The Way (06/23/2002)

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Pastor David Mitchell

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We've been talking about the fact that God is the way, it's not that the
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Lord Jesus points the way, but he is the way. We discussed the written word, we discussed the living word, and then last time we began to discuss the sovereignty of God in these matters of having us be in the way, and that's where we'll finish up that point today.
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So let's have a word of prayer and we'll begin. Dear Father, we thank you so much for your
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Son, Jesus Christ, and that precious blood that is the power that allows us to come into your presence.
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We thank you that that blood has been applied after the resurrection and the ascension into heaven.
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You applied that blood and made the judgment seat become a true mercy seat because of the blood of Jesus.
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And because of that same sacrificial death of his, we are able to come before you today only on the merit of Jesus' finished work.
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We thank you, though, that we are able, that you have made us to be priests, believer priests, that we might come into the very holy of holies, but not without the blood.
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So we thank you that you have applied that blood to our hearts, dear Father. And Lord, the songs that we offered up to you, may we continue to offer up our praise and thanksgiving.
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May you meet with us as we hear your words today and draw us to worship as we sense your presence.
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And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.
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Let's kind of start where we ended up last time, in Psalm 32. If you would turn there for me,
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Psalm 32, and follow along with me. A psalm of David, Masjid.
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Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
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Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
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When I keep silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long, for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me.
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Thy moisture was turned into the drought of summer, Selah. But then
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I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said,
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I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin,
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Selah. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found.
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Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place.
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Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance,
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Selah. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go.
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I will guide thee with mine eye. Verse 11 says, be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart.
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Well, that's the passage that we studied last week. Now, I want to take you through some other points of scripture that focus on the sovereignty of God in our lives.
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I had an interesting discussion with a young man, he's in his 20s and he's doing graduate work in literature about that.
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You don't find many that want to major in that nowadays, and he could sing and he came and helped us with our
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PA, helped the man that was working on our PA system, and we got into a discussion about the sovereignty of God, and it was kind of new to him so we kind of took it slow, but I introduced him to some thoughts that I could tell he hadn't thought about before, and he could hardly eat his lunch, he was just thinking, he was just really thinking.
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But these passages will take us to the sovereignty of God as well as any passages we'll find in the scripture, and yet they have to, every one of them, with us being in the way, walking the narrow path as Jesus talked about, and he said, few there will be who will walk that path.
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Many there will be who walk the path, the broad way of destruction, but few there be that walk in the way.
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So that's what these passages of scripture will have to do with. So you'll have to kind of follow me through the Bible, if you want to turn to these, it's always best if you can see them, but you will have to move quickly.
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Psalm 37 verse 4, delight thyself also in the
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Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the
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Lord, trust in him also, and he shall bring it to pass.
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You see the phrase, commit thy way unto the Lord, our way must be committed to him if we're going to walk in the way, which is his way.
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Psalm 77 and verse 11,
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I will remember the works of the Lord. Now the context of this passage, he begins by saying, in the day of my trouble
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I sought the Lord, my sore ran in the night and ceased not, my soul refused to be comforted.
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That's the state that the psalmist is in, and he comes down to verse 11, when you have those kinds of times, where you have a night where you can't sleep, and your soul refuses to be comforted, and you're worried about all the things that the enemy is bringing to pass in your life, remember verse 11 here and following,
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I will then remember the works of the Lord. That's all we have to do. When the enemy, the accuser of the brethren comes and slanders us and accuses us, or if he comes and tries to shed doubt on your
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God, which is all worry is, worry is a state of doubting your
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God, your Father. So when he brings this to your mind, then all you need to do is remember the works of your
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Lord, surely I will remember thy wonders of old. Remember the things where God has delivered you in the past, and others.
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And I will meditate also on all thy work and talk of thy doings.
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Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Now that probably has a dual application, or dual even interpretation.
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What he meant was in his day, in the Old Testament times, was that if you went to the assembly, if you assembled together in the temple and you heard the word of God taught, you would see
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God's way. And now we ask ourselves, where is this sanctuary today?
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There is no temple that's been destroyed. 78 AD, the Romans destroyed that temple.
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So we cannot go to this sanctuary to learn of the Lord's way, but where is it now? It's in our hearts.
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If we belong to the Lord, the Bible says that our body is the temple of the living
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God. And so this means we must go into that innermost part of our temple.
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We must go from within our hearts and meet with the true God in that sanctuary.
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And verse 13 says, Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our
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God? Thou art the God that doest wonders. Thou hast declared thy strength among the people.
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Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people and the sons of Jacob and Joseph, Selah.
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So he reminded himself of the works of God, and he ended up with the thought that I am redeemed.
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I have been bought with that blood that we sang about, Brother Roger. I have been purchased with that blood, and I have been set free from all my former masters, whether they be sin habits, whether they be
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Satan himself, whether they be an allegiance to this world system, or our own flesh, fleshly thoughts, and so forth.
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We've been set free from all that, and we have a new Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, turn with me to Psalm 139, 139 in verse 23.
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Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts.
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And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way.
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You see how he talks about a wicked way in me? That's the same thing Paul said in the New Testament when he said, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
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In the self -life dwelleth no good thing. Search my heart and see if that self -life is active.
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See if that self -life has brought about a wicked way, which would be my own self -way.
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And if you find that, Lord, then lead me away from that and lead me in the way.
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Everlasting. There's only one everlasting life, and that is the way.
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Now, Psalm 143, turn right over a few pages to that, and look at verse 8.
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And notice who it is that causes the hearing. He is addressing not his own heart here, but he's addressing
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God, the God of the universe, and he says, cause me to hear. That's the only way we can hear
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God's word, is if he causes us to hear. The only way. Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning, for indeed do
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I trust. Cause me to know the way. Isn't it amazing how many times you see that phrase when you start looking for it?
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The way. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto thee.
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Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies. How many times in these three sermons that we've gone through all the scriptures that talk about being in the way, how many times have we seen that it's in connection with protection and deliverance from the enemy?
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We must be found in the way because the enemy is always roaming to and fro, seeking whom he may devour.
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And so we must be in the way. So he says, therefore, deliver me,
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O Lord, from mine enemies. I flee unto thee to hide me. Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my
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God. Thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me.
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In other words, make me lively, O Lord, for thy name's sake. For thy righteousness' sake, bring my soul out of trouble.
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And of thy mercy, cut off mine enemies and destroy them, all them that afflict my soul.
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For I am thy servant. Now turn to Proverbs 2 and verse 6.
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Brother Roger, that guitar of yours is jumping around today. I'd stay away from it if I were you.
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Four churches more and Brother Roger tried to catch that guitar and he rolled his chair right off the platform while he was sitting in it.
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And he didn't catch the guitar either. So both, they both fell.
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Okay, Proverbs 2, 6. For the Lord giveth wisdom, out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
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You know, humanism teaches us that the human has his own wisdom and understanding.
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In the schools today, the prevalent theory of education is that we no longer need to teach children rote facts.
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We just need to teach them to go out and find the stuff when they need it. We just need to teach them where it is and they'll go find it.
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They don't need to learn anything. They just need to have wisdom. And to them, wisdom means you need to be able to find it on the internet and read it and you've got the information.
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You don't have to learn anything. What a ridiculous state of affairs when the Bible teaches us that knowledge has to come before wisdom and all of it is from God and none of it is found on the internet.
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Unless you can find the Bible out there on the internet, which I know you can. For the
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Lord's the one who gives wisdom. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous.
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He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment and, look at this, preserveth the way of his saints.
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You see the phrase, the way? Your way is preserved by God.
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Your way, it's like you think of the ladies that do preserves, they'll go get some strawberries or something and seal the little bottle and preserve it, make preserves.
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Well, God preserves you. God preserves all of his children. We're like preserves.
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We cannot go bad, we cannot be rotten, we cannot be destroyed. And so he preserves not only us but the way of the saints.
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That means he keeps us in his way, he keeps us on that narrow path. Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity, yea, every good path.
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Then while God is preserving you in the way is when you'll understand every good thing. You'll know how to discern right from wrong for the first time in your life.
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You'll know how to, when the world says that good is bad and bad is good, you'll know they're wrong when you're in the way.
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When wisdom entereth into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee.
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Why? To deliver thee from the way of the evil man. Isn't it amazing?
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The enemy always comes back and it's important to be in the way because of the enemy. The enemy is outside waiting for you to get off the way but God is working, keeping you in the way.
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Now, I want to move into some very specific verses now and these are going to be what some people call proof texts because I'm not going to read and go verse by verse through the whole passage because you don't want to sit here that long.
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I like doing it. But for your sakes I'm going to let you trust that I have checked out the context and if you don't then take it home and check it out yourselves later which
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I know not one of you will do. Because I've had preachers tell me now, when you get home I want you to read this passage.
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I never did it. But I had read it before or maybe I would have. Point is, these are in context.
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You can check them out for yourselves when you have time to make sure you agree with me on that. But I want to go through some things in your life that God in his sovereignty controls.
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Then I want you to ask the question when we finish this, what's left? What's left for me to control?
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And I want to begin with Proverbs 16 in verse 1 and we will also end with this verse.
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So I just gave you a clue about answering certain questions. But Proverbs 16 1, the preparations of the heart are in man and the answer of the tongue is from the
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Lord. Now notice what happens in this verse. God is placing the right for you to prepare in your mind, in your heart.
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He's given you freedom to think, hasn't he? But you know what he does with that bit of freedom that you have?
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He places responsibility on it. So when you think and you decide what you're going to do, you are then responsible for what you do at that point.
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Some people say that Calvinists don't believe in the responsibility of man. No, that's hyper -Calvinists that don't believe in the responsibility of man.
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Calvinists do believe in the responsibility of man. The Bible says that the preparations of the heart are in man.
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God wrote that verse. God said that. God made it to be that way. So now you're responsible. But you know what?
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As you begin to say a word, where does that word now go? It becomes a part of history, doesn't it?
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You say, well, not words. Words don't become a part of history. Well, I think you could think of some that did.
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When you think of men like Lincoln, you think of men like that and they give a little speech and say a few words.
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Does it ever become part of history? In fact, every word you say becomes a part of history. In fact, every word you say is recorded in the heavenlies.
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It is, in fact, a part of history. Now let me ask you a question. Who controls history? Man or God?
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God. And that's why God says, you think what you want in your heart. But even if you say a word,
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I'm controlling that. You won't say one word that God doesn't have to happen in the history.
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Think about that. The young man yesterday, 20 years old, 20 -something years old, right in that ballpark, he said, what about free will?
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And I said, you're going to have to answer the question, not me. What about it? What is it? And he never could tell me what it was, so I never had to answer his question.
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I didn't want to answer his question because he wasn't ready to hear it yet. But he couldn't even tell me what free will meant.
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Well, may I share with you what it means? Because you're ready. You're prepared. You have another person that kind of prepares you for these kinds of discussions.
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I started to say destructions. Free will, in the truest sense, means sovereign will.
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It means a mind that is able to think freely with absolutely no input from anywhere else in the universe.
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And let me ask you, who has that? God is the only one who has that.
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Now if you want to bring that down another level for human discussion, we say, was there ever a man who had free will in that truest sense?
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If you say, in the truest sense, you'd have to say no. Not even Adam had that. Because he was influenced by things he saw, and so was his wife, wasn't she?
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Before the sin nature. She was still influenced by things she saw, so she was not free.
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She was moved to think things by input from another. But if you want to compare them to us, they did have more free will than we do, didn't they?
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Because on this side of the fall, every thought you have is energized by a power higher than you.
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Think about that. You don't like to think that, I know, because you like to think, no,
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I generate that. I generate some of my own thoughts. I mean, I have the power to generate my own thoughts. And yes, there is a sense in which you do.
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You have a remarkable organ called the brain that God created and gave you as a gift, and it does function.
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It computes, doesn't it? But how many computers will compute if you don't plug them in?
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Have you ever tried operating one when you forgot to hit the on button? And what about if you turn that thing on?
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What happens to it? If you just turn that on and you sit back and look at it, what will it do? It'll sit there and wait for you to tell it something else, isn't it?
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Tell me my next order, please. And you hope if Windows is working right that when you, you know, click the next thing, whether it be the little, what do you call those things on the desktop, the little icons, you double -click that thing, what's it telling the computer to do?
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To start thinking, right? I hate to tell you, but your brain is very similar to that.
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You get up in the morning and you drag out of that bed, you're more in the flesh than you've been all week. And you make it into the restroom, you start brushing your teeth and you look at yourself and you even get more carnal.
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What is it that flips the switch of your spiritual life and turns it on, all of a sudden you're aware of God's presence and you speak to Him for the first time that day?
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Do you think you flipped it or did He flip it? Well, somebody had to turn it on.
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But you can think when He turns it on because the Bible says the preparation is the harder in man. So He turns your computer on, set, double -clicks the icon and gets you in the mode where you can think, you can start thinking, you can think what you want to think and you're responsible for everything you think.
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Haven't you ever felt like throwing a brick through your screen on your computer? I usually want to do that when it throws out those error messages.
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We throw them out to God all the time, don't we? What if He just threw a brick through us? But we're
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His children. The answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
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Now here's what I want to say. Point number one, the very words that we say are from the
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Lord. Now look at verse three. Commit thy works unto the
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Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established, and the implication is by God.
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He will establish your thoughts, and I think you could use the word thoughts to almost mean the same concept as plans, your plans.
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If you commit your works, if you say, Lord, I want my life, my life work,
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I know if I'm the man in the house, I have to have a job, make some money for my family, because that's part of my religion too.
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It says I'm worse than an infidel if I don't take care of my family. So Lord, I know I have to do that, but I want the predominant way of my life to be for you, for your work in this world, in your kingdom.
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I want my life to be for that, and you've committed your works. I want the things that I do with my life to be unto you,
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Lord. You commit your works to the Lord. The thoughts shall be established. God will begin to put plans in your mind.
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He will put thoughts in your mind that will help you go down a road of planning to know what you ought to do in the way.
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Now, sometimes he doesn't go way out there with them. He may just tell you, here's what you need to do for this afternoon.
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But when you get there, he'll tell you now for in the morning, you might need to do this. But the point is, if your life is committed to the
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Lord, the thoughts shall be established by him. So now we've seen that the very words that we say are from the
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Lord, and we see that the very thoughts that we have are established by the
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Lord. Now look at verse 9. I skipped an interesting verse.
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Let me read verse 4 before we go into verse 9. Look at verse 4. The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
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Isn't that interesting? Did you know the wicked are in God's will too?
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Now don't say that anywhere other church. They won't agree with us. Oh, they're out of God's will. They got out of God's will, and you can get out of God's will too.
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Well, we'll ask you if you can when we get through with these scriptures today, and you can answer it however you think you should.
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But I'll tell you this, whatever the answer is about you, I know what the answer is about what the wicked do.
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They do exactly what God wants them to do because he put them here for a purpose. And many times that purpose is to take us through chastening and tribulation and trial, and it becomes the very hands that mold the clay to make us be what we will be, in fact, to the
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Lord. There's no chance that we won't be what we're going to be. It is determined exactly what we will be both in this life and in the next one, and we will be that, and you can't mess with it.
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And God uses these evil, these wicked people for the day of evil, and that day of evil is what makes you strong and me strong.
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But that's maybe a rabbit trail in this message, although maybe not, but let's look at verse 9.
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So we've talked about how that the words, once we say them, they come into existence in history.
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The words are from the Lord, and the plans are established by the
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Lord. And now look at verse 9. Here, once again, just the same as verse 1, we see that the
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Lord grants a measure of freedom in our computers, in our minds, and we can think. I know he has to turn the button on, he has to energize that computer or we die.
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What can a computer do without a power plug? It becomes a very good paperweight.
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It's a little too big, but other than that, it's worthless. A good garage sale material, sold as is.
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A man's heart devises his way. Okay, you can think about it. You can do some planning.
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But what happens when you start to do things with your physical body in history, in time and in space?
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The Lord directs that. The Lord directs the steps. So now we see that the very words we say are from the
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Lord. We see the plans that we make are from the Lord. We see that the steps that we take are directed by the
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Lord. Look at verse 33. I wonder why he chose to pack so many of these in this one chapter.
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Wow. Sovereignty of God. Read Proverbs 16 if you want to see it.
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Where am I? Verse 33. It helps if I know where I am. Okay. The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole dispensing thereof...
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Now I want you to notice the word whole. How much does that leave out? None. So the whole dispensing of those items that were cast into the lap is of the
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Lord. Now I want you to picture this. I know Brother Otis has taught many of you this. He takes all of the issues of life and ways for it to continue.
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Okay. I'm still... I got an apron. I take the apron and I hold it up like this and it creates a little holy place.
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And all the issues of life go into that holy place. Now, that's what this is picturing.
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The lot is cast. The lot in human terms means chance. But is there really any chance?
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Is there any luck? Or is God in control of all events? So all of the events are placed into the lap.
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All of the choices are placed there. You might picture your mind as this lap.
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All of the choices that God wants you to have are placed within that lap and they're in your mind and they are there.
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But the disposing of them are of the Lord. When it comes out your mouth, when it comes out your body language, when it comes out your steps, when you walk into history and in time,
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God disposes or uses all of these things that He has placed within that lap. So you do have the lap and you do do things with them.
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You shift them around. You think about them. And you're responsible for every thought you have and what you do with those things. But once you step out and you actually in the physical world live out something that was in that mind of yours,
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God is dispensing that. You will be responsible for the thought that you had and the desire that you had to do that.
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Amazing, isn't it? So now we see that the very words we say are from the Lord, the plans that we make, the steps that we take, and now we see in verse 33, the choices that we make from the choices that we have.
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Now, go to Jeremiah. That's all we can find in that Proverbs.
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Go to Jeremiah 10, verse 23. Now, in this verse, we don't see the
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Lord presenting a new thing or point to our message this morning, but it strengthens point number three, where it says the
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Lord directs our steps, the heart devises the way, we have freedom to think, but the
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Lord then directs our steps. Jeremiah 10, verse 23 puts it this way, O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself.
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It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps.
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Can you imagine a verse like that? Predominantly, the world has not seen this verse, and I mean the world of religion today has not seen this verse.
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Jeremiah 10, verse 23, the young man asked me, well, what about free will? And I asked him to find free will, and he would have had to go back and tell me what means sovereign will, and only
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God has that, but he didn't know that, so he's thinking about that. He may figure it out. I'll see him again.
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He may figure that out, but until he does, we can't discuss it any further, because he won't understand, will he?
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Because to him, free will means can we think? Well, obviously, we can think. That's not the true definition.
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Now, when we look at this verse, I ask you, do we have true free will today after the fall?
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Look what this says. I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walks to direct his steps.
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So who does direct them? Well, go back to Proverbs 16, verse 9,
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A man's heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Isn't that fascinating?
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And now look at Proverbs 20, verse 20. Proverbs 20, 24.
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I said verse 20. I meant verse 24. Chapter 20, verse 24. Man's goings are of the
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Lord. Now, you see, once you've thought it through and you begin to walk, you're now going somewhere, aren't you?
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You're doing something. Well, that is of the Lord because God is sovereign and you're not going to change history away from His predetermined history.
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You do realize that God is the I Am. He is ever -present tense and it's all happened to God.
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You're not going to change that. Man's goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand his own way?
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How can the computer itself understand how it works? It can't.
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And yet, the Arminian today believes man does everything. Man starts it all.
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The young man had told me he had gone to Assembly of God Seminary, which I don't have a problem with where he goes to seminary,
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I guess. They're probably all pretty much equally dangerous places to go for a young man.
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But he said, Well, they believe you can lose your salvation there. I said, Well, you can't. He said, Well, it's something to think about, though.
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I said, No, it's not something to think about. You can't. I said, God knew you before the foundation of the world.
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If you're His, check out Ephesians 1, Romans chapter 8, Deuteronomy chapter 6, 1
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John chapter 5. When you get done with that, come back. I'll give you some more. I told him, and I said,
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You know, God knew you. If you're saved, you were God's before He made anything. That was a choice
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He made. Not you. I said, You know, what about, you know, your mother gave birth to you.
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What choice did you have in that matter? Did you choose your mother? And he began to understand that.
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So he said, Well, it's not a really good thing to think about that you could lose your salvation, is it? I said, Not unless you think you can crucify
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Jesus again. He said, Well, that would put him to open shame, wouldn't it? I said, That's blasphemy. He began to see.
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I said, He's in the wrong seminary. You know, he needs to get around some people that know doctrine.
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Man's goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand his own way?
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Amazing. Now, how about 1 Corinthians? I'm sorry, let me take,
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I've got another Psalm before we go into the New Testament. Look at Psalm 21, verse 2.
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Now, we read this one already, but I'm going to put it together with Psalm 37, 4. So Psalm 21, 2 and Psalm 37, 4.
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Psalm 21, 2 says, Thou hast given him his heart's desire and hast not withholden the request of his lips.
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Psalm 37, 4 says, Delight thyself also in the Lord. Now, you can think and you can decide in your heart and mind whether you want to delight in the
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Lord or whether you don't want to. You can decide whether you're going to delight in selfishness and the flesh or whether you delight in the
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Lord. But if you delight in the Lord, the Bible says, he shall give you the desires of your heart when your heart is in the mode of delighting in the
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Lord. Because he's in the new man when he's in that mode. The new man is attached vitally in vital union to the
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Holy Spirit. The mind of God is connected to your spirit.
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And therefore, when you have desires, when you're in that state, those desires come from the Lord. So what we've seen so far is that the very words we speak are from the
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Lord. The very plans we make are from the Lord. The very steps we take are from the Lord.
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The very choices that we make are from a group of choices that are placed in the lap but God dispenses them.
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The very desires that we have are from the Lord. That's what the Lord, Psalm 37 and verse 4 says.
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Now that's not the only place in the Bible that says that. Think about Philippians chapter 2 and verse 13.
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For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure.
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The to will part means the want to in your life. It is God which makes you want to do his good pleasure and then to do his good pleasure.
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So now the Lord shows very clearly, yes, many of the verses we've read show very clearly that the dispensing of the things out into history are of God.
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But God says I take it further than that because God says I made you and I know you and I know you're not going to do anything without it coming from here first.
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So now I'm going to even touch your will. Now I'm going to cause you to want to do what
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I will have you do. Let me ask you a question. What about free will? It is free.
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It's a gift from God. He just put it there. But you didn't think it up. So if that's why you have to define what do you mean when you ask me what about free will?
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Are you talking about your own will? Being sovereign? Are you just talking about you have thoughts?
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What are you saying? There's a lot to be discussed in this matter. But if what you mean is that I as a man in my fallen state totally without God and totally without Satan totally without input from the world or my own flesh can make a sovereign choice totally on my own no,
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I don't believe in free will. I don't believe we have it anymore after the fall. I don't believe
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Adam even had that kind. Only the sovereign God of the universe has that kind. But I'll tell you what's interesting is that with sin comes less and less freedom.
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Have you ever thought about the fact that Lucifer had more freedom than Adam even before Adam sinned?
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Lucifer, before he sinned had more freedom of thought. It was still not sovereign because there's only one but it was a lot more freedom than Adam had before his sin and then
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Lucifer fell and became Satan. Adam then, if you want to say Adam had free will it was a lot less free will and this is bad grammar,
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I understand. You can't say less it's either free will or it's not. I understand grammatically but the only way I know how to talk is as a human, as a man and I'm saying that Adam had less free will than Lucifer did even before Adam fell because the devil was in the garden.
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The devil was in the garden and even though Adam had more free will than we do now he had less than Lucifer because he had
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Lucifer there influencing him which Lucifer didn't have. I guess he did, he had himself but he didn't have another influencing him.
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All that Lucifer had was God apparently as best we can tell maybe some other angels but he didn't seem to pay too much attention to them because he was the leader.
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So now we find Adam and Eve do they have free will? Many theologians say yes they do well
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I say if you want to compare it to Satan's free will he had very little because he was listening to Satan.
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He was not making a sovereign choice without any other input he was influenced by God and by the devil even before the fall.
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Now if you go through the fall and come out the other side what have you got left? You've got a brain that only even even secular scientists tell us we use probably less than 5 % of the computing power of our brain and you think we're not influenced by everything around us?
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Why is it so hard for you to make a decision? And I'll tell you Brother Bill said something I thought was so true the other day he said that the more input you get the less able you are to make the decision.
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We're talking about the President he said that's why the President ought to surround himself with people that believe like he does instead of having people like Colin Powell and people that don't believe trying to get input from all of them he'll just what was the word he used?
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He'll be he can't move paralyzed I think he said.
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Why? Because he's not making a sovereign choice President Bush is he is making a thought that is dependent upon all the input he's getting from everywhere that's the way men think so there is no free will you have no free will you are a responder you respond to God hopefully you know him you respond to God you respond to Satan from time to time you respond to the world around you which is the little
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G God of the world put it there like it is those systems are set up by Satan as he usurps that right which is really no longer his that's why you as a born again child of God having been redeemed you don't have to live by the world system you can be above it you don't have to be brought down by it the flesh that you live in the old carnal nature that is dead if you allow
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Satan to resurrect it it will affect you so don't crucify it and live the resurrected life but we talk this issue of free will
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I mean to meet the dead issue but you have to remember you can't take people from where they are to what you know even in one moment or one day you've got to go in and define some terms so don't go out from here and just go to your friend and say hey you don't have any free will
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I'll prove it you'll get in an argument you don't want to get into alright now go to 1
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Corinthians 12 verse 4 while you're turning there I'm going to review a little bit number 1 the very words we say are from the
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Lord number 2 the plans that we make are established by the Lord number 3 the steps that we take are determined and directed by the
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Lord number 4 the choices that we make are disposed of by the Lord number 5 in other words worked with by the
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Lord brought out as He chooses number 5 the desires of our hearts the will to do is touched and moved by God and now we're number 6 look at this this is amazing 1
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Corinthians chapter 12 verse 4 what you're going to see in these few verses is that the very energy
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I'm talking physics now the ergs which measures the moving of an object the energy it takes to move an object from one place to another the energy to cause anything to happen in history comes from God only 1
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Corinthians 12 now there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit and there are differences of administrations but the same
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Lord and there are diversities of operations but it's the same God which worketh all in all now that's another study for another day but that list the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in verses 4 through 6 and shows that the three as they work in different ministries all have to do with the gifts they have specific parts they play in the gifts as they're operated in the church but look at verse 11 but all these worketh that one and self same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will according to God's will not your free will you cannot choose what gift you will have you cannot choose to learn to speak in tongues not if they're real you gotta understand this tongues is kind of a bad translation in the
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Bible it's languages it is known languages of the world that are in the world and a genuine linguist if someone spoke in genuine languages in this church
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I got some rules for that by the way number one, he would then have to stand up tell me what the language was he just spoke then he'd have to point to someone that knows the language and they'd have to tell us what he said or he can't do that here and she can't do that here but if there was a true linguist in the world he could come and listen to that and tell you what language family he might not be able to tell you exactly the language in every word form but he could tell you what family language language family that is if it's a true language linguists can do that still today now in the 1800s they could do it better because they didn't watch
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TV go to ball games and they just studied language but still today there are men who can walk in this church and I say this
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I know that Joel says in the last days I love this rabbit trail it's one of my favorite topics in the last days these gifts are going to come and be energized again and I believe that and we're going to have a problem unless he also energizes discernment because tongues and prophesying is totally subjective unless it's really done
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God's way and then if it's God's way it's still not subjective it's objective just like the written word because you can't do it if there's not a translator and another person who has the discernment say hey that's not even in the
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Bible don't even say that here it's not of God that's a counterfeit spirit that's not the
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Holy Spirit now if they walk in though folks and they stand up and say or whatever they do then they're going to have to say what language was that is it someone else brother
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Otis do you know that language no how about you know that language if there's no one that knows it they can't do that anymore now
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God I'm not saying you had to learn it but it has to be a language I can find linguists in the world that we can actually bring in we'll tape record it we'll bring it to them and say is this a known world language if it's not it is a counterfeit there is no different language in Corinthians than there was in Acts there's not a different kind of tongues it's all the same it's languages
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I'll preach a sermon on that pretty soon and clarify that in case you need to review it because there's a lot of controversy but there are a lot of people who have a predisposition for what they want to believe about that and they filter all the scriptures through that and we have to be careful we don't want to do that either it's interesting 1
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Corinthians chapter is it 13 or 14 it ends with don't forbid them to speak with tongues see we'd like to filter that one out wouldn't we that verse is probably not in the original so you have to be very careful with the gifts to discern whether they be of God or Satan and if they're of God you don't want to forbid them now as we see here that God the
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Holy Spirit is the one that takes all these gifts and works them and energizes them and provides the energy to cause them to happen in the church if they're coming from just human effort they are carnal and they're not from the
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Holy Spirit verse 11 but all these work at that one and the self same spirit dividing into every man severally as he will you can't choose the gift you want to have it's of the sovereignty of God the
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Bible does say you can desire the gift it says desire the greater gift such as exegeting the scriptures to people where they can understand and learn and be edified so you can desire them but there's no guarantee you'll get that just because you desire it now if you're desiring it while you're connected to the
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Holy Spirit maybe you're putting that desire in your heart and God's about to give you that gift but God is sovereign and it says so clearly in verse 11 that he dispenses these as he chooses not as man chooses now we go into Ephesians chapter 3 verse 20 now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us that's the urge that's the energy and it comes from God unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us that is the power of God as he brings the energy that makes the gifts work a lot have believed and taught in the past that these gifts are inoperative and what they mean by that is that God can't do them anymore and that's not true but the fact is
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God can when he chooses but he's the one that makes the choice and for some reason
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God in his sovereignty has chosen not to energize some of the gifts as much as they were energized in the book of Acts in that transitional period right before the church age began for some reason
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God in his sovereignty if you start in the second and third century you have Christ Ostrom who wrote and was giving a discussion of 1
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Corinthians 13 and 14 he said I really can't tell you all about what all these terms mean because these things don't happen in the church anymore 200 years after Christ that was spoken
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Augustine the great church father who Martin Luther learned so much from it caused him to come out of the
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Roman Catholic perverted church the great Augustine before the time 400
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A .D. said that these gifts have passed off the scene in the church they are no longer operative in the church and you come down through history you'll see you won't see these languages and these sign gifts like you saw in Acts all three for 2000 years and you'll see some counterfeits which we can discuss sometime but you won't see them like they were in the book of Acts and in Corinthians until the end times you get into the tribulation
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Joel says when the moon turns red and the darkness is in the sun and in the clouds that's obviously the tribulation period these will be returned ask a question how could they return if they didn't leave for a season so a lot of what you're seeing is counterfeit now why does that make sense that you would see a lot of counterfeit because the real thing is coming imminently you could begin to see these kinds of gifts again in the church and now we're so confused by the charismatics and the assembly of God people who meant well because they wanted they genuinely wanted these gifts they didn't recognize the sovereignty of God though they were
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Arminians they thought they could just make it happen it's like people think they can go win a soul and all this yes you can witness but God is sovereign and they had that same problem with these gifts they wanted to make it happen now because of that you've had every manner of confusion going out in churches all across the world starting in England coming to America in the year 1901 with Amy Sample McPherson who was an adulteress who made tongue talking the modern tongues popular confusion everywhere surrounded with bad doctrine is it gibberish?
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is it languages? is it ecstatic utterance? is it a language of angels? what is it?
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all of this has been put out there so when the real thing comes what are we as badders going to do? we won't want any part of it because that's charismatic you see how the devil brings confusion and he takes the good things of God and perverts them, puts a little twist on them and then naturally the people of God don't want anything to do with that it would be very difficult for us to receive a genuine gift, wouldn't it?
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but the end times they will come so we've got to be in prayer
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I think that's one of the reasons the Lord in his sovereignty made it happen this way it means we have to pray for discernment we have to, the
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Holy Spirit has to be a part of our lives and thoughts and what we decide to do and not do because we can't figure it out on our own so now we have to rely upon the
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Lord well, we're totally out of time I see it in your eyes I'm just now getting excited about the message so we'll finish it another time, another place but you know what we've seen already in these few short moments the words we say, the plans we make the steps we take the choices we make, the desires of our hearts and the energy with which to do the good works for God all comes from God in his sovereignty and we respond to it but we will be in his will the question is whether you'd be happy with that or not and I want to close with this thought because I ask you the question what's left?
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I didn't get to finish there's four more points but pretend we did all ten of them this morning
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Charlotte taught me a long time ago never tell them we got ten points when they're about to die you say hey, we just did six points what's left?
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if we could go ahead and name the other four and you got all these ten things we find in the Bible that God does in his sovereignty and works out and acts in our lives what is left?
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well, I go back to Proverbs 16 .1 the preparations of the heart are in man don't be a hyper -Calvinist the hyper -Calvinist says man doesn't do anything,
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God just does everything I'll just sit here and see what happens that's a perversion and a heresy but the true
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Calvinist simply believes God's in control, not man that's right, that's what you are you may not like the term, but that really
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Calvin was right about those things he didn't make them up, he just found them in the Bible and put them in order for us to study them but the true
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Biblinarian understands that man does have a part and his part is the preparation of his heart the preparations of the heart are in man and the answer of the tongue is from the
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Lord let us be a people who come prepared if we're supposed to be in the way because of the enemy the only way to be in the way is with a prepared heart that's open unto the
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Lord and your will in my life, whatever you want and see, we understand, because we have some scriptures, we understand that as we step out and walk we're going to be doing what
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God has ordained is going to happen in history, aren't we? the question is, is our heart going with that or against it? because that's what we answer for and that's what brings joy or lack thereof worry or trust pain or love let's stand and be dismissed
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Father, we ask that you would bless this word in our hearts and lives as we go Lord, thank you for your word, give us the opportunity to have future times if you tarry it be your will for us to have future times to discuss these languages, these gifts and what your word says about them, not what people think about them what you say about them give us proper interpretation of your scripture and honest interpretation, not bound by any presuppositions that we may have had not coming from any denominational teachings but let us study what the word says and may we be prepared and watchful and Father, in our own personal lives, thank you that you work in our lives to call us to want, cause us to want to do the things that you want us to do replacing those desires in our hearts, we ask you to move in our hearts, turn the switch on and let us think and as we think may we think that what we ought to be doing is preparing our hearts as that sanctuary where David said your way is in the sanctuary
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Lord, make us strong in these last days and above that, make our children even stronger and the young people in this room today young adults, make them strong in the word and the power of your might that they might stand in the evil day bless our fellowship together, the meal we're about to have in our evening services and we ask it in Jesus name,