Session 1: God's Sovereignty

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Session 1: God's Sovereignty LI Spurgeon Fellowship: Doctrines of Grace Conference 2019

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Our first speaker to kick off the conference is Pastor Jim Capo.
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Jim has been the pastor of the Massapequa Church of God for 23 years. He graduated from Polytech University with a degree in chemical engineering, and he put that skill to use when he taught at the
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Grace Christian Academy in Merrick, teaching algebra, chemistry, physical science, and logic.
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He's been a frequent guest and a guest host on Iron Sharpens Iron with Chris Arnson, and he's been married to his wife,
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Rosemary, since 1990, and they have five grown children. It's also a pleasure for me to introduce
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Jim, who's going to be speaking on the sovereignty of God, which is the doctrine that really underpins all of the doctrines of grace.
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And one thing I would just ask you if you would pay attention to is, as we go through each of the doctrines of grace over the next two days, you'll see how they all hang together.
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These are not just five separate doctrines, but they are all very much interrelated.
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And underneath all of that is the sovereignty of God. So Pastor Jim, if you would come and speak to us this evening.
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Amen. Thank you, Pastor Jensen, and thanks to all of you for being here tonight as we begin this important conference, and the reasons for the importance of this conference will become evident to you.
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I'm going to step over here so you can see the screen. On one Sunday morning in 1855, a young pastor stepped into his pulpit and he introduced his sermon with these words.
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It has been said by someone that the proper study of mankind is man. I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God, of God's elect, is
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God. The proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy which can ever engage the attention of a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great
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God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the divinity.
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It is a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity, so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity.
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Other subjects we can compass and grapple with. In them we feel a kind of self -content and go our way with the thought, behold,
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I am wise. But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass's colt, and with solemn exclamation,
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I am but of yesterday and know nothing. No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than thoughts of God.
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But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who often thinks of God will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe.
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The most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and him crucified, and the knowledge of the
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Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout earnest continued investigation of the great subject of the deity.
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And whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is in contemplating
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Christ a balm for every wound. In musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief.
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And in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrow?
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Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea. Be lost in his immensity, and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated.
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I know nothing which can so comfort the soul, so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief, so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the
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Godhead. It is to that subject that I invite you this morning.
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Said that young pastor. Those words, spoken over a century ago by, who else,
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon, at that time incredibly only 20 years old,
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I mean think about that. How many 20 year olds in today's church world do we know who can think thoughts of God like that, right?
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That these words, spoken over a century ago by Spurgeon, were true then, and they are true now.
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And they make a fitting preface to this important conference on the doctrines of God's sovereign grace.
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And that is because in the study of the doctrines of God's sovereign grace, we find revealed something of the nature and character of God himself.
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So, we are not here merely to study doctrine for doctrine's sake, and thus be puffed up in the pride of knowledge.
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No, we are here to discover something of God himself and how he saves his people from their sins.
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We are here to glorify God and his grace in the proclamation of these important truths.
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The doctrines of God are important. The God of the doctrines even more so.
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Amen? Tonight, I will be speaking to you about the sovereignty of God. Now, the sovereignty of God is not one of the five doctrines of God's sovereign grace that we will be looking at in this conference.
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It is, however, the thread that runs through each of those truths. And as Pastor Jensen said a moment ago, it is the theological foundation for them.
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When we speak of the sovereignty of God, we are speaking, first of all, of the freedom of God to do as he pleases.
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The word sovereign simply means free, as in free from any outside constraints or forces that might compel him to act in a certain way.
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God's grace is said to be sovereign grace in that it is offered freely, not for free, although we cannot earn it, but it is offered freely in that it is offered without compulsion.
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For example, there was no compelling reason for God to justify sinners by his grace except for those reasons that exist entirely within his own being and nature.
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In the act of justification, God takes a sinner and he declares him to be not guilty and he declares that sinner to be righteous, crediting to that sinner's life the very righteousness, the perfect righteousness of Christ himself.
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We read in Romans chapter 3, verses 23 and 24, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
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Being justified freely. The word, the
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English word freely there, is translated from a Greek word, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing this right, dorean, d -o -r -e -a -n, and that word means without a cause.
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Being justified without a cause. There was no cause external to God himself, certainly nothing in us that would cause him to justify us, to bestow his grace upon us.
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And this is made even more clear if we look at John 15, Jesus' words here, listen to what he says in verses 23, 24, and 25.
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He says, He who hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin.
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But now they have seen and also hated both me and my
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Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law.
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They hated me without a cause. Same Greek word, dorean.
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They hated me without a cause. The world had no cause to hate
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Christ, but they hated him anyway. He had no cause to love us and justify us, but he did so anyway.
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That is the freedom of God. We see God is free, being infinitely elevated above the highest creatures.
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He is the most high Lord of heaven and earth. He is subject to none, influenced by none, and absolutely independent.
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God does as he pleases, only as he pleases, and always as he pleases.
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None can thwart him and none can hinder him. This is what the scripture declares over and over again.
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And we're going to look at some important passages in just a moment, but first, let's think of the sovereignty of God from this perspective.
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If I were to compile a list of principles that govern the Christian life, and by that I mean a summary of those truths that every believer needs to know in order to have a spiritually healthy, joyful, and fruitful relationship with God, I would begin with this fundamental truth, which is really just a restatement of the sovereignty of God.
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Here's the truth. He's God and we're not. He's God and we're not.
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Life begins and ends with God. The Bible begins and ends with God. Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning,
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God. From beginning to end, the Bible is about God. From beginning to end, life is about God.
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As the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us, the chief end of man is to glorify
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God and enjoy him forever. We were made for God.
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We were made to know God, to serve God, to love God, and to live forever with God.
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And as Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.
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We were made to glorify God. And in the act of bringing glory to him, we will enjoy him forever.
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And in enjoying God, we will enjoy in the truest and deepest sense the life he has given us now.
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So where does the Christian life begin? It begins with this fundamental truth, he's God and we're not.
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He's in control and we're not. Nothing is more basic than that. All spiritual reality and understanding begins with that truth.
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And if you ignore it, or you neglect it, or diminish it, or downplay it, nothing else you read in the
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Bible or experience in the Christian life will make much sense. Now in order to help us grasp this truth,
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I want to briefly survey a number of biblical passages. This truth is so fundamental, I might easily find hundreds of verses to support it.
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Here are just a few. Job 23 verse 13, but he is unique, and who can make him change?
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And whatever his soul desires, that he does. The NIV puts it this way, but he stands alone, and who can oppose him?
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He does whatever he pleases. See, Job understands that he cannot demand anything from the
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Lord. In and of himself, he has no power to change his awful condition, and he can't even demand a hearing to plead his case to the
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Lord. But God does what he wants, and Job is powerless to oppose it.
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Job 42 verse 2, I know that you can do everything, and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you, or no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
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This verse, Job 42 verse 2, introduces the final chapter of Job's saga.
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It comes after God has given him a pretty thorough theology lesson about himself and creation, and now thoroughly humbled, he confesses that God is all -powerful, he does what he wants, no one stands against him.
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And this confession leads him to deep repentance for his foolish questioning of God's plan.
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Psalm 115 verse 3, but our God is in heaven, he does whatever he pleases.
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Whatever pleases him, he does. That's pretty clear, isn't it? The Lord of the universe does whatever he pleases.
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The Lord of the universe does whatever he pleases. Whatever I read this, I imagine God leaning in and saying, any questions?
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Psalm 135 verse 6, whatever the Lord pleases, he does. In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places.
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Over and over again, the Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths, and then the psalmist goes on, in Psalm 135, to list various proofs that God does what he wants.
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He makes clouds rise in the sky, he struck down the firstborn of Egypt, he sent signs and wonders, he struck down many nations, and the conclusion of the psalm is a five -fold call for everyone, in light of God's sovereignty, to praise the
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Lord. That's verses 19 through 21, bless the Lord, O house of Israel. Bless the
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Lord, O house of Aaron. Bless the Lord, O house of Levi. You who fear the
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Lord, bless the Lord. Blessed be the Lord out of Zion, who dwells in Jerusalem, praise the
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Lord. And then of course, there's Daniel, Daniel chapter 2, verses 20 through 22.
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Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his, and he changes the times and the seasons.
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He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding.
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He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.
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When King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a dream he could not remember and did not understand, he eventually asked
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Daniel to help him. And Daniel agreed, prayed to God in the dream, and its interpretation were revealed to him.
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These words I just read were part of Daniel's response of praise to God.
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And note the striking phrase, he knows what is in the darkness. He sets up kings and then dethrones them.
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He orders the times and seasons. He even sees the hidden things, because the darkness is not dark to him.
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And if we fast forward to Daniel chapter 4, we see King Nebuchadnezzar taking credit for the greatness of his kingdom.
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And so God strikes him with a kind of insanity that makes him think and behave as if he were an animal, a beast of the field.
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For seven years, he lived among the wild animal.
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And when he finally turned his heart to the Lord, his sanity was restored and he gave public praise to God. Now here is part of that praise to God.
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Daniel 4 verses 34 -35 and verse 37. And at the end of the time,
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I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the
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Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever. For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation.
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All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
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No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, what have you done? Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the
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King of Heaven, all of whose works are true and His ways justice.
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And those who walk in pride, He is able to put down. Here is a pagan king who discovered the hard way, the truth of God's sovereignty.
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And to his credit, he does not hesitate to speak the truth once his sanity was restored.
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And that truth is simply this. God does whatever He wants. Even the greatest human rulers are as nothing before Him.
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No one can question what God does. Everything God does is right, and the Lord knows how to humble the proud.
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It would be hard to find a clearer statement of the fundamental truth, that God is
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God and we're not, in the entire Bible. Then there's
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Romans, chapter 11, verses 33 through 36. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the
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Lord, or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be repaid to Him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever,
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Amen. This glorious doxology comes at the end of Paul's presentation of the gospel as God's answer to man's sin.
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No one could have foreseen how God would respond to human rebellion. No one gives
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God advice. God is never in debt to anyone for any reason. Everything is from Him, everything is through Him, and everything is to Him.
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And He alone gets the glory. Ephesians 1, verse 11,
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In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
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Now, this verse is one part of one long sentence that begins in verse 3,
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Blessed be, or praise be, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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And in verse 11, which we just read, Paul is praising God for choosing us in Christ according to His predetermined plan.
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You might translate the last part of that verse this way. You might paraphrase it this way,
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He arranged everything so that all things are working out just as He planned a long time ago.
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That's the sovereignty of God in a nutshell. He arranged everything so that all things are working out just as He planned a long time ago.
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One of the sections of the Westminster Confession of Faith says that God ordains whatsoever cometh to pass.
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God ordains, and I'll talk a little bit about that, a little more about that in a little while, but God ordains whatsoever cometh to pass.
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In other words, everything in the universe is caused by God. Nothing ever just happens, and nothing is caused by someone or something outside of God's control.
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Some things He directly causes, other things He uses means to bring to pass, but all things in heaven and on the earth, even the things that happen in hell, even the very acts of Satan, are controlled by God.
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As Luther said, the devil is God's lap dog. He can do nothing without God's permission, which is why
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Paul can declare that everything is happening just as God planned from the very beginning.
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And then there's Revelation chapter 19, verses 6 and 7, And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of mighty thundering, saying,
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Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and give
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Him glory. When Christ returns to this earth, the whole world will clearly know what we know right now by faith.
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Our God reigns. Amen? Our God reigns. He reigns over all things.
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He reigns in every situation. He reigns in the best and the worst that happens to us. He reigns over His friends and even over His enemies.
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He reigns in heaven and He reigns in hell. He reigns over those who doubt Him and deny
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Him. He reigns over those who follow other gods and other religions. Our God reigns.
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The world does not yet see it, and sometimes we have trouble believing it because we don't always see it either.
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But the truth remains and will not be changed. Our God reigns. Now, as we stand back and consider all of these marvelous verses, and there are so many more that we could look at, one fact jumps out at us and must not be ignored.
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Every time the biblical writers speak of God's sovereignty, it always leads them to praise.
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I mean, every time He does what He pleases, praise the Lord. No one can oppose
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Him. Shout for joy to the Lord. Everything God does is right. Hallelujah. How unsearchable is
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His wisdom. To God be the glory forever. His plan is working out perfectly.
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Praise be to God. Our God reigns. Let the people rejoice and be glad over and over again.
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If this truth does not fill our hearts with praise, then we either don't understand what the
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Bible says, or we simply refuse to believe it, or it's just cold orthodoxy.
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Knowledge that puffs us up in pride, but that doesn't touch our hearts or the way we think and live.
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In any event, the truth remains whether we believe it or not. He is in charge of all things.
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Even when it looks like He's not ruling, He's ruling. When chaos appears,
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He's in charge of the chaos. When things start falling apart, He's in charge of the falling apart of those things.
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And this is what we call the doctrine of God's sovereignty. And you find it on every page of the
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Bible. As a noun, the word sovereign means king or ruler or boss.
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And as an adjective, as I've already pointed out, it really means free. God's sovereignty means that He is calling the shots in the universe and that He is entirely free to do so.
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He acts without restraint of any kind and He's in charge of all things. Psalm 24, verse one, the earth is the
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Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.
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And that's what I mean when I say He's God and we're not. He is the creator. We are
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His creations. And this is truly the most fundamental principle of the spiritual life.
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And until you understand this and submit yourself to it, nothing in life will really work right.
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Every mistake you've ever made, that we've ever made, that I've ever made has come from forgetting or ignoring who's
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God and who's not. In fact, the very first sin in the universe happened because Lucifer, an angel created by God who later became
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Satan, he chose to ignore who was God and who was not. Isaiah 14, verses 13 and 14 describe the very first act of rebellion against God.
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I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest side of the north.
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I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Notice those five
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I wills of Lucifer. When any created being attempts to become like the most high, the only possible result can be severe judgment from God.
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And when we decide to play God and run our little portion of the universe, we will not escape the consequences either.
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Now, according to this view of God's sovereignty, as I said a little while ago, everything that happens in this world has been decreed by God to happen.
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There is nothing that happens that has not been decreed by God. And if something does happen, it has happened because it has been decreed by God to happen.
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Now, this of course raises important questions. What about all the evil in the world? The suffering in the world?
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Someone says, my baby died. Was that decreed by God? What about all the natural disasters that kill multitudes?
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We've seen tsunamis and earthquakes and tornadoes and floods, right? Or terrorist attacks like 9 -11.
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Was all that decreed by God? And the only answer we can give to those questions that is consistent with scripture is yes.
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Yes, I will never forget in the wake of 9 -11, well -meaning but ignorant, high profile pastors, preachers of God were rushing before any camera they could to vindicate
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God. God had nothing to do with this. That is a terrifying thought that evil can just happen.
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Evil can happen by itself without the purposes of God behind it.
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And I know we often try to get around the difficulty of such an idea by saying that, well, God doesn't actually decree these things.
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He just allows them to happen. And then he brings good out of them.
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Some talk of God's perfect will as opposed to his permissible. But again, that is not at all in accord with the force of the passages we just looked at.
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Linked to everything that happens, and here's the key, linked to everything that happens is the purpose of God behind them.
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Everything God decrees is for the accomplishing of eternal, righteous, just, holy, and good purposes.
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We may not know or understand those purposes, but we know that a righteous and good
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God decrees everything for his righteous and good purposes, even when what takes place, at least according to our perspective, is evil.
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Now, this truth of the sovereignty of God can bring comfort or terror, depending on your view of the
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God who is sovereign. There's the sovereignty of God, but there's also the God who is sovereign. And all powerful being in full control of the universe who is not also righteous and good would be terrifying.
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Amen? Terrifying. But the God who is sovereign is righteous and good and holy and loving and merciful and just, and therefore we can trust him with our lives no matter what happens, and experience his peace and his joy as a result.
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Joseph certainly understood this. What his brothers did to him was certainly evil, exceedingly evil, in that he was able to say to them, well, what you meant for evil,
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God meant for good. He knew God had decreed his brother's mistreatment of him.
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God had decreed his being sold into slavery. God had decreed his being placed into that prison.
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Now, make no mistake about it, his brothers meant it for evil. The intention of their heart was evil.
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And they were blameworthy for that evil. And they were guilty and accountable for that evil.
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And yet it was God, again, who decreed that evil befall Joseph for the purpose of preserving his chosen people, the people through whom the
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Redeemer, Jesus Christ, would eventually come. So please understand, there is no such thing as purposeless evil or purposeless suffering or purposeless trials.
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Behind all of those things is an all -wise, righteous, and good
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God working out his glorious purposes. Now, we may never know what those purposes are, but there is one purpose for our suffering that Scripture makes perfectly clear.
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God ordained suffering in the life of his people for the purpose of conforming us to the image of Christ in our character and our conduct.
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In fact, it's not just the suffering he uses for that purpose, it's everything that happens. It's the good and the bad.
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Romans 8, 28. And we know that all things work together for good.
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To those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. Couple of things.
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First of all, it does not say all things work out good. You might not get healed of some dread disease.
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Your child might die or have a debilitating illness or disability.
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Your spouse might leave you. Doesn't always work out good as we understand goodness.
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It works together for good, though. Those who are the called according to his purpose.
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Now, we often quote that verse and stop right there, but verse 29 goes on to tell us what that purpose is.
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For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
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God works all things together, the good and the bad. Every single thing that happens to us and every single thing that happens in this world for the purpose of making us his people to become more and more like Christ until that day when we go to be with him and are completely glorified, when we share in his glory and his likeness perfectly forever.
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Verse 30, moreover, whom he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. Those he also called, whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified.
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Again, there is no such thing as purposeless evil. That's a terrifying thought. I'm sorry, it's a terrifying thought that evil can just happen for no reason and God is powerless to stop it.
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How much more glorious is it to know that the holy, righteous, and good
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God of the universe is behind everything that is taking place? And this means that the
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Christian is never the victim of circumstances. Joseph was not the victim of circumstances. Job was not the victim of circumstances.
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Christ, in his crucifixion, was not the victim of circumstances.
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And we who belong to Christ are never the victim of circumstances. I think part of the difficulty that many
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Christians have with the truth of God's sovereignty is that in the governing of this world, in the outworking of his plans and purposes,
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God will often decree what he morally forbids. And it's helpful at this point to think in terms of God's moral will and God's will of decree.
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God has a moral will and we find it on every page of the Bible, that which he commands, that which he forbids, right?
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That which he commands to be done. Thou shalt not kill, right? Thou shalt not murder.
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God forbids murder, but then he will decree murder because murder takes place and we've already seen that nothing happens that has not been decreed by God to happen, so murder takes place.
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Therefore, God decrees murder for the accomplishing of his purposes and ultimately the glory of his name.
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Now, it's not that he creates the will to murder in the heart of someone where no such will existed, not at all.
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The capacity and inclination toward every sin every possible sin exists in the heart of every single human being.
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It's part of the fall. But God restrains that impulse by his grace in the saved and the unsaved alike, in the believer and the non -believer alike.
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Now, in a few minutes, you'll be hearing from Brother Anthony about the doctrine of the total depravity of man.
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And simply put, that doctrine states that man and his totality has been affected by the fall of Adam and by sin.
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Man's total being, his mind, his heart, his will, his emotions, his soul, his spirit, his words, his deeds, his thoughts, his motives, his attitude, all of it has been taken captive by sin.
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And man is therefore corrupt and effectively dead in sin so that he cannot even respond or ever respond to God's love and mercy without first experiencing the gracious intervention of God on his behalf.
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Now understand, this is not the same thing. Total depravity is not the same thing as utter depravity. The idea that everyone sins to the fullest extent possible.
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Man is totally depraved, affected by sin in the totality of his being.
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But he is not utterly depraved in that he sins to the fullest capacity. Why? Because God in his mercy restrains the sinful impulses of man.
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Otherwise, life in this fallen world would be unlivable. Imagine if every single person in the world sinned to the fullest extent possible all of the time.
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But by God's grace, the world is not like that. So when God decrees murder, for example, to the accomplishing of his purposes, or he decrees the kidnapping of Joseph at the hands of his wicked brothers and subsequent sale into slavery and imprisonment, it's not a matter of creating those wicked impulses where none previously existed.
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It's simply a matter of God no longer restraining those impulses where they do exist, and allowing that sin and wicked desire to take its course.
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It is in that sense in which God decrees what he morally prohibits to the accomplishing of his righteous purposes.
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And in that way, God can never be charged with evil. Now the ultimate and most glorious example of this very thing is the crucifixion of Christ itself.
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We read in Acts 22, Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. Men of Israel, hear these words.
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Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which
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God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom
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God raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it. The crucifixion of Christ was not something that God merely allowed to happen.
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Oh, look, they're gonna kill him. I think I'll use that. But we are told very clearly,
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Christ was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge, and in that sense, foreknowledge does not mean he looked down the corridors of time, saw that it would happen.
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No, he foreknew it because he foreordained it. This is, when the
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Bible speaks of the foreknowledge of God, it speaks of a foreknowledge rooted in God's foreordination. So it was the determined purpose and decree of God.
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Now notice, that does not alleviate the wicked men of their guilt. It says very clearly, you have taken by lawless hands.
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So he indicts them for their wickedness in the death of Christ. But behind the crucifixion, behind the murder of the
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Son of God was the eternal decree of God, amen? We see it again in Acts chapter four.
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Now in Acts chapter four, Peter and John had been preaching, and they were taken by the
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Jewish religious leaders, and they were threatened and told they were never to preach in this man's name again.
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So what do they do? They go back to the company of the disciples, and they tell them what happened. They tell them, look, we're being threatened.
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And it might cost us something here to preach Christ. And here's the response of the disciples.
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So when they heard that, when they heard about the threats, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said,
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Lord, you are God. Look where they start, right? You are
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God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. Who by the mouth of your servant
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David said, why did the nation's rage and the people plot vain things?
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The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his
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Christ. For truly against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed both
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Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.
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Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness, they may speak your word.
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This is one of my favorite prayers in all the Bible, because notice what they don't do.
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They don't even ask God to protect them. They don't even ask God to turn the hearts of the persecutors and to just let know.
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Now, I'm not saying that's wrong to do. I'm not saying that that's wrong, but their focus was so much on God and on the work of God and on the proclamation of the gospel.
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They saw their own human weakness that these threats might, you know, intimidate them and cause them to lack boldness.
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So they start out by declaring the power of God, God, the creator, the sovereign
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God who purposed and decreed the death of his own son for the forgiveness of their sins.
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And they simply ask, grant your servants that with all boldness, we may speak your word.
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Isn't that amazing? So God forbids murder, right? Thou shalt not kill. But here he decrees the murder of his own son for the accomplishing of his glorious purpose of redemption, the salvation of his people from their sins.
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There is no other way to read or understand these verses than to see that God decreed, he purposed the murder of Christ.
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He decreed the greatest evil in the history of the world for the accomplishing of the most glorious good in the history of the world, the salvation of his fallen people.
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Again, understand he did not just allow the crucifixion to happen and then decide to use it for the purpose of redemption.
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Any more than he just allows the death of a loved one, an illness, mistreatment at the hands of another, a terrorist attack, a hurricane, a tsunami, a tornado, an earthquake, and reasoning from the greater to the lesser.
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If God decrees the greatest evil of all time, the crucifixion, then he also decrees the lesser evil as well, all the lesser evil.
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As terrifying as that lesser evil might seem to be to us, the application of the great truth of God's sovereignty to our lives is simple.
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One application at least, there are many, but in the interest of time, I'll offer just one. Because God is sovereign, we are called to trust him in everything.
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We are called to give thanks to him in everything. We are called to rejoice in everything.
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Because God is sovereign, there is no cause for fear, for worry, for anxiety, for murmuring, for grumbling, for complaining.
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As the songwriter wrote, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
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Now hopefully this has laid some of the important foundation for the sessions yet to come. And in closing,
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I just wanna say something about why this conference is so important and so necessary.
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The primary difference between Christians who affirm the doctrines of God's sovereign grace, typically called
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Calvinists, after John Calvin, who was a vigorous proponent of these truths, and those who deny the doctrines of God's sovereign grace, as is going to be presented in this conference, and these are typically known as Arminians, after Jacob Arminius, who was a vigorous opponent of these truths.
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The primary difference between Calvinists and Arminians is not the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.
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Arminians affirm the sovereignty of God. They mean something a little more limited by it, but they affirm it. If that was the only difference, there probably wouldn't be a need for this conference, but it is not the only difference.
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It is not the most important difference. The key difference between a Calvinist and an
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Arminian is how they understand how we get saved. That is how we move from a condition of spiritual unbelief to a condition of heartfelt belief or faith in Christ.
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How does that happen? How does God do that? And the key difference is this. Calvinists believe that God has to produce in us the decisive desire for Christ.
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Arminians believe we must produce in ourselves the decisive desire for Christ.
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Now, the Arminians will say that God helps us. He awakens us to spiritual life out of our depravity, but only to the point that we can either believe or not believe, whereas prior to God's gracious intervening, we could only not believe.
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He helps all people, the Arminian says, but we provide that last decisive impetus and desire for that belief.
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We provide the faith necessary for salvation. Calvinism says
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God's grace doesn't just bring us to a point of partial regeneration, as one
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Arminian actually calls it. Calvinism says God's grace doesn't stop and leave the outcome to our ultimate self -determination, to the fact that man and not
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God does the final and ultimately decisive act. Calvinism says that God does more in our conversion.
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Namely, as John Piper says, God overcomes all of our resistance and opens the eyes of our hearts to make
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Christ so real and so beautiful and so compelling that our will gladly embraces
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Christ as our Savior and Lord and treasure. So the difference between Calvinists and Arminians is not that one believes in total depravity and the other doesn't.
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No, that's not it. And the difference is not that one believes that grace must precede faith and the other doesn't.
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Calvinists believe that God's saving grace not merely restores a kind of free will that can accept or reject
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Christ, but rather opens our blind eyes and grants us to see the compelling truth and beauty and worth of Jesus in such a way that we find him irresistible.
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And then we gladly and willingly embrace him, as John Piper says, as our
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Savior and Lord and treasure. He brings us all the way to the point of conversion so that God gets all the glory for our receiving of Jesus.
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That's what's at stake in this debate, church, the glory of God in the salvation of his people.
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And in some cases, the very gospel itself. And that's why we are gathered here this weekend.
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Amen? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you for your word to us and the glorious, life -transforming truth that you're
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God and we're not, that you are completely free in the outworking of your glorious plans and purposes.
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And I just pray that all of us here tonight, those who struggle with this truth, those who embrace it wholeheartedly, that we would just have a greater sense of what it means that you are sovereign and that we might know how to better live out that truth and build our lives upon that truth and help us to see this thread of sovereignty working its way through all of these glorious doctrines of God's grace that we are going to hear about.
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We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.