Given that the vast majority of them will be lost, why is Jeremiah sent to plead with them? The Lord knows they will be lost; he knows full well that they are going to reject him. Yet he instructs his servants, the prophets, the good prophets, as well as Jeremiah, the principal prophet of the time. He instructs them to preach as though the people could turn, as though large numbers of them, if not all of them, might do so. That sounds very strange. God knows they won't. Yet it tells his preachers to preach as though they might. And there are good reasons for this. Poor, earthly, human, logic, and non-Calvinists sometimes say, ‘Well, if God knows they won't, then it's foolish to do it. But God has commanded us to do it, and Jeremiah does. Why? First, for the very practical reason, that we do not know who the elect are, so there must be a universal proclamation of the gospel. Not only that, but the heart of God has to be revealed in this matter, the matter of God's contention with the human race. The heart of God is that the human race would repent and turn and be blessed. He knows the human race won’t, but nevertheless through his prophets and later his apostles and his preachers through time, he shows his heart in the matter. The loss of so many members of the human race is not down to God; it's down to them. They were appealed to; they were warned; they were told.
Now, of course, when Adam disobeyed God and the fall took place in the garden, the whole human race fell with him. The whole human race is involved in that rejection of God. Consequently everyone is inclined to reject him. It is not that they cannot turn to him. Always be careful to understand the distinction. It is because they – and all of us are the same – will not turn to him. But God has determined from eternity past that a great host which no man can number will turn, and he will visit them and overrule in their hearts and make them willing to turn to him with their whole heart. When they are converted, it will seem to them that it was entirely their own voluntary free will turning to him. And so it was, but God was behind it by the work of the Spirit who worked in our hearts. So they are saved by no righteousness or deserving of their own, and given life eternal.
But the loss of vast numbers of the human race is ever a grief to Almighty God. That is made very clear in Ezekiel 33:11, where God tells us that in a sense he does not desire the death or the judgment of a single sinner. He is grieved at the terrible loss. Now some people say, ‘Oh, but did he not determine who would be lost as if he consciously ordained his rejection of them on them before eternity and discarded them and made it impossible for them to turn?’ No, that is a completely erroneous view of the mind of God, and the way in which God works. God gave free will to the human race. It's a very personal thing. God is a free being. He can do anything he wishes, which is consistent with his holy eternal character. He has determined that there shall be an eternal heaven peopled by created human beings, and glorified bodies, who are there because they want to be there, who also are there by an act of freedom, even though he had to work in their hearts and make them inclined to choose him. And once we choose him, and we repent of our sins, by his work of grace, we say to him, in some form of words or other, ‘Lord, take my free will away; seal me as a child of God eternally. I choose to call upon thee. Make it impossible for me ever to fall.’ Every occupant of heaven is there because he has seen the alternative to God and a love God and has chosen God. But what if they were lost? What do we say about those who will not will not respond? That God has fixed them in that? No, but so far as salvation is concerned, God has passed them by. You cannot go further than that. If you try to say, ‘God saved some and set his love upon them; he must have elected the lost to damnation.’ No, that is human logic. God is sovereign. And what comes out in the end, saved or lost, will be by God's sovereign will. But we talk about his permissive will, with regards to the lost. God passes the lost by. ‘Oh,’ some people say – they don't like the term ‘God's permissive will’, because that implies that God is weak, and he had to let it happen, so let's not use the term ‘permissive will’. But that is foolish. Because if you throw away the term ‘permissive will’, you have nothing to take its place. There isn't a suitable alternative word in the English language. But we say that permissive does not imply any weakness at all in God. This is God's pleasure: to bring free will into the situation. Once mankind had fallen, God could pass us all by. It is just amazing mercy, that he determines to save millions. So we preach, because the heart of God that, actually, he is for redemption and salvation and love and reconciliation. And it is man who will not have it. So first of all, we don't know who the elect are. Secondly, the heart of God has to be proclaimed. And thirdly, God will use this message to judge people in the last day – those people to whom it will be said, you heard the message of redemption – and those words will be applied in judgment.