1689 LBCF 3:5 and more

or truly better, please guide our thoughts and our comments tonight with our minds to your truth.

Please let me pray, amen. Amen. Thanks, Carl. Well, before we begin, so just actually before we even talk about what we talked about last week, tonight,

I suspect that we're gonna get through all the way through chapter three, and hopefully we'll even get into chapter four, maybe even get through chapter four, depending on the speed that we go through these things as.

I believe we left off right before paragraph five.

Is that correct? That you guys are remembering the same thing? I think we got through one through four, and I think we left off on five.

So we'll be on five and on for tonight, but would anybody like to remind us of what we discussed last week?

Some of the highlights or important notes that we noticed from last week's discussion.

Last week, we read a lot more Bible verses than what we had the week prior or the weeks prior in these studies, and so that was a blessing to go through.

I hope to continue that, but just kept on trying to be thinking biblical through this confession.

Any insights from last week? Predestined, okay. So predestination, right?

You understand it now? Jonathan's ahead of all of us.

He shook his head, yes. The whole thing of predestination is the absolute,

I think, to me anyway, it's an elusive, it's something that I really don't think the human mind can, and I don't think there's any way that we, as humans, can say we understand.

I don't think we can, it's incomprehensible. Incomprehensible, right?

You disagree with Jonathan. I have to say that, because my whole life, I have felt so strongly that God loves us, and He doesn't create people, only to send them to hell.

And yet, He said, in these words, He said, I will do, and who are you to question me?

Yep. And your life was in the makeway, okay, okay.

A lot of that, and in fact, let's maybe start reading some of that text for tonight. Let's go to, before we even look at Romans 9, before we read paragraph 5 and on, let's look at just chapter 8 of Romans real fast.

Because Romans 8 obviously comes before Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9 is what Don is referring to with that predestination language that we saw last week.

Let me read verse 28 to 30 for us real quick. Romans 8, 28 to 30.

And it says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.

So this is talking about those that have been called, those that are elect, is what we're gonna see this described out here in a moment.

But it says in verse 29, because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn of many brothers.

And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called,

He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified.

Verse 33, it declares these people who will bring a charge against God's elect, right?

So we have these languages over and over and over again about predestination and elect here in the scripture.

And then in chapter nine, the text that we're talking about right now that Don is regarding and discussing is in verse 21 of chapter nine and on.

It says, and we could read this whole chapter because it's all chocked full of this language. It says, or does not the potter have authority over the clay to make the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

And what if God wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience, vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction.

And in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.

And this, I should have backed up and read a little bit before. Let's actually read, sorry,

I should have done this before, but let's read first 16 all the way to 21, just so that we see what that says so too.

So, and this is backwards the way I should have done it. I should have read 16 on, I apologize. So then it does not depend on the one who wills or on the one who runs, but on God who has mercy.

For the scripture, we're in verse 16, by the way, and now 17. For the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose,

I raise you up in order to demonstrate my power in you. And in order that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

So then He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires.

You will say to me, why does He still find fault for who resists His will?

And then in verse 20, on the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?

Will the things molded say to the molder, why did you make me like this?

Confusing way of reading those verses, I know, I apologize. However, there's several theological implications on this text that I would say is fairly clear in what

Paul is trying to rebuke. He almost understands as he's writing chapter eight and he's writing these things to the

Romans, he almost foresees the immediate objection and questions that a Christian is going to raise, right?

Why, or maybe not even the Christian, he's not even talking about the vessels made for wrath. So he's saying, I know what unbelievers are going to object with this.

And he says, they're the clay, he's the molder, he's the potter, what pot would ever respond back to the potter, why have you made me like this?

And so several things on there that we need to take notice of, where does the dependency upon the clay come from?

The pot, where does the pot get its dependency from? The molder, okay?

Does the molder depend on anything else? No, it isn't.

So this is what a Sadie is discussing in here, that God depends only on himself.

There's nothing that he depends on, right? And so it's not like God, in order to be merciful, or if for God, in order to have love, he depended upon loving us, though that would make him dependent upon us.

And so all these attributes of God do not depend on anybody but himself. And that includes his mercy, and that even includes his wrath.

And that also includes his predestination, it includes his foreknowledge, everything that we see.

But ultimately, like Don said, this is the truth of scripture, that God is predestined, he's called, he's justified, he's sanctified, and he works all things together for the good of those who believe in him, which praise the

Lord that we in this room all profess that. So that's a wonderful thing. Any other notes that you could see from something theological that this text is teaching us about God, or about believers, or even unbelievers in this?

I mean, that same thing to this modern day time, and we're thinking about Israel and everything.

Did he make, create Israel to be surrounded on all sides?

Right. People slain in the street. I mean, it's not like, it caught me by surprise.

It did not. I didn't see that one coming. It did not. And I think we kind of see a little bit of a, and there was something

I was going to bring up with this on this thinking, right? And so there's reference to Pharaoh, right?

So something that is a historical world event where Israel, right? And here it says that God was the one that hardened his heart and it was for a purpose.

It wasn't void of purpose. It wasn't like it was just sin that was happening meaninglessly. It's again, this mystery of how this things work, but men sin, but God's purpose is in it.

God's sovereign plan is in it. There's bringing about something. And in this text that we just read, it said so that all the earth or the whole world would know his name.

And so it was to demonstrate his power and all those things that he did. And so ultimately, you and I are clueless that maybe to the degree of why things are happening in Israel, we need to be praying for those individuals.

It's terrifying what's going on over there right now. Very terrifying. Think what he was talking about Pharaoh there.

I hardened his heart because Pharaoh was ready to let him go early, but instead had to get to be the plague.

So you could say, well, God killed all those first born. Yep. Just by hardening.

Just by hardening one man's heart, right? Which, and so there was actually, it's interesting this week,

I'm not gonna even call it a debate. It wasn't a debate. I got invited to do a debate with somebody this week and I went on there.

It was not a debate. It was just an interrupting match of them just not allowing scripture to speak.

It was very interesting, but these gentlemen don't believe in this type of understanding that we're reading out of Romans nine at all.

And they would even say that you could lose your salvation, all this kind of stuff, just not very good theology, in my opinion.

But they would say, well, obviously God decrees things because you can't get away from that in the Bible, right? There's very clearly, God says,

I decreed Pontius Pilate. I decreed for them to do whatever my hand had purposed to crucify

Christ. And so they would say, God would decree in certain events, little things, but he doesn't decree the entirety of everything.

But the issue with that, which I think logically we can follow, is did he also decree

Pontius Pilate being raised up as the man that he was so that he could be the governor who would then pronounce just a sentence upon Jesus?

Did God decree that? So you're telling me there's a billion random choices that came about so that God's decree would happen.

Like that doesn't make sense to me, first of all. Then even backing up, like, and they would even say something like, God decreed

David, but he didn't decree everything else. But we just went through the book of Ruth together and we see, here's this widow that was a pagan woman that was in another foreign city that was in this dark time in history for Israel.

And it was through those things that David would come about. And so it's like, you can't get away from the idea that God has a plan, even in evil, atrocity, hardship of times.

You can't get away from that decree. In fact, I think the decree is what gives it meaning and guidance and something that we can hope for even in those hard times.

So like right now with Israel, I don't know what's going on, but I hope, I know, I have a hope that whatever's being done is bringing about some greater glory in the future.

Don't know what that is. It's an atrocity that's happening right now. Don't let me lessen the evils that are taking place there, but I feel like I can walk away with that and be able to sleep at night with those things.

And we talked about prayer last week. That'd be another thing I would add to that. We still should be offering up prayers for these individuals and knowing that God's sovereignty will take place, but still be praying for them.

It goes in the same hand on how we are to apply it and understand things at the same time.

You were gonna say something, Rick? Yeah, one of my favorite passages on the sovereignty of God is in Genesis 50 with Joseph and his brothers.

I'll read some of the verse 15 through 21. Sounds great. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, perhaps

Joseph will hate us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him. So they sent messengers to Joseph saying, before your father died, he commanded saying, thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you.

Now please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face and they said, behold, we are your servants. Joseph said to them, do not be afraid, for am

I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is today to save many people.

So in verse 20, but as for you, you meant evil.

So the brothers meant evil, they intended evil. They had that, that was their only, they weren't forced to mean evil.

It wasn't, they weren't robots. They meant evil, they intended evil. But in their evil, God intended good, meant it for good.

And it was all in order to bring it about as it is this day, not maybe I'm flipping the coin and I've got a pretty good chance to end up this way, but no, as it is this day.

And you, okay, well, there's just big decisions. That's what he's doing. But all the brothers, they had thousands of little decisions each day that would affect the outcome of any of their choice.

So if God's not in control of the minute, how can he only take the big ones? Still just to roll the dice.

Yep, exactly. No, I'm happy that that was actually a text I was thinking about today with just bringing about this, that is a remarkable thing to go through and see.

Same exact words in there. They meant it for evil, God meant it for good. So Pharaoh having his heart hardened and resisting the command to let his people go, right?

He meant it for evil, right? Obviously he was doing those things sinfully and against God, but in it, as we just read from Romans nine and from the example of Joseph there,

God had a greater purpose in all of it. He meant those exact same actions for good. It's remarkable.

So. Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel were a tremendous example of God put

Nebuchadnezzar, I put you there. The greatest kingdom on the earth.

No. Yep. Yeah. Again, it's crazy.

It's incomprehensible, incomprehensible stuff. But it's truth. So my suggestion again for you is that when we read these things, check your emotions at the door, know that you're not

God, that you're not greater than God and you can't make a plan or a purpose that's greater than God's ultimate plan and ultimate purpose and things.

And check those things at the door. And then when you talk about these theological truths of God's aseity or God's sovereignty, you lay the cards out where they should be according to scripture and you let them lay there.

There's no need for you to make an apology against or for God against others that would accuse him of wrongdoing.

Because like ultimately what does scripture say in Romans nine? Who are you, old man? Right? Who are you old man?

All right. So who would like to volunteer to read paragraph five for us tonight? Yeah, thanks

Jonathan. Go ahead. Those people who are predestined to life were chosen by God for the foundation of the world.

According to his eternal and unchangeable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will.

He chose them in Christ for eternal glory purely as a result of his free grace and love without anything else about them serving as a condition or cause moving him to do so.

Love it. Thank you, Jonathan. So at the end of that paragraph, that was where I was leaning into that aseity language that we have about God in this confession.

Also, I think would be arguably all over in the Bible is that if God depended upon us as his creatures for him to be who he is, well, that means that he's not truly, well, it would implicate a lot of things, but it means that he's not able, he's reliant on something else.

He's not totally independent from things.

There's a lot of greater words I could be using right now that are slipping my mind right now. But that even in God's love and mercy is

Jonathan just, or grace and love that Jonathan just read for us, we are able to have those expressions of God.

We're able to see them, feel them, have them in our lives in these ways. But us receiving those things doesn't mean that if we didn't receive those things,

God would be void of those things. God doesn't need us in order for him to be loving. He doesn't need us in order to be grace.

He made us so that we could experience those things. And so our God is a relationship, a relational being.

Let's read Ephesians chapter one, verse four here for us. We already read

Romans eight, one of the references that we have here in paragraph five, but let's look at Ephesians chapter one.

I'm gonna read verse three all the way to verse nine for us.

Maybe we'll even read to 11. Let's read verse three all the way to 11. It says, blessed be the

God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him in love.

We could just stop there and talk about that, but let's keep on going. By predestinating us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he graciously bestowed upon us in, graciously bestowed on us in the beloved.

In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions according to the riches of his grace, which he caused to abound to us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him for administration of the fullness of times, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on earth in him.

In him, we also have been made an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will."

Any takeaways from that text? Anybody want to mention something in there? Don, what stands out to you in that text?

I just marvel at the simplicity, if you will, the total picture.

Yeah. And it makes me want to pick and point here and there, but the overview is

God is good. God's plan is the plan, it works.

Yep. And it's with all wisdom and insight, right?

That's remarkable. It wasn't predestination of individuals was not determined by anything.

We've read in 5, anything outside of himself wasn't looking through the corridors of time, thought, okay, this person is gonna trust me, so I predestine, this person trusts me and do this good thing or whatever.

It wasn't anything of that. Verse 5, having predestined us to the adoption of the Son by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

According to the good pleasure of his will, that we're predestined, not because of anything else. Right, and I'm happy you bring that up.

So there's a theological term out there, and when we talk about these things, we also have to realize that there might be some people in our church that believe in these things, and that's okay, we can have discussion about it and dialogue through these things, but there's a term called provisionism that's been very popularized here in the last 10 years,

I would argue, last 10, 15 years. And in that teaching, it teaches that predestination in this text does not mean what

Rick just described for us so beautifully, right? It would mean rather that like an airplane is predestined here out of Twin Falls to drive to Salt Lake.

That's the predestination for that plane. And ultimately it's up to you, not

God, but it's up to you to get on the plane. And if you get on that plane, you're predestined to go to Salt Lake, right?

That would depend on a lot more things than his will, if that's what we're gonna make the predestination term mean.

So I'm happy that Rick brings that up. Thank you, Rick. I would highly disagree with that in the provisionist's mind.

At what point, maybe this is a great question, Emily, answer this according to verse four, it says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be homely and blameless before him in love, when did

God choose his elect? Right, yeah.

And that would be the language that they would use, right? And the language that we would even use to talk about creation, right? So before creation was even a thing, before any of us ever made any action thoughts, before we were a glimmer in our parents' eyes long time ago, before any of these things,

God had chosen us before creation itself. Again, we see that he's the arbitrator of his grace and love.

We can't think of God as a monkey in a cage that every time you poke him, he's gonna jump for us.

We can't think about how, okay, if somebody with faith, you faith God, you poke this monkey in the cage and it's gonna jump.

We can't think of God like that. We have to realize that God is the one and that is the one that predestines.

He's the one that gives and none of us have ever given to him so that we might receive. Let's think here through this.

Anything else that we wanna make mention of in paragraph five before we look at paragraph six? In Ephesians 1 .17,

that God, or my

God, of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the

Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and a revelation of his knowledge of him.

Amen to that. Yeah, you just gotta pray for that and seek that knowledge.

That you could have the knowledge. You could have the wisdom.

Yeah, yeah. Immediately my mind is taken to Romans 11.

I think it's verse 34. It says in that verse, who has given to him that he might have something returned?

And what it's saying in there that it's God. Everything comes from God. And even in, we're in the book of Job. Where did

Job this week on Sunday in the final words of this text, when he's rebuking his wife that just told him, curse

God and die. What does Job say? Are we to accept only the blessings and not also the calamity, right?

And so we have to recognize that the wisdom that we receive about who God is, the faith that we have.

Philippians 2, we talked about that when we were in the book of Philippians. It says that he grants us faith.

It's remarkable. Ephesians chapter two, just in the next chapter in the text that we're in right now, Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine.

It says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of work so that no one may boast.

There's a lot of scholarly debate on what the gift of God is in this text, right? Is it the grace or is it the faith, right?

It's an interesting question to ask. I would argue it's probably both, but if I could only pick one, the nearest antecedent, so the nearest word that is used before gift is faith.

And so I would argue at most or at least the gift is faith, but at most it is both grace and faith that is the gift of God.

And the reason why I would argue that is it says it in the next verse, not by works less any man should boast.

And we should even consider things like John chapter, is it John chapter one or John chapter two and John five and six.

In there it talks about that it's not the will of man or that brings about salvation, but it is the will of God.

We just see this language over and over and over and over and over again in the scripture.

Let's have a volunteer read paragraph six. Would anyone like to volunteer to read paragraph six for tonight?

Thanks, Bethany. Yes. By Christ.

And effectually called to faith in Christ by the spirit, working at the appropriate time.

They are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith to salvation.

None but the elect are redeemed by Christ or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There's several places that we could talk about in this.

The Romans eight, that text that we just read over several times now, but those whom he foreknew, he also predestined, right?

To be part of the image of the son, to be justified, sanctified, glorified in that text, right?

If that text is true, which it is, it must be said that the foreknowledge of God that it is speaking about in there is not foreknowing everybody, right?

Because if God in the contextual language of foreknown in Romans eight, if it is to be made to everybody that's living, what would be the implication of that?

Is everyone predestined? Is everyone justified? Is everyone glorified? No, it's not.

And that would clearly contradict some very explicit language of Jesus talking. Matthew 25, that he separates the sheeps from the goats, right?

We would see that in John chapter 15, John chapter 15, which is where Jesus says,

I am the true vine that he's going to cut people down and throw them into fire, right?

So this would be language that would contradict that kind of understanding, right? So those whom he foreknew is talking about those that have faith in Christ, those that he predestined to be in the sun.

That's what this text is saying is ultimately what we would take away from this. Is there anything else that we should take note of that you guys would wanna mention here that you see in paragraph six, that is particularly enlightening to how it works things.

Following that, they are kept by his power through faith to salvation.

So the individual is predestined and kept by the power of the spirit.

So not only does he elect, it's like he keeps that individual through his power to the

Holy Spirit. That's a wonderful thing.

Marvelous. Yep, that is. Should that be comforting for the believer, Don? For myself, who at times

I feel like I fail in life. Should that be comforting to me to know that It has to be.

God is the one that sustains my salvation. It has to be comforting. It has to give you a soul. You just,

God is there with you. Yeah. Don, I think it's your old friend, John MacArthur, who

I think said, if you could lose your salvation, you would lose your salvation, right?

If our salvation, what we have in Christ, if it's dependent upon me in any capacity, whether that's me going to church on Sunday, whether that's me, anything,

I'm going to lose that salvation if it's dependent upon me. I'm gonna walk with God and I'm gonna follow.

His power will lead me. Yep, yep. That's the,

I think the remarkable thing of Jesus's teaching in John 10, when he says, I'm the good shepherd.

Anybody that comes through the door, he will be saved, right? I am that door.

And he says in that text that they go in and out and they find pastor, that they're my sheep. He, as our shepherd has done something for his sheep that we can't ever stop being his sheep.

It's great imagery. And I think it also teaches us the great truth in these things. How, so just a

FYI on this one, it talks about those are for those who are elected, building fallen in Adam and redeemed by Christ.

What this is teaching in this text is something that you might've heard me say several times behind the pulpit or in conversation, but federal headship that we all fell in Adam.

And the way I know this is Romans chapter five teaches us that, that we all died in Adam.

And likewise, so we will all be made alive in Christ. So what this is saying in this is that just as Adam's fall in the garden was effectually sure for you and I, I don't know about any of us in this room, but did any of us help

Adam sin in the garden? Did any of us egg him on or root for him to do it? No, but what he did caused an eternal curse to all of us.

However, likewise, were any of us there with Christ, holding him up and helping him out on the cross?

No, obviously not. So just as much as it's true that we are fallen in Adam, likewise, the effectual power of the cross is in our lives as well.

That's a sure thing is what that's trying to teach that it's something that's apart from any of working of you and I, just as the fall of Adam was absent of you and I, so is the redeeming that we have in Christ.

All right, paragraph seven. Jake, do you have your 1689 with you? Would you mind reading paragraph seven for us?

4 .0, let's hear it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

What are some things that we notice in paragraph seven? Susanna, what do you think? Jake smiles, that's right, it's comforting.

That's a right answer, Susanna, good job. Yep, it does.

And it's using language from the scripture, right? That the mystery of Christ, we've just read over a little bit of that in Ephesians one.

And so it's still using biblical language when it uses that word mystery, but that's something like that is above all of our pay grades to know at a intimate level.

And I think Rick did a great job talking about it last week that we can still be confident though in what God has revealed in these ways.

So just like Genesis five, that they brothers meant something for evil,

God meant it for good. We can be assured when we say things that are confidently stating God's sovereignty in light of scripture, right?

But still ultimately at some level, it's a mystery. I don't know, right?

I don't know. What is the purpose of Israel having hardship and death and war take place right now?

I don't know. It's a mystery to me in the working out of these things. Is it going to bring about something?

Is it in the midst of it? Is God sovereign in it? Yes. Yes, it is.

Yeah. It's something I think all of us should defend as God's sovereignty, truly.

You know, you're looking at God's plan. And his people sojourned into Egypt.

And Moses came in and saw the tragedy and God led him to do.

Yep. You know, he thought, well, does

God take care of his people? Yeah. He certainly does. Yep. And yet when you look at the

Holocaust, what happened? The Jewish people were, if you will, hated.

And today, what's happening right now, today. Yeah. It's an atrocity what's going on right now.

It is. It really is. It really is. I mean, you can even look at that stuff with Russia and Ukraine and all the death that happens in those things.

You can look at any large event with that stuff. And it's this doctrine of sovereignty.

And I like how it ends it just as much as what Patty just said at the beginning, how it calls it a great mystery.

And that's something that I will adamantly defend. This is a mystery on how these things work out. I can't fully comprehend them, right?

But at the end of it, that should cause us humility, right? Reverence towards this decree, right?

This, or to this understanding of God's decree. And the reason I think that that is what's, it's what's said in Romans nine.

Who are you, old man? Answer back to the potter. Will the one that's molded ask, why have you made me like this?

No, we don't have that authority because we're not in the same playing field as God. God is totally different than us.

And so what I would encourage anybody in the midst of Israel or Russia or anything along those lines, our minds,

John Piper is the one that actually talks about this, that anytime our minds start to wander in negative areas when we try to reflect on God's sovereignty.

And that can happen when we think about Israel or any atrocity in those things. Let your mind shift back to the cross and remind yourself of the cross and stick there and seeing

God's sovereignty. Because that's a very clear thing in Acts chapter four. It says that Pontius Pilate, Herod, all the peoples of Israel were gathered here together to do whatever your hand had predestined to occur.

So anytime our mind starts to slip and wander and maybe think less of God or question

God, just be taken back to the cross. Yeah. And there's lots of examples of that.

Thinking of that in our Moses example, his second or third, whenever it was, and they said, okay, you're gonna make bricks with half the straw in both hands to go harvest your own straw.

And so at that point, those people were thinking, this is messed up.

Thanks, Moses. What's that? Thanks, Moses. Yeah, thanks, Moses. Right. Yeah, you're

God's guy. Look what you've just done to us. Yep. Yeah. And so they learned so much, they get out in the desert complaining because they have manna every day.

Yep. We should go back to Egypt. At least there we get to meet every once in a while. Right. And the melons, all the melons.

It's crazy when we think about this stuff, right? I'm happy that you bring that up. But we run into the same thing now. All the time. Oh, look,

God's out of control. Look what's happening in Israel. Look what's happening in the U .S. Look what happened. I mean, look what happened to me.

My water line blew up today and I spent the day fighting the dirt. I'm sorry about that. Jake, that was you?

Yeah. Dang it. Sorry. That's not fun though. We've got a plethora of our own immediate wants.

Yep. And it's easy for us to think God's not in control. Yep. Or if he is, he's punishing us for something.

Yep. There are, I can almost see like why you're trying to fix a pipe that has been broken of almost a knee -jerk reaction of wanting to curse the situation, right?

Out of pure frustration, right? Upset, emotions are high, right? And it's at those times

I would encourage anybody, just remember Christ was predestined to die for you, right? And that maybe will help us approach those situations with more humility, right?

I think of somebody like Amy Franklin, somebody who lives nearby, but in Southern Idaho, right?

Her husband died by being hit by a intoxicated drug using lady, was hit and killed, father of children, just terrible situation, right?

Wife is the one that finds him dead, very, very bad things. And she believes in these statements of God's sovereignty.

And you could imagine how hard living and thinking through these things would be.

And she told me one time, and I really appreciated and valued her advice on this, but she said, I realized

I was messed up when I started thinking about how I was thinking about my husband's death more than my savior's death.

And I was humbled by that. And that's where my comfort came from was remembering my savior's death. And that's what carried her through those things to remember

God is sovereign, even in those things. Hard, hard things, right? Couldn't imagine that in my own life, but what a righteous woman in those ways to acknowledge

God in the midst of those things. Were you gonna say something, Jonathan? No, I was like, I couldn't have screwed it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. It's a high mystery.

It's a great mystery, I think. It's something that I dearly love is God's sovereignty. Well, you guys ready to go through chapter four together?

This one is Dawn's favorite chapter in this whole book. We got a resident scientist in the room today.

Would anybody like to volunteer to read paragraph one of chapter four creation for us?

Jonathan, please do. In the beginning, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was pleased to create or make the world and all things in it.

Both visible and invisible in a six day period and all very good.

He did this to manifest the glory of his eternal power, wisdom and goodness.

Amen. Thanks, Jonathan. So one thing I would like to remind everybody of is the other documents that echo these very same words, right?

So the 1689 comes as the third document that uses very similar language in each one of these chapters, but the

Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration all say these things in here.

Now, when we consider that, these are the individuals that I would say, looking in history, these are the reformers.

These are the Puritans. These are the people that had a high view of scripture in these periods where the papacy had gone a very, very wildly incorrect and wrong and sinful areas.

And so these are all men and women who see these truths in the

Bible. And I would argue that what Jonathan just read for us is that they read

Genesis 1 through 11 as actual historical events that took place, right?

I would urge anybody that you're letting science dictate the way that you're letting your culture and maybe not even science, that's the wrong word.

You're letting popularity and people that are influenced by presuppositions that are not biblical guide your theology rather than letting

God's word guide your theology in these things. Don, do you have something to say on that? Well, whenever you try to, science is just a study.

Science is the study of, and so there are those who spend their life trying to know what was the beginning?

Was there a beginning? The truth appears to be that there has to be a beginning.

But the truth is there is no other feasible explanation other than a creator, there has to be a creator.

Somehow, a creation has to occur. So there is a beginning, and this one

I think is the one that I trust in each sense of the word.

A reasonable person wouldn't end up with this conclusion. Yeah. That there is a beginning,

God is the creator. God created everything that is. Yep, which this is an interesting thing that takes place.

And so who's the author of Genesis? Does anybody know off the top of your head who the author of Genesis is? Author of Genesis, Moses, yep,

Moses, right? And so the argument goes that in Genesis one through 11, which recounts things like the flood, that recounts things like creation, these things that are too many would be not real in people's minds.

They would say, look, Genesis one through 11 is all parables only, it's all poetry, symbolic.

My issue with that though is the same author writes Genesis one that writes also

Genesis 50, which is Moses. And he never changes his literary style in the middle of this book.

And so when he's recording Genesis one, while it's true that we can see hints of poetic symbolism in there, does

Moses intend poetic symbolic meaning only and purely when he records the accounts of Genesis 50 with Joseph and his brothers being sold into slavery?

Was that a historical event or was that just poetry? Well, no, it was a historical event.

Does it have theological meaning for us? Well, obviously it's also God inspired, God breathed.

So we can look at a text like Genesis and we can say, this is historically taking place.

This is God's creation in these things, but there might be theological poetic truths in there, such as God rested on the seventh day, right?

We can look at something like that and we could maybe walk away and think about how that was to point forward to how we are to be in Christ.

And it was on the seventh, which is a consistent number that's used all throughout the Bible is being complete, right?

We can come to those kinds of understandings looking in these things. So there's not that it's secret or hidden things in scripture, it's that there's the historical understanding of these things, the intended, what did the author intend when he wrote this?

And ultimately knowing that there is a greater author that's behind men using literary styles writing that we have to also take into account as well.

Well, the other thing, historically, I mean, the book was written 2 ,000 or 3 ,000 years ago.

If you're writing something to someone at that time, you had to use phraseology that was recognizable.

You can't talk about automobiles and jet planes when you're writing to people who rode camels or sheep.

You can't. The style of writing has to be a language that could be understood,

I guess. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think even Moses recalling the life of Abraham from Genesis 12 all the way,

I think it goes to, I'd have to open it up. But let's say Genesis 22, it might go beyond that. It probably goes beyond that.

But did you say 24? Is it 24? Okay, maybe longer. Somewhere in the 20s,

I'm pretty sure. But is that poetic too? Like where, it just seems, it seems because of pressures from the world who is not the arbitrator of truth, we sometimes take

God's word and we sweep things under the carpet with it sometimes, trying to, again, protect what

God has revealed to us in these ways. I would urge somebody that we should come away with the understanding that this, not because this is the confession, but because the confession is putting into words how men in the 1500s and the 1600s saw

God's word. And we should come away with the same understanding of God's word, that God, this is a younger earth rather than millions and millions and millions of years old, right?

And it didn't come about by naturalistic means. It came about by divine, omnipowerful creator,

God creating things. That would be my suggestion. I think that we got the 1689.

Yep. So up to this point, that's what people believe, right? So this isn't just a new thing that, oh,

God spoke in six days and the rest of the seven. But that's what almost universally the churches believe until the late 1800s with Darwinism and evolution.

And then we started, then the church started, well, maybe it could have been longer. The influence, the only reason they changed was from pressure from the world, not from what was in scripture.

And so if everyone had it wrong for 1800 years, like as your opposite, everyone's been wrong.

And so all the believers before us, or God didn't really give us a full picture until now. So it's just not consistent.

It doesn't, we didn't have the full understanding of scripture until now, until science came along.

Yeah. I wasn't able to explain it, I was wrong. Yep. He didn't actually inspire Moses' thought.

And so now he throws the whole thing into it. Exactly. What the world interprets what scripture is saying.

Exactly. Again, I think this is something, I am not a scientist.

Like this, and I've openly said this to several people. Somebody came and asked me, Braden, tell us about creation.

I can tell you theologically what creation is and what it teaches us. I don't know the science, like somebody like Ken Ham or Don or Rick.

I've heard Rick talk about it before. And it blows my mind when he talks about this stuff. I am not astute in these areas.

I don't know how these things exactly play out, but I can see in the

Bible that it's young earth, creationism is what it would be called. It's a younger earth.

It's God is the creator. It's not millions of years old. It didn't come about by a big bang, all these kinds of things.

You see what I'm saying with that? I'm just, I'm letting you know that I dropped out of high school and I'm not very wise when it comes to science.

The interesting part about that, it did, as Rick said, there was no reason to question.

And so suddenly we started saying, well, the earth isn't flat, you know.

Look, we found out it's round. And then the earth is not the center of the younger earth.

You know, at least in climate terms. Right. They're circling, science has answers.

Yep. Don't they? Right. What would be, and even thinking through this.

So the Bible, so many of these people that would say that God uses evolution, right?

I don't wanna agree with that, but God uses evolution, right? That would be one of the possible implications from people that believe in old earth or evolution within Christianity.

What would be issues prior to the fall?

So prior to Adam and Eve existing, because usually these people say Adam and Eve were God's creation. That's pretty clear.

Why do they say that? Well, Paul in Romans five refers to Adam as a real historical person, right?

So they have to imply that when they read this, that this was a historical person, Adam. So if there was evolution and death and hardship and fallenness and all these things that we see that came about from the fall, when we read the

Bible, these things were happening before the fall. What kind of theological implications does that have about the fall?

It already happened before. Right. Already it actually happened.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's, these are all true things.

Like this is, I think the seriousness of this is that what

Adam really didn't do, didn't really bring about death on anybody. It was just per norm, right?

It was per norm and they would go, well, it's not, it wasn't per norm for the garden. The garden was the specific area where death wasn't existing, right?

Very, very, very, but again, that to me has issue because if you have a naturalistic view of how the world has come about, why would there then be the special garden where these things aren't taking place?

Like that, there's so many issues, right?

Did it, did God not create Adam from the dust at that point? Or is it just the thought that through thousands and thousands and thousands of years of something coming up from a rock, that that was the dust that Adam was like, that's putting a lot into the text that's just obviously not there.

I would. A lot of jumping through hoops to take down the picture.

Yeah. They'll even pull from some church fathers and say, well, so this guy thought it was symbolic.

Yep. Or I think Augustine. Yep. Augustine didn't believe that it was literal seven days.

Yep. Which with Augustine's troops, he thought it actually happened a lot shorter. Yep. He thought it was all instantaneous and the guy was symbolic about it being seven days.

Describing what it was, right? Yeah, but none of them thought like, oh yeah, evolution. Yep. None of them would have thought that was.

No, or none of them would have said that sin was taking place before Adam, right? Like none of that would have ever been taught or held to.

So what Rick just referred to, I'm happy I was thinking about even bringing this up is we have to remember, especially from the

New Testament forward, there were three types of interpretation that went out from different regions.

So you had in Alexandria, you had a very, yeah, allegorical, thank you.

Symbolic view of scripture, right? And they went too far in a lot of these areas, right? This is where somebody like origin would come from.

But in Alexandria, that's what was the per norm. Well, then you had the literacists in Antioch and they weren't void of heretics in their camp either.

But that would be the typical place that I would suggest somebody to take as a literal understanding of the scriptures.

That's not meaning you can't find symbols and metaphors and all these wonderful things that we have in scripture as well, but they would have a much more literal take on the scripture.

But then you had in the Augustan area, it would be the period would be what was known as the Western tradition.

And so they had tradition that helped guide their understanding more so. So that was with a lot of major churches and whatnot that were dictating what everybody would believe rather than it was more up to individuals.

And each one of these things, like I said, heretics in each one of them, saints in each one of them as well.

But from a lot of those early church fathers that people would quote from, a lot of it is from the Alexandrian camp that saw things a lot more symbolic, but none of them, like Rick said, none of them would have said the things that are being said today.

So it's truly a conjecture thing. I've heard things like, well, the 24 hour period, some of the people would say that it was instantaneous like Augustan, or some people would say that this was actually more than just a 24 hour period, but they always saw it as a short young earth, the short time period of these things taking place, not nothing like what's being used today, which is millions upon millions upon millions of years that are being inserted in Genesis 0 .1,

right? That's where they're inserting this. It's right where it says intro at the beginning of your Bible, they're putting it before that.

So it's remarkable. We are at 8 .03.

Is there any final words that anybody would like to say on paragraph one? Emily, would you mind praying us out?

Would it be all right if you guys had Shepherd pray too? He would like to pray. Go ahead and pray, bud. I don't know what to do.

My name is Maya, and my name is Dawn in church, and my name is

Michael in soccer, and my name is - Amen. Thanks, Shepherd. All right, well,

God bless, guys. It was a blessing seeing you guys all tonight. Thank you, Shepherd. Thank you.