WWUTT 1042 What God Had Predestined to Take Place?

We are all going to go through times of suffering. May we have courage and boldness to endure this trial and give glory to the one who saves us,

Jesus Christ, when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We've been studying in Acts chapter 4 this week.

Peter and John have performed a miracle. They preached the gospel. They were arrested and brought before the high priest and the other elders, and now they're being released.

They're going to go back to the other disciples, and we have a beautiful prayer here in Acts chapter 4 verses 23 through 31.

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said,

O Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father,

David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the

Lord and against his anointed. For truly in this city, there were gathered together against your holy servant,

Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the

Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant,

Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the

Holy Spirit, and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

What a fantastic prayer. When it comes to understanding the sovereignty of God and his predestined plan, many folks turn to Ephesians 1, and that's certainly a great chapter that talks about that.

I like coming to this prayer in Acts chapter 4. Let's look at it and understand even what it was the disciples were asking for.

I think there's a valuable lesson in that as well. Verse 23, When they were released, when

Peter and John were let go from the council that had arrested them, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

Remember what the chief priests and elders had said. Verse 18, They called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

And Peter and John had answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard, regarding what it is that Jesus taught them and what he did, the miracles he performed, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension into heaven.

Peter and John were preaching all of it and telling people, there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved.

Jesus Christ calling upon his name, believing in him. That is how we come to salvation.

This is the gospel that they proclaim. And they were arrested for it, but they were not beaten for it.

The elders and the chief priests and the scribes, they feared the people. So they warned them not to do this anymore.

And then they let Peter and John go. But this was certainly a preview of what was to come.

Although they wouldn't be beaten here, that would come later. So they go to their friends and let them know what it was that happened.

Exactly as Jesus said would happen to us. We would be arrested. We'd be turned over to the synagogues. And the

Holy Spirit would be upon them to give them utterances to what to say. And here the

Holy Spirit has fulfilled that promise. Even as they stood there before the council, for we read back in verse eight, that Peter was filled with the

Holy Spirit. When he began to speak to the elders and the authorities there, so that the promise fulfilled, just as Jesus had said, the

Holy Spirit will give you what to speak. And that's what they received. And they were praising

God for it. So they tell their friends about what the chief priests and the elders had said.

And when they heard it, verse 24, they lifted their voices together to God and said, sovereign

Lord, what a great way to begin a prayer, right? He who is in control of all, for he has ordained and predestined all.

How is it that God knows the future? Because he made the future. It's not because he looks down the tunnel of time, as though God needed to learn anything.

If God needed to look into the future to learn something, that he doesn't know everything, but God knows all because he has created all.

He has predestined all. He has elected to salvation.

Those whom he is going to save from sinful man. We do not know who the elect are.

God knows who they are because he has chosen them. They come to their salvation because they hear the gospel and believe it.

So in this work that he predestined from before the foundation of the world to bring about the salvation of his elect, he has included the church to become part of that work.

And we do that work by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. God retains his sovereignty over all things, good or bad.

As it says in lamentations, three 37, who has spoken and it came to pass unless the

Lord has commanded it. Is it not from the mouth of the most high that good and bad come?

God, who has ordained all things and those things that mankind means for evil, God means for good.

As it says in Genesis, 50, 20. So even this arrest of Jesus own apostles,

God has something good that he is doing through this. And even the apostles recognize that the apostles, this is why they're praying what they are praying.

They know that God is sovereign and what has happened to them has been for his glory. And so they rejoice that they are being considered worthy of the name of Christ to suffer in his name.

So in verse 24, they lifted their voices together to God and said, sovereign

Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, the highs, the middles in the lows and everything in between.

That's what God has made. All things who through the mouth of our father,

David, your servant said by the Holy spirit. And this is what we have in Psalm two. Why did the

Gentiles rage? If you go to the Psalms and read it, you'll see. Why do the nations rage?

The Gentiles rage would have been the way that it was translated into the Septuagint. Why did the nations rage is the way that it was translated from Hebrew.

Hebrew. So that's why you see the two different variations of it. The old Testament version, the new

Testament version. Why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

The Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the

Lord and against his anointed. And the apostles are showing here through this prayer that that prophecy made in Psalm two was fulfilled through Jesus Christ who was brought before Pontius Pilate in trial and was sentenced by him, put to death by the

Romans. And yet all of this was done according to the sovereign plan of God.

Nothing was happening here that God did not for ordained. Therefore they plotted in vain.

They plotted it for themselves to declare their own might and their own glory. But this was unbeknownst to them all to the glory of God.

And so we go on verse 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the

Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, Herod and Pontius Pilate.

You have the ruler of the Jews and the ruler of the Gentiles along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel along with Rome and even those who were descended in the line of Abraham.

They were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus. There was no one who was not against the

Christ. It was it was both groups of people being represented there.

Those whom God had called out of slavery to himself who were the Jews and those who were still enslaved to the passions of their flesh who were the

Gentiles. Yet both of them plotted together against Jesus.

The argument that Paul makes in Romans 3, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

It does not matter whether they are Jew or Greek. God shows no partiality. All have sinned and all are justified by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to be received by faith whether Jew or Gentile.

This is how a person comes to faith. All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, but all

Jew or Gentile come to salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.

The way that a person is saved is they hear the gospel and they turn from their sin and they believe it.

No one is saved any other way. It is only through the hearing and the believing in the gospel of Christ.

So we continue on here. I'm still in verse 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the

Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

This is very similar to a statement that Peter made back in the sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2 .23.

This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Remember what we considered there.

God has ordained all things but man is still responsible for his actions. No man is ever going to stand before God and say, well, how is it that you can find fault for who can resist your will?

It's the very question that Paul poses in Romans chapter 9 and he answers that question by saying, but who are you

O man to answer back to God? We will not be able to stand before God on the day of judgment and say, well, it was your fault that I did this because I just did whatever you had predestined.

Nope, you are still responsible for your action. And the quote that I had given to you from Charles Spurgeon, we were looking at that back in Acts chapter 2.

If I find a part of the Bible that says that God has ordained all things, that is true.

And if I find another part of the Bible that says that man is responsible for his actions, that is also true.

And it's only my folly to think that these two ideas could ever contradict one another.

God had predestined that Herod and Pontius Pilate would meet in Jerusalem at the time that his son

Jesus Christ was there and would conspire together to put him to death and the Israelites and the

Gentiles would all be in cooperation of this. This was predestined by God.

And the person that wants to contend against the doctrine of predestination, generally they want to argue that this makes people into pawns, puppets, robots, like we're nothing but marionettes on a string.

God's just pulling the string. We have to do whatever it is that he says that we have to do or he has dictated that we are going to do.

But when Jesus left his throne in heaven and came to earth, when he became God incarnate,

God entering human flesh, did the chess master then become a chess piece?

Did the puppeteer become a puppet? Did the engineer become a robot?

Of course not. Hebrews 2 .17 says that he became like his brothers in every respect.

So if Jesus did not become a pawn, then we're not pawns either. When I share the gospel,

I don't tell somebody you're predestined to heaven or you're predestined to hell. How can I know that?

I don't know that. I rejoice in Christ Jesus, my Lord, that he saved me. And I pray that everyone that I preach to would be saved.

Everyone I share the gospel with, whether it's from the pulpit or I'm just walking up to a person on the street,

I pray that their hearts would be broken. And by the will of God, they would know

Christ Jesus as Lord because of his love and mercy, because of him who wills it to be done.

And who knows what means God is going to use to bring about the salvation of a person.

It's always going to be the gospel. The gospel is going to be preached. A person believes in the gospel, and that is how they are going to be saved.

But who knows what ways and means he will use to bring that salvation about in their life, that they would come to a place to hear the gospel and believe it.

God uses even evil for his good purpose. Judas's betrayal of Jesus, Luke 22, 3.

Herod's contempt for Jesus, Luke 23, 11. The Jews shouting, crucify him, crucify him,

Luke 23, 21. Pilate handing over Jesus to death, Luke 23, 24.

The Roman soldiers mocking Christ, Luke 23, 26. All of these things were prophesied.

They were prophesied, again, not because God looked down the tunnel of time and saw what was going to happen to his son.

It's because he ordained it. It says right here in Acts 4 that he ordained it. These were prophesied because God planned it.

Not that God saw that they would happen. He ordained them to happen so that we might be delivered from our sin and to his righteousness by his sovereign plan.

He has determined the end and the means to that end. Luke wrote those passages that I mentioned in the

Gospel of Luke and he writes this here in Acts 2, 23. This Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God in Acts 4, 27 through 28.

Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the

Gentiles and people of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Judas, Herod, Pilate, all the people of Israel and Rome, could they have rejected God's will and done the opposite of what

God had predestined, foreordained, and then spoke through his prophets in the Old Testament? No.

No. They could not have resisted what God had predetermined. It was predestined by God.

Yet, they who did these things are all still held accountable for their actions and yet no one can find fault with God.

God is good. God is without evil. It doesn't even come close to him.

He is holy. He is righteous. We are not. We have sinned. We need a

Savior. That Savior is Jesus Christ. And all this evil that was perpetrated against Christ, God foreordained to bring about the greatest good that we could possibly receive.

That is the forgiveness of sins and our salvation, to be made right in the presence of God and have fellowship with him forever.

God put his own son to death for our sake, that through him we would be saved.

Everything that happens is under the foreordination of God. It has been decreed by God from before the foundation of the world.

Now, he still works providentially through things even now. It's not that he decreed all things and then took his hands off of it.

He is before all things and in him all things hold together, as Paul says in Colossians 1.

So he is in all things even now. He has decreed it, but he is still here with us.

Jesus said at the end of Matthew, very last verse in Matthew, Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

And he said to his disciples in the Gospel of John, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

I will send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to be with you. The Holy Spirit dwells in us now if we are believers in the

Lord Jesus Christ. He is not a deist, God. He is not somewhere off in the distance so that we can't even fathom him or find him or reach him.

Rather, he sought us and called us out of our darkness into his marvelous light through the

Gospel that was proclaimed to us and dwells with us even now through his Holy Spirit within us.

All those who are believers in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has ordained all of this to bring about our salvation.

So you know that anything that happens is ultimately going to be for our good and for his glory.

Romans 8, 28, God works all things together for good for those who love

God and are called according to his purpose. So fret not, my fellow believer.

God is in control. He is working this out to something great and glorious and good.

Trust in him. We go on to read. Verse 29,

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant

Jesus. That's the conclusion of the prayer. Notice what it is that the apostles are asking for.

The apostles, the disciples, they're not asking that they would be delivered from the persecution that is to come because they know it's going to happen and they're going to share in the sufferings of Christ and this is going to be for their sanctification.

So they don't ask, hey, Lord, don't let us suffer. He's already promised that they will. What they ask for instead is this.

May we have the courage to declare the word of God with all boldness.

And my friends, I'm going to tell you something most preachers won't say because it's not a very popular thing to say and they want to tell you something that will make you feel good so that they can be more popular, okay?

I'm going to tell you, you're going to suffer in this life. You will. You will suffer.

You will probably suffer today. And it may be God's will for you to suffer, but it is for your sanctification.

Pray to him and ask for boldness, for courage to stand in the midst of suffering and still proclaim and glorify

God even in the midst of this hurt and pain that you are going through. If the suffering that you are enduring is persecution, all the more ask

God for boldness that you may declare his name in this time of trial.

He is with you. He will save you. And when they had prayed, it says in verse 31, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were filled with the

Holy Spirit, which they had already received, but further confirmation that God was with them and they continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

May peace and courage be upon you today. Amen. This is

When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, gospel -teaching,

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