Covid Tyranny, then 1 Cor 10:13, John 12:32

And greetings. Welcome to The Dividing Line. We're in the big studio today. That means we're going to be going to the big board eventually and looking at college football playoffs. No, we're not. That's what they use it for.

We use it for something significantly more important than that. And I think that's all done anyways until next year, at least from what I heard last... I actually, believe it or not, I actually tuned in.

That's such an irrelevant phrase anymore. Tuned in. No one tunes in. I remember tuning in. Do you remember? Are you old enough to remember tuning in where you actually had to turn the dial, turn the antenna, sometimes stand there and hold the antenna?

Oh, perfect. Okay. I can't let go of it now. We don't tune in anything anymore. You just bring it up on your browser or whatever. And it was, I guess, toward the sometime in the second quarter, it was boring.

It was big guys running and other big guys for two yards, one yard punt, two yards, one yard, kick a field goal, whatever it was. I heard the fourth quarter got interesting, but anyway. But congratulations, I guess, to all of our good friends over in Georgia.

There you go. Georgia. So anyway, how'd I get into that? I mean, that was pretty unusual. I generally eschew any sports any longer, at least outside of cycling anyways. But here we are. Uh-oh. Okay. When the doggy texts you, John Cooper just texted me.

So I just got to make sure, you know, because you never know when, when John has a question, I'm Skillet's official theologian, so I'm on it fast. And that's what I get paid the big bucks for in t-shirts.

Travel Plans, Road Life, and Upcoming Speaking Dates

So anyway, welcome to the program today. I think part of the reason I'm feeling a little bit scattered is I've got less than two weeks now until we pull out. And I've got just an amazing amount of stuff to do between now and then.

Some challenging stuff, funerals and preaching this week. And then, you know, the RV life is thinking about what food you're going to have and clothing and what weather situations you may or may not encounter.

Getting your tires all ready to go and make sure you got chains and, and all that kind of stuff. And, and then you also have to go, what did I do with the spray lubricant for the hitch for the fifth wheel?

Where did I put that thing? You know, that kind of thing. That's, that's my life right now. But just so everybody is aware, because people always complain when they go, well, I didn't know you're going to be in Houston.

We will be, but that'll be the third weekend. We'll be in Houston and going to be debating Tim Stratton on that Friday evening, I believe it is. And then speaking in Houston on that Sunday, just in the morning.

And, but more immediately, the last weekend in January, we're going to be in St. Charles as always, Covenant Grace Church, as we have been for many, many years, had been every first weekend, December had to cancel out this year, but only moved it back just really a matter of weeks, basically.

Less than, less than two months. And so to our friends there in Missouri, I look forward to seeing you at that time. And then the weekend after that, we'll be in Conway, Arkansas. We'll be teaching at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, speaking that Sunday as well.

And then heading for, like I said, Houston via Tyler. And hopefully, haven't gotten all this nailed down yet due to health issues with other folks, but hopefully going to be down with the troublemaker in Texas on the way to Houston.

And so we'll be putting up a list of, I'll be speaking in Springfield, Illinois on the way to St. Charles. And so, yeah, we're going to be doing dividing lines from the Mobile Command Center yet once again.

And I've got to remember to make sure I've got all that stuff too. That's, that's the challenge of now and when you leave it's, because you get to your first stop and go, oh man, I know right where I left that.

And it's just, just how life is. But so that's probably why I'm feeling a little bit scattered with all of that stuff going on. And I've got two major projects to be working on while I'm on the road as well.

And so I got to make sure I got all that stuff with me. And so, yeah, it'll be, it'll be fun. So your prayers appreciate, your support appreciated as we go back on the road. And thanks to President Biden.

It's going to be more costly, obviously. I thought it was bad enough last year when we would pull into various gas stations and fill up that nice big tank that feeds that nice big V8. But it's going to cost more now.

And so the travel fund awaits your beneficence. If you want to see us, well, get me out of town. Just, I sort of wonder if the travel fund is not normally just funded by people at Apologia. Go farther, longer away.

Bye. That'd be great. Anyway. All right. So I just happened to notice before, you know, we are, we are, by the way, we are on Odyssey right now. Okay, good. Just, just, just checking. Reason being for obvious things.

I just saw that the Pope Francis on Monday called for widespread vaccination in all countries and suggested the global coronavirus response was being complicated by baseless information or poorly documented facts.

Countries have widely used vaccines, the Pope noted, have, countries that have widely used vaccines, the Pope noted, have seen a reduction in severe cases. And so here we see that Pope Francis is one of the many global elites pushing lies down our throats.

And hey, he believes his own church's history as far as his own office. So why not? They're just about as bad as far as the amount of truthfulness in their claims. But it really does seem in Quebec, they just announced today, they are going to start fining people who do not get vaccinated.

So it's going to cost you money to resist the how many, how many just in the past week, how many elite athletes, mainly footballers, footballers in the rest of the world are soccer players for you Yanks in America.

How many elite footballers have you seen thrashing on the ground or dead? The numbers are climbing and climbing and climbing and elite athletes know these things. And that's why they're like, no, no, I'm not going to do this to myself.

They know. But the realities are crashing through. Even I can hear that. If you can't hear that, you need some help. I thought you could use that for the outside. Instead, you're doing something else with it.

That's okay. Rich is, even though Rich is between two bright lights, so I can't see him really well. He's trying to distract me back there and keep me from staying on one topic. So that's just to see, you know, we don't have a glass wall between us anymore, but that doesn't change anything.

The facts are overwhelming. Did you see Walensky? I mean, there's so many things. Walensky admitting that 75 of COVID deaths in the United States have been with people with four or more comorbidities.

Now, again, this was nothing new. We knew from back in when Italy was getting hit. The first numbers said, wow, it's really dependent upon all sorts of other factors. If you have these other factors, then this stuff can be really bad.

And when you drop that down to two comorbidities, I think it's well over 92 or something like that. I don't have it in front of me, but COVID stinks at killing people by itself. It just doesn't have that level of deadliness.

And we said that back then, and people got kicked off of Twitter and got censored and fired and all the rest of this stuff. And now it's Walensky saying what we were saying almost two years ago. And now it's, well, yeah, that's what the facts say.

Well, the facts said that back then, but it didn't fit the narrative. And so Walensky's sitting there and she's asked a straight up question. And she literally looks in the camera and says, our vaccines are working very well.

What kind of audacity does it take to say that our vaccines are working very well? Well, it's simple. You redefine what a vaccine is. You redefine the word working and you redefine the word well. That's how you do it.

And that's what they've done. Vaccines been redefined. Just go back and any vaccinated person is a dead end for the virus. Well, no, because what we were told, other vaccines, you get the polio vaccine and you don't get polio, right?

Because it's not a respiratory virus. That's why this has been stupid from the beginning. But anyway, so we redefine vaccine. And now a vaccine is, well, we're going to tell everybody that if you've taken our noxious genetic poison, that you won't get whatever you get as badly as you would have gotten it.

You know what? I don't know if you saw, did you? In fact, I'm not even sure that I mentioned it on Twitter, but what this reminds me of is the stories that I've heard from Mormons for years and years and years about the temple garments.

So if you're wearing the temple garments, you're not going to get into an accident. But if you get into an accident, you're not going to be hurt. But if you do get hurt, you're not getting hurt badly.

If you do get hurt badly, you're not going to die. And if you die, you're going to die blessed. Same thing. Same thing. If you get the shot, you're not going to get it. But if you do get it, it's not going to be bad.

And if it is bad, you're not going to die. But if you do die, well, you're still blessed. That's what we're doing now. Well, you won't go to the hospital so much. Less than 1 of people go to the hospital in the first place.

So for 99 of people, all that's completely irrelevant. But they're working well. Our vaccines are working well. No, they're a joke. Omicron blows through them like they're not even there. And what's worse is there's increasing evidence that when you do the booster thing, not only does that alleged help crash within 30 days, but within 60 days, you are now more susceptible to Omicron than you were before.

Huh. Wonder how that's going to work when Israel goes to its fourth booster, which they're planning on doing. So Quebec is going to hit you with a fine if you do not take this worthless stuff. Our military, you want clear evidence that all this is the purging of the military so that the only people you've got left are the people who will unquestioningly do whatever you say, even if what you say is completely opposed to the Constitution of the United States.

I follow a lot of these things, and there's a lot that's going on, and it's a lot of negative stuff that's going on. And there was a case, well, first of all, you've probably heard that because of a previous case, the military has had to report to a certain court as to how many exemptions are granted.

And the military has come back and said, none. And so they're having to admit, it doesn't matter what the situation is. So last week, there was a guy in the Air Force that submitted the papers fully documented that the very substance in which the mRNA vaccines are placed for the injection, he is allergic to it.

He can't take that kind of a vaccine. And they provide the evidence, here's his test results. And the Air Force said, take it or die, or take it and die, or you're out. I guess would be the way to do it.

Wouldn't give any exemption. And this shows, this has nothing to do with readiness, sickness, virus, vast majority of the people in the armed forces are in no danger from any of this stuff, especially Omicron, which is colds and sniffles.

This is how to purge out of the military, anybody who might stand up and say, this is wrong. All you got left are the people that go, yes, sir. Where do you want me to shoot, sir? That's it. That's all you got left.

So all this stuff. So what's Pope Francis doing? Hey, you Roman Catholics, your Pope seems to be a leftist ideologue who is easily deceived by stuff. He's repeating mantras right now that two years from now, everybody will know were lies.

And will anybody hold him accountable for it? Well, he's not infallible when giving medical advice. Yeah, I know because he's not infallible about anything ever. Just face it. It would not matter what he said.

It would not matter if he stood up there and said, I proclaim, I solemnly define as the vicar of Christ, that marriage is not just between a man and woman. You all would find a way around it. You know, you would, you know, you would.

There is absolutely no meaning to the concept of papal infallibility. None. None. And Francis shows it. And if Francis doesn't show it enough for you, just wait till his successor comes along. That could be really, really, really interesting.

So then you've got Fauci and Senator Paul going at it today. And then you had Fauci going after another, I don't know if you saw this, but a Republican senator was going after him and Fauci had a hot mic moment.

They had a hot going back and forth. And then Fauci, I don't know if he just thought the mic would be turned off or if he didn't mind. But he called the senator a moron and then used our Lord's name in vain afterwards as well.

That's really common on both sides of the aisle. But it gives you an idea that this guy is pretty much what he's been described as. And this is how he runs stuff. But I loved when Paul was pushing him on questioning me or questioning science.

That was pretty wild. So it continues on. And it seems to me that the people, the totalitarians who absolutely want to establish complete and final enslavement of their populations are realizing, look, if you get Omicron, it ain't going to kill you.

Just look at the death numbers. They haven't even moved. Omicron is not killing people. But it seemingly gives you really robust immunity for all variants. And so in a sane world where you did not have evil, tyrannical totalitarians in charge of medicine, big tech, and government, this would be reason for rejoicing.

This would be great. We'd be like, pretty much done with this. This should finish it off. This will just become just like every other flu virus. Every other flu virus you've ever taken a shot for had a name.

And there were SARSs and COVIDs and everything else. We just didn't try to panic everybody about it. But now we have. And we have created a permanent underclass of severely damaged people who can no longer think about anything other than their fear of everything.

And I don't know what that's going to result in, but they vote. And so it could be pretty ugly. There's no two ways about it. But this is, I think these, especially up in Canada, these people are realizing we may lose our chance here.

We need to get as much power as we possibly can so that if it does get rolled back, we'll still have 10 times more than we ever had before. And so, yeah, there you go. That's where we are. And people go, I just think you should just do theology.

Okay. We are facing just, if you cannot see how all of this is directly related to, we look at Canada, Canada's totalitarian bent, and C4. If you don't know what C4 is, you didn't see our program with Joe Boot.

But that's going into effect, I think, today, this week, to where you are not allowed. It could very conceivably be that if you were to publicly teach and preach on 1 Corinthians 6, that you could get up to five years in prison in Canada.

And you know that people are going to be bringing those lawsuits on the basis of that very, very quickly, one way or the other. If you can't see that there's a connection there, that it's the same secular forces that are seeking to destroy freedom and liberty on the basis of lies that are promoting the culture of death on the basis of lies.

It stuns me how many people just are so naive as to not see this, but that's how things are. And so there we go. All right. So we're in the big room so that we can take a look at the big board because we like using that.

And I did a video with the folks at Accordance last week. I've linked to it. And five of my books are now in Accordance. They're working on the others. And we'll let you know as they become available.

I thought it was really cool that the whatever Christian needs to know about the Quran book links directly over. I should have brought that up. I didn't do that. I'll try to remember to do that sometime.

Bring up the Quran book and mouse over a Quranic reference and it'll link over to, because I forget how many, it's about three years ago. Accordance came out with some Quran modules with various translations that were linked together, the Arabic, the Hawaiian yards.

I thought it was great, but I thought it was unusual. And in talking to the guys there, they did get some pushback, but they felt that it was important to have that kind of material available, especially for missionaries in the field.

And they're exactly right. They're exactly right. It's amazing how the perspective on dealing with Islam is totally different to the people who are actually doing it in the field than here in the United States, which is a sort of sad thing when you think about it.

Anyhow, I want to look at two passages in regards to the issues related to the will of man and the whole topic of synergism. Okay. This is somewhat in preparation for, and really sort of to help Dr. Stratton will be debating on these issues, is Molinism biblical?

We'll probably take some time, especially as I get closer to it, we'll take some time to talk about, I mean, I can tell you what's going to happen in the debate right now. I really can. I really did not expect anything unusual in that context.

But one of the key issues does have to do with what the Bible teaches about the will of man, the will of God, deadness and sin. I do not believe, and I was going to actually respond to an article that Dr. Stratton has on his website about a Molinistic model for monergism.

But when I started challenging him on it, because it just redefined everything. It was honestly, with all due respect, as bad as Norman Geisler's redefinition of Calvinism and Arminianism 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago now, in his work.

He honestly said, I've actually changed my views on that. So I'm like, okay, well, I asked if he'd written anything else. He said he hasn't. So I said, well, I'm not going to interact with something, even though I think it was only 2017.

So it wasn't that long ago. But if he says he's changed his view, great. I can't really interact with anything else. But one thing I do know is that within the past month, he and Tyson James have made reference to 1 Corinthians 10, 13, and to John 12, 32.

And so I would like to walk through these texts. And you know, as I'm, I don't know, when you zoom in, is the font big enough? I'm sort of wondering if it's, I don't know why, and maybe the guys at Accordance can help me with this, but when I'm in my main window here, and I blow it up, I get all this dead space.

Instead of it expanding it out, like it does in my Old Testament texts. For some reason, these do this massive dead space thing. There's probably some setting someplace that I'm just not seeing or grabbing or something.

Maybe somebody will help me out with that. I don't know. Anyhow, 1 Corinthians 10. Let's, let's take a look at it and see what we can do with it. I want to look at it in context. For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed to the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea and all ate the same spiritual food.

And so we're obviously, what we're doing here is Paul is going back. And in fact, he's going to lay this out later on. So much of what God did with the people of Israel in the Exodus and everything else that happens in what we call the Tanakh, the Old Testament, he did so for literally for our edification, for our example.

And he's going to say that. And so he's taking us back to the Exodus. And recently I, I touched on briefly the fact that because right now we're doing at Apologia is I'm doing a series on baptism. And so we're looking at every place where baptizo and any related forms are used in the New Testament.

And there's, there is one, they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And so obviously that's not a literal utilization of a baptizo there. You don't get baptized into an individual in that sense, but you, there was a sense in which going down into the, into the sea, the cloud that there was a identification taking place there.

And they all ate, interestingly enough, the same spiritual food. And so you had the manna being identified as spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink and their drink from the spiritual rock, which followed them.

And the rock was Christ. And there's a whole bunch of really interesting background information you get into in regards to the interpretation of that rock from which the water came in amongst the Jews and amongst the rabbis and things like that.

Paul definitely would identify, especially given the understanding that the one with whom Abraham interacted, that was Jesus. That was the pre-incarnate son. The son is the one who has been involved in all these things.

It makes sense that then the source of sustenance, the spiritual rock, which followed them, the rock was Christ. Things like that would be, directly relevant. And so we have that. And I don't know, I'm not sure if I have to keep, I don't think that, does that freeze the, no, I don't think it does.

I think I probably could scroll this without taking that down, but then you've got all sorts of, yeah, we'll find out here. So nevertheless, nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased. Now it's interesting.

This is a term used of the elect, of the elect. God is pleased because of the elect being in Christ. And so this would, so you have most of them. So there were others with whom God was pleased. And there were the few that entered into the promised land and they were laid low in the wilderness.

Now these things, here's the text I was referring to. Now these things happened to them. Yeah, see, you can scroll it. See, like I said initially, and then you said afterwards, now these things happened as examples for us that we should not crave evil things as they also craved.

And so here are our people. They are, they are exposed to tremendous divine acts right in front of their eyes. And yet miracles themselves wane in their impact upon the mind over time. And I've seen that.

I've seen that in my own Christian life. I've seen amazing things happen. And you figure, I'm never going to get over this. I'm never going to ever question God's provision again. Two, three years later, it's amazing how, how fast our memory goes, shall we say.

But please notice these are an example to us. And so now the application is being made to the Corinthian church, to the Christian fellowship in Corinth that needs all the help they can get. And so we are not to crave evil things and do not be idolaters as some of them were.

As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. And so we know what was going on at that particular point in time. Um, nor let us act immorally. It's probably faster than the other way of doing it.

Sort of be interesting. This, this, this would be an TBN. This would be, it's came up with a new, a new deal for TBN. You, you mark stuff here and then you scroll it real fast. And when it stops scrolling, you look at what it, and this will be the word from the Lord that you see how that would work and it would appear.

And you don't, you don't like that. No. Okay. Okay. Rich is doing his best stoic impersonation back to you. You could not see somebody on TBN doing that. I could see somebody on TBN. I really could. So we should not tell them to do this.

Don't give them any ideas. Yeah. Don't give them any ideas. Okay. Okay. And do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it's written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally as some of them did.

And 23 ,000 fell in one day, nor let us try the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpent. So what is, what's he doing here? Well, if we, if we know our Old Testament at all, if we know, this is primarily focused upon that earliest period of right after the Exodus.

But we, we are having the Old Testament text used as warnings to us. Don't do the things these people did because this is what the result of that was. Even though they, they were eating manna, they had supernatural interventions saving their lives.

And yet they engage in idolatry and immorality. They tempt the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents. Uh, then of course, one of our favorite, uh, our favorite terms, once again, we, y 'all going to know this one.

Uh, yes. Gungusmu. Gungudzete. That's the, that's even good. Gungudzete. That's this, that's a, well, that's, that's a good one. Do not grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.

Um, and so all these things happen to them as an example. All these things are a, uh, an example for them, for us. Sorry. And they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

And so clearly we could probably stop there and talk about the end of the ages and what this means and, uh, what this has to say about the nature of the church and things like that. Uh, but that's not why we're looking at this particular text.

We're just looking at the context right now. Um, so you have that instruction given to us and therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And there were many in the, uh, the people of, of, of Israel that was, that was their problem.

Um, they did not even give consideration to proper worship of God. They didn't have changed hearts, didn't have changed hearts. And when you're writing to a, when you're a preacher preaching to your people, when you're speaking to a, a gathered crowd, um, let me give you an example.

Um, it Sunday was Sunday was, uh, a deep time in our fellowship. We had one of our precious ladies passed away last week and she was, uh, young and, uh, children. And, uh, so it was a heavy service. Uh, apology is a very young, young group.

We don't have, we've only had like three deaths, uh, since it started. Um, three deaths of adults, uh, because we have so many, uh, ladies, uh, having children, uh, had a lot of stillbirths, um, and things like that.

But as far as, as adults, not that many. And so, uh, when Jeff got done speaking, I could, I could see it in his eyes that he realized he hadn't said something to me. He just looks over knows where I'm going to be.

And he just sort of gives me the signal and has me come up and do the instructions, instructions for the Lord's supper. Um, some normally the person who preaches does that. Uh, but if you've got someone who can do it and has done it many times right there, and you just really work through a heavy sermon, why don't you come up and do it?

So when I give those instructions, one of the things we do is we say the table of the Lord is for those who are professing believers, baptized believers in Jesus Christ. And we explain, you know, you may have been, you may have been raised to just simply eat the bread and drink the wine and not really give it any thought, but these things, this, this represents Christ's broken body and his shed blood.

And if you are not in him, if you have not come to him for the salvation, only he can provide these things don't mean anything to you. And they're not for you. You should not partake of them. In fact, you're prohibited from doing so because you're not discerning the Lord's body.

And so my, I, I don't know everybody that's sitting in front of me. I know many of those people and they're, they're my, my brothers and sisters of Christ. And so we, we partake of the supper together, but I don't know.

I don't, I can't look into the hearts and minds of all those people. And so I have to give a warning, do not partake of this if you are not in Christ. So we see that in the New Testament. We see, um, over and over in Hebrews, especially, the writer speaking to the congregation and he will speak about their position in Christ, what God has done for them, all these wonderful things.

And then he will give warnings and then the warning will be followed, but we are convinced of better things concerning you. Well, why does he do that? Because anybody who's been in the church for any period of time at all knows that the, well, the longer you're in, the longer the list your own mind can bring up of the people who once did partake and once were a part of the fellowship and they aren't anymore.

And they, they, they're not even, they don't even claim Christ any longer. As soon as I said that, the names in the faces start popping up in front of my mind. And so you have to recognize we live in that state today.

And so you can speak of God's great promises and fulfillment for the people and we together partake in the blessings of Christ. At the same time, give warning. And if that is not true of you, then beware, turn, repent.

That's just, that's the reality that, that we face in this life because of seven, eight times, it'd be really neat if we had glasses we could put on and all the elect would glow green. That would make everything so much easier for us, but it doesn't work that way.

Some people claim that ability, but it doesn't work that way. So therefore, let the one thinking that he stands, take heed, look out lest you fall. That is the context then of first Corinthians 10, 13.

And notice the context continues because let's skip over 13 for a second, look at 14. Therefore my beloved flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men, you judge what I say. And this is eventually going to take us right into the discussion of the supper and the abuses of the supper, first Corinthians chapter 11 in Corinth.

So it's not like 10, 13 is just this, this excursus that goes, and we're going to take this and we're just going to cut this out and we're going to make it something about something. No, it's the same context is continuing on.

Okay. So what do we have here? However, that's the next important thing. No temptation has overtaken you except that is common amongst men. So it might even be translated that which is human, that which is human.

That is, it is consistent for human experience. But God is faithful. The emphasis is upon the faithfulness of God, not on the faithfulness of mankind. Who will not allow you to be tempted or tested. Who will not allow you to be tested and let's change some of our colors here so we can see that.

Beyond, above and beyond what you are able, but how many different colors can we use? I don't know. But together with the tempt, the temptation. So here's, notice the temptation, connection here, connection there, but adversative together with that temptation will provide the way of escape that you may be able to bear it.

And so there's, there's the connection there between these two here. He will give you that ability. So by the way of escape also that you may be able to bear it. So what is this talking about in context?

The people of old faced temptations and they gave into them. Paul says to people in this day, no temptation has overtaken you, but what is human, what is common, what is anthroponous, but God is faithful.

Now, what does this phrase have to do with the rest of it? Well, who makes it, who makes the way of escape available? God does. God does. So there is a clear reality here that in, that whatever we're facing, God is sovereign over the situation.

That does not even look like an S. We're going real well here. S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N. You know, we're going to have to have a little chat after the program today. Okay. You and I are going to have a little chat.

God is sovereign over all of this. God is not taken by surprise by any of what's going on here. And he is the one who is faithful. Now, would he be under any, um, any moral requirement to make a way of escape?

Well, no. If it was God's purpose to bring someone in judgment, did he make a way of escape for Pharaoh? Think about that a second before you answer. Remember Exodus 4, before Moses even entered into Egypt to face Pharaoh, what did God say?

I'm going to harden his heart. Because he had determined to bring judgment upon Egypt. There was a, there was a vitally important demonstration of his power over the Egyptian gods that he wanted to demonstrate.

And he did. And he did. And his fame was made known. Even, even when, remember, even when Israel went into Canaan, remember when they got to Jericho? Remember what happened then? We've heard, we've heard what God did.

So he had a purpose in all of that. And so he is working his sovereign purpose and it is a sovereign purpose focused upon the demonstration of his attributes, of who he is, not about us. So the, the underlying assumption here is the faithfulness of God.

And that we are going to experience these situations of testing and trying, and God will not put you in a situation where you will be able to say, remember, remember the saying, a lot of people don't catch this part, but remember in the Old Testament, Jeremiah, there was a proverb that God did not like.

Remember? There was a proverb going around where people were saying, um, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. And we're all like, well, I'm glad we don't have proverbs like that these days.

Um, what is that supposed to mean? Well, think about it. The fathers have eaten sour grapes, you know, something that's really tart. And the result has been their children. The result has been an impact upon their children.

The idea of the proverb was there's no reason for us to listen to Jeremiah's preaching to repent because our father's the ones that sinned. What we're experiencing is because of them. So there's no reason for us to repent.

We're stuck. And that was the whole point in Jeremiah was that, no, stop saying that I'm going, I'm punishing you for your sin. You, you, you repent. I'm sending prophets to you. You repent. It's not that God could not do that if he wanted to, but he was telling them that's not what I'm doing.

You can repent, repent. And they love their sin more than they loved God. What happens when your heart is hard and, and if you say, well, then God should have changed their heart. Then what you're saying is grace is necessary.

The grace has to be given. Think about what you're really saying when you, when you make that kind of a statement. So come on, let go of it. There you go. It's getting a little older and it's letting the line through.

All right. So what some people have done with this is say here, here is libertarian freedom. This is libertarian freedom, even though it says God's faithful. And even though it's, it's, it's God is the one who's doing these things.

Um, still it's libertarian freedom because he's going to make a way you don't have to sin. Okay. All right. And so the, I, the, the, the overarching idea is, uh, this means there is no sovereign decree.