to study it on your own as well and to read the chapter through. I'd like to begin at page 44 of the article 1 under this first head of doctrine, divine election, reprobation. Article 1. This is really the foundation and starting point for the whole of the canons. It says, as all men have sinned in Adam, lie under the curse and are deserving of eternal death, God would have done no injustice by leaving them all to perish and delivering them over to condemnation on account of sin, according to the words of the apostle, that every mouth would be stopped and all the world would be brought under the judgment of God. And for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and for the wages of sin is death. And then to Article six. That some receive the gift of the gift of faith from God and others do not receive it. proceeds from God's eternal decree. For known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world, who worketh all things after the counsel of his will. According to which decree, he graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines them to believe, while he leads the non-elect in his just judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy. And herein is especially displayed the profound, the merciful, and at the same time, the righteous discrimination between men equally involved in ruin or that decree of election and reprobation revealed in the word of God, which, though men of perverse, impure and unstable minds rest to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords unspeakable consolation. And then after mentions election reprobation, I'd like to read one article concerning each of those. First of all, about election. Article seven election. Article seven election is the unchangeable purpose of God, whereby before the foundation of the world he has out of mere grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of his own will chosen from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault. from their primitive state of rectitude into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ, whom he from eternity appointed the mediator and head of the elect and the foundation of salvation. This elect number, though by nature neither better nor more deserving than others, but with them involved in one common misery, God has decreed to give to Christ to be saved by Him, and effectually to call and draw them to His communion by His Word and Spirit, to bestow upon them true faith, justification and sanctification, and having powerfully preserved them in the fellowship of His Son, finally to glorify them for the demonstration of His mercy and for the praise of the riches of His glorious grace. As it is written, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love, having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. And elsewhere whom He foreordained, them He also called, And whom He called, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. And then finally, to Article 15 concerning reprobation. Article 15. It says, What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the eternal and unmerited grace of election is the expressed testimony of sacred Scripture that not all, but some only are elected while others are passed by in the eternal decree, whom God, out of His sovereign, most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure, has decreed to leave in the common misery into which they have willfully plunged themselves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the grace of conversion. but permitting them in his just judgment to follow their own ways. At last, for the declaration of his justice to condemn and punish them forever, not only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their other sins. And this is the decree of reprobation, which by no means makes God the author of sin, the very thought of which is blasphemy. But declares him to be an awful, irreprehensible and righteous judge and avenger thereof. Congregation of Christ, what accounts for the fact that some believe and others do not? This morning throughout the world, the Gospel is preached. The Word goes forward. The same Gospel is preached to one and to another. One believes and another does not. And what accounts for that? That's the question by which the canons here come to this subject of election. Apart from God's choice, His electing choice, all men would reject Christ. It's not that all men are good and ready to believe, waiting to put their faith in Christ, but that God prevents some from believing. It's just the opposite. All men are dead in sin. All men love darkness. All men reject the Gospel. And the only reason some come to believe is because God has chosen them to give them faith and to bring them to Himself. The point we see this morning, the point we hope to see five times over as we study the canons, is simply this. that the Lord is sovereign in salvation. The Lord is sovereign in salvation. Salvation belongs to the Lord. He gets all the glory. He's the King. He saves and He saves completely. He doesn't simply make salvation possible, but He saves His people. And that means great joy for God's people. Great comfort. Before we dig into this matter this morning, let me just say that the canons were written in response to a controversy, a wrong teaching. That wrong teaching is not over. It continues today. There are many Arminians, even those who never heard the name Arminian before. They are followers of Jacob Arminius in this sense that they don't believe in God's sovereignty and salvation. And while we. We must uphold our confession with all humility, acknowledging that whatever we've gotten right, whatever we understand correctly is a gift of grace from God to us. Nothing that we deserve. Yet, because we know that these doctrines are scriptural, because we confess that they bring God glory, we want to share them. We want to promote them. And if necessary, we want to defend them. So we should have a real interest in what God's Word says about God's work of salvation. This morning, then we consider that God's eternal decision of predestination. First of all, the explanation of it. Secondly, the objections to it. And then thirdly, consider a bit of the benefits or the advantages to knowing this. Well, let us seek to define God's decision here. The canons begin in Article one by saying all men deserve eternal death. Wages of sin is death and all men are sinners. Article two, that God and his love sent forth his son to save sinners. Article three, that God sends forth messengers to proclaim the salvation of Christ. Article four, though some believe, others do not. And those who don't believe God's wrath abides on them. But having laid all that out in the confession takes up this question, this crucial question, why do some believe and not others? Why do some believe and not others? Why do some turn to Christ and repentance while others remain obstinate in their rebellion, the refusal to seek Christ? Well, the answer of the Bible is not, as many would say still today, The answer to the Bible is not man's free will. That's not the answer. That's not the reason that men are distinguished, that some of their own free will believe and others do not. And that's the ultimate answer. God has done the same thing for everyone. And some of their own free will choose for Christ and some choose against. That's not the answer of the Bible. The answer of the Bible is that some believe because God has chosen them. He has elected them and others do not believe because God has chosen to leave them in their sin. He has not elected them, but reprobated them, passed them by and left them to their sin. So the two sides of predestination and we do believe in double predestination, the two sides are election and reprobation. God chooses to save some. God chooses to leave others in their sin. God chooses to bring some in Christ to salvation. God chooses to pass by others, to leave them in their sin and to condemn them for their sins. But we believe the sovereign God has predestined or predetermined the destiny of every soul in the universe that has ever been or will ever be. Ours is a predestining God. But now the passage we read in Ephesians is taken up not with reprobation, but with the glory of God in election. It begins by singing praise to God. Blessed be, verse 3, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. In other words, we have in the spiritual realm every blessing in the world. And where does that all come from? What's the fountainhead of all blessing? Verse 4, even as He chose us in Him, He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us. Those verses are rich with meaning, aren't they? And they answer at least three significant questions that we should ask about election. The when, the why, and the how. First of all, when did God elect or when did God choose us? The answer of Ephesians 1 is that He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. What an amazing thing it is. To pause this morning and to think Not a hundred years ago, not before Columbus discovered this land, not just a hundred years or a thousand years before that, but before God made anything. He had already chosen to save us. What a comfort that our salvation is not a recent thought. It's not here today and gone tomorrow. It's not a guy who walked down the street suddenly decides to ask some girl to marry him. But it is a choice of God from eternity, from before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1.11 says that having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. God has an all encompassing plan. Everything that happens in this universe is what God has foreordained, what God has chosen to happen from before the creation of the universe. In fact, God's works are known to him from all eternity. From all eternity, God set his love upon us as people, so the wind The wind is from all eternity from before the foundation of the world. But what about the why? Why did God choose us? Why did God choose us? The answer of Scripture and answer Ephesians one is that it wasn't based on anything in us. This is why we call this doctrine unconditional election. It wasn't that we met some condition, we met some criteria, that we were lovely people, a kind people, or we're going to do something and we compel God to choose us. Just the opposite. God's choice of us was not in any way based upon the worthiness of those he chose. Now, the Armenian position differs, doesn't it? The Armenians say that God chose based upon the faith that he foresaw that you would have. So God looked down the corridors of time and he saw that you would believe. He saw that you would respond to Christ. He saw that you would live a holy life. And he said, OK, then I choose you because I see you're going to choose me. Election based on foreseen faith. Often the texts that speak of God's foreknowledge are appealed to God for new, it says right there, he foreknew I would believe. Well, it says he foreknew. Romans 8, it doesn't say you foreknew you would believe. And in fact, the word foreknowledge in the Bible doesn't mean the bare knowledge of some things that will happen. Foreknowledge, to know, is to love in the Bible. God foreloved us. The Arminians say election is based upon God foreknowing our faith, foreseeing our obedience. But that's not what the Scriptures say. In fact, notice Ephesians 1, that it says God chose us, verse 4, before the foundation of the world, not because He saw we would be holy and blameless, but He chose us that or so that We should be holy and blameless. In other words, the question is this. Is faith the foundation of election God chooses because we will believe or is faith the gift of election because God chooses us? He gives us faith. That's the answer. Ephesians one is clearly the latter. That God chose us to make us what he wanted us to be. Holy and blameless. He didn't chose us because he saw we would be. For if God had not chosen, if God had not changed us, what would we be? Not holy and blameless at all. Unconditional election. God did not choose us because we had the right color eyes or the right shape nose. God did not choose us because he said that one's going to respond rightly to me. God's choice of us is not God's seconding our motion. You make a motion to believe in God says I second that. That's not it. But election is the very source and foundation of all the blessings we have, including faith, which is a gift Ephesians 2. Why, then, did God choose us if it wasn't based on any condition we met? Well, the answer, Ephesians 1, is God loved us. Verse 4 and 5, in love He predestined us. The answer, Ephesians 1, is according to God's good pleasure or according to the purpose of His will, meaning it pleased God. You say, well, why did it please God to choose me? Well, beyond what the Scriptures say here, we cannot go. The object or the condition is found in the Lord. The foundation is God Himself, not in us. Yet, why does God in Himself choose us and not others? That we cannot answer. But God told Israel in Deuteronomy 7, I chose you and set my love upon you, not because you were the greatest of all people, so numerous. You were the smallest of all peoples, but I loved you. I loved you because I loved you. I chose you because I chose you. I did it because it pleased me. That's the answer of the Bible. And beyond that, we cannot go. So the wind is before the foundation of the world. That's when God chose us to be His people, to save us. The why? The why is God Himself. He chose us not because of us, but because of Him. He chose to give a people to His Son. But to how? How did God choose us? You know, we have to ask that question. How could the Holy God who delights in His righteousness choose to have us, a sinful people, to be His children? How could the Lord who delights in holiness choose us? Well, the answer is what? The answer is Christ. Go through Ephesians 1 sometime, verses 3-14, which was one sentence in the original language, and count up how many times it says Christ, or the Lord, or in Him, in Him, in Him. And you begin to understand very clearly that salvation is all about Christ Jesus. He chose us in Him, verse 4, before the foundation of the world. God appointed Christ from all eternity to be the One who would reconcile us to God. To be the One who would vindicate God's justice. To be the One who would pay the price of our sin. 1 Peter 1 says that you were bought with the precious blood of Christ and that He was chosen. He was foreordained. He was foreknown from before the foundation of the world. Isn't that amazing? that from before creation, even from all eternity, God had chosen Christ as our mediator, as our Savior. And brothers and sisters, that means then that election is not just that God chooses us and chooses us from before the foundation of the world, but at the bottom of all election is that God has chosen Christ. He's appointed Christ to be the Savior in whom He chooses us. He's appointed Christ to be the mediator who would take away our sin and give it to us as righteousness and bring us to God. He's appointed Christ to be our representative who presents us to the Father and stands in our place before the bar of justice. What all this means is that those who are saved were never even contemplated as being God's people. Never even conceived of as being predestined apart from Christ. It's all in Christ. God never for a moment considered us in terms of salvation apart from Christ the Lord. Now when we see that, then we see that there's a glorious, glorious blessing and comfort here that our union with Christ Wasn't something we thought up when we first believed. Our union with Christ wasn't something that was thought up when Christ was upon the cross. But our union with Christ was foreordained from all eternity. What a blessing. What great hope for us sinners. What rich comfort when we... Maybe you wonder this morning, are my sins too grievous for the Lord? Can He really save me? Will He really accept me? Well, this election of God shows the character of God's love. God didn't love you because of what you would do for Him. God didn't love you because He saw that you would win the battle against such and such a sin. God didn't set His love upon you because He knew that you would respond and be this kind of a person. God's love precedes all of that. God chose you in Christ. In Christ who would pay your price. He chose you in Christ from before the foundation of the world. God didn't wait to see what our response would be. He didn't look ahead to see how we would turn out. But he said his love upon us in Christ from before the foundation of the world. That's the teaching of election, the teaching of election. But but there are objections to that teaching of election and and its counterpart reprobation. That's what we want to consider very briefly here in the second place objections. When we speak about God is sovereign in salvation in this way, there are many who who would object, and they bring a litany of objections. I want to mention three of them this morning. First of all, the objection is often put forward. It's not fair. It's not fair. If God chooses to save some and chooses not to save others, that's not fair. The canons use some interesting language. They speak of God's righteous discrimination. We were brought up in a culture that says there's no such thing as righteous discrimination. We confess in the canons there is righteous discrimination. God has righteously distinguished between two peoples, one to be saved and one to be sentenced to hell. There are many who say, I just can't believe in a God that would choose to save some and choose to send others to hell. It's not fair. Well, the fairness is established in Article 1 of the Canons, that all men have sinned. All men are under the curse. All men deserve eternal death. That God would have done no injustice by leaving them all to perish. Quotes from Romans 3, that every mouth would be stopped and all the world be brought under the judgment of God. All have sinned. All fall short of the glory of God. Fair, fair is that everyone goes to hell. That's fair. So as long as people go to hell, there's fairness. But if God chooses to save some out of all those destined or deserving of hell, if he chooses to save some and destined them to heaven, that's grace. The amazing thing is not that some people go to hell. The amazing thing is that anyone goes to heaven. That's the answer of God's Word. No one gets sentenced to hell who is righteous. No one gets predestined to hell who walks in perfect obedience. Everyone goes to hell for their own sin and for their sin in Adam. But that God saves some, that's amazing grace. But the second objection often brought up is this, that if God is sovereign, if he chooses beforehand, then that violates the free will of man. We must be clear about this business of free will. Does man have a free will? Well, before the fall into sin, man had a free will. He could choose to obey God or choose to disobey God. He was free with respect to that. But at the moment that Adam chose to disobey God, at that moment, he threw away the gift of righteousness and holiness and plunged himself into sin. At that moment, his heart became dead and wicked and enslaved to sin. Does man have a free will today? Well, yes, in the sense that God doesn't compel him. To sin. But does man have a free will really? Well, no, his will is enslaved us. And the only thing he can choose, the only thing he has the ability to choose is sin, unless God gives him a new heart, unless God gives him a new heart. And some would say, well, then I guess if if God brings some people to himself, that he treats them like robots, he just programs them or he treats them like blocks of wood, he just moves them to himself. Well, no, we'll go on to consider that later, that that whenever God saves someone, he gives them a new heart. He gives them a new heart. And out of that new heart they do believe. Out of that new heart they want to believe. God restores us to His image. R.B. Kuyper says, when God wills to save a sinner, the first thing He does is to make the sinner willing to be saved. When God wills to save a sinner, the first thing He does is to make the sinner willing to be saved. If a person is sick and a doctor gives him medicine that makes him healthy and restores his appetite, and the person begins to eat, No one alleges that the doctor forced him to eat. The doctor simply restored him so his appetite was appropriate again. And so it is that God gives a new heart. And out of that new heart, we do believe and we want to believe. By the same token, God doesn't force anyone to sin. Yes, He has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy. He hardened whom He wants to harden. He hardened Pharaoh's heart. But He didn't take this beautifully good heart of Pharaoh and make it do evil things. He simply gave Pharaoh over to the sin and the hardness that was already in his heart. But a third objection often brought up against the teaching of God's sovereignty and salvation is this, that if God elects and God reprobates, if everything is predetermined, then it removes all the motivation and all the need for evangelism. God's going to save whom God will save, so what's the point? Somewhat alleged that it makes preaching than a useless work. We don't need to be eager in missions and evangelism. And maybe I myself don't even really need to worry about coming to church or wrestling against sin or striving to believe on Christ. Because, you know, if God elected me, I'll get to heaven. If God didn't elect me, then I'm going to hell and there's nothing that can be done. All of that is very contrary to the teaching of Scripture for a number of reasons. Number one, because God's sovereignty does not cancel out human responsibility. Though, how these two things fit together, we cannot describe in all detail. But we know that throughout the Scriptures, God demands repentance and faith. God insists there is an urgency to the Gospel. God gives urgent warnings that if you walk away in carelessness, you're playing with your life. All of that's very real. Number two, The same God who is sovereign in salvation is the God who commissioned His church to go and to make disciples. Right? Matthew 28. The same God who is sovereign and has elected and reprobated is the God who has said to the church, go out and preach the Word and do so urgently. And number three, the same God who has sovereignly chosen to save is the God who has sovereignly chosen the means by which men will be saved. We can't ever forget that. That God doesn't just zap people into salvation. But God has appointed. God has chosen. God has foreordained that through the preaching of the Word, men will be saved. Romans 10. Faith comes by hearing. The sovereign God appointed it that way. So He will use our prayers. He will use the preaching of the church. He will use the witness of His people Because he before time has chosen, has appointed that he will use it. Many more objections we could consider, but but to everyone, the Bible has an answer. And even where mystery remains, and indeed, these are deep and weighty things. Where mystery remains, we fall beneath the word of God and we submit ourselves to what has been spoken. As we do that, then we enjoy finally the benefits, the benefits of God's eternal decision, the benefits of knowing this. That's the third point of our sermon. It is remarkable that God has not only made an eternal decision, he has predestined everyone, but It is amazing that God has also revealed it, and revealed it not in one or two places in the mile, but in an abundance of places. You can read Ephesians 1. You can read numerous verses. You can read Romans 9 through 11. You can read on and on throughout the Scriptures. But why has God revealed it? Two reasons. So that he gets the glory, and so his people get comfort. If you go to the very end of the Canons of Dort, They end with a little prayer. A little prayer which says in the last sentence. It's on page 66 in the Psalter hymnal. But the prayer ends by asking God to equip faithful ministers of his word with the spirit of wisdom and discretion that all their discourses, in other words, all their teaching about these things that are found in the canons, that all their discourses may tend to the glory of God and to the edification of those who hear them. In other words, in all the preaching and the teaching about election, about limited atonement, about irresistible grace, about the perseverance of the saints, the point is that God gets glorified and His people get built up. There are many people who have mishandled these deep truths of Scripture. who have gone beyond the Word of God and proclaiming things the Word doesn't say, who have twisted the Word of God or have used these truths just to start arguments, who love to fight. None of that is the point. The true test of right doctrine is does it glorify God and does it edify God's people? God gets the glory in predestination. God gets the glory in His reprobation. That God has chosen to pass some by and to leave them in their sin and to judge them for that sin. God gets the glory in that. We confess in the canons it doesn't make God the author of sin, but it reveals Him as the fearful, the irreproachable, just judge and avenger. The fact that God has before time chosen to leave some to their sin and to send them to hell that he has destined some to eternal suffering reveals the holiness of the Lord and the justice of his judgment. As we see the severity of God's justice, we fall down and we confess it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We confess our God is a consuming fire. He's not a God to be trifled with. Sin is not a little blemish. God is a holy, holy, holy God and vengeance is His. And even while we cannot fathom all of God's ways, we cry out then with the Apostle Paul in Romans 11, oh, the depths, oh, the depths of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments, how inscrutable His ways. The Apostle ends, to Him be the glory forever. God gets the glory in reprobation and God gets the glory in election. God gets the glory in manifesting now in election, not the severity of His justice, but the glory of His mercy. That God Himself would take the place of sinners. That the Son of God would hang upon the cross and believe for us. What a marvelous, marvelous thing. God could have started over. God could have destroyed the world. But instead, He purposed to send His own Son as our mediator. Glory be to God. The Apostle is saying that over and over in Ephesians 1, blessed be the God and Father. And he keeps talking about how we're saved to the praise of His glory. Verse 14, to the praise of His glory. Our salvation is not, first of all, even or last of all, about us getting to heaven or us getting saved. But God is saving us for the glory of his name. He's manifesting his glory by bringing us to himself. But as we see God's glory, so we also find our comfort. To know that if we love God, he must have loved us first, huh? For those who say election is based upon God foreseeing our faith. There's really not any comfort in election, is there? Because if it all depends on me, I might wake up tomorrow morning and not believe anymore and find out God didn't choose me. How could we ever go to sleep knowing that God would keep our souls Unless we believe the Lord reigns in the midst of salvation. Unless we believe, John 10, that no one, nothing can snatch us out of Christ's hand or the Father's hand. Article 11 says, and as God himself is most wise, unchangeable, omniscient and omnipotent. So the election made by Him can neither be interrupted nor changed, recalled or annulled, neither can the elect be cast away, nor their number diminished." Because God is God, salvation is certain. Those whom God chose before time will live with God after time in heaven. Every name God wrote down before He created the world will find its place at the banquet hall filled, its seat not empty, but filled with the sinner God has saved. Romans 8 gives to us that glorious what's called the golden chain of salvation that those God foreknew and predestined He glorifies. That there are these solid links all bound together from before time to in time calling us sovereignly, bringing us to Himself, justifying us, glorifying us. There's a chain here that can't be broken. Those foreknown, those predestined will be glorified. It's certain. every link bound to the next. That is the comfort in which we rejoice. That is the wonder of God's salvation that He saves and He saves completely. Homer Hoeksema summarizes it well. God's election is absolutely unchangeable because God is unchangeable. Election cannot be changed because God is most wise. It need not be changed because God is omniscient. It cannot be foiled because God is omnipotent. It cannot be thwarted and obstructed. What a comfort for the elect child of God. So we fall down before the Lord and we say, glory be to you. Salvation belongs to the Lord. We rejoice day after day. Whatever struggles come, whatever trials come, we say glory be to you, Lord. You are saving us and saving us completely. Amen. Our Father in heaven, we praise your great and holy name. Great is the Lord and wondrous things you do. It's you who works salvation by your right arm and by the man at your right hand. Oh, great and holy God, who has chosen us from before the creation of the world, we praise you and we thank you for the revelation of election. We thank you for the assurance that we are your people now and forever. God, we pray you will forgive us. We have forgotten how small we are and how great you are. We pray that we might find our comfort in you and give to you all the praise of which you are worthy. In Jesus name. Amen.