Security Amid Foolishness

"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. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" ROM 11: 30-31.

The story of Jacob is recorded for our learning. A true biography does not only tell of the wonderful part of a man and all the wonderful things he does; a true biography tells who the man is; it tells of his falls as well as his greatness. We see a true biography of Jacob, and it tells of his foolishness and scheming as an admonition to you and me; do not get caught in these things because look what he harvested as the fruit of his foolishness.

True faith can lay hold upon the faithfulness of God. This is what Jacob was lacking. His faith was not purified. He had to have a faith tried as gold and silver in the furnace of affliction, and he had to come through this trial of patience, which was letting patience have its perfect work. As we mature in grace, true faith can lay hold on the faithfulness of God, as we see in ROM 11:29: "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." That means that there is no altering, there is no variableness or shadow of turning in God. When He has spoken, it is "yea, and...Amen." There is no repentance in His gifts or in His calling.

There is no falling away of those whom God has predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. All those whom God has chosen, all those whom God has predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, cannot fall away. ROM 8:29 says that you are predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ. " 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."

Verses 30-31 says, "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. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" Do you know "who can be against us?" You often find yourself to be your own worst enemy. In your own stupidity, you do those things that would frustrate the grace of God, but even those things cannot destroy you because the Lord loves His children. We must remember the admonition of children: "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." He puts us in the furnace and He purges us.

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (ROM 8: 31-32) Do you think we are going to alter God's purpose in sending His Son? No. We can bring hell in our life and in our hearts by our stupidity and foolishness, but in the end the Lord says that He will never allow one that He has loved to alter His purpose. Jacob is still going to go to Bethel, but he brought agony upon himself by his unbelief!

We can do nothing to merit God's gifts, neither can we do anything to demerit them. David was a man after God's own heart; the Lord loved David, and the Lord had said that the throne of David would be an eternal kingdom, which was the throne of Christ. The seed of David remained in the kingdom up until the serving of Christ, but Absalom was slain, and David cried, "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son, would to God I had died for thee." Think of the agony that it brought in David's life, because the prophet Nathan had told him that the sword would not depart from his house. It brought misery and grief in David's life because he killed Uriah and took Bathsheba, Uriah's wife, and committed adultery with her.

The Lord gave him the fruit of his own sin: his son raped his daughter. His son, Absalom, murdered another of his sons, then came to take the throne away from him, and he had to flee. Nathan had said, "Before this son, they shall take thy wives upon the roof and shall go in unto them." Think of the grief that David brought into his life with his sin, but it did not alter God's decree. God had decreed that David should have an everlasting kingdom, and that was not altered, but oh, the misery he brought in his life. You and I have to understand that by walking in human reasoning we bring such misery in our lives. We cannot demerit God's decrees, His promises, or His giving; they are eternally secure. Amen.




[Source: Gospel Chapel Ministries]