1689 London Baptist Confession (part 8)

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We're not really taking a detour this morning, in fact, what we're going to be talking about is straight out of the
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London Baptist Confession of Faith, but it has to do with the decrees of God, because I think a couple weeks ago we were talking about the sovereignty of God.
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We're just talking about whether things happen that are outside of God's control, whether there are things that he doesn't actually...
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I mentioned something that nothing happens outside of God's control, and so there were a couple questions about that, and I wanted to handle that this morning.
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We're just going to deal with that in the next 45 minutes. I would like you to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1, because this is a verse that we'll be going to early and often, like voting in Chicago, you just go early and often.
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Ephesians 1, verse 11, and to just sort of set the context a little bit,
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Paul, as he's introducing this epistle, familiar verses, but he starts doing the typical thing in verse 1,
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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he just extols the triune
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God and basically explains the doctrine of election. And in the midst of that, we come to verse 11, and when we see the word him here, it refers to Christ, so in him, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined to salvation according to the purpose of him, and this is the key here, who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
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So, I stole this from Dr. Greg Nichols, a friend of Pastor Mike's, and some of this is really highfalutin, so I'm going to try to boil it down a little bit.
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Talking about the decree of God, he says that God's decree is an eternal determination of his will.
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Now, that may not help you, but if we just look back at what Ephesians 1, verse 11 says, the counsel of his will, and he says that it depicts predestination as part of his decree, and here's the idea, you know, in a nugget, you know, it's this.
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Before time began, when God determined that he was going to create, that he was going to create a universe, that he was going to create all of us, that history was going to exist.
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Hi, Miss Cooley, you're not in the nursery. I guess she's only in the nursery during the sermon here this morning. When he decided he was going to do all of that, he didn't just throw out a, let's say, a blank canvas and just kind of wait to see what would show up.
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He actually painted it all, right, and then it happens.
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R .C. Sproul said there is no such thing as a rebel molecule in the universe, by which he means what?
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What does he mean when he says that? By him all things consist and move and have their being.
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God is ultimately sovereign, Larry. There is nothing out of his control.
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If God, you know, as I said, if before time began, before anything happened, if he planned it all out, and I like the idea that I just came up with of this picture thing because here is what we should understand about history.
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We experience it in a very linear fashion. We walk through history as it were, right?
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The past is behind us. The future is in front of us. The present is right where we are, and that's how we view things.
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Well, for God, he exists outside of time. So to him, the past, the present, and the future are all equally present because time has no meaning whatsoever to him.
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He sees it all. It's all laid out before him. So he's not surprised by anything that's happened because he has painted it all.
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He's laid it all out. He's predestined. He's foreordained it. There are no surprises.
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There are no unexpected contingencies. He doesn't have a spreadsheet that says, well, okay, if Steve chooses this,
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I'm going to then cause this, or if he does this, I'm going to do this.
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You know, some massively long spreadsheet even just for me because my decisions are often confusing.
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But he doesn't have to incorporate not only me but everybody else. He doesn't have to do that because he knows, and not only does he know everything, but here's the point of the decree of God.
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Here's what we don't see. The decree of God is not known as his incredible foreknowledge.
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He knows things. Why does he know things are going to happen? Because he decreed them.
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Now, this is where it gets difficult, and we'll talk more about this because what do you immediately think when you hear that God decrees everything whatsoever comes to pass?
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What's that? Sin. Oh, evil things.
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And so then we think, well, how can that be, right? Other things that you might think when you think of God decreeing everything, besides sin.
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Barry? Determinism. Determinism. Which means, yes.
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We become fatalistic. We are robots. You know, my choices don't matter because God has determined everything.
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So life is, you know, much like for an atheist, life has no meaning.
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Well, for a determinist, you know, or somebody who thinks their choices don't matter, therefore life has no particular meaning either.
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We're just robots. You know, we come from the scrap heap. We're heading to the scrap heap, and everything that happens in between is already determined anyway, so it doesn't matter what
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I do. What's wrong with that line of thinking? It doesn't get my fingers moving.
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We're responsible. It's exactly right. Mr. Zuck has nailed the proverbial head of the nail.
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Thank you. Yeah, he's hit the nail on the head. Well, you know, it's, you know, it was a long night.
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We say this often, and I don't think we can say it often enough. God is sovereign, and man is responsible.
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You are going to be held responsible for what you do. Why? Because you freely choose to do what you do.
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But you said God is sovereign. Yes. God is sovereign. Man is responsible.
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See, no objections. We'll move on. Okay. So, again, this is
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Nichols again. He says, by which in his decretive function, that means when he decrees, he designed and determined in eternity everything that happens in history.
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In other words, to get back to my imperfect painting analogy, not only did he determine where everything was going to be, but what color it was going to be, and when it was going to be filled in, the whole nine yards.
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He did it all. We'll get to normal language here in a moment, but let me just read this.
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The concept of God's decree, God's decree is the eternal act of God's will in which the triune
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God, emphatically the Father, solely out of his good pleasure designed and determined in eternity everything that happens in history unto the praise of his glory.
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If we read Ephesians 1, 3 to 14, we would see this phrase,
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I believe, three times, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory.
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All of history, all of existence is here for one reason, to glorify
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God. We are here. We exist to glorify God. Whether the things that we do, choose to do, are sinful or not, our sin is used for good, our righteous deeds are used for good.
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All of it redounds to the glory of God. Now, let's back up a little bit into what he said here.
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The eternal act of God's will in which the triune God, emphatically the Father. When he says it emphatically, the
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Father, here's what he means. That the
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Trinity, the persons of the Trinity, have overlapping roles that they play, but in terms of God's decree, in terms of predestination, in terms of foreordaining, this emphasizes the role of the
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Father of the Trinity, rather than one of the other persons of the Trinity. He goes on to say, just talking about the
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Trinity again, the triune God decreed to create, and he says, our Lord and our God is the
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Father, Son, and Spirit. Remember when Thomas says, my Lord and my God, any of them can be referred to, any of the persons of the
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Trinity can be referred to as our Lord and our God. The Father decreed salvation, he foreordained, he predestined those to salvation.
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Why did he choose to save some?
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And again, in Ephesians 1, why is it that God ordained some to be saved?
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If we, just starting in verse 3,
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ Jesus, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him, that is to say in Christ, before the foundation of the world, before anything existed, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
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In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.
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Why? To the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.
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In him we have redemption through his blood, that is to say through his death. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, again in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.
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In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
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In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised
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Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
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Over and over again we see to the praise of his glory. We don't see, you know, for our,
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I mean it is for our good, but the ultimate point of salvation, of predestination, of all these things is the glory of God.
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All things exist for the glory of God. And he did, he created all things out of, solely out of his good pleasure.
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He did what seemed good to him. And it's interesting here, Nichols notes, he says, he even ordered the sufferings of his saints as it pleased him.
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Christianity is pretty remarkable. When you think about the historical spread of Christianity, what was it that spread
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Christianity? Persecution, death, tribulation.
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You know, if you were to say, well, what spread Islam? It wasn't persecution, at least not persecution of Muslims.
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They spread, you know, by the force of the sword. Christianity spread by the suffering of the saints.
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How do we know that the suffering of the saints is ordained by God, that it pleased him, and even that it's for the benefit of those who suffer?
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Gary. Okay. So therefore it is for their good.
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Barry. Gary. Okay, Romans 8 .28, which says, okay, all things.
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Yeah, that's the Barry paraphrase. I will, the paraphrase.
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Okay, Romans 8 .28, somebody want to read that, please? Not that I don't trust
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Barry's paraphrase, but. All right, thank you. Okay, all things.
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I mean, when we see inclusive language like that, we don't need to find exclusions to it.
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We need to underscore it. When God says that he works all things together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose, then what does that mean?
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All things except for things I don't like. All things except for things that are painful.
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All things except illness. All things except, all things is all things.
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In Genesis, familiar story, you know, Joseph gets sold by his brothers. And at the end of the story, what does
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Joseph say? You know, when it basically, he winds up being the key to their physical well -being, their physical salvation, as it were.
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He says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
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You know, was that a contingency on God's part? No. He ordained it.
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And we'll talk more about how that doesn't make God the author of sin here in a minute.
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In its scope, God's decree includes all things. Again, in Ephesians 111, you know, we can try to limit all things to somehow protect
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God or whatever, but God doesn't do that. He ordains whatsoever comes to pass.
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God's decree, Nichols says, includes creation. All, quote, random events.
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All the inner workings of the universe. Every event in the history of every nation.
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Every event in each man's life. Every sin of every creature. Every event in every church in every generation.
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The salvation of every elect saint and the damnation of every reprobate sinner. Then he says, no wonder
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God exclaims, or I'm sorry, Paul exclaims, through the Holy Spirit. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
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How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing out. For of him and through him and unto him are all things.
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Again, all things. The goal of God's decree and to the praise of his glory.
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God from all eternity ordained creation, fall, redemption for his own glory.
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God uses everything to honor and glorify his name. When men design evil, he employs their evil designs for good.
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To the praise of his glorious wisdom, goodness, grace, and justice. In the final analysis, even sin does not overthrow
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God's design to magnify his name. God even ordained sin to display his glory in salvation and in damnation.
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So, God ordained sin. Is that a problem?
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Very. Okay, only if you try to say that God caused sin.
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I mean, what does James say that God cannot, does not tempt anyone, cannot cause sin.
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So how do we explain sin then? How can we say that God ordained it, God decreed it, and yet God is not the author of sin.
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He's not the cause of sin. How do we do that? Seeing no answers or objections, we'll keep moving and we'll answer that.
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Nichols says the 1689 London Confession affirms the biblical concept of God's decree.
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God has decreed in himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably all things whatsoever comes to pass.
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It then adds qualifying remarks that highlight three striking corollaries or qualifications of God's decree.
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Yet, so as thereby God is neither the author of sin, nor has any fellowship with any therein.
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So he's not the author, and he's not the cause, let's just say, of sin.
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Second qualification, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature. In other words, he doesn't force anyone to sin.
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Nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
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In other words, there are causes that God uses that are not directly directed by him.
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Directly directed? He's not the author of sin, he doesn't cause sin.
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What he does is he ordains secondary means to bring these about.
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For example, secondary means. I'll just kind of cut to the chase here.
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God utilizes the free will of sinful men to bring about sin.
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Why do men sin? Unredeemed men sin because it's their nature, right? They have a nature, and everything that they do within that nature is sinful.
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Without faith it is impossible to please God. Therefore, the unredeemed person, the person who has no faith, everything they do is born not out of faith, but out of their own desire.
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So everything that they do is sinful. God, in...
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Let's see, let me be a little bit careful here. He not only knows what they're going to do, but he has ordained what they're going to do.
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So that they freely choose, but God is also sovereign in their choosing.
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Let's look at it another way. Job is to be tempted by Satan.
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What does Satan do? He comes before, comes into the presence of God, as it were, and God says to him, what?
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Yeah. I mean, we don't see Satan coming in and saying, you know what, I'd like to go after Job, although he does ask permission to sift
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Peter like wheat. But he doesn't come in and say, you know what, I'd like to go after Job. God says, hey, you know, you ever thought about going after that Job fella?
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So Satan, in essence, is what? In this case, where he's going after Job, what is
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Satan doing? Yeah.
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You know, Martin Luther said, what, that Satan is God's devil, right?
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I mean, the devil is God's devil. He does what God wants him to do and nothing more. But he is a secondary party in all that.
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He's doing what God wants, and he's testing Job. But ultimately,
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Job doesn't succumb to that, no matter how bad the temptation is.
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Okay. The third qualification here is what we were just talking about.
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Nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. God uses the unbeliever, even the believer in his nature, to have them choose what he would have them choose.
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And you say, well, how does that work? How is it possible that, you know, again, God is sovereign and man is responsible?
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We can't reconcile those things. God does not force us to do what we do. We do it out of our, within the confines of our nature.
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Furthermore, he says here, God's decree is consistent with divine purity. In other words, that he's not tainted by sin.
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But it's also consistent with moral free agency and with instrumental liberty and contingency.
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Now he's going to talk about these qualifications here in a little more depth.
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God's decree of sin does not make him its author. Nor does it erase human responsibility and culpability for sin.
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Sinners purpose and perpetrate evil. That's what they do. And he cites
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Joseph in Genesis 50, 20. You meant evil against me because his brothers did.
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God purposes to use human evil for good, but God meant it for good.
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Sinners are exclusively to blame for sin. The holy God has neither fellowship with sin nor culpability for it.
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Rather, he hates it and forbids it. It's his holy law, it's his standard.
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Sin is transgression against the law, against his revealed will. Any questions about that so far?
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Barry, that's right. He does not tempt. Yes. Right, by secondary means, right?
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By using Satan. That's an excellent point. Let me just stop you there and then I'll pick it up.
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He said that Jonathan Edwards said, and this is right, we do not do anything that we don't want to do, right?
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And what we often underestimate is what depravity means, you know, and what total depravity is.
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Even after we're rescued out of it, there's still that taint, that residue, as it were, that just clings to us.
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Did you have something else you wanted to add to it? I mean, you know, the idea that we're not forced to sin, we sin willfully, wantonly, because that's what we do.
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No, that's not how it works. Yeah, there's nobody on judgment day, I'll interrupt you again and then
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I'll get back to you, there's nobody on judgment day that's going to be able to say, we know what God, I wanted to be one of yours, but you didn't choose me and it's not my fault.
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How can you hold me responsible for it? Because everybody is responsible, we know that from Romans 1, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, we are sinners by nature, by virtue of the fall of Adam, and we're sinners by choice, we choose to sin, and nobody's going to be able to blame
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God for it. Bob, I chose to rebel. It's an amazing thing, I mean, I don't even know, I cannot count, it's not quite the sands on the seashore, but the number of inmates that I dealt with over the years, thousands and thousands of them, and the number of them who said that they were guilty and that they have no excuse or whatever, it would be like this many, a handful, and most of them offered up every excuse, and I was just thinking as you said that,
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Bob, I just thought, how refreshing, I mean, I don't think anybody's going to enjoy judgment day, although we'll be glorifying the
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Lord, but I mean, I don't mean to say it's going to be like, I'm going to be going, yeah, this is really good. Person after person is going to get up there, and they're going to say,
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I have no excuse. You are holy,
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I am sinful, and I chose to do what I did, right? The only plea there is, is, you know,
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I believed in your son. He died for me. That's the only plea.
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There aren't going to be any plea bargains, no plea deals, it's going to be justice. Yeah, I chose to come to Christ, and I don't really have a problem with that, because if you listen to the necessary implication of verse 13 in Ephesians 1, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised
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Holy Spirit. You have to believe, right? There is an act of volition that has to happen, but you won't choose until the
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Holy Spirit regenerates you. And when he does regenerate you, by the way, there's not going to be any regenerate people in hell, because it's not like you're born again, and then you go, no, not for me.
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When you get that new nature, you hear the gospel, as it were, for the first time, and you believe.
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Yeah, our, you know, what's known as kind of like the sin hangover is what
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Pastor Mike likes to call it. You know, there are memories of sin, there are thoughts of sin, there are influences of sin all around us, and the fact that we have the
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Holy Spirit in us does not prevent us from sinning. We still can.
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The difference is we can choose righteousness. We are not, you know, as an unregenerate person and as an unbeliever, everything that we do is necessarily displeasing, it's necessarily sinful, because our motivations can't be right.
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We can never be trying to please God as an unbeliever. But as a believer, sometimes in Romans 7,
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I mean, the view, there are multiple views, at least two views on Romans 7, how you should interpret it.
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My view is that he is talking as a believer and just talking about the struggle of the
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Christian life, that he doesn't like the fact that he still sins, and he knows he doesn't do the things,
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I mean, this is the Apostle Paul talking. He does things that he doesn't want to do, and he doesn't do the things that he wants to do.
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And I'm like, I think that preaches, right? How many of you can say amen to that?
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I don't do the things I want to do, and I do the things that I don't want to do. And I think that's exactly right, and I think it's consistent with the flow of argument of the book of Romans as well.
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So, how does that, what's your, did I answer your question? Okay. He goes on to say,
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Nichols does, talking about how God's decree does not contradict moral free agency.
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He says, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature. Man is not a puppet. God's decree does not cancel man's purposes, even his wicked ones.
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Rather, it uses them in ways man knows not. God does not force, this is, I thought this was really good.
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God does not force the Assyrian against his will to be the rod of his anger against Israel, right?
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The Assyrian has no intention whatsoever of serving God. The Assyrian freely pursues his own plans and purposes.
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Yet God, before the foundation of the world, determined and fixed these free choices of the Assyrian for his own holy and just ends, such as the wisdom and power of the incomprehensible
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God with whom we have to do. So God uses the choices, the nature of man to bring about his own perfect will, and in his own time.
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God's decree does not contradict instrumental liberty or contingency. God's decree is not fatalistic.
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The God who ordains the ends also ordains the means. Thus Paul says, except these abide in the ship, excuse me, you cannot be saved.
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Lest you stay in the ship, you cannot be saved. God decreed their deliverance, but they still must remain in the ship.
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God is sovereign, man is responsible. Further, God even decreed what appeared to us as random events.
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God controls chance, what people call luck. Again, who can begin to fathom the depths of the wisdom and power of God?
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Thus, the London Baptist Confession of Faith concludes, quote, in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.
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Questions at this point? Okay. There will be a quiz next week.
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Okay. God's decree has the stamp of his supremacy, especially of his supreme power, virtue, and wisdom.
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It has unconditional, immutable, effectual, ideal, or it is in condition, unconditional, immutable, effectual, ideal, and incomprehensible.
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God's decree is unconditional. He says that God declares the future before it happens because God in his good pleasure ordained the future.
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How is it possible that God knows whatsoever comes to pass because he ordained it? You know, if you go to the book of Isaiah, what does he say?
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You know, telling the end from the beginning. He's always known what's going to happen. It's not, you know, that he says something and then has to work things out so that it happens.
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It was all determined before time even began. Jesus confirms that Jesus or that God's decree is unconditional.
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You know what? I want to go back to a couple of basic texts having to do with this.
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Let's look at the book of Acts. And it really is amazing, again, how these things sort of flow together in Peter's sermon here.
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In Acts 2, verses 22, I'll start there. Men of Israel.
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How sexist of him. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.
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This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
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He knew it. He planned it. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
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God was sovereign, but you are responsible. And I think we have something similar in chapter 4.
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If you turn over there, I'll see how long it will take me to find it.
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Verse 27. For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant
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Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the
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Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
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So these people did it. They were responsible, Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the
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Gentiles and the Jews. They did it, but they did according to the plan of God.
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Both are true. Man is responsible and God is sovereign.
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And that's always the case. Man is responsible.
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God is sovereign. Jesus confirms that God's decree is unconditional.
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He affirms that God destroyed Sodom, even though he foresaw that they would have repented at Christ's mighty works.
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In other words, as bad as Sodom was, if they had seen the things that Christ had done, they would have repented.
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But they didn't see those things because they had long since been destroyed. Paul affirms explicitly that God ordained our adoption, not according to our works or merit, but because it pleased him.
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The London Confession stresses this remarkable trait of God's decree. This way it says, although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet he has not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
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In other words, God's decree is not based on conditions or decisions or, like I said earlier, some kind of decision tree that he has to work through.
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The Confession stresses this truth in order to honor God's sovereignty in the salvation and the damnation of sinners.
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It also notes that God's decree is immutable and irreversible.
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Whatever God decided in eternity is fixed, certain, and irreversible. Why would that be true?
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What would be required for something in God's decree to not be fixed, to be uncertain, or to be irreversible?
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Or, it would require God not to be sovereign, or, Barry? Right, or, and that's where the other thing
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I was getting at, is God would have to be immutable, that he would have to go, you know what, that whole decree thing,
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I'm done with that, you know, I'm going to change things up. So it would be against the nature of God.
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If God says, I do not change, right, then God to say, well, you know what,
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I'm going to change. I'm going to change things up. I'm kind of bored with this whole thing.
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But again, it gets back to this. We think of, I think our thoughts, like Luther said to Erasmus, our thoughts of God are what?
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Too human. In other words, we think that he's something like us. He's a better version of us. This is,
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I mean, this is like Joseph Smith theology. This is Mormon theology. He's a better version of us, but he's kind of like us.
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He's nothing like us. You know, we, if we think about it long enough, we'll get to the right place.
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But our initial response is that God must have some concept of, he does have a concept of this, but that he lives in time, that he exists in time like we do.
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So maybe he's bored with things, or maybe he wants to change things, or maybe he doesn't like the direction things are going.
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Again, step back, realize that God is not a creature. God does not exist in time.
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He's not a prisoner of time and creation like we are. He exists outside of it. So he looks down at it, and it's not a perfect analogy, but it really is right to think of it this way, that all of time, all of creation lies out before him like a map, like a painting, however, you know, however you want to look at it.
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And he knows it all. He's got it all memorized. It's no mystery to him.
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It's no, you know, he doesn't have to worry about what's coming around the corner or the things that we think about in terms of time and other things.
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These are not, there is no news to God. God doesn't pick up the newspaper to find out what's happening in the world.
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It's all right there in front of him. Corey? What's your take on this? Okay, God repenting or relenting, you know, changing his mind.
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You know, what about that? Basically, that it's anthropomorphic language, that, in other words, it's language meant to kind of water it down so that we can grasp what's going on here,
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Barry. Well, I mean, there are a whole, if you think about the whole nature, the whole flow of things, you know, if, you know, if the king prior to David.
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Saul. I mean, you just said his name, and I'm like, I can't remember it. You know, if Saul had remained on the throne, you know, then what?
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You know, will then there be no, I mean, why would we get to the Davidic covenant and all these other things?
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So, I mean, there was a plan right from the beginning, and it's really about if you study the flow of the
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Old Testament, the whole issue of Saul is just Israel demanding a king, demanding to be like the other nations,
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God wanting to say, you know, well, I would argue this, that the whole story of the
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Old Testament is God choosing a people and that people basically rebelling and refusing to submit to him and ultimately leading to Christ.
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But God is not taken by surprise in any of these things. He's not caught unaware.
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He doesn't have to change plans. He doesn't repent in the way that we would conceive of repenting.
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So with that, I need to close because I got to preach in a few minutes. Father, thank you for your word.
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Thank you for your sovereign decree. How you do know the beginning from the end, how you have decreed it, that there are no surprises, there are no contingencies, there are no unknowns with you, that we can trust you, that you know exactly what you are doing and that all things work together for our good and for your glory.