The Golden Chain of Redemption

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Tonight, we're going to discuss what is called the golden chain of redemption.
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The golden chain of redemption is the process by which God saves an individual.
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And it is outlined for us in the book of Romans, chapter 8, verses 28 through 30.
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So I encourage you to turn there with me and to stand.
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Romans 8, 28 through 30.
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And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.
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For those who are called according to his purpose.
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For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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And those whom he predestined, he also called.
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And those whom he called, he also justified.
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And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
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Father God, be that it is within your will tonight that you open the hearts of everyone here to hear the truth, and Lord, that you would keep me in the truth, keep me from error.
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Focus my heart's attention upon your word.
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Allow your word to speak, O Lord, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
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See, I told you we were going to dive right in.
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Anytime the doctrine of predestination is mentioned, that word is mentioned, it causes some people to cringe just by hearing it uttered.
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But as should be noted in our passage that we just read, predestination is not a word that is foreign to the Bible.
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The Bible uses the word, frankly, it uses the word quite frequently.
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In fact, in the three passages we just read from verses twenty eight to thirty and three passages, the word was used two times.
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Based upon this, we can immediately understand that if a person says, and I've heard this many times, I don't believe in predestination.
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Well, then, as nicely as you can say it with the Bible, because the Bible says that God predestines.
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Now, the method of God's predestination can be debated, but what cannot be debated is that the Bible teaches it.
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How God predestines is what we are going to talk about, and that's that's what we're going to to really flush out tonight.
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But the big question is not whether or not it's in the Bible.
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In fact, if you look.
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At the doctrinal statements of all of the major denominations, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, even the Methodist Church, the Baptist churches, if you look at the doctrines, their statement of faith, their early creedal documents, you will notice that this doctrine is dealt with by them all because it's in the Bible.
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Oh, it's not talked about a lot.
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It is definitely not preached about a lot.
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And I can be very honest in saying that many ministers have been removed from the pulpit for being bold enough to speak on the truth of this subject.
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And I say that not to try to produce any type of martyrdom or complex or say, you know, well, you know, here I stand as a bold man to do this.
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I'm not trying to lift myself up in any way.
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I'm just saying I know for a fact of men who have been removed from the pulpit for teaching the doctrine of predestination, as it is outlined in the Bible, simply because it runs rough shot over people's traditions.
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And traditions are hard to break, but again, the word predestination is in the Bible for someone to say, I don't believe in predestination at all.
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Then to look at a passage like this, they would either have to say, well, the word doesn't mean what the definition is.
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Or they've defined it in another way.
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But again, this is where things get more complicated, most Bible believing Christians do not deny that predestination is taught in the Bible.
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Some will say it isn't, but they're truly ignorant, as we've said, that they just totally run past certain passages.
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Again, what is debated is the method, and historically there have been two views, and I'm going to expound tonight what those two views are.
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Of course, this is a reformed.
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Theology conference, so we are going to look at the reformed view, if you're taking notes, I'm trying to show you how I would put notes on a paper if this were me, because I think it's important to kind of to just say the doctrine of predestination.
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They're basically two views.
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There is the reformed theology view, which, of course, I espouse.
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I wouldn't be ever teaching it.
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And there is the view.
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Called prescience, the prescience view, reformed theology teaches this.
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God has and please, this is the time to engage your mind, because I want you to I want you to truly know the difference between these two reformed theology says God has before the foundation of the world set his affection upon a remnant of humanity referred to in the Bible as the elect, and these will be saved because God will irresistibly draw them to himself.
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They say it again, make sure everybody, if you're trying to write that down, it's going to be hard, I can give that to you at another time.
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God has before the foundation of the world set his affection upon a remnant of humanity referred to as the elect, and these will be saved because God will irresistibly draw them to himself.
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So reformed theology says.
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God predestines based.
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On his will, he chooses God, wouldn't that be easier? God chooses and then there is.
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The prescience view.
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Prescience teaches this God before the foundation of the world, notice they both start the same way, God before the foundation of the world, nobody, nobody.
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Listen, nobody disagrees that God did this before we were ever even created, even those who believe the prescience view believe this happened before anybody was ever created.
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So don't ever let somebody who holds the other view tell you, well, you think God did this before we were all created, before we did it.
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Well, so do you, if you believe the Bible, because what the Bible teaches is not even a question.
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But what they believe is that God, before the foundation of the world, looked down the corridor of time.
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And saw the decisions that people would make.
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And based upon those decisions.
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God predestined them for heaven or hell.
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You see the difference, because in this one, God predestines according.
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To human.
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Well, you see the difference in the reformed theology view is that God predestines based on his will.
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God is the one who makes the choice.
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And the prescience view, God predestines according to human will, man.
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Makes the choice, OK? That's the that's the the the two of you, I mean, really, that's the easiest way that I know of to break it down.
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And of these two views, prescience is the most popular today.
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However, I will argue tooth and nail that this was not the most popular view during the time of the Reformation, this was not the most popular view during the time of the Great Awakening.
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This was not the most popular view during the time before.
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The Roman Catholic Church grew to the expansive thing that we see happening right before the Reformation.
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This was the this was not the view of Augustine in the fourth century.
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This was the view of Augustine even way back.
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This is a view of Paul, too, by the way.
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We'll get to that in a minute.
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This view is popular today because of.
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The change that happened during what is called the Enlightenment period time that happened at the latter part of the 1800s, early part of the 1900s, and it was pushed along by men like Charles Finney.
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Who began to teach that because it was man's decision and not the sovereignty of God that brought someone to salvation, that they could manipulate people into receiving Jesus Christ.
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And what we see in churches today is manipulation tactics being used to try to win people to Jesus Christ.
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I once met a guy who told me he said, I could sit with anybody and I don't care who it is.
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You give me one hour with anybody and they'll receive Jesus Christ.
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I said, no, I'll give you an hour with anybody and they'll say whatever you need them to say to shut you up.
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All you are is a Jesus salesman.
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But you cannot manipulate the sovereign will of God.
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He thought he could, and that's what happens with a lot of churches today, that this is this this view so permeates that it becomes the the mindset behind everything in the church.
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Again, prescience is the majority report in the church, and sadly, it is the only one that most people are ever exposed to.
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I want to tell you, you are in a very, very small minority group because you're in a church where we're actually discussing these things.
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Let me tell you how this usually happens, and I'm not telling you this is what I think happens.
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I can tell you by experience and by testimony of people that I've spoken to.
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This is how this conversation normally goes.
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A person with congregation member will read Romans eight or they'll read Ephesians one or they'll read John eight, John 10, or they'll read John six, not just verses.
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They'll read entire chapters that teach these things and they'll say, hmm, there might be something to this and they'll go to their pastor and they'll say, Pastor, what about this? And the pastor, either not believing in the reformed view, believing in the oppression of you, or however, what I've noticed a lot lately, a lot of pastors believe this, but won't teach it because they're afraid of losing their jobs.
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If I'm lying, I'm dying.
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This is absolutely true.
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They believe it, but they will not teach it.
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So people will come to them and the pastor will say to them, they'll say, man, I'm intrigued.
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This is something at the word.
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God teaches this, this, this, this thing and the pastor will say, well, what's really meant when it says predestined, it doesn't really mean God made a choice.
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What it means is that you made a choice and because God can see into the future, God knew what choice you were going to make.
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And because he knew what choices you were going to make, that's how he predestined.
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So it really doesn't mean what it says, but you see what all the pastor is trying to do or whoever it is trying to do is he's trying to bring down the situation because he knows that if people begin to discuss this, it becomes a powder keg and it can get very explosive because there are people whose traditions cannot accept it and there are people who do not want to hear it.
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And when that happens and it begins to bubble up and sooner or later that bubble is going to burst.
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And now the pastor's got a doctrinal nightmare on his hands.
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And it's better just to keep everybody happy.
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Then to speak the truth.
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I'm not trying to be ugly, I'm just telling you the way of the world, it is much easier and it would be much easier to never talk about these things because then you never have to deal with the debate.
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You never have to deal with the argument.
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Just kind of cruise along with the, you know, Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life messages and never dig into the deep things of God.
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So the question I want to ask tonight, if this is the majority view, which I think that statistics would would bear out the fact that this is the majority view of churches today.
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If this is the majority view.
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Is this view correct? I think you already know what I think, but it doesn't matter what I think.
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It doesn't matter what I believe, it doesn't matter what I think.
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If the Bible teaches this, I'm wrong.
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Amen.
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I mean, it's true.
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It doesn't matter what Keith Foskey believes, it doesn't matter how many hours I've spent studying.
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If the Bible teaches this, I'm wrong.
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So where does this idea come from? Well, it comes from the very verse.
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That we open with tonight, the doctrine of prescience is based upon the verse of scripture that I read in our introduction.
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Many in history have looked at the word for new and looking at that word, they have found the answer to the difficulty of predestination for them.
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All predestination is, is God giving us a play by play of something he watched on his ethereal television set.
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God actually watched it happen.
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And now he's just giving us a play by play of what's going to happen.
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He didn't involve himself.
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He just knows because he's, you know, he's pretty intelligent guy, God, and he can look and see what's going to happen.
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And you know what's funny about that? This is off the subject, but I just want to mention some people have even gotten away from this.
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Because whether you believe in the reform view, whether you believe in the prescience view, you believe that the number of people going to heaven has already been set by God, because whether he determined it by his will or whether he knows it by the virtue of the fact that he knows everything that's going to happen, the numbers set and that bothers people so badly that they've even got away from that.
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And open theology.
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Has become the new playground for a lot of people, open theology says God doesn't even know what's going to happen.
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He just he just took a good guess kind of it really is open theology teaches God is not certain what's going to happen until it happens.
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So some people can't even accept this anymore.
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However, again, the question is, is the prescient view the right understanding of the word for no? I submit to you, it is not.
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In fact, I submit to you that the fundamental flaw of many Bible teachers is their misinterpretation of Romans 8, 28 through 30.
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I believe that this is the is the failure point of so many theologians as they come here and they read it for something it does not say.
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So it's and I don't want to outline for you four reasons.
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Why I reject the prescient view of predestination based upon context and reason.
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And again, this is the view I'm saying is not it based upon this passage.
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So let's read the passage again.
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I'm going to do you guys mind if I erase this? Does anybody need this? Because I need to I need more writing.
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I need another board, put a big old board behind me, the reformed theology view, God predestined according to his choice, prescient view, God predestined according to our choice.
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Now, in Romans 8, we have what is called the golden chain of redemption, and it goes like this for whom he foreknew.
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So let's put that one up there for whom he foreknew.
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He also did what they also predestined.
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Thank you.
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And whom he predestined, he.
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Well, go to the second use of the word predestined for whom he foreknew, he predestined whom he predestined, he called.
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Thank you.
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The conforming is part of it.
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But in the in the chain, I just I want to put these together.
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All right.
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Called for new predestined, called next justified.
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Thank you.
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And whom he justified, he glorified.
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OK, golden chain of redemption.
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For whom he foreknew, he predestined him, he predestined, he called him, he called, he glorified for whom he called, he justified him, whom he justified, he glorified.
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Now, let's look at this from a just a purely logical viewpoint.
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The argument of.
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The prescient view.
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Is that God foreknew and what that means to them is that God looked into the corridor of time, saw who was going to receive his call and believe it, and then responded based upon that response, he predestined them.
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Right.
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That's the that's the view.
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Where does the calling land in this list? Predestination.
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And that interesting that the calling comes after the choice has been made.
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Honestly, if you stop right there, that's logic enough to say God looked at the corridor of time, saw who was going to receive the call.
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Oh, wait, if the call comes after the predestination, that logic does not foreknew, predestined the calling to justify and glorify.
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If you think of it as a populace of all the people in the world, God foreknew.
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The elect will get to the word election and predestination, we'll get the word election later, but of all the population, God foreknew them and we'll talk about what foreknow means in a minute, because it does not mean to look down the corridor of time and see what they're going to do.
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But we'll get there in a minute.
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The elect are predestined, they are called, they are justified and they are ultimately glorified.
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This is another reason, by the way, to believe in eternal security.
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You've heard me talk about that doctrine before that those who are saved, those who are justified will will not lose their justification because this says those who are called are justified.
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Those who are justified are glorified.
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Nobody gets left out.
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It doesn't say some whom he foreknew, he predestined and some whom he predestined, he called and some whom he called, he glorified and vice and so on and so on.
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Says those whom he did this for, this happened, those whom he did this for, that happened.
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And as a result, this and that's just I mean, that's just looking at it from a clearly basic understanding of language.
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If the foreknowledge is based upon the call.
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And the call comes later than the foreknowledge in the choice, then how can the choice and the foreknowledge be based on the call? So this is a way that he can see into the future.
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Let's deal with that.
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I have four reasons, again, to reject the prescient view.
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Let's look at the first one.
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And if you're taking notes, I want you to take notes in this fashion.
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Big Roman numeral one, the object of.
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Make sure I say this of the verb foreknew, this is Roman numeral one.
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This is our first first point, the object of the verb foreknew.
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What is the object of the foreknew? The person.
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And the reason why that's important, it says whom he foreknew.
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It doesn't say.
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He foreknew they were going to believe.
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Now, you might say, well, that's implied.
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Show me where.
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Where is it implied? It doesn't say it for someone to say what this means is that God knew they were going to believe.
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Show me where it's at.
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It doesn't say for what he foreknew about them was that they were going to believe thus based upon that he predestined them anyway, says it says for whom he foreknew.
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What's the object of the verb? The person.
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God will not choose a person without first knowing the person, that's pretty obvious, right? He knows them to foreknow does not simply mean to look at what they're going to do and make a choice based upon that, because if that's the case, we are reading into the text.
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And what is the what is the definition of reading into a text? What's the word? Call it eisegesis, right? That means to read something in that is not there.
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And that's what so many people do.
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They say, well, this says God foreknew what they were going to do, and that's why he made the decision.
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Well, it doesn't say that we have to add that in to make that the case.
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I like what R.C.
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Sproul says on this particular topic.
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He says, excuse me, R.C.
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Sproul says to add that this is foreknowledge of what people are going to do before he predestined them runs contrary to the rest of the list.
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Why? Because if this is based on what we do and these are all based on what God does, it runs contrary to the list.
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These are all actions God is taking.
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It says nothing about man's actions.
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God is the one who foreknows, God is the one who predestines, God is the one who calls, God is the one who justifies, God is the one who glorifies.
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Where in any of that list is anything you've done? Nowhere.
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So the object of foreknowledge is the person.
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The the person who will believe now that may not have convinced you, so let's go a little deeper to the definition.
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The definition, this is the net, the definition of the verb foreknowledge, what does the word no mean in the Bible? When it's used of God knowing someone.
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Does it mean simply that God has a passive understanding of who this person is? Ever does the Bible say, does the Bible ever express that God knows Kiefoski or knows anyone in the Bible in the expression of simply, yeah, I know who that guy is, the way we use the word, no, never, ever.
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In fact, on the contrary, the word no in the Bible is often used in the saving sense, the affectionate sense like this.
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When Jesus said this, Matthew seven, he said on that day, many will come unto me and say, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out many demons in your name and do many mighty miracles in your name? And on that day, I will look at them and say, depart from me.
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I never knew you.
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Does that mean Jesus never met him like Jesus? I'm being a little facetious there, but is that what it means that Jesus say, yeah, we never met.
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You know, you didn't come to any of my parties.
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No, it means I didn't have a saving relationship with you.
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There was not a saving relationship based upon faith with you, a saving knowledge.
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There are other places where we see this.
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And we see that we see the word for no used.
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As a relationship word, first Peter, one twenty, if you want to make a note of this, first Peter, one twenty.
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Talks about Jesus, guess what it says about Jesus, it says he was foreknown.
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Before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, does God just passively know Jesus or does God have a loving relationship with Jesus? Oh, I think that was pretty obvious, right? To foreknow in this sense must mean a relationship.
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The idea is also seen in the Old Testament, Amos, chapter three, verse two, God is speaking to Israel and he says, you only have I known of all nations of the earth.
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Therefore, I will punish your inequities.
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God says you are the only one of all the nation that I have this loving relationship with.
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That's I'm going to punish you like I punish my children of all the nations in the world.
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And you know what's so funny about election and predestination is nobody has a problem with it in the Old Testament.
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Because it's so obvious in the Old Testament, God only chose one nation.
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Nobody has a problem with the fact that God didn't choose the Assyrians.
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God didn't choose the Egyptians.
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God didn't choose the Canaanites.
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In fact, God had the Canaanites wiped out man, woman, child and animal.
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And we just read that and go, OK.
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And we get a New Testament and we say, well, God doesn't work that way anymore because God changes all the time.
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We know that's not true.
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There's no problem with election in the Old Testament.
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We know it.
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God said that God said Israel of you, of all nations of the world.
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I've chosen you.
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I've set my affection on you.
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I have known you from the foundation of the world or I foreknew you.
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Then comes the New Testament.
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And he says, for whom I foreknew, I predestined whom I chose, whom I set my affection on, whom I loved.
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You know what? The first time the word no is used in the Bible, you know, it's used for relationship between a man and a woman.
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Adam knew Eve and they bore Cain.
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The word no is never used when it's spoken of God to a person or God to an individual is never used of passive knowledge.
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It speaks of affection and relationship.
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Whom he foreknew.
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He predestined, oh, man, that's scary, because that means God made the choice.
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Well, yeah, we're going to talk about how difficult that is at another time, but my goal for tonight is not to is not to debate the ins and outs of it.
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It's just to say, is this what it teaches? Because what did I say at the beginning? If this is what it teaches, then the questions and the answers come.
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Later.
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We've got to determine, is this what it says? I want to I want to read you from Nelson's Bible Dictionary now.
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Nelson's Bible Dictionary is not one of those great tombs of theological material.
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It's a good it's a good Bible dictionary if you have it.
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But it's you know, it's not Kittles Theological Dictionary or something like that.
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This is just a basic dictionary.
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You can buy it at Lifeway.
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It's nothing fancy.
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That's why I went to it, because I wanted to get one of my dictionaries that I thought, you know what? I'm going to look up for knowledge.
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I'm going to look up for new in the dictionary and I just want to I'm going to I'm going to print out what it says just so that everybody can hear my definition and see.
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Does this you know, does this jive with? Yes, I said does this jive with the standard definition? Here's what it says, Nelson's Bible Dictionary, go to the F's, look up for knowledge.
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This is what it says.
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The unique knowledge of God that enables him to know all events, including the free acts of people before they happen, period.
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Goes on to say this, God's foreknowledge is much more than foresight.
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God does not know future events and human actions because he foresees them.
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He knows them because he wills them to happen.
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And it gives a list of scripture verses.
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Thus, God's foreknowledge is an act of his will.
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And it gives some scripture verses in Romans 829, which is what we're examining.
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So this is this is from this dictionary.
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I didn't add it in.
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In Romans 829, 11 to the Apostle Paul uses the word for new to mean choose or to set special affection on the electing love of God, not foresight of human action is the basis of his predestination and salvation.
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And a list of scripture verses.
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The same idea is used to express the nation of Israel's special relationship to God and a list of scripture verses.
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You know what's so funny about that is that is not a reformed publication.
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Nelson's Bible dictionary wasn't put out by a bunch of reformed guys hoping to score a little credit with their dictionary definition.
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This is one of the most I could go to any preacher's study on the north side.
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I could walk right into his library.
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I could pull his Nelson's Bible dictionary off of his shelf and show him that the definition is what it is.
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It's not like it's a debate.
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It's just is what it is.
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And even the standard text, the standard definitions from a regular old Bible dictionary gives it to us straight.
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It is what it is.
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All right, so we've seen based upon what we've learned so far, the context is that the object of the verb is the person.
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The definition is a setting of affection upon for now to know someone to to to enter into a relationship with them.
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Now, the third point, again, running out of space and they need this.
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All right.
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Third point.
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I get rid of this, too.
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This is the third point.
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This is my favorite.
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God's foreknowledge is not passive.
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It is.
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Determinative underline not passive, it is determinative.
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Now, what does that mean? God doesn't just know what's going to happen because he can see the future.
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He knows what will happen because he has willed it through divine decree.
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The Westminster Confession of Faith says it like this.
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I like the Westminster Confession of Faith because it tends to simplify difficult things.
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This is what the Westminster Confession of Faith says.
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It says God, from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatever shall come to pass.
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Simply stated, nothing happens in the world except according to the decree of God.
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Now, you might say, but wait a minute, Pastor, there's a lot of bad stuff that happens.
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Are we blaming it on God? No.
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But what we are saying is that God has purposed from the foundation of the world to ensure that his plan is going to be what is certainly brought in the end.
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And there will be nothing that thwarts the plan of God.
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God's will will be worked out.
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And the best example ever is the example of Joseph.
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Yes, I know if you've ever heard me preach on God's sovereignty, you've heard the story of Joseph many times.
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Well, you came, you can hear it again.
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Is this important? The story of Joseph in the Bible is one of the most powerful stories expressing the determinative will of God that I know of.
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Because what happened to Joseph? He was thrown into a well, he was sold into slavery by his brothers.
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That's bad.
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He was wrongfully accused of attempted rape by the wife of Potiphar.
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That's worse.
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He's put into prison.
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He helped some guys out.
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They don't even, you know, he helps a guy out and he doesn't even reciprocate and try to help them back.
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That's even worse.
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So finally.
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It comes about that the pharaoh needs someone to interpret a dream.
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Joseph is brought out of his cell to come and be the dream interpreter.
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And what happens? He receives the approval of the pharaoh.
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He's lifted to the highest position, second only to the pharaoh in all of the land of Egypt.
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And then the famine comes and his brothers come looking for food and they come to him.
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They don't know it's him right away.
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And like I said, I want to go into the whole story, because most of you, most of you know it.
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But they come to him.
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He kind of plays a little bit with him, doesn't tell him it's him automatically.
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And then when he finally exposes himself to him, what do they do? Oh, my goodness, he's going to kill us.
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Because that's the natural response of anybody, right? I mean, you threw him in a well, sold him into slavery.
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You were going to kill him yourself, but you decided to make a little money off of him.
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You did bad.
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You deserve to be punished.
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That's what they all thought.
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Boy, we're going to be punished.
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Genesis 45.
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Verse four, if you want to write this down, it's verses four through eight, go back later and take a look at these.
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Genesis 45, verses four through eight.
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So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please.
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And they came near and he said, I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into slavery.
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You did it.
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It was your responsibility.
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You did bad.
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I'm not saying that's how he said it.
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I'm just there's a point being made.
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You sold him into slavery.
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You did it.
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And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here.
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Oh, wait, no, wait, wait.
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First thing he says, you sold me here.
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But don't be angry with yourself.
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Why? For God sent me before you to preserve life.
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Yeah, you had a hand in this, but God is the one whose will was done.
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It goes on to say for the famine has been in the land for two years and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.
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And God sent me.
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Same phrase, by the way.
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God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on Earth and to keep alive for you many survivors.
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So it was not you who sent me here, but God.
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Wow.
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You did bad.
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What you did was wrong.
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But guess what? God's determinative will was done even in your horrible action, because God is sovereign.
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Later on in Genesis 50, they think they think again, he's going to kill him because now the father's died and they think, oh, man, now that dad's dead there, he really going to take it to us.
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He was just he was just trying to be nice.
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He want to kill us in front of dad that make that all sad and everything.
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Now that dad's dead, he's going to just totally wipe us out.
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He didn't.
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But he did remind them.
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As for you, Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, as for you, you meant evil against me again, he doesn't he doesn't fail to remind them you were wrong and what your heart's desire was, however.
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As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.
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Same action.
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The same action that could be meant for evil by a human being can be meant for good by God, and guess who's the only one who knows? God, we don't always know, and it's hard for us to look at the world and say, man, why did that happen? That is so terrible.
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God knows.
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And his will is determinative.
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If anyone understood God's foreknowledge is purposeful and determinative, it was Joseph.
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God doesn't just passively see the future coming and wonder, like I said this morning, he doesn't sit up there going, boy, I wonder what's going to happen next.
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And God doesn't just sit and like I said, watch the God didn't sit before the foundation of the world and watch the ethereal television set and say, oh, well, now I know how it's going to turn out.
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If that's the case, how could he ever how could he ever say that he knows for certain that Christ would be the victor over sin? How could he prophesy anything if God just simply got an idea of what's going to happen? If God is not working out his will in the world, how can he know for certain what will happen? It's a tough question.
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And if you are wondering about the phrase determinative, I like to show one thing to you, Acts two, twenty three, and you can make a note of that.
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And I'm going to read this from the King James because it uses the word determinate.
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I like the word determinate there.
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Acts two, twenty three in the King James Version says this.
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Jesus being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken him by wicked hands of crucified and slain.
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So basically what Acts chapter two and Acts chapter four teach us, because both of them say very similar things, is that even though the most evil act in all of history by man, the crucifixion of the only innocent man who ever lived, Jesus Christ was a horrible, terrible, bad thing.
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It was a part of the determinate will and foreknowledge of God.
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And by the way, that is a place where the phrase determinate there does modify the word foreknowledge.
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It says determinate counsel and foreknowledge, and the word determinate modifies both.
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It's the determinate foreknowledge of God.
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It is not just that God sits and looks at what's going to happen, but he determines.
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Earlier, I read to you from the Nelson's Bible Dictionary.
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Now I want to read to you from another source.
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This is the Believer's Bible commentary, again, not the most theologically deep commentary in the world.
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In fact, I want to recommend to you today, if you are new in your Bible study and you are just looking for a basic one volume commentary that could it could really help you out.
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I want to recommend the Believer's Bible commentary.
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I really like John MacArthur recommends it to.
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Believer's Bible commentary is pretty good.
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It's not super deep, but it really helped get you started.
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But let me read.
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I want to read you what it says about God's foreknowledge.
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Because, again, this is not a reformed publication.
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This is not something that was put out by, you know, R.C.
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Sproul or one of those guys.
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This is this is just a standard commentary that I could go again to almost any pastor on the north side and find this in his library.
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And this is what it says.
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Some have tried to reconcile sovereign election and human responsibility by saying God foreknew who would trust the Savior and that those are the ones whom he elected to be saved.
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They base this on Romans eight, twenty nine and first Peter one, two, which both use the word foreknowledge.
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But this overlooks this is from the commentary, but this overlooks the fact that God's foreknowledge is determinative.
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It is not just that he knows in advance who will trust the Savior, but that he predetermines this result by drawing certain individuals to himself.
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In quote.
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This is a standard text.
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It's not even.
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It's not even something I didn't have to go into my reformed commentaries to find this stuff, you just find it everywhere because you can't get past it again.
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The reason why you can't get past it is because reformed theology is just biblical theology.
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It's just truly reading what the Bible says and understanding what the words mean.
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I want to read to you now from a reformed writer, A.W.
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Pink made no bones about his particular stance.
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He wrote the book called The Sovereignty of God.
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And if you're interested, that book needs to go on the top of your queue.
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That's a that's a good book.
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Sovereignty of God by A.W.
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Pink.
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I want to read to you from that book and get down here so I can actually see this.
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Few people are likely to call into question the statement that God knows and foreknows all things.
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But perhaps many would hesitate to go further than this.
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Yet, is it not self-evident that if God foreknows all things, he has foreordained all things? It is not clear.
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Is it not clear that God foreknows what will be? Because he has decreed what shall be.
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God's foreknowledge is not the cause of events, rather are events, the effects of his eternal purpose.
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When God has decreed a thing shall be, he knows it will be.
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In the nature of things, there cannot be anything known as what shall be unless it is certain to be.
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And there is nothing certain to be unless God has ordained it shall be.
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Take the crucifixion as an illustration.
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On this point of teaching of scripture, on this point, the teaching of scripture is as clear as a sunbeam.
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Christ is the lamb whose blood was to be shed, was foreordained before the foundation of the world.
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First Peter, 120.
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Having been ordained the slaying of the lamb, God knew he would be led to the slaughter and therefore made it known accordingly through Isaiah, the prophet.
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The Lord Jesus was not delivered up by God for knowing it before it took place, but by his fixed counsel and foreordination.
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Acts 223 foreknowledge of future events then is founded upon God's decrees.
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Hence, if God foreknows everything that is to be, it is because he has determined in himself from all eternity everything which will be.
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Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world, which shows that God has a plan that God did not begin his work at a random at random or without a knowledge of how his plan would succeed.
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Foreknowledge does not mean watching it happen.
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It means God has determined thus he knows for sure.
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So we've seen based upon simply the context, the definition.
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That based upon the context and the definition that the present view is lacking in support, we have also seen that God's foreknowledge is not passive, but it is determinative.
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Thus, it doesn't make any sense to say foreknowledge is simply God looking down the corridor of time.
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But the final one is the reason why I think the present view fails the most.
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And this is the one I want you to really think about tonight.
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The Bible teaches faith is a gift and that really hits the heart of the matter right there, because reformed theology teaches that the doctrine of total depravity, which means that man is by nature a sinner and has no affection for God.
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You might say, wait a minute, I know a lot of people who seek after God.
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Well, the Bible says that you don't.
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The Bible says there are a lot of people who seek after the benefits of God.
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They seek after the blessing of God, but they don't seek after God.
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And you know that as soon as you start explaining to them who God is and what he does, because I say, boy, I like the idea.
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I'm going to heaven.
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I like the idea of eternal life.
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Yes, but God commands you to repent of your sin.
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I don't like that.
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Or you start explaining to them who God is.
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God is a God who will send people to an eternal place of punishment.
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Oh, not my God.
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My God would never send anybody to hell.
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I think, yeah, sure, because your God doesn't exist.
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He couldn't do a thing.
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It's impossible for somebody who doesn't exist to do anything.
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So you're right and wrong at the same time.
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An amazing mankind naturally rebels against God.
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And total depravity simply is saying what the Bible says, and that there is none good, no, not one.
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There is none who seeks after God.
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The Bible literally says there is no God seeker.
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Romans chapter three, that phrase is that there is no one who seeks after God in the Greek.
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Literally, it says there is no God seeker.
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There just isn't one.
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So if God is not sought by us, how in the world do any of us come to God? God does the seeking, right? I don't seek him, he seeks me.
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I don't go to him, he comes to me.
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And Jeremiah 13, 23, if you write this down, Jeremiah 13, 23, Jeremiah asked this question.
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I love this question.
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He says, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots? Then can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil? I like that because basically he says you are by nature evil.
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And we've talked about this on Wednesday nights.
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We've I've been building up for this because I've been teaching on the doctrine of original sin.
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The doctrine of original sin is the basically the doctrine that we're born in sin, that we are sinners because of the sin of Adam that has been passed down to us.
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This is clearly a biblical teaching.
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Romans five, Psalm 51.
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These are taught there is clear as day.
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So if we are sinners by nature, how in the world, if we're dead in sin, this is good.
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I heard somebody say it this morning.
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I think it was Sybil.
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How can a dead man do anything right? And if we're spiritually dead, what do we do? Do we make ourselves alive? Give ourselves CPR? No.
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How can a dead man do anything? We can't.
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The Ethiopian can't change the color of his skin.
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The leopard can't change the number of his spots.
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Neither can we who are evil change and become good.
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God must change us.
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Ephesians two one.
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And he made alive those who were dead in their trespasses and sins.
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God does the making alive.
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Based upon this, we teach the fact that faith is not something that is mustered up by sinful men.
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Faith is not something I produce.
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Faith is not something I come up with.
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Faith is not my gift to God.
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I've heard people say this.
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God does ninety nine percent, but you do one percent.
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And that one percent is your faith.
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Beloved, it's wrong.
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Because even faith is considered in the Bible a gift from God.
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The carnal mind is an entity with God doesn't want to do what God wants it to do until it is changed by God.
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We call this change being born again or.
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Regeneration, that's the technical theological word regeneration, you are dead, you are made alive.
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What's that regeneration? And guess what regeneration does.
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Regeneration produces faith, not the other way around.
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People think you believe and then you're born again.
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That's actually not the case.
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The Bible says you're born again and then you believe.
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Wow.
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Yeah, because God opens your heart.
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God gives you new life and then you believe it happens at the same time.
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It's not it only there's if you put one before the other, you can only put one before the other in a split second of time because one happens and then the other is the result.
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It's not as if you can be born again when you're 12 and then you start believing when you're 30.
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That's that's not what I'm saying.
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What I'm saying is God regenerating your heart is what brings about the belief in your soul.
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God must give us faith if we are to be saved.
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Where does the Bible teach this? John 637 is one place.
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John 637 says all the father gives me will come to me.
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And you might say, well, I didn't say what you just said.
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Let me explain it, though.
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Jesus got all these people that have come to him.
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He just fed 5000 people.
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They were impressed.
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Now they're all coming to him.
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Some of them didn't believe.
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And Jesus said, don't be surprised that some don't believe, but notice all the father gives me will come to me now.
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Now, think about what I mean.
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That means God does something before we do something.
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The father gives and then we come later on in that same chapter.
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He says no one can come to me.
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Unless the father in heaven draws him.
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Now, that's that's even different, because the first he says all the father gives will come all in this group.
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The ones who are being given by the father as a gift to the son are going to come.
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The natural result of being given to the son is that we come.
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That's the first.
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And then later he says no one can come unless he's drawn by the father.
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It's just another way of saying the same thing.
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No one's going to be able to come.
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No one can universal negative.
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I remember I talked about universal negatives a few weeks ago.
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Talked about if I said no one can ride a bike and then I walked outside somebody's riding a bike.
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Guess what? That's no longer universal negative because I'm wrong.
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But if Jesus said no one can come, then no one can come unless the father in heaven draws him.
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And somebody says, well, that doesn't mean God forces them.
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It just means God woos them.
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And I'm only making the voice because I'm serious.
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This is what people say.
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They get all they get all emotional.
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That drawing is a wooing.
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It's not a forcing.
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Yet, as we talked about in Sunday school this morning, if you go over to the book of Acts, it uses the same word.
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It says Paul and Paul and Silas were wooed into court by the soldiers.
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No, it says they were dragged into court.
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But it's the same word.
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They were taken out, beaten to a pulp and wooed.
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Yeah, they were dragged.
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The word typically used in the language was to pull water up out of a well.
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And nobody stands up at the top of a well.
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I did this on this one.
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Nobody stands on top of a well and says, come on, water.
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Come on, water.
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No, you put the bucket down and you drag it up.
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Literally, it says no one comes to me unless the father drags him.
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That's what I mean, that's the great the Greek word, the word draw, drag, unless compel, that's the best word, compel.
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God is the one.
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Who compels us to come, because by nature, we don't want to come.
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And then he says this, because I've heard people say, well, God draw people and they don't come.
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Well, if you read the whole verse, it says this is John six, 44.
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No one can come to me unless the father in heaven draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
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If he's going to raise him up on the last day, the one who's drawn is going to come.
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And unless you want to say the second hand is different than the first hand, then you're saying that there are some people who are drawn who are not coming.
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And I think I just confused the whole group.
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So let me start that again.
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There are two hands in the passage, the same hand that is drawn is the one who's raised up.
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If you're going to say that there are those who are drawn who don't come, then it runs roughshod against the passage, because the passage says everyone who is drawn is raised up.
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And then way at the end of the chapter, John six, sixty five.
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Jesus said all this is rather no one can come to me unless the father in heaven grants it to him.
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There it is.
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He's just repeating what he said earlier, but this time he uses the word grants because he wants to make the point God is the one who opens the heart to believe.
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God is the one who does it, which means this.
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God is not up in heaven holding people back.
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And I get this and we're going to talk about this more tomorrow night.
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Let's talk about questions.
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There's people who think, you know, if you believe in predestination, you believe that there's a lot of people out there that want to go to heaven.
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And God said, no, no, no, no, I don't.
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I believe nobody wants to go to heaven.
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And the only reason anybody ever does is because God reaches into your sinful soul, gives you a new life and pulls you to himself.
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Not because you're trying to get in and God's like, no, I don't want you.
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The only reason you come is because God loves you enough to reach down and save you.
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And because he doesn't save everyone does not make him unfair.
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It displaces justice and his grace together.
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God had a choice when he created the world.
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I can choose to give everyone grace.
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And then no one would go to hell.
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I can choose to give no one grace that everybody goes to.
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I'm sorry, I choose to give everyone grace, everybody goes to heaven.
01:00:05
I choose to give no one grace, everybody goes to hell.
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Or I can set my affection upon those whom I choose.
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And the rest will get their just reward.
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Who are we to say God is unfair? The Bible teaches faith is a gift.
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Romans 12, 3, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned to you.
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God is the one who gives us faith.
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Philippians 1, 29, for it has been granted to you for the sake of Christ, not only to suffer, but also to believe in him.
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It's been given to you by God, the ability to believe.
01:00:51
Ephesians 2, 8, my favorite verse in the whole Bible, for by grace you have been saved through faith and that is not of yourselves.
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It is a gift of God.
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And what is the antecedent of that? The entirety of the statement, grace through faith is the entire antecedent of that which is the gift.
01:01:18
Faith is a gift, which leads us to a question.
01:01:22
If faith itself is a gift, how can God look through the quarters of time and see what he himself is going to give a person and it not be considered determinant for knowledge? If God's the one who's going to give the gift and God's the one who's going to make the choice of whom he gives the gift to, and then he's going to say, now I'm going to see who does something with it.
01:01:40
No, he's already decided who he's giving the gift.
01:01:46
That really changes things, doesn't it? If faith is a gift and God's the one who determines who he gives the gift to.
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And this debate is John MacArthur says this, he says, this is the unanswerable question of the Armenian, and we'll talk about what that means later.
01:02:06
Armenian is a person who believes in prescience and we'll get to all that later.
01:02:10
He says this is the unanswerable question of the person who believes in prescience.
01:02:15
Another, he says, if God based salvation on his advanced knowledge of those who would believe, where did the saving faith come from? It could not arise from their fallen natures because the natural sinful person is at enmity with God.
01:02:29
There is absolutely nothing in man's carnal nature to prompt him to trust in the God against whom he is rebelling.
01:02:35
The unsaved person is blind and dead to the things of God.
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He has absolutely no source of saving faith within himself.
01:02:40
A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, Paul declares.
01:02:44
For they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.
01:02:48
The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving and they might not see the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ who is the image of God.
01:02:56
How can anyone say if it is faith that is the gift of God that that's what God's going to see in a person to make him choose? How can God be the supplier of the faith and make his decision based upon what he himself is going to supply? Can it not be considered determinative? Again, I genuinely believe, I'm going to start bringing it too close.
01:03:28
I genuinely believe with all of my heart that the entire debate about predestination is summed up in how someone interprets Romans 8, 28-30.
01:03:39
Especially the word foreknew.
01:03:41
Does foreknowledge mean that God simply sees a person's faith and chooses based upon that faith? I hope that your answer to that after tonight would have to be no, because logic, language and reason dictate otherwise.
01:03:58
If this word means that God elects people to believe and gives them the gift of faith, which we have seen tonight is the case, then the debate should be over.
01:04:08
After this, it's just a matter of answering questions and learning how to live in the light of this new information.
01:04:12
It's not about is it the case anymore? Sadly, however, the debate will roll on.
01:04:19
It will roll on because people do not give up on traditions easily, especially in the church.
01:04:22
Boy, especially in the church.
01:04:25
And the traditional understanding will continue to be perpetuated by folks who do not want to believe what the Bible clearly teaches about God's predestinating purpose.
01:04:34
So allow me to conclude with a final thought on our passage for the evening.
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Romans 8, 28-30 is called by theologians the golden chain of redemption.
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This means that these are the five essential works of God that bring about our salvation.
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First, he makes the choice.
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He foreknows us.
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Then he predestines based upon his choice.
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As a result of his predestination, he calls.
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As a result of the call, we believe and are justified.
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And as a result of justification, we will be glorified.
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And again, this is why we believe in eternal security.
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God predestined no one who will not be justified.
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And God justified no one who will not be glorified.
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Thus, it gives us a great deal of comfort to know that our salvation is not up to our fickle in and out weavings of our trust in God, which, as you know, can be strong one day and weak the next.
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But our salvation is based solely and completely in the work of God.
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If you have been brought to faith by God, you will be brought to glory by God.
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Those who have been brought to faith by God ought to praise him not only because he has chosen, but because he will preserve them.
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And this preserving power is what we are kept by to the day of redemption.
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Let us pray.
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Father God, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you even for the most difficult parts.
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Lord, what is so interesting to me is when I read Romans 8 and I read verse 28 and almost everybody knows it.
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They quote it all the time, which says you work all things together for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose.
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And then a lot of people, Lord, know what comes after.
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They know where it says neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor powers or principalities or anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
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They know that.
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But they ignore what comes in the middle.
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And that is that you are the sovereign God who not only chose, but in your choice, predestined, draw, call, justified and glorified.
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We love you, Father.
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I pray for the remainder of this conference that people would not be discouraged by new information and new ideas.
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But Lord God, they would be encouraged to want to come and continue to study.
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I ask it, Lord, that you be a part of this.
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Continue to keep the weather at bay.
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Continue to give us strength in our minds and me and my voice.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.