TPW 87 God's Zeal For His Own Glory

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Welcome to the Prophets and Witnesses, this is your host Pastor Patrick Hines coming to you from Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church here in Kingsport, Tennessee and I just got back from the
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Reformed Evangelistic Conference that was held in Birmingham, Alabama. I was privileged to be a part of that conference and that was the first thing
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I've ever really done with REF. It used to be called PEF, Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, but they changed it to Reformed, Evangelistic Fellowship not too long ago.
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And so I was able to go there to Birmingham to a really beautiful place called the Ross Bridge Renaissance Conference Center or something, beautiful hotel, real big room, we had some beautiful, wonderful music and worship and unfortunately for me,
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I caught a stomach bug that my son Paul had and passed on to me and it was the strangest thing.
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It was kind of like having a stomach full of razor blades, but I didn't have any other symptoms.
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I didn't have any body aches or a head cold or any kind of discharges, nothing. It was the strangest thing.
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I've never had an illness like that that just, it was just killing my stomach. So I had to preach kind of through that and God blessed it and I recorded one of the messages that I preached,
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I didn't record the other one. And this one that I'm going to post here is on Whose Show Is It?
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About the glory of God. That was the theme of the conference was the glory of God and we got to hear some wonderful reports from people who do missions in other parts of the world and it was encouraging to hear about tens of thousands of Hindus are coming to Christ in India every year and it's just an incredible, wonderful thing to see the work of God's Spirit and His sovereignty glorifying
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His grace in other parts of the world. And I was reminded again of the need to pray for God to do a supernatural work in this country that we live in.
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The PCA, the denomination I'm in, I think is dying. I think it's going to be dead soon. It's going to capitulate to all this gay stuff, this
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Side B Christianity, gay celibate Christianity, which is anti -scriptural, anti -Christian, and is going to destroy the souls of many, many people eternally in hell.
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And there are so very few that seem to be alarmed by any of it, so I'm not sure what we're going to do. There was a good grassroots meeting that took place with some guys in the
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PCA that are interested in what we can do, what our options are going forward. But I can tell you for one thing for my part, no matter what happens, the sovereignty of God and the gospel of free and sovereign grace and the call to repent and believe it is going to continue to be preached as long as there's breath in my lungs and a heartbeat in my chest.
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And I'm excited about the power of the gospel. I'm excited that things at the church here are going relatively well.
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I'm excited we're in a season where we're going to be training some new elders. I really am hopeful we'll get two or three new elders.
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We really need them. And excited about the three seminary students. They're all three growing in grace, and all three of them are developing their skills as ministers, able preachers in their own rights.
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If you follow our church's sermon audio feed, you can hear them speak, and all three of them are great preachers.
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Eric Sheets, John O 'Rourke, and Ryan Kaiser. So privileged to have them. All three are an answer to prayer for God to raise up men for ministry.
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And I just want to encourage, no matter where you go to church, if you listen to Thorne Crown Ministries, I know that you're in a pretty small group.
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We could probably all have each other's cell phone numbers on speed dial. There's probably not a huge listenership.
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But those that do listen to Thorne Crown, I know are people that love the true gospel, and are concerned about the true gospel, and love to listen to real solid biblical stuff.
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I hope that you will find this sermon to be edifying, because we need to hear this. We need to know that God is still on His throne, that He is glorifying
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His grace, and that whatever He chooses to do with the United States, and the church in the United States, if He chooses to just bring about a great measure of judgment, and give huge sections of what's left of the church over to all this gay stuff, then that's
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His prerogative to do that. He has every right to judge His people in that way. But our response to that must not be to compromise with it, or to knuckle in or back down, or to allow the shallow, anti -scriptural, emotive stories and shallow arguments to lead us astray.
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We need to stand our ground knowing that by standing our ground, we will be hated for it. And that just comes with the territory.
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That comes with faithfulness to Christ. In the midst of apostasy, if you're faithful to Christ, you're going to be hated for it. Oh well, such is the way of things.
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And God will bless us. God will take care of us. There's no need for us to worry about anything.
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God will be exalted. He will be exalted in the nations and in the world. And He'll be exalted in America, one way or the other.
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And so I want to encourage everyone, no matter how you feel today, or how you may be concerned or troubled, be still and know that God is
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God. You be faithful with the duties He's called you to. You be faithful with what He's asked of you, to love your family, to love your local church, and to be a faithful witness for the truth, wherever you occupy in this world.
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And I hope that this sermon on the absolute sovereignty of God will be a comfort and an encouragement to you.
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My 16 -year -old son was complaining about real, sharp stomach pains a few days ago, and I kept telling him to suck it up and quit acting like a sissy and everything else, just jokingly.
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And now it's hit me. So I'm going to have to apologize to him when I get home because, yeah, whatever this stomach thing is, it is ugly stuff, for sure.
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Okay, if you would please take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 9.
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Romans chapter 9, and as you're turning there, this is a chapter that was kind of,
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I've described it as God's two -by -four upside my head. I remember reading through this chapter over and over and over again and trying to figure out ways to get around it.
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Maybe we can turn it into nations. That doesn't work. Maybe we can chop it up into 35 unrelated
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Bible verses that have nothing to do with each other. That doesn't work either. And then
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I remember at one point slamming my Bible shut and pushing it across the table and saying, God, I don't even know who you are.
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And this chapter that was a source of angst has become an anchor, for sure.
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So let's look at Romans chapter 9. I will read verse 10 through 24, but my sermon this morning is only going to cover verses 19 through 24.
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But beginning at verse 10. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father
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Isaac, for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls.
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It was said to her, the older shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.
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What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever
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I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
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For the scripture says to the Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.
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Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills, he hardens.
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You will say to me then, why does he still find fault, for who has resisted his will? But indeed,
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O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this?
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Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
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What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called, not of the
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Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? May God bless the reading of his infallible word.
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Let's pray, please. Father in heaven, we thank you for breathing forth these words to us.
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They are indeed humbling to man's pride. We who are so want to try to steal the show, to think that the world revolves around us, to think that heaven would not be heaven if we weren't there, when in point of fact you created all that exists, solely, completely, and only to glorify yourself, to display your greatness and your majesty, and to do as we just read, to make a name for yourself.
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Help us to see this, Lord, in this great passage, that we might be humbled by it, and that we might rejoice, and that we have been called to be vessels of mercy.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the section of the Westminster Confession of Faith on the
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Doctrine of God, chapter 2 .2, we read this wonderful statement about the nature of God.
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It says, God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself, and is alone in and unto himself all sufficient, not standing in any need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them.
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He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things, and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth.
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In the next chapter of God's decree of the Westminster Confession, point number 5 says, those of mankind that are predestinated unto life,
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God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causes moving him thereunto, and all to the praise of his glorious grace.
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And then point 7 of that same chapter, finally, says the rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures to pass by and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.
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We're all familiar with the saying, he stole the show. When I was in high school, in 1991, a movie came out that I still really like to this day,
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Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and if you watched the theatrical trailer for it, the stars of the movie were
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Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman, great actors in their own rights, but everyone who ever saw the movie recognizes that someone other than Costner and Freeman stole the show.
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The guy that played the Sheriff of Nottingham, remember Alan Rickman, without a doubt turned in the greatest performance in the film, and everyone who saw the film recognized that.
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He was hilariously funny as the Sheriff of Nottingham. He was the one that people remembered from the movie.
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And as an application of this illustration to this passage in Romans that we just read, and to the great
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Reformation concept of soli deo gloria, to God alone be glory, consider this with me.
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God's theater for the display of his own glory is the entire created cosmos.
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The earth, mankind, mankind's eternal destinies, and all of history from beginning to final consummation.
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God is the star, God is the primary actor, God is the hero, God holds the center stage.
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And ever since man fell into sin, we have been trying our best to steal the show.
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Mankind in his sinful, rebellious folly really does believe that he is the center player in creation and in redemption.
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One great Reformed theologian, Dr. Robert Raymond, wrote this wonderful short paragraph. He said, quote, we have not penetrated
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God's purpose sufficiently if we conclude that we are the center of God's purpose or that his purpose terminates finally upon us accomplishing our glorification.
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Rather, our glorification is only the means to a higher, indeed the highest and conceivable, that God's son might be the firstborn among many brethren and all to the praise of God's glorious grace, end quote.
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When we see that everything God decrees has that one grand goal in his divine and perfect mind to glorify himself, everything else in life makes sense.
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Our very assurance of salvation is tied directly to God's zeal, his passion to glorify himself.
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There was a debate that took place years ago between a Christian and an atheist, and during the cross -examination, the atheist asked the
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Christian, what would you think of me if I demanded that every human being on earth worship and love and obey me and adore me and do everything that I say or else
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I'm going to roast them in hell forever? And the Christian said, well, the difference would be when we do that for God, he deserves it and you don't.
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The elect will be resurrected, glorified, declared righteous by the judge on the grounds of the blood and righteousness of Christ alone, and then made fully blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity in order to glorify the grace and mercy and covenant faithfulness of God.
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Our lives serve that one great purpose, the glory of the triune God. Indeed, as a source of great comfort,
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God assures his church, and I want to encourage all of us in the midst of these odd times that we live in, in the midst of the apostate age that we live in,
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God gives us this great comfort, Psalm 4610, be still and know that I am
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God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
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The exaltation of God is the purpose for which everything and everyone exists, and the redeemed of the
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Lord love to have it so. God will glorify his mercy and the salvation of the elect and will glorify his holy justice and the damnation of the wicked.
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That's the highest good there is, God's glorification of all his attributes, and we dare not try to steal the show even for a second by thinking that we're the stars, we are not.
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God is the star, and all of us are cast in subordinate roles at the pleasure of God who is the director.
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Man's biggest problem has always been he doesn't know his place in the universe, it is sin that causes us to attempt to reverse roles with God.
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Isn't that what Satan told Eve, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. You can be praised, you can be wise, you can be the center player.
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We think that at our whim, we can write God into our story. We think that God can fit into our lives, but such is simply not the case.
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All of us are written into the story of God's glory, and in our passage here, we get another objection from a very, very bold pot, daring to question the potter.
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And we only have time to walk through verses 19 to 24, but before we take in this manifesto of the enthronement of God as the self -existent and glorious one that he is,
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I want you to listen to a great Spurgeon quote about this. Spurgeon said this, quote, men will allow
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God to be everywhere except on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars.
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They will allow him to be in his almonery to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever -moving ocean.
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But when God ascends his throne, the teeth of men begin to gnash.
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And when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them first in the matter, then it is that we are hissed at and execrated by men.
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And then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love.
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They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his scepter in his hand and his crown upon his head.
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But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. You hear that?
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Men will allow God to be anywhere. He can be doing anything he wants, except ruling. He can be doing anything he wants, as long as we can look at it and think that it's glorious and great, as long as he's not ruling over us.
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And so let's look at verses 19 to 24 here, at this manifesto of God's enthronement.
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Verse 19 of Romans 9, right on the heels of the statement, you see verse 18?
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Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. Verse 19, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault?
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For who has resisted his will? You see, this objection, it only makes sense if the
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Reformation concept of sola gratia, grace alone, unconditional election is true.
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Biblical grace, always remember this, biblical grace equals unconditional election. If you lose the concept of sovereign, free, unconditional election unto salvation, you cannot argue that salvation is by grace alone.
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You just can't. If our salvation ultimately rests upon our own independent, free will cooperation with the grace of God as so many believe, why would anyone ever object like this in Romans 9, 19?
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You see it? Why does he still find fault? How can he still blame us? Who can resist his sovereign will?
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That was the very thing I kept saying when I read this chapter over and over and over again. That's not fair. How can
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God blame me when I'm only doing what he made me to do? If God's election of individuals unto salvation is based entirely, however, upon their free will cooperation with that grace and something they did of themselves, for themselves, and independently of God, why would anyone ever think to ask, why does he still find fault?
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For who has resisted his will? If the decisive factor in salvation is the independent will of man, who would ever think to blame the will of God as this objection does?
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When people object to you and your preaching and teaching in the same way they objected to Paul, you're on the right track.
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Okay? In fact, Martin Lloyd -Jones even said, if people do not accuse you of being an antinomian when you preach the freeness of God's grace, you ain't getting the gospel right.
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Because Paul got that objection all the time. All the time. Look at the verses leading up to 19 again.
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Look at verse 16. Look at how clear this is. So then, it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
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For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.
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Therefore, he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills, he hardens. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault?
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For who has resisted his will? Is it unjust for God to judge mankind for being sinful when men cannot do otherwise?
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The simple answer to that is, no. Because freedom to do otherwise is not necessary for God to hold someone accountable for something.
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The only thing needed is the authority to hold them accountable. God has this authority, and therefore he holds men accountable.
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And people still have a problem with this idea, however. The idea being that if God has decreed everything that happens, how can he judge men for doing what he decreed that they would do, and they could not possibly have done otherwise?
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But it is at this point that God's hand closes human mouths. God, in his holy words, simply asserts by the use of a simple verb, predestined, the
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Greek verb praorizo, has determined ahead of time the final destinies of men. He says it repeatedly,
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Romans 8, 29. For whom he foreknew, that means chose to enter into a loving relationship beforehand. He also determined their destiny beforehand.
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He predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called.
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Whom he called, he justified. Whom he justified, these he also glorified. Remember the next verse of that chapter?
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What shall we say to these things? What shall we say to the idea of predestination and God's sovereignty? What shall we say?
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What a great topic for debate and argument. What a great thing for us to sit down and just go and draw pistols against each other.
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What is Paul's answer to it? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
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Predestination and election. It's not about debate and argument. It's for worship and praise to magnify the grace of God.
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Ephesians 1, 5. Having predestined us to adoption. Why are we children of God?
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He predestined us to be his children before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1, 11.
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In him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things, according to the counsel of his will.
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That verb predestined. Such a glorious verb. To decide beforehand. To determine in advance.
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God asserts his authority to determine beforehand the eternal destinies of all men.
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God has the authority to hold men accountable for their actions and he does so. Men are not compelled by anything other than their own wicked desires to sin.
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And they sin and they love sinning and they encourage others to sin with them. The creation that God made was very good, including
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Adam and Eve. Sin entered in. Please hear me. Sin entered in not by divine force, but by Adam's desire to disobey
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God. Did God decree that that would happen? Yes. Was Adam forced to sin against his will?
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No, he was not. Did Adam in his heart really want to do what was right? But God was saying, no,
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I'm going to make you sin anyway. Not at all. Adam did exactly what he was going to do. He did exactly what he wanted to do.
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Sin was decreed by God, but sin did not come into creation directly by the hand of God. That's why our confession, borrowing from scripture, speaks of the secondary causes.
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Adam brought it into creation by his own actions. All this was under the decree and plan of God, but God was not the active agent with evil desires.
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Adam alone was. Adam sinned because Adam wanted to do so. But why? Why would
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God allow this to happen? Why would God decree that that would happen? The answer is very simple. He purposed to order it to his own glory.
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And that's all we need to know. My friends, that's it. What is the highest good in the whole universe?
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It's not me and my relationship with God. The highest good in the whole universe is the glory of God. It's his self -glorification.
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His passion to glorify himself. We exist only for that purpose. And when we complain, when we grumble in our hearts, as everyone of us is guilty of doing, we grumble and whine and complain.
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We are attempting to usurp his position, as if he didn't decree that we would go through certain things that would really test us and break our hearts.
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It's for the glory of God. So he can carry you through those trials and through those things to glorify himself.
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Remember who was on center stage in creation and redemption? God is. We are not. We are the creation.
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God is the creator. We are tools in his hands for the accomplishment of his own self -glorification. Human beings serve just that one grand purpose.
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To glorify God. And God, speaking through Paul, closes the mouth of the objector against God's right to do as he pleases with his own creation.
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To the objection, why does God still blame us for who can resist his will? The biblical answer is right there in verse 20 and 21.
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See it? But indeed, oh man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this?
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Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
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What an amazing assertion of God's absolute right and authority to dispose of his creatures however he sees fit to dispose of them.
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Vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. God decrees all that comes to pass. Every trial, every tear that you have cried, it's all under the sovereignty of God for his own glory.
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I was blessed to have a great grandmother. My kids had a great, great grandmother for a short time.
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She was the oldest woman in Louisiana when she died. She was 106. She had been 64 years the widow of a
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Baptist minister, my great grandfather, who died of a massive heart attack and left her with five kids.
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And I've heard this story. She was a very godly woman, a very tenderhearted woman.
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I met her when I was five years old. I still remember meeting her for the very first time. And my mother got upset at me because I was being bad.
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And my mother said to me, will you stop being a brat? And I said, well, Mamaw Hattie says
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I'm her little angel. That's because she didn't live with me.
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But at one point, my grandmother, my mom's mom, who is still alive, she's in her 90s now, when she was a teenager, she got really upset and said to my great grandmother, why would
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God take our father from us? I don't understand that. We eat potatoes.
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We don't have anything to eat. Why would God take our father from us? Why did he take my father from me?
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She said that's the only time she ever got warm with the way she ever said anything. She looked at her and said, don't you dare question
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God. They also had a sibling that died very young of polio, who was seven years old when he died.
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And I was told that she said about that, that was God whipping us because daddy wouldn't commit to being a full -time minister.
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People used to have a much bigger view of God than we do. Much bigger. So here we have the end of the argument with God.
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Who are you? Thing formed? Creature? Pot? You're going to call me down to the witness stand to talk to you?
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Remember when Job tried the same thing? I demand an audience. God, why has this happened to me?
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God says, let me ask you some questions first. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth,
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Job? Tell me if you can. Who can measure the mountains with their span?
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Can you, Job? Tell us why it is that some animals can be domesticated and others can't.
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Why don't you tell me why? You know, we still don't know why. You know, no one's ever been able to domesticate a zebra.
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They just don't, they will not allow you to domesticate them. And yet they're in the same family as donkeys. And that, but they just won't let you domesticate them.
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God asked Job, why don't you explain that one to me, Job? Do you know why that is? And what does
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Job eventually say? I have spoken too quickly. I abhor myself. I repent in dust and ashes.
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I would encourage all of us. Don't think you can call God to the witness stand to be cross -examined by you. It's not a good idea.
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God has the right and the power to make one pot for honor, another for dishonor. That which God called into being out of nothing and whose existence he sustains by the word of his power is that which he has the absolute right over.
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God has the right to do as he pleases with his own things. Think about it, folks. If there's 30 people on death row who are all guilty of horrendous capital crimes that are about to be executed by the justice of the law and the governor chooses to pardon a few of them, he's free to do that.
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And if he pardoned 17 of them and let the other 13 die, no one would ever think to object to that by saying, well, that's not fair.
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Fair would mean that they all 30 get killed for their crimes. They all get justice.
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Just remember, God's interactions with men are always him as the holy and perfect God dealing with wicked and evil sinners who deserve damnation.
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Wouldn't we think it strange if the inmates on death row blamed the governor for the crimes that they freely committed?
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God, yes, he decreed our fall into sin, but we're always acting in full knowledge of what we're doing.
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And we always do what we most desire to do. Apart from God's special saving grace, what we would want to do apart from God's saving and powerful grace is serve and love sin and rebel against God's authority over us.
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Pardoning some and not all people who are justly sentenced to die is not unfair.
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If grace, it is grace and mercy to some who are undeserving and justice and fairness to the rest who never wanted grace anyway.
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God has the right and the authority to do as he pleases with his own creation. Now look at verses 22 through 24.
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What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called not only of the
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Jews but also of the Gentiles? Let us always remember that the punishment of the unrepentant wicked is not an arbitrary act on God's part.
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It is designed and planned to manifest his displeasure against sin and to display the glory of his true character.
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The salvation of the righteous is designed to display the glorious riches of God's grace. All human beings, however, when we start out are all equally liable to be punished.
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Some are prepared for wrath and destruction. Others are prepared for mercy and glory.
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This is the Bible verse here. These three verses, this is what made me slam the Bible shut and push it away. God shows great patience towards the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.
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They breathe his air. They drink his water. They eat his food. They enjoy his good gifts, his sunshine, this beautiful, glorious world, and they never thank or glorify the one that made them and gave it to them.
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He shows incredible patience towards those people. Notice in verse 24 how naturally
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Paul returns to the main subject of the whole discussion of Romans 9. Why are there so few Jews coming to Christ at present?
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It broke Paul's heart. If you read the whole chapter, he says, I have anguish and grief in my heart because of my brethren who will not believe in Christ.
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And what's his answer? It's based on God's sovereign choice. God's sovereign choice and his irresistible effectual call.
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Even us whom he called, he says, effectually called from among not just the Jews only, but also the
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Gentiles. Don't miss the forest for the trees here. Excuse me. Think about the progression in Paul's argument throughout the chapter.
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God chose Isaac, not Ishmael. God chose Jacob, not
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Esau. This is a right that God claims and a prerogative that God does exercise. God unconditionally selects according to his own purpose and divine right individuals he's going to save from among the guilty family of mankind.
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And God leaves the rest justly in their sins. And God is not restricted, thankfully, by genealogical descent or foreseen works or anything in those creatures.
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God's selection of men to save is among Jews and Gentiles. And he's free and sovereign in that regard.
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Opponent of unconditional election, Dr. Norman Geisler wrote the following paragraph many years ago.
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Here is Geisler's caricaturization, his understanding of what we believe, what the
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Bible teaches, I would argue. Here's Geisler, quote, suppose a farmer discovers three boys drowning in his pond where he had placed signs clearly prohibiting swimming.
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Further, noting their blatant disobedience, he says to himself, they have violated the warning and have broken the law and they have brought these deserved consequences on themselves.
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Thus far, he is manifesting his sense of justice. But if the farmer proceeds to say, I will make no attempt to rescue them, we would immediately perceive that something is lacking in his love.
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And suppose by some inexplicable whim, he should declare, even though the boys are drowning as a consequence of their own disobedience, nonetheless, out of the goodness of my heart,
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I will save one of them and let the other two drown. In such a case, we would surely consider his love to be partial and imperfect, end quote.
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Now, the problems with that illustration are manifold. The problems are not so much what it says, but what it leaves out.
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First, the farmer, a mere creature, a sinner himself, is supposed to represent
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God. Perhaps the illustration would be better if the farmer were replaced with the most righteous and good king, whose track record of goodness and generosity and kindness and patience and justice and holiness knew of no comparison among men in the whole world.
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Would that be a little bit better, maybe? The illustration also greatly trivializes the heinousness of sin, doesn't it?
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Three good old boys jumping into a swimming hole mark no swimming. Let's replace that with the boys raping and murdering the king's family, his servants, and then burning down his house while he's away.
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Is that maybe a little bit more accurate? Nothing is said in Geisler's illustration of the drowning boy's response to the father's attempt to save them.
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All three of them mock and splash and curse and spit at the father in his attempts to save them.
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The farmer's desire to save them is called, in the illustration, an inexplicable whim.
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An inexplicable whim? Samuel Storms criticized that phrase in these words, quote, this sort of needless caricature portrays
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God's solemn, most blessed, and altogether gracious determination to save as little more than a bothersome afterthought.
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With no purpose or design. What the author of this illustration calls a whim or an afterthought, the scripture calls the kind intention of his will, end quote.
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Finally, and most amazingly, Geisler's illustration makes no mention of the cost to save that boy, his own son.
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Samuel Storm's response to Geisler is devastating. I'm just going to read this paragraph to you. Listen to this, quote,
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Divine biblical love entails that the farmer casts his own son into the pond, knowing full well that if his son makes an effort to save the boys, he will die.
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The son swims to the three boys, notwithstanding their vehement and hostile cries that he get out of the water and leave them alone.
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As he reaches the three, he extends his arms in love to but one of them. Though that one boy is vile and reprehensible in every respect, the son of the farmer brings him back safely to the shore.
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But in doing so, he himself drowns. The two remaining boys laugh and mock the father's son that he has drowned.
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Their glee is beyond control. The one boy for whom the son gave his life to save is suddenly brought to tears as he senses the magnitude of the love that has been shown to him while he was yet hateful and full of blasphemy.
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The farmer lifts the boy up, drives him off, cleans the mud and filth from his body, and clothes him in the garments of his own son.
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They embrace an everlasting love. The young boy falls to his knees in gratitude, tears flowing.
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The two who remain in the water continue hurling their taunts at the farmer, declaring that even if they could start anew, they would dive defiantly into the middle of that pond without a moment's hesitation.
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I will tell you what love is. It is not providing a lifeline to drowning men who have no arms or hands with which to grasp it.
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It is sacrificing your only son to jump in and rescue someone by wrapping that rope around his waist and drawing him firmly, but surely, to the safety of the shore.
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And what of the two who remain and demand loudly that they be left to their chosen plight? So be it, says the farmer.
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You not only deserve to drown, but take delight in it as well. Have it your way.
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And they do." You think that's maybe a little bit better illustration?
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God is free to make distinctions in his love, just like we do. God has a general benevolence towards all men, but freely bestows a saving and redemptive and gracious and utterly undeserved love upon whomever he chooses.
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And every single individual that he chooses is equally undeserving of that love.
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That grace is free, unmerited, and unprovoked. God has mercy on whom he wills and has compassion on whom he wills.
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His freeness is what makes it grace. Without unconditional election, the biblical doctrine of grace disappears.
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Why did God choose that Egyptian pharaoh? Why did he raise him up? What does the text tell us? That I may show my power in you and that my name may be declared in all the earth.
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So really, that little boy was conceived in his mother's womb, was born into a world where a mother took care of him, and he was raised and he had food to eat, and he was raised up to be a strong man and became pharaoh for that one reason.
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For God to make his name great. Is God allowed to do that with human beings?
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Yes, he is. God's burning zeal is to make his name great and that his power would be declared in the earth.
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What was the purpose of pharaoh's existence? The glory of God. And that was his only purpose. Every tongue will confess one day that Jesus is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. All the vessels of wrath and mercy shall both confess it in the last day.
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Richard Dawkins will take a knee before Jesus Christ. Dan Barker, who spends his entire life suing
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Christians and trying to make their lives miserable, he will take a knee before Jesus Christ. All of the elect will bow before him.
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Of course, we're privileged to do it here. Freely, willingly, because we love him, because he saved us, because he took rebel sinners and made them his own.
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He changed our hearts and caused us to be subdued. Isn't that one of the most glorious things that he does? How does
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Christ execute the office of a king? By subduing us to himself. What does that mean? We're the rebel sinners running around the kingdom, setting everything on fire, destroying, killing, murdering, and he subdues and conquers us and makes us his own.
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All the elect will bow before him and confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Some will confess he is
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Lord on their way to eternal happiness, the others to eternal misery. But both groups exist for that one purpose, to glorify
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God. The elect and the reprobate. You know, people ask the question, remember that tsunami in 2004 that hit
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Sri Lanka and Thailand? It was unbelievable. That wall of water.
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That was when YouTube first was starting to get big. And you could just watch those videos of wall after wall after wall of water.
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What was it? 250 ,000 people died that day. And people ask the question, where was
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God in all of that? Where was this kind and loving and gracious God that you all say you believe in?
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The answer is kind of shocking. God did that. God killed every one of those people.
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But what about all those innocent people? None of them were innocent. None of them were.
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God killed every one of them. But why would he do that? The answer is also shocking. As an act of mercy.
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As a wake -up call to the survivors. Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
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Remember what Jesus thought about seemingly arbitrary things where people died?
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The 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell? He didn't give them some discourse. Well, God permits this and God had nothing to do with that.
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What did Jesus say to them? You think they were any worse than you? You think that they were worse sinners than you all?
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Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. I remember showing those videos to my kids of all those walls of water.
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And my kids said, I'm so glad we live somewhere where God can't do things like that to us. I said, you don't have to live near the beach for God to be able to send a wall of water or to open up the ground from under you.
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Why does God do things like that? To shake people out of their torpor. To shake them out of their laziness, out of their spiritual indifference.
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I know people that came to Christ after watching those planes hit those buildings. Over and over and over again on the news.
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Do you think any of those people had any idea when they drove to work that morning that within a few hours they'd be standing before God for judgment?
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They didn't. And they were. Many people were shaken out of their sleep by things like that.
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Why does God allow things like that to happen? That's an act of mercy. And by the way, why is it that people only ask where was
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God when something bad happens? What about every day that a tsunami didn't happen?
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Why didn't everyone go to bed that night? Lord, thank you that even though we live near the beach and a nine -point earthquake could happen and send a wave, thank you for not letting that happen today.
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Nobody thinks to blame God until things are bad. It's just an illustration of man's rebellion.
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Once again, as if this creation exists for our comfort. It doesn't. It's for his glory.
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Do you think the people that live in Sumatra, Sri Lanka, Thailand were any worse sinners than the people in Northeast Tennessee or Birmingham, Alabama, who sat in their homes and watched those walls of water?
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Unless we repent, we will all likewise perish. God sends disaster and suffering to shake people.
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There's a day of judgment to be feared by men. And I want to assure everybody it's going to be a lot worse than a wall of water.
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God is the star of this show called Human History. This is his universe. He is sovereign over it. He would dispose of it and everything in it as he sees fit.
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In order to make a name for himself. God has mercy on whom he wills and he hardens whom he wills.
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And all to the praise of his glorious justice and his glorious grace. Nothing is coincidental. Nothing is left to chance.
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God is neither arbitrary nor capricious. Everything is according to his plan and decree to bring him glory.
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That's his divine right. That is his prerogative. He sits enthroned. And if that doesn't satisfy your heart or make your heart happy, then maybe you have a heart of stone.
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God's adopted children love the glory of their wonderful and loving Heavenly Father. With that passage, be still and know that I am
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God. I will be exalted. You know, long ago in my younger years as a Christian, I didn't understand that verse.
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Be still and know that I am God. That I'll always be with you or I'll always make sure everything works out for good.
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That's not what it says. It's I'll be exalted. That's all you need to know. But as you mature as a Christian, you start seeing more and more and more.
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That's the only thing that matters. Will die and be forgotten? Rightly so. There's nothing really overly interesting you're looking at anyway.
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Except the vessel of mercy. Thankfully, I get to glorify God's grace. Let's make sure that we don't leave this in the realm of theory only.
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One of the reasons I preached on the man of sorrows is just to remember the cost of redemption.
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Just like Geisler, in theorizing about our position, he leaves out that it cost the farmer his son to save that one boy in the swimming hole.
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God's justice fell heavy upon his own son. Read through Isaiah 53. When you're at your lowest moments, read
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Isaiah 53. Remember the suffering of the man of sorrows. It's no mere theological abstraction we're speaking of.
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The demonstration of holy justice and righteous wrath against all the sins of God's people fell heavy and hard upon Jesus.
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And when we speak of the glorification of God's grace and the salvation of his elect people, it is a weight of glory not able to be measured by any human craft.
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It is a love whose height and width and length and depth are beyond human comprehension.
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Please consider the cost of this love and this unconditional electing grace. You know, when I took preaching class in seminary,
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Dr. Justly, who was a wonderful preaching professor down there, one day he said, all right, everybody, put all your computers away, put all your stuff away, get your
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Bibles out and turn with me to Luke 22. I just want to read this to you guys and I want us to meditate on it for a few minutes.
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Luke 22, 41. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw and he knelt down and prayed, saying,
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Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.
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Then an angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
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And when he rose up from prayer and had come to his disciples, he found them sleeping from sorrow.
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In his moment of greatest sadness, even the men whose souls he came to save could not stay awake even an hour for him to encourage him, to pray for him.
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They did not lift a finger to ease his burden at all. When they felt threatened, they fled and hid and abandoned him to be abused and murdered.
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I want everyone here to recognize something very important. We all suffer and we all experience sadness.
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For many, it really does seem that there's already too much permanent damage in relationships, with children, that there's no way we can imagine
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God fixing it. You see, we can talk about the glory of God and get excited about it and say amen, but you really find out what your theology is made of when
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God rips your heart out. And my family has been going through probably the most difficult season we've been through in the 22 years
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I've been married. We have 10 kids. I'm blessed. All four of my eldest children are professing believers and are
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Christians. But we've been going through some difficult things with one of them that has devastated me on a level that's difficult to even explain.
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And that's why everything has to be understood as glorifying God. You either believe that or you lose your mind.
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We all suffer. You see the damage and you think, how can it possibly be fixed?
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How can this possibly ever go away? How could God be glorified by any of this? But that's why we're told that we walk by faith, not by sight.
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If God answered every question for us, we wouldn't need faith to live. He makes us drink, as Psalm 60 says, the wine of confusion at times to test us, to see if we'll live upon him in the midst of our distresses.
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When everything goes well and everything's good, it's easy to walk high on the clouds and praise
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God and raise your hands and pray hard. But when you can't even find the words at three in the morning to say to God about what you've been begging him for for years, what do you do then?
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You either trust that decree will glorify his name, that he will be exalted somehow in your life and in your family, or you lose your mind.
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Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted. He's saying that because that's all you need to know. You do your duty.
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You love and worship God. You love the people that God has called you to love. And what's outside of your control is not your concern.
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That's easier said than done, isn't it? Paul said in Romans 8, 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared.
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With the glory which shall be revealed on us. Isn't that encouraging? They're not worthy to be compared.
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The most comforting part of being a Christian, just remember, one of the most comforting parts of it is that Jesus is real.
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He was really here. He walked the ground that we walked on. He breathed the air that we breathe.
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He felt what we feel, except in a perfectly righteous way. He felt the pain of our fallen world, perhaps more acutely than we ever could.
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He left the altogether blessed and happy presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit and heavenly glory to enter the realm of the cursed ones, the realm of blasphemies and hate.
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And he did this while we were still unrepentant sinners, faithless, unrighteous, and rebellious, and had no desire for him to do so.
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His mission was to impart life to us through his suffering and his death. And he did what only he could do.
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And that is to change the hearts of men to love what they once hated. No weapon ever fashioned, no power on earth, no army that's ever marched could change a conceited, self -assured, spiritually cold -hearted, prideful, hateful rebel into a docile, loving, obedient, submissive child with a heart that now beats with love for God and neighbor.
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Nothing in creation can do it. That's why Jesus said, you have to be born from above.
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Jesus was really here. When you participate in the Lord's Supper in your churches, the only reason you see that table and you see that bread and that wine is because he taught us to observe it in remembrance of him and his sacrifice until he comes to earth again.
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It's an amazing way of feeling so connected to him. We only do that because he told us to. And yet in our churches, when we do that, it's because he was here when he said those words and they're inscripturated for us.
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He was really here. He left lepers with skin like that of little children, we're told.
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He left blind people with sight. He left hopeless people with a blessed assurance that they were loved by the God that they thought had abandoned them.
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He gave grieving parents, their dead children back to life. He left truth in the place of falsehood.
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He left good in the place of evil. Everywhere he went, everyone who saw him and who has heard of him has seen a great light shining in a dark place, even if they didn't understand it.
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Jesus was really here. He left footprints in the sand and bloodstains on the wood of his cross and on the ground.
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He left an empty tomb with a stone rolled away and his kingdom marches forward and all to the praise of God's glorious and immeasurable grace.
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One of the most comforting parts of being a Christian is knowing that God's passion for my salvation is as great as his passion is to glorify his grace.
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It's one of the most encouraging things to think about. We trust that Jesus' work will save us perfectly because God will not fail to glorify his grace.
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And Jesus will not fail, as we said last time, he will not fail to do his father's will, that of all he's given me,
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I will lose none, but raise it up at the last day. He was really here and he is not ashamed, we're told in scripture.
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He's not ashamed to call us his brothers and his sisters. The cost of our redemption from sin was as high as it could be.
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The cross that Christ bore was heavy. The burden was unimaginable. Stricken, smitten, and afflicted was our
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Lord for our sins and not a one of us was worthy that he should have done it. Perhaps even in eternity to come, we will not fully grasp the meaning of grace.
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For you who know Jesus as your Lord and your savior, I want to encourage you to do what all those application sections in Paul's letters say.
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Give your very best for him. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling.
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Put off the old and put on the new. Fight the good fight against your sins. Despise your sins.
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Pursue holiness. Don't allow past failures to stop you from pursuing holiness today.
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For many Christians, as I've been an elder and a pastor for a long time, guilt over the past, it paralyzes people.
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It paralyzes them. Just remember that God's grace is glorified in the removal of all your guilt.
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And I have really good news. Christ died even for Christian failure. Christ died for the sins of Christians too.
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The sins that you once drank in and loved, they don't define you anymore as a new creature in Christ.
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As far as the East is from the West, so far as Christ removed our transgressions from us and he remembers them no more.
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Alan Rickman, who played the Sheriff of Nottingham, he stole the show from Costner and Freeman because he was a better actor.
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But for us to forget that God alone is the star of the show, of the universe and its entire history, is like a paintbrush believing that it painted the masterpiece instead of the artist who used it.
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We don't praise paintbrushes for the beautiful masterpieces they paint. We praise the artist.
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Our salvation does not depend on us in any way because our salvation has its sole purpose, the glorification of the grace of God.
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That's why all works are excluded from being decisive in it. This is why our willing and running are excluded from it.
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Boasting is excluded from salvation, period. Paul said in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves.
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It's the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. I remember many years ago when
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I was in my early 20s and there was a lady that came to the church while I was working and did a Bible study at her house with her and her family and several other people for a year and would sit and talk to her and argue with her and she thought that baptism saved her.
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She thought that being a member of the church saved her. What about good works? What about this and that and everything else? And we finally, this one phrase of Ephesians 2, 9, finally
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God used it and the lights finally came on. Not by works, lest anyone should boast.
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And I remember her going, that makes sense. Yeah, I would have every reason to boast.
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I'm sitting there going, I've been telling you that for a whole year. What does that tell you though? It's ultimately in God's timing.
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Don't give up on anybody ever. You just keep preaching the gospel. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow.
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Maybe like the repentant thief, just a few moments before they go on to glory, God makes them born again.
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All human boasting is excluded because God's gracious power alone is what saves us. If the decisive factor was in us, be it faith, repentance, good works, perseverance, then we would most certainly boast and we would have every right to do so.
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What makes the saved differ from the unsaved? It is grace alone. It is because of this that the redeemed have a blessed assurance.
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All attempts on our part to steal the show from God are catastrophic because they inevitably ruin the show and destroy our assurance of salvation.
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The decisive factor in salvation is the cross work of Christ alone. It is the cross that secures our faith and our repentance.
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And may God humble our hearts more and more to find our highest joy and our highest satisfaction in the display of God's glory, not ours.
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And may God be praised again by his people in our generation for his having unconditionally elected us, irresistibly, affectionately called us, justified us, adopted us, and glorified us all to the praise of his glorious grace alone.
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As the reformation brought back to the consciousness of the Christian world in such pristine glory 500 years ago, may it echo from the walls of every sanctuary, of every church on earth again.
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Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be glory. Let's pray.
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Our God and Father, we thank you that you're so patient with us. When we grumble, when we complain, when we are troubled by what we don't understand and what you've decreed, help us remember this is your world, your universe, that there's really nothing for us to worry about.
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There's nothing for us to fear at all. And yet there are things that really do mystify us.
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There are things that really do hurt us. We do have those sleepless nights. We do cry out to you in agony and pain.
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And we don't understand so much. And yet, Lord, we also know that if we did not believe that you measure out to us every drop of suffering for our good and your glory, we would lose our minds.
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And we thank you that we can trust you completely with our lives, with the lives of the people that we love, with your church, and with its future in this world.
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May we never forget our place. We are but actors on your stage, and you are the star, and you alone will be glorified.
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In Jesus' name, amen. This is
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Pastor Patrick Hines of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church, located at 108 Bridwell Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any
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Sunday morning at 11 a .m. sharp, where we open the word of God together, sing his praises, and rejoice in the gospel of our risen
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Lord. You can find us on the web at www .bridwellheightspca .org.
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And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.