God the Father, What We Believe, Part 5

Sovereignty, Free Will, and the Problem of Evil

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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 are 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 moved, 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. 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.

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's 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 listen 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 and 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'd 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 it is 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. 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. I just don't do that. 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 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 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 And it is so bright with the lights on it. The technology was I was 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 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 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 Mbebe, 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. And 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'm going to I actually said reached out there 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.

And so Heidi St. John is in there. I got to meet her and her husband Jay. Great, great couple. Ken Ham and Heidi St. John were doing, like, a video promo for something that they're doing together at the Ark 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 you know, she was explaining some of the inside scoops of you know, 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 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, like, 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, like, 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, you know, had visited a bank in Russia.

But the date that supposedly that happened, this guy was, you know, documented somewhere else, like, I think, in the States. So he wasn't in Russia.

But, you know, if it fits the narrative, just run with it.

Well, I was just going to say, I mean, 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. I got, Bud, I got a new product from MyPillow. Latest thing that I'm now trying out is their pajamas. And they're actually quite soft, I will say.

For those of you that are only hearing this and not seeing the video portion of this, he is not modeling those pajamas at the moment. And you're very glad for that.

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Oh, and you could continue this. It could be an infinite regression of blessings that you're participating in.

I don't think so. But we'll stop it there. It's not the 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, 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.

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, you know, I was going to say paper, but it wasn't really paper.

But, you know, 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, you know, 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 in, 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. You know, it's really what it comes down to is 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. And so as we look at that, that applies as well to this all-inclusive plan that God designed for his own glory. Okay, why? Do we have a will? Now, 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 predestined 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. And 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 Flavel 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.