God the Father, What We Believe, Part 5

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Is God the Father really in control of every atom in the universe?

We're going to talk about His sovereignty today on The Wrap Report. One, two, three!

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well, welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, with my trusty sidekick,

Bud the Wiser. How you doing, Bud? I am better than I ought to be, right? Yeah. So let's talk about God the

Father. Now, in the opening, I mentioned something that I got from R .C. Sproul.

R .C. Sproul had once said, talking about God's sovereignty, that God is in control of every atom of the universe.

Now, that's something that some people question. Because if God is in control of every atom of the universe, does that mean that God determines everything?

So, do we have free will? Can we make choices? Or God controlling everything? Also, when this comes up, is the question of, well, if I have choices, then is

God forcing those choices, or am I actually controlling those choices? Those become a question. The other side of the question that comes up with this is the question of evil.

Did God create evil, then? So, these are some of the things we're going to discuss today. What we're doing in our series here is looking at the

Striving for Eternity's doctrinal statement, and you can find that going to strivingforeternity .org.

Go to the About section, and under About, go to What Do We Believe? If you haven't been to Striving for Eternity, go check it out.

There's a lot of blog articles out there. Bud had written a bunch of them on the SBC during the convention, some good stuff.

He even put some satire out there, which got a lot of attention. That was a fun one. But you can check out the different articles there.

But if you wouldn't mind reading for us, the paragraph that we're going to look at today is on God the

Father. Okay. God the Father. God the Father, the first person of the

Trinity, orders and disposes all things according to his own purpose and grace, per Psalm 145, 8, and 9, and 1

Corinthians 8, 6. He is the creator of all things, Genesis 1, 1 through 31, and Ephesians 3, 9.

As the only absolute and omnipotent ruler in the universe, he is sovereign in creation, providence, and redemption, see

Psalm 103, 19 and Romans 11, 36. His fatherhood involves both his designations within the

Trinity and his relationship with mankind. As creator, he is father to all men,

Ephesians 4, 6, but he is spiritual father only to believers, Romans 8, 14, 2

Corinthians 6, 18. He has an all -inclusive plan that he designed for his own glory and all things that come to pass, according to Ephesians 1, 11.

He continually upholds, directs, and governs all creatures and events, 1

Chronicles 29, 11. In his sovereignty, he is neither author nor approver of sin,

Habakkuk 1, 13 and John 8, 38 to 47. Nor does he abridge the accountability of moral, intelligent creatures, according to 1

Peter 1, 17. He has graciously chosen from eternity past those whom he would have as his own,

Ephesians 1, 4 and 6. He saves from sin all who come to him through Jesus Christ.

He adopts as his own all those who come to him, and he becomes upon adoption father to his own, according to John 1, 12,

Romans 8, 15, Galatians 4, 5 and Hebrews 12, 5 through 9. So, thanks for reading that,

Bud. This is what we're going to talk about on today's show, but let's talk about some things that happened. We've been away for two weeks.

Bud, let's talk about our trips to G3 and where I was at Answers in Genesis for the

Pastors Conference. You know, I've seen your hat. Your hat says, Theology Matters. So, that reminded me of something that occurred on my flight back from Kentucky.

So, you know, I'm maybe not the best at, you know, beating around the bush.

Actually, I don't do it at all. I just come out and say things. And well, on my flight, they changed equipment.

That's what they call the planes. They changed the planes, and they didn't put me in the same seat that I was in.

And so, they switched me from an aisle to a window. And so, I asked the person sitting next to me.

There were only two seats. I was like, do you mind taking a window? And she was thrilled. Great. Okay.

So, we start talking. And we're just, you know, what are you doing? What are you flying for? You're going home. They're going for a wedding.

Now, granted, Bud, I thought it was a father and two daughters. It was actually the father and the stepmother and a daughter.

But the daughter was 20 and the stepmother 28. Wow. And she's the youngest of the children.

But here's what I thought was really interesting. And as I, you know,

I tend to try to look for things to start conversation I can get to the gospel with. And she pulls out her laptop, which has on it a bunch of Jesus stickers, one of them being

Theology Matters. And I was like, wow, okay, maybe we're going to have a good conversation. And the next thing she pulled out was a copy of Jesus Calling.

And I just turned and said, oh, Jesus Calling. And she goes, yeah, I like it.

It makes me feel better. You like it? And I said, no, I think it's demonic. And the look on her face of sheer horror, like what?

And I said, yeah, read in the introduction of the book Jesus Calling, and you'll see that Sarah Young talks about emptying her mind and letting a spirit take over.

And the spirit is doing the writing. And that would mean that this is inspiration, even more so than what we have in Scripture.

If you go back to the previous episodes when we talked about the Bible, we talked about the God working through a person.

So even though they wrote in their own choice of words, God chose to work through them, so it acted everything that he intended.

Well, what Sarah Young would say is she had no part. She just emptied her mind and let the spirit take over the writing.

And I said, now, the problem is that there's things she's written that disagree with the Bible. Because I said, well, the spirit took over.

And she goes, well, the Holy Spirit. I said, yes, but there's things that she wrote that disagree with the Bible. And this girl immediately picked up on that and went, so it can't be the

Holy Spirit. I said, right. I said, in fact, it's an Eastern mysticism. And she got it from two anonymous women that wrote

God Calling that did the same thing. They supposedly emptied their mind. And this is an

Eastern mysticism type of thing. So we had a great conversation. Totally, I guess, blew her mind.

We'll see. I did give her my card and told her I would send her a free copy of What Do We Believe? Haven't received the email yet, but we will see whether that happens.

But that was me finding a way to beat around the bush. I just don't know how to come right out and say things.

Sorry, your book is demonic. Let me tell you why. Yeah.

So that was – yeah, but we've been away for two weeks. You and I were at G3 together.

That is true, yes. That was really – it's really neat. Folks, I don't know that you realize this, that when you come up to us at conferences or you email us, it means a lot to us to hear from you just to –

I mean, I had a young man, I'm guessing in his early 20s, came up and said, oh,

I listened to your podcast. I learned so much from that. You know, to have someone come up and just to know people are listening, you know, we –

I don't know about you, but I tend to – I shouldn't speak for you. I tend to forget a lot of times. I see your face when we're recording.

We talk about this. And I kind of forget sometimes all the people who are listening.

And I tend to think there's just like almost no one listening. Yeah, yeah. But when we go to these bigger events and we have so many people walking up – so right after G3, I went to the

Answers in Genesis Pastors Conference. And, you know, it was very interesting.

I had a woman – I went with Justin Peters. He was speaking, so I took care of his table in the back.

And I had a woman that came up to me and is asking about, you know, the different books that we have on the table.

So, I'm explaining all of Justin's books and Jim Osmond's books, my book, just talking through it. And we're having a conversation, no big deal.

And she goes away, you know, walks away. And then the next morning, her husband walks up to me and says, you know, you were talking to my wife yesterday.

And she didn't know it was you. He goes, they listened to the podcast their whole way to the conference, you know, in the car.

And he's like, she started listening to you. She listens to all your podcasts. But she didn't realize she was talking to you until she noticed the name on the book and realized, oh, that's

Andrew Rappaport. And when she flipped it over, she realized she had been talking to you the whole time, didn't know who you were.

So, he's like, my wife has to come up and say hello to you. So, they came up, Paul and Catherine came up later and talked.

And she was just – it was so funny because we were talking and she just – and I just looked at her and I said, well, clearly

I have a better face for podcasting, right? I mean, because when we're doing the podcast, a lot of people don't know what we look like, right?

And you had – you were at G3 and I did get to meet Rashad, who was on your podcast,

The Bud Zone. Yeah. And, oh, that's right. Rashad was supposed to come.

Rashad and I did talk about this. We decided we're, you know, he's going to replace you here. You got your own show.

Oh, great. Things are going to go up for you, pal. But, so, how was

G3 for you? I mean, for folks who were there, weren't there, you know, we said – I got zero recordings, by the way.

I was so busy. I didn't – I had my microphone the whole time and recorded nothing. I don't know if you recorded anything or how –

No, I didn't. And I did know that we – our paths, you and I didn't cross very much, but we did some and I noticed that, you know, you weren't recording anything.

But, G3, what a blessing. I mean, you know, I catch a little grief because I see people.

I love the fellowship, meeting people that you've known through social media and have become acquainted with at previous conferences and then meeting new folks that you've never met.

I mean, the fellowship is just sweet and I got a little bit of an attack from – not really an attack, but a question by somebody on one of the multiple pictures

I took with brothers that I posted whether or not I attended any of the sessions.

It's actually sort of the core of G3, which I did. I didn't go to all of them, but I just enjoy the fellowship.

You don't get that opportunity to meet both the guys that are plenary speakers that are just wandering around.

You get to talk to them, but also fellow saints that you're connected with, social media or, you know, in some other way.

That's just rich. That's refreshing. It's encouraging to hear. But I didn't do any recordings, but I had a lot of sweet fellowship, a lot of new friends made.

Yeah, the only session I made it to – I made it to pre -conference, but the only session

I made it to other than that was Justin Peters because I was helping him. If I wasn't at his table,

I had meetings going on. And the fellowship is sweet. It is an enjoyable time.

We should be there for the sessions. I tend to listen to those afterwards, unfortunately, because it's just a busy time when you have a booth and I was just busy doing stuff.

And it is neat. People – you were posting photos, selfies, so was

Chris Honholz from Voice of Reason Radio. I was not. And someone was like, is Andrew Rappaport even there?

And I'm like, yes. Like, well, I don't see any pictures. I don't do a lot of that. I don't know why. I'm just not a selfie kind of guy.

So, if people take pictures and tag me, you'll see them. But I don't –

I'm not the kind of guy that walks up and like, oh, can we get a selfie? I guess it's just not what

I typically end up doing. And so, someone was going, oh, I'm seeing everyone else put selfies up. I'm sorry.

You know, I just don't do that. So, but it was a good time.

And afterwards at the Answers in Genesis – I'll tell you something, but I got to tell you this. Answers in Genesis, we went to the

Ark Encounter. And so, you could get prepped. For those of you who are going to Truth Matters at the

Ark Encounter in May, I got to tell you, when I walked into that – the first room and I'm looking, they got a 70 -foot, 70 -foot, not inches, 70 -foot by 22 -foot

TV. Well, it's actually several TVs. It's like several screens. But this thing is so bright.

Even with – when you're on stage and the stage lights are shining at you and they're shining at that TV or – it's not really a

TV, but the screen. It is – it's still like high definition. I couldn't believe

I was standing in the far back, which has got to be like at least – from the screen.

And it is so bright with the lights on it. The technology was – I had like – so, when

I got up on stage, I literally walked all the way up because I wanted to see there are these LEDs. And there's actually a gap between them.

But when you're far back, you can't even see that. You can't tell. It is – it was so neat. It was so – so,

I was really – okay, I was geeking out over a silly thing like that. But it was really – it was crystal clear.

They ended up playing the movie because they did a special thing with the Kendrick Brothers. So, they played the movie

Courageous. And it was neat seeing that on that. I mean, I don't – yeah, I don't know that I've ever seen that movie.

I'm pretty sure I never saw that movie in high definition. But it was – it looked very different on that big screen.

I will say that. And they did add an ending, a 10 -year anniversary ending to that movie. So, we had dinner, this

VIP dinner that the Kendrick Brothers were at and all the actors from Courageous. And it was kind of funny because, you know, we just –

I guess the different speakers are not – weren't really into the movie. We were just sitting there, you know,

H .B. Charles, Conrad Mbembe, Justin Peters, myself. We're just kind of sitting at a table by ourselves.

And everyone else is taking pictures with all the people that were there.

So, that was neat. We got blessed with – unexpectedly, we were – Justin and I were planning to go through the

ARC on Tuesday. No, sorry, Wednesday. No, actually Tuesday. We were planning to just go through the

ARC. And yeah, it was – all of a sudden, someone just came up and said, hey, you know,

Ken Ham would like to have you guys up in his office for lunch. It's like, okay, who's going to refuse that?

So, we were up there, got to meet Heidi St. John. I don't know if you know her. She's running for Congress in Washington.

I actually said – reached out to her and said, you know, maybe we can have her on. Because, wow, this –

I don't know if you follow her or know anything about her, but – so, that was incredible just to sit and listen to her just about the politics.

She's a homeschool mom. She's been on one of the other podcasts of the Christian Podcast Community, the

Homeschool Rocked, which they're coming out with a movie that is – they're going to come out with a documentary.

I think it's next month. We'll have them on to promote it. But this – it's a really great documentary.

I got to see the pre -edited version. We'll really convince people who are kind of on the fence with homeschooling, why homeschooling is important.

So, Heidi St. John is in there. I got to meet her and her husband, Jay. Great, great couple. Man, Ken Ham and Heidi St.

John were doing like a video promo for something that they're doing together at the York Encounter. And it was just funny to listen to them back and forth, joke back and forth.

They must really know each other well. But it was – she was explaining some of the inside scoops of – she met with Donald Trump, and it was interesting.

He had kind of a dossier on her, and he was not happy. She was running for as a

Republican, and he wasn't happy because she had been divorced, and she's like, I've never been divorced. So, whoever gave him this dossier that she,

I think, filed for bankruptcy or something, it was someone else with the same name, which is really quite interesting to think about because that's the whole way that Trump – that they tried to get

Trump with this whole Russian collusion thing. It was that someone who works for Trump, there happens to be someone with the same name that met with a

Russian bank. That's the connection for the Russian collusion. The guy who,

I forget his name, who supposedly – I don't remember if it was Michael Cohen or who it was, but someone that worked for Trump, that they just happened to have someone with the same name that worked at a bank in Russia or had visited a bank in Russia.

But the date that supposedly that happened, this guy was documented somewhere else, like I think in the

States. So, he wasn't in Russia. Yeah, but if it fits the narrative, just run with it.

Well, I was just going to say, then again, truth doesn't matter, theology doesn't matter, narrative matters.

I posted that on Facebook and somebody made a meme out of that. So, that's now a meme that's floating around.

But that's what we end up seeing. So, this week, we want to talk about God the

Father. And before we do, we want to just let you know about our sponsor who supports us, and the more you support them, the more that they support us and keep us being able to do things like this show.

And that is MyPillow. Bud, I got a new product from MyPillow. Latest thing that I'm now trying out is their pajamas.

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Bible. All right. Okay, so as we get back to looking at God the

Father and we examine this, the thing that I notice for folks to see is we go back to the last episode where we started this paragraph.

We're going to finish it now. And so we're halfway through this, and we're going to start with this part where it says,

He has an all -inclusive plan that He designed for His own glory in all things that come to pass.

Let's start with that sentence. There's a lot packed in here, and, folks, I hope you're realizing it's taking us a lot of time to unpack what's in this doctrinal statement.

That's why we're doing these shows, to show you a good doctrinal statement is very concise and yet has a lot in there that it's trying to say what we don't believe and what we do believe.

So the fact that God has an all -inclusive plan is the idea that God is the one who has planned everything that happens.

Now, and we're going to get into this later. I'll probably end up dealing with it now because I kind of have to, even though it's kind of stated later.

We have to take a step back and look at some of the things we've talked about in the past. So we've talked about the fact of the doctrine of superintending, and this is super important, and that's why we're going to revisit this again because you're going to see that I'm going to come back to this doctrine quite often because the doctrine of superintending is a doctrine that many people don't know, don't apply, and yet it solves many of the problems that people have when it comes to areas of theology.

So what is the doctrine of superintending? Well, we see it in the area of scripture, that God works through the human authors in such a way that even though they chose their own wording, their own style of writing,

God worked through them in such a way that every word that they put down on that,

I was going to say paper, but it wasn't really paper, but everything they wrote down was exactly as God intended it to be.

So God gets 100 % of the credit. They could not have written that on their own. God worked through them, and yet they had their own choice.

We know that because there's different styles of writings. We could see personal things that Paul would say, hey, bring my cloak, it's going to be cold in the winter.

Bring my books. Personal things. And yet that's exactly as God intended it to be.

That's the doctrine of superintending. We see it also not only in inspiration. We see it in sanctification.

When we do good works, it's really the Holy Spirit doing good works through us. We can't take credit for good works as believers.

God gets 100 % of the credit, yet we chose to do good works. But yet God worked through us.

That's the same in the area of regeneration. That's what solves the Calvinism -Arminianism debate.

Both are right and both are wrong. It's really what it comes down to. There's areas where it's, did

I choose to believe? Yes. And for those who are going to say that's heresy, well, did

God choose for me to believe? Yes. And for those who think that's heresy, the doctrine of superintending.

I chose to believe, but I can't do that on my own. I did that because God working through me brought me to it.

I made a choice exactly as God intended it to be without me being able to take any credit for it.

God gets 100 % of the credit. As we look at that, that applies as well to this all -inclusive plan that God designed for His own glory.

Why do we have a will? By the way, notice I didn't say a free will. I will argue that we only have a free will when we are saved.

Prior to salvation, we have a will that's enslaved to sin. It is not free. When the

Holy Spirit indwells us, then we have a free will. So do we have a will, believers and unbelievers?

Yes. We have volition. We make choices. But those choices are exactly as God intends them to be.

He's in control of everything. He has a plan. And you sit and say, well, does He force that? Does He determine things and therefore we have no choice?

Well, here's the dilemma. And I said this in previous episodes as we've been going through the series. I'm going to say it plenty of times more.

You have to go back to the nature of God. When we go to the nature of God, what do we know about God?

Well, He is omniscient. That means He knows all things. And knowing all things means that God will end up being able to know things that we do not know yet.

It's future to us. Yet God, being omniscient, knows everything. Being eternal, it's all an eternal now to Him.

It's the same point. So there is no future to God. So He knows everything.

He actually even knows the choices that we don't make. He knows the outcomes of those. We don't, but He does with an absoluteness.

You could look at when Jesus said if the miracles that He did in the villages where He walked were done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.

He knows that. But when we think of that knowledge, we cannot understand that.

You and I do not have omniscience. I know, I know. Some people think they do. Some people think they really know everything.

I apologize that time. You know, there was a time

I thought that I was wrong, but I was mistaken. No, I'm not even replying to that.

No, but the reality is you and I do not know what it's like to have omniscience.

We can't even conceive of that. And so let me say when I'm saying that God has an all -inclusive plan that He designed for His own glory in all things that come to pass.

Is that difficult for us to understand? Absolutely. Do I fully understand that? No. Because as a finite being, we are not capable of understanding the infinite.

We do not have that ability. The finite mind cannot comprehend this. And therefore, what we do is put in words, to the best of our ability, to explain things that we cannot possibly completely and fully understand.

But, as we say with Scripture, that which He has revealed to us, that's what we can understand.

Do we understand it perfectly? No. So what can we understand? Well, what we can understand is when we look at something like Ephesians 1 and verse 11, we can look at that and know that God has a plan.

So, let's read Ephesians 1 .11, and it says this, Also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will.

So, right there, what we end up seeing is God has a plan. So, Jesus dying on the cross was not a surprise to Him.

It was part of the plan. Judas betraying Jesus was not a surprise to Him. It was part of the plan.

You receiving Christ was not a surprise to Him. It was part of the plan. Now, so what does this end up addressing?

Some of the things this addresses. Open theism, if you're familiar with that. Open theism is this idea where people who are trying to be consistent with a view that we have a free will that can choose

God and answer, you know, these... It's really, I think, open theism is a more consistent

Arminian position. If you're going to take it to its logical conclusions, I think that's where you end up. It's just heresy, but because it's heresy because you have a different God.

They have a God that's not omniscient. He's just a really good guesser. Now, when it comes to angels, you know, angels, both holy angels and demons, when we look at them, they are really good at guessing.

They've seen enough humanity that they've seen how people respond to things over and over again, and they can guess what we would do.

God is not like an angel in that way. God knows absolutely everything that happens.

And so open theism would say that God just is a good guesser. He doesn't really know who's going to be saved. He just can kind of predict who's going to be saved, and that's how they'll explain

God's election. And as we say that, you know, in this passage in Ephesians, that he predestined.

They would say he didn't really predestine with an absolute knowledge. He just guessed how things will work out.

But that removes the omniscience from God. Now you have a different God, and so that's why I would say it's a heresy because you no longer have the

God of the Bible who knows all things. So this answers that. This is saying that an open theism position is not biblical.

But the hard thing for people to understand, Bud, is this idea that God would have an all -inclusive plan, and that in that, as we see in the next sentence, he continually upholds, directs, and governs all creatures and events.

That's really what it means to have an all -inclusive plan. But I want to point out that what we're saying here, what is his plan for?

It's not for a whim. He says that it is for his glory. All these things come together for his glory.

That's the purpose. He designed all these things for his own glory, everything that's going to come to pass. That's not our glory.

It's not the way we want things. It's the way, what brings him the most glory. And he does this by continually upholding and governing everything.

In Colossians, it will say that he upholds the universe, and you think about that.

That's what I think is meant by R .C. Sproul's comment that every atom in the universe is under God's control.

He holds it together by his own power. Now, atheists will say that power is called gravity.

What is gravity? How does gravity exist? They don't have an answer for that. Gravity is this magical thing that just exploded the whole universe into existence.

What is gravity? It's an immaterial thing. If everything is just a material universe, they can't explain that.

So, Bud, let me toss it over to you, your thoughts on the fact that God has this all -inclusive plan.

Yeah, I think that, first of all, one of the things that I would recommend to folks is a

Puritan book by John Flable called The Mystery of Providence. And you may have to wrestle with the reading of that book, but read it.

Read it over and over again. This is really kind of buttressing the doctrine that we're talking about.

He has a plan, of course. He created with a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify himself.

So in some way, all these things that are taking place, even what we would judge as being evil and wicked, he can bring good, and that good is ultimately to his glory.

And it is also, not incidentally, for our good. I mean, we're promised that in Scripture as well.

So that buttresses the doctrine of perseverance and all the promises that we have in Christ.

So study and try and wrap your head around Providence, and that book is just exceptional.

Actually, I think Phil Johnson a few years ago preached this. Or maybe it was at the Strange Fire Conference. I don't know.

Providence is the miracle when you want to talk about the miraculous that God does. It is his orchestration for his own glory of all events, circumstances, everything that occurs that we see, he's orchestrating for his glory, and he does that by his providence.

The issue of—I just wanted to speak to the issue of does

God determine. Yes, God does determine, but it is not determinism. It is not where we are not moral, independent, intelligent creatures that have suddenly become robots, that we have no choices, that we have no options.

He's able by providence to orchestrate that superintending, as you've pointed out. So we're not talking about determinism.

But when we say God has a plan, yes, he determined that plan, and he determined the purpose was to exalt

Christ, to glorify himself. So don't get hung up on some of these things, but study

Providence. That's just—wow, you wrap your head around that. Because our problem is always we never think big enough of God, and we're incapable of it.

But the more and more you let Scripture inform your thinking about the being of God, it just expands your love for him, it expands your understanding of him, and it gives you great comfort, especially in the kind of times we live in now.

Yeah, and the fact that—first off, anything from John Flable is great, but the fact that this is an all -inclusive plan means that there's nothing left out, and that's why that's worded that way.

He continually upholds and directs and governs all creatures and events.

In Colossians, speaking of Jesus, let me read Colossians 1, verse 17 is the key, but I'll start in verse 15 so we have context.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

That's the idea. He's holding everything together. He upholds this, he directs it, and yet he doesn't direct it against our will.

This is the thing. He is working in—he knows everything. So when we talk about a plan that he has and that he determines— and there's a good explanation there of the difference between determining things and determinism.

Determinism means he forces it. He's not forcing it. He's working with his moral agents in such a way that what they do is fitting with the plan.

He knows what's going to happen. And when there's things where he—when we talk about providence, there's times where God actively will work in things to change things, to cause things to happen.

And in those cases, yes, he is determining it, because he knows what would happen if he doesn't get involved, and so he forces something because it's to his plan.

Other times, he already knows what's going to happen and that is working toward his glory. We can't understand all that.

Now one thing this doesn't do, and I mentioned this last episode, but maybe people didn't go back and listen yet.

You should have, but hey. There is a theology known as Molinism.

Molinism. I always confuse Molinism and Modalism. Modalism. Mol, like the little rodent that digs underground.

Molinism from a man in Molin. He—basically the idea there is that God knew the choices that you would have that you could make.

The most well -known person that holds to Molinism would be William Lane Crick.

This would be a position he would hold to. It's not some fringe thing that only people that aren't known in Christianity would hold to, but the idea is that God knew every choice we'd make.

He looked at basically creating all these different worlds and looking at all the worlds, every free choice, every choice that you make and didn't make, and whether you chose to make a right turn or a left turn.

He knows all the outcomes of those. He looks at all the possibilities with every decision anyone in the world makes and how that reacts to everything, and then chose this world to actualize it.

And so the problem I have with that is within Molinism, if God chose this world, their argument is we have free will.

The problem is we cannot do anything against that free will in this world.

If there's these other worlds where, you know, you decided to say no to being my co -host versus saying yes to being my co -host.

Well, you could not in this world that he actualized do anything but say yes. You can't say no.

Now, they'll say that was your free will, but once God actualized this world, you can't do anything outside of what you were going to do.

They think this is an answer to this dilemma. Yeah, and that would be determinism.

And that's exactly right. That Molinistic idea of middle knowledge, that's forced upon Scripture.

That's not a result of understanding Scripture, that God has this sort of middle knowledge, and he reacts based on that knowledge of, you know, what could be and what will be.

He's reacting completely heretical. That's contrary to Scripture. So, yeah, good point.

Yeah, it actually backs them into the very thing they're trying to debunk. Yeah, they want to avoid determinism, and they actually back right into it.

That's the whole reason for this, is to try to answer how God does these things without determining things.

And yet they back into determinism where we can't do anything else in this world but what

God chose for us to do. So it doesn't actually answer their dilemma. They're still stuck with this, and therefore providence is the answer.

Superintending is the answer. And we say in this statement, he, in his sovereignty, he is neither the author nor approver of sin.

Okay, this is another sticking point that people have, because when we look at this, Bud, if God is, as we just said, has an all -inclusive plan, then doesn't that mean he has to have been the author of sin?

Well, there is a way to explain this, because again, what's this plan? This plan includes moral creatures making decisions.

He works with that as part of his plan. So when Adam and Eve chose to sin, that was part of his plan.

When Satan rebelled and the angels in heaven rebelled against God, that was part of his plan.

People say, well, why? Why would God do such a thing? In many people's mind, that makes no sense.

Well, let me turn to a passage that I don't have in the doctrinal statement here, and that's

Romans 9, because Romans 9 provides an answer.

Let me start in verse 13, but the key is going to be verses 17 and following.

Let me start in verse 14. What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?

May it never be. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

I will have mercy, and I will show compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then, it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but God who has mercy.

For what does Scripture say to Pharaoh? For this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

So let's stop there. I want to keep reading, but I'm going to stop there to just point this out. Notice what's happening here. He's saying very clearly, he rose

Pharaoh up knowing that Pharaoh would end up doing all the things he did.

Why? So that he, in his purpose, he raised him up so he can demonstrate his power with Pharaoh's rebellion.

He rose Pharaoh up. Now, let me get in trouble here, bud. A lot of Christians are going to have a hard time with this.

He raised Pharaoh up. God raised Joe Biden up to be president of America at this time.

I mean, he's tried to run for many times. This is like, what, his fourth time? And yes, you could sit there and say, yeah, but look, they stole the election and all that.

The reality is, I know it's God's will. How? Because it happened. That's part of God's plan.

For what purpose? I don't know. Maybe as a judgment on America, just as it was for Egypt with Pharaoh.

Okay? But this is part of his plan. So let's keep reading. So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires.

You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will?

That's the question, isn't it? Who can resist the will of God? On the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?

And the thing molded will not say to the molder, why have you made me, why did you make me like this, will it?

Or does the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

Now here's going to come the key passage I want us to look at, or key verses, verse 22 and 23. What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

And he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory.

In other words, God prepared beforehand those that he would show his wrath on and those he would show his mercy on.

And he did so for his own glory. And yet it's working within their choices, not against them, he's not forcing them.

But yet he determines this in his way of electing things or predetermining things yet using human will.

So this is the idea that you brought up earlier of providence. And folks, this is a difficult thing for us to comprehend.

I understand that. But God's not the author of evil, though he allowed it.

He allowed Satan to fall and the angels. He allowed Adam and Eve to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

He knew they would do it. He didn't force them to do it. And that's what it means that he's neither the author nor approver.

He doesn't approve of it. He didn't make them do it, but he allowed it. He could have stopped them.

He chose not to. He allowed it to bring apart his purposes. And so it says in here in the statement, he is in his sovereignty.

He's neither the author nor approver of sin, nor does he abridge the accountable accountability.

Yeah, I read this in his sovereignty. He is neither the author nor approver of sin, nor does he abridge the accountability of moral, intelligent creatures.

Now, when it comes to moral, intelligent creatures, that is going to be human beings. This is what it means to be made in the image of God.

We have certain attributes that are passed on to us from God. Like morality, like intelligence. Now, the morality we have is different than angels.

Angels made a choice once and it's solidified forever. Holy angels cannot rebel.

Unholy angels cannot be holy again. They can't change their nature. We can choose, make moral choices, but this is not regeneration, folks.

This is moral choice. I can choose between two options and make a moral choice.

And God works within those moral choices, but he doesn't abridge our accountability. In other words, the fact that we have choices to make, where there's consequences, those consequences are, we're going to pay the full price.

That's the reality. So with that, Bud, before we get to the next two sentences, anything you want to talk about there?

No, it was funny. I was reading, I just finished a book I got at G3 by Ian Murray called

The Old Evangelicalism, and it kind of ties in with what you've got here, where you say, in his sovereignty, he is neither author nor approver of sin.

One of the other attributes, and you could even add it into that statement, in his holiness, he is neither author nor approver.

But I pulled this quote out from Ian Murray. In fact, I just wrote it this morning because I was looking at my notes in the book. It says, it ties to something that you said with regard to the crucifixion not being a surprise to God.

This is part of the plan of God. But Murray says, here is a foremost truth disclosed at Calvary.

God has upheld and vindicated his holiness. And that's what we see.

His holiness is part of his glory. I mean, all of his attributes, they're holy attributes.

So that's just profound, and it's all grace that we understand it.

Yeah, and I'm going to say this again. It is difficult to understand these things. So if you're struggling with it, good.

I mean, it's all my, so is every human being because the finite is trying to understand the infinite, and there's only so far we can go in that.

And so let's look at this next section. And this next sentence has got me in trouble once.

It says, he has graciously chosen from eternity past those whom he would have as his own.

Ephesians 1, 4 -6. So I remember once there was a gentleman who believes in sinless perfectionism.

He hates Calvinism, and he doesn't believe in original sin, or he doesn't believe that we have a sin nature.

He believes that we're neutral. His name, I'll name names. His name's Kurgan Skelly, and he is known for his evangelism.

I don't really, watching what he does and those in his ilk, I don't think it's evangelism.

I think it's pride. They like to beat people down and to shame people and feel good that they know more and things like that, if you've ever seen them.

But, you know, I wanted to, I was doing a sermon at a conference on sinless perfectionism.

And so I wanted to talk with him, and I like to get, do original research, get people that hold to that position and dialogue with him so I know how he would argue, how people like that would argue.

And so he decided to look at my doctrinal statement. And this one sentence is why he wouldn't do it, because he said,

I'm not a believer because I'm a Calvinist. And I said, what makes me a Calvinist?

And he quoted this line, that he has graciously chosen from eternity past those who he would have as his own.

And I said, but isn't that what Ephesians 1, 4 -6 says? Let me read that, in fact. Ephesians 1, 4 -6.

Well, I should actually start in verse 3, not in the middle of a sentence. Blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Verse 4. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him in love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of his glory and grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the

Beloved. And so I said to him, I said, wait, you're telling me that because I said that he chose us before the foundation of the world, that makes me a

Calvinist? He said, yes. I said, then Paul must be a Calvinist. And in fact, since that's inspired,

I guess the Holy Spirit also is a Calvinist. Long before Calvin. Or maybe it's that Calvin agreed with what

Scripture actually says. Now, just stating that doesn't make you a Calvinist, right?

The issue there is that is Scripture. What does it mean that he chose us before the foundation of the world?

Again, this is hard for us to comprehend. Do we understand what it's like to be an eternal being? No, we can't comprehend that.

It's beyond our comprehension. So as we look at that, we have to be realistic with the fact that there's going to be some areas we cannot comprehend.

What is he trying to say here? Well, I think, and this may sound bad, but I think what

God is doing in Ephesians 1, 4 to 6 is baby talk. What do I mean? What do you do when you have a baby, bud?

I mean, you have a baby. Do you sit there and say, you know, is the baby's going to stick its finger in an outlet?

Do you explain electricity and how electricity works to a one -year -old? No. No? What do you do? Yeah, you slap it away.

Yeah, you say no. That's what I do with the Dachshunds. Never mind. I'm sorry. You say no, right?

You don't explain all the details of electricity because the one -year -old cannot comprehend that.

They can comprehend no and a pushing away of the hand or a slapping of the hand.

That they can comprehend. They may not understand why it's a bad thing, but they can understand that.

That is part of training. Well, that's what God's doing. We cannot comprehend an eternal way of thinking.

We can't understand eternity. We can't understand omniscience. He's trying to explain to us that before we were even a thought, before there was even a creation,

God in his eternal omniscience had this plan. So when we talk about eternity past, it's a misnomer.

It's impossible to have an eternity past. We talk that way because it is the only way of saying that God had laid out a plan before.

He knew that plan before he created in time the universe. The whole emphasis on this is to say you and I had absolutely nothing to do with our salvation because it was before there was a creation.

He had this plan. That violates the idea or says that wrong is the idea to say that God had to look at our choices and then make his plan because that makes him bound by both time and knowledge.

He would have to learn something, and God never learned anything. He's omniscient. So as we look at this, the idea of eternity past is the fact that what we would call the past, what

God would call eternity, we cannot comprehend that. But the idea is, the emphasis of that is to explain that you and I had nothing to do with our salvation.

That's the goal of it. That's the emphasis. And so I write there, he saved us from sin, all who come to him through Jesus Christ.

He adopts us as his own, all those who come to him and become upon adoption, father to his own.

Now, a couple things with this. Now, as I say in Ephesians 1, we clearly see that this is talking about the fact that this is about salvation.

In eternity past, it's to say we have nothing to do with saving ourself. He saves us from, now

I'm going to be specific here. What did he save us from? And this is something where even the words in this doctrinal statement are important.

He saves us from sin. Notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say he saves us from sins, plural.

You say, well, what's the big deal, Andrew? Well, one is heresy and one is orthodox. It really comes down to that.

If God saved us from sins, and a lot of people share the gospel and they say this, repent of your sins.

If you're repenting of your sins, what are you repenting of? Works.

So if you're going to say you have to turn from works, then what do you turn? You're turning to good works. That's works -based system.

What scripture says is we turn from sin, that sin nature, that pride, that trusting in self or in our good works or our good nature, turn from self to Christ.

It's that thing that, pride is the underlying issue of all the sins we commit.

Every sin we commit can be rooted in pride, saying that I am the authority. I get to make the choice.

I decide. I'm in control of my life. That pride is what we repent of.

We turn from trusting self to trusting Christ. That's what we end up turning from.

And so Paul makes that case in Romans, is the fact we turn from sin. Now I know many people have heard we repent of sins.

It's just that many people don't think that through. So as we think it through, we turn from that sin nature to Christ nature.

We turn from sin to righteousness. We do not turn from sins to good works.

There's a big difference there. One letter makes a big difference. Yeah, it does.

And that's a good point. And there's a lot of confusion on that. And maybe we need to do a show on imputation so that we can wrestle with some of those.

Oh, we will when we get to the doctrine of salvation. We will, because that's an important thing to understand.

And so he saves us from sin, all who come to him through Jesus Christ. Now what are we saying there?

The only means of salvation is through Jesus Christ. Not our own choice. You cannot choose

God apart from Christ. It's through him that we're saved. What he did on that cross, according to Colossians 1, all of our sin was paid at the cross.

Therefore, we can only have that forgiveness of sin at the cross through what Christ did. But when we say he adopts us, we were his enemies.

He adopts us into his family. John 1 .12 becomes important because this is what explains, not everybody is a child of God.

We talked about this last episode, John 1 .12 and 13. But as many as receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So what is this saying here? When it comes to the idea of adoption, not everybody is a child of God, as the

Mormons say and many other groups say. Just because we're made in his image does not make us a child of God. No, it is to those who believe in Christ have the right to be called a child of God.

Why? Because you're adopted into his family. Now, verse 13 is often not quoted and it's very important because you see here three ways that people trust self for their salvation.

Not of blood. That means your genealogy. This was the thing I had to learn. Being Jewish did not save me. I thought it did.

I was told it did. I was God's elect. I was his chosen people. I was going to heaven. That was my belief.

That's why I didn't look for a savior. Why? Because I thought I was already righteous because I was God's chosen people.

By my blood. No, it's not of blood. Your genealogy is not going to help you. Being born

Jewish, being born Catholic, being born whatever is not going to save you. No one is born a

Christian. You may be born into a Christian family where your parents are believers, but that doesn't make you a

Christian. Nor of the will of flesh. Well, as we look at that, that is the idea of working things, doing good works.

Your good works will not save you. In fact, in Revelation, the very book that people are going to be condemned by is called the book of works.

Those things you call good works are the very things that are going to condemn you. It says, nor of the will of man. That's the desire.

I'm a good person. My nature is good. God would understand that. This is, if you ever read

Pilgrim's Progress, this is the idea of ignorance. Who gets it? And I'm going to ruin the end of the book for you.

Oh, well, you should have read it already. It's a great book. But ignorance goes through life and gets to the celestial kingdom, but he doesn't have a ticket to get in.

He doesn't have the path. He didn't come on the proper path. But he gets all the way to the celestial kingdom, and he'll be saying, but I'm good.

I desire this. His desire wasn't enough, and he discovers there's a path, there's a trap, a door to hell right from the gates of heaven.

Symbolic, but. So it's not of your blood. It's not of your good works. It's not of your desire, but of God.

That's the emphasis there. It's only from God that we can be adopted into his family. And once we are, then he is a father to his own.

He's a father to us. And this is what we talked about in the last episode, earlier in this, where we say, as creator he is father to all men, but he is spiritual father only to those who believe.

That's what we're saying here. The same thing as we said last episode in this. It is only those who are adopted into his family that have the right to be called a child of God.

Now at that point in salvation, we're going to address this in much more detail when we get to the doctrine of soteriology, the doctrine of salvation.

But I'm giving you lots of repetition because there's a lot of interaction here with these points. And repetition is good because the more you hear it, you might need to hear it more than one time to really let it sink in, or maybe you're going to be one of those people that don't listen to every episode.

What in the world is wrong with you? But at that point in time that we become regenerate, there's many things that happen all at once.

And I actually have a chart in my book, What Do We Believe? If you get that book, there's a chart in there that shows all the things that happen simultaneously.

We go from being an enemy of God to being adopted. We get the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We're baptized in the

Spirit. We go from being condemned to being righteous. We have the righteousness of Christ.

We believe. We're regenerated. We're justified. All these things are simultaneous.

Now, some bud have a thing where they say, no, there's an order of salutis, the order of salvation.

And so there's different views that people have with this order chronologically. Now, I understand why people say logically there's an order.

Chronologically, when you say there's a chronological order, some people say that we first believe and then we repent and then

God regenerates us in time. And they may be only seconds apart. Others say that God regenerates us, and when

He regenerates us, that brings us to repentance and that causes us to believe.

And those may be milliseconds apart. Now, I actually remember talking to a pastor and he said, because I believe these things are simultaneous, he says,

Andrew, the difference we have is I believe that God regenerates us and a millisecond later, we believe. And he says, the difference we have is a millisecond.

And my question to him, and I got this from, but I can't remember what Puritan I got this from. I think it was

Christopher Love. But there was a Puritan that wrote on, and I think it was

Christopher Love's book, Grace, The Degrees of Grace, I think is what it was called. But he says, can you have a regenerate unbeliever?

No. Is it possible to have a unregenerate believer? No. Both of those would be impossible because regeneration and belief have to be simultaneous.

Why? Because, well, God works through us so that they're not a separate period of time. Now, logically, we talk logically, not chronologically.

Logically, yes, theologically, in a logical sense, we'd say that God had to bring us to repentance first.

Okay? Why? Because the point that we've been emphasizing through this, it's God's plan.

He's the one working this out. And so logically we'd say that unless God is doing that work, that's superintending, we could never come to repentance and belief.

And for those who say, no, I believed on my own, I understand you experienced that belief on your own. I understand that.

But Ephesians 129 tells us that that belief of yours was given to you, granted to you.

Philippians 129, for to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.

That belief that you had was given to you by Christ, granted to you.

Actually, the word for granted there can also be translated forgiven you. So we have been given this belief.

So in a logical sense, that had to come first. That doesn't mean in a chronological sense, but a lot of times people make this mistake of speaking so much in logical sense that they end up speaking as if it's chronological.

And then what you have is people that are responding to the chronological by their experience and saying, but I chose first, because that's what they experienced.

And really what's at the heart of this is an experience versus a theology. Experientially, I chose

God. Theologically, God chose me. Which is right? Well, both are, because God worked through us so that the choice we made is exactly as God intended it to be.

So I keep coming back to that. And if you want to get digging more on this, you can get my book, What Do We Believe? on the chapter of Soteriologies, The Doctrine of Salvation.

I go into detail on this to try to explain this, because this is an area that many

Christians struggle. Part of that struggle is understanding that God the Father has a plan, an all -inclusive plan, and he is working this plan even though we're making choices.

And so I think the way to resolve these issues is the doctrine of superintending. But anything else that you would like to add?

No. It is so encouraging to study these things, even though you will wrestle with them.

And you're not going to read one book at one sitting and come away with a grasp of it.

These things are unfathomable. But they are rich. They are wonderful to consider.

And, you know, it is God's sovereignty that gives us such great assurance. So as we wrestle with these things,

I always come back to the fact that all these things that he has orchestrated, all these things that we see going on, have a purpose to glorify him.

And because we are in Christ, if you're a believer, they're going to work for your good. I mean,

Paul tells us that in Romans as well. So these are glorious truths. Wrestle with it.

Don't be afraid to ask the questions. But be humble enough to be a genuine disciple who is willing to learn.

And part of the thing with that, Bud, is a warning. If you study these things and you think you have an answer, within a few weeks of study, you're probably wrong.

These things have been wrestled with for millennia. Yeah. I remember someone I used to call a friend,

Mark Cahill. He now thinks I'm not saved. But he came to a conclusion that Calvinism is heresy and that it's a false gospel, a false

God, and anyone that believes in it is not saved. Now, what makes me a Calvinist in his mind is that I spoke on conferences with Calvinists.

I've informed him that he has spoken at conferences with Paul Washer. That's probably one of the strongest Calvinists in our day and age.

So if that makes me a Calvinist, he's a Calvinist. But the reality is I kept trying to work with him to explain to him that he's reading arguments that are made against Calvinism, and they're extreme arguments.

He was getting stuff from guys like Dave Hunt and others, and he didn't understand

Calvinism. He was studying it only for a few months, about two or three months when he made these conclusions.

It wasn't enough time to really dig into this and study this out. And so the reality is he made conclusions, and it was based on information that had faulty definitions.

One of the things I did was I remember talking to him on the phone, and I just decided, you know what, Mark, let me ask you, do you believe this, this, this, this?

And basically what I did was I gave definitions of Calvinism without using the labels, and he believed in all five points.

And I said, you are a five -point Calvinist. No, I'm not. I don't believe that God in eternity past forced people to decide they were going to go to hell.

That's not Calvinism. Now, that is a version of Calvinism. I will agree. There are people that take it to an extreme.

Calvin, we have no evidence Calvin believed in what's called double predestination. His followers did.

It's a logical conclusion, but it's not a biblical conclusion. Why? Because as people wrestle with it, they go, well, if God chose people from eternity past to be saved, doesn't that mean he chose those who wouldn't be saved, those who would never come to repentance?

So he chose them too, right? Logically, we could say yes, but the reality is because of our sin nature, we all deserve to go to hell.

So apart from him doing anything, everybody deserves to go there. Yeah, yeah. The fact that he's gracious with some to bring them to repentance doesn't mean he forces people to go to heaven or hell, as Mark had explained.

And so this is the problem that I see is that a lot of people will read a couple of books. And I challenged Mark to read some books from those who would be on the

Calvinist side. This is folks, this is something that was drilled into me in seminary. It's a practice that I've done for a long time.

And it's maybe one of the reasons why so many of you like at G3 would come up to me and say, you learn so much because you see that I'm being fair with both sides of an argument.

It's because of the fact that I want to read both sides. I want to be able to make an argument of a side I disagree with.

And for someone to come to a conclusion like Mark did without ever studying the other side, those who actually are the proponents of a position becomes dangerous because what you may be listening to is straw man arguments.

I mean, you know, you have people that will say, Hey, let me give a political example.

Trump was wrong. I mean, there's all this evidence that he colluded with the Russians until you realize all the evidence was false.

Now, did he conclude, you know, did this happen with the Russians? Well, no, there was no collusion.

The evidence was manufactured. Now that we know that we don't trust the source, we can't trust the source.

We don't trust the conclusion. This is the thing you have to realize. People on all sides do make straw man arguments.

Many people will do that because it makes their argument sound stronger. And oh, by the way, it sells more books a lot of times.

So what we have to do is be careful with that. We have to do is look at the arguments that we make and say, let's make sure we're reading all the sides.

And so do not study this stuff and come to a knee jerk reaction, a quick conclusion of things.

I hope that this is helpful. I hope that you, you learn a lot, that you get a lot from this and that this is a blessing to you.

Anything else you want to add, bud, before we sign out? No, I think this has been very helpful. Very good conversation.

Well then with that, bud, you know what? What's that? That's a wrap. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry.

For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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