10 Essentials Series: 2. Theology Proper, The Doctrine of God

All right, so again, we're going through ten essential doctrines. These are the doctrines that the elders of the church would need to know.

This is what Pastor Chris and I had to go through, put together a paper, so I want to go through each one. Again, we did

Bibliology last week, which is the study of the Scriptures. This week we're going to do Theology proper, which is the doctrine of God, the

Godhead. Christology is the study of Christ, Pneumatology, the study of the Spirit, Angelology, the study of angels,

Anthropology, the study of humanity, Homarteology, the study of sin, Soteriology, the study of salvation,

Ecclesiology, the study of church government, and Eschatology, the study of last things. So today we're going to talk about Theology proper again.

This is the doctrine of God, the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit, and we're going to get into that shortly.

So we're going to answer the questions, does God exist? What is He like? How many are there?

These are questions that all different kinds of religious people ask, well, how many gods are there?

You've got some traditions say there's one God, some traditions say there's multiple gods.

You've got Hindus who say that there's millions of gods. This is a quote from John MacArthur.

He says, the Bible's teaching about God's existence attributes His perfections and triunity, and about His works in decreeing, creating, ruling over all things outside Himself is vital for systematic theology and for the believer's faith and life.

There is only one God, the only true God, John 17 .3, the triune God of the

Bible. The Bible does not begin with human reasoning or rationalistic arguments for the existence of God, but with the foundational presupposition that God exists and that He existed in the beginning,

Genesis 1 .1, before the beginning of all things outside of Himself. Theology proper is rightly derived from God's own inspired inerrant word, which is

God's testimony about Himself. So what you need to know is the Bible never makes a case for the existence of God.

It assumes it at the start, in the beginning God. That's it. Right?

We have the testimony of God's word. That's enough for us.

The question you want to ask someone if they don't believe in God is, where do you start in your worldview?

What are you basing all of your understanding on? If it's not on the word of God and it's something else,

I want to know why that something else is where you start. As Christians, we start with the word of God.

God exists. We argue from the existence of God to the evidence, not from the evidence to the existence of God.

It's a big difference. Our confession of faith, and we were allowed to cite the confession when we were doing our papers.

So this is chapter two, part one, paragraph one. Most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will for his own glory.

Most loving, gracious, merciful, long -suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and with all most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin and who will by no means clear the guilty.

Now, I love the authors of the confession. I mean, they put everything into that paragraph.

I mean, that's a tremendous exposition of who God is. Now, we could always go further.

God is incomprehensible. He's not going to fit within our mind. We can understand God, but we cannot comprehend his immensity.

He's infinite. So I'm going to make this a little bit simpler for ourselves because I love

Keech's Catechism. What is God? God is a spirit. It's infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, power, wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

We'll go through these scriptures. John 4, 24, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

Now, the question people ask is, well, what is spirit? It's not tangible. It's nothing that we can touch.

The closest thing we can identify as spirit is our soul. Our soul is immaterial, but it exists, right?

God is spirit. He has not a body like man. Psalm 147, great is our

Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure. God is omniscient.

He knows all things. His understanding is beyond anything we can measure. Psalm 90, before the mountains were brought forth, wherever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are

God. God is from everlasting to everlasting, outside of time. James 1, 117, every good and precious gift is from above, coming down from the

Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Our God doesn't change, right?

In fact, in Malachi 4, it says, I, the Lord, do not change. If I did, I would consume you. In other words, if he was able to change his mind about our sin, we'd be gone.

Thankfully, he's not. Once he sets his perfect love upon you, it's permanent. Revelation 4, 8, and the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night, they never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Our God is holy.

Anyone know what the word holy means or want to guess? Separate, yes.

He is separate, but we're also holy in that we're set apart. He's holy.

The word holy means other. God is completely other. There's nothing that we can point to in the creation that is analogous with God, right?

People point to an egg. Oh, it's the shell, the white, and the yolk. That's not God. That's three parts. That's modalism, right?

God is this. God is, oh, solid, liquid, gas. No, again, that's a distortion of God, right?

There's nothing we can point to in creation that's going to reflect God perfectly. He's outside of us. Okay. More scriptures,

Psalm 89, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. God is just in everything that he does.

Exodus 34, 6, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Thank goodness that he's steadfast in love and faithfulness. Exodus 34, 7, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity on the fathers, on the children, and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

Now it's interesting. God's love and faithfulness goes on forever, but he only visits the iniquity to the third and fourth generation.

Exodus is telling us that God is merciful, right? He's just, right? But his mercy triumphs over judgment.

We read that in the book of James. First Timothy 1, 17, to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only

God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Okay.

So that's what is God. Next, God is triune. Now this is the big one.

This is what's going to separate our God from every other God that people propose.

So God is triune. He is one in essence. There is only one God deity and three in person, father, son, and spirit.

God is one what and three who's. That's unique to any particular belief in God.

This doctrine in particular is what sets our God apart from every other so -called God you've heard of.

Our God solves the problem of the one and the many. So we look at nature, right?

We look at the metaphysic, the study of reality, and the reality of our world is that there is one humanity, but many humans.

There's a universal humanity and in many particulars. How do you have humanity being only one thing and then many humans, right?

The world is a reflection of the nature of God, which has universals and particulars.

Like I could say the word tree and all of you would be thinking of a tree, but every tree that you think of might be different.

You might be thinking of an oak tree. You might be thinking of a cherry tree. You might be thinking of weeping willow, whatever.

Those are all trees and you would know what I was talking about if I pointed to one. That's tree, tree -ness.

But there's particulars. So our God is one and many at the same time.

He solves the problem of the one and the many. This is also the doctrine that is most commonly attacked and distorted by cults,

Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, you name it. Islam distorts this doctrine.

The most common heresies come from this distortion of this biblical teaching. And here are the scriptures.

This had to be defined by the early church because of all the distortions that were happening. In fact, there was something called the

Chalcedonian Creed that was put together in 451 AD and they codify who

God is. Therefore, following the Holy Fathers, we with one accord teach men to acknowledge one in the same son, our

Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in the Godhead and complete in manhood, truly

God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body, one substance with the

Father as regarding his Godhead, and at the same time, one of one substance with us as regard to his manhood.

Like us in all respects apart from sin, as regards to his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards to his manhood, begotten for us men and for our salvation, of the

Mary, the Virgin, the God -bearer, one in the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation.

And that's where the heresies all come from, and we're going to see that in a second. We'll have a nice little chart for you. The distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one in the same

Son and only begotten, God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ, even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our

Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the Fathers has handed down to us. That's the

Chalcedonian Creed, okay? There were many heresies going on in the early church,

Arianism, Modalism, all these different things. The church had to come together to codify who

Jesus was, because getting Jesus wrong is heretical. What is eternal life?

This is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom I have sent, right?

So knowing Jesus depends on who he is, right? We need to know the Jesus of the

Scriptures, not the Jesus of the heresies. All right, so by God's providence, a man by the name of Oscar Dunlap, he goes to Apologia Church in Arizona, he put this chart up on Facebook, and I was able to use it, he said to use it, so this is going to help us a lot.

So the orthodox position of the Christian church is that Jesus is one person with two natures, truly

God and truly man. That's the right teaching of God. That's the right teaching of Christ, I should say.

We encounter lots and lots of different heresies. We're going to go through one right now. Nestorianism, Nestorianism agrees with the two natures, says that Jesus is truly

God and truly man, but negates one person. They say he's two persons, two persons in one body, two persons, one nature.

That's heresy. The Chalcedonian Creed points that out. Next, Monophysitism, it agrees that Jesus is one person, truly

God and truly man, but not two natures. And again, the Chalcedonian Creed says you can't confuse the natures of God and like mix them up like a cake.

The two natures are distinct yet one. Gnosticism, to say that these two natures were co -mingled and mixed together like a cake is heretical.

And the next two are going to be more familiar to you. Gnosticism, they agree that Jesus has two natures.

He's truly God and he's only one person, but they negate the fact that he was truly man.

They say that he appeared as a man, but he truly wasn't a man. In fact, the Gnostics were against anything in the flesh.

They saw the flesh as something to be beaten down, something to be denied. So Jesus, if he's truly

God, couldn't take on flesh that would be sinful in their eyes. But if Jesus didn't take on flesh, he would not be able to properly represent us before God the

Father. So he's truly God, truly man. He's able to live the perfect life that we needed to live and then take on the sin that we deserved.

Jesus had to be a man in order to provide salvation for his people. So this is a heresy,

Gnosticism. And this one you'll all recognize real quick, Arianism.

This is what the Jehovah's Witnesses believed. They believed that he was a man. He had a spark of divine nature and he was one person, but he was not truly

God. Again, denying the deity of Jesus is heretical.

You have to hold that Jesus is God in the flesh. John 1 .1. The beginning was the

Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. Difficult to get around that, although they tried.

Jehovah's Witnesses will say he's a God. Oneness Pentecostals and other

Unitarians will say, well, he has a divine essence, but he's not

God. God couldn't take on flesh and they give all different kinds of understandings of that.

So that chart really helps us out in understanding this and this will be put up on the channel if you guys want to watch it.

Okay. Next, we're still in the trinity of God.

Deuteronomy 6 .4, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That's interesting because the word

Lord here is used three times, Lord, capital L, capital O, capital

R, D, capital D is the name for Yahweh or Jehovah, right?

The Lord our God, that's, it's not Theos, it's a different word. The Lord is one.

So I mentioned the word Lord or God three times and then it uses that word one. Now the word one in Hebrew is echad, it's compound unity.

If the author wanted to say that God was a singularity, a monad, he would have used the word yachid.

He didn't. Echad is one. In fact, when God says, I will make man and woman and I will call you

Adam, okay, Adam is one but it's a compound unity, okay?

So we have to understand this already is talking about a plurality in the Godhead and there are certain

Jews who recognize and saw a plurality in the Godhead. They're the minority but they certainly, once the

New Testament comes along and Jesus bears witness of it, would recognize the fact that yes, God is a plurality.

Psalm 110, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool, okay?

So you have the Lord talking to the Lord, right? Two persons. Matthew 28, 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It doesn't say names in the name, in the names

Father, Son, and Spirit because you have certain so -called Christian traditions, one is

Pentecostals who say those Father, Son, and Spirit are just titles of God.

Those are not persons. The name is Jesus. Jesus is the Father, Jesus is the

Son, and Jesus is the Spirit. That's not true. We have plenty of scriptures say that the

Father sends the Spirit, right? The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father.

Titles don't love each other. Persons love each other. Yes, John? Absolutely.

Absolutely. With eyes to see, you'll understand it. That's why the triunity of God becomes the most attacked doctrine.

Why? Because this goes to the very heart of who God is, right? God is Father, Son, and Spirit.

God is a unity in community and a community in unity. Very important.

John 1, 1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. Jesus was with God at the beginning and was

God. John 17, 5, this is Jesus speaking, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

This ties in with John 1. The Word was with God, had glory with God. People go through great lengths and jump through hoops to try to redefine this and say, well, that was in the mind of God.

He had glory in the mind of God, but not in actuality. Again, scripture's clear.

Jesus had glory with God before the world began. John 17, 21 and 22, that they all may be one, just as you,

Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, plural, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.

We, plural, are one, unity. Now, this is real important because our

God will, in the scriptures, the scriptures bear witness that says God is love, and we talked about this on Monday night.

God is love. Love is shared between two parties, correct? You cannot be love if it's only one person.

If God was one person, he could become loving by creating something, someone to love, and then exercise love, but he couldn't be love.

So on that view, God, who has power, can create someone to love, and in that case, power precedes love.

That's paganism. Our God is love from all eternity. Father, Son, and Spirit are in community with one another, love each other.

So God decides to create. Love precedes power. Out of God's love, he creates a world to share his love with other people.

Think about it. Islam says that God is one. He has to exercise power first, and power becomes the basis of their worldview.

Love follows. The term Islam means to submit. You have to submit to God's power.

Now we submit to God's power because of his love, not to get his love.

Yes. Yes.

Plural. Plural. Thank you. Very excellent point. Elohim. That usually is used of the word gods.

So when the scripture uses that word in reference to our God, it's talking about a plurality.

Elohim. Thank you. Any questions on that so far? Good. Okay.

More. More verses. 1 Corinthians 8. Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things and for whom we exist, and one

Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things and through whom we exist. This actually, theologians call this the

Shema of the New Testament. Right? Here is the Lord, our God, our Lord is one. This is what

New Testament theologians say is the New Testament version of the Shema. 2

Corinthians 13, 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the

Holy Spirit be with you all. So here you have all three members of the Godhead being mentioned in the exit.

John 15, 26. But when the Helper comes, whom I, Jesus, will send to you from the

Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

So, that points to the fact that the Holy Spirit is different than the Son and different than the

Father. But does that prove that he's God? Not in that particular verse, but Acts 5,

Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?

You have not lied to man, but to God. Right? If the Holy Spirit wasn't

God, how could Ananias have lied to God? The Holy Spirit is

God. The Holy Spirit was the one hovering over the abyss, bringing order out of disorder.

All right? So, again, I think we talked about this last week, anytime somebody says that they're filled with the Spirit and they're flopping around on the floor, they're filled with a spirit.

It's not the Holy Spirit. Okay? The Holy Spirit brings order, not disorder. So what is the fruit of the

Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.

Isn't it amazing the people who are talking about, I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, they're completely out of control, running around the sanctuary, falling on the floor, jumping up and down.

Where's the self -control? That's a fruit of the Spirit. Revelation 1, 4 and 5,

John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.

Okay? The faithful witness, Jesus, has taken on flesh and is the one who pays for our sins.

He is God in the flesh. God is self -existent, and this is really tough to get your head around.

It's called the aseity of God. Ase means of self. There was nothing before God.

There's nothing after God. God is in and of himself. Exodus 3, 14,

God said to Moses, I am who I am. Right? The term I am, Jesus uses that term,

I am, before Abraham was, I am. God always has existed, and I love the way

Sproul puts it. He says, God doesn't exist. People are like, what do you mean?

X means out of, is means being. Exist means you come out of being.

God's never come out of being. God is being. We come out of God.

We exist. He doesn't exist in the technical sense of the term. God is.

Now, how do you wrap your head around something that's never had a beginning, that always is, and always will be?

Again, in our finite minds, we're not going to be able to comprehend something as immense and huge as that.

Exodus 15, 11, who is like you, O Lord, among the gods, Elohim? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

To him, Isaiah 40, 40, 18, to him, then, will you, to whom, then, will you liken

God, or what likeness compare with him? Again, there's nothing that we can point to in creation that's going to codify who

God is. He's beyond the creation. Matthew 11, 27, no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

Knowing God is through revelation, not information. Okay, that needs to be revealed to you by the spirit.

We're going to hear that in a little while in the worship service. John 3, 3, Jesus answered him, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, this is, most people are going to reject what this is actually saying.

You cannot see, the word see means understand. You see what I'm saying, right?

No one can understand God unless he's born again. So the man in the flesh, without spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear, is not going to comprehend or understand

God. The Holy Spirit has to move first and work on the person's mind, and give them eyes to see and give them ears to hear.

Then, they will be able to understand God. You need to be born of the spirit.

New belief follows new birth. New birth precedes new belief.

You can't believe something and then make yourself born. You need to believe it, you need to be born first.

But new belief follows new birth. That make sense to everybody? Okay, that means it's

God. It's the monergistic work of God alone that opens our eyes, our ears, and our hearts.

The man in the flesh cannot please God, right? We are completely dependent upon him.

We are spiritual invalids. Matthew 16, 17. Jesus answered, and blessed are you,

Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. This is the most important question anybody can be asked, right?

Jesus looks at Peter and says, who do you say I am? Peter says, thou art the Christ, the

Son of the living God. Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my

Father in heaven. This is not a matter of information. That's human wisdom. This is a matter of revelation by the spirit.

John 118, no one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. Jesus, here's another verse supporting the trinity, right?

No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, Jesus, he has made him known.

The word here, has made him known, is the word we get for exegesis, right? To exposit from the scriptures what they actually mean.

Jesus exegetes the Father for us so that we can understand who he is. God is transcendent.

He's distinct from all creation, yet knowable, all right? We emphasize the creature, the creator -creature distinction, right?

We are infinitely distant from who God is as far as his being, yet he's knowable.

He makes himself known in the earth. Isaiah 42, it is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, right?

So you have God above us and us like grasshoppers. Isaiah 46, to whom will you liken me and make equal and compare me?

Again, there's nothing you can compare God to in the created order. You thought I was one like yourself.

How many times do people say, we're just, God is like us.

No, no, no, no, no. We are like God, he is not like us. He created us in his image, he is not created in our image.

Yes, excellent point, excellent point. We are contingent beings. We are contingent on someone else for life.

God is what's called a necessary being. He is not contingent, he is not dependent on anyone or anything.

God is, right? And we are derived from that, we are dependent on him. He is not dependent on us, we are derivative.

Romans 118, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Acts 17, and he made from one man every nation of mankind that they should seek

God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet, he is actually not far from each one of us.

For in him we live and move and have our being, even as some of your own poets have said, for we indeed are his offspring.

Now remember, we are all God's creation. We are his offspring. We are not all

God's children, that's a big distinction. We are all God's creation, we are not all

God's children. The way you become a child of God is by repenting of your sinning and trusting in Jesus.

That's the testimony that God bears witness in our hearts, that we believe in Jesus, okay?

John 118, no one had ever seen God, we went through that one. John 147, if you had known me, you would have known my father also.

From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Jesus says he's the exact representation, the character.

I am the exact image of the invisible God. So this is a question you might want to ask a

Jehovah's Witness. If you stand before Jesus, and he's the exact image of God, and you're standing before God the

Father and Jesus, how are you going to tell them apart? Who are you going to bow down to worship? If you're not allowed to bow down to worship

Jesus, you got a 50 -50 shot. Unless Father, Son, and Spirit are the one

God. John 149, Jesus said to him, I've been with you so long and still you don't know me.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? He's the exact imprint of his being.

This is big around here. God is sovereign over all things, right?

God works all things after the counsel of his will, okay? God is the one sovereign over all things.

And I would say meticulously sovereign, he's governing everything as we speak.

All things includes the fall of sparrows, not one sparrow falls apart from the will of the Father.

The rolling of the dice, the lot is cast and it's every decision is from your lips.

The slaughter of his people, the decisions of kings, the failing of sight, has

God not made you mute, deaf, right, unable? The sickness of children, the loss or gain of money,

God gives wealth, he takes it away. The suffering of saints, if it's God's will for you to suffer for doing good.

The completion of travel plans. James says, if the Lord wills, we live and do this or that. The persecution of Christians, the repentance of souls,

God grants you repentance unto salvation. The gift of faith, God grants you belief. The pursuit of holiness, the growth of believers, the giving of life and the taking of death, and the crucifixion of his son.

Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Jews and the Romans all did what his hand predestined them to do. God is sovereign over all things.

And so many traditions say, oh, we believe in the sovereignty of God, but man's in control.

Well, that's not the sovereignty of God, that's the sovereignty of man. Now, we have to understand that there are secondary causes, and maybe we're going to get to that in a second, actually.

So, attributes of God. God is the ultimate and absolute being from which everything else is derived.

Right, we are derivative, God is not, he's necessary. God's attributes are his revealed descriptions of his own nature and character.

Some of those attributes are unique to his divine nature, those are called incommunicable attributes. While other personal attributes are shared with us, those are communicable attributes.

You'll know exactly what I mean when I put these up. So the incommunicable attributes,

God's omniscience, he knows all things. There's no one in here that knows all things, regardless of what any husband tells their wife, they don't know everything.

And the wife will remind you of that. Omnipresence, God is everywhere, he's ever present.

Omnipotence, God is all powerful, no human being is all powerful. God is omnibenevolent, which means he's all good.

And this causes a problem for some people, because they say, well, you think it's good that God sends someone to hell?

What would you say to that? Yes, why? Because it's just, right?

That doesn't, if a judge were to let a murderer go, what would you say about that judge?

Was he good or bad? He's bad, right? So everything God does, okay, he's either gonna be just or merciful.

Both of those things are good. So God is always good. God is sovereign, we just went through that.

Self -existent, I say. He's immutable, he doesn't change, thankfully. And he's eternal, without end, without beginning, and without end.

God will be here forever. Those are not attributes that are communicated or given to us.

His communicable attributes, because we're created in his image, some of those attributes are love, goodness, justice, mercy.

We can exercise love, we can exercise goodness, justice, mercy, grace.

We can exercise patience, we can exercise wisdom, knowledge, and holiness. These are all things, all attributes that God has that he shares with us.

This is how we become conformed to the image of God as we grow in those things.

And that's a function of the spirit. Now the difference is God is unlimited in all of those attributes, while we are limited in a creaturely sense.

We're never gonna attain perfect love, perfect justice, perfect grace, perfect patience, only on the other side, not here and now.

But that doesn't mean that we don't strive for that. God is the creator, all right?

These are the works of God. The creation. In the beginning, it pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the manifestation of his glory, of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, to create or make the world and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.

God is the creator of all things, okay? The confession makes that really clear.

Without God, there would be no creation. You can't have a creation without a creator. It's not difficult to understand, even though people continually deny that fact.

God, and this is where we get into secondary causes, God hath decreed in himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever come to pass.

Yet so, as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature.

In other words, God is not forcing you to do bad things. He's allowing you to do them. He just releases the restraint off your heart and you do them, okay?

Nor yet is the liberty or contingency of secondary causes taken away, all right?

God is the initial cause of all things. We are secondary causes of all things.

We are responsible for our actions. We have the ability to do good and the ability to do evil.

Choose good and choose evil, I should say. So the liberty or contingency of secondary causes is taken away, but rather established, it's not taken away.

It's rather established in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree, right?

So what does that mean? That means that God creates us. We have a will. We have a fallen will, so we have an inclination to evil.

Yet God still, in the restraint of our hearts, can bring about good purposes from it.

But we do have knowledge of right and wrong written on our hearts. We know the difference between good and evil, and yet we choose evil.

God is not causing us to choose evil. We are in Adam. That's our default position.

Once God births us, now we are able to do things that are good. When I say good, that means in accordance with God's command, in faithfulness to him, based on his purpose and will, okay?

because people say, well, if God created us, right, and he decreed the fall of Adam, well, then

God's responsible for sin, because we believe in God's meticulous sovereignty. And think about what

God says about Pharaoh. For this very reason, I raised you up. God hardened

Pharaoh's heart. Some people look at that and say, God made him sin.

How do you harden a sinner's heart? Let me ask you that. Can we harden a sinner's heart?

How? Okay, I'll tell you how you harden a sinner's heart. Tell it what to do.

You submit to me. That'll harden their heart. All God had to do to Pharaoh was say, let my people go.

Immediate reaction of the sinful heart, no. It's rebellion. That's the nature of the unregenerate heart, rebellion.

The nature of a converted heart is submission. Yes, Lord, I'll do whatever you want.

The answer from the unregenerate sinner is no. I'm not doing anything you ask me to do, especially if you tell me to do it.

I'm in control. And there's the essence. We believe that God is in control. We're not.

We're the rebel sinners. He isn't. He's most merciful, gracious, and loving towards us. Okay. So I'm gonna finish off with the decree because this is really important.

I love this answer from Keech's Catechism. What are the decrees of God? The decrees of God are his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory, he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, right?

So to say that God has a decree is to say that God has a purpose in every single thing that happens in the world.

Unless you want to go on record as saying there's purposeless evil in the world.

Evil wins. No. I'll tell you what. What's the greatest evil that's ever been perpetrated on the earth?

The crucifixion of Jesus. Did God have a hand in that? Yes. He foreordained that.

So here's what I tell people who oppose our position, reformed position. If God could take the worst possible evil that's ever happened in this world and use it for his glory and our good, what can he do with the little evil that you bring into the world?

He can use that for his glory and for his will as well. Thank God that he has sovereign control over the evil to let it go this far and no more.

Scriptures, Ephesians one, to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. It's funny how

Armenians, they all want to blame countless. Oh, all means all, right? Until you bring them to this verse.

He works all things according to the counsel. Well, not all things. Oh, wait a second. I thought you're harping on me that all means all.

Except for here. Not all the time. Yeah, whatever. Romans 11 six, for from him and through him and to him are things.

To him be glory forever. God is gonna get glory for everything that happens in the earth.

Daniel 4 35, I love this. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? God does whatever he pleases in the heavens and the earth and beneath the earth.

And none can say to him, what are you doing? God has all power and all knowledge and he's all good.

Everything he does is for our good and for his glory. Questions?

No one? Yes, go ahead, please. Yes, so love is inherent to God's nature.

If it wasn't inherent to God's nature, okay, he would have to create something else in order to become loving, okay?

So God at that point would be contingent on his creation to exercise one of his attributes.

One of the attributes of our God, because he's triune, he's father, son and spirit, there's a love relationship, a unity and community, right?

Father loves the son, son loves the father, Holy Spirit love both father and son. There's love within the

Godhead. And it's out of that love that he chooses to create and share that love with his creation.

Other views, if you have a monadic view of God, one person, one person cannot be love.

Again, he would have to create a creation or something to love in order to display love.

And in that case, power to create precedes love. And the basis for that worldview would be power.

Again, that's a pagan notion. It's all about power. Our worldview is about God's love, his sovereignty and his choice of sharing that love with us.

For God so loved the world he gave, right?

Again, that's not true of all other traditions. Again, it's a pagan notion. Islam, submit, it's a

God of power. And you look at the way, especially now on the news, you have terrorist organizations who claim

Allah as their God, and it's all about power. We are going to conquer the world by war, by slaughter.

Okay, you're gonna lose. Jesus said so. The one you call your prophet,

Esau, said you're gonna lose. How do you know the Quran is wrong?

Because the Quran tells you to read the Bible. The Bible says Jesus was resurrected in at least a dozen different pages, places, and because the