The Greatness Of The Godhead (part 3)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Father in heaven and we come before you this morning our hearts Overwhelmed just in love and gratitude and all that you've done through us or in us through your son

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Jesus Christ Father as we come before you this morning. We would just pray that you would

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Encourage us by what your word says that we might Live in light of it that we might have hope in light of your promises that we might live in light of who you are

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Father we pray for these things in Christ's name. Amen Well, I thought I might open with just a little story

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I some of you may know that at my age I got to be a groomsman here a few months ago

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And I was at this wedding in Los Angeles. It was a little bit unique my friend Han the attorney of a

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Korean descent Marrying a woman who was a messianic Jew Which means she's a

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Christian, but she's of Jewish heritage And she was part of a messianic Jewish congregation before she started going to grace community church

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So their wedding was a little bit unusual. I mean, I think the rehearsal dinner we had

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Korean food, which it's a unique challenge for me, but but then on Keep getting a little feedback here on The day of the wedding now

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We did the wedding rehearsal and you know You just kind of walk through things at this point on you'll do this and you know

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You'll do that Heather and blah blah blah blah and we're all walking through and everything's fine well the day of the wedding comes and This is where the part of the

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Jewish thing comes in because The groom is supposed to take this cup of wine at some point

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He's already eaten the bread and he's supposed to take this cup of wine and take a sip of it So the the man is speaking in Hebrew who's doing this he's the leader of the

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Jewish Congregation and he's pronouncing these blessings in Hebrew and so Han's waiting for him to get finished and Now I can't fully see

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I can't at this point. I can't see Han there decorations kind of in my way Which is really you know, it's just the way it goes

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So here's what's happening he's pronouncing the blessings and Han's holding this cup of wine and The I'll call him a rabbi even though he's not really a rabbi, but the rabbi pauses for a minute and Han starts to lift the cup up to his lips and then the rabbi starts going in Hebrew again

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And so Han puts the cup down the rabbi pauses Han starts with the cup up again.

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The rabbi continues again on that cup. Well by now the everybody in the audience is watching and laughing

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So finally about the fourth or fifth time this happens Han just kind of shrugs his shoulder and I'm just telling you that for no reason at all.

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Good morning Sometimes it's just fun to tell a story.

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I did on a more serious note. I received an email a few days ago very encouraging It was about It was actually about my dad.

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It was from a retired sergeant And he said some very nice things about my father and you know things that I wouldn't have known any other way

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Just talking about what it was like to work for my dad and some of the things that had happened and this particular

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Deputy now a retired sergeant had worked for my dad and my dad was a leader of a

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SWAT team You know, he was the road cop he One of the things that happened while my dad was at this unit was they had a couple deputies get killed in the line of duty

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My dad wasn't there that day, but he always felt personally Responsible. Well this man who sent me this email was on that team

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And he just talked about how dad cared for him and looked over him and wanted to make sure that this deputy didn't melt down because of what had happened and He he said

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He said I'm confident That your dad is now in Heaven, you know awaiting all the riffraff you know to march before him and that God will use your dad basically as a judge of these people and I thought

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I Love the rest of the email Wasn't so wild about that part

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But it's common Among police officers to think that there's some kind of special dispensation for cops

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There are policemen prayers where you know This is this is why I'm gonna get to heaven because of all the things that I've done and I'm sure it's the same for firemen and other

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Organizations like that. I of course I couldn't help but wonder, you know, what do lab chemists have? Do they have a lab chemist prayer or you know?

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What does an attorney prayer look like it's probably like you'll be sitting on the right hand of Satan Sorry to any attorneys, right?

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But what we think about God can often influence how we behave and so we've been studying

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The Godhead really the attributes of God and the different things that are said biblically of God and we talked a little bit about Openness theology last week and I wanted to get back into that because we're gonna we're gonna see really how this plays into what the

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Bible actually says about the knowledge of God and how limitless that is but Culver writes talking about someone who

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Supports this kind of idea. Listen to this This author is saying that God Purposely limited his knowledge of the future by creating agents who have freedom of the will we talked a little bit about free will and I want to do so again this morning, but because those two things the knowledge of God and the freedom of the will those two things kind of Either go together or conflict depending on your viewpoint but he said

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God purposely limited his knowledge of the future by creating agents who have freedom of the will that complete knowledge of the future by God would destroy freedom of the will if God knows everything then the idea of free will is an illusion

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Culver goes on to say but this seems contrary to the view that the same author takes of the

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Supertemporal eternity of God forget that and it is certainly contrary to the plain truth of scriptures, which is the important part

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Old Testament prophecy of the career of Christ specified many details utterly conditioned upon the future acts of unborn people so when we when we read the

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Old Testament and we see for example a virgin will conceive and we think well that foreshadows what

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Will come about in Mary and how Jesus will be born If that didn't happen, then we'd know a few things.

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We'd know that God isn't able to do what he said But it would also mean that you we couldn't really trust scripture and This really gets the heart of it.

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Listen to Culver goes on He says precisely for this reason modernist or liberal theologians quite uniformly deny the possibility of detailed prediction of the future in the

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Bible Why why would they do that? Why would they deny that God has told us what's going to come about in the future?

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Okay, if he doesn't fulfill prophecy, then he doesn't know the future then man still has a free will and man is in Charge.

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I mean this really is a man -centered view of the universe that they're trying to Support to preserve and where those ideas come from anybody want to speculate on that?

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Where do they come from other than sin? I mean, we know that But where do you think they come from? They really come ultimately from the

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Enlightenment Period of history where you know man Really came into his own so to speak

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You know when we deal with people like Erasmus who proclaimed the freedom of the will and this really that man

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Is the center of the universe? That's the idea. That's the thinking and it's amazing that people would call themselves

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Christians and yet kind of support this Idea that man is the center of the universe

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Culver says the result has been a revolution against historical Orthodox faith and that in the trustworthiness of the testimony of the

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Bible itself as to the date and authorship of every portion which predicts Identifiable events such as the destruction of Jerusalem 586

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BC or the desecration of the temple in 165 BC This was mentioned in class the other night, which

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I found amazing somebody was joking and said, you know What is their second Isaiah listen to this? Therefore there is now for such scholars a quote second

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Isaiah, which we chapters 40 to 66 composed after and during the exile of Israel why?

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because 40 Through 66 is written Isaiah looking forward to the day not now, you know not eagerly anticipating it but from God telling the people what they would be thinking what they would be doing what the world would be like when they were

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In captivity when they were carried off into back into Babylon now listen

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He says Well, he says and it also has to do with a second century dates for for Daniel because you what liberals what modernists say is

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The Bible can't predict events before they happen It's written so that it looks that way, but they're actually looking backwards on things

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So in other words Daniel was written at such a point Where these things that already happened actually that would be the

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Babel Babylonian captivity and the other one would be the Assyrian captivity But looking backwards and then writing these so you even have people saying oh there weren't two writers of Isaiah There were three because there's another you know

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Variation there and All these things to deny ultimately the sovereignty of God his ability to carry out what he says

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Culver goes on to say however Peter says that Christ was delivered up Crucified according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

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Where's that? Acts chapter 2 very good It's actually verse 23 and then

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Jesus told his disciples what about the Old Testament that they What's that?

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They predicted his coming, but they really spoke of Him in their entirety they were about him now.

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There's a Story in 1st Samuel about how God made known the ideal contingent future

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I He says for example he answered a what -if question about an event that never really occurred

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But here's his point. He says even events which people attribute to chance are said to be known because they are under God's control

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Let's look at Proverbs 16 33 Proverbs 16 33 and what somebody read that place

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Proverbs 16 33 paging okay air Okay, can you think of Occasions when a lot was cast and what does that mean by the way, what's that?

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Okay at the foot of the cross a lot was cast what's another time Jonah Bruce right replacing

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Judas among the twelve So is that random luck You know pastor

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Mike was about to swim from Alcatraz to the shore

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And you said to him good luck. What does that mean? What's that?

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Hope you make it fingers crossed And what's he likely to say to you,

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I mean have you ever tried that good luck.

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Oh You're gonna write a double century tomorrow. Good luck Because he'll say what because there's no such thing as luck.

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There's no such thing as luck Even things that we think are luck are not luck

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So for example, you know somebody wins the lottery and we say how lucky they are Not really and and in fact, it might be a curse but in any case it's not luck it's already providentially ordained

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Which is why I don't buy lottery tickets Because my attitude is you know what if God wants me to win the lottery

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He'll have somebody give me the winning lottery ticket. I don't know

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I don't need to buy it to you know, you have to buy it to win. No, you don't now let's read

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Romans 11 33. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways?

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For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given to him that he might be repaid?

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You know, I sense in Paul a certain lack of resentment that God knows everything

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He seems okay with this idea that God is That hat that he's ordained everything that he's in control of everything that he knows everything

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In fact, the scriptures would say would attribute this also to the wisdom of God I Can hear it scratching it soon but denial that God has certain knowledge that everything that he

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Everything that comes about he already knew Of the contingent future is too much of a concession to make

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To a prejudice against predestination in other words If you are predisposed to think that God did not choose before the foundations of the world

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Some people to save them then you can't believe in a God who knows everything

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Well, you can they'll say you can well, he knew who was going to believe of course

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I always get let me ask you this and I've asked this before but let me put it to you again If God knows who's going to believe and he elects on that basis and as we've discovered in our class on Thursday night

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He didn't do that and you know, even with dr. Geisler trying to dance around the whole time issue it doesn't really work, but if God was to look into the future and to know for certain who would believe and Obviously it would be also when they would believe and then he chose on that basis

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I see that Steve is gonna believe on thus and such a date and to be honest, I don't really know what date that was, but if he saw that and he chose me on that basis then

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I Think there's a real argument about who's sovereign and salvation because if God chose on the basis of me of Me choosing of me generating the faith to believe then we've got a real issue because I don't know if we can then say along with Jonah this salvation is of the

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Lord but more than that if God sees that Steve is gonna believe at some point

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Then my entire life leading up to that point and my entire life after that Well, I never had the ability to change my mind.

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So did I really have a free will I mean it was set in stone?

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Anyway, it's not like I made a spur -of -the -moment decision because God knew it from before the foundation of the world according to the

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Arminian But listen to this Culver says free will and predestination represent a great mystery but true

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Christian piety Should not deny anything God reveals about either of them.

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In other words if we're going to If we're going to honor

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God then we need to believe both things that God predestined and that we choose. I Agree, we believe right we have to believe

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I don't have any problem holding them both intention Now he gets back to this idea of openness theology

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It seems every so many generations of scholars must go over the well canvas objections to God's Prescience his knowledge his pre knowledge of events of the future conditional

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His prescience of events of the future conditional upon the choices and acts of free personal beings at Present under the rather ambiguous guise of the openness of God and he says openness to what?

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You know is God open to you know new and exciting things It is being fiercely debated in several theological journals and promises to go on for some time

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It is contended that God limited his sovereign control of the course of the future in The act of creative human race and angels hence.

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He can be surprised by developments We frequently then would

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I think expect to see God scratching his chin and going hmm who knew that so He says it bears some relation to the debate between Arminian Wesleyan theology and Calvinist theology, but Wesleyan theologians usually do not

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Demur on the assertion that God's and God knows a few in other words They would say that God knows the future in detail although They do not relate the divine foreknowledge to divine decrees in the same way

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Calvinist do so here's the issue Is God Working out a single decree

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Which he decided the entire course of the universe and that we are secondary causes that bring his decree to to Fruition or Are we really the kind of?

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First cause and then God sort of reacts or in the case of openness theology Does he even kind of is he even involved

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I mean openness theology most reminds me of what? You've heard the term deism the

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Cosmic watchmaker and to me openness theology mostly sounds like that very very close to that only maybe a little different But it's this idea that God is not sovereign that he's not in control

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And listen to this this actually came from the Middle Ages from some Roman Catholic Theologians and notably

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Louis de Molina Who developed a doctrine of middle knowledge an area of divine knowledge dependent upon his foreknowledge of the acts and decisions of free?

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Creatures rather than upon his decree so again To be crass about it.

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It's God looking down the corridors of time Seeing what we will do and then organizing his decree his plans on that And as we read

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I think it was a Isaiah 46 Let's go. Let's go there again because I think that's just such a strong passage

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This is just not what the Bible talks about it doesn't talk about a contingent God a flowchart

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God who you know has plans a b c d e f g, and he's just kind of adapting on the fly you might think that I'm stuck, but I'm not and This is just not the way it is and we'll start in verse 8

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Remember this and stand firm recall it to mind you transgressors Remember the former things of old

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For I am God and there is no other Again, this is in the context and remember we just talked about Isaiah 40 to 66 being a forward look

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And he was telling them that even in Exile they were gonna be tempted by idolatry they were gonna fall they were gonna stumble they were gonna do a lot of things that weren't right, and they did and finally they

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Repented but listen Says remember the former things of old for I am God and there is no other

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I am God and there is none like me declaring Not flowcharting

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Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done

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He tells the future he does he's not moved by acts of the present to take alternate action

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Saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose

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That sounds pretty much like a doctrine of sovereignty Not a doctrine of kind of G.

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I'll just kind of take whatever comes And remember what Culver said true

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Christian piety should not deny anything that God reveals about either predestination or free will and it shouldn't

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Thinking about God rightly and worshiping him rightly should cause us to want to say, okay I don't know that I fully understand that how

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God could ordain all things But the Bible says it I believe it

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Anyway, he goes on here. He says in Scripture. God has no middle knowledge in other words

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Some kind of ability to change on the fly. There is no created thing hidden from his sight with whom

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From the sight of him with whom we have to do but all things past or future are Naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

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That's Hebrews 4 13 and so there have been all kinds of theologians who come to this basic conclusion that God knows the future and that the divine decree precedes the knowledge

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How does he know everything? Because he's determined everything because he decreed it

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Because he ordered it as it were These are the things that are going to happen

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People say well, doesn't that make us robots? We'll get to that here But let us be reminded

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That although the faculty of volition that is our ability to choose the power to choose is present in all our freedom in the exercise of it in loving obedience to the will of the

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Father has now been Greatly damaged by the fact that we are all now sinners We're under the curse and because of that we don't

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Choose to obey God. We don't willingly do that. He goes on. He describes us as what children of disobedience and There is no exception to that Then he says the the biblical doctrine of decrees ie

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God's Sovereignty over all history has important bearing on this subject

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We talked about Openness and this is a little variation on it called process theology.

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And this is interesting only because This sounds more intellectual listen He says these theologians in process theology have been influenced not only by liberalism

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But also by a vigorous philosophy known as pan and the ism pan the ism is what what's pan the ism

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God what God well, that's pan and the ism pan the ism is

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God is Everything this is well, actually Pan the ism is

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God is everything pan and the ism is God is in everything Pan and the ism maintains that God exists, but not previous to or apart from the universe now, that's interesting

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In other words when the universe came into being

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God also came into being this says He is not its creator but exists contemporarily as a pole exterior to it and also within all the universe

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Which is God's other pole though. God is ubiquitous. That is everywhere in the universe He is neither omnipotent nor omniscient for like the world

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God himself is evolving he's in process hence process theology as Advocates acknowledge those with academic preparation or without academic

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Listen to this those without academic preparation ie without 20th century 21st century now non -biblically rooted

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Philosophical theology will find it demanding to understand what these theologians mean. In other words You have to you have to be steeped in Evolution and the

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Big Bang Theory and all these kind of things outside of the Bible to sort of understand this to put it together

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But these process theologians have as much in common with atheistic existentialism and even pagan religion as with Christian theology

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Philosophically the ancient roots of the system lie in pre Socratic pre Socrates Greek philosophers whose rule whose world

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Including their gods were evolving Forever in the void with no superintending wise and powerful supervision

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I've mentioned this months ago, but when you think about how many of you have ever read Greek or Roman theology or mythology

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I Used to go to the library. I think I was probably in the third grade. I mean I was kind of an idiot and And among other things

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I used to read mythology I found it very interesting and What do we know about those Greek and Roman gods besides the fact that they don't exist?

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They sure seem a lot like us I mean they They get revenge.

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They you know commit horrible sins. They do all the things that you know They're not gods in any kind of sense other than They have a lot of power

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But he says that there's no superintending wise and powerful supervision.

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In other words, there's nothing over them Well in that same kind of way They would say that the God Who exists doesn't have that kind of power?

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But this is quite inconsistent with the unmistakable biblical doctrine of divine omniscience.

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That is all knowledge Process theology has no personal center such as the triune

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God who might know much Much less predestinate or plan anything yet from within Evangelical circles and this is the point have emerged several academic

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Academics who borrow as much process theology as they think can be brought into sync with an

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Orthodox doctrine of God So, what do we see coming about in our churches now?

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When I say our churches, I just mean broadly Evangelical churches we see you know new kind of ideas coming in and what happens is these?

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men and women who've learned process theology and also know the language of Evangelicalism creep into our churches and they begin teaching and Once they get us off of true north and just turn a little bit this way or that way we wind up with all kinds of error

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I was talking the other night about you know what starts a Cult I think

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Culver even talked about this what starts a cult or a false movement Isn't a lack of truth.

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It's some truths emphasize At the expense of others So you have the free will of man for example pushed out to its furthest extreme and you wind up with something like this

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Where if we're going to say if we're going to maintain the free will of? Man, then we have to say well then

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God can't be sovereign Or we could wind up with a complete sovereignty of God to the extreme where man has no responsibility we wind up with hyper

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Calvinism We don't want to go to either extreme. We want to understand both correctly

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John Wesley had great reservations about the doctrine of individual personal election that is predestination

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But this is not impaired or diminished his proclamation of an orthodox doctrine of divine omniscience

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He goes on to saying Richard Watson who was first and still the major interpreter of Wesley Supported God's knowledge of the future

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In fact Watson anticipated This is in 1823 he anticipated the doctrine or the current detractors process and openness theologians after plainly

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Presenting the biblical proofs of omniscience from Scripture. He says it quote Unquestionably the authority or has unquestionably the authority of the holy scriptures he proceeds at length 8 ,500 words

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Do the math if there's 200 That's a lot to meet the objections

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Especially the objections of God's perfect foreknowledge of future events conditional upon uncoerced choices made by free beings

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In other words, here's an Arminian who spends 8 ,500 pages explaining why

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God is fully omniscient So That's the omniscience of God, there's no doubt that he is omniscient we see it over and over again in the scriptures

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He knows everything now. Let's talk about the omnipotence of God The word omnipotent means obviously having all power in the

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Greek the word would be Panto Krator, which means Almighty it appears nine times in the

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New Testament and I think eight of the nine Occurrences are in Revelation and it has to do with the final judgments in the

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Old Testament It's a translation of Shaddai, you know the from the song the Amy Grant song

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El Shaddai El Shaddai It just means

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God El Shaddai Almighty all powerful the theological doctrine of omnipotence

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Is simply this that God is able to do all things that are objects of power that he can do whatever he wants and then he is able to do so without diminution of his infinite strength

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We say that God is able to do all things that are the objects of his power in as much as such things as Well, what things are outside of the power of God?

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He's constrained by his will He can't renounce his good ship or his godship.

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Yep, and and I think he identifies a few other things I mean if God has

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And this is this is where if you don't believe in Sovereign God if you don't believe in a creator

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I think this is where you run into issues because there are some things that are true and you just go Well, what makes them true and I would argue and I think this is what he's getting at here that God established them as true

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And they cannot change and he goes on to say a world Well, he says

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God created the world in harmony with his own reasonable nature, and then he gives this example Of maybe something that couldn't be changed even by God Because of the way it is and this is the way he established it a world where there were several contradictory

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Multiplication tables would not be heaven on earth but hell Not a universe but chaos

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When you talk to people and you you suggest that maybe for example carbon -14 dating may not be accurate

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They frequently don't understand that it's based on what on the idea of uniformity that is that things have always been the same

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That there was never any disaster that fell upon the earth, etc, etc, etc So the idea to a scientist to a mathematician is that some truths are always true

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Yet what makes those true is always true Well, it's God he keeps things exactly as they are otherwise

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We would have chaos, but he says here's a joke. I don't know how funny this is, but we'll try it out

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Anyway, it says one theologian likes to tell us joke if ever you should meet an angel who tells you that three plus four equals eight

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This angel will certainly have soot on his wings. So I don't know how funny that is But he says in contrast

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He says I have a Pastor's Christmas letter in which he asserts that the Trinity is an example of God's ability to break mathematical laws

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Because he is both one and three Culver goes on to say a better theology affirms that God is not three in the same respect that he is one and I'm like Well, that'd be a nice rebuttal

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Christmas letter. Here you go Can you write a rebuttal Christmas letter

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I don't think you can but there are some Constants some truths that God has established and he upholds and he would not

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Change them because they're the constants by which he upholds the universe Listen says

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God exercises his power according to his own will He never acts in power apart from wisdom.

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In other words to bring about his own will God is not the servant of unlimited energy

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Meaning he's not he doesn't do things just because he has the ability to do it But he says a scriptural way of saying this is he cannot deny himself

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Therefore God cannot be tempted with evil and he cannot lie So here's some scripture statements and some of these kind of get abused

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Jesus said with God all things are possible and what's the context of that? I mean if somebody has

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I black on their football You know Underneath their football helmet that says, you know with God all things are possible or whatever

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They put on their face or whatever they have on their helmet or their football signs

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What do they mean that because they believe in God they can run through, you know, ten tacklers or whatever

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But what's the context in Matthew 19? Salvation Because what seems impossible to us which was if I recall correctly, you know

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The idea of rich people getting into heaven, right? Isn't that right? And the and the disciples say

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Who can be saved, you know kind of that seems impossible and he says with God anything can that anything?

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All things are possible and that's the context of that not the idea that we can do whatever we need to do He says texts are numerous which trace everything both specifically and in general to God's creative sustaining and governing power

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Let's just look at one. Let's look at Job 42 verses 1 & 2

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Job 42 verses 1 & 2 and who has that go ahead

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Eric now, is that a

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Blessing or a cursing? I know that no purpose of your hand can be thwarted.

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I Think that's a blessing And that's the point of this whole Really this whole lesson if we if we just kind of understand

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That God is working out his purpose that no purpose of his can be thwarted then what's our response to that a

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Response ought to be to say everything that comes in life is what? It ought to be a

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Romans 828 thing. I don't really understand how that's for my good God But you say it's for my good and I believe it.

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I Believe it See here he also says here that if God Under practical benefits if God hears prayer, he is able to answer again.

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I just say you know what? I'm thankful for this if you pray to a

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God who cannot change things Who cannot for example the most basic example if I pray for someone's salvation

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Why do I do that because I believe that God is able to save that he's sovereign and salvation if I say to myself well

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Man has to make that decision. It's independent man. Not God It's not a question of God regenerating in him.

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It's a question of him coming up with enough faith, then I'm wasting my time praying Because in the

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Arminian view, in fact, this was also in Geisler's Book, he says that God is wooing all men

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God is begging men to come to him. And if that is the picture then we

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Then we're wasting our time praying for the salvation of others But that's not the scripture

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That's not what the Bible says He says Culver says if we are sent to be evangelists, there is power available to secure results why do we preach the gospel because Romans 10 tells us that people are saved when they confess with their mouth

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Jesus as Lord and when they believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead and how then do they believe

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Because they hear They only believe after they hear That's why we go

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Third benefit he cites should the course of the world seem perverse and threatening

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It's helpful to remember that God has the power to change it if he wills If we don't like the way the elections going if we don't like the way it turns out

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What do we know? we know from Daniel that God establishes thrones and He unestablishes them.

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He sets Kings up. He brings them down. He gives us presidents. He takes them away that should be an encouragement why because God could change it anytime he wants and ultimately, he says this doctrine is a deep well from which to draw abundance and Comfort why because if God is sovereign if God is working everything according to the counsel of his will

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Then our responsibility is to do what we're commanded to do But it's not to worry about we don't have to worry about how things end

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We don't have to worry about a lot of things that we like to worry about we don't have to worry about food and shelter and clothing

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Why because Jesus told us not to worry about him There are a lot of things we shouldn't worry about that we do worry about I mean,

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I think of myself and sometimes I worry about I'll confess I think about you know

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Well, how are my kids gonna be able to live in a country that has freedom of religion when the country is about to go bankrupt?

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God knows God knows that even if This country ceases to exist.

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Guess what the gospel won't Nations come and nations go but the power of Christ goes on the power of the gospel goes on any thoughts or questions about the omniscience of God his

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Omnipotence his working out his Will okay. Well, yes,

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Jenny. It's a good.

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It's a good question What do they do with verses that seem to indicate the sovereignty of God or the sovereignty of Christ to?

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Hang on to those who are believers What they frequently do is they go a few verses down?

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or even like They'll say things like well God can keep you but you have to make the decision to be kept and I mean they will they will kind of expand the language for example in John 6 is the one that I most easily remember from Geisler's argument during reading that book and he says of John 6 verses 37 to 44 he says a

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Verse 37 he says all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out and he says okay that shows that God gives some to the son, but he says who does he give?

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Well, it's right there in the text Whoever comes so that's what they do is they they he they're trying to emphasize the

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Human responsibility of it and they kind of gloss over Well, if he's just two eight nine, they say the same thing.

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I remember this argument, too he'll say that well that's through faith and they use it not as faith as an instrument, which is what the

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The Greek and everything would indicate but that it is something that you must Generate on your own.

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How do you do these things through faith? It's not through and you know also

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In that passage it says it's a gift. Well, what do we know about gifts? You have to receive a gift.

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So those that are arguments Stephen that's right.

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And and that's what they say. They don't believe in the spiritual they in fact what he says about Ephesians 2 1

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And Norman Geisler is no slacker when it comes to Understanding the Bible. He's been a seminary professor for 50 years written a lot of books

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And here's what he says about Ephesians 2 1 where it says you were dead. Well, that doesn't mean that you were

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Fully dead because you're still an image -bearer You're still an image -bearer of God.

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Well, wait a minute. And so then he makes the he makes the argument that if your image of God was

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Annihilated then that would be the same as in Revelation 10 where it talks about Annihilation which would be destruction and your image of God if it was destroyed

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Then you would have no ability to choose and that wouldn't be right so He'll he'll argue and really he does hopscotch all over the place because he has to somehow preserve

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What Stephen was talking about this ability to choose doesn't matter how dead you are

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You know, you still have the ability to go Yes, it is, but I'm not gonna talk about the

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Prince's bride this morning Charlie That's right.

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So and what Charlie said? And I'll really just summarize it real quickly Is that even if God was looking down the corridors of time and saw that you wouldn't believe he's still creating everything or setting everything up or Allowing everything to progress so that you still will either

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Choose or not choose he could change it either way or he could choose to you know, it

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Geisler argues that God is all love and he doesn't say it this way, but pretty much he argues that that's all

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God is But if we say if we if we wanted to stick with what

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Geisler says that he's all loving Then how can he even know that you're not going to choose him and then say wait a minute?

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It's better for Steve not to be born So I'm not gonna allow him to be born That would be better right that would be more loving

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But that's not that's not how it works and you know Just one more thing and then we have to we really have to close in prayer

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But I need to explain for those who may not know what a Rube Goldberg is Since he mentioned that a few times

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Rube Goldberg would be you know, rather than say opening your door You know because you you just don't want to get off the couch

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So a Rube Goldberg would be a contraption where maybe you flip a switch that causes a ball to roll down which you know

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Flips a hammer which will you know, make some squirrel run across the roof, which will create a little electrical charge

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And so eventually it all winds up with the door being open That was two feet away that you could have opened yourself

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But you know at least you didn't have to get up and so that's what that's what a Rube it's a major contraption usually to To do something simple like that, but the fact is that the sovereignty of God and I'll just say this in closing, you know, really

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Been thinking a lot about Romans 8 28 this week about God works all things together for good

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And if we believe that and if we allow that to work in our lives, it's a great blessing

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Because even no matter what we think whether they're good things or bad things if we think

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God means this for my good I don't need to understand right now why it's good for me.

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I need to trust in God Who loves me more than any one can possibly love me and has established all these things

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To conform me into the image of his son. Let's pray father in heaven we just praise you for your sovereignty for your omniscience for all your attributes and we are especially

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We're thrilled we're humbled that you would love even such as us father Would you bless each one here in Christ's name?