The Attributes of God (b)

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Well, good evening everyone.
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We are back in our continued study of systematic theology and we are continuing in the study of theology proper.
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Theology proper is the study of the doctrine of God himself.
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God the Father is the primary focus of theology proper because there are two other subsets, Christology which focuses on God the Son, Pneumatology which focuses on God the Spirit, and so when we talk about theology proper, sometimes we distinguish it as patriology or the study of God the Father.
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And in our study, you'll notice on the top of your sheet it says our categories have been the existence of God, the revelation of God, the names of God, and we are now at the attributes of God which we began last week.
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Under the attributes of God, for those of you who were not here and you want to fill in the blanks, I want to give these to you.
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The first thing to keep in mind is recognizing God's divine incomprehensibility.
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That's the first blank.
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It says a prerequisite to studying the attributes of God is recognizing God's or his divine incomprehensibility.
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And we are not.
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God, because he is infinite and we are finite, God because he is so vast and we are so minimal, we cannot truly comprehend all that is God.
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As we said last week, it would be like trying to take all of the Atlantic Ocean and put it inside of a thimble.
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It just is too massive and too vast and so we know God in that sense is incomprehensible, yet at the same time that doesn't mean that he is unknowable because he reveals himself and in that revelation he makes himself knowable.
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He condescends to us.
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He stoops as it was one theologian says God stutters so that we can keep up.
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He condescends.
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He steps down so that we can understand.
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And so God's attributes are subdivided into two categories.
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The incommunicable attributes that is the number one on your sheet.
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God's attributes are subdivided as the incommunicable and number two of course is the communicable.
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Communicable means that which can be shared or that which is shared and thus incommunicable would mean that which is not shared.
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There are certain aspects or attributes of God's nature that he shares with us and there are many attributes in his nature that he cannot share with us.
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God cannot make us eternal because we're creatures.
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Only he is eternal so that's an incommunicable attribute.
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God cannot make us infinite because we had a beginning.
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We are not infinite and so there are certain attributes that belong only to God and those are called the incommunicable attributes of God and that's where we begin this study.
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Last week we looked at two of them and I said that I hoped that tonight we would try to get through some more because this list that you have is just the incommunicable attributes.
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Next week if we get through all of these this week, the next week will be the communicable attributes.
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Just so you know the aseity of God, which is what we talked about last week, that is God's self existence.
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When God says I am and he doesn't have any dependent thing that he depends on for being.
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God is being in himself.
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He has being in himself.
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He does not depend upon anything or anyone else.
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He is non-contingent.
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That is the aseity of God and we talked about that last week.
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The second one is immutability.
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That means the unchangeableness of God.
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God is unchanging.
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If you think about the word mutate, to mutate means to change and immutable means to be without change.
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God is perfect.
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We talked about this last week.
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It's a very simple syllogism.
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God is perfect.
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If he were to change, he would either, he would cease to be imperfect or prove that he wasn't perfect to begin with.
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And so if God changed, he would not be perfect.
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And because we know he is perfect, the Bible clearly describes him as perfect.
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He is unchanging.
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That's part of his perfection.
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Or actually it's an aspect of his perfection.
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So in his immutability, we know he is also perfect.
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Okay? So does that catch everyone up? And by the way, that was quick.
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If you weren't here last time, that may be, may feel a little too quick, but you can always go back and get the recording if you want to go deeper into the aseity of God or into the immutability of God.
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Those two things are very necessary to understand.
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Tonight, though, we are going to move to the next portion of our lesson and that is the eternality of God.
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And if I wanted to, I could spend the entire time, however, 45 minutes or whatever we're going to be learning on just this attribute.
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But I am going to try to move through these because as you see, we have quite a few to get through and time is always limited.
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So we're going to kind of briskly walk through these.
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One of the things that we have to realize when we talk about any of the attributes of God is that oftentimes when we talk about God's attributes, we have to speak in the adversative.
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The adversative is simply to say what he is not.
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When we talk about God's attributes, we're not talking about what he is.
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Sometimes we talk about what he is not.
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And when we talk about the eternal, that's actually an expression of what he's not.
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Eternal is an expression of having no beginning and no ending.
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See, because we really don't have in our language a way to express that fullness of being that is without time or outside of time.
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In fact, I do this often when I'm teaching on this particular subject.
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I like to draw a timeline of the world.
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If you begin at the beginning of the world with the creation and then you have the fall of man and then somewhere in here you have the great flood and then you have the ascension of the people of Israel under Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
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And then you have the great Old Testament period.
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And then you have Jesus comes with the cross and then you have the New Testament period, which is much shorter than the Old Testament period.
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Then you have the period of the early church.
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You have the time of the great church councils and growth of the church.
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Then you have the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, where the church took a very strong and steep, deep downward trend into darkness.
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This was called the Dark Ages.
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And then you have the Renaissance and the Reformation.
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And you bring us up to today where we are.
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And then there's that sort of infinite last part where we don't know when God will send Jesus and he'll come back.
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But there will be a time when Jesus comes back and he will take his people to be with himself.
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And that will begin the eternal state.
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Right.
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So we know this is sort of a very simplified outline of the history of our world.
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Now, we are somewhere around here.
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Where is God? You say he's here? God's the board.
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That's the point.
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I could go further or shorter.
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I heard Dr.
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James White, I believe he said one time he said God is just as much with Abraham on Mount Moriah as he is with us right now.
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Because God is not bound by time.
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And so when we talk about God's timelessness, God does not experience time the same way we do.
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If you want a Bible verse, you can just simply write down Psalm 90 and verse 2.
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Before the mountains were brought forth, wherever you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
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God exists on a different plane of time.
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In fact, I would say God exists outside of time.
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In fact, if you remember the very beginning of the Bible, it says what? In the beginning, God.
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Well, you break down each word, right? In is your preposition.
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The is your article.
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And beginning is your what? You have your prepositions of your place in the beginning.
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In the beginning of what? Time.
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Thank you.
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It's the beginning of time.
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It's time's beginning, because prior to the beginning of time, God existed still.
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And when time ends, as we know time, God will exist still.
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Because he exists outside of time.
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And we don't understand how that is.
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We don't understand how that works.
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We know that for us, time is a construct.
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Time is how you measure day to day.
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Time is how you measure life, right? We get our three score and ten if we're lucky and some of us a few more.
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If the, you know, and I'm Calvinist, I can't use the word lucky.
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If we're providentially kept in the hand of Almighty God, then we will have whatever time he has set for us on this planet.
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And we know what time it is by how we measure it.
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It's 2018, which is supposed to be 2018 years since Jesus Christ, because we used to call it the A.D.
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2018, which meant Anno Domini, which is Latin for in the year of our Lord, 2018.
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However, it's not been 2018 since the birth of Christ.
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We don't know when Jesus was born, but we know Kyrenius was the governor of Syria, which would have put it somewhere before our, before the year zero.
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There was not a year zero, but you understand somewhere around there.
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So we don't know exactly when it was, but we know this.
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We know that the earth itself lives on a timetable and every one of us lives on a timetable.
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And every day we see markers of that timetable getting further and further, right? Hairs get a little more gray, elbows and knees hurt a little more.
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When we get out of bed, everything begins to break down further and further.
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You get a new wrinkle or, you know, see a new spot or something and you're getting older.
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God doesn't.
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Part of his immutability is that he exists always in the same condition.
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God does not age.
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He does not grow.
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Neither does he learn.
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Well, if he knows everything, he needs not learn, right? So, so there's this, so there's this difference in distinction between us and God.
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When you think about this category, his eternality alone, there's a distinction which makes it almost impossible for us to relate to him, which is why I said he has to stoop.
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He has to condescend.
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He has to use anthropomorphic language, the language of men, right? That's what anthropomorphic means.
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It means to use the language of a form of a man.
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God talks about his eyes, his hands, his ears, his, his, his, his attributes like a man so that we can relate to him.
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Because if he didn't use that language, we wouldn't be able to even understand at all, you see.
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Now, there is an opposing position.
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That's why I said I could spend all our time on this.
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I'm going to try not to.
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But there is an opposing position to what I'm giving you tonight.
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And I want to share it with you.
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The opposing position is called open theism.
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Open theism says this.
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God.
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Is an agent who experiences the give and take of historical life with his creatures, and he changes in his relationship as he works with us, and he has a history.
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He has conscientiousness and experiences temporal sequence of one event happening after the other.
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God is bound by time.
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That's what that means.
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God is going through time as we are, and he experiences the sequence of time as we do, and he experiences the change of the sequence of time as do we.
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Open theism, the idea of, as I understand it, the idea of open is that for God, the future is open because he has not experienced it yet.
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And because of that, though he has an idea of what he's going to do, it is not set in stone because he has not yet done it.
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Open theism believes not only that God can and does change, so they deny immutability, but they also believe that God does not know for certain what you will do in your life.
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And so his life, the life of God, is very reactionary.
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I've read the the writings of some of these men, some of the ones who consider themselves to be the leaders in this movement.
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And they hate Calvinism because Calvinism is a deterministic system in the sense that we believe that God has determined the end from the beginning.
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Not fatalistic, but it is deterministic that God is the one who determines the end from the beginning.
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He decrees all things and the open theist is absolutely not.
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God does not because he can't because he's bound in time as are we.
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Oh, I would say they deny a host of texts.
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Yes, I would say their entire view of scripture is obscure and wrong.
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Yeah, I would I would say that's a nice way of putting it.
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Um, but I want to tell you, and I'm not trying to start a fight, but I'll say it and we'll see if I get any emails.
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I don't think that you can be anti-Calvinism, which a lot of people are, without falling into the trap of open theism.
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I don't think you can deny God knowing the future or determining the future and still argue that he knows it.
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Because if God knows that tomorrow I'm going to fall down a flight of stairs, is it possible that I couldn't? If God knows for certain that tomorrow I'm going to fall down a flight of stairs and he knows it beyond doubt because he knows it for certain.
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Is it possible that I could not? There that's the point.
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That's what we mean by deterministic, but not fatalistic, because I still don't see it as fatalism because I see God working in men's lives and in the actions of men to bring about his will.
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I believe that prayer and all those other things are means that God uses to bring about his will.
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But yet I still believe that God knows the future in such a way that in the mind of God it is unchanging.
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Because if God doesn't know what's going to happen, then he is the open theist is right.
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Or if God could be wrong, then the open theist is right.
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And if God does know and he cannot be wrong, then it is determined.
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See, this is the thing that people often say, say things about Calvinism.
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They say, well, I don't believe in Calvinism because you believe that there's only a set number of people going to heaven.
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I say, hold on, before you have a cow, hold on.
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Do you believe God knows everybody who's going to go to heaven? Yes.
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So there's not a set number.
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No.
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Back up, because you can't have it both ways.
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If he knows for certain, but there's not a set number, then he don't know for certain.
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I didn't say I know who the number is.
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I didn't say I know who's going and who ain't going.
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I don't determine anything.
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I don't go around, as Charles Spurgeon said, I don't go around lifting up people's shirts to see if they have a big E tattooed to their back to see if they're among the elect.
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Right.
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That's not my business.
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My business is to give the gospel and it's God's business to save who he's going to save, how he's going to save them.
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And he knows exactly who and how.
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As I said, I could spend all night on eternality, because if you really understand this, which we can't fully comprehend it, but even if you comprehend only a second, a bit of it, you have to understand that God exists entirely differently than we do.
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And God experiences time entirely differently than we do.
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And he experiences this entire world entirely differently than we do.
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And so when we talk about God and we talk about eternality and we talk about his his sovereignty and all those things, which is part of all this, we have to understand he is so different than us.
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He's so far above.
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He is what we call transcendent.
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I can't think of anybody right off the top of my head, but if I can maybe spend the week, I'll look and see if I can.
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I don't know any that are popular Bible teachers on the radio or anything, but a ton of them are online because anybody with a computer can make a website.
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And there's a ton of guys online that are arguing for it.
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So be careful, be careful, little eyes.
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What you see, you know, it's the online stuff that's really dangerous now.
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All right.
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So eternality is an attribute of God that he does not share with man.
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All right.
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Moving on.
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The next three in the line are the three omnis that go together, and most of us are familiar with these.
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They are omnipotence, which means all powerful, by the way.
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Omni means all.
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So omnipotence, potency, you think of potency, the ability to do something if somebody can't do something, we say that person's impotent to do that.
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He doesn't have the power to do that thing.
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Right.
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That's that's where that word comes from.
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Most of us are familiar with it.
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I want you to write down Isaiah 46, 8 to 10.
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Remember this and stand firm.
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Recall it to mind, you transgressors.
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Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other.
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I am God and there is none like me.
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I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.
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That is the word of God from God himself.
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He says, I'm going to do what I want to do and nobody can stop me.
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I a few years ago had a person sort of teasing me because I got into using the word thwart a lot.
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I said, you can't thwart God.
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And everybody thought it was such a weird word.
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I sound like a like a Batman villain.
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I'm not to thwart you.
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No, but the word, that's it.
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Men try as they might to thwart the the plans of God.
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And yet man cannot thwart God's plan, because if we could, he wouldn't be all powerful.
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All right, so omnipotence is the all power of God.
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Omnipresence is that God exists everywhere.
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And I want you to write this is important.
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He is unlimited both by space and time.
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Remember what we talked about earlier? These go to the all go together.
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Right.
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God, people often think of omnipresence as God being everywhere in the world or everywhere in the universe.
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Right.
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I remember one atheist astronaut.
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I don't know if he was one of ours or if he was one of another country's astronauts.
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You know, maybe he was a cosmonaut from Russia or whatever.
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But he he went up in the space shuttle or wherever and he got up into space and he said he came back.
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He said, I don't believe in God because I went up there and he's not there.
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All right.
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I went up there and looked and everybody can feel confident he's just not there.
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And my response to such inanity is to say, because that's what it is.
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It's inane.
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That's asinine.
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But I'll say this.
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My response is you don't have to go up there because he's just as much here as he would have been up there.
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And if you're going up there looking for like a room that he's that he's subletting, you know, then you're really missing the point of God existing on a different plane.
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Of being, you know, I went up there and looked and I couldn't find him.
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I looked all around the basement.
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He wasn't there or the cellar.
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And he wasn't there.
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What a ridiculous thing to say.
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But that's the point.
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God's omnipresence is that he's everywhere and he's every when he's everywhere and he's every when that line.
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Right.
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He's not bound by space and he's not bound by time.
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In fact, Psalm 139, seven and eight for that one.
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Psalm 139, seven and eight.
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Now, I don't normally switch my Bible translations just for the sake of just switching them.
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But in this one, I want to quote from the King James.
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I normally use the ESV, but I'm going to quote from the King James for this verse because of one small use of term.
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And let's see if you hear what the term is.
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Whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I free from my flee from my presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there.
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If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
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Hell is the word because in ESV and others, it says she all are the place of the dead.
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It wouldn't say the word hell.
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But I do like to point this passage out not to necessarily prove a point when somebody is arguing about hell, because I wouldn't use this text to prove hell.
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But I would use this text to point this out.
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People often say hell is separation from God.
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I say, no, it's not.
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Hell is not separation from God, because whither shall I go from thy spirit? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there.
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And if I go into hell, you are there.
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So what is it about hell that makes it hell? It's not separation from God.
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It is separation from the grace and mercy of God.
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But the wrath of God is fully there.
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The full wrath of God is there, and it's unmitigated and unmediated.
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It is absolutely in its fullness in hell.
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You experience all of God that is terrible and wrathful and awful in hell.
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So God is omnipresent.
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Last one, omniscient, or omniscience, means all-knowing.
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Science, science means knowledge, even though in our modern day, science usually means a political position.
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And boy, howdy, couldn't I preach a sermon on that? Because science is no longer just about finding the truth, as I would like to at least pretend it maybe once was.
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Science is now about putting forward an agenda.
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But science, the word means knowledge, and God has all knowledge.
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He never learns anything.
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He never forgets anything.
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Two verses, if you want to write them down, Hebrews 4 and 13.
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This is one that should get us, should get our attention.
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Hebrews 4, 13.
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No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
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Nothing that we do is hidden from the eyes of Almighty God.
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He knows all.
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You know, that's the one thing that many psychologists, especially secular psychologists, try to argue against the notion of God, because they say it would just be too awful if God existed.
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Because that would mean we would never have a moment where we were not being evaluated.
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And I say, yeah, that's exactly what the Bible says.
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Every idle word will be brought into account on that day.
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There's never a moment where we're not under the scrutiny and the eye of Almighty God.
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There's a, I've told this story, I think some of you heard it.
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There's a place over in the Middle East called Bahrain.
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And in that place, Muslims will gather there to do things that are unseemly.
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It's sort of like a Las Vegas type place.
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There's gambling and other things because they believe that it is too small for Allah to pay attention to.
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And Allah doesn't care what happens in Bahrain.
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So they go there to do their gambling and their prostitution and their other things because God doesn't care what happens in the little place of Bahrain.
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So God, so God, He doesn't know or doesn't care what's happening.
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Yeah, well, yeah, of course.
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Another verse, well, I've already quoted it, but if you want to write down Matthew 12, 36 is where it says on that day, you'll have to give an account for every idle word.
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Matthew 12 and 36.
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Well, we're moving along good.
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Let's keep it going.
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Bus stop? Oh, yeah, we're going to have to stop somewhere.
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Yeah, a stop is coming.
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So we've looked at eternality and then the three omnis, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and now foreknowledge.
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Oh, boy, I mentioned it already a little.
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I'm glad I'm going to get here tonight, though, because this one goes along with the eternality very well.
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The foreknowledge of God, the word, if we think of the word foreknowledge.
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It's in fact, in English or Greek, rather, it's see if you see here what word is in it.
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Science, which means what knowledge and pre is a prefix, which means before.
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Right, however, before we get too excited.
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Foreknowledge means more than just before knowing in the same way, you know, a television is.
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Television is thing on, you know, shows pictures, right? You know, television is.
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But the word televisio means far seeing.
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That's tele is far and visio means to see.
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So even though the etymology of television is far seeing, we know there's more to it.
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When we put the two together and make a word, it becomes more than just far seeing.
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All right.
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In the same way, prescience is how you would say this does mean before knowledge or before knowing.
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But there's actually a lot more bound up in the word than just before knowing.
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Because we no one would argue that God knows exhaustively what will happen in the future because of his omniscience and his omnipresence.
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And his eternality, we've already proven that the only people who would deny that are the open theist.
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And they're denying things.
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They're just shooting stuff down all the way.
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All right.
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But if we believe God's omniscient and we believe God's omnipresent, then we know that he knows the future with absolute certainty.
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So there's more to it than just that.
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Because God is unlimited in both regard to knowledge and time.
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Divine foreknowledge is not so much a consideration of what will transpire, but divine foreknowledge is actually in regard to individuals in relationship to God.
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What are you talking about, Pastor? Well, I want you in your notes, write down Romans 8.29.
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Now, everybody probably knows Romans 8.28.
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When you agree, Andy, everybody probably knows that one.
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For God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
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Romans 8.28.
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For those whom he foreknew.
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There's that word foreknew, that's prescient.
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For 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 then it goes on to say for whom he predestined he called, whom he called he justified and whom he justified he glorified.
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Notice this in the word foreknew.
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If you want to open your Bibles, if you're not already there, you may.
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But listen again.
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I want you to understand the object of the verb, because in Romans 8.29, foreknew is a verb.
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A verb shows action, right? And a verb will have an object.
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In this passage, it says those whom he foreknew.
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Notice that it's talking about people.
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It's that's the object is the people, those whom he foreknew.
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He said, where are you going with this, Pastor? Well, everybody likes to talk about God foreknowing what will happen.
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But I like to point out the fact that when foreknew is used in this verse, it's not talking about what will happen.
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It's talking about who God foreknew.
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And you say, well, what's the difference? When the Bible says God knows someone, it's always in the sense of salvation.
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Jesus said on that day, many will come unto me and say, Lord, Lord, have we not done many mighty works in your name and cast out demons in your name and done all these things in your name? And Jesus said, depart from me.
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I never knew you.
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Right.
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And the Old Testament, the book of Amos, chapter three and verse two, God speaking to Israel, he says, you alone have I known of all the nations of the world.
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All right.
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What does that word mean? Does that just mean God knew them? He didn't know anybody else.
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No, it's talking about a relationship.
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You, I've chosen you.
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I've taken up you.
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I've called you.
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I have known Adam knew Eve.
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And they bore a child and that sense, no, is even more expressive because it expresses the intimate relationship between a husband and a wife.
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They knew one another.
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And as a result, they had a child.
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All right.
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So the word no is relationship.
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Everybody with me there so far? Because here's the point.
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When the Bible talks about God knowing beforehand an individual, it's talking about God having a child.
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Having a relationship from eternity, let me say that again, having a relationship from eternity with that person whom he foreknew, he predestined.
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It could easily be said whom he did not foreknow, he did not predestine.
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Meaning whom he did not forechoose or whom he did not pick, whom he did not forelove, that's another way of saying it.
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And you say, oh, I don't know if I like that.
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Buckle up because we're going to go further.
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Yeah, buckle up.
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It's going to get it's going to get deeper than that.
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But the point is this.
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When God says he foreknew, here's the thing.
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Here's what is almost always said.
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People will say God foreknew your choice.
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It doesn't say that.
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And if you wanted to say that, you've got to put that in the text because that ain't there.
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This is what it says.
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It says those whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son and whom he predestined, he called.
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So this is in the what we call this the the golden chain of redemption.
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This is a phrase that that means that foreknew.
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Foreknew is first in priority, is followed by predestined in priority, and that is followed by calling.
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See, people say, well, God calls everybody and he chooses based on whom he calls.
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Not according to this, because according to this, prior to the call, there was a foreknowledge and prior to the call, there was predestination.
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That it was foreknowledge that caused the predestination and it was predestination that caused the calling.
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And whom he called, he justified and whom he justified, he glorified.
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This is, again, the golden chain of redemption.
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It is the proof positive that the understanding of salvation, which is taught in Reformed Theology, is correct.
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Because this is what Reformed Theology teaches.
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That before you were ever called, God knew you in a saving way.
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He foreknew before you were ever born, before you ever created, before you were ever thought of.
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He had already knew you, predestined you, and that's why he called you.
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And as a result of his calling of you, you responded.
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And as a result, you were justified.
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And as a result of that, one day you will be glorified.
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But God can talk about it in the past tense because he's not bound by time.
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And so he can talk about your salvation and your glorification as if it already is, because in his mind it is as certain as it has already happened.
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But you see, this is the heart of Reformed Theology, right here.
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And that's why I say, honestly, the difference between the Arminian and the Calvinist is not about limited atonement and unconditional election and all that.
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It's how you understand foreknowledge.
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But I want to finish tonight by reading to you a few things.
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I promise I won't keep you much longer.
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I want to read to you three very quick.
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Well, I tell you what, I'll just I'll do two, two from two different commentaries.
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One is actually a dictionary, Nelson's Bible dictionary.
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You go to any pastor in the United States, he's probably got a copy of Nelson's Bible dictionary on his shelf.
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It is not a Calvinistic dictionary that's only held by those mean, rotten Calvinists.
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It's everywhere.
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It is very much, you know, sort of all the pastors use it.
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It's just there.
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It's on all the software and it's online.
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Nelson's Bible dictionary under the word foreknowledge.
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I'm going to read to you the definition.
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Listen closely.
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Foreknowledge is the unique knowledge of God that enables him to know all events, including the free acts of people before they happen.
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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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God's foreknowledge is an act of his will.
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In Romans 8, 29 and 11 to the apostle Paul uses the word for new as a way of saying chosen 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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The same idea is used to express the nation of Israel's special relationship to God.
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And there's a host of Bible verses that back all of this up.
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And as I said, this isn't a Calvinistic dictionary, it's just a dictionary everybody's got.
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And that's exactly what I just said is the is the definition.
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It's not just foresight.
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It's much more than that.
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God doesn't just know because he looked down the quarter of time and saw what was going to happen and then reacted to that.
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God has determined and decided before the world was.
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We don't like that often, but that is what the Bible teaches.
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Now, another one I'm going to read to you is from the Believer's Bible Commentary.
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Now, this is a whole Bible commentary.
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It is not a deep theological work, but it is pretty it's pretty popular.
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A lot of people use it.
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It's available online.
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It's available.
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I've been written for man online.
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Believer's Bible Commentary.
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On this passage, Romans 8, 29.
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Quote, Some have tried to reconcile sovereign election and human responsibility by saying God foreknew who would trust the Savior, and those are the ones whom he elected to be saved.
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They base this on Romans 8, 29, whom he foreknew, he also predestined.
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But this overlooks the fact, listen, 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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I didn't write that.
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I didn't I didn't ask them to write it so it would agree with me.
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It's what it means.
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It's what the word means, and it's in its fullness.
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Now, Laura asked for it, so I'll give you the last one, but I have to say this about the last one and we'll close with prayer.
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And next week, we'll look at holiness, sovereignty and will, because those three, what did I say about those three? They're the immediate attributes, meaning I do believe there's a certain aspect in which we do share in holiness, sovereignty and will, but not in any way the way God does.
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So I call those the immediate ones.
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They're sort of halfway.
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All right.
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When it comes to the foreknowledge of God.
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A.W.
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Pink, he is Calvinistic, so I can't say this guy, I can't say he's on the fence or he's not.
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A.W.
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Pink is without a doubt.
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In fact, I want to say this, if you've never read any of Pink's works, the attributes of God would be perfect to go along with this.
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And it's free online.
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Look up the attributes of God by A.W.
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Pink, and it's amazing and it's free.
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Here's what he says.
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Few are likely to call into question the statement that God knows and foreknows all things, 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's also foreordained all things? Is it not clear that God foreknows what will be because he has decreed what shall be? 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 to 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, the teaching of scripture is as clear as a sunbeam.
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Christ, as the lamb whose blood was to be shed, was foreordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Peter 1.20.
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Having then 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 foreknowing before it took place, but by his fixed counsel and foreordination, Acts 2.23.
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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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Acts 15.18, 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 random and without a knowledge of how his plan would succeed.
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Foreknowledge is more than just God seeing what's going to happen.
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It's a determinative act.
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God has determined what will happen.
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I don't like that.
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Well, let me ask you this.
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I'll close this and I'll say this.
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Have you ever said to a person going through a struggle? Oh, God has a plan for this.
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Have you ever said to a person going through a trial, trust God? He knows what he's doing.
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Have you ever had a person who was hurting immensely and you held him by the hand and said, God's got this? If you don't believe what I said.
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Then you were lying.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word and your truth.
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And we are thankful that you do got this, you you have all of this and you have determined from the beginning what you're going to do in the end.
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And Lord, that doesn't mean that we don't make choices.
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That doesn't mean that we don't have actions.
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That doesn't even mean that we don't have wills.
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But Lord, we know this.
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You are free and you do as you choose.
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And Lord, we are not in the same scope of being as you.
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And so we can't even wrap our minds around even something as simple as foreknowledge or something as grand as eternality.
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And yet tonight, Lord, we've tried to peek under the veil of that which is amazing.
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We've tried to look in and see it, that which is awesome.
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And Lord, we know that we are ill equipped in our finite mind to be able to carry much more than a thimble's worth of all that is the amazing ocean of your knowledge.
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So, Lord, tonight, as we leave this place, let us leave this place with the comfort of knowing that all the answers that we don't know are all the questions we don't have answers for are found in the mind of God.
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Let us continually search the depths of those riches in Christ's name.
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Amen.