The Word of God comes to us tonight from Romans chapter 9. I invite you to turn there with me. Romans chapter 9 as we read together the first 29 verses. Romans 9. And I would also invite you, when you found that, to turn into the back of the Psalter hymnal to the first head of doctrine in the canons of Dort, which is found in pages 22 and following. I've listed quite a number of articles tonight And it's not that we're going to look at each one of them in detail. We can't possibly do that. But as I mentioned last week, we're going to be considering this more in themes. And these themes are kind of intertwined. And so we'll be looking at some of these articles more than once or certain parts of them. In a little while, we'll read together, particularly Article 15. Some others we'll look at as well. but for our consideration tonight, Article 15, in the course of the sermon. We focus our attention on God's most holy word, Romans chapter 9, the first 29 verses. Hear now the word of God. I speak the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers those of my own race the people of Israel theirs is the adoption as sons theirs the divine glory the covenants the receiving of the law the temple worship and the promises theirs are the patriarchs and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ who is God over all forever praised Amen it is not as though God's word had failed for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. For this was how the promise was stated, at the appointed time I will return and Sarah will have a son. Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand, not by works but by Him who calls, she was told, the older will serve the younger. Just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all. For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, I raise you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth. Therefore, God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden. One of you will say to me, Then why does God still blame us? For who resists His will? But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the objects of His wrath prepared for destruction? What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory, even us, whom He also called? not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles. As he says in Hosea, I will call them My people who are not My people, and I will call her My loved one who is not My loved one. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, You are not My people, they will be called sons of the living God. Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out His sentence on earth with speed and finality. It is just as Isaiah said previously, unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah. May God add His blessing to the reading and the consideration of His Word tonight. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, if I can't believe it, it must not be true. It cannot be true. If I can't believe it, it must not be true. You see, that's a philosophy by which many people live today for example there's some who will deny that their friends or relatives are capable of committing some sort of a horrendous crime when they're accused of doing so well because well they're just too nice they they would never hurt anyone i just can't believe it therefore it must not be true and we could give many examples like that but it's especially true when it comes to the sovereignty of god some have a hard time believing it for example when you think about the earthquake in haiti and the hundreds of thousands of people that are killed if god is truly sovereign, if God is truly loving, then certainly He could have stopped that and all of those innocent children and women and people would not have died. But God must not be sovereign. I cannot believe it. And therefore, it must not be true. And we can go a step further and the same philosophy is applied by many to God's decree of double predestination. You know what that is. Election and reprobation and it's a reminder we need to be reminded tonight and especially for those of you who may be visiting with us we need to be reminded that we're talking about the doctrines of grace we're talking about God's sovereign grace in our salvation and the Bible's teaching of those doctrines of grace expressed in our confession the canons of Dort the canons of Dort which gives those five answers of that great synod of Dort held in 16, 18, 16, 19 to the five Arminian statements that went against the teaching of Scripture and especially attacking predestination, a word that scares many people. Predestination, which we might call it the umbrella category for talking about God determining, ordaining, or decreeing before the beginning of time what comes to pass in salvation. God eternally determining the eternal destinies of the human race, of mankind. And predestination has two parts. The first part is election for salvation, which we began to talk about last week. That God chooses who will be saved unconditionally. In other words, not based on anything about us, not based on what we have done, not based on what we will do. Now, we need to remember too that election itself is not the problem. Arminianism agrees with election. But Arminianism says that the reason that God elected to save some, as we mentioned last week, is because God saw beforehand. He looked down through that telescope of history, that hallway of time. He saw everything that would take place, including He saw who would hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who would believe it by their own free will. That they would choose to believe in Jesus apart from anything else. Apart from even the work of God. And therefore, since they would choose to believe in Jesus, God must choose them in order to save them. So for Arminianism, election is because of believing. Election is the result of believing in Arminianism. But that's not what the Bible says, does it? In Ephesians 1, verse 4, Paul says, For He chose us in Him, in Jesus Christ, before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. Notice, not because we were holy and blameless or would become, would make ourselves holy and blameless, but to be in order to make us holy and blameless. And Paul goes on, in love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons. God chose to bring us, to make us his children. The one who adopts is the active one who chooses to bring in the other one. The one who is adopted is the passive one. We remember what Luke says in Acts 13, verse 48, as we also mentioned last week, that of all, speaking of the Gentiles, and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. And again, it wasn't those who believed were then appointed for eternal life, but those who had been appointed for eternal life, they are the ones who believed. The Word of God is clear, beloved, that God chose, God elected those that He would bring to faith, that He would save in Jesus Christ, and therefore the truth of election is that we believe because we are elect. Believing, faith, is the fruit of election. As Article 6 also mentions, that God graciously softens the hearts of the elect to believe. Therefore, Arminianism holds to a wrong view of election, but Arminianism also denies with many the second part of predestination. And that is, if God determines that some are chosen, it means that He also determines that some are not chosen. You cannot have the one without the other. We understand this, don't we? All of us thinking back, and especially the boys and girls, thinking of games when you choose sides for games, and if you happen to be the captain, you pick. You choose some, but you don't choose some others. You pass by them. You pass over them and go to someone else. God passes by those whom He has not chosen to save and that's called reprobation. Now the problem is that there are many who think then that if that's true, they think that it means then that for no apparent reason God sends some to hell. For absolutely no reason. Kind of like flipping a coin before creation. Heads, you're in. Tails, sorry, you missed out. You're reprobate. Or think of a daisy picking off the petals. I love him. I love him not. I love him. I love him not. You see, that kind of a thinking, that kind of an understanding makes God arbitrary. It makes Him unloving. It makes Him unthinking. And that's how many think of and therefore reject God's decree of double predestination. election, and reprobation. But that's not at all what we believe the church teaches. That God, for no reason, sends some to hell. It's a gross misunderstanding of the truth of Scripture. We confess that in Article 15, if you would follow along. Article 15. What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the eternal and unmerited grace of election. In other words, what highlights God's 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 of 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 that means filled with awe Irreprehensible and righteous judge and avenger thereof. Beloved, the church throughout history with her orthodox theologians of the past including Augustine and Luther and Calvin to mention a few embraced and taught the truth of double predestination. They did not just make it up because it sounded good or because they could not imagine God not saving some by His choice but because it is a Christian doctrine. It is embraced because it is in the first place the teaching of Scripture. It's what the Bible teaches. And we also confess that it is what the Bible teaches. In article 14, As the doctrine of divine election by the most wise counsel of God was declared by the prophets, by Christ Himself, and by the apostles, and is clearly revealed in the Scriptures both of the Old and the New Testament, so it is still to be published in due time and place in the church of God for which it was peculiarly designed, provided it be done with reverence in the spirit of discretion and piety for the glory of God's most holy name and for enlivening and comforting His people without vainly attempting to investigate the secret ways of the Most High. There are some of God's ways that we cannot even begin to figure out and we are not to try to do that. But notice, it is for the church of God. It is expressed throughout Scripture. It is to be taught still today. It is for us. It is for our edification, even the teaching of reprobation. It's for the glory of God. Because the truth of reprobation is the teaching of Scripture. Notice Proverbs 16, verse 4 says, The Lord works out everything for His own ends, even the wicked, for a day of disaster. Jesus, in His high priestly prayer in John 17, verse 12, speaking of the disciples, says, While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name You gave Me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. Judas Iscariot was doomed to destruction. Indeed, God used him. God uses sinful man. Especially we see that in the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, man is responsible for his sin, but God uses it to accomplish his purpose as well. But Judas was doomed to destruction. Peter says in 1 Peter 2, verses 7 and 8, Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And then listen to this. They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for. It was determined by God that some would not believe the message of Jesus Christ. And that's Paul's point in Romans chapter 9. Just as Ephesians 1, we might say, is a classic passage on election, Romans 9 is a classic passage on reprobation, predestination, the whole umbrella, election and reprobation, to be sure. Paul's point in Romans chapter 9 is God has always made a distinction. God has always chosen some and always passed by some. Paul's purpose here is to explain why the majority of the Jews rejected Christ even though they had many privileges that he points out in those first few verses. They saw the glory of God. They had the covenants. They had the temple worship. It is from them that Christ came. They had all these privileges, but so many of them rejected Him. And Paul's purpose here is to teach that it's not because God's purpose failed. it's not because God's Word failed. God's purpose was being accomplished by the choice of some and by His not choosing of others. Paul clearly teaches reprobation when he talks about passing over Ishmael. He doesn't say Ishmael. He talks about Isaac. And passing over Esau. And hardening Pharaoh's heart. And some pottery that is made for common use. He points to the sons of Abraham, beginning in verse 6. It is not as though God's word had failed, for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. For this was how the promise was stated, at the appointed time I will return and Sarah will have a son. Paul quotes the word of the Lord that what God Himself said to Abraham. God had chosen Abraham to create a nation and therefore passing by all the other nations of the world. At the same time, within Abraham, God made a distinction. He chose some. There was the child of promise, of course. He had promised a son. And we know the story. Abraham looking at himself and his wife figuring that it was very doubtful because of their age. he takes matters into his own hands. He marries Sarah's servant Hagar and they have a son and they call him Ishmael. But Ishmael was not God's intention. Ishmael was not the child of promise. It was through Isaac. Isaac was chosen. Ishmael was passed by. And even within the fleshly children of Abraham, God made a further distinction. You see, in case there was an objection to Paul, well, of course, Paul, that makes sense. Isaac was the son of promise, and Ishmael was the son of a slave. Well, we know, of course, that the son of promise was the real one. Well, just in case there was that objection, Paul points to Isaac and Rebekah's sons, beginning at verse 10. Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac, yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose in election might stand, not by works but by him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger, just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Even among the child of promise, there was a distinction made between the children of Abraham according to the flesh and the children of Abraham according to the Spirit. Esau and Jacob had the same father and mother. They were twins, boys and girls. In a sense, we might say almost the same as same can be. They shared the same womb. And even when they were still in the womb, even before either one of them had done anything good or bad, one was chosen, the other was passed over. Esau, I have hated. That's a quote from Malachi chapter 1. Now that does not mean that he loved Esau less. Some tried to say that. And the word hate is used in Scripture at times when talking about, to mean loving less. For example, when Jesus talks about the devotion we are to have for Him over even our families. We are in a sense to hate our families, meaning they're to love them lest to make Jesus our priority. But that's not what it means here in Malachi 1. The context, there's a context of judgment. It's a context of destruction. Beloved, we cannot dispute Scripture. Some are chosen in God's mercy and love to be saved. Others are passed over. They are hardened. They are prepared for destruction as verse 22 says. This is hard to understand. It's hard to comprehend. It is hard to preach. yet it is the truth of Scripture. And it is to be understood properly and it is to be embraced by you and I even though in the second place it is objected to by many. Paul dealt with objections. These objections include, well, it's just not fair. Paul says in verse 14, what then shall we say? Is God unjust? So many would say it's just not fair that in eternity, God chooses some, but He passes by others so that no matter what they do, they will not be saved. It's just not fair. Of course, our idea of fairness means all being treated the same, right? That's how we think of it. But of course, we only want to apply that when it comes to good things, Not when it comes to nasty or not pleasant things. Children understand this. If I had five $1 bills and I had two of the gems come up here and I gave one of them three $1 bills and one two, the one with two might look at me kind of funny and might even be tempted to say it's not fair. She got three. I only got two. In our families with our children, we hear this when it comes to curfews. We're hearing it in our family. The older children, they look at the younger ones and they say, wait a minute, I didn't get to stay out that late when I was that age. It's not fair. In our society, we hear a lot of screaming about equal and fair rights, all being treated the same. And here, with what we're talking about, if some are chosen to be saved, the argument goes, why not all? They should all be treated the same. And of course, this objection questions God's right to have mercy on whom He wants to have mercy and to harden whom He wants to harden. The argument never goes the other way. Well, if God passes by some, well, then He should pass by everyone because it's not fair. And there's another objection. Well, if God does this, if God chooses who are to be saved, then it really is not my fault if I'm not saved. Notice verse 19. One of you will say to me, then why does God still blame us? For who resists His will? If it's God's choice, what obligation do I have? I can't help it. You see, man wants to throw off his responsibility. Paul's answer begins in verse 20, but who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Now, maybe that's not the most satisfying answer. Yet notice, with just the beginning of that answer, Paul challenges man, the creature, in man's challenge to God, the Creator, and in man's challenge to God's eternal decree. who are you to say to God, you know, there's a problem here. I don't think you're doing it right. Paul goes on. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use, for example, to make a piece of pottery, a jar, to hold drinking water versus another piece of pottery to hold garbage? Doesn't the potter have that right? Doesn't God have that right? You see, when it comes to these objections, it's not fair or it's not my fault. Again, we tend to use these things only when it is not in our favor and we want it to be in our favor. You see, Paul knows that these objections are based on a faulty, on an incorrect assumption. And that assumption is that God has no particular reason for passing over some. That He has no reason for doing it. As if He is indifferent. As if He is flipping that coin. And Paul corrects that false idea. As if he teaches us, we need to talk not about fairness, but we need to talk about justness. Or the justice of God. Is God unjust in His decree to choose some to save and to pass by others and not save them? And if we go according simply to these arguments, we might be tempted to say, well, yeah, that kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Again, Paul says, what then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all. Absolutely not. Beloved, justice is about getting what is deserved, not about all being treated the same or fair. We need to think in terms of God's justice, remembering that God has the absolute right to be merciful to some and to give others what they deserve. And now that's the point here, isn't it? You see, mercy is undeserved. God talks about mercy and compassion. that's undeserved or Paul does there mercy is undeserved but God has the right to be merciful He has the right to give others what they deserve that's the point here and this is where the wrong thinking and the wrong understanding comes in with reprobation just like there's wrong thinking with election that those who are elect are elect because they have done something to earn it they have done something worthwhile the same error is kind of made flipping it around that those who are reprobate those who are passed over or Passover for no reason. As if they haven't done anything to deserve it. We love, or we ought to love, the doctrine of election because in it, God isn't fair, but not in the way that some would say. He isn't fair, as it were, with those who are saved. Because they are not getting what they truly deserve. You see, beloved, we need to have the right picture in mind when we think of election and reprobation. We need to have the right picture in mind recognizing man's true condition, all of mankind, your condition, my condition, each and every one of us. Paul speaks of the lump of clay. It's a lump of clay. All by itself, it's worthless. It's useless. God did not start with something precious like gold or diamonds and then make something less than precious for common use. He started with something useless and worthless That lump of clay, we might say, describes humanity. Paul says earlier in this book, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. He didn't start with gold or diamonds. He started with clay. Article 15 speaks again of the common misery into which they have willfully plunged themselves. Article 1 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. And Article 6 says, too, speaks of mankind being equally involved in ruin. You see, with election and reprobation, the picture is not, It is not that God views humanity in a spotless and a faultless condition and then for no particular reason says to some, well, sorry, don't want you, you're a reprobate. God does not begin with a good or even a neutral people and then decide that some will be condemned to hell without deserving it. He begins with clay. That mass of humanity that has fallen into sin. And no one indeed deserves to be made into a jar for noble purposes. No one deserves to be saved. The elect are shown the mercy and grace of God. They're saved in Christ in spite of their sin and wickedness. In Christ who has satisfied God's justice for the elect. God is just in showing His mercy to you and me. Because His justice has been poured out for us against Jesus Christ. But the reprobates simply get what they deserve. They get what we all deserve. Because of sin, there's sin and wickedness. They too receive the justice of God. God is fully just. All have fallen in Adam and God would have done no injustice if He would have left us all in sin and passed us all by. We all deserve to be like Sodom and Gomorrah. We understand that illustration. Sodom and Gomorrah were completely wiped out. All of humanity deserved to be completely wiped out. We need to remember, beloved, that the ground, the basis of election and reprobation, the basis is not the same. Oh, both are grounded in God's eternal decree, but beyond that, the basis of election is God's choice to be merciful, to save some, to bring them to faith. God intervenes by new birth and to bring to faith. But the basis of reprobation is one's own sin and God's decision to be hands-off, as it were. To leave them in their sin. To give them what they deserve. Finally then, beloved, this calls for the believer's proper response. How do we respond to this difficult and despised, we might say, doctrine of reprobation? With reprobation, we are to understand and accept that God has not wronged or been unfair to anyone. It is not as if all deserved heaven and He shut the door on some. All deserve hell. And He brings some. He brings the elect in by His mercy. We are to understand and accept that even though election results in the fruit called faith and believing, God elects in order to bring to faith. That the other way around with reprobation, it's not quite the same. Reprobation does not cause one to be an unbeliever. It does not make one into an unbeliever. And we must also understand that one is not passed over because they rejected the call of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because if that were true, that would mean that if they accepted the call of the gospel, that they would have to be elected. God would be obligated to elect them because they accepted the gospel. That's Arminianism. Election and reprobation has taken place before the creation of the world, before anyone has done in their actual actions anything good or bad in life. Some are passed by because they have rejected God by their very sin of the human condition, be conceived and born in sin, a part of that massive humanity that is lost in sin. We must understand and accept that God does not reject poor, innocent people, but He rejects evil, vile, wicked sinners who wanted nothing and who still want nothing to do with Him. No one has ever desired to come to Christ and to salvation and been withheld from it. Not a single soul has ever sincerely desired eternal life and failed to receive it. It's not that Pharaoh wanted to let God's people go, but that God hardened a holy heart. We know that God softened Pharaoh at times throughout those ten plagues. But He hardened him by removing His restraining hand from Pharaoh, allowing him to fully exercise his sinful desires, as Article 15 says, permitting them in His just judgment to follow their own ways. We need to understand and accept that reprobation is not a decree that says, well, if one pleads with God, no matter how hard he tries, God is still going to shut the door. The reprobate will never plead with God. The reprobate will never desire Jesus Christ and the salvation that He accomplished. Because by nature, the reprobate hate Him. And God has determined to leave them in that hatred for Christ and to receive what they deserve. That's how we are to understand reprobation. But now, that's not all there is. With the believer's election, you see, understanding the biblical truth of reprobation brings us to our knees in humility. His article, I forget which one it was again, 14, I think, says. This doctrine is for the church. The reprobate don't care about it. It's for you and me. Believe it or not, it is for our comfort. With this doctrine, our God reminds us that He is under no obligation to elect or to save anyone. Not you, not me. He didn't have to do it. And how precious that is to be when we understand our salvation by the grace of God. understanding the biblical truth of reprobation illumines the undeserved grace of God and what He has done for us. Paul says, beginning at verse 22, what if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the objects of His wrath, prepared for destruction, what if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy whom He prepared in advance for glory? You see, He could have wiped Pharaoh out right away, but He doesn't do that. He was patient with Pharaoh. And God's glory and power are expressed indeed through Pharaoh because of God's dealing with Pharaoh even as His mercy is shown on Israel and it goes out to all the world. And God is patient with wicked mankind for the sake of His people even as He continues to build His church to gather in the elect. And as we are brought to faith and we're able to sing, I sought the Lord and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek Him seeking Me. We see then the glory and the grace of God for us even as we look at the fact that there are some that He didn't choose. That there are some who hate Him and will never love Him, no matter what they do. Beloved, we are shown the grace of God as we see through reprobation that we deserve what the reprobate get. But we don't get that. You see, that is truly not fair. That's a good not fair for you and me. Paul says again in verse 13, Just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. You know, that's hard for many to understand, especially the last part about how God could hate Esau. And that's the argument, isn't it? How could a loving God do such and such and such? How could a loving God hate Esau? But I believe we're supposed to think of it the other way around, in Christ. We understand that, don't we? We understand how God could hate Esau because God hates sin. What we don't understand fully is how God could love Jacob. How God could love Abraham, Isaac, David, Peter, Phil, you. That's beyond us. We're just as much sinners as Esau. It's beyond one that God in His love and mercy chose to rescue and save a people for His own. Beloved, the doctrine of reprobation is not to torment you and me. It is not to drive us to despair. Indeed, it is to humble us. As well, it is to empty hearts of pride and to make room for the Lord Jesus Christ. To cry out for and to thank God for His mercy and the Son He loves. It is a call to believe. Because our God is a God of salvation. And He has chosen some to salvation. It's not to drive us to torment. Gems, you remind us, as the deer panteth for the water, so my soul panteth over for the Lord. That is to be comforting. Article 16 talks about the fact that sometimes we might not feel like we're elect. We might not feel like we are the believers that we ought to be. And it tells us that we're not to despair. Indeed, to use the means of grace that God has given, the preaching of his word and the sacraments by which he pours out his grace, But do not despair because if the Bible says a bruised reed, he will not break. A smoking flax, he will not snuff out. This doctrine is for the praise and the glory of his name. We are not to worry and to wonder to the point of anxiousness if I'm reprobate. Indeed, the reprobate, they don't care. But we are not to worry to the point of anxiousness about that. Instead, we are to be assured that all who put their faith in God, he draws to himself. His grace is wide enough for all who come to Him in faith. We are to be assured that all who plead with Him, that that pleading is evidence of God at work, that God is active in that one's heart and life. Beloved, we are to be assured of our faith in Jesus Christ. That faith, whether it is mature or whether it is brand new, just the seed, whether it is much or whether it is little, that faith is something that God gives only to the elect. if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can be assured that God has set his love on you from the beginning. You see, beloved, the proper focus with double predestination, and there's a lot of questions we could ask about it yet, the proper focus is not why didn't God choose everyone, but the proper focus is why did he bother to choose me? You, His grace is amazing. His grace is overflowing. When there was no worthiness to be found in you or me, He found all that we needed for us in His beloved Son. Now that is truly something that is hard to believe. But praise be to God, it's true. Amen.