DEWITT TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES
GOD’S ELECTIVE LOVE
BY C.
W. Wood
May
2004
One
of the main problems that the Bride of Jesus Christ is having in these evil days
is failure to understand God’s “ELECTIVE LOVE.” Therefore, the purpose for
our sermon is to show that God’s decision to love,
justify, sanctify, and glorify His Bride will stand throughout all Eternity.
There is nothing the enemy can do to change God’s mind concerning this. Not
even the sins and failures of the Elect themselves will change His mind, for the
whole of Creation stood before Him, and was open to His view before He created,
and after seeing it all, He chose those whom He would conform to His Image.
Before the first star He decided who He would love.
His decision is final, as He planned it, so shall it be, as He has chosen
us, so shall we be with Him throughout Eternity. Isa. 14:24, “The
Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, surely as I have thought so shall it come to
pass, and as I have purposed (planned) so
shall it stand.” Verse 27 “For
the Lord of Hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul it, and His hand is
outstretched, and who shall turn it back.” He has sworn to love us!
His love for us did not start here on Earth, but rather in Heaven, in His
mind, before there was an earth! We have been taught that God does not change
His mind, and the Scriptures, when properly balanced, bear out this truth. Heb.
13:8 “Jesus Christ the SAME yesterday, and today, and forever.” That
is to say that our God is of the SAME MIND through all the yesterdays, and even
until today, as well as through all the tomorrows. Mal. 3:6, “For
I am the Lord, I change not….” It is true friends, the thoughts of God
can never be changed, and they need no correcting, for they have always been
perfect!
Now what I wish to do is apply this powerful truth, which is that God
does not change His mind, to the subject at hand. If God DECIDED to love His
Elect before they ever appeared on Earth, then that decision was final, and is
still in effect today. We need to understand that no person, no circumstance,
and not even our own failures, can remove us from under the canopy of that Love!
How masterfully did the Holy Ghost state this in Rom. 8:35-39, Verse
38 says, “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life (with all its
failures) nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers (of the evil one), nor
things present, nor things to come…..shall be able to separate us from the
Love of God.”
The
love that God has for His Elect cannot be diminished, and the fact of our being Elected
is, in very fact, proof of that Love. But we must hurry on to say that this
love of which we speak has promised
to crucify this flesh body we live in. This promise is just as true as His
promise to love us. His love is always corrective, it cannot be otherwise. As
long as He sees our need for it, so shall we receive correction.
Troubles, trials, and tribulations are no sign that His love has
departed, rather are they signs that it is being applied. This sinful nature in
us that was not destroyed by the New Birth must be crucified. That is to say,
“KEPT UNDER” by the power of the Holy Ghost in us. Therefore, His love leads
us into tribulation, and holds us up while passing through it. Tribulation
worketh patience and patience holds us steady for more tribulation, and
tribulation keeps the proud flesh under. This is crucifixion.
Those who have been called and sealed in have been sealed
into this love that can never forsake us. It will not fail, it cannot fail
because it is God (God is Love). Oh how the enemy would have us believe that God
looks upon us in wrath because of our sins and failures. But we go back to the
Word in John 3:18, “He that
BELIEVETH on Him IS NOT condemned.” As Believers we are never again to be
PUNISHED for our sins. We will be CHASTENED on account of them, as a Father
corrects his wayward child, but we will not be smitten for our sins as God
smites the unbelieving criminal, who willfully and continually breaks His Laws.
Chastening is a far different thing from the Judgments of God that falls
as a result of his wrath. Chastening is done with the intent of correcting, and
it is always a result of God’s Love, not His wrath. Our trials and testing,
and our sorrows do not come to Believers as punishment for sins, though we may
well have earned such. They come to us in the form of God’s Love. We do
understand don’t we, that because of the Cross we are “Holy
and WITHOUT BLAME before Him in love.” (Eph. 1:4) We understand that
because of the Blood of God that was shed for us, we are “Accepted
in the Beloved.” (Eph. 1:6) To be without blame and accepted is to be
loved.
Knowing these things then, we can know
that God can never again punish us for our sins, seeing that He, Himself, made
full payment for us. We must remember this when sore trouble comes. The enemy
will say, “You deserve what you are getting, and he may well be correct, but
his motive is to cause division between us and our Father by making us believe
He is angry with us. If we follow this line of thinking, we will conclude that
God cannot be angry and love us at the same time, and the enemy will have
succeeded in driving a wedge between us.
The rod of His chastisement is as much a Gift of His love as is the Blood
of the Cross! Chastisement is not a matter of what we have earned and deserve.
It comes to us out of His love, on the grounds that we need it. Never, since we
have BELIVED, has a law stroke fallen on us. Since we BELIEVED, we are out from
under the Law’s jurisdiction. Rom. 7:6, “But
now we are delivered from the Law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we
should serve in newness of Spirit, and not in the oldness of the Letter.” The
Law of Germany cannot touch an American citizen while he lives under the
protection of the American Government. Old Testament cities of refuge were types
of being safe in Christ today. We are preaching the Love of God, which must not
be confused with His wrath that falls on unbelievers. We have left
A word of warning here, do not fail to strive with all that is within you
to keep God’s Holy Laws. His Grace has not gone so far as to free us from our
efforts to keep it, but only to forgive us, and not slay us, when we fail in
some point of it. Jesus said, “Think
not that I come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets; I am not come to destroy,
but to fulfill.” (Matt. 5:17) Jesus came and fulfilled the Law by keeping
it in our place. Knowing that, because of our fallen nature, we could never keep
His Holy Laws perfectly, He did it in our stead. But, never did He intend for us
to ignore those laws, but we can run to Him for forgiveness when we have failed
in some point of it. In this way, we are out from under the Law as far as the
death penalty is concerned, but never loosed from our efforts to try and keep
it. “Shall we continue in sin just
because Grace abounds?” (Rom. 6:1) In other words, do not turn Grace into Disgrace by
purposely ignoring God’s Laws. Know also, Dear Bride, that man’s laws, that
do not contradict God’s Laws, are also to be obeyed. (See Rom. 13:1-5)
Do we have weakness in our flesh? Do we sin in spite of all our efforts
to keep His Laws, and does the enemy attack us daily with his fiery darts of
condemnation? The answer to these questions is, “Yes.” But none of these
things separate us from God’s Love “For
He that BELIEVETH IS NOT CONDEMNED.” (John 3:18) We cannot be loved and
condemned at the same time! We can be CONVICTED because of His corrective Love,
but never condemned. Friends, these are not my words. Had I written this, there
would be men who would tear my words to pieces at once, and perhaps be right in
doing so. But John
Jesus Christ has borne the death penalty on our behalf. Look into His
Word and see Him hanging on the Cross. You will never see a greater sight. You
will never behold a greater Mystery. The Son of God and Son of Man nailed there,
bearing pains unexplainable. The Just dying for the unjust to leave us a legacy
of peace, to bridge the uncrossable gulf between us and Holy God. It was the
innocent One made Guilty, the Holy One condemned, so that He could report, “He
that believeth on Me is not condemned!” The Blessed One made a curse, to
bring us out from under the curse of the Law.
In John 14:27, our Lord was about to die, and ascend back to the
Father’s throne. But, before He cries out “It
is Finished”, He makes a will
which He has left to His Believers, and this is what is written in the will:
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” Is this last will
and testament valid? It is true that a will is not in force while the one who
made it yet lives, but this God-Man died and set His will in motion. In our
natural world, a will is often contested, and even overthrown in a court of law,
while the one who made it lies helpless in a grave. But our Will Maker rose from
the grave, and now He lives to see that every Believer in the Will receives of
His promise. The blessed legacy that was left is His Peace, and that is ours as
we come into the knowledge that He will never again condemn us. He had rather
die than condemn us, and that is exactly what He did!
If God has punished Christ in my stead, he will not punish me again. Our
peace has a solid foundation upon which to stand, a foundation of facts, that
show that the Blood of the Holy One was shed, and that now there has been
“Remission of Sin.” We are now within our rights to claim the most peaceful
calm that a mortal can know. Not only is this our right, it is our duty to claim
it, or else the death of our Will Maker was in vain.
But, you may say, we suffer troubles like other people who are not
Believers. We come into sicknesses, suffer heart break from loss of loved ones.
We have our goods spoiled, and are often in the valley of despair, even as
others. Yes, this is true, yet though we are cast down, we are not destroyed,
for we know that the Hand of our God has controlled our circumstances. We know
that He has not led us thus out of His wrath, but has in love ordered our steps.
You ask, has God really ordered our steps, or is the enemy disrupting my life
that I supposed had been placed in the Hands of My Father God? I answer with the
Words of Jesus, “According to your faith be it unto you.” (Matt. 9:29) Do you
believe that the Creator controls all the creatures He has created, or do you
suppose that one of these created beings called Lucifer has usurped the
Creator’s authority, and toppled Him from His throne?
Hear the Word of the Lord and believe it Bride of Christ. Dan. 4:35,
“And all the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing and He (God) doeth
according to His will, in the Army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay His hand or say, what doest Thou.”
Who then will challenge His decision to love His own children? What Child
of His can read the scriptures that tell of His six terrible hours of
unutterable pain on the tree, and doubt that He did it to turn aside the penalty
from us? If He died to turn it aside, then how dare we to think that it is not
turned aside? The wrath of God against sin is a terrible thing. Moses asked, “Who
knoweth the power of Thine anger?” Yet, when we hear our Lord Jesus cry, “Why
has Thou forsaken me?” and see Him draw His last, short, breath, and His
precious Head slump forward on His tortured chest, we can know that this Christ
had suffered the full force of this anger.
As our Prophet said, in so many words, “If God, Himself, died to
fulfill His own Law of Sin and Death, what more could be done?” The great wave
of His powerful Love swept over our swamp of filthy sins and carried them away
into the “
If by ONE man, Adam, sin and death passed upon all men (Rom. 5:12) and we
had no say in the matter, but were born “Dead
in Trespasses and Sins,” (Eph. 2:1), then it is every bit legal in God’s
eyes that “By the Righteousness of ONE (Christ Jesus) the Free Gift of
Justification unto Life be given.” (Rom.
All that we are asked to do is believe it and receive the pardon. If we
have been drifting toward the deadly falls because of condemnation, will we not
now jump into this Life Boat and be pulled to shore? You may say, but I have
nothing at all to offer this Great Savior. Oh but you do, you have all that He
requires you to bring, and that is your sins. Men who are escaping from a raging
fire will leave everything behind them, even their clothes. Jump for the Life
Boat people, just as you are. Bring all your sins and fall into the boat. He
will never cast you back into the raging torrent; you will be safe throughout
Eternity.
Repentance is not a thing that God measures by time. It lasts all the
while we are here, but it continues into the Eighth Day, where time is no more.
We simply repent moment by moment as we have need, and the bitterness of
repentance is mixed together with the sweetness of forgiveness, leaving peace.
We know from the Bible that the Lord God gives this Peace to the most
unlikely people. If you have fallen into the deepest of mire, and are still
there at this moment, there is still hope. Saul was a murderer of God’s
Children, David took a man’s wife and had the man slain, Peter denied Jesus
three times, after swearing he would never do it. Two thieves on the Cross
cursed the Lord, and then one suddenly repented and ended in
What a privilege to have such a Gospel to preach, and how privileged you
are to be hearing it. For those who have gone the deepest into sin, and who may
have remained there for many years, have you a desire to be forgiven? Then come
to Him and ask and you shall receive. Amen!
For over twenty years we have published a weekly sermon in the newspaper
here, believing that the Lord holds His Ministers responsible for more than just
those in the four walls of our own church. Recently, we felt pressed by the
Spirit to address a need seen in our local Churches that is urgent indeed. It
has to do with worldly dress, immodesty, and nakedness among the women in the
churches. The following sermon was published in the DeWitt Era-Enterprise.
I would like to say that some of our Message Churches have not altogether
escaped this worldly trend, and for this reason I wanted to reproduce the
article in this sermon. I pray that it will not be received as condemnation, but
rather if the need is there it may convict. It was written to mostly unconverted
people in the Churches, and if you think it to be sharp, remember it was
intended to shake some awake. May it do the same where needed in our own
churches.
“COMMON SENSE
MODESTY”
My,
how times have changed in the last 70 years. Seventy years ago, as a 9 year-old
boy, I can remember a generation of people who had not waxed so evil as the one
I now see in many teenagers and young adults. When I was 9, and being taken to a
local church in DeWitt, I saw a people who believed in morals, and in modest
dress styles that are called “prudish”
today. Young people were “ladies and
gentlemen” and they dressed the part. Even if Christian modesty was not
practiced at home, it was most certainly respected in the church.
Now, 70 years later, one must keep his eyes on the floor in front of his
pew or expose himself to a display of feminish flesh that was once only seen in
houses of ill repute. Recently, I visited in a certain local church and
witnessed such a display, as the women and young girls twisted and wiggled their
way to their pews, and some even up to the platform. Their short skirts, and
tight pants, and low, low cut tops left little for the imagination.
We see this sort of thing daily on our streets, but when did immodesty
and nakedness creep into the church? How is it that pastors didn’t notice? Was
it complacency, or do the pastor’s wife and family dress the same way? How
could we, as a Christian nation, have degenerated so far in such a short time?
Seventy years ago women would have been arrested for being downtown in such
attire, and much mores so had they dared to show up in church that way.
I challenge you church-going people to look again at what God’s Word
says concerning modesty. I know many of you had not had an experience with the
Lord, but I appeal to your common decency. Are you so blinded as to not know the
sin you are guilty of? It has to be one of two things, either you are
unconverted and don’t know the Lord, or you are overriding his convicting
Spirit.
How
indecent will you dress before you consider it wrong? How tight is too tight,
how short is too short, how low is too low? Come, dear people, let us reason
together, and see what God’s Word says about it! I Timothy 2:9-10, “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest (decent)
apparel with shamefacedness and
sobriety……..which becometh women professing godliness….” Does this
describe your wardrobe, or is your clothing purposely provocative, intended to
entice men? Matthew
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