A Brief Biblical Providence

I enjoyed the opportunity a few years ago of being invited over to debate

Shabir Ali. Shabir and I have done a few debates since then, for those of you who were there.

How many of you saw the debate in 2006, Shabir Ali? Excellent. Good. Very good. It's always good to know who's...

Just one other question. How many of you saw the debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens earlier this year? That's about the same percentage.

How did that happen? Except it looked like different people, so that's very interesting. Well, it is good to be with you this evening.

I want to assure you that my purpose this evening is to edify the saints, but likewise to challenge you to think rather deeply.

I hope you've got a deep seat in the saddle, because we're going to be talking about some very, very important foundational things.

But I do not want to do this in the context of just, well, let's show how smart we can be and talk about really deep theological issues.

I want to point out that I think this is important, as the pastor said, because theology does matter.

And when it comes down to living the Christian life and encountering the difficulties of this life, what we believe on these issues will in many ways determine how we respond to the great tragedies of life.

God forced me in his providence in the middle 1990s to become a hospital chaplain.

That was some of the most difficult work I ever did. I'm Scottish, and by nature, I don't even hug people.

So, this is a Scottish hug. So, if you're

Italian, stay away from me. So, it's very, very difficult for me to just go plowing into people's sick rooms and try to show compassion and do things like that.

It stretched me. But I also had never seen anyone die until that situation. And I had to run the lost support group.

I was the one who went between the hospital staff and people in the family waiting room, the intensive care unit, the emergency room.

I had to do a lot of growing up very, very quickly during that time period. And I discovered then that what you believe about this will determine how you respond to death and to tragedy.

And so, what we're talking about this evening is not just theories and hypothetical issues. From my perspective, really,

I am an elder in a church. He mentioned a lot of things before we got to that, but that really is my highest heart.

And everything else is below that. And so, I have to take what

I believe in theology and I have to make it real. I have to put legs to it, shall we say, within the fellowship of the church.

And so, hopefully, you're here this evening for some serious discussions and some very serious issues in regards to God's providence.

Now, we are in a Reformed Baptist church. That is why some of you were left standing there wondering why we were singing

Amen at the end of the last sermon. But I was very thankful for that because normally when

I go to the other kinds of churches, I'm the one singing the solo Amen at the end of the verses, which is really very embarrassing.

So, we Reformed Baptists, we tend to be a lot alike. Now, not just because the pastor and I happen to look a lot alike.

Were you born in Minneapolis at all? I mean, that would be very scary if that was the case. But Reformed Baptists do tend to be very similar because we have a confession of faith.

And on the screen, we have some of the words from that confession of faith I'd like to begin with this evening.

From all eternity, God decreed all should happen in time. And this He did freely and unalterably, consulting only

His own wise and holy will. God's decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place.

But is independent of all such foreknowledge. By His decree and for the manifestation of His glory,

God has predestined or foreordained certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Thus revealing His grace, others whom He has left to perish in their sins show the terrors of His justice.

Now, obviously, I am a self -conscious non -Roman Catholic. I am a

Protestant, which means I believe that my statement of faith has to be subject to the higher correction and control of the

Word of God itself. And so I do not invest in these words some kind of inspired authority or magisterial authority.

But at the same time, they do accurately reflect for me what I believe the Bible teaches. Going back to those first words, please notice that God decreed all that should happen in time.

And this He did freely and unalterably. There was no external thing controlling what

God could and could not do. God chose to create in such a way as to glorify

Himself in the way He has chosen to be glorified. One of the discussions that often happens is, well, why did

God create? Well, He created to save the maximum number of people. He created to produce the maximum amount of His knowledge.

People are always defining the reason for creation in regards to man. I believe that is a fundamental error.

Creation is defined fundamentally on God's own purposes and relationship to Himself.

I know that it is very, very difficult for mankind to accept that we are not the center of the universe.

But God's purposes must be measured by God's own statements about God's own intention.

And it is God's purpose to glorify Himself in the way He chooses to glorify

Himself in this creation. We will see that will become an issue a little bit later on. He does this freely and unalterably, consulting only

His own wise and holy will. If you want the fundamental answer as to why

God has done anything, it is to be found in that it pleased Him. And I truly believe it is an effect of the

Spirit of God upon the heart of man, to where we find that answer to be satisfying.

To where we find the faith to accept that if it's pleasing to God, then it should be pleasing to me as well.

Notice that this is not, His decree is not based upon His foreknowledge, that under certain conditions, it seems that the crafters of the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith were aware of what had happened over 100 years before their time. God's decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place, but is independent of all such foreknowledge.

And by His decree, and please notice this, and for the manifestation of His glory, there is the intention, the manifestation of His glory,

God has predestined or ordained certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ. Please notice these next two statements.

Thus revealing His grace. Salvation demonstrates the graciousness, the love, and the mercy of God.

Others whom He has left to perish in their sins show the terrors of His justice. I believe it is very, very important for us to understand that God has determined in His creation to demonstrate

His attributes in that creation. All of them. His justice,

His holiness, the terrors of His justice and holiness, as well as His love and His mercy.

It was said by a college professor I had many years ago who has gone to be with the Lord, a man by the name of Dr.

D .C. Martin, when you think about it, there are only three options. Either God could have saved everyone,

God could have saved no one, or God could save someone. In which of those three options does

God have any freedom to reveal anything about Himself at all? If God saved no one, then there would be a revelation of His justice,

His holiness, but there would not be a revelation of His love and His mercy and His grace.

If He saved everyone, then you would see His love, His mercy and His grace, but you would not see

His holiness and His justice. But only when He is free to save as He chooses to save, can the entire range of God's attributes be demonstrated in the creation itself.

I want to keep that in mind. So, the demonstration of all of God's attributes, including

His mercy, His justice, His holiness, is part and parcel of why He is created. I'd like to provide this brief biblical providence.

This will be far too fast for me. I will be uncomfortable doing this. But I'm assuming that most of you here have biblical knowledge, that you have your own

Bible, that you have a context in which we're speaking here. If I was being asked to speak to a room full of Muslims, I would not be making this presentation the way that I am.

But I'm assuming that the majority of us here are Christians, and that we want to think about God's revelation.

I'm not going to offer a defense of inerrancy, the absolute inspiration of Scripture. I will just simply state that I believe in Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura, that Scripture alone is the infallible revelation of God.

It is alone to be viewed as providing to us what God would have us to know about Himself in a way of revelation, and I believe in Tota Scripture.

We have to look at all of Scripture. But I also believe that Scripture is given to us in such a way that we can know and glorify our

God. We are not like the pagans who have an unknown God. God has revealed Himself. It is

His intention to reveal Himself. We are to know this God that we worship. And the

Scripture is sufficient to reveal to us not only what God's purposes are, but what God's Gospel is as well.

Now I realize by having said that I just made myself a minority, it seems, in the evangelical world today, which has become very confused about the

Gospel. But I think I have some fairly decent folks in the past who agree with me on issues like that.

So I'm going to be pretty quick here, but hopefully you can write these down and think about them a little bit more in depth as time would allow.

In Isaiah chapters 40 -48 you have the trial of the false gods. And in the trial of the false gods,

Yahweh reveals about Himself specific things that distinguish

Him from all false gods. Things by which we can identify the one true God over against all false gods.

I would highly recommend the reading of that section of Scripture to you, because we don't have time to read all of it this evening.

But notice just some of these words. Here's from Isaiah 41 -4. Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord, Yahweh, or Jehovah as we slaughter it in English, am the first and with the last,

I am He. One of the key demonstrations that God is God is that He is the creator of all things.

And that from His exhaustive, creative work, all things flow.

He has sovereignty over all which He has created. He has performed and accomplished it.

He has called forth the generations from the beginning. He is the first and with the last.

I am He. Some of you recognize that phrase in Hebrew, Anahu, which comes over in the Greek sentence of this as Ego Aimi, which then ends up in the

Gospel of John on the lips of Jesus when He identifies Himself as the I Am. This is one of the identifiers of the true

God, is that He is eternal and His decree is, in fact, eternal. And so, in the same chapter, we have these words.

And listen to the challenge. Here, God is putting the false gods on the stand, shall we say.

And He is saying to them, present your case, the Lord says. Bring forward your strong arguments, the

King of Jacob says. Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place.

As for the former events, declare what they were that we may consider them and know their outcome, or announce to us what is coming.

Declare the things that are going to come afterward, that we may know that you are gods, indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us in fear together.

Behold, you are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing. He who chooses you is toibah, an abomination.

Now look back with me briefly at these words. What does God challenge the false gods to do? Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place.

The ability to accurately predict the future is part and parcel of God's capacity.

A God that cannot know the future exhaustively and perfectly is not a God worthy to be worshipped.

That God is not the true God. And while the pagan idols of the

Babylonians or the Baal figures, the Asherahs, whatever it might be, might claim to be able to provide you with fertility in your crops and so on and so forth, the true

God says, I can tell you what is going to happen in the future. As for the former events, declare what they were.

Now if we stopped right there, that would not be much of a challenge. Because all of us can engage in some level of history.

Though the American people tend to be people that don't think much about history, we don't have a long history in comparison to many others that have had the opportunity of traveling in Italy and in the

United Kingdom. And they have a much longer sense of history than we do.

Because they have a much longer history than we do. And when you see houses that are five, six, seven hundred years old, people still living in them, it gives you a little bit more of a sense of the very short period of time that we are around.

But if we just stop right there, there wouldn't be much of a challenge. Tell us what's going to happen and what happened in the past. But that's not where it stops, is it?

That we may consider them and know their outcome. In other words, tell us what happened in the past and why.

And that is something only God can do. A historian can tell you all sorts of things about what happened in the past, but many times, a historian cannot even begin to plumb the depths of why.

Why did it happen this way and not some other way? God knows. I suggest to you the reason

He knows is because He is the Creator. It all flows from His creative decree.

That's what distinguishes Him from the false gods. I am the Creator of all things. I'm with the beginning,

I'm with the end, I will accomplish my purposes. Read the 33rd Psalm sometimes. You're ever feeling like a little humanism is slipping into your thinking?

And it's all around you, and so it's like we're swimming in a sea of humanism. If you need an antidote, read the 33rd

Psalm. Man's always coming up with his plans. Man intends to do this, man intends to do that.

God frustrates all of man's plans, but what God intends to do, He accomplishes.

That is the contrast between man and God. Declare the things that are going to come afterward that we may know you are gods.

And then here you have simple sarcasm. There's no question about it. This is sarcasm in Scripture. Indeed, do something that we may anxiously look about and fear together.

This is right around that same text where you have one of those incredible encyclical sections where the writer talks about how you take a piece of wood and you cut it in half.

With half of it you create your idol. And you decorate it, you nail it to something so it doesn't fall over.

And with the other half you light a fire and cook your food. And then you bow down before the idol. The irony, the sarcasm of the foolishness of idolatry, clearly found right on the page of Scripture in here.

Now you've put the idol in the witness chair. And can you just see the prosecuting attorney? So, Mr.

Idol, what's going to happen tomorrow? No answer? So, what happened in the past of what?

Oh, could you do something for us? Could you turn around, please? Oh, you can't move him now. I mean, it's all sarcasm.

That's what it's meant to be, to show the foolishness of idolatry. And modern

Americans go, well, that doesn't have anything to do with us, because we don't have idols. Oh, yeah? How many of you have got to turn your Blackberry off?

Behold, you are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing. He who chooses you is

Toibah. We need to talk about what Toibah means while we still can, without being sued in our country for offending certain minority groups.

It's an abomination. Same term used of men lying with men in the

Old Testament, which I guess we can't talk about anymore either. It hasn't been signed yet, but that's coming up real soon. Abomination.

Idolatry is not a victimless crime, and it is not something that is amoral.

God considers idolatry to be an abomination. It is an immoral activity.

In Jeremiah 1 -5, we have that classic text where God, speaking of Jeremiah, says,

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet in the nations.

Now think about how Jeremiah heard that. Jeremiah was ready to give objections to God. God, I'm not a speaker,

I'm a young man. But God says to Jeremiah, Before I formed you in the womb,

I knew you. Obviously, the Hebrew term yadah doesn't just mean I had you in my rolodex.

You were in my contact lens. There is something about yadah, something about knowing that is personal.

It's intimate. There was no question of who Jeremiah was going to be, but I suggest to you that the only way

God could truly know that is because God's decree encompassed the entirety of who

Jeremiah would be. And that there would be no question about that. It's not that Jeremiah's existence was outside of God's decree.

The reason that God called him and had the right to call him is that he is the potter and we are the clay. And he formed

Jeremiah for a particular purpose. He made him for that. And what a tremendous encouragement it is when we as believers recognize that God has formed us.

He has made us the way that we are. He knows our strengths and our weaknesses. And he has chosen to put us in the place of service so as to conform us to the image of Christ.

He is the one who causes all things to work together for good. And what is that good? That we might be conformed to the image of his son.

No matter where you are, no matter what trials you're going through, those promises, indeed, are yours.

In that infamous chapter, which is not found in some modern evangelical Bibles, Romans chapter 9.

Can't go through all of it. We'd love to do so. Just did so last weekend in Great Falls, Montana.

I put the videos up on YouTube if you want to watch that. But I want to illustrate one particular aspect of God's providence here.

The scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

So then, Paul then interpreting this Old Testament text, he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires.

Pharaoh, I have a purpose. And my purpose is to demonstrate my power and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

And Pharaoh, as the king of this universe, it is just and righteous and holy for me to raise you up to accomplish my purpose.

Now, my purpose may not be your purpose and you may not even care about my purpose. But I'm the creator of all things.

And I will raise you up for this. Now, Pharaoh is an idolater. And many people who object to what

God did to Pharaoh will admit that at any point in time God could have brought his just wrath to bear upon Pharaoh and taken him out of existence.

He could have brought the penalty for sin to bear upon him at any point. But it's the fact that he hardened

Pharaoh's heart so that he might continue the demonstration of his power over the false gods of Egypt.

And finally, he might kill the firstborn of Egypt, which becomes what?

Remember Passover? A huge picture of the coming of Christ and salvation itself?

He kills the firstborn of Egypt. Everybody goes, all those innocent people. What innocent people? Is Romans 5 still in our

Bible? Fallen sons of Adam. Under the curse. And then he destroys the armies of Egypt and Pharaoh in the waters.

He hardens Pharaoh's heart. He takes away his common sense. I don't know about you, but after about the third plague,

I'm out of there. Okay? I mean, some of those plagues, just think about them.

And yet, Pharaoh keeps hardening his heart. Can you imagine what it was like to be Pharaoh's chariot driver? When he said, forward!

Really? That happens. I mean, darkness and locusts and frogs for crying out loud.

I hate frogs. And the waters on both sides. You mean that?

And away they go. And they die. Why? It's a real simple question for all of us here this evening.

How high on our priority list is the demonstration of God's power, the proclamation of his name in this world?

I'm not going to ask for hands, but let's be honest. How many of us got up this morning and said, oh Lord, may your power be demonstrated in the world today in your name exalted.

We can say that in hymns. Well, what does that mean? We find out what it means when the rubber hits the road.

And it comes down to God's providence in human life. So here you have

God saying it. And the apostolic interpretation, literally, those of you who know the original languages, is not he has mercy on.

In Greek, mercy is a verb. He mercies whom he mercies, and he harbors whom he harbors.

It's a direct parallel between the two. It's all up to God. It's found in God's freedom, not in the creature.

Now, I want to go through the three big texts that help us to explain and understand the relationship between God's decree and the existence of human evil.

Because that seems to be what bothers everyone. It's amazing how the atheist, who generally does not have any type of objective or moral standards, is very quick to apply them to the

God he does not want. And so, theodicy, a defense of God's activities in regards to the existence of evil, is part and parcel of apologetics.

But before I look at these, I want to point something out to you. How many of you,

I mentioned there's a group of you here, who saw the debate between Dr. Craig and Christopher Hitchens, that was, what was that,

April? March, April? Of this year. Add to that group, how many of you have seen any debate between Dr.

Craig and an atheist? Any debate at all? Okay, alright. How many of you have listened to the debate between Gordon Stein and Greg Bonson?

Okay, now I know where the reformed folks are. Okay. Just got a map right there. I teach apologetics for the

Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary up in Mill Valley. They have a campus in Arizona. In January I'll be teaching up in Mill Valley again.

One of the things that I will do, this time I will use the Hitchens -Craig debate. I've been using the Craig -Zittler debate.

Same presentation by Dr. Craig. As I play Dr. Craig's debate with an atheist, and I also play the debate between Dr.

Bonson and Dr. Stein from, as I recall, 1985. And if any of you have listened to any of my debates,

I debated with Dan Barker, the head of the Freedom for Religion Foundation at the University of Illinois back in April as well.

And if you've listened to those presentations, you know that there is a fundamental difference in how

Dr. Craig and Dr. Bonson and myself approach an atheist.

In Dr. Craig's debates, his primary assertion is that the preponderance of evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of a god.

The preponderance of evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of a god.

That's the goal, that's what he's attempting to demonstrate in the interaction that takes place in that debate.

The preponderance of the evidence demonstrates the greater probability of the existence of a god. Now, if you've listened to the debate between Dr.

Bonson and Dr. Stein, you know that Dr. Bonson's assertion was, without the existence of the

Christian God, you can't even explain why we're debating this evening, therefore the Christian God is absolutely necessary to human predication and our experience of the creation, as we see it around us.

So one says, it is much more probable that a god exists.

The other says, the Christian God exists without question. Those are two different goals.

Your apologetic methodology should be determined by the theology that you're defending.

Sadly, I must report to you, many apologists go at it backwards. They become apologists, develop apologetic methodologies, and then tweak their theology to fit what they've found to be useful in debating.

That's not how they do it. If you say to someone, defend, someone's going to have to say, defend what?

In the same way, our theology will determine the apologetic methodology that we use.

And the reason that Dr. Craig and I debate in a very different way with some of the same people,

Dr. Craig has debated Shabir Ali as have I, but we debate in a very different way is because of a fundamental theological foundational difference between the two of us.

And I think it also comes from where we derive our theology initially to begin with. And so it's interesting that Dr.

Craig uses this very text very often, chances 50 -20, but for a different reason, as we will see.

And that's what is very important this evening. So please notice, Genesis chapter 50, the brother's father has died,

Israel's gone, and now the brothers figure, alright, we're toast. Joseph has not forgotten when we chucked him into that pit and sold him off to slavery, and he's the second most powerful person in Egypt, and so now the papa's gone, we are undoubtedly going to be buried in some kind of sand pit and eaten by those terrible, horrible beetles that we all learn everything about in The Mummy Returns.

Which at least will be fast, if those were any indication. But anyway, and so they come to Joseph, and please don't kill us, in essence.

But Joseph said to them, do not be afraid, for am I in God's place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive.

Now I don't think that Joseph understood that as the Midianites dragged him off to Egypt.

I don't think Joseph understood that after Potiphar's wife grabbed his cloak and he was chucked in prison.

It took a while, and a lot of suffering, for Joseph to gain this insight.

But it is a biblical insight, and this translation is accurate, in the original language, there is a direct parallel.

He did not whitewash his brother's sin. What his brothers did in selling him into slavery, in taking the coat of many colors and dipping it in animal blood, and going back to their father and watching him weeping his eyes out as they in silence lied to him, was sinful.

No question about it. Their intentions, their motivations, were sinful.

But God meant it for good to preserve many people alive. Same action, in the hearts of the brothers, sinful intentions.

In the hearts of God, the holiest intention. Remember something.

This is something that is often skipped. God restrains a tremendous amount of evil in this world.

If God were not restraining evil, not a one of you could have walked out of your homes this evening and gotten to this place in one piece.

Those of you who have lived here a long time, know what happens when God for a moment removes this hand of restraint, and what man can do at that time.

Remember, some of Joseph's brothers wanted to do what? They wanted to kill him. But that wasn't

God's intention, so they couldn't. God restrained their evil.

But they still sinned, yes they still sinned. But you see, their intention was to fill the evil in their hearts.

God's intention was holy, and just, and good. And that is the basis upon which you determine someone's holiness, or someone's evil, in an action.

This is brought out so clearly in Isaiah chapter 10. This one doesn't get talked about so much, but I'll try to pick up my pace a little bit as I take a look at it.

It's terrible when you start getting older and you can't read the hands on your watch anymore. Alright. Isaiah chapter 10.

Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hands is my indignation. I send against a godless nation, and commission it against the people of my fury, to capture booty in the sea's plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.

Here God is bringing Assyria against the people of Israel. Remember Deuteronomy 28 and 29? Curses and blessings.

Here come the curses. You've engaged in idolatry. You have trampled my covenant underfoot. So I am bringing the people of Assyria against you.

And they will trample you down like mud in the streets. He is sending it against a godless nation.

Yet, it does not so intend. Assyria does not intend to be used by God to bring about greater righteousness.

Nor does it plan so in its heart. But rather, it is its purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations.

For it says, Are not my princes all kings? Is not Colima like Carthage? Or Hamath like Harpot?

Or Samaria like Damascus? As my hand has reached the kingdom of the idols, whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall

I not do to Jerusalem and her images just as I have done to Samaria and her idols? And so Assyria is puffed up.

Assyria is haughty. Assyria thinks they're doing what they want to do. So it will be that when the

Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will say, I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness.

For he has said, By the power of my hand and by my wisdom I did this, for I have understanding.

And I removed the boundaries of the peoples and plundered their treasures. And like a mighty man, I brought down their inhabitants.

And my hand reached the riches of the peoples like a nest. And as one gathers abandonings, I gathered all the earth.

And there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped. They were arrogant. They didn't realize it was

God that enabled them to do any of these things. Sounds like some superpower nations

I know today. I just thought I'd mention that in passing. And then

God asks this question. It's a rhetorical question, but it's one that's very important. Is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it?

Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who lift it, or like a rod lifting him who is not wood.

Do you see what the point is? Do you see the irony of God's words here? God uses

Assyria, a nation, as his tool. And yet the axe is exalting itself over the one who wields it.

Therefore God will punish the Assyrians. He uses them to punish his people, but then because the attitude of their heart is wrong, he then punishes them.

That is what the inspired scriptures teach. And if you have a problem with that, then you have a real problem with how the early church prayed.

Because in Acts chapter 4, after the Jewish leaders tell

Peter and the others, stop preaching in the name of Jesus, persecution is beginning against those early

Christians. They come back and the church prays. Praise the sovereign

Lord, despotis, from which we get despot. Sovereign Lord.

The early church understood something, that sadly the modern church is frequently lost. For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus, whom you anointed. Now let's look at the list. Herod, Pontius Pilate, along with the

Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. Now there is an interesting group. Herod. He's nuts.

I mean, history tells us the same thing. He's nuts. This guy is crazy. He wants to see some magic.

He wants to see a magic show from Jesus. Jesus won't give it to him. His motivations, his intentions, are very different from Pontius Pilate.

Pontius Pilate isn't nuts. He's just a coward. He's a politician. He wants to keep peace.

So he won't do what's right because he wants to be a utilitarian, shall we say. And then you have the

Gentiles. You've got the Roman soldiers. Where are those Roman soldiers? They're smelly, they're sweaty, hairy, ugly.

Can you imagine running around in metal armor all the time? I mean, the chafing and things like that is just terrible.

And there was no deodorant back then. Can you imagine what it was like? And so they're just doing what they're told.

They don't care. They don't mind being cruel. They've crucified thousands before. It's no big deal. They just want to keep peace.

Again, this is sort of the armpit of the ancient world from their perspective. And they didn't have a huge Roman presence there.

That's why Titus and Roman legions have to come in at 87. They just want people to not kill each other and just sort of keep things going, collect the taxes, and that's all there is to it.

And then you have the peoples of Israel. Boy, there's a mixed group. One thing's for certain. They've got a lot of hatred.

Because Jesus has exposed them over and over and over and over again.

They're jealous of his popularity. They've been stoned by his parables. They want to kill him.

And so you have Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Romans, the Jews. All sorts of different motivations.

But notice what the early church says. To do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.

What do we see in each one of these instances? Men acting upon the desires of their hearts.

God acting upon the holy desire of his heart. And in this situation, in this situation, it is

God's greatest self -glorifying act. In the giving of Christ upon the cross of Calvary that is being seen.

A perfect blend, balance, between God's intention and man's actions.

Now was the cross uncertain? No! It amazes me that there are actually people today who are saying,

Well, you know, if Paul hadn't cooperated, even once he gets knocked down on the road there in a blinding light, he still could have said no.

So God would have had to find somebody else. Really. And so there can be no perfect time in God's ordination.

He has to keep going to plan B, and then to plan C, and to plan D. There are actually people who believe that's what the

Bible's teaching. The Bible's very plain. At the time

God appointed, he sent his Son. At the time God appointed, he drew the Apostle Paul. He accomplishes all his holy will, and there is none who can't withstand him.

That is the repeated assertion of Scripture. But he remains absolutely holy and just in his condemnation of sinners, because sinners do what they desire to do.

And that's the basis upon which they are judged. We're not judged on the basis of our knowledge of God's divine decree, because he hasn't revealed that to us.

We're judged on the basis of what he has told us, what he has revealed to us, in our conscience, in his

Word. That's the basis upon which judgment takes place. And so that is a brief biblical providence.

God's activities in time. He has a decree, and he is accomplishing his self -glorification.

So what we want to do in the second segment, and I think we'll go ahead and take our break here. It's about five minutes early. In our second segment, that's where we really have to dig in.

Because in the second segment, we're going to talk about the concept of middle knowledge. As the pastor mentioned, those of you who are familiar with my ministry know that while we do a lot of debates, about 90 or so, so far, since 1990, there are a lot of times that the people

I'd like to debate won't debate me. Lots and lots of folks that we've challenged to debate that, nah,

I don't think so. It may be the baldness or, you know, something like that. There's got to be some good reason somewhere.

So what we do, especially on my webcast, is I will play what people will say.

I will let them make their own presentation, and I'll respond to it as close as we can get. It's not perfect, but we try.

And then I have a long -standing assertion that I believe that as a

Christian, a one who follows him who is the truth, that I have to follow the highest standard of truth myself.

I can't spin the evidence. There's all sorts of arguments that other people use

I can't use because I don't see them as being consistent. Anytime I point my finger at somebody else, there's three pointing back at me.

So I have to be consistent in the argumentation I use. And so this evening, especially when speaking of Dr.

Craig's position, you will see that I will be quoting directly from Dr.

Craig. Specifically, mostly, from this book called The Only Wise God.

And I give you the page numbers, and I invite you to examine the quotations for accuracy and contextuality.

Because it would be idiotic for me to come to a church within walking distance of Biola and Talbot and try to misrepresent what

Dr. Craig says. Now I am, I could be wrong. I could misunderstand everything.

But I will tell you what I've done. Aside from having all the books and reading all the material relevant to the subject,

I have listened to hours of Dr. Craig's lectures. On Wednesday of this week,

I listened to three hours of Dr. Craig's discussions of these subjects while writing.

I used technology. I did speed them up so that I could listen to more. But I had listened to, for example, his presentation at Cambridge University before.

So that's at least three times, maybe four times, that I've listened to that one lecture. And I've listened to hours of other lectures on this subject.

And so I have sought to be as fair and accurate as I possibly can be.

I know what it's like to be misrepresented. It happens to me all the time. By the very people who won't debate me. Which is a little strange when you think about it.

But anyway. So I have no intention of doing that. And many of you here are students of Dr.

Craig. And I'm sure he's a wonderfully nice man. I'm sure we'd get along just fine on all sorts of issues.

But we debate in a very different way and we have a very different goal in our debate. And there's a reason for that.

Theology matters. It's a theological difference. It's a foundational difference between us.

And I think that it is worthwhile considering what these issues are. Because when it comes to this issue,

Dr. Craig believes he has found a way to avoid destroying the autonomy of man.

Man can be absolutely free. And yet God is still sovereign. Well, that would be a great thing.

If it were primarily biblical. And if it did not create all sorts of problems with biblical theology.

But you see a lot of people hear about individual knowledge. And, oh, God knows what anybody's going to do in any given circumstance. Oh, that's great.

That's wonderful. But there's some real issues that we need to dig into. To see if this really is a mechanism that honors

God as biblical. And answers this important question. And so we're going to take a 15 -minute break.

And then we're going to get back in here. And we're going to have to really dig in. Because it's going to be a little bit longer second segment.

Some of you have driven here from some place. Maybe it would be good to break now. So you can get refreshed. Get something to drink.

And we can really dig in in the second segment as we look at middle knowledge. Okay? So let's be dismissed and back in 15 minutes.