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This is the trailer for the Resolved 2009 Conference, June 12-15.

If God permits, I’ll be there!

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 (Romans 9:11-16).

Romans 9 is like a tiger going about devouring free-willers like me (John Piper, 1968).

 

The sermon below, John Piper’s The Freedom and Justice of God in Unconditional Election, is one of my all-time favorite sermons.  Between 2004 and 2005, I spent dozens of nights listening to this sermon and weeping my eyes out.  The rest of the sermons from Piper’s series on Romans 9 are also some really good resources on unconditional election.

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The following excerpt is taken from On the Passover, a sermon preached by Melito of Sardis in 170 AD.  Read the whole sermon here.

This one is the passover of our salvation. This is the one who patiently endured many things in many people: This is the one who was murdered in Abel, and bound as a sacrifice in Isaac, and exiled in Jacob, and sold in Joseph, and exposed in Moses, and sacrificed in the lamb, and hunted down in David, and dishonored in the prophets. . . .

But you were found not really to be Israel, for you did not see God, you did not recognize the Lord, you did not know, O Israel, that this one was the firstborn of God, the one who was begotten before the morning star, the one who caused the light to shine forth, the one who made bright the day, the one who parted the darkness, the one who established the primordial starting point, the one who suspended the earth, the one who quenched the abyss, the one who stretched out the firmament, the one who formed the universe, the one who set in motion the stars of heaven, the one who caused those luminaries to shine, the one who made the angels in heaven, the one who established their thrones in that place, the one who by himself fashioned man upon the earth. This was the one who chose you, the one who guided you from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob and the Twelve Patriarchs.

This was the one who guided you into Egypt, and guarded you, and himself kept you well supplied there. This was the one who lighted your route with a column of fire, and provided shade for you by means of a cloud, the one who divided the Red Sea, and led you across it, and scattered your enemy abroad.

This is the one who provided you with manna from heaven, the one who gave you water to drink from a rock, the one who established your laws in Horeb, the one who gave you an inheritance in the land, the one who sent out his prophets to you, the one who raised up your kings.

This is the one who came to you, the one who healed your suffering ones and who resurrected your dead. This is the one whom you sinned against. This is the one whom you wronged. This is the one whom you killed. This is the one whom you sold for silver, although you asked him for the didrachma. . . .

Who is my opponent? I, he says, am the Christ. I am the one who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled Hades under foot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven, I, he says, am the Christ.

Therefore, come, all families of men, you who have been befouled with sins, and receive forgiveness for your sins. I am your forgiveness, I am the passover of your salvation, I am the lamb which was sacrificed for you, I am your ransom, I am your light, I am your saviour, I am your resurrection, I am your king, I am leading you up to the heights of heaven, I will show you the eternal Father, I will raise you up by my right hand.

This is the one who made the heavens and the earth, and who in the beginning created man, who was proclaimed through the law and prophets, who became human via the virgin, who was hanged upon a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from the dead, and who ascended to the heights of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father, who has authority to judge and to save everything, through whom the Father created everything from the beginning of the world to the end of the age.

This is the alpha and the omega. This is the beginning and the end–an indescribable beginning and an incomprehensible end. This is the Christ. This is the king. This is Jesus. This is the general. This is the Lord. This is the one who rose up from the dead. This is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is borne by the Father, to whom be the glory and the power forever. Amen.

Mark Driscoll’s Jesus Died in Our Place is one of the most purely gospel oriented sermons I’ve heard in a long time.  There are a lot of sermons that focus on certain aspects of the gospel: how great the gospel is, how to believe the gospel, the necessity of the gospel, and on and on. But, sadly, it is a rarity to find a sermon which has one single, great purpose:  to present the gospel.

It is ironic that one of the best examples of a gospel sermon would come from Driscoll, the king of fads. You don’t have to know about Driscoll very long before you find out that many otherwise wonderful Christians have a problem with him and his ministry. He’s seen as the great compromiser, the cussing pastor who can’t control his temper, the perverted preacher who talks too much about sex, the guy who flirts with the emergent church. . . . The list of complaints is long and comprehensive.

But I love Mark Driscoll, and this is why: Mark Driscoll loves Jesus. And for anyone who would disagree, I challenge you to find a more gospel-centered hour of preaching than this.

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The past week has been the most joyfilled week I’ve had in a long time.  Last weekend Sinclair Ferguson and Alistair Begg were in town for Second Presbyterian Church’s Christian Life Conference.  I cannot possibly put into words how much this conference helped me.

Here I am, unfaithful, consumed with unbelief, often finding myself like one of the Israelites who were led out of Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea and then charged God by saying, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?”  Yet, despite my faithlessness, God sent Sinclair and Alistair to Memphis and put me in that sanctuary, and the Holy Spirit bore witness to the truth and greatness and glory of the Lamb through their preaching.

So I commend this conference to you.  It’s available at the Second Pres website.  If you listen to nothing else, at least listen to Alistair’s The Lamb on the Throne which I have provided below.  I hope it can be as helpful to you as it was to me.

Alistair Begg: The Lamb on the Throne
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