Spoken Word no. 144
Our Calling and Election made sure
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
February 7, 2010
Good morning,
this morning let’s read from paragraph 150 When the unwise virgin, wants oil, and
while she's buying it, that's the time that the Bridegroom come. Oh, you
Pentecostals, what's the matter? Well, you
can't see it unless God shows it to you; that's one thing sure. If you wasn't born back yonder,
predestinated to it, you're going to miss it. Blessed are their ears that
can hear; blessed are the hearts that can understand, for the time is at hand,
every sign pointing to it. See?”
Notice that Brother Branham tells us that unless you
were predestinated to it you will never see it. So we need to know about this
process here of predestination, and what it is all about.
For starters we need to understand the difference
between Predestination and election. Between election and being called.
In 2 Peter 1: 10 we
read, “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and your election sure: for if ye do
these things, ye shall never fall:” Now, this word calling was
translated from a Greek word which means invitation. Then he uses then he
speaks of your election (and that word was
translated from a Greek word which speaks of your selection).
So
we see that there is first and foremost a choosing that must take place and
then an invitation to the one or ones that have been chosen.
2 Peter 1;10 “Wherefore
the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your invitation and your selection sure: for if ye do
these things, ye shall never fall:”
Notice
that that there is a difference between being first selected out, and then
being called or invited. You have to be selected out first, and that
word selected means that you did not have anything to do with it. It was not of
your choosing, You did not choose Him, He chose you, someone else chose you. You do not select
yourself to be called or put your name on the list to be invited. For, before
He ever called you He had already chose you out from among all others. The Word
elect or election then refers to the Divine Selection as we see in the
following Scriptures.
Acts 9: 15 But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear
my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of
Notice it is God who has done the choosing here. He
is a chosen vessel unto me. In other words, God is saying, I have chosen him
for myself.
And Paul tells us that this election is by Grace. In
other words, it is unmerited, which means nothing you do or will do has
anything to do with your being chosen. So that in itself ought to answer the
question of those who think that God foreknew that you would make the right
decisions and so based on his knowing your end from your beginning he makes his
decision. Therefore, in that scenario, whose decision is more important, yours
or Gods.
But Jesus answers this quite straight forward when
he says,
Jesus
said, JOHN 15:16
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: that whatsoever ye
shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. God
determines before the foundations of the world His desire to bestow upon you
the gift of faith, and thus the ability to make a right decision. Jesus said to
Peter, Blessed art thou Simon for Flesh and Blood has not revealed this to you
but my Father that is in heaven, and upon this rock (revelation) I will build
my church and the gates of hell shall never prevail.
False doctrine makes God's foreknowledge
of our believing the cause of His choosing, but in reality God's election is
the cause of His predestinating or pre-planning our destiny, and our believing
is only the effect of what He has already ordained. The Bible plainly tells us,
that We love Him BECAUSE he first Loved us...
But to think that our free moral agency has anything to do with it, you would
have to read that scripture as, "He loved us because we first loved Him",
which is shear folly to believe such .
In the
Scriptures we see that God gives us a certain Knowledge of Himself. The Greek
word for this knowledge is "Ginosko"
which is a certain Knowledge that is based upon an experience. We find that the
words "know" and "foreknow" signify much more than just a
mental cognition, but rather they show affection for the object in view. Mary
said, "How
can I be with child having known
no man?" Therefore, if the Word Know speaks of not only a mental
or cognitive understanding, but also shows affection for the one known, then we
can see why Scripture speaking of the foreknowledge of God speaks also of the
person rather than the action which is known or affectionately referred to.
You
do not have affection for actions, but rather affections are designed for
persons. Therefore in the Old Testament and New, we find the scriptures that
refer to the foreknowledge of God, all speak of His Love and affection for a
people, and not for the actions of those people.
In Exodus 33:17
we read, "I
know thee by name". Notice the object of God's affection is the
personal pronoun Thee. I know thee...
Again we find in Deuteronomy 9:24 "Ye have been
rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you". Notice again the use of the personal pronoun
"You."
Next we find in Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed thee
in the belly I knew thee".
Again we see the use of a personal Pronoun "Thee”
that God not only formed, but before He formed in the belly, He knew Thee.
Again in Amos 3:2 we read, "You only have I known
of all the families of the earth". And again we see the
personal pronoun You, that is spoken of here.
In the New
Testament we do not see any change of this principle, and yet how could we expect
to find any changes with a God who does not change.
In Matthew 7:23 the same principle can be found.
"Then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you".
In this case, although it speaks of those Who He did not foreknow, it also speaks of an
intimacy that he
did not have. In fact Dr. Hoyer said that this speaks of the great
divorcement. Why" For lack of intimacy. I never Knew you... I never knew you in
an intimate way as a man would know his wife.
In John 10:14 Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd and know My sheep and am known
of Mine". Now, here we see a noun being used as a personal
noun, in that the sheep represent a people who are known by Him.
In 1 Corinthians 8:3
Paul tells us, "If
any man love God, the same is known of
Him". Now, this is not saying that if any man love God first,
then God will know him, because the apostle John tells us, I John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”
Therefore, if He first Loved us, then our love is after the fact. Perhaps we
could reword this sentence then, to help you understand it better. Paul is
saying, "If
any man loves God, it is because he has already been known by God and Loved by God
first.
Because we also read in 2 Timothy 2:19
"The Lord knoweth them that are His".
And again you find the knowing speaks of a personal pronoun, and does not speak
of an action.
If we study
carefully every passage of Scriptures, we will find that Foreknowledge is never
used in Scripture in connection with events or actions; but rather in all cases
it is used in reference to persons. It is persons
that God "foreknows," and not the
actions of those persons.
Acts 2:23 "Him being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain." With a careful study of
the wording of this verse you will note that this was not speaking of God's
foreknowledge of the act of the crucifixion, but of the Person crucified: “Him” “Christ”
being delivered, etc.
You cannot read Romans 8:29-30 without coming to
this understanding that God elects, and thus as a result predestinates or predetermines the one that He elects.
"For whom He
did foreknow, (past tense, he
already did this) He also did (That is also past tense) predestinate to be conformed to the image of
His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He
did (again that is past tense) predestinate, them He also called,(and that
little –“ed” after the word let's you
know that the calling is also past tense. Then if the calling and predestining
and electing are all past tense, then what do you have to do with it at all?
The answer is nothing. You are the
objects of His affection even before you came to this world.)" And
again, I want you to notice the wording used here. This verse does not speak of
what, or of an action, but it speaks of whom He did
(past tense) foreknow.
The scriptures plainly teach is “It is not him that runneth nor him that willeth, but God that
showeth mercy.” Therefore the purpose and plan of God does not focus
on the action but rather the person.
In Romans 11:2
"God hath
not cast away His people which He foreknew" Notice again the
reference is to persons, His people...
In
I Peter 1:2:
we read, "Elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." Who are
"elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father"? Here again
the reference is to persons, and not to their foreseen acts.
Nowhere does the Scripture speak of the actions being foreknown, but rather the
persons are the ones foreknown. Scripture never speaks of repentance and faith
as being foreseen or foreknown by God. But we do see throughout Scripture that God
did know from all eternity that certain ones would repent and believe, yet nowhere
does Scripture refer to an action as the object of God's "foreknowledge." Then, if the Word of God
consistently refers to God's foreknowing of persons; then we should do as the
Apostle Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:13 "hold fast
the form of sound words".
All these
Scriptures that speak of the foreknowledge of God do not speak of his
foreknowledge as a result of someone's actions, but rather they point to the
purpose and plan of God. They all speak of His own Sovereign decrees, plans and
purpose. In Acts 2:23 we read, Christ was "delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God". His "counsel, purpose or plan was
the basis of His foreknowledge. Therefore you cannot read Romans 8:29 without first reading
verse 28 which says, "all things work together for good to them . . . who are the called
according to His purpose." Thus God's "foreknowledge"
is based upon His own purpose" or decree and as a result he send
forth the invitation to come. We see also in Psalms 2:7, "I will declare the
decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten
thee. "
God foreknows what will be because He has
decreed what shall be. He planned it that way. Therefore when men say God
foreknew what your choice would be and therefore made His election or choice
based on your choice they are not rightly dividing the Word of Truth, but are
un-rightly dividing it and have reversed the order of Scripture, thus putting
the cart before the horse.
The truth is,
He "foreknows" because He has elected. This removes the cause of
election from the creature, and places it in God's own sovereign will. God
purposed in Himself to elect a certain people, not because of anything good in
them or from them, either actual or foreseen, but solely out of His own mere
pleasure. As to why He chose the ones He did, we do not know, and can only say,
"Even so, Father, for it seemed good in Thy sight."
The plain truth of Rom. 8:29 is that God, before the
foundation of the world, singled out certain persons and selected them out for
Election and then in the process of time calls them.
In II Thess. 2:13 we read If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he
cannot deny himself.
This
should make it clear that God does not base His election on what we choose but
rather what He has divinely planned as we see that in Romans 8:29, "Predestinated to be
conformed to the image of His son," God did not predestinate
those whom were already "conformed," but, on the contrary, those whom
he "foreknew He
predestinated to be conformed to the image of His First born son"
Thus our conformity to Christ is not the cause, but the effect of God's
foreknowledge and predestination. God did not elect any because He foresaw that
they would believe, for the simple reason that no sinner can believe until God
gives him faith to believe.
No
man can see the things of God until God first gives Him of his own Spirit to
see the things of God. Sight is God's gift, Believing is God's gift, and seeing
is the consequence of using the gift of faith.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Again the scriptures teach us, “For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them...” Notice then we can see that God ordains
beforehand that we should walk in the Faith. Believing then is the consequence
of our using His gift of faith. If it were true that God had elected certain
ones to be saved because in due time they would believe, then that would make
believing a meritorious act, and in that event the saved sinner would have
ground for "boasting," which Scripture emphatically denies.
The Apostle Paul said
"what do you
have that was not given to you? And if it was given to you, then why do you
boast as though you haven't received it?"
And He also said in Romans 3: 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By
what, the law? By works? Nay: but by faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is
justified by faith without the deeds of the law. And if you are
justified by Faith and Faith is revelation, something God has revealed to you,
then you didn't get it because you are smarter than the next guy, and you
didn't get it because you got more people following you than the next guy. You
got it because God revealed it to you, so humble down brother.
1 Corinthians 14:36
What? came the
word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?
37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge
that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. 38 But
if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
Now, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:11 For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things
of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God knoweth. So unless God
has given you of His Spirit you have nothing. So whether you have or whether
you do not have, it all goes back to what God has done. And then if you have
anything it is because God gave it, so how can you be so proud that you could
boast when you had nothing to do with it in the first place except you are just
a vessel that God has chosen to place His Word in.
God's Word plainly states that believing
is not a meritorious act. In Matthew 13: 10 - 17 we see that not everyone is
ordained to see, or to understand. Therefore, we can plainly see here that God
elects some to Glory while others He does not choose. And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why
speakest thou unto them in parables? 11
He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given,
and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be
taken away even that he hath.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and
hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of
Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and
seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of
hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with
their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart,
and should be converted, and I should heal them. 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see:
and your ears, for they hear. 17 For
verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see
those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things
which ye hear, and have not heard them.
Notice that
Jesus Himself said it is not given to some to see and understand, but to others
it is given. The Scriptures tell us that we are able to believe
because of Grace. If, then, we believe "through grace,"
there is absolutely nothing meritorious about "believing," and if there
is nothing meritorious, then merit could not be the grounds or the cause which
moved God to choose us. No; God's choice proceeds not from anything in us, or
anything from us, but solely from His own sovereign pleasure. In Acts 13:48
we read, "as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed". Therefore we
can conclude that believing depends upon having been ordained to eternal life. It
does not say, as many as believed are ordained to eternal Life. That would make
believing the cause of Eternal Life, and then it would not be by grace nor
faith. But believing is a result of something God did, not something we do. We
can not believe if we do not understand what it is we are believing. And it
takes God’s Spirit in us to understand, thus to believe the things of God.
Once more, in Romans 11:5,
we read of "a remnant according to the election of grace."
So there it is, plain enough; Election
itself is of grace, and grace is unmerited favor, something for which we
had no claim upon God whatsoever. It appears then that it is highly important
for us to have a clear and Scriptural view of "foreknowledge".
Erroneous thinking concerning God's Foreknowledge leads inevitably to thoughts
that dishonor God, and puffs up man, and gives us a wrong understanding of the
attributes of God, and thus God Himself.
The popular idea of the foreknowledge of God
is altogether inadequate. God not only knew the end from the beginning, but He
planned it, and fixed it, and predestinated everything from the beginning. And,
as cause stands to effect, so God's purpose is the grounds for His
predestination. If then you are a true Christian, you can only be that way
because God chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world as we see in
Ephesians 1:4,
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: 5 Having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved.
He chose you,
not because He foresaw you would believe, but He chose you simply because it
pleased Him to choose whosoever He wishes to choose. And the truth of the
matter is that He chose you regardless of your natural unbelief. And because
this is so, then all glory, praise and honor, belong to Him alone. You have no
grounds for taking any credit for yourself. You have according to Acts 18:27
"believed through grace",
and your very election was "of grace"
That’s
what Paul taught anyway, in Romans 11:5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant
according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise
grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace:
otherwise work is no more work.
That
is why Paul tells us that the purpose of God is according to His Election. Romans 9: 11 (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;)
And if God chose us then we ought to respond to God
in a manner that is fitting to His choosing. 1
Thessalonians 1: 4 Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.
Therefore as we
saw earlier in this study in 2 Peter 1:10 that
both our calling and our election are mentioned here and as we have seen, they
are two different words. We have thus far discussed our being selected out,
that is our election, but Peter also speaks of our being called which we know
is God’s invitation to those whom He has selected.
2 Peter 1: 10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election
sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
Now, let’s look at that other word calling to see
what it means. Notice that it speaks of an invitation. The selection to be
invited comes first and then the invitation goes forth.
In Philippians 3: 14 Paul
calls it the High calling. “I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
In Hebrews 3: 1 Paul
calls it the heavenly calling, which then places the one who is doing the
calling in Heaven, so it is not your own desire to be called that has anything
to do with it, but rather it is God who calls or invites you to do His bidding.
“Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider
the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;”
And therefore if it is God who is calling or
inviting you, then there is a certain response that is required of this calling
as we see in Ephesians 4: 1 I
therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the
vocation wherewith ye are called,
And why should we walk worthy of something that is
given us by Grace? We find our answer in 2 Thessalonians 1: 11
Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this
calling, and fulfill all the good
pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: And how is this
possible? Because He which began the work in you shall finish it, if you will
just get out of the way and let Him.
And this calling is a holy calling as we see in 2 Timothy 1: 9 Who hath saved us, and called
us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, Therefore if it is a holy calling, or a holy
invitation, then it is not a social Gospel, nor is it a social Message, but it
is a personal calling to walk in the light with a Holy God as He is in that
Light, and while walking in that Light the blood of Jesus Christ sanctifies us
from all our sins.
Paul said in Ephesians 4: 4 There is one body, and one
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; And not many are called or invited by God to come, so
you had better realize this is a very precious thing this calling, this
invitation that God has given you, so be careful not t trample upon it and take
it for granted like so many are doing today, because Paul taught us in Romans 11: 29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
What does he mean there? Many are called but only
few are chosen. So the chosen receive a call to come, but the non elect also
hear that call and they come, but they get side tracked somewhere along the
way, and the Message becomes to them a social gathering, and they loose their
focus on the day of His visitation and get caught up in other things.
Paul also said concerning this call from God, 1 Corinthians 1: 26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
But the purpose of the call is to get ready for the
inheritance. The purpose is to know that you are indeed a son of God and as a
son then a joint heir with the Son of God as Paul says in Ephesians 1: 18 The
eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope
of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the
saints,
Isaiah 65: 9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob,
and out of
So God came down in this hour with the Spirit of
Wisdom and Revelation of Himself to make known to us the manifold promises that
He has for us as sons, and to open our eyes to what our inheritance is all
about.
Therefore as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7: 20 Let every man abide in the same calling
wherein he was called.
Now,
in getting back to our text this morning, let’s read again from 2 Peter 1;10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your
calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
So we see Election is God’s Divine selection. It
comes before the we are even called. And this calling is our invitation to come
forward and accept what our election is all about. So we see that the calling and
election are two different things. First you are selected out and then called
or invited to come forth to manifest what you were elected or chosen to be. And
Election is based upon Foreknowledge, which is God knowing before hand and then
selecting you out.
That is why Peter said in 1 Peter 1: 2 Elect
according to the foreknowledge of God
the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
And as God’s elect or chosen we should live a
certain way that will reflect a positive attitude for what God has done for us.
“Put
on therefore, as the elect of God,
holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness,
longsuffering;” Colossians
3: 12
Because we are living in a day that God Himself has
come down to not only make sure our election, but to bring to pass our calling,
and to make sure we are aware that He has called us to share in the great
inheritance he has for us. Jesus said in Matthew 24:
31 And he shall send his angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather
together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the
other.
And
again in Mark 13: 27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the
four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of
heaven.
Because we are living in a day that is very
treacherous. Not only is their deception at every hand, but there is also
danger from almost every walk of life as well. It is now being investigated at
the international level because there is documented evidence that the big
pharmaceutical have been bribing certain people who work for the World health
Organization, and they have conspired together to change the definition of what
is actually a pandemic so they could urge the countries to buy up 18 billion
dollars worth of H1N1 vaccine which proved itself to be a totally a worthless
vaccine.
Oh yes, deceiving and being deceived. And so they
think nothing of jeopardizing the lives of the people in every nation so they
can profit from a hoax flu which was so weak that it has proven to be the
weakest strain of flu for the past 20 years.
They think nothing of printing up 8 trillion dollars
for a so called bail out when they haven’t given out the money yet to anyone in
need. They have paid out to foreign banks who are part of the board of
directors who make up the FED, and they have paid out their own banks that they
worked for before they became directors of the FED, and they have set aside
money for the re-elections of themselves so their war chests will not go empty.
Criminals, every one of them,
lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural
affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of
those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more
than lovers of God;
We are warned in Mark 13:
20 And except that the Lord had shortened those
days, no flesh should be saved: but for
the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.
And in Matthew 24: 22 And except those days should
be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. And again in Matthew 24:
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and
false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it
were possible, they shall deceive the
very elect.
But through all this deception, we are promised that
we will not be deceived, and God will not allow the health issues to get so bad
that He will take us out before the conditions get so bad that no flesh would
be saved.
And he promised to hear our prayers when things get
so bad that we can not take it any longer. Luke 18:
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear
long with them?
Now, in closing, let me share one last promise for God’s
elect. Romans 8: 33 Who
shall lay any thing to the charge of God's
elect? It is God that justifieth. So
if it is God that justifies us, then it is not your ability to understand and
know because of your own ability, but rather, it is what He has ordained for
us, and He has come down in this hour to make sure it happens.
Let
us pray…