REFORMCON2016 | Live Stream | John Samson

Welcome Back From Lunch and Conference Announcements

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back from lunch. We're gonna keep doing this thing, keep doing this conference thing in here. How was everybody's lunch? Yeah? Did you guys buy some stuff and give some money to the church plant in Kauai for Apologia?

Yeah. So I spent my lunch break in the green room listening to John Sampson and James White just talk theology on a couch. Start a podcast, guys. That's why you start a podcast. So I want to remind everybody to go on Facebook, go on Twitter, let people know that you are here and let them know that they can watch the whole thing live on reformcon .org slash live.

And I also wanna remind everybody that all the proceeds from anything, any money that's spent here is going to a church plant in Hawaii, Apologia Kauai. And you can donate to that church plant by going to ApologiaKauai .com.

How many of you guys are reformed? Depends on who you ask. If you go into the pub, none of us, none of us are reformed. Okay, so we got some reformed people. How many of you guys are young? Let's say under 45, I don't know.

That's pretty good. Yeah. How many of you guys are restless? Anyone? Anyone? I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. This whole ReformCon, it was all a trap to get all the young, restless and reformed people trapped in one room.

Bring out John MacArthur. No, no, I'm just kidding. I'm not allowed within 100 yards of John MacArthur anymore because I just wanted to have a beer with him so bad, but he wouldn't do it. So guys, I'm going to bring out another amazing speaker.

John Sampson, he is a reformed pastor. He's an author with a passion for the local church and for the free offer of the gospel to be proclaimed far and wide. He serves as a pastor of King's Church in Peoria, is that how you pronounce it?

Arizona, and he writes at reformationtheology .com and at effectualgrace .com. Please welcome to the stage, John Sampson.

Revelation, the Source of Eschatology, and Warnings Against Date-Setting

Testing, testing, one, two, three. Ha, ha, ha, he, he, he. Okay. You're all hearing me? I do apologize, okay. If you have a Bible, I encourage you to turn to the book of Revelation. This is an eschatology conference, correct?

I brought with me some book recommendations out of the closet at my house. Let's see. In fact, can I have about three or four volunteers just come up for a second? I want to just make sure everybody has one of these.

It's a little tract I wrote called The Trial, and if we have three or four volunteers, I want just everyone to have one of these. So at least you feel like you came and got something from this session, you know?

There you go. Yeah, some book recommendations. How many pastors are here? How many pastors, elders? I can see your hands. Okay, quite a good, quite a few. I would just encourage anyone who's preaching to not build your ministry on that which doesn't last, and I speak of these books in front of me because these are exactly that.

To look at the newspaper and then build your teaching on what's happening there, trying to find out in the Bible what you're reading in the newspaper is not the right way to approach eschatology. But those who have done it have left their mark.

Here's a book from the 70s called Amazing Prophecies of the 70s, and on the front is a cartoon of Henry Kissinger, the Super K, as he's called, and it's a book all about Henry Kissinger and his capers, what he's up to, his flights to South Africa, what he's doing behind the scenes, and the basic message of the book, look out, look out, Kissinger is coming.

He could be the Antichrist. Now, I checked it out today. Henry Kissinger is now 93 years old, and if he is gonna be the Antichrist, he's running out of time. Bible says of the beast, the whole world followed him.

It would be hard to follow him because he takes a lot of naps at the age of 93. I would say that's a book that hasn't really passed the test of time, but my favorite is this four-book series by a man called Barry Smith.

His first book about end-time prophecy is called Warning. What do you do when you've written a book called Warning and the Lord hasn't come back yet after a few years? Well, you write another book called Second Warning, Second Warning.

That was a bestseller, and then Jesus didn't come back, so he wrote a bigger, thicker book, and what were you gonna call your third book in this series? Final Notice, Final Notice. Tremendous book, I've read it, and not much of what it said would happen happened, but undeterred, he wrote his final book.

You've written Warning, you've written Second Warning, Final Notice, what is there left to write about? Well, he came up with a great title, P .S., P .S. Again, left his mark, but what a legacy. Instead of building on what can still be useful to people after you're dead and gone, his legacy are those books, which really, I just encourage you, write about things that will still be true 50 years after your death, 100 years after your death.

So in that it is an eschatology conference, let me just ask you this, who wrote the book of Revelation? I heard a number of answers there. It's not a hard question. Who wrote the book of Revelation? Okay, God, that's right, God, that's right, God.

Okay, now, who did God give the Revelation to? Can I hear an answer for that one? Jesus, that's correct, Jesus, that's right. And again, these are scholars here amongst us, so God gave it to Jesus. Now, who did Jesus give it to?

An angel, that's correct, angel, an angel, that's right. And who did the angel give it to? You're frightened of saying John now, aren't you? Actually, it's God who gave it to Jesus, who gave it to an angel, who gave it to John.

Look in Revelation chapter one with me. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him, God gave it to Jesus, to show to his servants the things which will soon take place. He made known it by sending his angel to his servant John.

There you are, there you get it. God who gave it to Jesus, who gave it to an angel, who gave it to John. And with that information, you can annoy people everywhere with that information there, very, very good.

Hope that's a blessing to you. I did have some notes. Ah, here they are. The devil almost intervened, but God intervened when the devil was trying to intervene or something. Let's go ahead and pray, shall we?

Help him, Jesus. I know that's what you're saying. Lord, we just ask for your help, we ask for your clarity, we ask for the one true God to reveal himself in and through and by the word of God. We ask that you'd be glorified, that you'd help those speaker and hearers alike me to proclaim your word with accuracy and for the people of God to hear it with accuracy.

John Sampson's Background and Journey to Reformed Theology

We might know the truth, and the truth could make us free. We pray in Christ's name, amen. ReformCon. It was just about 10 months ago that I approached Jeff and came up with this idea, and he was agreeable to it, of having a conference here locally to serve us in the Phoenix area, rather than having to fly to the Midwest or the East or somewhere else to hear some good theology.

And he's taken that concept and developed it in numerous ways, and we're here because of Jeff and the team here at Apologia, and I'm so thrilled with all that's taking place. And just to be a part of it is a huge privilege.

But I think by way of background, it might be useful to talk about some of my upbringing because it will relate to what we're gonna talk about in our session just now. You know, something of the background.

I was raised in a Christian home. My father was a Baptist and Reformed. That's because Jesus was Baptist and Reformed. And very much a street preacher, and there was never a two-week period of time that I wasn't seeing my father lead someone in at least a profession of faith in Christ, very much an evangelist.

And yet, I grew up in that home, and yet was converted only at the age of 14. I was very much interested in soccer, as we call it here, and football, as it's known over there. But at age 14, encountered the gospel in a way that I hadn't before.

And then, shortly after, within a few years, went to Bible college, a place called Elim Bible College, now called Regents Theological College. And 90 of the teachers there were Reformed, but they never explained to me why.

And apparently, what happened was a fistfight had taken place the year before between an Arminian and a Calvinist at the Bible college, a literal fistfight. And so, they were averse to talking about those issues too much.

Although, it did come up, they never really got into the controversy. So, I never heard why the Reformed were Reformed. And I went on in my Arminianism, definitely Arminian, although I wouldn't really subscribe to that at the time.

I just thought I was biblical, as we all do. I was part of what we would call the charismatic movement, the Word of Faith, became, after Bible college, the associate minister of a man called Harry Greenwood, very prominent in the Word of Faith in the UK.

He died in March of 1988. And yet, for the nine months previously, I'd been his associate minister and traveled with him throughout the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

It was an amazing time, learning so much. Then, after his death, I became co-pastor in a startup church in England, a place called Fleet in Hampshire. Then, moved to Phoenix to start a church. So, I am a missionary to the United States of America.

We started a church from scratch. We were scratching to get anyone, but we were full of faith. And I remember, it was a Thursday night meeting. Math has never been something I've majored in, so I thought midweek was Thursday.

And so, we had a Thursday night meeting, and we put out 30 chairs, three rows, four rows of chairs in this little meeting place, and we didn't even have 30 coming on the Sunday. But hey, God could have moved between Sunday and Thursday, right?

And hmm, we put 30 chairs out, and it came time to start the meeting, and no one else was there but the Samsons. And so, we thought, do we go ahead? Because no one else is here, and no one will know if we didn't do anything.

Phoenix Suns were in the playoffs at the time, 1993, as you might remember. And no, I said, we'll go ahead, and we're into the third song, or chorus, as we called it. And this one man did walk in, and then we were glad that we'd gone ahead with the service.

And he sat on the back row, as he would. And all day long, the subject had been rattling around in my head as, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, my mother, who's still alive, age 90, believe it or not, was there on the organ in case we burst into song or something, but she didn't leave the organ.

And so, all I could preach to was this one man on the third row, and in fact, it came time for the announcements, and rather than announce them, I just said, here are the announcements. You're the only one who doesn't know what's happening.

Here you are, and I just passed it to him. And then I preached on, repent for the kingdom of God. Now, poor guy, can you imagine this? You're sitting there, you've walked in, stumbled into the service, and you're hearing, have you repented?

Yes, you. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repentance means change. When was the last time you can say you've had change in your life? I mean, I couldn't look anywhere else. I mean, I had to look at him.

Poor guy, for about 30 to 40 minutes, he was blasted from Genesis to Maps on the subject of repentance. After 30 minutes, 40 minutes, I thought I should give him some relief. I finished the service. He came up to me afterwards.

That's not even the funny part. The funny part was afterwards. He came to me, he said, very reflective, Pastor John. Said, yes, he says, hmm, I really felt that message was for me. True story, true story.

Rent a sermon, yeah. So you start from scratch. The only jobs where you start at the top are grave digging and well digging. But starting from scratch, we started the church, and eventually that church became about 250, 300 people, and the Lord was blessing, except I was still word of faith.

Earlier this week, we heard the news that Jan Crouch had passed away. I never had any interchange with her at all, although I guess I had worked for her and her husband Paul for a number of years as a local TBN host.

There it is. That's the confession. I mean, at a ReformCon conference, the speaker is saying, not only was I Arminian at some point, actually for a long time, but I was word of faith and lowest of the low, a TBN host.

Yes? I asked people to call a number on the screen. Then one Tuesday, the manager of the local TBN company called me and said, Jan has been in town. I said, oh yes. And she says, there are 14 guests hosts that do the two-hour live show throughout Arizona.

I said, yes. And she says, she's fired 12 of them, 12 out of the 14. I said, oh dear. And she said, and you're one of them. I said, really? And she says, I'm so sorry, John. I actually pleaded with her not to fire you.

I said, she's firing me. She's never even met me. No, no, she never talked. But I can attest, I've been fired by Jan Crouch. Woo! There you go. Praise the Lord. Well, I was a little perturbed by the way that was handled, but I moved on.

I try to have no bitterness in my heart, but it did make me begin to question some of the things that I'd seen in the Word of Faith movement and the way that was handled at TBN, but it didn't change my theology.

God has to open up your eyes, but he oftentimes uses means. And the big means was in the year 2000, November, R .C. Sproul came to Scottsdale, not too far from here. And I was very interested in hearing him because I'd listened to him on a different subject of the holiness of God.

And I'd heard it, but I don't know what I'm talking about when I said I hadn't really heard it, but I'd heard it. And I was impressed with R .C. Sproul and was wanting to go hear him, but not on the subject he was due to speak on.

I saw that he was gonna be speaking on predestination chosen by God. I thought, oh, anything but that subject. We've just turned into the new millennium. That's an idea that has, it's long past its sell-by date.

Didn't we get over this? Predestination. But I wanted to hear him. So I was going back and forth into my mind as to whether I actually go listen to a man I respected. I had enough respect for reformers to understand that they were genuinely saved.

Some people don't believe that, but I understood that. As I said, the lecturers at the Bible College had influenced me very, very much, although I hadn't embraced their theology. So I thought I'd go. And I said, I won't go.

I will go, I won't go. And then I eventually said, I'll go, but I'll sit on the back row. I'll sit on the back row. And when R .C. Sproul begins to just articulate the thinking of the theologians, I'll just quietly leave, won't make a fuss.

I want to see it in the Bible or else I'm not interested. I don't want to be a follower of some archaic theologian. I want to see Jesus saying it or else I'm not interested. I want to see the apostles saying it.

Well, what amazed me was his appeal was not made to theologians, but directly to scripture. And in the session, I heard I'd never seen anything taken out of context. And again, I was not thrilled by this.

It was actually perturbed by this. And I was intrigued by this. There was a promise that if I came back in the morning, this was a Friday night, if I came back Saturday, there'd be a question and answer session.

I thought, I want to hear some answers to some questions. And either I'm going to ask it or I know some others are going to ask questions. What about this? What about that? What about John 3 .16? What about this?

What about that? And I thought, I'll go to that. The way he handled the questions made me even more perturbed because he didn't dodge the issue at all. He says, let's look at John 3 .16. Let's go to the text.

And he says, I know what you think it says, but let me show you what it says. And in two minutes, he showed me the shallowness of my own thinking. And if you could have put a camera on me, you'd have seen me with a white face.

I was not enjoying the experience. My traditions were being exposed verse by verse by verse. I didn't come out of that event a Calvinist. In fact, I was not enjoying the experience, but I maxed my credit card, ordered everything I had because I realized I need to study this.

There's enough of what I've seen to realize I'm in trouble. He's exposed my reckless thinking about that text. John 3 .16. By the way, the book I wrote called 12 Whatabouts answers the objections that were raging in my own mind about Reformed theology.

And it's actually now being translated into Italian. And the only word I can recognize is Giovanni 3 .16. When I asked about what about John 3 .16. So he came to town, he had a big effect upon me. And what happened was I went into kind of a study cocoon.

Didn't preach on it, didn't minister about it, but in my own thought, just studying all I could on this subject. And what I found is that most are not prepared to do that. Because we can quote the verse, we think there's no reason to study the verse.

Look at what it actually says. But I thought I owe it to myself because I don't want to be preaching falsehood. Along that time, I was introduced to the ministry of Dr. James White. And so both Dr. Sproul and with his thinking, his precise thinking and logic and hermeneutics was very, very helpful.

But then it was Dr. James White, his material, particularly the book, The Potter's Freedom, that drew me ever closer to become this raging monster of a Calvinist that I am today. So all the problems go back to him.

Those two men of God will always be hallowed as great champions of the faith in our house. Very unexpectedly, I came out of that nine-month process as a five-point Calvinist. And over time, more and more traditions have been exposed to the point where, rather than just making my own thoughts available, and when people ask, you know, what do you believe?

I check with James White to find out what I believe. What does James White believe about that? That's all I'm in. Now, I will warn you about him. It's my duty, I believe, to warn you about this man because there is one area where we're in strong disagreement.

He has a very biased view against the English. He believes that there is an extra measure of depravity amongst the English, that they're not only affected by Adam's sin but something else, some alien entity has affected the English more than others.

And as a Scotsman, he has some terrible traditions he's embraced. However, I was greatly encouraged recently when James learned that in his ancestry, he is far more English than he had recognized. Oh, the mercy of God.

Oh, the mercy of God. I'm here to announce that James White has more English blood in him than I do. Yes, my mother is Irish. My father is Welsh. I was raised in England but there's not a drop of English blood in me.

The Doctrine of God, Sovereignty, and the Glory of God

But can James White say that? No. Praise the Lord, I say. What is Reformed theology? It is an unveiling of God as He really is. God as He has revealed Himself. As we study the attributes of God and time does not permit us to go through them in any sort of meaningful way, but just to list them.

He is eternality. He always has been. He is sovereign. He is holy. He's omniscient. He's all-knowing. There never was a time when He did not know all that He knows. He's never learned anything. He's never been confused.

He's omnipresent. There's never a place we can go that He is not there. The psalmist says that even in hell, you'll find Him. He's omnipotent, all-powerful. One of my favorite attributes of God, if you can have a favorite, is His aseity.

He is absolutely independent. He is self-existent. He is immutable. He's unchanging. That's because He's always been perfect. He's just. He's good. He is love. He's merciful. But let me announce to you, God is not a buffet line of options.

We don't have the right, biblically, to say I prefer this attribute of God over against that one. At a buffet, there are no police normally looking at you saying, what's that you're putting on your plate?

I see you put some carrots, but hey, what's wrong with the peas? You need more peas. No, you can go through a buffet line without being searched, usually. You can go to a buffet and order what you like, and you can say, I'll have this, but not that.

But you cannot do that theologically. And if you do do that, there's a name for that, and it's called idolatry, making God in your own image. What we're called upon as Christians to do is embrace all of God's revelation about Himself.

God has revealed Himself in nature, and especially in the Scripture. When R .C. Sproul was asked about Reformed theology, he said that the most important thing you need to grasp about it is the definition of God.

And he made this statement. Let me just read from what he wrote one time. Over the years, I've had opportunities to teach systematic theology in a variety of settings, from seminary classrooms to university courses to Sunday school classes in the local church.

But no matter where I've taught systematics, the first place I typically start is the doctrine of God. Theology, of course, studies God and His character and ways, so it's appropriate to begin with a look at His nature and attributes before examining what the Bible has to say about redemption, the church, the last things, and other categories of systematic theology.

Whenever I've taught the doctrine of God, I've started out with two statements that have seemed to fill many of my students with no small amount of consternation, that on the one hand, there's nothing particularly unique about the doctrine of God confessed in the Reformed tradition of Christian theology.

Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists, the Dutch Reformed, and other Reformed Christians affirm the same attributes of God that Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, the Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics all do.

There's nothing radically different about our doctrine of God. Yet, when those same students have asked me what is the most significant distinctive of Reformed theology, I've said it's our doctrine of God.

Now, that does sound completely contradictory to my first statement, but I say that the Reformed doctrine of God sets us apart from other traditions for the reasons that I know of no other theology that takes seriously the doctrine of God with respect to every other doctrine.

In most systematic theologies, you get an affirmation of the sovereignty of God on page one of your theology text, but then once you move on to soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, eschatology, doctrine of last things, anthropology, doctrine of humanity, and so on, the author has seemingly forgotten what he said about God's sovereignty on page one.

Reformed theologians, however, self-consciously see the doctrine of God as informing the whole scope of Christian theology. I found that article helpful, very, very helpful. We don't forget the revelation of God's sovereignty when we talk about other things in the Christian sphere.

Sovereignty, what does that mean? It means in simple terms, God does what he wants, when he wants, the way he wants without asking anyone's permission. A lot of people like that. Some people hate that with a vengeance.

C .H. Spurgeon said this, I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes, that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens, that the chaff from the hand and the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses.

The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence. The fall of cedar leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche. The question we need to ask ourselves is, does the Scripture teach this?

The answer is yes, absolutely. Here's a small sampling of God's sovereignty revealed in Scripture. God is sovereign over seemingly random things. We have a word for that in our culture, luck. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord.

Proverbs 16, 33. Whenever you go to Las Vegas or lost wages, as I call it, every decision is from the Lord. Do you buy into that? You have to if you believe Scripture. It's every decision is from the Lord.

The heart of the most powerful person in the land, this is what God says, the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. How about our daily lives and plans?

Proverbs 20, 24. A man's steps are from the Lord. How then can man understand his way? Proverbs 19, 21. Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. James chapter four.

Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we'll go into such and such a town, spend a year there, trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

How about life and death? Deuteronomy 32, 39. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God beside me. I kill and make alive. I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

First Samuel 12, six. The Lord kills and brings to life. He brings down to shield and raises up. And immediately you and I might want to say, I don't want to go there in my thinking. I don't want to say he does this as well as that.

He kills and makes alive. I want him to just talk about nice things, things I like. Problem with that is you, again, start your thinking with you and you being the advisory board to God, asking for him to come to you for counsel so that he can get some help to be more theologically precise or else lose the baggage of nasty things.

God doesn't seem to mind taking the initiative and saying that's who I am. I recognize my sovereignty over life and death. You'll live if I say so. You'll die if I say so. Can you handle a God like that?

Well, I don't know if I particularly feel comfortable with a God like that. Whoever thought you would? God of the Bible doesn't act in a tame manner saying I will conform myself to your will. He lives and rules and in him we live and move and have our being.

Even the fist that shakes its defiance against God does so because God allows it. We could not even move outside of God's grace. What has God done for me? He's keeping the cells of your body together.

Even as you defy him, what has he done for you? Disabilities, oh, Exodus 4, 11. The Lord said to Moses, who made man's mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? He doesn't even leave that answer to conjecture.

He says, is it not I, the Lord? How about the most sinful acts of history? I can't think of a more insidious and wicked one than the death of the Son of God and Jesus dying for the sins of God's people.

Acts 2, 23, Jesus, who was delivered up according to the definite plan and full knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Acts 4, for truly, the early church prayed, in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Isaiah 53, 10, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, he has put him to grief. Isaiah 53, 10. How about Lord over evil things? Amos 3, 6, is a trumpet blown in a city and the people are not afraid?

Does disaster come to the city unless the Lord has done it, question mark? What's the answer? Well, no, no, no, he's not like, God is not the God of our thoughts. We have to have his revelation. His thoughts are not our thoughts, the Bible says.

We have to go to him and ask the question, how has he revealed himself? I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. He says, I accept responsibility.

Isaiah 45, 7. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord, Job said. Was he mistaken? Don't believe so. God sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. He said this to his brothers, as for you, you meant evil against me.

But God meant it, the events of his life, as bad as they were, meant it for good. Those exact same events to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today, Genesis chapter 50. How about this?

God works all things according to the counsel of his will. Ephesians 1, 11. Psalm 115, 3. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. Never do we read, the man is on the earth. He does all of his thoughts and all that he pleases.

Job 42, 2. I know you can do all things that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Was that just a misguided statement? No. Was Nebuchadnezzar wrong in Daniel 4, when he says all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven, among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say to him, what have you done?

We should take God's sovereignty seriously, as well as the display of his glory. God is very serious about his sovereignty, have you noticed? Why does God save sinners? Of course, we wanna think it's about us, because he loves sinners, and that is a truth, but it's not all of the truth.

Even in his love for sinners, he acts to save for the purpose of displaying his glory and salvation. We're almost a byproduct of a relationship established in eternity, in the sense that God has always been God, and in fellowship with himself, he has said to his son, I'm gonna give you a gift of a bride.

We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1 .4. What did God do when Israel had defied the covenant that God had made with them? Isaiah 48 .9, for my name's sake, I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.

Behold, I've refined you, but not as silver. I've tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory, I will not give to another.

I think that is the most God-centered verse in the entire Bible. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory, I'll not give to another. You read Ephesians 1, and it's the same thing.

God saves his people for the glory of his grace. When we talk about reformed theology, we're talking about God as he really is. In fact, it's interesting when someone says, I'm not sure I like reformed theology.

I just interpret that as, I don't really like biblical Christianity. And I'm serious when I say that. I believe that the Bible teaches what we call reformed theology. Not because I love reformers, and I'm a follower of Lutheran, Calvin, and Spurgeon, and Edwards, and on and on we can go.

No, I believe they were fallible people, both individually and collectively. But it's the God-breathed scriptures that drove me to my knees to recognize God as he really is. And the God who really is has decreed all things that take place in time.

Whenever we get into this, we're bumping into mystery. And we need to get comfortable with mystery. Some things are not mysterious, but some things certainly are. Who wrote the book of Galatians? Well, God.

God and Paul. Are they the words and the thinking of Paul? Yes. And is it inspired by God? Yes. So who is it, God or Paul? Yes. Who lives your Christian life? Is it you? Is it God? If it's God, I wouldn't want him to take the blame for the shoddy performance of your Christian life, right?

Or mine. What's the biblical answer? For me to live is Christ. Paul says, that I is gain and I live yet not I, but Christ who lives in me. Well, who is it, Paul? Is it you or is it Christ? Yes. Yes. We need to get comfortable with mystery.

As you read through the book of Romans, you have an unveiling of the gospel. And yet at the end of it, Paul does not see fit to say, now having said all that, I've told you everything there is to know about God.

We've got him in this box and we can just now say that we know him completely. No, there's mystery in all of that which we do understand about God. There's an apostolic, oh, in the book of Romans 11. Oh, do you hear that?

Do you feel it? Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how unscrutable, inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord and who's been his counselor?

That's a question that is not answered, but the answer is no one. God has never gone to us or anyone outside of himself to say, I'm planning to do that thing, this thing. Is that okay? What's your advice?

Or who's been given a gift? Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? Here's what Paul wrote. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Because everything comes from him and everything comes through him.

To him are all things and to him be glory forever. Amen. The all-knowing one has decreed all the events of time, including sin. I think we've already heard it quoted in the conference. John Calvin, let us, I say, permit the Christian man to open his heart and his ears to all the discourses addressed to him by God, only with this moderation, that as soon as the Lord closes his sacred mouth, he shall also desist from further inquiry.

We go to God's word and where it stops, we stop. Where it doesn't reveal anymore, we do not speculate. To speculate, to do so, is speculation and not something we could say with any authentic authority.