The Providence of God

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While we remain standing, let us open our Bibles and turn to the 115th Psalm.
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We're going to read just the first three verses of this psalm as the foundation for our message today.
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Psalm 115, verse 1 says this, Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.
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Why should the nations say, Where is their God? Our God is in the heavens.
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He does all that He pleases.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word, and I pray now that as I seek to give an exposition of this passage and others, Lord, as we look at the confession, Father, I pray that you would keep me from error, as I certainly am a fallible man and capable of preaching error, and I don't want to do that.
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Lord, for the sake of my conscience, for the sake of your hearers, for the sake of your name, Father, keep me from error.
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And I pray, Lord, that as we speak on a subject that is rather heavy and weighty, Lord, that you would give ears to hear what your word has to say, give eyes to see what your word has to teach us.
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And Father, I pray that this would not be a message that brings confusion, but clarity on a subject which often is and at times can be divisive.
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And I pray, Lord, all of this, trusting in your spirit to teach, using me simply as a mouthpiece, in Christ's name, amen.
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Well, this morning we are continuing our study of the 1646 London Baptist Confession of Faith.
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If you have not been with us prior to today, that may sound like a confusing statement, because you didn't have all the history and backup of what we have done over the last several months preparing for this lesson.
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The 1646 London Baptist Confession of Faith is the first Baptist Confession of Faith to be used by a group that would identify itself as specifically Baptist.
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And we noted over the last several months that this was a Reformation statement, or a reformed statement.
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If you remember, the Reformation began with men like John Wycliffe and John Huss, moved on to men like Martin Luther and John Calvin and Earl Rick Zwingli.
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But the Reformation went all over the world.
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The Reformation didn't stay in just those general areas.
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And in England, the Reformation made its way there, and there was a group of seven churches which identified themselves as Baptist.
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They were Baptist because they were convicted about the subject of believer's baptism.
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They believed that a person should not be baptized simply because they're born into a Christian home, but that they should be baptized upon profession of faith.
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And that was the definition of what it meant at that time to be a Baptist.
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But there was more to it than that, but certainly not less.
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And so our study has been through this confession, and we are now at Article 3.
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If you'll open up—well, you don't have to open it—turn over your worship folder this morning, you'll see that I've put Article 3 printed on the back of your worship folder along with the outline of today's message.
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The first two that we looked at, the first one dealt with the nature of God in His being, that He is holy, that He's wondrous, that He's mighty.
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The second article deals with God and His nature as Trinity, that He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons.
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And then we get to Article 3, and the third article deals with the providence of God.
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So we look first, Article 1 is the nature of God, Article 2, the Trinity, Article 3, the providence of God.
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So we're going to read the article, and you can read along with me on your sheet.
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God had decreed in Himself before the world was concerning all things, whether necessary, accidental, or voluntary, with all the circumstances of them to work, dispose, and bring about all things according to the counsel of His will to His glory, yet without being the chargeable author of sin, or having fellowship with any therein, and which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, unchangeableness, power, and faithfulness, and accomplishing His decree.
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And God hath before the foundation of the world foreordained some men to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise and glory of His grace, having foreordained and leaving the rest in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of His justice.
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And you'll notice after that, there is a series of Bible verses that they use as proof texts for their statement.
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So that is the article that we're going to be addressing today from the Confession.
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Over the last 12 years, I've preached a lot of sermons on the subject of God's sovereignty.
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In fact, while I was preparing this week's message, I kind of went through my computer, and I log all my lessons into a folder, and I'm able to search them by name, or search them by title, and I just typed in the word sovereign, or sovereignty, into the search box under that folder, and it came up with many, many, many lessons.
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Not all of them were on the subject of God's sovereignty, but there were times when I had mentioned it.
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And I wasn't surprised, but I was interested to see that it was more than a page worth of files.
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And it stands to reason, as we're a church that has adopted Reformed Theology, and God's sovereignty is at the heart of Reformed Theology, likewise, our name identifies us with the sovereignty of God.
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We're Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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But this morning, I want to share and explain something to you, because oftentimes, we blur the line between God's sovereignty and God's providence.
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We blur the line between God's sovereignty and His providence.
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So this morning, I want to explain the difference, and help you to understand that today, rather than really talking about the sovereignty of God, you'll notice the title of the message is the providence of God.
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And I want you to at least understand, for the purpose of language, understand what the difference is.
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Because people often get these confused.
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When we talk about the sovereignty of God, we are talking specifically about God's authority over what He has created.
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Think about a king.
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A king is sovereign over his kingdom.
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He is the king.
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He is the legal authority.
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God created the world.
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He created everything in the world.
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There's not one molecule, there's not one iota of anything that's ever came about on its own.
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Everything that is, everything that was, and everything that ever will be, was created by God.
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It's sort of like the story, you know, the guy who challenges God to a man-building contest.
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And he says, God, we're smart now, we have technology, we have intelligence, and we can do everything you can do, we don't need you anymore.
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He said, and we'll prove it, we'll have a man-building contest.
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And God said, okay, well, if you're going to build a man, you've got to do it the same way I did, you've got to use the dirt.
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So the man reached down, grabbed a handful of dirt, and said, God said, no, no, get your own dirt.
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You see, everything that's ever been created was created by God.
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God is the creator.
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So in that, He's the authority.
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That's where sovereignty comes from.
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It comes from His ownership.
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He made you, He made the world, it's His.
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People say, I don't like the guy that's sovereign.
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Well, you don't get to like it or dislike it, it's not up to you, you didn't make it.
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God created the world, and in doing so, He establishes Himself as the authority over the world.
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But when we talk about providence, we're talking about God's work in time.
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You see, His providence deals with His plan for the ages.
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It is how He, and we actually had family worship last night, and my children and I, we gather around to talk about the Word of God and to study.
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And I asked them, what's the difference between sovereignty and providence? And they didn't really know, and that was okay.
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We discussed the answer, and I said, what providence is, is stewardship.
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You know what stewardship is? Most of you, growing up in church, stewardship was giving money, right? The stewardship committee was in charge of the money.
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But stewardship means a management.
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Providence is God's management of His world.
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It's the outworking of His sovereignty.
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You see, God has the authority over the world, that's His sovereignty, but He also exercises that authority, and that's His providence.
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The exercise of God's authority in the world is His providence.
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And it's just like, again, going back to the, sort of the, it's a weak illustration, but we'll use it in illustration of a king.
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And a king can have authority, but not exercise his authority.
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He can abrogate the throne.
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He could just not be a good leader.
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He cannot exercise any interest in his kingdom.
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He can let it all go to pot.
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But God has not done that.
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God not only has the authority, but He exercises the authority.
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And in exercising that authority, we talk about that as providence.
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That's God's.
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And you've said, and I know you've all said this before, something happened in your life, whether it's good or bad, something occurred.
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And you said, wow, that was providential.
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Or maybe you didn't, maybe you knew it wasn't a coincidence.
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You knew that God intervened.
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Some people say, well, that was a God thing.
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That's the more modern vernacular.
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Or they'll say, that was a divine appointment.
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Use that phrase sometimes.
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James Montgomery Boyce, the famous Presbyterian pastor, wrote this regarding the providence of God.
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He says, quote, There is probably no point at which the Christian doctrine of God comes more into conflict with contemporary world views than in the matter of God's providence.
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Providence means that God has not abandoned the world that He created, but rather works within that creation to manage all things according to the immutable counsel of His will.
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By contrast, the world at large, even if it will on occasion acknowledge to have been the world's God to be the world's creator, is at least certain that He does not now intervene in human affairs.
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Many think that miracles do not happen, that prayer isn't answered, and that most things fall out according to the functioning of impersonal and unchangeable laws.
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End quote.
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Now, that was a long quote.
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Basically, what he's saying is this.
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He says, most people don't think about God's actions in the world.
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They think the world is sort of just kind of puttering along on its own, as if God sort of started the world spinning, and He got it going like a top, and He just sort of stands back and lets it go.
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Oftentimes, we talk about laws of nature or laws of physics.
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Why is it that the laws of nature are as they are, or the laws of physics are as they are? Because God has established them and God has sustained them.
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Why do we believe in consistency in science? It's because God has said that this is, and we trust that it is, and so we believe that not only is it today, but it will be tomorrow, and it will be the next day, and it will be the day after that, because God has established His authority and established how the world works.
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And we talk about the providence of God, we're talking about His intimate involvement in the world.
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As I said, God did not simply create the world and walk away.
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There are people who believe that, by the way.
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Have you ever heard the term deist? Became rather popular several years ago as many historians began to reject the idea that the early founding fathers of America were Christian, and there's all kinds of debate that goes along with that as to whether or not the early founding fathers were Christian, but they would say they weren't so much Christian as they were deists.
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Now, I don't want to get into, again, an argument as to who was, maybe this one was, maybe this one wasn't, but deism is not Christianity.
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Deism is the belief that there is a God who started everything, but that He's not involved with the world.
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He planted the seed and let it go.
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He seeded the world with life and let it sprout, but He's not in control of what's happening.
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He's not involved with what's going on.
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I'll give you the dictionary definition.
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Deism is the belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator, who does not intervene in the universe.
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Definition goes on to say, this term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement from the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason, because, honestly, not having a creator is unreasonable.
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So they believed in a creator based upon reason, but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.
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So deism is this, and this is a lot of people, I would say even people who go to church.
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They'll say, yeah, I believe in God, and you'll say, but then they'll say, but God didn't have anything to do with this, or God didn't have anything to do with that, or God's not really in control of this, or, you know, it's really up to you.
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It's what you decide.
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You're the captain of your destiny.
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You're the captain of your ship.
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You're the one who's controlling left or right.
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You're the one who's doing everything, you know.
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And so it becomes an issue of how much is God involved.
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If he is at all, does he have any involvement? And if he does, how much? And the sad reality, as I said, is that we see in many churches today, deism has risen.
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The idea that God simply got it started, but he's not intimately involved with it, is a huge problem.
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In fact, there was a couple of sociologists, a man by the name of Christian Smith and a woman by the name of Melinda Denton.
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They did a study of over 3,000 young people in the United States, and they found out, and I don't remember, and I can't say this for certain, but I know that at least some of the 3,000 were churchgoers.
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I don't know if they all were, but I know that at least some of them were.
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Of those 3,000 students, they asked them questions about God, about the universe, about salvation, and they came to the conclusion that the vast majority of those 3,000 students did not have a Christian worldview.
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They had a deistic worldview.
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In fact, they created a new term, and some of you have heard me mention this before, moralistic therapeutic deism.
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Moralistic therapeutic deism has replaced Christianity in the average American mind.
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The average, especially among young people.
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Moralistic therapeutic deism has five basic beliefs.
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God exists.
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God wants people to be good.
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The central goal of life is happiness.
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God doesn't have to be involved for that, and good people go to heaven when they die.
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Now, you tell me, you walk around, the average person, what is it? God exists.
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He wants you to be good.
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He wants you to be happy.
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He doesn't necessarily have to be involved, but if you're good, you go to heaven.
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You tell me that's not the average American belief.
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I do funerals, several funerals a year, and that's the people I talk to, almost in every case.
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Well, he was a good guy.
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Of course, he's in heaven.
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He's up there, you know, he's singing with Charlie Daniels and drinking with, you know, Moses and all them.
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You know, he's having a good old time.
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Whatever.
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Deism.
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Moralistic therapeutic deism.
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God's not really involved, but he's there if you need him.
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Again, I say this and I want you to hear me today because if you don't take anything away from this, take this.
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Christianity and Christian theism is not deism.
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The Bible teaches that God is providentially involved in the world.
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He is managing the world's events and guiding people to the end of bringing himself glory.
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In fact, divine providence is the governance of God by which he, with wisdom and love, cares for and directs the universe.
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And the Bible teaches that he directs all things.
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It says in Psalm 103 that he directs the universe.
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It says in Matthew 5 that he directs the physical world.
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It says in Psalm 66 that he addresses the affairs, that he guides the affairs of nations.
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In Galatians 1 it says he guides the affairs of human destiny.
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In Luke chapter 1 it says human successes and failures are in the hands of Almighty God.
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And in Psalm chapter 4 verse 8 it says even the protection of his people is in his hands.
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The doctrine of providence stands in direct opposition to the idea that the universe is governed by chance or by fate.
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You see that's the opposite of providence.
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The opposite of divine providence is chance or fate.
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People say it all the time, well that just happened by chance.
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And I understand when people are saying that in a colloquial sense.
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But do you understand that nothing happens by chance? That you didn't come here today by chance.
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Chance doesn't have the power to do anything and chance didn't bring you here.
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And neither did fate.
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The idea of fate is the idea that there's nothing governing.
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It's just simply gonna be.
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The Bible doesn't teach fate and it certainly doesn't teach chance.
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It teaches that there is a God in heaven who is guiding the world for the purpose of bringing himself glory and his people good.
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There is a God in heaven who is guiding the world to bring himself glory and his people good.
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That's the doctrine of providence.
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So now we've seen that I want to go through the confession and show what the writers of the first LBC, the first London Baptist Confession.
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I want to show you what they have written on this subject.
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And then we're going to look at as we do this, look at scripture verses that affirm what they are saying.
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The first one and I've broken it up into three parts.
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You'll see the three parts in your notes.
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And each one is broken up in the line by the two dots.
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Colon.
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By the colon.
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What's the two dots called? It's called a colon.
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It's broken up by the colons there.
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All right.
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Number one.
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God has decreed all things that come to pass for his glory.
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Read it with me.
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God has decreed in himself before the world was concerning all things whether necessary, accidental or voluntary with all the circumstances of them to work, dispose and bring about all things according to the counsel of his will to his glory.
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Now the word there and if you have a pen and want to circle a word or write something down is the word decree.
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God has decreed in himself.
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Oftentimes people are off put by the word decree.
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People are often kind of, I don't like that word.
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I don't like the word decree.
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Because here's what people will say.
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Well, if God decrees what happens, then wherein do my choices have any value? If God decrees all things, does that mean that he's responsible for the evil in the world? But when we consider the decrees of God, we must first keep in mind that the decrees of God involve both the ends and the means of arriving at those ends.
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And God has not only determined what will happen in the end, he has also determined what is necessary to bring about that end.
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Let me give you another quote here.
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One of my favorites actually.
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This is from the Abstract of Systematic Theology by James Pettigrew Boyce.
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Another James Boyce.
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This was actually written as a textbook.
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This was a systematic theology textbook, which was written for the first Southern Baptist school in America.
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And this is what he says about the word decree.
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He says, the term decree is liable to some misinterpretation and objection because it conveys the idea of an edict or some compulsory determination.
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Purpose has been suggested as a better word.
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Plan will sometimes be more suitable.
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The mere use of these words will remove from many some difficulties and prejudices which make them unwilling to accept the doctrine.
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So what Boyce is saying here, he's saying, if you don't like the word decree, change it to the word plan.
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If you have a problem talking about the decree of God, say the plan of God.
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And if you have a problem talking about the plan of God, talk about the purpose of God.
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Anybody here got a problem with God having a purpose? Anybody here got a problem with God having a purpose in all things? You see how that works? He said, if you got a problem with the word, change the word to something else, means same thing.
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But if it satisfies your heart, if you're having trouble with this word decree, because it just maybe cuts you a little deep or you don't like it, change it to this word, it still means the same thing.
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I've never met a person who had a problem with God having a plan.
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In fact, I would have a problem if he didn't.
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If I looked at all of the garbage that happens in this world and I say, you know what, I don't think God has a plan for any of this.
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How despair, how desperate would you be if you thought the whole world was spinning the way it is and God doesn't have a plan for any of it? How absolutely morbid would it be to say, yeah, the world has gone to absolute hell and God didn't have a plan.
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I want to finish the quote though, because he goes on to say, he says, they perceive that in the creation, preservation and government of the world, God must have had a plan and that that plan must have been just, wise and holy, tending both to the glory and happiness of his creatures.
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They recognize that a man who has no purpose, no aim, especially in important matters, and who cannot or does not devise the means by which to carry out that purpose is without wisdom and capacity and unworthy of his nature.
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See, you have plans, don't you? You have purposes, don't you? You have things that you do in your life and you plan those things out, especially things that are important.
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You expect that God doesn't have a plan? You expect that God doesn't have a purpose? You expect that you have it, but God doesn't? You see how easy this is when you really think about it? He goes on to say this, he says, consequently, they readily believe and admit that the more comprehensive and at the same time, the more definite the plan, the more worthy it is of infinite wisdom.
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Indeed, they are compelled to the conclusion that God cannot be what he is without forming a purpose or a plan.
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So when you hear me talk about the decree of God, if that strikes your nerve and you have an issue with that, just pretend I said plan.
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Pretend I said purpose.
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And see if that doesn't provide a salve for the moment.
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But know this, it's all pointing to God's management or his stewardship of his world.
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And we see this throughout the Bible.
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I want you to consider something for a moment.
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Just for a minute with me for a second, think about this.
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Think about the fact that there is no way, there is no way that any prophecy from the Old Testament could be guaranteed to be fulfilled in the New Testament if God wasn't managing his plan.
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God said Jesus was going to be born in Bethlehem 500 years before he was born in Bethlehem.
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What would happen if Mary's water broke on the way? And dealing with that a little ourselves, you know.
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We've talked about this.
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My wife talks about this.
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You know, we keep thinking, boy, wish that baby had come.
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But you know what? Jennifer said this the other day.
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It was so, it was very profound and was much smarter.
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She's much better than me in every way.
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And she says, God knows her birthday.
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And God knows her birthday.
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I say, you're right.
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You know, I don't.
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It could be today.
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It could be right now.
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Let's hope not.
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But the point, God does know.
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He's already determined her birthday.
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He's determined her days.
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Bible says, Psalm 139, that he fashioned her days before her before she even was.
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See, that's providence.
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That's the almighty hand of God working his will out in the life of my little girl.
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You see, he doesn't just work it out for Jesus.
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Because think about how many things had to happen for Jesus to end up in Bethlehem.
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I did a sermon many years ago called the two decrees.
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I think it's what I titled it.
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But I talked about the decree of God and the decree of Caesar.
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Because the Bible says the decree went out from Caesar that all the world should be counted.
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And that's what sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
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I said, you know, they wouldn't have had the baby in Bethlehem if it weren't for that decree of Caesar.
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But the reason for the decree of Caesar was because of the decree of God.
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That's providence.
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And that's a part of all of our lives.
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The decree of God, the providence of God is working in all of our lives every day.
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One of my favorite Bible verses to share with people is Acts 4, 27 and 28.
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Turn in your Bibles to Acts 4, 27 and 28.
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Because people will say, yeah, well, God's in control.
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But he's not in control of the bad things.
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He's only in control of the good things.
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And I'll say, first of all, that's a tough way to live.
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God's only in control of what happens to me that's good.
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He's not in control of what happens that's bad.
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And I ask them, I say, well, what's the worst thing that's ever happened in history? And sometimes they'll say, well, the Holocaust was bad and it was.
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Or they'll say, you know, 9-11 was bad and it was.
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But I'll say, but actually the worst event in human history was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
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It's the only time in history that an absolutely innocent man has been executed.
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Because everybody else is a sinner, right? The only person who's ever been absolutely innocent from birth is Jesus Christ.
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And he was crucified on a cross as an absolutely innocent man.
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So by the definition of justice, it's the worst thing that's ever happened in history.
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And yet it says in Acts chapter 4, verses 27 and 28, For truly in this city, this is the apostles who are preaching.
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For truly in this city, they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus.
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They're speaking to God.
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They're actually praying.
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They were gathered against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
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This is what they said.
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God, Herod was involved and he is completely responsible for his involvement.
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Pilate was involved, but he was completely responsible for his involvement.
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But guess what? Everything that happened was according to your plan.
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Why do you think Jesus is called the lamb slain from the foundation of the world? You think there's a, you think there's a, any, any chance, I hate that word, but we'll say it.
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You think there's any chance that Jesus couldn't have been crucified that day? Think about how you answer because God doesn't live in the realm of chance.
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God doesn't live with potentiality.
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God says and it is.
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And that's providence.
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Starts to get us a little under our collars though because we start saying, Ooh, I don't like that.
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Well, think about the opposite.
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What if the cross didn't happen because God's will was thwarted by some event? What if they crucified Simon, the one who carried the cross for Jesus, because they didn't realize, made a mistake? What if they crucified him and he didn't die? Or what if they buried him and he didn't rise? It's all a part of the plan of God.
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And God is providentially working in this world to bring his will about.
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And again, I say, if you're here today, you're not here by accident.
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You are here to hear the word of God, to be taught the word of God by the providence of God.
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All right, number two, move on.
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Though God is sovereign over sinful acts, He is not the author, or not their author, rather.
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Though God is sovereign over sinful acts, He is not their author.
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It goes on to say in the confession, Yet without being the chargeable author of sin, or having fellowship with any therein, in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, unchangeableness, power, and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree.
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I think this is the most difficult thing for people to understand.
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Because though nothing happens outside of the decree of God, God is not responsible for the sins that you do.
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In fact, the Bible says that very clearly.
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If you want a Bible verse to write down, I won't make you turn there, because most of you probably know this verse.
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It says this.
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It says in James 1, verse 13, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.
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But each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire.
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You've never committed a sin that you didn't want to do.
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You've never done anything you didn't want to do.
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Now, I know some of the men are saying, Now, I've gone shoe shopping with my wife.
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When I say you've never done anything you don't want to do, I would recommend to your reading Jonathan Edwards' The Freedom of the Will.
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In The Freedom of the Will, Jonathan Edwards makes this argument.
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He says, Everything we've ever done has been done because of our strongest impulse at the time.
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You see, I've been shoe shopping with my wife because I would rather please my wife at that moment.
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If somebody comes and puts a gun in my face and says, Give me your wallet or I'm going to shoot you.
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I don't want to give him my wallet, but I would prefer also not to be shot.
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And my desire not to be shot outweighs my desire not to lose my wallet.
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So I hand him my wallet.
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You understand what I'm saying when I say you've always done, you've always gone with the greatest instinct at the time, the greatest desire.
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So you've never sinned, you've never done anything you didn't want to do in that sense.
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And so when it comes to sin, the Bible lays it at your feet.
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Every sin that you've ever done is laid at your feet.
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And so the responsibility of evil lays at the feet of man, not God.
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And some people say, Well, God's still in control.
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Are you saying, Well, God simply allows evil? Well, that's true as far as it goes.
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But God never allows anything that he doesn't have a purpose for.
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I'm going to tell you something, and I know this is going to sound hard to believe.
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There is no such thing as purposeless evil.
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God has a purpose for everything that he allows, everything that he has determined will be has a purpose.
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And that sounds like a difficult statement when we see so much senseless evil in the world.
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And from the perspective of man, I understand that things do happen that seem to have no rhyme nor reason.
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Yet the confidence of the believer is that everything that happens, good and bad, happens by the plan of God because he has a purpose for it.
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You say, Well, where do you get that in the Bible? Go to Romans 8 verse 28.
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You know this.
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All things work together for good.
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You see, that's where most people stop.
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A lot of people stop right there.
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All things work together for good.
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If that's what you think it says, that ain't what it says.
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It says, All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
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I'll tell you this, for the unbeliever, I can't tell him that.
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I'm not going to tell the unbeliever that all things work for your good.
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Because if they stay in that unbelief, all things are working together for their condemnation.
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Not their good.
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But if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you may have suffered, and we all have suffered, some much greater than others.
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This is another thing Jennifer and I talked about the other night when we were studying together.
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We said, You know, there's tragedy, and then there's tragedy upon tragedy, and there's some who've suffered to a point that we can't imagine.
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And it's hard to sometimes look at that person and say, God has a purpose for this, but it is the truth.
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And the only comfort I would have in tragedy, and the only comfort I've ever had in tragedy, is knowing that it wasn't without a reason.
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Because how would it look, and how would it feel, and how would it sound to say to somebody, Yeah, God didn't have any purpose for your suffering.
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And he didn't have any control.
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Again, if you look at Romans 8, 28 to the end of the chapter, it starts out, All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
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And then it goes on to talk about the fact that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.
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Neither height, nor depth, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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See, that's the promise of providence.
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How could you trust that is true if you didn't trust God was in control? How could you know that nothing can separate you from his love if he doesn't have the power to keep you in his hand? Third and finally, and I'll hasten to the end, God's decree includes his choice to save and condemn on the basis of Christ's work.
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It says this in the confession, And God hath before the foundation of the world foreordained some men to eternal life, and that's a generic man, it's people, foreordained some men to eternal life through Jesus Christ to the praise and glory of his grace, having foreordained and leaving the rest of them in their sin to their condemnation to the praise of his justice.
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This is the part of God's decree that comes under a lot of debate, but really shouldn't, because this is simply saying that this is God's decision.
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God made a decision before the world was ever created that he was going to save, but he decided in his divine and infinite power and wisdom, he is not going to save all.
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See, I've said this before, and some of you've probably heard it, but God, when he looked at the world and he looked at fallen men, he had three decisions.
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He could save everybody.
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God has that power to save everyone.
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He could also save no one.
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He has that power, but he didn't choose either of those.
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Do you know why? Well, I can tell you what I think.
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I don't know the mind of God, but I'll tell you what I think, because in neither of those is there freedom.
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If God chose to save everyone, he doesn't have to make a choice.
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If God chooses to save no one, he doesn't get to make a choice.
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He chooses to save those who are in Christ and thus makes a choice.
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And that's what the confession says.
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Now, we could talk about predestination, election, and those things, and we will as we get further into the confession.
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But let me simply say today, this part of the confession is more focused on the fact that you understand that God providentially chose to save those who are in Jesus Christ.
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If you read it, it says that specifically.
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It says that he foreordained some men to eternal life through Jesus Christ.
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There is no salvation outside of him.
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There is no salvation outside of Christ.
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And those who are saved by Christ become objects of God's mercy.
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And those who are outside of Christ are objects of God's justice.
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No one gets injustice.
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You understand that? We all stand before the tribunal of God, guilty of having broken his law, guilty as lawbreakers before him, sinful by our very core, by our very nature, and by our choices.
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And we stand before God, condemned before him, and he chooses to give mercy to those who are in Christ.
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And he gives justice to those who are not.
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No one will face God and get injustice.
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No one will face God and be able to say, you've been unfair.
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Now, there's more to be said, as I said, and I really do look forward to the weeks to come when I'll have an opportunity to talk more about these things, because the confession talks more about these things.
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But for now, simply say it as this.
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God's decree does include our salvation.
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And salvation is in Christ alone.
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When it comes to the providence of God, our minds can wander.
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And we can drift to a thousand different questions.
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And what's funny is today, watching your faces.
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Because I've seen so many thoughts, and I've seen some kind of, you don't know it, I see it.
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But I pray that this message will drive you to want to know more about this subject.
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Because in searching, you will learn more about the nature of your God, and the God of Scripture.
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But I want to leave you with an illustration.
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I'm going to end with an illustration that I think helps pull everything together.
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I gave this illustration once before, so if you've heard it, I think it's valuable.
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I think you can hear it again.
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But there was a man whose wife wanted him to purchase an area rug for their home.
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And so he goes with her, and they go into this very expensive rug store, where the rugs are hung from the rafters on clips.
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And so when you're going through, you see these very expensive, very wide and ornate area rugs.
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And the man walks as he's walking, and he's looking at the beautiful, fine work, and he comes upon a rug that is absolutely dreadful.
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It's, nothing's in place, everything seems to be, the stitching doesn't look good, the designs don't seem to make any rhyme nor reason, everything just looks to be out of place.
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They're things that look like they might be animal heads, but they're not.
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They're weirdly shaped and oddly sewn.
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And he just stands there perplexed at this giant mess.
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And the proprietor of the store walks over to him, and he looks at him, he says, you know, I've looked through your store, and there's so many beautiful rugs.
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He says, but I'm just taken aback by this one.
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Why would you display such an ugly, disorganized mess? And the man says, you're looking at it from the wrong side.
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And he turned it around, and it was beautiful.
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Where we have our biggest issue with the providence of God is we're looking from the wrong side.
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All we see is from our perspective, and all we see is disorder and chaos, trouble and terror.
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But God is working his plan for the good of his people and the glory of his name.
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And one day, we'll see it if we're in Christ.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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I thank you for the power of providence and the reality that we are in your hand, and our lives are in you.
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And I pray, Lord, that today, if there are those here who are not in Christ, that they would understand that your decree does involve our salvation, and that salvation comes to only those who have repented of sin and trusted in Jesus Christ.
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We know that's a work that only you can do.
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So we pray now, we give you every heart.
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We ask, Lord, that you would work in every heart for the believers, draw them closer to you.
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For those who are not, we pray that you would be pleased to grant them repentance and faith which leads to life.
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And Lord, we all look forward to one day seeing that beautiful, ornate plan that you have established from the foundation of the world.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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Let's stand and sing and prepare for communion.