mystery of Case D. Luc" is about two siblings, Christopher and Molly, who are on a mission to solve the mystery of a missing family heirloom. The children navigate a series of clues and encounters with a mysterious character named Case D. Luc to unravel the truth behind the disappearance. As they work together, they learn important lessons about trust, perseverance, and the power of family bonds.

Sarah Edwards

Sarah Edwards The Backdrop For the sake of context, let’s remember that Jonathan and Sarah’s whole lives were lived in the colonies of the New World — colonies, not one country. Thirteen small British colonies hugged the Atlantic coast. And a vast western wilderness stretched who knew how far into the unknown. New England and the other colonies were Britain’s fragile fingertip grasp on the edge of the continent. The colonists were British citizens surrounded by territories of other nations. Florida and the Southwest were Spain’s. The Louisiana Territory was France’s. The French, in particular, were eager to ally themselves with local Indians against the British. Today the Edwards story should elicit the sight of garrisons on hilltops, the sounds of shots in the distance, the discomfort of soldiers billeting in their homes, the shock and terror of news about massacres in nearby settlements. This was the backdrop, to a greater or lesser degree, throughout much of their lives. The Courtship of Jonathan Edwards and Sarah Pierrepont In 1723, at age nineteen, Jonathan had already graduated from Yale and had been a pastor in New York for a year. When his time in that church ended, he accepted a job at Yale and returned to New Haven where Sarah Pierrepont lived. It’s possible that Jonathan had been aware of her for three or four years, since his student days at Yale. In those student days, when he was about sixteen, he probably would have seen her when he attended New Haven’s First Church where her father had been pastor until his death in 1714 (Iain H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography [Banner of Truth, 1987], 91). Now, on his return in 1723, Jonathan was twenty and Sarah was thirteen. It was not unusual for girls to be married by about sixteen. As this school term’s work began for him, it seems he may have been somewhat distracted from his usual studiousness. A familiar story finds him daydreaming over his Greek grammar book, which he probably intended to be studying to prepare to teach. Instead we find now on the front page of that grammar book a record of his real thoughts. They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is loved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on Him. . . . [Y]ou could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure. . . . She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her. (Quoted in ibid., 92) All the biographers mention the contrast between the two of them. Sarah was from one of the most distinguished families in Connecticut. Her education had been the best a woman of that era typically received. She was accomplished in the social skills of polite society. She enjoyed music and perhaps knew how to play the lute. (In the year of their marriage, one of the shopping reminders for Jonathan when he traveled was to pick up lute strings [George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life [Yale University Press, 2003], 110]. That may have been for a wedding musician, or it may have been for Sarah herself.) People who knew her mentioned her beauty and her way of putting people at ease. Samuel Hopkins, who knew her later, stressed her “peculiar loveliness of expression, the combined result of goodness and intelligence” (Quoted in Elisabeth D. Dodds, *Marriage to a Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edward*s [Audubon Press, 2003], 15). Jonathan, on the other hand, was introverted, shy, and uneasy with small talk. He had entered college at thirteen, and graduated valedictorian. He ate sparingly in an age of groaning dining tables, and he was not a drinker. He was tall and gangly and awkwardly different. He was not full of social graces. He wrote in his journal: “A virtue which I need in a higher degree is gentleness. If I had more of an air of gentleness, I should be much mended” (Quoted in Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 17). (In that time, gentleness meant “appropriate social grace,” as we use the word today in *gentle*man.) One thing they had in common was a love for music. He pictured music as the most nearly perfect way for people to communicate with each other. The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other, is by music. When I would form in my mind an idea of a society in the highest degree happy, I think of them as expressing their love, their joy, and the inward concord and harmony and spiritual beauty of their souls by sweetly singing to each other. (Quoted in Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 106) That imagery was just the first thought-step into a leap from human realities to heavenly realities, where he saw sweet human intimacy as only a simple ditty compared to the symphony of harmonies of intimacy with God. As Sarah grew older, and Jonathan grew somewhat mellower, they began to spend more time together. They enjoyed walking and talking together, and he apparently found in her a mind that matched her beauty. In fact, she introduced him to a book she owned by Peter van Mastricht, a book that later was influential in his thinking about the Covenant (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 21). They became engaged in the spring of 1725. Jonathan was a man whose nature was to bear uncertainties in thought and theology as if they were physical stress. The years of waiting until Sarah was old enough to marry must have added even greater pressure. Here are some words he used to describe himself, from a couple of weeks of his journal in 1725, a year and a half before they would marry: December 29 Dull and lifeless January 9 Decayed January 10 Recovering (Quoted in ibid., 19) Perhaps it was his emotions for Sarah that sometimes caused him to fear sinning with his mind. In an effort to remain pure, he resolved, “When I am violently beset with temptation or cannot rid myself of evil thoughts, to do some sum in arithmetic or geometry or some other study, which necessarily engages all my thoughts and unavoidably keeps them from wandering” (Quoted in ibid.). The Beginnings of Their Married Life Jonathan Edwards and Sarah Pierrepont were finally married on July 28, 1727. She was seventeen. He was twenty-four. He wore a new powdered wig and a new set of white clerical bands given him by his sister Mary. Sarah wore a boldly-patterned green satin brocade (Ibid., 22). “Jonathan apparently found in Sarah a mind that matched her beauty.” We get only glimmers and glimpses into the heart of their love and passion. One time, for instance, Jonathan used the love of a man and a woman as an illustration of our limited grasp of another person’s love toward God. “When we have the idea of another’s love to a thing, if it be the love of a man to a woman . . . we have not generally any further idea at all of his love, we only have an idea of his actions that are the effects of love. . . . We have a faint, vanishing notion of their affections” (Ibid.). Jonathan had become the pastor in Northampton, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. He began there in February 1757, just five months before their wedding in New Haven. Sarah could not slip unnoticed into Northampton. Based on the customs of the time, Elisabeth Dodds imagines Sarah’s arrival in the Northampton church: Any beautiful newcomer in a small town was a curio, but when she was also the wife of the new minister, she caused intense interest. The rigid seating charts of churches at that time marked a minister’s family as effectively as if a flag flew over the pew. . . . So every eye in town was on Sarah as she swished in wearing her wedding dress. Custom commanded that a bride on her first Sunday in church wear her wedding dress and turn slowly so everyone could have a good look at it. Brides also had the privilege of choosing the text for the first Sunday after their wedding. There is no record of the text Sarah chose, but her favorite verse was “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35), and it is possible that she chose to hear that one expounded. She took her place in the seat that was to symbolize her role — a high bench facing the congregation, where everyone could notice the least flicker of expression. Sarah had been prepared for this exposed position every Sunday of her childhood on the leafy common of New Haven, but it was different to be, herself, the Minister’s Wife. Other women could yawn or furtively twitch a numbed foot in the cold of a January morning in an unheated building. Never she. (Ibid., 25) Marsden says, “By fall 1727 [about three months after the wedding] Jonathan had dramatically recovered his spiritual bearings, specifically his ability to find the spiritual intensity he had lost for three years” (Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 111). What made the difference? Perhaps he was better fitted for a church situation than for the academic setting at Yale. In addition, it seems likely to me that the recovery was closely related to their marriage. For at least three years prior to this, in addition to his rigorous academic pursuits, he had also been restraining himself sexually and yearning for the day when he and Sarah would be one. When their life together began, he was like a new man. He had found his earthly home and haven. And as Sarah stepped into this role of wife, she freed him to pursue the philosophical, scientific, and theological wrestlings that made him the man we honor. Edwards was a man to whom people reacted. He was different. He was intense. His moral force was a threat to people who settled for routine. After he’d thought through the biblical truth and implications of a theological or church issue, he didn’t back down from what he’d discovered. For instance, he came to realize that only believers should take Communion in the church. The Northampton church was not happy when he went against the easier standards of his grandfather who had allowed Communion even for unbelievers if they weren’t participating in obvious sin. This kind of controversy meant that Sarah, in the background, was also twisted and bumped by the opposition that he faced. He was a thinker who held ideas in his mind, mulling them over, taking them apart and putting them together with other ideas, and testing them against other parts of God’s truth. Such a man reaches the heights when those separate ideas come together into a larger truth. But he also is the kind of man who can slide into deep pits on the way to a truth (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 57). A man like that is not easy to live with. But Sarah found ways to make a happy home for him. She made him sure of her steady love, and then she created an environment and routine where he was free to think. She learned that when he was caught up in a thought, he didn’t want to be interrupted for dinner. She learned that his moods were intense. He wrote in his journal: “I have had very affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness; very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping . . . so that I have often been forced to shut myself up” (Quoted in ibid., 31). The town saw a composed man. Sarah knew what storms there were inside him. She knew the at-home Jonathan. Samuel Hopkins wrote: While she uniformly paid a becoming deference to her husband and treated him with entire respect, she spared no pains in conforming to his inclination and rendering everything in the family agreeable and pleasant; accounting it her greatest glory and there wherein she could best serve God and her generation [and ours, we might add], to be the means in this way of promoting his usefulness and happiness. (Quoted in ibid., 29-30, emphasis added) So life in the Edwards house was shaped in large degree by Jonathan’s calling. One of his journal entries said, “I think Christ has recommended rising early in the morning by his rising from the grave very early” (Quoted in ibid., 28). So it was Jonathan’s habit to awake early. The family’s routine through the years was to wake early with him, to hear a chapter from the Bible by candlelight, and to pray for God’s blessing on the day ahead. It was his habit to do physical labor sometime each day for exercise — for instance, chopping wood, mending fences, or working in the garden. But Sarah had most of the responsibility for overseeing the care of the property. Often he was in his study for thirteen hours a day. This included lots of preparation for Sundays and for Bible teaching. But it also included the times when Sarah came in to visit and talk or when parishioners stopped by for prayer or counsel. “When their life together began, Jonathan was like a new man.” In the evening the two of them might ride into the woods for exercise and fresh air and to talk. And in the evening they would pray together again. The Growing Family Beginning on August 25, 1728, children came into the family — eleven in all — at about two-year intervals: Sarah, Jerusha, Esther, Mary, Lucy, Timothy, Susannah, Eunice, Jonathan, Elizabeth, and Pierpont. This was the beginning of Sarah’s next great role, that of mother. In 1900 A.E. Winship made a study contrasting two families. One had hundreds of descendants who were a drain on society. The other, descendants of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, were outstanding for their contributions to society. He wrote of the Edwards clan: Whatever the family has done, it has done ably and nobly. . . . And much of the capacity and talent, intelligence and character of the more than 1400 of the Edwards family is due to Mrs. Edwards. By 1900 when Winship made his study, this marriage had produced: thirteen college presidents sixty-five professors 100 lawyers and a dean of a law school thirty judges sixty-six physicians and a dean of a medical school eighty holders of public office, including: three U.S. senators mayors of three large cities governors of three states a vice president of the U.S. a controller of the U.S. Treasury Members of the family wrote 135 books. . . . edited 18 journals and periodicals. They entered the ministry in platoons and sent one hundred missionaries overseas, as well as stocking many mission boards with lay trustees (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 31-32). Winship goes on to list kinds of institutions, industries, and businesses that have been owned or directed by Edwards’s descendants. “There is scarcely a Great American industry that has not had one of this family among its chief promoters.” We might well ask with Elisabeth Dodds, “Has any other mother contributed more vitally to the leadership of a nation?” (Ibid., 32) Six of the Edwards children were born on Sundays. At that time some ministers wouldn’t baptize babies born on Sundays, because they believed babies were born on the day of the week on which they had been conceived, and that wasn’t deemed an appropriate Sabbath activity. All of the Edwards children lived at least into adolescence. That was amazing in an era when death was always very close, and at times there was resentment among other families. The Household In our centrally-heated houses, it’s difficult to imagine the tasks that were Sarah’s to do or delegate: breaking ice to haul water, bringing in firewood and tending the fire, cooking and packing lunches for visiting travelers, making the family’s clothing (from sheep-shearing to spinning and weaving to sewing), growing and preserving produce, making brooms, doing laundry, tending babies and nursing illnesses, making candles, feeding poultry and produce, overseeing butchering, teaching the boys whatever they didn’t learn at school, and seeing that the girls learned homemaking creativity. That’s only a fraction of that for which she was responsible. How could she have known the gift she was giving us as she freed Jonathan to fulfill his calling? Once when Sarah was out of town and Jonathan was in charge, he wrote almost desperately, “We have been without you almost as long as we know how to be” (Quoted in Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 323). Much of what we know about the inner workings of the Edwards family comes from Samuel Hopkins, who lived with them for a while. He wrote: She had an excellent way of governing her children; she knew how to make them regard and obey her cheerfully, without loud angry words, much less heavy blows. . . . If any correction was necessary, she did not administer it in a passion; and when she had occasion to reprove and rebuke she would do it in few words, without warmth [that is, vehemence] and noise. . . . Her system of discipline was begun at a very early age and it was her rule to resist the first, as well as every subsequent exhibition of temper or disobedience in the child . . . wisely reflecting that until a child will obey his parents he can never be brought to obey God. (Quoted in Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 35-36) Their children were eleven different people, proving that Sarah’s discipline did not squash their personalities — perhaps because an important aspect of their disciplined life was that, as Samuel Hopkins wrote, “for [her children] she constantly and earnestly prayed and bore them on her heart before God . . . and that even before they were born” (Quoted in ibid., 37). Dodds says: Sarah’s way with their children did more for Edwards than shield him from hullabaloo while he studied. The family gave him incarnate foundation for his ethic. . . . The last Sunday [Edwards] stood in the Northampton pulpit as pastor of the church he put in this word for his people: “Every family ought to be . . . a little church, consecrated to Christ and wholly influenced and governed by His rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are like to prove ineffectual” (Ibid., 44-45). As vital as Sarah’s role was, we mustn’t picture her raising the children alone. Jonathan and Sarah’s affection for each other and the regular family devotional routine were strong blocks in the children’s foundation. And Jonathan played an integral part in their lives. When they were old enough, he would often take one or another along when he traveled. At home, Sarah knew Jonathan would give one hour every day to the children. Hopkins describes his “entering freely into the feelings and concerns of his children and relaxing into cheerful and animate conversation accompanied frequently with sprightly remarks and sallies of wit and humor . . . then he went back to his study for more work before dinner” (Quoted in ibid., 40). This was a different man than the parish usually saw. It is possible to piece together a lot about the Edwards household because they were paper savers. Paper was expensive and had to be ordered from Boston. So Jonathan saved old bills, shopping lists, and first drafts of letters to stitch together into small books, using the blank side for sermon writing. Since his sermons were saved, this record of everyday, sometimes almost modern details was saved as well. For instance, many of the shopping lists included a reminder to buy chocolate. (Ibid., 38; Ola Elizabeth Winslow, Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758: A Biography [Macmillan, 1940], 136) It was understood by travelers in that colonial time that if a town had no inn or if the inn was unsavory, the parson’s house was a welcoming overnight place. So from the beginning in Northampton, Sarah exercised her gifts of hospitality. Their home was well-known, busy, and praised. The Wider Sphere of Influence Sarah was not only mother and wife and hostess — she also felt spiritual responsibility for those who entered her house. A long line of young apprentice pastors showed up on their doorstep over the years, hoping to live with them and soak up experience from Jonathan. That’s why Samuel Hopkins was living with them and had the occasion to observe their family. He arrived at the Edwards home in December 1741. Here’s his account of the welcome he received. When I arrived there, Mr. Edwards was not at home, but I was received with great kindness by Mrs. Edwards and the family and had encouragement that I might live there during the winter. . . . I was very gloomy and was most of the time retired in my chamber. After some days, Mrs. Edwards came . . . and said as I was now become a member of the family for a season, she felt herself interested in my welfare and as she observed that I appeared gloomy and dejected, she hoped I would not think she intruded [by] her desiring to know and asking me what was the occasion of it. . . . I told her . . . I was in a Christless, graceless state . . . upon which we entered into a free conversation and. . . she told me that she had [prayed] respecting me since I had been in the family; that she trusted I should receive light and comfort and doubted not that God intended yet to do great things by me. (Quoted in Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 50) Sarah had seven children at the time — ages thirteen down to one and a half — and yet she also took this young man under her wing and encouraged him. He remembered it all his life. The impact of Sarah Edwards’s assurance in God’s working did not stop in that personal conversation. Hopkins went on to become a pastor in Newport, Rhode Island, a town dependent on the slave economy. He raised a strong voice against it, even though many were offended. But one young man was impressed. William Ellery Channing had been adrift till then, looking for purpose in his life. He had long talks with Hopkins, went back to Boston, became a pastor who influenced Emerson and Thoreau, and had a large part in the abolitionist movement. (This chain of influence is described by Dodds in Marriage to a Difficult Man, 50-51) We all have quiet conversations that might be forgotten. Sarah’s with Samuel would have been forgotten except for Hopkins’s journal. Their talk was part of a chain that led onward at least as far as Emerson and Thoreau, and that certainly wasn’t the end of it — we just don’t have the records of what happened next, and next, and next. We usually don’t know how God winds the threads of our lives on and on and on. Hopkins obviously admired Sarah Edwards. He wrote that “she made it her rule to speak well of all, so far as she could with truth and justice to herself and others. . . .” This sounds a lot like Jonathan’s early flyleaf musings about Sarah — confirmation that he hadn’t been blinded by love. When Hopkins watched the relationship between Jonathan and Sarah he saw that: In the midst of these complicated labors . . . [Edwards] found at home one who was in every sense a help mate for him, one who made their common dwelling the abode of order and neatness, of peace and comfort, of harmony and love, to all its inmates, and of kindness and hospitality to the friend, the visitant, and the stranger. (Ibid., 64) Another person who observed the Edwards family was George Whitefield, when he visited America during the Awakening. He came to Northampton for a weekend in October 1740 and preached four times. Also, on Saturday morning he spoke to the Edwards children in their home. Whitefield wrote that when he preached on Sunday morning, Jonathan wept during almost the whole service. The Edwards family had a great effect on Whitefield as well: Felt wonderful satisfaction in being at the house of Mr. Edwards. He is a Son himself, and hath also a Daughter of Abraham for his wife. A sweeter couple I have not yet seen. Their children were dressed not in silks and satins, but plain, as becomes the children of those who, in all things ought to be examples of Christian simplicity. She is a woman adorned with a meek and quiet spirit, talked feelingly and solidly of the Things of God, and seemed to be such a help meet for her husband, that she caused me to renew those prayers, which, for many months, I have put up to God, that he would be pleased to send me a daughter of Abraham to be my wife. (Winslow, Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, 188) The next year Whitefield married a widow whom John Wesley described as a “woman of candour and humanity” (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 74-75). The Spiritual Turning Point The second phase of the Awakening crested in the spring and summer of 1741, the same time Jonathan was asking the church for a set salary due to the financial demands of his large family. This caused the parish to watch very closely the lifestyle of the Edwards family, to be on the lookout for extravagance. A salary committee of the church ruled that Sarah had to keep an itemized statement of all expenditures. In January 1742 we come to an event in Sarah’s life that was a turning point for her. Our efforts to understand this period remind us of the difficult task a biographer has in trying to record fairly a person’s life, and how hard it can be to evaluate what you read in biography or history. An obvious problem arises when a biographer’s worldview makes him blind to important aspects of his subject’s life. Iain Murray sees this problem when he takes note of prominent Edwards biographers and observes that Ola Winslow (1940) rejected Edwards’s theology and that later, in Perry Miller (1949), “anti-supernatural animus comes to its fullest expression” (Murray, Jonathan Edwards, xxix). It’s amazing to think that someone could write a highly-acclaimed biography of Edwards that lauds his philosophy but rejects his view of God and anything supernatural. And then, from our perspective as readers, what if that lopsided view were all we knew about Edwards? That’s the challenge for a biography reader — trying to find and recognize a well-balanced approach. “Has any other mother contributed more vitally to the leadership of a nation?” –Elisabeth Dodds In January 1742 Sarah underwent a crisis that is approached very differently by different biographers, leaving us with the challenge of trying to understand what really happened. Winslow, who rejected Edwards’s theology, used the account of Sarah’s experience to minimize the impact of Jonathan’s acceptance of outward, active manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Winslow wrote, “The fact that his wife was given to these more extreme manifestations no doubt inclined him to a more hospitable attitude toward them. . . .” (Winslow, Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, 205) The implication seems to be that under normal circumstances he would have been less accepting of such “enthusiasm,” but his perception was skewed by having to account for Sarah’s experience. Miller, who rejected the idea of anything supernatural, could only conclude that Sarah’s story provided Jonathan with a proof-case to use against those who thought “enthusiasm” was from Satan. Miller’s implication seems to be that although we modern people know such manifestations couldn’t really be supernatural, Edwards was oldfashioned and mistakenly thought something supernatural was going on. So, Miller might say, it was convenient for Edwards to have an experience at hand to try to use as proof against doubters. Dodds describes Sarah as “limply needful, grotesque — jabbering, hallucinating, idiotically fainting” (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 81). She calls it a breaking point and attributes it to Sarah’s previous stoicism, her coping with her difficult husband and many children, the financial stresses, Jonathan’s criticism of her handling of a certain person, and her jealousy over the success of a visiting pastor while Jonathan was away from home. Dodds says we can’t know if it was a religious transport or a nervous breakdown (Ibid., 90). Over against all these interpretations stands Sarah’s own account of this time. She speaks unambiguously of the experience as a spiritual encounter. What really happened? We would be wise to hear some of Sarah’s own words, as transcribed by Jonathan. He published her account in “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion” (The section that tells Sarah’s story is published as Appendix E in Marriage to a Difficult Man [2003], 209-216). For privacy’s sake, he didn’t reveal her name or gender. The soul dwelt on high, was lost in God, and seemed almost to leave the body. The mind dwelt in a pure delight that fed and satisfied it; enjoying pleasure without the least sting, or any interruption. . . . [There were] extraordinary views of divine things, and religious affections, being frequently attended with very great effects on the body. Nature often sinking under the weight of divine discoveries, and the strength of the body was taken away. The person was deprived of all ability to stand or speak. Sometimes the hands were clinched, and the flesh cold, but the senses remaining. Animal nature was often in a great emotion and agitation, and the soul so overcome with admiration, and a kind of omnipotent joy, as to cause the person, unavoidably to leap with all the might, with joy and mighty exultation (Jonathan Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival in New England,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, [1834; reprint, Banner of Truth, 1974], 1:376). The thoughts of the perfect humility with which the saints in heaven worship God, and fall down before his throne, have often overcome the body, and set it into a great agitation (Ibid., 377). There is more. And rather than finding yourself subject to my choice of what to emphasize, you can read it for yourself in “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England” (Ibid., 376-378. Also published as Appendix A in Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 187). We mustn’t imagine that she was shut away by herself during all this time. Jonathan was away from home all except the first two days. So she was responsible for the home — caring for the seven children and the guests and attending special gatherings at church. Probably no one grasped at the time how completely God was shaking and shaping her when she was alone. This was only a month after Samuel Hopkins had moved into their home, so his impressions of the family were being formed in the midst of Sarah’s most life-changing days. Was Sarah’s experience psychological or spiritual? Did it spring from the frustrations and pressures of her life? I suppose that none of us ever has totally pure motives or actions or causes in our spiritual activities, but there is no doubt that both Jonathan and Sarah recognized her experiences as being from God and for her spiritual delight and benefit. They have proved themselves to be people whose judgment in spiritual matters we can usually trust. So I don’t feel inclined to explain away her understanding of her experiences. Nor would I want to minimize Jonathan’s confirmation, implicit in his making the account public. Stresses over finances, distress at having upset her husband, jealousy about another’s ministry — all those things were real in Sarah’s life. But we have seen from our own experience that God reveals himself through what is happening to us and around us. God used such things to show Sarah she needed him, to uncover her own weakness. And then, when the almost-physical sensations of God’s presence came upon her, he was all the more precious and sweet to her, because of what he had forgiven and overcome for her. Also I think back to Jonathan’s early description of her, written in his Greek book. Granted, he was an infatuated lover. But he didn’t make up his description out of nothing. He was writing about a certain kind of person, and we can see the shape of her, even if it is through Jonathan’s rose-colored glasses. . . . there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on Him. (Murray, Jonathan Edwards, 92) That is very close to how she described this adult experience. And remember that as a thirteen-year-old, she loved “to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her” (Ibid.). Thirteen-year-olds who are energized by being alone usually grow up to be adults who are energized by being alone. Where is that solitude for a woman with a newborn every other year, with a steady stream of travelers and apprentices living in her house, and with a town who notices every twitch of her life? Here are some other reasons I believe she experienced God, and not just psychological distress or breakdown. First, I don’t know anyone who has, for no apparent reason, suddenly snapped out of psychological breakdown and been just fine after that. (Dodds seems to try to evade this argument by suggesting that when Jonathan had her sit down and tell him everything that had happened, he was acting as an unwitting forerunner of psychotherapy [Edwards, “Thoughts on the Revival,” 378]). Second, Jesus said, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). Sarah’s life was different after these weeks — different in the ways you would expect after God had specially visited someone. Jonathan said she exhibited a great meekness, gentleness, and benevolence of spirit and behaviour; and a great alteration in those things that formerly used to be the person’s failings; seeming to be much overcome and swallowed up by the late great increase of grace, to the observation of those who are most conversant and most intimately acquainted. (Ibid.) He also reassured his reader that she had not become too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. Oh how good, said the person once, is it to work for God in the daytime, and at night to lie down under his smiles! High experiences and religious affections in this person have not been attended with any disposition at all to neglect the necessary business of a secular calling . . . but worldly business has been attended with great alacrity, as part of the service of God: the person declaring that, it being done thus, it was found to be as good as prayer. (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 216) Her changed life bore the fingerprint of God, not of psychological imbalance. It is clear that Jonathan agreed with her belief that she had encountered God: If such things are enthusiasm, and the fruits of a distempered brain, let my brain be evermore possessed of that happy distemper! If this be distraction, I pray God that the world of mankind may be all seized with this benign, meek, beneficent, beatifical, glorious distraction! (Edwards, “Thoughts on the Revival,” 378) The Wilderness After more than twenty years, Jonathan was ousted from his church in Northampton. I’m not going to dwell on that, because it’s a fairly well-known part of his life. But it is worth a moment of our time to empathize with the emotional and financial stress it would have been for Sarah. Her husband had been rejected. But until he had another position, they had to remain in Northampton. So for one year Sarah lived in a hostile setting and managed their large household with no salary coming in. In Stockbridge there was a community of Indians and a few whites. They were urgently searching for a pastor at the same time that Jonathan was seeking God’s next step for his life. In 1750 the Edwardses moved to Stockbridge, out on the western side of Massachusetts, on the pioneer edge of the British fingerhold on the continent. In 1871 Harpers New Monthly Magazine ran an article featuring Stockbridge. This was more than one hundred years after Edwards’s death, and yet he had come to bear international esteem surpassed (perhaps!) only by George Washington. Many paragraphs described his noteworthy role in the history of the town of Stockbridge. And though decades had passed, they hadn’t forgotten the Northampton controversy that led to Jonathan’s call to Stockbridge. There succeeded to that vacant office in the wild woods one whose name is not only highly honored throughout this land, but better known and more honored abroad, perhaps, than that of any of our countrymen except Washington. As a preacher, a philosopher, and a person of devoted piety he is unsurpassed. . . . But . . . after a most successful ministry of more than 20 years, a controversy had arisen between him and his people, and they had thrust him out from them rudely and almost in disgrace. The subsequent adoption of his views, not only at Northampton but throughout the churches of New England, has abundantly vindicated his position in that lamentable controversy. . . . He was not too great in his own estimation to accept the place now offered him [in the small outpost of Stockbridge]. . . . Edwards was almost a thinking machine. . . . That a man thus thoughtful should yet be indifferent to many things of practical importance would not be strange. Accordingly we are told that the care of his domestic and secular affairs was devolved almost entirely upon his wife, who happily, while of kindred spirit with him in many respects, and fitted to be his companion, was also capable of assuming the cares which were thus laid upon her. It is said that Edwards did not know his own cows, nor even how many belonged to him. About all the connection he had with them seems to have been involved in the act of driving them to and from pasture occasionally, which he was willing to do for the sake of needful exercise. A story is told in this connection, which illustrates his obliviousness of small matters. As he was going for the cows once, a boy opened the gate for him with a respectful bow. Edwards acknowledged the kindness and asked the boy whose son he was. “Noah Clark’s boy,” was the reply. . . . On his return, the same boy . . . opened the gate for him again. Edwards [asked again who he was]. . . . “The same man’s boy I was a quarter of an hour ago, Sir” (“A New England Village,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine [accessed 12-31-03]). THE LAST CHAPTER This was a family who had hardly tasted death, yet they were very aware of its constant nearness. How easily might a woman die in childbirth. How easily might a child die of fever. How easily might one be struck by a shot or an arrow of war. How easily might a fireplace ignite a house fire, with all asleep and lost. When Jonathan wrote to his children, he often reminded them — not morbidly, but almost as a matter of fact — how close death might be. For Jonathan, the fact of death led automatically to the need for eternal life. He wrote to their ten-year-old Jonathan, Jr., about the death of a playmate. “This is a loud call of God to you to prepare for death. . . . Never give yourself any rest unless you have good evidence that you are converted and become a new creature” (Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 412). A family tragedy was the opening page of the final chapter of their lives. Their daughter Esther was the wife of Aaron Burr, the president of the College of New Jersey, which would later be called Princeton. On September 24, 1757, this son-in-law of Jonathan and Sarah died suddenly, leaving Esther and two small children. This would be the first of five family deaths in a year. Aaron Burr’s death left the presidency open at the College of New Jersey, and Edwards was invited to become president of the college. Jonathan had been extremely productive in his thinking and writing during the six Stockbridge years; so it was not easy to leave. But in January 1758 he set off for Princeton, expecting his family to join him in the spring. George Marsden pictures the moment: He left Sarah and his children in Stockbridge, as 17-year-old Susannah later reported, “as affectionately as if he should not come again.” When he was outside the house, he turned and declared, “I commit you to God” (Ibid., 491). He had hardly moved into the President’s House at Princeton when he received news that his father had died. As Marsden says, “A great force in his life was finally gone, though the power of the personality had faded some years earlier” (Ibid.). In this final chapter of Jonathan’s and Sarah’s lives, there are key moments that encapsulate and confirm God’s work through Sarah Edwards in the main roles she had been given by him. Sarah’s Role as a Mother, with the Desire to Raise Godly Children When Aaron Burr died, we catch a glimpse of how well the mother had prepared the daughter for unexpected tragedy. Esther wrote to her mother, Sarah, two weeks after he died: God has seemed sensibly near, in such a supporting and comfortable manner that I think I have never experienced the like. . . . I doubt not but I have your and my honoured father’s prayers, daily, for me, but give me leave to entreat you to request earnestly of the Lord that I may never . . . faint under this his severe stroke. . . . O I am afraid I shall conduct myself so as to bring dishonour on . . . the religion which I profess. (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 160) At the darkest moment of her life, she fervently desired not to dishonor God. Sarah’s Role as the Wife of Jonathan Soon after Jonathan arrived in Princeton, Jonathan was inoculated for smallpox. This was still an experimental procedure. He contracted the disease, and on March 22, 1758, he died, while Sarah was still back in Stockbridge, packing for the family’s move to Princeton. Fewer than three months had passed since he had said good-bye at their doorstep. During the last minutes of his life, his thoughts and words were for his beloved wife. He whispered to one of his daughters: It seems to me to be the will of God, that I must shortly leave you; therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her, that the uncommon union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature, as I trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue for ever: and I hope she will be supported under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God. (Sereno E. Dwight, “Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards,” in Works, 1:clxxviii) A week and a half later Sarah wrote to Esther (it had been only six months since Esther’s husband had died): My very dear child, What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands upon our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had him so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be. Your affectionate mother, Sarah Edwards (Ibid., 1:clxxix) Esther never read her mother’s letter. On April 7, less than two weeks after her father’s death, Esther died of a fever, leaving behind little Sally and Aaron, Jr. Sarah traveled to Princeton to stay with her grandchildren for a while and then take them back to Stockbridge with her. Her Role as a Child of God In October Sarah was traveling toward Stockbridge with Esther’s children. While stopping in the home of friends, she was overcome with dysentery, and her life on earth ended. It was October 2, 1758. She was forty-nine. The people with her reported that “she apprehended her death was near, when she expressed her entire resignation to God and her desire that he might be glorified in all things; and that she might be enabled to glorify him to the last; and continued in such a temper, calm and resigned, till she died” (Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man, 169). “At the darkest moment of her life, she fervently desired not to dishonor God.” Hers was the fifth Edwards death in a year, and the fourth Edwards family grave in the Princeton Cemetery during that year. Who Was Sarah Edwards She was the supporter and protector and home-builder for Jonathan Edwards, whose philosophy and passion for God is still vital 300 years after his birth. She was the godly mother and example to eleven children who became the parents of outstanding citizens of this country, and — immensely more important to her — many are also citizens of heaven. She was the hostess and comforter and encourager of Samuel Hopkins, and who knows how many others, who went on to minister to others, who went on to minister to others, who went on . . . She was an example to George Whitefield, and who knows how many others, of a godly wife. At the heart of all she was, she was a child of God, who from early years experienced sweet, spiritual communion with him, and who over the years grew in grace, and who at least once was very dramatically visited by God in a way that changed her life.

election and predestination and the free will of man...

"Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Genesis 12:1-3 This is God's introduction to a man, whose name is the greatest name in the Old Testament record, Abraham, the father of the faithful, and the father of the great miracle nation, Israel, and the example in Scripture of true saving faith. No other man is better known, more loved, than Abraham the friend of God who "believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness." Together with his son, Isaac, his grandson, Jacob, and his great-grandson, Joseph, these four men dominate the entire book of Genesis with the exception of the first eleven chapters. Only eleven chapters of the Old Testament are required to relate for us the first two thousand years of human history on this earth. (Genesis 1 to 11.) All the rest of Genesis (chapters 12 to 50) are occupied with the record of the lives of these four men, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, covering a period of time of approximately only four hundred years. Notice carefully, only eleven chapters to tell us all we know about the first two thousand years of history, including creation, the fall, the flood and the tower of Babel, but thirty-nine chapters to relate the history of only four men living within a period of only four centuries. Supernatural Design This is not a mere coincidence, but a divine, supernatural design and purpose. Believing as we do in the supernatural, verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, we believe this emphasis on these four men contains a very important revelation. Where God spends a great deal of time in revealing in His Word a certain record, we may be assured that it is of unusual importance. And so we are led to ask, why so much space devoted to these four men? Remember, eleven chapters to the history of Abraham, five chapters to the history of Isaac, twelve long chapters to Jacob, and eleven chapters are devoted to the record of the life of Joseph. There are at least two reasons for this extensive Bible record concerning these four representative men. The first three men, father, son and grandson, were to be the progenitors of a supernaturally called nation to be miraculously preserved, around which God would weave the entire history of the world to the very end of time, even the nation of Israel. The nations had utterly failed in the days of Abraham. Adam had fallen, the world had become corrupt, and God had destroyed it with a flood, but even after the flood, man soon again turned from God and the days of wickedness before the flood repeated themselves. The knowledge of God would soon be forgotten except for a divine plan by which the truth might be preserved and through which the Lord might reveal His plan of redemption. And so he abandoned the nations, gave them up, and instead He chose one man to become the father of a new, a peculiar nation, a miraculous, a separated, covenant nation to be the channel through which God would preserve the knowledge of the one true Jehovah, through whom He would give the revelation of the Scriptures and out of whom according to the flesh would be born the Saviour of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. This nation is the nation of Israel. The entire Old Testament with the exception of the first eleven chapters is occupied with the history of this one single nation; the other nations being mentioned only as they had dealings with the nation of Israel or came in contact with them. Almost one-half of the New Testament also deals with the history of this same people of Israel. Through this nation God gave us our Bible, practically every bit of it. The entire Word of God with few exceptions was written by Israelites, and by Jews. This nation which sprang from these four men, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, therefore, gave us our Bible and preserved for us the knowledge of the true Jehovah God, and gave us our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, a Jew, of the seed of Abraham and of the tribe of Judah. The Apostle Paul sums it all up for us when he, in speaking of this nation, says in Romans 9:4 "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." Romans 9:4-5 The Plan of Redemption This then is one reason for the prominent place given in Genesis to these four men through whose descendents, Israel, God's revelation came to the world, and by whom He was to give us our Christ and the Word of God. But underneath this purpose lies a deeper meaning and a still more wonderful purpose. The Bible is preeminently the Book of redemption. From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 the aim and the goal, the purpose and the end of all revelation is to make known God's plan of salvation and redemption for ALL men. All other things are secondary to this one primary aim. The histories, the genealogies, the wars, the records of men and nations, all have some bearing upon, and have something to do directly or indirectly with the revelation of God in redeeming mankind through the work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Redemption Everywhere If we but look closely, we will find this purpose of redemption on every page of the book. It begins in the first chapter of the Bible in the history of the creation of the earth. Seven days of creation are recorded. It begins with a world barren and waste and in darkness, which of course, is a picture of the sinner, created in God's image, but through sin having fallen and lying in utter darkness. The first day records light being created by the Word of God. This is symbolic of the regeneration of the sinner, the beginning of his spiritual life through the spirit and the Word. On the second day God separated the waters on the earth, and the waters above the earth. This is the first result of our salvation—separation of the earthly things from the heavenly. Then comes day number three and it records the creation of vegetation and fruit, pointing to the next thing in the believer's life, fruit-bearing, reproduction of its own kind, which of course, is soul winning. On the fourth day the sun, moon and stars are set in heaven to shine upon earth. This speaks of Christian testimony. We too as believers are already seated in the heavenlies in our position, but we are to shine continually upon the earth. On the fifth day God created birds and fish. Birds defy the pull of earth's gravity and soar toward heaven, and this speaks of Christian victory, overcoming the pull and the gravity of the world and earthly things and living in the heavenlies. The sixth day is the creation of cattle and man, and speaks of service, and then follows the seventh day of rest, which is the goal of the believer, perfect rest and peace, in Christ. This is the picture of redemption, in the very first chapter of our Bible, from death and darkness in sin, through the successive days of growth in grace until we find perfect peace and rest in Him. This is in the first chapter of the Bible. The first creation is a picture of the New Creation. We have taken all of this time in this first chapter to show that the aim and the purpose of the Bible is to make known the plan of redemption, and what is true of this first chapter is true of every single part of the Bible. Somewhere, underneath the historical record, hidden in the seemingly meaningless geneologies, you will find Jesus and the plan of redemption. The Four Patriarchs Now return to our four patriarchs. That is why God called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, to reveal through the history of these men and through this nation which came from them, God's wonderful plan of redemption and salvation by grace. And so these four men are God's own revelation of how He brings about this redemptive purpose. We would refer you in this connection to Romans chapter 8. In Romans 8, verse 28 we have this familiar verse, known to practically everyone: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 Here is the basis of our redemption, "called according to His purpose.'' That is our foundation. It is pure grace, and the grace of God alone. We are saved basically, primarily, because God purposed it long before,we were even born. Our salvation, then, is rooted and grounded in the sovereign grace and purposes of Almighty God. Then follows the explanation of this purpose. Why did He purpose to save us, after all? Now I know that there are some who would say, to save us from hell, which of course is wrong. Others would say, to take us to heaven when we die, but this again is wrong. These are mere incidentals in God's real purpose of salvation. Listen to Paul as he tells us why God purposed to save us: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate" Romans 8:29 We want to stop here for just a moment in the middle of that verse. Why did God predestinate the believer? To save him from hell? To take him to heaven? Not at all. Listen to what Paul says: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." Romans 8:29 Here, then is God's great purpose. He wants us to be like the Lord Jesus. That is His ultimate goal, that is His desire. Salvation from hell, going to heaven, are a part of this process of making us ultimately like the Lord Jesus Christ, and to make the believer finally like the Lord Jesus is a process of testing, trials, defeats, victories, as we see so wonderfully and marvelously illustrated in the lives of these four men, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Then Paul goes on to give us these four steps in verse 30: "Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Romans 8:30 You will notice that we have here four definite steps, and we would suggest that you fix them thoroughly in your mind. Predestination Calling Justification Glorification Our salvation begins with God in His sovereign predestination. This is the foundation of our redemption—the sovereign purpose of God in our election. Next we have calling. This is redemption in preparation. Those whom He predestinates He calls, and so He prepares them, so that they should hear this gospel call and receive it. This is God's redemption in the preparation of the believer. Then follows justification. This is redemption in operation. Those who effectively hear God's call are now justified, and then follows glorification which is redemption in its consummation. These then are the four steps: The Foundation—God's predestination The Preparation—God's call to salvation The Operation—Justification by faith The Consummation—Glorification to be ultimately like the Lord Jesus Christ. Four Steps and Four Men I do not know whether Paul had Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph in mind when He wrote this verse on the four steps of salvation: predestination, calling, justification, and glorification, but the parallel is so striking that we sincerely believe that we have in the history of these four patriarchs these same four steps wonderfully illustrated. Abraham illustrates divine predestination. Living in a heathen land, a member of an idolatrous family, God in sovereign grace chose him and elected him to be the father of the faithful, passing by all the rest of his family. Isaac illustrates the calling of the believer. Though his brother, Ishmael was older and beloved of Abraham, God said, No, this shall not be thine heir, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Isaac, then, illustrates divine calling. Jacob illustrated justification. Jacob the rascal, who cheated his father, robbed his brother, connived with his mother, and ruined his uncle, was nevertheless justified in spite of his unworthiness, because he believed God's promise. This is justification. And then Joseph, glorification. Despised and sold by his brethren, he is exalted on the throne at the right hand of the King of Egypt, and here is God's plan of redemption in these four men. Predestination, calling, justification, and glorification. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. What a wonderful plan of salvation, what a marvelous Book, what a miraculous Bible, what a wonderful redemption! In our next message we shall continue this glorious revelation. Chapter Two "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Hebrews 11:8-10 The four greatest and most prominent names in the book of Genesis are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the progenitors of the nation of Israel, through whose descendants God gave us our Bible and our blessed Saviour. But the underlying principle in giving us the history of these four men in detail was to reveal God's wonderful plan of salvation. This plan of redemption is summed up by Paul in Romans 8:30 as follows: "Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Romans 8:30 Four steps, beginning in the eternal purpose of God and ending in our eternal glorification. These four steps are once again: Predestination Calling Justification Glorification These four steps give us the foundation, the preparation, the operation and the consummation of our salvation. Abraham is the example of sovereign predestination and election; Isaac of effectual calling; Jacob of justification; and Joseph a great type of glorification. Predestination We take up now the subject of predestination as illustrated in the life of Abraham, and unfolded in the Scriptures. We approach the subject with both confidence and great fear. We approach it with confidence because we are sure what we shall say is the Word of God, and with fear because we realize that so many people are prejudiced against this revelation of Scripture and because it is so grossly misrepresented and tragically misunderstood by men. We approach the subject, therefore, with a prayer that we may make this doctrine very clear and that He may give those who hear an open mind, and faith to believe what God has to say. The Bible definitely teaches predestination and election, clearly stating that God has from eternity elected a company who will be saved and spend eternity in heaven. These elected ones He has predestined to become like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 8:29). Passage after passage might be quoted but we shall give only a few, which will illustrate our point. We begin with Jesus' own words in John 15:16. Speaking to His disciples, our Saviour says: "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain..." John 15:16 Here our Lord plainly states that He Himself had chosen them personally to be His Disciples, to bring forth fruit. In Romans 8:29 Paul says: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." Romans 8:29 In 1st Corinthians 1 Paul says this: "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; That no flesh should glory in his presence." 1 Corinthians 1:26-27, 29 We give one more passage in this connection from Ephesians, chapter one and verse three: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. " Ephesians 1:3-5, 11 Without attempting any explanation at this time, we merely point out that these facts from these passages indicate the following: The Bible teaches that God has chosen, elected and predestined some, and not others. This choice of God was made before the worlds were created. This election was not based on any good which He saw beforehand in those whom He chose, but entirely by His unquestionable, sovereign purpose of grace and wholly because He willed to do so and because He is sovereign. No Need to Argue Now it will, of course, do no good to argue about this. It is the clear teaching of the Word of God. It will not do us any good to ignore it either, for it can do no good to deny it. It will not help to reject it just because we cannot understand it. There it is in the Word of God, my friend. You can take it, or leave it. But you say, does not the Bible teach also that man must choose for himself? Does not man have a free will also? Yes, indeed the Bible teaches also that we have a will, and that we personally must make a decision and a choice or be forever lost. We must believe in order to be saved. We are coming to that later on also, but right now we merely want to show that the Bible does teach a sovereign, elective purpose of God of all who shall be redeemed. But again, you will say this is a contradiction. Sovereign election and man's free choice do not harmonize. That does not alter the fact the Bible teaches both. It is only a contradiction in our own minds, for there can be no contradiction in the mind of God who made this revelation. But again, someone will ask, I cannot understand all of these deep truths. We are not required or asked to understand it, but we are asked to believe it because God says it. We are to believe both. We are to believe in God's elective purpose, and also believe that we personally must "will" to be saved, or we shall be forever lost, for both of these are clearly taught in the Word of God. To reject election and accept only man's free will is a denial of God's sovereignty. To accept the truth of election and reject man's free will is to deny God's Word and His invitation to all, "Whosoever will." Cannot Understand But, you say, I cannot understand it. You never will! If you did, you would understand the Almighty Himself. But there are thousands of things that I cannot understand. I cannot understand how God could create a universe out of nothing, but I am expected to believe it. I cannot understand the Trinity, but the Bible teaches it. I cannot understand the virgin birth, but I must believe it in order to be saved. I cannot understand how one Man could die for another's crimes and sins, or how a hell-deserving sinner could be justified. Nobody can understand those things. Man knows of no way to justify a transgressor. We can pardon men, and we can condone their sin, we can forgive, but we cannot justify a criminal. But God can, and God does and God will. I know not why God's wondrous love To me He hath made known; Or how unworthy, Christ in love Redeemed me for His own. But I read it in God's Word and I believe it, Yes, I believe it. Fully believe it. I read it in God's Word and I believe it, And that is all I need to do. Man's Free Will Yes, man himself, indeed, must come, he must believe, he must will to be saved in spite of the fact that God has already elected those who will be saved. The Bible says clearly: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16 It says again: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 And again: "Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Revelation 22:17 Yes, indeed, God does the electing, and that happens to be God's business, and only HIS responsibility. But YOU must do the believing. That is YOUR responsibility. Understand it? Of course not. But believe it? Yes, indeed. It is true that only those who are elected will come, and God knows who they are. But listen, it is just as true that those who come are also elected. God calls, but you must do the answering. Notice how Jesus places these two truths right together in John 6 and verse 37: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." There, indeed, you have sovereign grace and election. But there is more to this verse, and Jesus, therefore, continues: "And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37 There you have it, then, my friend. The Father draws, but you must come. There are hundreds of examples of this in the Scriptures, many of which we shall refer to in our coming messages. But think for a moment again of Abraham who is the great example of divine election. He was a pagan idol worshipper in a strange land, the Ur of the Chaldees. He was no better than the rest of his family, yet God chose him from among many, many hundreds and thousands of others, and called Abram. That was God's part, and then we read that Abram obeyed and answered the call: "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, OBEYED." Hebrews 11:8 God CALLED, but Abraham did the obeying. The Lord God is calling some of you this very moment. Will you answer the call, and come. Then, my friend, you are one of God's elect, for "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Philippians 2:13 But you will answer and say, "Can't I do anything at all? Am I totally helpless to do anything toward my salvation?" Listen, my friend, that fact itself is the greatest reason in all the world why you should come to Him, if He alone is able to save you. If you could do it yourself, you would not need Him at all. The very fact of your own helplessness is the greatest reason and argument for turning to the only One who can and who is willing to save you. But you insist and ask me again. If I am elected I will come and if I am not elected, I will not come, and I cannot come. Yes, that is dogmatically true. BUT listen, let me ask you a question. Are you saying that as an excuse for not coming, and so place the blame for your damnation on God? Or are you sincere in your question? Let me ask you this. Would you like to know whether you are really one of God's elect? Would you like to know at this very moment? You can find out before another minute passes. If you will heed His call right now, and call upon Him to save you, you ARE one of God's elect. Why not find out this very moment. Forget your objections, stop trying to understand. Don't bother with God's part of the matter, but come as you are and if you do, then Jesus says: "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37 And again: "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:13 Yes, indeed, God does the electing and that happens to be His business, and, therefore, we can leave it safely with Him. He will not make any mistakes. But, my friend, YOUR business this very moment is to receive the free gift which God offers to "Whosoever will may come." Do your part and then rest assured that the Lord will do His part and keep His promise who said: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Revelation 22:17 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:31 Chapter Three The Bible clearly teaches the doctrines of sovereign election and predestination of the saved by Almighty God. The word, election means "to choose" and predestination means "to determine beforehand." The word "predestination" is a combination of two other words, the word "pre", meaning "before", and the word "destiny", simply means that the destiny is settled and determined beforehand. But the Bible also teaches with equal clarity the free will of man and the positive necessity of receiving salvation through a personal act of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The election is the part which God has already done, believing is the part which man must do himself. Now we make no attempt either to explain or to harmonize these two. We merely state them as facts which are taught in the Scriptures, and then emphasize the fact that man must do his part in believing, in the full assurance that God is righteous and just and true in whatever He does. To try and understand this and reject this truth because you cannot understand it is only to be lost. Our only salvation lies NOT in understanding God, but in believing what He says. Independent of Works We now take up once more the matter of sovereign election. God has elected His chosen ones from eternity and Jesus says: "And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." John 6:39 This election is all of grace; that is, it was not because He saw beforehand any merit or goodness or excellence in the ones whom He chose. He did not choose them for their superior goodness, but just and only because He chose to do so according to His own purpose and unquestioned will "that no flesh should glory in his presence." God is Omniscient Now if any are inclined to object to this truth or to question its justice, let us remember one simple fact. God is absolutely sovereign. He can do as He pleases, and no creature can question His action for one moment. This is a basic, fundamental truth. If God is not sovereign, then He cannot be an absolute God. Then the second thing to remember is that God is also eternal. God is a timeless being. He has no past, no future, but lives in the eternal present. He existed from eternity before there was even time or matter. With God all things future, therefore, are already as if they had already happened and transpired. This brings us logically to a third observation. God is also omniscient. He knows everything, past, present, and future. He knows the numbers of the hairs of our head, and knows every sparrow that falls to the ground. From an eternity past He knew every detail which would ever come to pass into the eternity of the future. Otherwise, how else could He plan anything? God must be omniscient and know all things, or cease to be a sovereign God. He must be omniscient or we cannot trust Him, for then He might be surprised by events which He did not foreknow and foresee, and thus become a being of chance and not one of destiny. The Bible declares this for the apostle James says in Acts 15:18: "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." Acts 15:18 And David said in the great 139th Psalm which we may well call the Psalm of God's omniscience: "Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:12, 16 And the writer in Hebrews, writing first of the written word and then the living word, The Lord Jesus Christ, says this: "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Hebrews 4:13 Many, many other passages might be quoted, but these I am sure, are sufficient to show that God knows all things from the beginning. This must be so, for He made all things, and by Him all things consist. God is perfect in every one of His attributes, and therefore, perfect in His omniscience, knowing from eternity everything that would ever happen in the future. Foreknowledge and Election This brings us to the point of our subject. Since God knows everything from the beginning, He also knew from the beginning who would be saved. He foreknew each and every one who would ever believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He also foresaw everyone who would not believe. Certainly then there can be no objection to God electing those who should believe, and not electing those whom He knew would NOT believe. The apostle Peter, in writing his first epistle from Babylon to the scattered believers states this as follows: Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..." 1 Peter 1:1-2 Notice that very carefully, ELECT ACCORDING TO THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD. Now there are those who tell us that God elected before He foreknew. And because He had elected them, He foreknew that they would believe. Then there are others who take the other side of the argument, and say, No, God first foreknew who would believe and then He elected them. Now this whole argument is definitely silly. One cannot precede the other in order of time for God is timeless. These both happened in the infinite, eternal past of God's life. Since God had no beginning but always was, He therefore, always foreknew and the saved were always elected. We cannot separate the foreknowledge and the election of God. They always were together. It is like the spokes in a wheel. When you turn the wheel, which spoke begins to move first? Why, you say, that's a silly question to ask. Of course, it's a silly question, but no more foolish than trying to argue whether in God's predestinarian plan election or foreknowledge came first. That is splitting invisible hairs. An Illustration The farthest we can go with our finite understanding is to accept Peter's statement, that since God foreknew who would believe, He could elect those whom He did foreknow. If you would rather change the order, that is your privilege, of course. It is still a pound to me, and 16 ounces to you. Let me give an illustration to help you in understanding this. Suppose on a very hot summer's day twenty boys are playing in the field behind our home. They are hot, tired, thirsty, and weary. So I say to Mrs. De Haan, I'll get some ice cream at the drug store, and some cold root beer. You get some cookies and we'll invite all those boys to come on our porch for ice cream and cookies. So I go to the store for the ice cream and when I return, my wife has twenty plates and twenty glasses arranged on the table on our back porch. I look at these twenty glasses and say, "You can take eight of those glasses and plates back in the house, for we are only going to need twelve." But she says, "There are twenty boys out there, and you invited all of them to come, didn't you?" And I reply, "Yes, I invited all twenty, but I happen to know that only twelve are going to come. The other eight will refuse. One will say, I don't like ice cream, and another says, I hate old man De Haan, and another, I don't believe they have any ice cream, and another one, it's all a joke. They're only fooling us. Still another says, there's a gag somewhere. We'll pay for it somehow in the end. Still another one says, I can't imagine why that old tight-wad wants to be so liberal all of a sudden." Eight of them have an excuse, and will not come. "How do you know only twelve will come?" says Mrs. De Haan to me. "Because I happen to know every one of those boys. I know their thoughts, their sentiments, and their reactions." Now, of course, this presupposes perfect knowledge on my part, perfect knowledge of just what each boy is going to do. Of course, I do not possess that perfect knowledge. But just suppose that I do, and having this knowledge, then it would be very easy for me to place only twelve dishes on the table, then invite all twenty boys to come, and lo and behold, only twelve of them did come. That was because somehow I foreknew which ones would respond. Now may I ask you, if I invited all twenty, have the eight which do not come any excuse at all? Can they blame me? Oh, but they say, "We saw there were only twelve plates, not enough to go around, so we thought it was not for us." But that's no excuse. You did not know who they were for. But I knew they were only for those who would come, and who would respond. Now I realize that this parable falls short of fully illustrating the situation, but it goes as far as our finite, human understanding can go. God's invitation is to all. Yet, God knows that all will not come, and He knew who would come and who would not come. It would be very simple then for the Almighty to choose and prepare a place at His table for only the elect, and make no provision for others. There is plenty for all, but no use putting it on the table and wasting it for those who will not partake of it. "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God," says Peter. That is the nearest that we can come to understanding this great truth of election and predestination and the free will of man. But remember, I prepared the table for the boys, but they had to come themselves. I did not drag them in. I invited all of them, each one in good faith. It is all just and right, there can be no objection and no excuse and no blame put upon anyone else. So it is with God's invitation. He too says: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1 "Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near." Isaiah 55:6 He invites you now to come to His table of salvation. You too are weary and discouraged. You fear the future, you are concerned about your sins, and dread the thought of meeting God, maybe before you realize. Listen, then, someone is calling you, and listen carefully: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 What did I hear you say? Does He mean YOU? Of course, He means you. He says, "Come all YE that labour and are heavy laden." He invites ALL, and that includes you too. "Whosoever will may come." But again you say, if I am not elected, what then? Well, then you just won't come. But forget that part and listen to this: If you do come then you are one of God's chosen ones, then you are one of the redeemed. Now wouldn't you like to find out right now where you will spend eternity? Would you like to know your sins are all forgiven, your past blotted out, and you are now God's child and on the way to heaven? It's up to you NOW. You can know upon the immutable promise of the Word of God. Receive Him where you are. Don't struggle anymore, don't try to understand it, but believe it, and answer His gracious invitations: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 "Come, all ye weary and oppressed, O come and I will give you rest; I'll bid your anxious fears depart, For I am meek and lowly in heart, And I will give you rest. Come, ye that feel the weight of sin, And I will breathe sweet peace within; I'll lift the burden from your heart, Forgiveness I will freely impart, And I will give you rest. Ye that labor and are heavy laden, come to Me, Come, come; come, and learn of Me; My yoke is easy, My burden is light, Come, come, come, and I will give you rest." Chapter Four God's people in all ages are called God's own elect. The word, "elect", means "to choose some and not to choose others." An election presupposes both winners and losers, those who are elected and those who fail to be elected. Now in human elections, men choose the candidates, but in divine election God is the One who chooses His own. Election has to do with our relationship to God Himself. We are elected to be the children of God. But the word, "predestination", while grounded and based on the same sovereign will and purpose of God has a slightly different meaning. Predestination has to do with the "why" of our election. We are elected to be saved, and then He predestinates these elect ones to ultimately become like His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Election then has to do with our position; predestination deals with our character and the development and growth of the elect unto perfection into the image of Christ. This is an important distinction. The Bible does not say that we are predestinated to be saved, primarily, for that is the work of election, but predestination is the method, decided beforehand, by which these elected ones will finally be perfected. A few Scriptures will illustrate this. Referring again to Romans 8 we read: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 Notice carefully the wording here. These are "the called of God according to His own purpose." These are the elect, and for them God has prearranged a process whereby all things which happen will work toward the end of that one definite purpose in the life of that particular elected individual. All of our experiences, sorrows, trials, disappointments, distresses, griefs, and troubles, all have a definite purpose in making us what God has determined we shall finally be. This purpose is given in the next verse: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." Romans 8:29 We are elected to be saved; we are predestinated to become in the end like the Lord Jesus. This is a long, and sometimes, painful process, but He has determined it, and He will accomplish it. So all the experiences of life for the Christian are God's way of carrying out His plan, to make us like His Son. Another clear passage is found in Ephesians 1: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." [That is predestination.] Ephesians 1:3-4 And so Paul continues: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself..." Ephesians 1:5 Stumbling Stone This doctrine of sovereign election and predestination has been a real stumbling block to many believers. Because they were unable to reconcile it with the clear teaching of the Bible about man's free will, they reject it, in whole or in part, or ignore the inescapably clear teaching on this important subject. Ignoring the passages which deal with this subject does not do away with them. They are still there, just as surely as the many passages which teach the responsibility of man, and the necessity of personal faith. They are both in the Bible, whether we understand them or not. It is God's infallible Word. Before we are saved, we have only one responsibility, and that is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. If we do this, then we are saved. If we don't, we are necessarily lost. Then after we have been saved, then we learn from the Bible the glorious truth that our salvation was already God's work and the work of the Holy Spirit, and not ours at all, for "...it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Philippians 2:13 It is like a train which travels on two rails. The one rail is sovereign grace, the other is human responsibility. They never meet, they never come together, but they are both necessary to keep the train on the track. Remove the rail of man's free will and try to run on only the rail of election and you will land in the ditch of fatalism and hyper-Calvinism. Reverse it, and remove the rail of sovereign election and grace, and you wreck yourself in the ditch of a religion of human works and hyper-Armenianism. Keep your wheels on both tracks. Examples of Election We began this series by referring to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. We return to them now, for this illustration, and for some examples of the sovereign grace of God in election. Let us look at Abraham first. Was he saved because he chose God, or because God chose him? God found him in Ur of the Chaldees. Joshua tells us that Abraham lived in a heathen land, his family were idolators, without God. In Joshua 24:2 he says: "And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods." Joshua 24:2 Here then was a whole nation of idolatrous Chaldeans, in darkness and without God. And yet the Lord passes all of them by, and goes to one single family, the family of Terah, Abraham's father. He passes by all of them in this family, except one single man, Abraham, and chooses him alone and ignores all the rest. This indeed is sovereign election. God did not see in Abraham anything at all better or more excellent on the basis of which He chose him, and not the others. There was nothing in Abraham which determined God's choice, but the reason He chose father Abraham lay entirely in God Himself, in His own sovereign purpose and will. This is still more clear in Deuteronomy, chapter 7, verses 7 and 8. Speaking to Israel, Moses says this: "The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers..." Deuteronomy 7:7-8 Why God chose Abraham and rejected others, why He chose Jacob and rejected Esau, why he chose Israel and rejected Egypt, is answered only in the hidden counsel and purposes of God's own sovereign will. Jacob as an Example Or let us take Jacob as an example, although we might say the same of Isaac whom God chose to call rather than his brother Ishmael. Jacob surely had nothing in himself to commend him to God for any special favor. Jacob is the rascal of the four patriarchs, he is the conniver, the schemer, Jacob who cheated his brother, lied to his father, conspired with his mother, and ruined his uncle Laban. By comparison, Esau was a gentleman, home-loving, considerate of his aged father, and even forgiving of his brother Jacob when he returned from his exile. Why then did God choose Jacob? We do not know why, except that God was pleased to do so for some reason which He himself knows. Certainly it was not because of any good qualities which Jacob had, for God chose Jacob before he was even born. Consider carefully what Paul says about Esau and Jacob in Romans 9:11. Paul is illustrating God's sovereign grace in election, and says this: "For the children [Esau and Jacob) being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; It was said unto her, The elder [Esau] shall serve the younger [Jacob]. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Romans 9:11-13 Now you may object and argue all you wish. There it is in God's Word, as plain as the nose on one's face. This is in perfect accord with the record in Genesis 25, where God says to Rachel, the mother of these two boys: "The one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." Genesis 25:23 And Malachi adds his testimony in Malachi 1:2, speaking to Israel: "I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau..." Malachi 1:2-3 Surely it must be plain to everyone that God's part in election is sovereign and no creature can question His dealings. Instead, we must believe His Word, for to understand it, we repeat, we never shall. For here we come again to the other fact, equally clear and plain, it is still man's responsibility to believe God, to receive Christ, in order to be saved. No argument can change God's Word, for we must simply face the facts, God chooses His own, but we must choose to receive His offer of salvation. The election then becomes God's private business; the believing is your own personal responsibility. Why then not believe on Him, now, and receive Christ as Saviour? Don't make the fact that you cannot understand what an infinitely wise God is doing, an excuse for losing your own soul. The Crippled Child Allow me to illustrate. I take you to the home of a young lady, blind, crippled and dying. This condition is no fault of hers whatsoever. She was born that way. Over fifty years before she was born, her grandfather in a drunken moment of passion contracted a terrible disease. He transmitted this to his daughter at birth, and she again transmitted it to this little girl. She is in this condition by no fault of her own. Now it doesn't seem right and just, but it is a fact and we must face it. No one can deny it. The child rebels and struggles against her fate. She moans, "Why must I suffer like this? What have I done? I can't understand why this can happen to me and not to someone else. I did not choose my grandfather or my mother." All these cannot help her. All these excuses are of no avail. The fact is, that wholly apart from any choice of her own she is a cripple, while other children who also had no part in choosing their parents are strong and well. So far it is a dark picture. Her destiny was settled before she was even born. But now I come to her and say, "Listen, child, you can be made well again. I have brought a great, renowned specialist, a great physician who has healed thousands, and never has had a failure. He is here and will heal you completely, free of charge, if you will give your consent." What would you say if this person now would refuse to accept the services of the doctor until she could understand the why and the wherefore of her condition. She says, "No, I won't accept him until I can understand why God should let me suffer like this when it is not my fault at all." Now wouldn't that be exceedingly foolish? The thing for her to do is to forget everything and immediately accept the offer of restoration. If she refuses, then her condition becomes HER OWN fault. It is now HER own responsibility. Before, we might blame another, but now it becomes a personal responsibility. Is this not a picture of you, my friend? You were born a sinner because your first father, Adam, sinned. You had no choice in this matter; you were not physically there, but you did come into the world with the disease of sin and under the sentence of death, predetermined before you were born. Now that just happens to be a plain, simple fact which cannot be denied. You may rebel against it all you want, and become bitter, because it cannot be understood. But now listen. The great physician, Jesus, has come, and He offers to save you, to save anyone who will trust Him. It will, therefore, do no good to refuse Him because you cannot understand why you should suffer for Adam's sin, because you cannot understand election, predestination, foreordination, the trinity, and a thousand other things. If you do that, He cannot help you. Forget all that. To refuse is to put the whole responsibility on yourself, and you cannot blame God at all any more. He has made full provision, and now you will be lost because you have refused the remedy. And so we plead with you to face the fact, the reality of the condition in which you are, and that right now you can be saved if you will take Him as your Lord and Saviour, for He says: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:18 Chapter Five Psychologists and psychiatrists tell us that we act as we do and we are what we are because we respond to impressions which were fixed before we were even conscious, before we had the power of choice, yea, even before we were ever born. They tell us the impressions of infancy, the feel of a mother's breast, the touch of her hand upon your head, as you lay as an infant in her bosom, the alarms, the fears and the scares, all made impressions which would determine your actions and reactions later on in life. They talk of suppressions and inhibitions and escapisms. How much truth there is in many of these speculations of mental experts I do not know, but I do know one thing; most of what you and I are today WAS decided before we had the power of choice or before we were born. This is true physically, mentally, and emotionally. It is surprising how much of what we are, we are not by any choice of our own at all, but it was all determined beforehand entirely apart from and beyond our will or our choice in these matters. I wish you would notice a few things which we are that we did not choose to be. Your Sex You are either a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, a male or a female. Are you what you are by choice or by predestination? You, of course, all know the answer. You were not consulted at all about these matters. You came into the world, male or female, and you can do nothing about it. It was predetermined before you were even born. The moment the first two cells were joined at conception we are told that sex was already unalterably settled. And this is true of everything. Why were you born in a Christian land and not in heathen darkness? Why were your parents Christians and not pagans? Why were you born in a respectable family, and not in the home of the drunkard, the thief or the hoodlum? You had no choice in these matters whatsoever. You were not consulted about any of these things. Yet all of these factors have made you what you are today without your choice. You are a believer today not so much because you accepted Christ as because you were born and raised under circumstances and conditions and influences, where you heard the Word and were told the gospel. You had no choice in those preliminary matters. If you had been born in a savage tribe as millions of others are who too had no choice in the matter, in a land where the gospel was never heard, you would not be a Christian today. Surely you received Christ and believed His Word, but only because in sovereign grace you were born where you could hear and receive the gospel. You had no choice in these preparatory conditions under which you came into the world. But that was all settled for you, your nationality, in what country you were to be born, and even what religion you would come in contact with from your earliest youth. Physically Predestinated Physically, you also are what you are by predestination; that is, it was all settled outside your choice, and your destiny in a large degree was determined for you. You are either white or Negro, Chinese or English, Dutch or French or something else, because your parents were, and they again because of their parents, and so on and so on. The color of your hair, your eyes, your skin, your stature, your sex, your temperament, were all determined before you were born. Did anyone consult you in the matter of the color of your eyes? Did you have a choice whether you would be tall or short, homely or good-looking, have big ears or little ears, a big nose or a pug nose; even your voice. Some are bass, some are tenor, and some are soprano. Ah, no, my friend, in these matters we have no choice whatsoever. We are what we were when we came into the world by a predestined set of circumstances. Emotionally True This is true emotionally. Your emotional make-up is entirely received through your ancestors, for generations back. Some of you have quiet, even temperament, some of you have excitable, quick tempers, fiery, cool or rash, reckless or restrained. These emotions may be trained and checked, to be sure, and suppressed, but they never change. Peter always remained the impetuous Peter, and the affectionate John remained the affectionate John. Mentally True Also This is true mentally as well. Some people come into the world with keen minds, others with dull minds. Geniuses are born, not developed. Why have you been endowed with an alert, keen mind, and clear mentality, while another born in the same family, from the same parents, is an idiot or an imbecile, or a moron? Was it because you had any choice in the matter? Again, we must answer, No. I can only accept to be what I am because it was all determined before I was even born. Now, of course, we may train and develop and bring out the most in these faculties, but we certainly cannot increase the mental powers which were there from the beginning. We cannot make a genius out of a person born stupid. We cannot train something which does not exist. We might go on and on in this way for it reaches into every realm of our entire being. However, we have taken all this time to show you that the doctrine of predestination is true, even in our physical, mental and in our emotional life. It is a most humbling truth which casts us into the dust, when we realize that we have nothing in ourselves that we can boast of. One who realizes the truth of predestination can never be a proud individual. You will always have to be humble. If I am more successful than someone else, it is nothing to boast of for if they had been me, the case would have been reversed, and I had no choice in being what I am, but I am what I am, and he is what he is, because he was born that way. What I have done with the faculties and the talents with which I was born is quite another matter, which of course, is our responsibility, on which we will be judged. But we shall certainly not be judged by how we were born, but what we have done after we were born. You were born a sinner, my friend, not by choice, and therefore, God will not judge you because you are a sinner, but because you refuse the remedy which He has provided in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual Predestination We have outlined all these facts so that you may see that predestination in the physical, the mental and the emotional, is a fact, and nothing that we are to stumble over. No one can deny it. Whether you think it just or unjust makes absolutely no difference, for it is a fact that must be faced. Why then object to the Bible teaching of election and predestination? Again, you may rebel and struggle and deny or ignore it, but the fact still remains just as true as it is in the physical, the mental, and emotional. We have already referred to Romans 9, the great chapter on sovereign grace. In it Paul discusses the fact of grace, and uses the nation of Israel as an example. He points out that God chose the nation of Israel, not because of any superiority or excellence in themselves, but instead, He chose them that He might reveal what God's grace can do with an utterly unworthy and rebellious nation. And that is true of the individual of which the nation is used as an illustration. God has chosen the poor, the unworthy, the vile, so no one could possibly boast that God chose them because they were better than others, but instead to exhibit what the grace of God can do with the vilest and the most wretched and the meanest, that "no flesh should glory in His presence." Turning now to Romans 9, once more, God calls attention to the father of the nation of Israel and says, concerning Jacob and his brother Esau: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Romans 9:11-13 The language in this passage is clear. God chose Jacob and rejected Esau. And the reason which He gives is because of His own purpose in grace and God's election, and all of this was before Jacob or Esau were ever born. Now that seems on the surface to be unfair, for then Esau never had a chance. Now Paul anticipated that objection and in the next verse states it for us in these words: "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid." Romans 9:14 No! indeed, says Paul, we may not question God, and so he adds in the next verse: "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Romans 9:15 There you have it, my friend. You can take it or leave it. That is what God has to say. It is still His Word, and to prove it Paul calls attention to the case of Pharaoh, the oppressor of Israel. "For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." Romans 9:17-18 Now I hear you say, If that is true, then how can God blame the lost for being lost after all. If it is God's will to elect only some, can he change God's will. Again we turn to Paul, for he has already anticipated the answer in verse 19: "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?" Romans 9:19 Will you find fault with God and question what He does? Will you call God to an accounting to tell you why He chooses as He does? After all, who are we to question God? Our business is to bow before His sovereign will, not to accuse him of unjustly dealing with us. And so Paul continues in the next verse: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" Romans 9:20-21 Paul seems to say, "Who are you to find fault with Almighty God? You, a puny, little speck of dust, a helpless creature, an insignificant creature of a few fleeting days, finite and rebellious, sinful and wicked, you, you little insignificant man, who are you to question the eternal, omnipotent, sovereign Almighty Creator? God does not have to give an accounting to you at all." But here comes the wonder of wonders. Though God has a perfect right to send all men into the pit of hell forever, and damn them into the pit for eternity, He has nevertheless provided a way whereby such rebellious sinners can be saved. There is another truth in Scripture, the truth of the necessity that we who have no claim whatsoever to God's mercy and grace can nevertheless be saved by His love. As clear as the doctrine of God's sovereignty is the revelation of His invitation that "whosoever will" may come and may be saved. Since God is sovereign, is there anyone else who is better able to save us? Since I am utterly helpless to save myself, what better reason in all the world is there for me to flee only to Him who alone can save. Do not say, I am helpless so I can do nothing about it. Rather say, because I am helpless, I will go to the only One who can help me. Though God can in justice send all of us into the pit of perdition forever, He has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the Cross that you and I and anyone who will acknowledge their sinful helplessness and His loving, sovereign grace may be saved. He calls today: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 Certainly if God had not done all that He did at Calvary in giving us His Son an offering for salvation, there might be some excuse for blaming God, but now that He has opened the way and called you, for a personal decision, leaves you without an excuse in the sight of Almighty God. Listen to His call once again: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1 Come now, and be saved. From Election and Predestination and the Free Will of Man: A Scriptural Study of the Doctrine of Sovereign Grace and Human Responsibility. Five Radio Sermons by M. R. DeHaan. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Radio Bible Class, 194-?].
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The Name
by Franklin Graham
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