To This They Were Appointed

You would turn with me, please, in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 2. Peter's first epistle, chapter 2.

And before we look to God's Word, let us ask the Lord to bless our time together. Our Heavenly Father, once again, we open your

Word and we pray that your Spirit would gather with us, that your Spirit would lift up our hearts and our minds, that you would indeed glorify yourself, that you would conform your people ever closer to your image, that you would make your words run forth with power, or that you would reveal the glory of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is in His name that we pray. Amen. Well, it is certainly good to be with you here on a

Sunday morning, a beautiful Sunday morning in Phoenix. Most of you know that this past Wednesday I finally had the opportunity to leave

Kiev, Ukraine. And it looks like I timed that just perfectly, didn't

I? In fact, the reality is that I landed in Kiev at the same hour that the

U .S. State Department issued a travel warning to American citizens for traveling to Ukraine.

And the first few days that I was there obviously were somewhat stressful.

During each break in the classes I was teaching church history at European Biblical Seminary, which is about 10 miles from Maidan, which is the independent square where most of you saw the violence taking place.

There is a picture in the other room that I snapped a few days later as we drove by the barricades at that place.

That was after the violence was over, for those of you that are wondering why in the world I was there. But it was interesting, certainly going to what is called a grocery store there.

For us it would be a mini market almost. It was a little disconcerting to see the lines and the run on food, the run on gas.

There was a lot of rumors going around as to what was going to be going on and so on and so forth. But then while I was there, things calmed down a lot, basically because the president left.

But I will have to be honest with you, what was most concerning to me is when we would drive around, I spoke at a church in Kiev on Sunday and you would be driving along and you'd come up on a roadblock basically made up of tires and there would be these goons standing there with baseball bats.

They weren't real police, they were just people that decided they were going to stand there and intimidate people with baseball bats. Anarchy is worse than dictatorship, basically.

You can at least predict what the dictator is going to be doing. You can't predict what armed mobs will be doing.

So it was an interesting situation and as you can tell by looking at the news today, it is remaining an interesting situation.

My friends there had actually said a few days ago, actually before I left, they said, well, if we know

Russia, they're going to move on Crimea next. And that's exactly what they've done. So not overly surprising to the folks there.

Pray for the brethren, obviously. I know, for example, I have a Reformed Baptist pastor friend of mine who frequently ministers in Crimea at a church right in the middle of the area where right now the

Russians have in essence moved in. We have brothers and sisters everywhere.

So we would certainly pray for those brothers and sisters during this particular time. I posted a sermon that I preached last

Sunday at a small church there in Kiev on our assurance of our relationship with God from the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 6, our anchor which holds within the veil.

And so you might find that interesting because there was a whole group of people who are watching their currency devaluing and all these things going on and yet they were there and wanted to hear from the

Word of God. So it's always good to be reminded that we have brothers and sisters all around the world.

After I left Ukraine, I had the opportunity of going to London for just a brief period of time and I recorded a radio debate.

It's already been posted, in fact, for those who are interested in listening to the entire thing. I was asked to engage in a debate with a young man who is the author of a book titled,

Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed. And his name is

Austin Fisher. And we did a little over an hour of dialogue on his reasons for having left the

Reformed faith and having embraced what he calls free will theism. Now I will just note in passing that he was only in, quote unquote, the

Reformed faith for a brief period of time. He never ministered in that context. He's a young individual, was even younger when he was, quote unquote, a

Calvinist. But the arguments that he presented,

I think are arguments that you and I especially should be familiar with, that we should have solid answers for, not because we're just looking to create answers.

But especially these questions should be things that we have thought through, that we have struggled with.

And the answers should not be trite. They should not be easy.

They should not be shallow. Especially these particular issues should be arguments that we respond to from a heart that has truly had to deal with the reality of the existence of evil in this world and God's purposes therein.

Now I say to you, if you're visiting with us, normally, if I had had certainly a little bit of a different week than I had, it is a little bit difficult doing sermon preparation at 36 ,000 feet when you're spending most of your time doing that.

But normally we'd be in Hebrews. We will be going back. I know we're almost there. We're not going to give up on that.

But this particular subject is not an easy subject to address. And I chose to do it partly because that's certainly where my mind just was.

This debate was only on Friday. Well, Friday London time, so sometime Thursday night for you all.

But also because in listening to this young man and his statements,

I really was convicted that we should, as Reformed people, truly hear this particular set of objections.

It's not the standard type. It's not what you would normally expect. It requires a little bit more thought on our part.

And in giving a response, I really think that anyone hearing our response will be able to tell whether we have struggled with this, whether we've heard the objection, or whether we're just simply defending a tradition.

And of all people, we should be the last ones who are merely defending a tradition. If we call others to recognize the role of tradition in their thought, then we as individuals should certainly recognize it in ours and examine any traditions that are ours in light of Scripture.

And it certainly struck me as extremely providential the comments that Brother Boyles made prior to, well, as part of the opening this morning before Sunday school, because as we listen to the question, the questions that Mr.

Fisher has, you'll see that there's great relevance there. Let me read you just a couple of paragraphs from his book, and then we will look to the

Bible as providing our response to this. But listen, as this young man, he is the same age as my son, so he's writing from that perspective.

Listen to what he says. Just in background, he was introduced primarily to the

Reformed faith through John Piper and people like that. I did learn prior to our program that he actually read the

Potter's Freedom as a Reformed individual, but as a young person. And he goes to college.

He begins being challenged specifically on theodicy. Theodicy is the justification of God in light of the existence of evil in his created world.

And I would say a large portion of the arguments that are presented against us and presented against the

Christian faith as a whole and against what I would believe to be the most consistent expression of the

Christian faith and Reformed theology, both by unbelievers as well as by believers.

So here is what he has to say. So this is what God is really like. Deceive yourself no longer.

For me, this is a fundamental turning point. I could no longer make any sense of the core Christian beliefs in God's love, justice, and goodness.

I could no longer deceive myself in thinking I knew what I meant when I said God was good.

I realized the only thing I could say about God was that he did everything for his glory. Seriously, that was it.

God is loving, God is just, God is good. Pull back the curtain by all that. And all they mean is

God does everything for his glory. God's desire to glorify himself had not only been subsumed but consumed all his other desires.

So the only thing I understood about God was that he would glorify himself. Love, justice, and goodness had been warped beyond recognition as they were sucked into the black hole of glory.

What does he mean by that? Well, he describes a challenge, basically, from a professor that caused him to start having conversations with the reprobate.

What do you mean by that? Well, not obviously some kind of spiritual conversation with damned people, but basically the question of God's goodness in the light of his decree to save some but not save all.

What about those that God does not decree to save from eternity past?

What about those individuals? How can it be said that God is good to them? How can it be said that God is loving?

How can it be said that God is just? If there are those who in the famous or infamous and often a -contextually said words of John Calvin were doomed from the womb, how can there be any meaning to such things as this expression that God is loving,

God is just, God is good? If to be loving means that you seek the flourishing and the betterment of the object of your love, then how can any of these words have meaning when you recognize that there are individuals that God has passed over, that God has chosen not to extend saving grace to?

And if we confess that God can extend saving grace and save anyone, and there are certain, obviously, theological systems that do not affirm that, but the

Reformed affirm that God can indeed have that kind of power. He can save anyone.

No one is beyond his saving power. Then this raised a question.

And the only answer was, well, but God is glorifying himself. It is all for God's glory.

And that is what he means when he says that God's desire to glorify himself had not only subsumed, but consumed all his other desires.

So, the only thing I understood about God was that he would glorify himself. As a result, he was challenged to look at the

God of Jesus, how Jesus reveals God. And so, here is sort of the rest of that story.

He says, the nucleus of everything that Christian theology says about God is we found the crucified Jesus. And the crucified

Jesus we learned that the God who pours out wrath is the God whose hands are nailed to the cross. The God who punishes sin is the

God who takes the punishment. The God who judges is the God who looks upon those crucifying him and says, forgive them.

I found the crucified God very difficult to square with the God of Calvinism.

The cross became a place where the ultimate absurdity and meaninglessness of the universe came to a head. The God who loves so much so as to suffer crucifixion, loves so little so as to glorify himself and the damnation of humans he created to damn.

But I was supposed to stand before the cross and worship this ultimately unknowable God of ambiguous morality as if I knew what it meant for him to love me.

And if you no longer know how to worship the crucified God, you no longer know how to kneel before the cross and say thank you.

What then do you know? So, there were the objections.

This was not obviously the kind of objection that most of us have dealt with very frequently.

It wasn't based upon mis -citing Matthew 23, 37. It wasn't based upon quoting from 1

Timothy or Peter and saying, well, God desires to save all, etc., etc. That kind of thing most of us have dealt with many times before.

We know the text. We can go back. We can walk through them and exegetically provide a response.

This is a little bit different. It's not new. In fact, ironically, shortly after I read

Mr. Fisher's book, the next day, in fact, I read an exchange between John Calvin and a man by the name of Castelio.

Castelio had written 14 theses against Calvin's theology. And every objection that Mr.

Fisher raised was contained in Castelio's work. So, that means that 450 some ideas years ago, the exact same objections were being raised.

But since they aren't the normal objections that we encounter, I wanted to look to the

Word of God and invite all of us to think deeply this morning about what it means. Because what

Mr. Fisher said, I would say, I don't know, if you want to listen to the encounter, just look up Unbelievable on the web.

There's an RSS feed, there's an iTunes feed, so on and so forth. And you can listen to it. It's already been posted.

But I would estimate five, six, maybe seven times during the course of just that one hour of exchange.

Mr. Fisher said, I've asked Reformed people over and over and over again and no one can give me a meaningful example of the goodness of God in light of his decree not to save every single person.

And at one point, I just responded by saying, if you want the example, I'll give you the example. It's Jesus. It's the

Incarnation. It is the fact that God has entered into his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ and has sacrificially given himself for individuals that do not deserve anything.

Mr. Fisher, where you've seemingly missed the issue is aside from the fact that the arguments you give are not biblically oriented.

But what you've missed is the transcendence of the love of God that is shown in the

Incarnation and in the self -giving of God so as to bring about salvation. You have become so focused upon the idea that God's love must be undifferentiated and must be equal to each person and have the same purpose in each person that you've lost sight of what the

Bible defines as the goodness of God. Now, I should mention in passing before we look at the text that sadly and I do mean this sadly in looking at the individuals who have endorsed

Mr. Fisher's book and in his own statements during our discussion for example, where he said he doesn't really have much of a problem anymore with open theism.

He doesn't really have a problem anymore with the idea of God learning things, gaining knowledge.

It's painfully clear to me that part of this journey as he describes it also includes a fundamental degradation of his view of the perspicuity, clarity, and authority of Scripture.

And I've said many, many times before there is no reason for you to even be a Trinitarian if you do not have the highest view of Scripture.

If you do not have the highest view of Scripture there is no reason to balance and harmonize

Scripture. There is no reason to look for the beautiful threads of the truth of Scripture as they are woven together.

There is no reason to harmonize Peter and Paul and to look at what John and Matthew said.

Once you abandon that view of Scripture and once your language is filled with well,

I was uncomfortable with that in the place of exegesis there is no stopping point.

That's not a slippery slope that is a cliff. And you may artificially stop for a while and say well, you know

I'm not going to go any farther. I'm comfortable now where I am. But the reality is that the gravity of depravity will eventually drag you the rest of the way down that cliff.

And unfortunately we have seen that happen over and over and over again.

And so in light of the question how do we recognize the goodness of God obviously the first and most foremost thing we have to establish before we can even begin to think about that is what does the

Bible teach about how God has acted in history? It is obviously not a sufficient basis to say well what will make me feel comfortable?

What will allow me to view God in such a way that I will be pleased with the object of my adoration?

There is a complete difference between approaching this subject from a perspective what has

God said? How has he said it? Has he revealed the foundation upon which you and I are to stand and thinking about these things?

There's all the difference between that and saying well I'm going to start with human experience.

I'm going to start with my pondering the fate of those who are eternally lost.

I'm going to start with a very human orientation and I'm going to start with human definitions.

Now Mr. Fish says I'm not trying to do that. I'm not trying to do that but fundamentally that's what he has done. He has demanded that God's love that God's goodness that God's justice that the description of those things not be drawn from Scripture and defined from Scripture in light of all that God is doing.

Instead there's sort of a in essence an external standard to which God must now answer.

He must answer to the court of human wisdom. And if there is something that transcends our experience if there is something that transcends our finite minds that really can't be allowed.

Even if the Scripture directs us to these things that really cannot be allowed and that fundamentally is what is wrong.

I believe with Mr. Fisher's questions and the answers that he comes to though I will mention just in passing

I don't know that he answers the questions. That was one of the things I brought up in our dialogue. I don't believe that leaping into free will theism answers any of these questions.

Actually it raises far more. Now he has to answer the question as to how

God knows future events because he still believes God knows future events. He believes that he hasn't become an open theist and the open theist doesn't have any real problems with it at the moment.

We'll see how that turns out four or five years from now. But he'll admit

I don't know how God knows future events. I don't know. I can't answer that. And so you're still left with the idea of a

God who created knowing what the result was going to be knowing all of the acts of evil that were going to take place and yet he did so without a purpose.

There was no purpose in those specific acts so now we have to theorize well it was necessary for him to do this there had to be a certain amount of evil there wasn't a purpose in that evil but to get to his goal maybe he can become a

Molinist or something along the lines there's all sorts of these theories you can come up with they're not derived from scripture but there are these theories you can come up with but they don't really answer the questions.

And so it's amazing how many people will leap out of what is actually a biblical perspective into something else and yet that new position does not provide them with what they wanted other than an escape from a sovereign

God and an escape from having to admit that there are some things that God does in this world where he says

I am the just judge of all the earth I will do what is right and in this life you may simply have to trust me.

You may simply have to trust my goodness. There is an element of lack of faith when you really have to get to the point of saying

I just don't think I can trust God's goodness here. I need to find a way of limiting God's activity so he doesn't have to answer for these things.

The result is not the biblical God. Well, what do I mean by this text and providing us with an answer?

Well, let's begin in verse 4 of chapter 2 and listen to what Peter says. This is not the normal place you would think you would go.

You would expect me to run off to Romans 9 or Ephesians 1 or there's all sorts of places in Isaiah we can go to.

There's all sorts of things like that. I thought, you know what? This truth of God's sovereignty and election is everywhere in the

Bible. It's everywhere. Let's go someplace I don't even think we've ever gone before at least as far as I've preached from the text to my knowledge.

I suppose after as many years I forgot to ask Roxy so I have not actually consulted the infallible oracle of all things.

But which reminds us to keep praying for dawn.

How would you like to have someone with you all the time remembers everything you ever said? I mean that was just I'm a patient man.

I'm not sure I can handle that but I don't remember having preached on this at least here. Okay? With all the traveling

I've done now maybe I'm wrong but this particular section is just so clear and it provides a foundation for us to answer these questions.

Verse 4 And coming to him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men but is choice and precious in the sight of God you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For this is contained in Scripture behold I lay in Zion a choice stone a precious cornerstone and he who believes in him will not be disappointed.

This precious value then is for you who believe but for those who disbelieve the stone which the builders rejected this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense for they stumbled because they were disobedient to the word and to this they were also appointed.

But you are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light for you once were not a people but now you are the people of God you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.

Now in this text once again we have many of the same themes we have seen so many other places.

Recently I have spoken on such texts this is 2 Corinthians 4 2 Corinthians 2 1

Corinthians 1 where you have the perishing and those who are being saved. Those who are being saved the elect those who are perishing those who reject

Christ you have those categories there and here you have the same categories a little bit more basically the believing and the unbelieving and you have the categories of rejection and acceptance.

Coming to him is to a living stone which has been rejected by men. So there has been a rejection on the part of the

Jewish leadership now there is rejection on the part of the people of the world

Romans and now in our day secularists or atheists whoever else it might be there is a rejection of this living stone who is

Jesus. We come to him is to a living stone which has been rejected by men but his choice and precious in the sight of God same kind of categories you have 1

Corinthians chapter 1 wisdom of the world wisdom of God to the world God's wisdom is foolishness and of course

God has made foolish the wisdom of the world here you have the world rejects the living stone but in the sight of God this one is choice and precious and you also as living stones so he is the living stone to which we have come we as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ so here you have

Peter's analogy of the body of Christ except here it is the living temple the living temple of the church and we coming to the living stone we as living stones are being fitted together by God into this temple we are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ and so here you have the promises of Jesus and some people have pointed out remember

Matthew 16 you know you are Peter upon this rock so on and so forth you certainly have

Peter here writing and so you have this remembrance you have this idea of the promise the fulfillment of the promise that Jesus made that Peter himself heard

I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it and so this is the fulfillment of that they see this in their own salvation that God is building up his church and that we are to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ and so we are called as this people to be engaged in the highest calling of offering spiritual sacrifices not sacrifices of redemption there has been one sacrifice that's finished but now we in this living temple offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God only in and through Jesus Christ a theme that obviously we could develop more from the book of Hebrews but we have done that before and then this is said to be contained in scripture this is laid out for us it has been established not just written but established in scripture behold

I lay in Zion a choice stone a precious cornerstone and he who believes in him will not be disappointed or be put to shame here it's important that we look at the original languages and to recognize that there is a a theme in this text of being put to shame and not being put to shame honor and dishonor these are found in the text here and sometimes they they don't come out real well in the translations frequently because the translations are trying to smooth things out a little bit and as such we start losing some of the some of the idea notice that there is a a choice stone a an elect a stone a precious cornerstone and the one who believes in him will not be disappointed will not be ashamed will not experience shame so he says this precious value literally this this honor in verse 7 then is for you who believe the one who believes in him will not experience shame so there is a there is a justification there is an honor due to those who believe in the one that God has set forth but for those who disbelieve for those who reject this revelation that God himself has made when you think about this is very similar to what

John says in verse John when he talks about you cannot have the father without the son you reject the one you're rejecting the other why?

because the father has given testimony to his son there is no longer a possibility of being able to say well

I still just worship the one God but I'm just not sure about this Jesus fellow well if this

Jesus fellow is who he claimed to be and God raised him from the dead and he's seen him as the right hand of the power on high you are in essence accusing

God of lying in the resurrection of Christ in the establishment of Christ's kingdom so you just can't do that you have to accept the revelation that God has made of who

Jesus Christ is and so the precious value of the stone is for you who believe but there has to be a result of rejection of this message but for those who disbelieve then we have a quotation drawing both from Isaiah and elsewhere the stone which the builders rejected this became the very cornerstone and so the first application of that is of course the

Jews they rejected the stone they were trying to build their own edifice they rejected the stone and yet now it has become the very cornerstone of the building of a true temple a temple which will abide through time which cannot be destroyed by Titus and Roman legions in AD 70 and then

Peter ties this together with a brief quotation from Isaiah 8 now what's fascinating about that we'll not have time this morning to really expand upon this that much but what's fascinating about that is the reality that this is the section that if you trace from Isaiah 7 through Isaiah 11 you will keep running into all of these

Messianic prophecies this is where we encounter Emmanuel God with us and this is going to be a background in the next chapter when

Peter talks about being ready to give an answer and setting apart the

Messiah as Kurios in our hearts again there he'll be drawing from Isaiah again the same section so it seems to be extremely important to Peter to mine this section of Isaiah for all of these texts that are

Messianic prophecies that have Messianic applications so he quotes from Isaiah 8 a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense very same text that Paul focuses upon as well so here you have in the early church from the very beginning of the early church you have this understanding that this prophetic message of this stone of stumbling this rock of offense has to do with Jesus Christ and the fact that his fulfillment of his role as Messiah goes against the traditions that the

Jews had they expected the military conqueror they saw the great second coming fulfillment and that's what they were looking for and the suffering servant not so much and so they stumble and they are offended in fact that term offense is the term standalone the very term that Paul utilizes so often there in 1

Corinthians chapter 1 and so two of the early leaders in the church drawing from the

Old Testament this concept of stumbling and a rock of offense but then you have the rest of verse 8 notice what it says for they stumble stone of stumbling they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and the

New American Standard renders it and to this doom doom is provided there is no word doom it's simply and to this they were also appointed to this they were also appointed so there is a stumbling because they are disobedient to the word there is a proclamation to them there is a revelation given to them of who this precious stone is there has been a justification of his claims in the resurrection he has been raised from the dead he has been elevated, exalted in the right hand of God the

Father this is a vindication of his claims this is a vindication of his messiahship and the fact that he is indeed the son of man as he said to the high priests and to the elders in his trial in answer to the question are you the son of the blessed one he said

I am and you will see the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven and they knew exactly who he was referring to they knew exactly who he was referring to in the book of Daniel so the high priest tears his robes he says he heard the words of blasphemy he is worthy of death so you have a vindication in the resurrection of the claims that Jesus made for himself and therefore those who would reject these claims would reject the proclamation of the lordship of Christ over all mankind for now it's not just the

Jewish leaders who are guilty of this action now as the gospel has gone out to the gentiles now

Peter and the other apostles are seeing that these fulfillments of scriptural teachings have a much wider application than just the

Jews in Jerusalem for now they are making this proclamation to the gentiles and now they are seeing the conflict that this is creating between the claims of the

Roman Empire and the claims of Christ the Roman Empire is going to be persecuting Christians for another 250 years after this and demanding that they say

Caesar Kurios Caesar is lord the very thing they could not say because they had already set apart

Jesus as lord the Messiah as lord in their hearts and so there is a sense that we need to recognize that we are taught in our day that you can be neutral to religious things

I just don't worry about those things I just don't concern myself about those things

I don't have to worry about who Jesus was I just don't worry about those things we've been told it's been drilled into our minds that to disbelieve to withhold decision whatever term knowledge you might want to use that's a morally neutral thing to do in fact some would say it's a morally good thing to do because no one really knows about this religion stuff anyway it is of the very essence of our culture and society today and every one of you who has been exposed at society in education in your work whatever it might be it has been placed into your mind that there is nothing wrong in suspending belief it's simply a morally neutral thing the problem is the scripture says it is sin there is no neutrality concerning the proclamation of the lordship of Christ he is either lord of all and he rules the nations with a rod of iron or he is a fraud and there is no middle ground and there is no neutrality and there is no suspending of decision of this matter you must take a side and the only categories that are given in scripture is of believing or disbelieving being saved or perishing alive or dead those are stark categories and our society does not like stark categories but they're there so Peter says they stumble because they are disobedient to the word they reject it just as Paul told us in Romans chapter 1

God has made clear the revelation of himself through what has been made so they are unapologetus without an apologetic without an excuse without a rational defense and they're actively suppressing the knowledge of God so they stumble they stumble over the claims of Christ because they are disobedient to the word they will not accept

Christ's claims concerning himself they will not accept what it means to recognize who

Christ is for if you know who Jesus is if the second person of the Trinity has entered into human's flesh and given himself voluntarily upon the cross of Christ then you are under obligation to bow the knee in repentance and faith to him mankind says

I will not don't tell me that there is someone who has absolute right over me do not tell me that there is someone who can actually say your life must be spent in service to me that's not constitutional and even if you don't live in a land that has a constitution or you live in a land where the constitution doesn't mean much which unfortunately is what's happening to us these days still there is that pride there is that selfishness there is that desire for me to fulfill my own lusts and desires that causes us to stand up and say

I will not be ruled but folks the central affirmation of the gospel is that Jesus Christ is kurios he is lord of all every nation every man every woman every child that's who

Jesus is he is lord you either bow the knee now or as Philippians chapter 2 says there will come a day when every knee shall bow those in heaven on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is lord in the glory of God the father but confessing that now results in salvation confessing in judgment results in condemnation now is the day of salvation so they are disobedient the proclamation of the lordship of Christ requires obedience it does not leave room for neutrality but then there is this little phrase it's only four words in Greek it's very short

I looked at a very scholarly commentary last evening it's a commentary that is it's wordy it's verbose it's one of those commentaries where you have to work hard to mine the golden nuggets out of all the excess verbiage and references and when it got to this section oh!

long section on the use of the Greek Septuagint and parallels with Hebrew and all sorts of neat fun stuff if you like that kind of thing so I thought wow!

this could be quite a conversation about this last little phrase there was about three lines

I sat there and read it and I I wonder if I got a a bad file here did something something missing here you know

I was looking at it on my iPad here ah about three lines basically what

I said was yeah what this means is that if you if you don't believe in Jesus then you'll be lost well that was sort of a given wasn't it the idea being well all this really means is that what

God has ordained is that unless you believe you're going to be lost there's nothing more here nothing more to see let's move on but if you've been following what's being said there's a clear contrast and it continues on did you notice but you in opposition to these are chosen race royal priesthood holy nation people of God's own possession these are all phrases in the

Old Testament God redeeming his people and given the fact these are addressed to gentiles tells you a little something about you know we are the true circumcision et cetera et cetera so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light and then notice verse 10 for you once were not a people this is the ami lo ami this is sometimes sometimes we don't catch this in English translations because in Hebrew they would use words that had meaning as names and so sometimes we read the names we don't know the original language we don't catch what the meaning was but this is that discussion of not people becoming a people for you once were not a people but now you are the people of God you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy notice the contrast notice the contrast that is you are certain people and you didn't deserve mercy you're amongst those who had not received mercy now you have and so you have perishing being saved received mercy and not received it's all there the parallels are all there so we go back to verse 8 and it says and this doom and this doom they were also appointed to wow it's right there it can't be ignored it can't be just looked over they were appointed to this to what?

to the stumbling to the stumbling the disobedience it's all of it that's what they were appointed to God had a purpose a lot of people don't like that don't like that I don't want

God to have any no this just has to be all their free will again folks are you going to answer the objection to the justice of God when the

Bible specifically says that these individuals were appointed to this the subject of the verb the one who is performing the action is

God and these individuals were appointed to fulfill a certain function in God's economy this takes us back to Mr.

Fisher what Mr. Fisher doesn't like is that in God's purposes he could actually desire to demonstrate his wrath his holiness and his justice now the problem here is

Mr. Fisher is aware of this aspect he is aware of the fact that many men many reformed men have pointed out before that the greatest answer that has been given to us is to be found in the reality that God is revealing all of his attributes his holiness his wrath his justice his goodness his love his mercy his grace and you see if God saved everybody there would be an aspect of his his character it would not be revealed if he saved no one there would be an aspect of his character it would not be revealed and in only one scenario does

God have the freedom to be God God has the freedom to choose God has the freedom to reveal all of who he is to his creation for some folks that's just not good enough they want another answer so in Ephesians 1 6 when we're given the ultimate answer all to the praise of his glorious grace well that's a black hole that redefines everything else

I'm sorry that Mr. Fisher found it to be a black hole but I find it to be a brilliant light it's not a black hole that sucks things into it and distorts things it's a brilliant light that you and I as thin benighted finite creatures need to have to be able to see beyond our toes it's so easy for us to get stuck looking down and if we're always just looking at what's right in front of us the world's not a big place you can't see much if you're always looking down like this you don't start seeing the beauty and majesty of the world as long as you're looking down you have to look up it doesn't help if that's in the dark by the way there needs to be light our eyes need light and God has given us that light now

I can't I can't judge Mr. Fisher's heart I don't know what was going on with him but I can tell

Mr. Fisher that the overarching unity and beauty of the word of God saying that all of this all of his wrath and his anger and all of his love and his mercy which goes far beyond anything

I can begin to understand because God knows the hearts of those he judges God knows the hearts of those he saves far more than I ever could but all of that which is so far beyond me

I need God's light to see how it all fits together and how the judge of all the earth can be righteous and saying

I will do what is right and by by basically shackling him and limiting him and getting rid of his sovereignty saying that in his sovereignty he limits his sovereignty which is a silly statement that means nothing you're not answering any of the questions you're just making it so you can keep looking down at the bottom of your toes down there and say well

I'm comfortable with what I see I got just enough light to be comfortable with this I don't want just that that's not enough you know how

I know it's not enough because God's given us so much more God's given us so much more if he if he didn't want us to think about these things why did he give us all these things if we confess that scripture is all theogonous to us it is

God -breathed and he has a purpose for it and so the first answer as we wrap up to Mr.

Fisher's questions has to be found in we have to allow

God to speak first and God has told us in his word he's told us that some

God is merciful to some he appoints them to stumble the rock of stumbling these were not morally good righteous people who want to do the right thing and God said no

I'm not going to let you do it in fact every single one who stumbled at the stone of stumbling

God had actually kept them from being more evil than they were but having said that that does not change the reality does not change the reality that God has the freedom to extend his grace and mercy as he sees fit and if it's not free it's not grace and mercy it's not grace and mercy and in their stumbling

God has a purpose I have a hard time worshiping any God who would bring this about that had no purpose had no reason the question is will we embrace

God's purpose and reason as sufficient for us that's the question we will continue this evening to consider this because there's a second aspect

Mr. Fisher says you want to see God you see him the crucified Christ I agree but looking at the crucified

Christ we see the absolute reaffirmation of what we see right here in what

Peter said that's what we'll look at this evening let's pray together our glorious and sovereign triune

God we thank you for the time you have given us this day to consider your truth we would once again ask that by your spirit you would cause us to see to understand to love and to bow in awe and worship and may we always recognize that we need your spirit to avoid the sin of disobedience the sin of disbelief and indeed even the sin of questioning your word and seeking our wisdom outside of the great banquet you've provided to us in your scriptures may we think seriously this day about your truth and as a result may we be better servants of yours we pray in Christ's name