Chosen By God: Know God's Perfect Plan for His Glory and His Children

by R. C. Sproul

Here is a clear scriptural case for the classic (and sometimes controversial) Christian doctrine of predestination. Through this view of a truly sovereign God, readers will see how sinfulness prevents man from choosing God on his own; instead, God must change people's hearts.

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Paperback, 192 pages

Published April 6th 2021 by Tyndale Momentum (first published October 1st 1986)

tags: faith, religion, philosophy, academic, nonfiction, theology, christian living, christianity, christian, christian non fiction, school

Book Quotes

“If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.”

― R. C. Sproul

topics: Gospel, Sovereignty Of God

“God’s grace is resistible in the sense that we can and do resist it. It is irresistible in the sense that it achieves its purpose. It brings about God’s desired effect.”

― R. C. Sproul

“We have all heard evangelists quote from Revelation: "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me." Usually the evangelist applies this text as an appeal to the unconverted, saying, 'Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart. If you open the door, he will come in.' In the original saying, however, Jesus directed his remarks to the church. It was not an evangelistic appeal. So what? The point is that seeking is something that unbelievers do not do on their own steam. The unbeliever will not seek. The unbeliever will not knock. Seeking is the business of believers. Edwards said, "The seeking of the kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian life." Seeking is the RESULT of faith, not the cause of it.”

― R. C. Sproul

“If Paul does not mean that all who are called are justified, the only alternative would be that some who are called are justified. If we supply the word some instead of the word all here, then we must supply it throughout the Golden Chain. Then it would read like this: Some of those he foreknew, he also predestined. Some of those he predestined, he also called. Some of those he called, these he also justified. Some of those he justified, he also glorified.”

― R. C. Sproul

“Before a person can make a choice that is pleasing to God, he must first have a desire to please God. Before we can find God, we must first desire to seek him. Before we can choose the good, we must first have a desire for the good. Before we can choose Christ, we must first have a desire for Christ. The sum and substance of the whole debate on predestination rests squarely at this point: Does fallen man, in and of himself, have a natural desire for Christ?”

― R. C. Sproul

“But while Paul is silent about the question of future choices in verse 11, he does not remain so. In verse 16 he makes it clear: “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” This is the coup de grace to Arminianism and all other non-Reformed views of predestination. This is the Word of God that requires all Christians to cease and desist from views of predestination that make the ultimate decision for salvation rest in the will of man. The apostle declares: “It is not of him who wills.” The non-Reformed views must say that it is of him who wills. This is in violent contradiction to the teaching of Scripture. This one verse is absolutely fatal to Arminianism.”

― R. C. Sproul

“God is working in us for his good pleasure. Paul does not say that God is working in us for our good pleasure.”

― R. C. Sproul

“My purposes do not always include God’s good. I am a sinner.”

― R. C. Sproul

“God requires perfection to get into his heaven. We either find that perfection in ourselves or we find it somewhere else, in someone else. If we think we can find it in ourselves, we delude ourselves and the truth is not in us (see 1 John 1:8).”

― R. C. Sproul

“Before the Fall Adam was endowed with two possibilities: He had the ability to sin and the ability not to sin. After the Fall Adam had the ability to sin and the inability to not sin.”

― R. C. Sproul

“Only sinful people are in need of a savior. Those who are well have no need of a physician.”

― R. C. Sproul

“if grace is obligated it is no longer grace.”

― R. C. Sproul

“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)”

― R. C. Sproul

“That God in some sense foreordains whatever comes to pass is a necessary result of his sovereignty. In itself it does not plead for Calvinism. It only declares that God is absolutely sovereign over his creation. God can foreordain things in different ways. But everything that happens must at least happen by his permission. If he permits something, then he must decide to allow it. If he decides to allow something, then in a sense he is foreordaining it. Who, among Christians, would argue that God could not stop something in this world from happening? If God so desires, he has the power to stop the whole world. To say that God foreordains all that comes to pass is simply to say that God is sovereign over his entire creation. If something could come to pass apart from his sovereign permission, then that which came to pass would frustrate his sovereignty. If God refused to permit something to happen and it happened anyway, then whatever caused it to happen would have more authority and power than God himself. If there is any part of creation outside of God’s sovereignty, then God is simply not sovereign. If God is not sovereign, then God is not God. If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled. Perhaps that one maverick molecule will lay waste all the grand and glorious plans that God has made and promised to us. If a grain of sand in the kidney of Oliver Cromwell changed the course of English history, so our maverick molecule could change the course of all redemption history. Maybe that one molecule will be the thing that prevents Christ from returning.”

― R. C. Sproul

“If God’s sovereignty is restricted by man’s freedom, then God is not sovereign; man is sovereign.”

― R. C. Sproul

“If anyone says that a man once justified cannot lose grace and therefore that he who falls and sins never was truly justified, let him be accursed” (Council of Trent: 6/23).”

― R. C. Sproul

“Evangelism is not only a duty; it is also a privilege.”

― R. C. Sproul

“Our preservation is a Trinitarian work. God the Father keeps and preserves us. God the Son intercedes for us. God the Holy Spirit indwells and assists us.”

― R. C. Sproul

“YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BELIEVE, TO PREACH, AND TO TEACH WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS IS TRUE, NOT WHAT YOU WANT THE BIBLE TO SAY IS TRUE.”

― R. C. Sproul

“If we are to be biblical, then, the issue is not whether we should have a doctrine of predestination or not, but what kind we should embrace. If the Bible is the Word of God, not mere human speculation, and if God himself declares that there is such a thing as predestination, then it follows irresistibly that we must embrace some doctrine of predestination.”

― R. C. Sproul

R. C. Sproul

Robert Charles Sproul was an American Reformed theologian and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. He was the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries and could be heard daily on the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast in the United States and internationally. Under Sproul's direction, Ligonier Ministries produced the Ligonier Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which would eventually grow into the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, of which Sproul, alongside Norman Geisler, was one of the chief architects. Sproul has been described as "the greatest and most influential proponent of the recovery of Reformed theology in the last century."

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