Systematic Theology (part 29)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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are very brief but they are very biblical, they are very well thought of, they maintain the balance between two doctrines which may be hard for us to reconcile in our head.

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So the words that are chosen to describe these are extremely helpful for us as we grapple ourselves in understanding subjects such as the

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Odyssey. So I just picked a couple of sections from there so we'll take a few moments, no we'll take more than a few moments to go over these.

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But why don't we open with a word of prayer. Our loving and gracious Father we thank you a lot for this morning,

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Lord I pray that you would impress upon us your goodness, your love, your justice, your holiness and your sovereign rule as you govern all things that you have made with equity and with goodness.

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Help us oh Lord as your creatures to rejoice in you, to revel in you and to take comfort in you in times of good and in times of evil.

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In Christ's name we pray, amen. Okay so before we get into the

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Westminster Confession there's a couple of comments that I, a couple of questions that I need to respond to from last week.

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One of them is the temptation,

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I think Carol Rathbun had that question about, there were many questions that came up.

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So the question that I didn't answer was about the nature of Christ and for those of you coming in you should get some handouts and we talked about Jesus being both fully

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God and fully man and we have a verse and actually if you can just turn there and this is where I got stuck and stopped.

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It was Hebrews 4 13 and sorry not 13 it's 15 and if actually if someone can just read verses 14 through 16

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I think that will help set the context of the question that we're going to answer.

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Who'd like to read that? Hebrews 4 14 to 16. Thank you.

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So just keep your finger there and then just turn over to the next chapter of James and this is the text that we were looking at when we stopped.

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So if someone else can read verses 12 through 15 and we can see the relationship of these two verses.

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James chapter 1 verses 12 to 15. Go ahead.

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Thank you. So the verse that we were looking at last week here was God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one.

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And so we were looking at this and then came the verse of Hebrews 4 15 and the question was how do you reconcile or how do we understand these two verses?

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We do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weakness but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

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So how do you reconcile these two verses or understand these two verses? Does the Bible contradict itself?

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The answer is no. Obviously the Bible doesn't contradict itself. Did I hear an answer here?

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Excellent. So if you look at the context of Hebrews chapter 4, what is it talking about? It's talking about the great high priest.

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So here you are as a sinner coming before the presence of God. You have the thrice holy

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God before whom you're going to appear and who is this person that is your mediator, your high priest, the one who brings your offerings before God, brings you before God.

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It is not someone who is unaware of the challenges that you face but someone who has actually walked through every single challenge that you as a human being have gone through who has faced the kind of temptations that you have and yet has not been, has not sinned.

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So when we looked at the nature of Christ that Jesus is both fully God and fully man, we need to remember that we talked about impeccability, that Jesus was not able to sin.

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Really that's because he has the nature of God and the nature of man together, he cannot sin.

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And so when we look at the temptation, I think Pastor Bob was the one who said this later.

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Think of it as the word actually used for trial and temptation is the same. It is the same

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Greek word and the context is what will tell you whether this is a trial or whether it's a temptation. And so when you look at the context of temptation, here is what happens when

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Jesus as the perfect man comes and faces every temptation, right? You know, you remember after the baptism being taken out into the wilderness, all the way to the very end in the garden of Gethsemane where, you know, here is this cup that, you want this to pass over because you don't want,

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Jesus would rather have the intimate fellowship of the father rather than the separation and the wrath of God on behalf of, and the separation from God.

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If it is your will, let it pass from me. And then his whole life is a series of trials, both from the enemy as well as from other people who are constantly testing him, tempting him, trying to catch him at his words so he would say something that is sinful.

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And every single step of the way, Jesus faces these outward temptations, these trials that are posed to him.

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And every single time he responds without sin. Now, there is a difference between the temptation or the trial that Jesus faces than from the temptation or trials, no, temptations that you and I face.

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And that difference is what James 1 is talking about. So if you go back to James 1, if you look carefully, what is it that James 1 is talking about?

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James 1 is, Hebrews 1 has said, you know, there is really no context that you are suffering or facing trials or temptations that Jesus has not faced, but he never sinned in any of these.

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And when you look at James 1, it says, when you are tempted, you don't want to say God tempts me because God cannot be tempted with evil, he tempts no one, but each of us is tempted.

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And that's the key was there. How are we tempted when we are lured and enticed by what?

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His own desire. And really, that's the crux of understanding the difference between Jesus and us.

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We inherit Adam's nature as we come. We inherit corruption.

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We are children of Adam. We have the propensity to sin within us. So when there is an external temptation coming, there is an inward desire that connects with it.

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And really, that's what the rest of the verse is. When desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. Sin, when it's fully grown, gives birth to death.

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So that's our lot. You know, as humans who have the sinful nature in us, we respond to sin naturally.

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Whereas when we have Jesus, he does not inherit Adam's sin. So he is the last

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Adam, as Pastor Mike was talking about. He was not born of the seed of man.

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He does not inherit the sinful propensities that come down. But rather, he was born of the

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Holy Spirit. And inwardly, there is really no, what

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James is talking about, enticed by his own desire. And that inward, and that's basically what the theologians come down to when they talk about the difference between the temptation of Jesus Christ and us.

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So when you look at these two contexts, the outward trials and temptations that we face,

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Hebrews 4, every single one of them to the nth degree, Jesus faces. Much more than you and I can go through because his life was a constant barrage of attacks from just Satan and everyone around him to bring him down.

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And yet he never sinned. And here we have us, where our own sinful desires correspond with the trials and temptations that come around us.

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And when we talk about Jesus, I'm sorry, about God in verse 13, James 1, 13,

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God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. The word there again for temptation is the kind of, the context here is, you know, here is a juicy proposition that is put before you and I'm doing this so that you would trip and fall.

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God never does that. God brings trials in our lives in order to prove us and to sanctify us and to strengthen us, but he never brings these occasions in order to cause us to stumble.

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Really, what is God's intent in those trials? Remember, we were talking about trials and temptations being the same word, but the context here makes it clear that God never comes around to make us want to stumble or to take delight in the sins of the people around them by bringing calamity or temptations in their lives.

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So really, that's the big picture I want you to take out from here, because those are two truths of the scripture.

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They both have their own context in which they are given and we need to make sure, you know, just because there is a word temptation there that we don't somehow say, you know, is the scripture contradicting itself or take the meaning of one and put it into the other.

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You need to always retain the context of those verses that we are looking at. All right,

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I think I'll stop there. Let's take a few moments to talk about this Westminster Confession.

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So there are three sections that I just picked. It's in your handout. The first one is God's eternal decree and then the providence, and that's where we're going to be looking at a lot of these issues.

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And then the fall of man. Let's actually just read through these.

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These are pretty basic and then we'll deal with the answers as they come. So why don't

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I actually have someone read the first point? And as we're reading, these are the two contexts.

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One is theodicy. We're going to be looking at the problem of evil and God's ordaining all things.

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And on the other hand, we haven't touched the subject. We will be talking about it later this morning.

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It is God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. God ordaining all things and man's free will.

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We are still able to choose and exercise our choices without coercion.

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So those are the two things you want to keep in mind as we read through this. Who'd like to read? Scott. And here is a like a summary statement of the providence of God.

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And as you can see in the beginning, it talks about his sovereignty and the manner in which that sovereignty is exercised.

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His knowledge, his will, his and the purpose being for his wisdom, glory of his wisdom, power, goodness and mercy.

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Now, let's just keep reading and then we will stop when we run into a problem. Scott, would you mind continuing?

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And really, that's the key there to recognizing. And that's one packed sentence there where you see the decree of God, what

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God has decreed from eternity past that will come to pass. He says here, immutably and infallibly that there is nothing that will change

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God's decree from coming to pass. But then the way in which it happens, he says, is by the according to the nature of second causes.

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Some of these things are here. It's, you know, when you look at the creation, he is the first and primary source of everything that happens.

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He speaks and all of them come into existence. So he is the first cause and you have all of the results right before you.

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God sees that it is good. There is no secondary cause between God's speaking and those events coming to pass.

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And then we have the rest of creation, where the rest of God's providence as he is governing his universe, where he ordains secondary agents.

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Remember last week we looked at Job. In Job's case, you have God who talks to Job, says, have you considered, talks to Satan, says, have you considered my servant

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Job? And there is a conversation between Satan and God. And again, if you think about it, initiation, who actually initiates it?

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It's God speaking to Satan and asking him to consider his servant Job. And then when you have this conversation,

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God basically sets the boundaries of what Satan can and cannot do. You cannot touch this man's life.

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And yet God, from Satan's perspective, has a complete free reign to do what he will in whether it was going to be that whirlwind or whether it was going to be the raiders or whether it was going to be a whole series of secondary and tertiary causes that are going to impact this man's life, which is

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Job. And so when we look at the end of Job 1, Job looks past all the secondary causes and says,

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God gave, God has taken away, and blessed be the name of God. So he was looking at God as the ultimate author.

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He was seeing God as the ultimate person who took away what was given. And then he retained his integrity in saying that there is nothing sinful in God.

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There is no evil in God, even though these secondary and tertiary agents caused evil in my life and pain and suffering and so forth.

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Really, that's the way in which we want to be looking at how God is ultimately sovereign, and yet you have all of these intermediate causes.

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And really when this confession says, necessarily, freely, or contingently.

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So the relationships between each of these causes is where you're looking at.

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You know, and all of us want to think that it is a necessary cause because that's how my secondary agents operate.

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I normally coerce them or give them strong reason and they function because of some direct order from me.

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Whereas when God operates, there is more complexity to the way in which these secondary causes respond.

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And really, the danger that we run into is, I want to somehow master the relationships between God as the ultimate sovereign creator and the ordainer and the one who decreed, and all of the secondary agents in responding.

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And so when I try to make that connection closer than what the Bible would say, then I have trouble because I have difficulty understanding theodicy or the freedom of man.

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And so that's why this phrase here helps us to balance that.

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Let me stop there. Any questions on what I just said or any other questions that came out as a result of this?

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Does it make sense? All right. So let's keep going.

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So would someone like to read the third point of Providence?

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What do you think that sentence is talking about? So he makes use of means.

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So that's the ordinary way in which God operates. And yet he's free to work without.

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Without those means, above those means, and even against them for his pleasure. God has, for example, created gravity.

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And he lets things operate according to the properties that he's given. And he preserves those properties so things function in an order.

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And that's the normal way that God operates. And God can come in and change gravity.

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God can go up in a cloud. Jesus can go up in a cloud. He can walk on water. He can do other things.

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And that's basically talking about the intervention of miracles. God is free, like you said, to do whatever he wants.

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And again, we are starting to go into the second aspect. But we'll touch upon each of these.

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And then we'll comment on the aspect of freedom or the choices of man after we're done with this.

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So let's read the next one. Who'd like to read the next point? Okay. Did you know that was one sentence?

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And this is why when I start talking, I'm prone to error. Whereas these Westminster divides spent lots of time and put these various aspects of God's truth from the scriptures in such a way that we don't err on one side at the expense of the other.

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And just to kind of unpack at a high level, if you look at the beginning of the sentence, it's talking about God's sovereignty, right?

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Almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, infinite goodness of God. So these are some of the attributes of God. And they are manifesting himself in his providence.

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And the providence was just described a little bit earlier in terms of him doing whatever he chooses according to his decree freely and bringing about his desired ends.

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And then now from the second line in your printout and on, you get to see the effects of it.

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In the first fall, the sins of angels and men. So we were talking about the origins of evil.

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All of these things, God is still sovereign over. But how? Not by bare permission.

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Remember last week I said, it's easy for me to just say, God kind of allowed evil.

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As if someone just came and got permission and God said, plan

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B is okay, let me just do it. We want to remember God's decree covers everything that happens.

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So it is not just by bare permission that we allow for things to happen. But then he has joined it with the most wise and powerful bounding.

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There is an intent and a purpose of God that runs through all of these things that is hard for us to comprehend.

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But that is there in the pages of scripture. In fact, just a side note, if you

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Google the Westminster Confession, there is a link with proofs.

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So if you actually click on all of these things, you have all the scriptural texts that support this. These are not just some theological ideas that just came out of nowhere.

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The proofs are sometimes bigger than your sentences over here with just tons of verses referring to why these were made.

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But for us, just to get that big picture, I'm just limiting myself to these sentences.

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But otherwise, if you look at it, ordering, governing, all of these secondary causes and the way in which they're going to come to his own holy ends.

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He is bringing about his purposes through all of these various events that come to pass.

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But the key there is in the end, the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature.

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You know, now we are talking about both sides. One is we're talking about the evil and the sin that results from the agents.

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Now, who is culpable or guilty of these sin? It's the creature who commits them because we're going to be saying they actually do it freely and willingly.

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They are not really forced or twisted or manipulated to do what they must do. And really, that's where the mystery lies is

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God sovereignly ordains these things. But these creatures that actually commit these sins are the guilty ones.

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And so in the last sentence, you see God is holy and righteous and cannot be the author or approver of sin.

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And really, I think that's probably as good as we can get in describing the sovereignty of God in decreeing all things.

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And when evil comes to pass through these agents, that these agents do it freely and willingly.

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And God is not just allowing for permission, but he brings about his holy and righteous ends, his purposes in and through it all.

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But before we move forward, I just want us to think about what this means. You know, we have philosophical questions about, you know, the problem of evil.

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And for many of us, that's not really a very big question because as believers, we know our

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God is good. We know that our God loves us so much that he would send his son to face the greatest evil we can ever conceive of by being murdered on a cross and that God would ordain it and sinful hands would perpetrate it.

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And that would bring about the greatest good for all of humanity. So we are recipients of the goodness of God, and therefore we are not troubled by the philosophical question.

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We may have some questions, but those are not the things that keep us up at night. And for many of us, the challenge is more practical.

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It is in our daily life. It is when there is evil that is perpetrated against us, maybe by, like in the

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Psalms, a brother who eats bread with me has risen up against me and you are thinking, how could this be?

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Where is God in all this? Or even more challenging is the sin in our own heart as a believer.

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You know, I've been saved and yet I am committing these acts of evil.

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And has God kind of left me out while these are happening? Where is

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God or how could I be a believer? How is God governing my life when

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I'm going through these things? I am his child. And when you think through this, this is why it's important to rest in the understanding of the nature of God.

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God is a good God. He is a holy God. He is a sovereign God. There is nothing that happens in my life, whether when evil comes directed to me or the evil that I direct outwardly to others, that God is not just, you know, unaware of or just disinterested in.

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He is interested in every single thing that happens in my life. And yet that sentence that we just read, that big sentence, covers how

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God operates. He's good. He brings about his good purposes. We are still culpable. The friend that raises his hand against or my own deceitful heart that commits.

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So I am responsible for this. And yet God ordains all of these things in order to bring about his good purposes.

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So just something to keep in mind as we read this, because we don't want to just read this as an academic exercise, because the next time

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I face evil, I want to be able to look up and say, like Job, you know, blessed be the name of the

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Lord, knowing that he is sovereign and he is good. Does that make sense? Okay.

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Any questions on this before we go to the next one? Okay. Let's read the, on the back side, point number five.

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Who'd like to read that? Yes, Pauline. Okay. Anyone have trouble with that sentence?

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You can take it up with the Westminster Divines. But if you just think about the weight of what this is talking about.

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And I think there was a question on sanctification. What is, what is sanctification? Many a time we like to think sanctification means, you know,

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I was, when we think of salvation, we think of justification, sanctification, and glorification. I was justified, declared not guilty.

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I have the righteousness of Christ in me. And now I'm being made more and more like Christ. And that just means

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I'm happily hopping, skipping and jumping along. You know, I was sinning in this area.

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I don't sin in this area anymore. I was sinning in another area. I don't sin in that area anymore. And I'm just kind of climbing up this escalator to heaven in a very smooth way.

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And obviously that's not what sanctification is. You can experientially look at your own life in terms of those areas where you struggled and you sinned and failed and God was gracious to help you.

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And then you struggled in another area. So it's, we call it progressive sanctification.

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So if you look at it as a graph, it's like up and down, but the overall trend is being made more and more into the image of Christ.

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So because of the spirit of God who indwells us and who is transforming us and who doesn't just automatically sanctify us.

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That's where we go to Philippians 2, where we read, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

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Pastor Harrington, can you finish that for me? Oh, sorry.

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Thank you. So God who's at work in us both to will and to work according to his good, the desires to do the good things and the ability to do those good things come from God.

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And we have a responsibility to work out, to put our muscles as it were, to sweat as it were through those events that God has placed before us.

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We want to think again of Ephesians 2, 8 to 10, the path that God has prepared beforehand that we must walk in them.

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And so when God orchestrates these things, then just in each of our lives, we can see how

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God brings events into our lives. Remember, we started with talking about trials and temptation. God doesn't bring that trial slash temptation into my life.

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So he would see me stumble and fall and take a lot of delight in it. Does God know what

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I will do? Absolutely. Does God know that times of failing that litter my path from here till the day

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I die? Absolutely. There is nothing that God doesn't know. And yet, when you come back to this definition, you see here, he leaves his children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own heart to chastise them for their former sins and to discover unto themselves the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their heart so that they may be humbled and to raise them up to a close and constant dependence for their support upon himself.

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How many of you can just say amen if you're not charismatic or anything? But can, yeah, we can just, every one of us knows what this means in our lives.

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I used to think, oh, you know, I'm just, Pradeep is doing great. And that's all you need.

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The rest of the week is down on the floor. And then you realize, no, it is

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God who gives me the grace and I need to constantly be dependent upon him because Pradeep's heart is not as good as Pradeep thinks it is.

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And really, our dependence upon God brings glory to God, transforms us.

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And this is one of those ways in which when we think of parent -child, why do parents structure the lives of their children in certain ways?

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They have to make some choices. They are prevented from making some choices. They fall down, scrape their knees and get up and run back to daddy.

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There are events that even as little finite creatures, we know how we help our children as they grow into maturity.

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And here we have the infinitely wise and infinitely good God who orchestrates everything that happens in each of our lives for his good pleasure.

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So really, that's the crux of this. And really, that's the way we want to approach theodicy.

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We don't want to approach theodicy like the unbeliever does and says, you know, how can God do this? Because I have no right to ask that question.

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I have no ability to understand the answer to that question if God were to give me an answer.

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And more likely than not, God is going to talk like how he talked to Job. And then you just shut your mouth and say,

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OK, I just realized how foolish such a question is. But we want to ask, we want to come before God, recognizing his good hand in our lives when times of evil happen, because we,

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God works in our lives through these. OK, let's read the next section. Number six. Who would like to read that?

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I like that last part. You know, there are some events which cause people to harden their own hearts, which the very events causes others to go the other way and run back to God.

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And yet, if you see how it all begins right at the beginning, he is the righteous judge and he does blind and harden.

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And again, what is this sentence doing? It's just taking all these passages of scripture that talk about both

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God hardening and people hardening and putting them together in a way that we can say, here is how as best as our finite minds can comprehend, we put them together to preserve the truth of the character of God and the operations of God in a world where people left to themselves would just freely run headlong down the path of sin.

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So really, that's the crux of that. But again, you need to read this a few times to kind of let that juice settle down.

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But any questions on this or any other thoughts that come from this? Yes, Joni. You know, you actually just brought up something that I think we'll use as a stepping stone to go talk about, quote unquote, free will.

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You know, everything you said is just right on. We always want to remember God is sovereign.

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He gives, he graces whom he will as the potter. He is free to do that and he does that rightly.

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The problem always comes when I stand, try to put myself in God's place and say, oh, wouldn't it be better if such and such were to happen?

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And the assumption is I actually understand how to govern the universe a lot better than God does. And this operation would actually be better than the way in which it is happening right now.

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And we need to always rest back in the character and the goodness and the wisdom of God and saying, God knows much more than I do.

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He is free to do what he will. And I am his creature and I am a citizen in his kingdom.

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And I'm glad for this wise and powerful and good king governing my universe.

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And really, that's the way in which we want to be looking at our creator God. But let's,

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I don't think this sentence has that. Maybe it does.

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Maybe we'll use this as a jumping board to talk about human responsibility. Actually, you know what?

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There is another phrase that talks about it much more directly. You know what?

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Let me just read the seventh point and then I'll read another phrase that will help us springboard into the issue of sovereignty of God and responsibility of man.

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The seventh point, as the providence of God does in general reach to all creatures, so after a special manner, it takes care of his church and disposes all things to the good thereof.

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You need to be very careful when we talk about the purposes of God bringing about good.

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There is no promise that it will bring good to all of his creatures. It is, Romans 8, 28 is intended for believers.

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There is a special purpose in the election and the sovereignty of God in the lives of his saints that when the trial comes in our lives, we can be assured, no matter how disastrous, catastrophic that event might be, that this is intended by God for my good and for his glory.

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And when the same thing happens, and again, you know, in a general sense, and I think

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Joni, you mentioned this, God causes the sun to rise on the believers and the unbelievers.

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And so there is a general sense in which all creatures benefit from the goodness of God, but there is no promise that those trials that come will result in their, for example, waking up from their sin and being saved.

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That was the point six there. Some cause softening of hearts and others cause hardening of their own hearts.

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We do not know. Those are those. It is that hidden will of God that God alone knows, and we leave it in God's hands.

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But his purposes in the life of his church or his saints is indeed for good.

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Let me find the passage I was thinking of, and then I'll use that too. Let's actually read the, if you look at the chapter three of God's eternal decree, the very first sentence there talks about this balance between sovereignty and freedom.

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Actually, can someone read that? The first point, Andrew, that's a weighty passage.

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We need to kind of settle on that. And again, all it is doing is it is taking the truths that we know from the scriptures about God being sovereign in God being good.

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And the will of the creature is no violence done to them. That is in the sense

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God coerces or forces people who make their choices based on their state of affairs.

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So right now, the choices that each of us makes here is by no means twisted to do something that God wants when

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I am dragged into doing something that I don't want to do. What I do,

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I do freely. And so that's why it says the liberty of contingency of second causes are not taken away, but they are rather established.

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And really, that's where the challenge comes. And this is where I want us to switch our thoughts from theodicy, where we normally think of believers and unbelievers, to the question of free will, where we are talking normally between Calvinists and Armenians.

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So normally Armenians look at theodicy, and that's one of the reasons why they are mostly

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Armenians, is because they feel that putting all these scriptures together, where God is sovereign over evil, somehow sullies the name of God.

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Because I cannot comprehend how God is the first cause of all things, and that when the secondary causes commit evil, as an

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Armenian, I fear for the name of God being tarnished, that I somehow want to put a wall in between to say, you know, no, my

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God is good and holy, and everything done here on is done freely by these creatures.

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So if I can make that real hard sharp cut, then I can preserve my God and his holiness, and all of the creatures that commit sin are responsible for it.

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Well intentioned, but unbiblical, because the Bible does talk about God's sovereignty extending.

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There is no wall, as it were, that God just reacts and responds to the sin of his creation, but rather God is sovereign over all of these things.

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So really the question should always be, when I look at theology, I have, maybe in this particular case, the holiness of God or the justice of God, something else that I fear for, and I want to take that one doctrine and put that doctrine on the throne,

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I want to be very careful that I'm not burying some other doctrine, because I feel this is how my

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God should look like. And when we create God after our own desires, it's called idolatry.

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And all of us, I'm sure, based on what we emphasize, have our predisposition to those areas that we like and we don't like.

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And we need to be saying, let God be God, what he has revealed about himself must define who he is, rather than my preference for one over the other.

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So with that said, so the Arminians' one big concern can be this issue of somehow trying to understand in this finite creature's mind how this can work, and when

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I can't understand it, try to draw some lines that I should not draw. But let's come to the more common issue of the freedom of man.

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So here, in this first definition, he unchangeably ordains, if you look at the end of the first line, he unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass.

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And then that's on the one side. And on the other side, he's not the author of sin, talking about this disconnect.

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And the second is, he does not offer violence to the wicked. Meaning, he ordains, everything happens, yet the creatures freely exercise and do what they want.

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What do we say about it? Amen! That's exactly the kind of response we need to have.

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Wow! You know, when we use that word, awe, God alone deserves that term, because how can this be?

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Only God can do these things. And really, we have these examples after examples in the Bible of what happens.

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We looked at the life of Joseph. We looked at the life of Job. We looked at many other examples. And then we have

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Jesus, the ultimate example of God's ordained will. And then all of these,

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I mean, you just think about all the people in Jesus' life who were a part of bringing about God's decree, who had no knowledge of what

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God was doing, right? I mean, let's maybe take a few moments, because we're almost done.

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Can you think of some of the characters in this grand scheme of what happens when

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Jesus comes and dies on the cross? People who had no idea that God had ordained this beforehand.

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I think Acts 4, 27, I think, you know, talks about this.

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God has decreed and you have done this. Acts 2 talks about the same thing. God has decreed and sinful hands, you have crucified him.

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So you have this thing, but who are some of the people? Let's just take a few moments to talk about them. Who are some of the people who executed

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God's decree with no knowledge of the decree of God, with no coercion or violence done to their will when they did what they did?

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Judas. So why did Judas do what he did? Oh, that's a harder question.

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Possibly. So here is Judas, the guy who thought Jesus was going to do something. Jesus doesn't do that thing. He gets frustrated.

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He's a thief. He has been found out. Jesus talks about him, talks about this woman who's doing the alabaster jar.

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And all the disciples know Judas is this kind of guy. And we don't really know all the motivations.

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The Bible doesn't explicitly say, but, you know, money was a factor. Maybe the kind of Messiah he was looking for.

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Maybe whatever it is that it was, it wasn't, oh, God has decreed for Jesus to die on the cross.

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And therefore I need to go and get 30 pieces of silver. That'd be a pretty cool deal. I do what God wants and I get some money.

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We're all happy. No, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do. No coercion.

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That was him living. Who else? Roman soldiers. Okay. And, you know, and it would be interesting if some scholar in Hebrew prophets came and said, oh, this needs to happen.

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These are guys who have no idea about Isaiah's writing or David's writing or any of the other stuff that goes on.

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They were just doing whatever they do. And in fact, they wanted to break the bones of Jesus, except what happened?

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That's right. They tested him, tested his proof of death with, you know, the piercing.

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And then the water and the blood comes out. He was already dead. So everybody else, they broke the bones so that they would die of asphyxiation, not being able to push themselves up and breathe.

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Whereas Jesus was already dead. And again, you know, all of these events that happen, the evil that was committed by the

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Roman soldiers, you don't. And are they guilty and culpable for what they did? When we talk about the excess of violence, here were these men that did what was horrific.

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And God knows what they did. And everyone will have to be accountable for it, whether it was

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Judas or the Roman soldiers or more seriously, the high priests and the men who condemned

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Jesus. And with that, we're out of time. Was that a comment? Yes.

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Amen. And I like that, you know, just think about the chain of agencies, right?

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God ordained. You have the Jewish people who came up with the scheme, the Roman soldiers who actually did the actual crucifixion up the chain of command.

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You have culpability in every sphere. And you need to be very careful that we don't somehow say, oh, you know, it all goes back to God because God is not guilty of evil, despite him being the one who is the ordainer, who brings about the good through these horrific events that are freely devised by people.

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So we need to be just cognizant of that. Think of the theodicy as well as the free choices that are made by individuals that are not coerced.

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And maybe next week we'll wrap this issue of Arminianism and the fact that God ruling sovereignly doesn't mean we are robots or there is a fatalistic aspect of life.

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God makes us as creatures in his image who can make choices, and those choices are real and they make a difference.

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So the choice you make today will have an impact in your life. The only thing is, in God's sovereign decree, he ordains all things for his good purposes.

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Let us pray. Dear God, our good

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God, our omniscient and all -wise God, we come before you as creatures who are in awe of you.

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You are good and you give us all good things. Help us this morning as we worship to give you all the praise and the honor and the glory that is rightly due you.