Okay, Roscoe and Bubba, Part II.
Cozy up folks and let’s get to the second
half of the tale. I asked the question: “Why did Roscoe accept Jesus Christ and Bubba reject Him?” Most of you
got right up to the answer and then backed away. Over the last eight days and forty-odd answers, most of you attributed one’s
salvation and the other’s damnation to something each of them did or didn’t do. When pressed, you began to drag
God into it. When further pressed, you backed away. But that’s fine.
Let’s start with another question. Who,
born of men, is in and of himself deserving of salvation? That is, is there anyone on earth who God looks at and says “I’m
going to save that person because he/she has this quality, or did this thing that I like”? I suspect that all who have
been engaged in this conversation will say “No. There is no one who deserves salvation based on some quality intrinsic
to that person.”
In other words, all men start off as the children
of wrath. All men, if they die before accepting Jesus Christ as their savior, will stand before that same Christ at the last,
condemned to the lake of fire. There are no exceptions. All men are deserving only of hell. This sounds harsh, but I suspect
if you think it through, you will agree.
All men are born enemies of God,
unwilling and unable to obey God; unable and unwilling to please God by any act of their own (Romans 8:8, 9). If you look around you will see literally thousands of religions, all based on man’s
attempts to earn God’s approval. All of them fail. All of the people trusting their works through these religions are
children of wrath. All of those people who die as children of wrath are hell-bound. All men and women born of man are worthy
only of God’s wrath; all of them.
Bubba may have become a Mason in order to earn
God’s favor. But in his heart he knows he fails. Roscoe may have become a member of the Catholic Church, gone to confession
and Mass every day. But in his heart of hearts, he knows he fails to come up to the standards God has set. But because both
are dead in their sins, neither is willing or able to come to God in the truth of Grace. At least they are not able to do
it on their own. Remember: they can’t and they don’t want to obey God. Therefore, neither of them, in there current
state of condemnation can decide to trust God in faith for salvation.
Another question: What does God
owe even the best of us; say Sister Theresa when she was alive? Did God owe her anything? Did he owe her salvation? Unless
you are willing to ignore the touchstone of this posting, Titus 3:5, you must answer “no.” The fact that she did lots of really good things did not
earn her anything from God. And of course, if He owed it to her, then it would be because she had earned it. And that is directly
opposed to what the Bible says. Without Christ, her death, despite all the wonderful and compassionate things she did, merely
signaled her approaching judgment and consignment to the lake of fire.
It may seem like something of a trivialization,
but think about you and your kid making a trip to city pound to pick a new pet for the household. (Before you natter on too
much, yes, I understand that humans are not dogs, that we are far more precious in the site of God than dogs, etc, etc, etc.
This is an illustration, not a theological statement. That comes later. Now, back to the illustration.) You go into the pound
and you tell the keeper that you would like to “adopt” a dog. Mr. Pound Attendant takes you back to the holding
pens and shows you the dogs; eight cute little puppies. He tells you that the county only keeps dogs for three weeks and then,
if they are not adopted, they are destroyed. Furthermore, he explains, all the puppies have been there for 21 days. Translation:
Which ever dogs you leave behind will be destroyed, put down, put to sleep tomorrow.
Do any of the dogs deserve to be adopted? No.
Are you obligated to adopt any one dog over
another? No.
Are you obligated to adopt any of the dogs at
all? No.
Does anything prevent you from adopting all
of the cute little puppies if you wish to? No.
And the fact is, unless you take them all home,
you leave some to be destroyed. This may seem cruel. It may seem unfair to the dogs. But the fact is unless someone takes
them out of the facility, they will be destroyed. And, by choosing one puppy, you are rejecting all of the others.
Again, did you have an obligation to pick all
of the puppies? Nope. But because you did not choose the puppies, they were left to the destruction they were scheduled for.
Were you unjust not to choose the rest of the
puppies? No.
Do you owe the puppies you left behind an explanation
of why you left them behind? No.
Do you owe the puppy you adopted an explanation
for why you adopted her? No.
Did the puppy you chose do anything (aside from
the same cute puppy stuff all the other puppies were doing) to cause you to choose him? No.
So you pick the puppy, pay the $10 and you and
your now deliriously happy son go home and begin to make the puppy a part of your household.
Remembering that the analogy is not perfect,
let’s look at us and God.
Again, do any of us deserve salvation? No.
Is God obligated to save any of us? No.
Is there anything we can do (aside
from the cute puppy stuff the rest of the humans do) to cause God to choose one of us over the other? No. If there were, then
there would be some intrinsic value in the selectee that caused the Selector to choose him. But we know that that cannot be
(Romans 4:4 and others). We know that from God’s perspective, no human has any intrinsic value making
them worthy of salvation.
I can already hear you howling an objection.
But before you turn purple, understand that this doesn’t mean that people don’t do good things. They certainly
do. Look at the love of a mother for her child. Witness the heroics of men and women during a disaster. United Flight 93 is
an example of men and women being willing to sacrifice their lives to save the lives of others. Even Jesus recognized that
it’s a great love to give your life for another. Unfortunately, none of what they do will ever earn them salvation.
Again, no one can do anything that can earn
salvation. No one has any quality that rises to the level of deserving salvation. I, for instance, have the patience of a
saint, the kindness of Mother Theresa, and the wisdom of Rodney. But without God renewing my heart through Jesus Christ, I
am no more deserving of salvation than the worst child molester or the most crooked politician.
Let’s take a break here and look at that
stubborn verse we mentioned earlier.
I know that I have a set view on what this verse
or that verse is talking about and I suspect some of you have done that with the verses in 2 Peter. Let’s take a look
at it.
7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for
fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise,
as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
Peter assures the readers that God is in control,
even in the face of ungodly men. He then says that God is patient toward us. Immediately after that he makes that onery statement.
So who is he talking to and about when he makes
that statement? In the sentence before (9a) he is speaking directly to us (…toward you). I suggest, given the lack of
any other indicator, He is still speaking to us and about us when he makes that next statement. In other words, He is not
willing that any of us (the saved) should perish.
The verse also says the Lord wishes for all
to come to repentance. What are they to repent of (change their minds about)? In the previous chapter (remembering that the
letters weren’t really written in chapters), Peter spends time warning the believers about false teachers and the effect
they can have on them. Move down to verse 14, the one that starts with “therefore” or “wherefore”
in the King James Version.
Apparently, Peter wants the readers
of his epistle to repent of the things he mentions in verses 17 and 18 of the previous chapter , being enticed by sensuality
and indulging the flesh. But notice, he is talking to the saved to do something only the saved can do - repent. Remember,
the saved are no longer slaves of sin and can choose (Romans 6:17, 18). The unsaved are still slaves of sin and can only obey sin, not God.
Take a look at Ezra 1:5 -
Then the heads of fathers’ households of Judah and Benjamin and the
priests and the Levites arose, even everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord which
is in Jerusalem.
Notice what happened. The heads of household,
the priests, and the Levites whose hearts had been stirred arose. If God stirred their hearts they arose, but only because
God stirred their hearts. Notice it doesn’t say “whose hearts God stirred and who responded to the stirring.”
Everyone of those whose hearts God stirred responded.
And consider Lydia, the maker of
purple cloth in Acts 16:14. It says she was a worshiper of God. But it goes on to say that “…God opened her
heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” Now, we can’t say God opened her heart because she was a worshipper
of God. Paul was a worshiper of God while he ran around killing and imprisoning Christians.
God opened her heart to believe. Was God unjust
not to open the hearts of the other people there? No.
Also consider the listeners in
Perga in Pamphylia (Acts 13:48). Paul and Barnabas preached the word. As a result all of those appointed to eternal live believed.
Why did they believe? Because they were appointed to eternal life. Notice, they weren’t appointed to eternal life because
they believed. The reason they believed is because they were appointed to eternal life. Had God not appointed them, they would
not have believed. They would have been like the people around them who did not believe.
Was God unjust not to appoint the others hearing
the word? No.
The only way a sinner can respond to the grace
of God is if God puts the desire to respond in his heart. If He puts the desire in her heart (like the heads of household
in Ezra) they will respond. If He does not put the desire to respond in their hearts, they will not respond.
There is nothing intrinsically good about the
person in whom God places that desire. But once the desire is there, the person will respond and accept Jesus Christ.
This is what is meant when a Reformed person
states that God chooses, that the choosing is a display of God’s endless grace and love, and that that grace cannot
be resisted. It doesn’t mean that the person is dragged, like a caveman into the kingdom. Rather, it means that God
has exercised His omnipotent grace in a creature blinded by sin and doomed to hell and has graciously pulled him from the
very flames of hell.
When I realize this, the effect of God’s
totally unmerited love in choosing me, I am humbled beyond words and can see that I am in no way superior to anyone in any
sense when it comes to meriting God’s favor. I wasn’t a little more perceptive, I wasn’t a little more tenderhearted,
I wasn’t hanging with the right people. I may have been marginally cuter, but I doubt it.
Like the puppy adopted by the family, I had
nothing to do with my salvation. I accepted only because God enabled me to. I was changed from a child of wrath to a child
of God only by God’s grace.
Any questions?
Posted by Melvin Jones on Sunday, May 7th, 2006
at 11:10
Pasted from <http://www.pulpit-pimps.org/?p=260>
