1689 London Baptist Confession (part 53)

I wanted to just say something before, because we're going to get to the Sabbath, maybe not today, but we're going to get to the Sabbath.

So I've been reading about different things because one of the things that struck me, I think I've mentioned it before, the blue

laws in Massachusetts.

So I started looking up some things here and did you know, this was Connecticut, but did you know that in the 1700s,

no 1600s, in Connecticut, there was a couple arrested

because they were sitting in a park on Sunday?

I just thought, okay, it's against the law to sit in a park on Sunday.

So there are some people who want to be strict Sabbath, Sabbatarians, and I'm like, how

strict do you want to be?

If you're in a park on Sunday, somebody said to me this week, they said, well, you know, it's a matter of

the Sabbath being an eternal principle attached to the nature and character of God.

And I said, well, that's fine.

I said, but how much, how much,

let's see, how do they, I'm trying to think how the confession characterizes what we're to do on the

Sabbath to rest.

So it says some other things, but if you rest 97 on the

Sabbath, is that okay?

Is it 98 %?

Is it 100 %?

What defines rest?

Do you have to be reclining in bed?

I mean, there are all kinds of things and you just have to sort of wonder what people's motivations are.

But I digress.

Last week, we were talking about praying, talking about fervent prayer, talking about how we should be fervent in prayer.

And we'll start with James 5, 16 and 18, and I'll just read that.

We read it last week.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently that it might not rain.

And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruits.

So he prays for it not to rain and it doesn't.

And then he prays for it to rain and it does.

Why were his prayers answered?

I guess is a good answer or a good question.

Why were Elijah's prayers answered?

There's a...

What's that?

Okay, he was a righteous man.

But the text says too that he had a nature like ours.

So he was righteous in the fact that maybe we would have seen him and thought, well,

he's a righteous man in the sense that he has no outward sin that we can see,

but he's just like us.

So why else he was righteous?

Why else was his prayer answered or his prayers answered?

Okay, because they align with God's will.

This is what God wanted to happen.

And so it happened.

But the text tells us that the prayer of a righteous person has great power.

I think other translations will say something like, you know,

availeth much, you know, the prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

I don't know why I know that King James, but

the prayer of those who obey the Lord and who are aligned with his will, because that's what happens

in prayer.

They change things.

Those prayers change things.

And we were talking about the earnestness of our prayer, the need to pour out our

hearts to him.

To pray in faith, this is R .C. saying, is to plead one's case before God and then leave it in his hands and

trust him.

I like that one.

I mentioned that last week.

I like it a lot.

Let me say it again.

To pray in faith is to plead one's case before God.

In other words, to go to him earnestly, to ask him, to beseech him, to beg him

for what it is that we want and then leave it in his hands and trust him.

Lord, this is what I want.

But whatever happens, I trust you.

Job 13, 15, we read last week, though he slay me, I will hope in him, yet I will argue my ways to

his face.

This is he says it in the opposite order.

He will argue his ways, his case to the Lord, but he

will hope in him whatever happens, whatever the results are.

Let's look at Luke 18.

Somebody expressed concern to me last week, the idea that fervency need not be the way

I defined it last week.

And I was like, OK, it's

an important principle.

So I thought, OK, well, let's just resolve this and look at what the Bible says.

Luke 18 verses 1 to 8.

And when somebody read those verses, please.

Yeah, go ahead, Gary.

OK, now what's the point of the parable?

If we just look at the beginning, I mean, generally speaking, the point of the parable is told to us

and he told them a parable.

Why?

To the effect that they ought to always pray and not to lose, you know, and not lose hearts.

In other words, just because your prayer doesn't get answered instantaneously.

That's OK.

Maybe it's just the Lord's answer is not yet.

Not necessarily, no.

So keep praying for it.

I want so and so to get saved.

Well, they don't get saved like that.

Should I just stop praying for them?

No, keep going.

And that's persistence, that earnestness in prayer.

And that's one of the principles of prayer.

When we pray on Sunday morning, when we pray as a congregation,

one of the things we want is to earnestly ask the Lord for different things.

I mean, as you know, if you think about it, we call it a priestly

prayer.

Because we're praying for the congregation when the elders get up there.

A lot of times they're not specific, specific needs.

Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.

But if you think about it this way, if I pray at home, I'm praying for

different things than I would be praying here.

And I'm praying more specifically because I'm not praying on behalf of 300 people.

I'm praying on behalf of me.

So different, different kind of focus and those sort of things.

One last note here, it says, because the confession talks about praying

in a known tongue.

Why do you think it'd be important to pray in a known tongue?

Remember, in the context of, we're talking about

what ought to be our mode of worship on a Sunday.

Because we're leading up to what it means to honor the Sabbath.

So if we're thinking about how do we, how we pray here in a congregation,

why would it be important to pray in a known tongue?

Okay, so if it's some babbling, how can we all assent to it, right?

Because the point of a corporate prayer should be that we all understand it, we can all agree with it.

And so, you know, ultimately what we say at the end is, amen.

Why do we say amen?

Because we want it, yeah, we agree to that, okay?

But here's the interesting thing, when we hear known tongue, what do we think?

What's the first thing that comes to your mind?

Well, we want it to be in a known tongue.

What's the first thing you think?

Speaking in tongues, that's the first thing I thought.

But that would be wrong.

R .C. says this, he says, that statement was not directed.

And again, I have to fire my secretary because he typed, that statement was no directed.

Sounds like I don't know English.

That statement was not directed back in the 17th century against modern day charismatics, right?

This wasn't a prophetic word from the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Divines,

against modern day charismatics who claim to be speaking in tongues.

It was directed against the Roman Catholic practice, context, this is the

Reformation.

The Roman Catholic practice of praying in Latin.

Why?

Because nobody sitting in the congregation understood.

So the priest is up there babbling in Latin.

And to Andrew's point, everybody's ascending to it, but they have no idea what he said.

You know, he could be praying for, you know, he could be from New York, praying for the Yankees the whole time.

And, you know, the, yeah, the Massachusetts congregation ascends to it, and they would never do that if they

understood what he was saying.

But that's the point.

The point was in a known tongue.

So in other words, not Latin, in a tongue that everybody would understand.

So, okay, back to the confession.

Prayers to be made for things lawful and for all sorts of men living or

that shall live hereafter, but not for the dead nor for those of whom it may

be known that they have sinned the sin unto death.

I love this part of R .C.'s book because he says, I'm going to quote it, and then we'll talk about it a little bit.

He says, I stand in awe at the wisdom manifested by those who framed

this document until I get to this section.

And I read that, and I'm just like, ooh, shots fired.

What do you think the part is that he doesn't like?

I'll read it again, and then we'll see if we have any ideas.

Prayers to be made for things lawful and for all sorts of men living or that shall

live hereafter, but not for the dead nor for those of whom it may be known that they have

sinned the sin unto death.

Gary.

Okay, you have the right thing, maybe not for the right reason.

Any other thoughts?

Okay.

He says, we would agree with the first part.

We want prayer for all sorts of men.

We'll get to the part that he really doesn't like here in a minute.

We would agree with the first part.

We want prayer for all sorts of men.

Let's look at 1 Timothy 2, verses 1 to 3.

1 Timothy, or Chimothy, as you may prefer,

1 Timothy 2, verses 1 to 3.

So it is good to pray for all kinds of people, regardless of their status in life.

And we want to be praying for those who are in authority over us, which we do even here

when we're praying for the congregation.

We pray for the president, we pray for the governor, we pray for those in authority over us.

But we also pray for the hoi polloi, us,

the rank and file, just the regular people.

We want everybody to come to faith in Christ.

You know, there's an amazing thought.

No matter what somebody has done to you, or who they are,

or who you perceive them to be.

I mean, I think of, you know, some of the most heinous people or whatever.

And I'm like, I have thought to myself, I could administer the death penalty to that person.

And then I think, well, okay, first, I'd like to give them the gospel and see if I could get them to believe.

And then I throw the switch on them.

That sounds really cold, doesn't it?

But I don't want anybody to go to hell, right?

But there are two possible extremes in that.

One is that I'm so determined that nobody will go to hell that I won't carry out justice.

And the other one is that I am so indifferent to their eternal plight, that I

just want my temporal justice.

I want vengeance now, and so I don't even think about the fact that this person is an image bearer

and a person with a soul.

And I want to keep both in mind.

But primarily, my goal has to be that I want to see that person saved, but not to the extent that I'm going

to do the wrong thing.

You know, and I think, I mean, to get to back up just a second, I think a lot of what we see in the

church today is because people are so concerned with being judgmental and all these other things that they

forget about the fact that ultimately our goal is to see people come to faith in Christ.

And so in this case, when he's saying we want

supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings made for all people, whether they're high, whether they're low,

whether they're good, whether they're evil, we want them to be prayed for.

It's good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.

So how can it not be good and pleasing for us?

And he says here, we can even agree here in the confession, but not for the dead.

Why would we not pray for the dead?

This should be pretty easy.

They're wherever they're going to be.

They've already faced judgment because Romans.

Hebrews 9 .27 says, it is appointed for man

once to die and then to judgment, not to purgatory, not to a holding tank, you know,

not to, you know, I've even heard evangelicals kind of explain it the Mormon way, which is, you know, people

go to spirit prison and then they get a second chance to believe.

Well, that's not true.

It's appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment.

Now we get to the part that R .C. didn't like.

He says, what does this mean?

Not for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned the sin unto death.

Well, what's that?

OK, we have to go to 1 John 5 .16.

I mean, right.

That is the sin that the ultimate sin, right, that leads to eternal death,

rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 John 5 .16.

And would somebody read that, please?

I really am going to have to start doing some caffeine in here.

OK, go ahead.

So, can you see what the problem is?

OK?

If anyone sees his brother involved in a sin not leading to

death, there is a sin that leads to death.

I mean, there are two issues.

One is, how do we know that somebody's committed the sin leading to death, whatever it is?

That's one, and I'm going to set it aside for just a minute.

But here's the second one, the one that really sticks in R .C.'s crawl the most.

He says, the Westminster Confession of Faith or the London Baptist Confession of Faith is

saying that we must not pray for those who have committed the sin that leads to death.

We shouldn't do it.

We're forbidden from doing it, it says.

But the Bible actually says that we do not have to pray for them, right?

It says right there, there is a sin that leads to death.

And John writes, I do not say that one should pray for that.

He doesn't say that you shouldn't, he just says that I do not say that you should.

R .C. says, and that's quite different.

The first is a prohibition in the confession, and the second is an open -ended

proposition posing no obligation in either direction.

Now, let's talk about what the sin leading to death is.

R .C. notes that there are 10 different interpretations.

Then he says, I'm not going to list them all.

I went to Simon Kistemacher, and Kistemacher says this, who then commits the sin that

leads to death, the person who rejects Jesus as the Christ, and who does not love the believer,

commits this sin.

He does not share in the fellowship of the Father and the Son, and is excluded from eternal life.

He left the Christian community because he did not really belong to it.

He had been a pretender.

Now, if we think about that person, if Kistemacher is right, and I guess there's probably better than a 1 out of

10 chance that he's right.

If there are 10 possibilities, Kistemacher is smarter than the average bearer, so there's better than a 10 chance that

he's right.

If you think about that, let's say that this person does not share the fellowship of the Father

and the Son, is excluded from eternal life, has left the Christian community.

He has been a pretender.

Would it be wrong to pray for such a person as that?

Let's think even about Matthew 18, step four, and then

Jesus says, treat that person as a Gentile and a tax gatherer, a tax collector,

meaning as an unbeliever and really kind of the worst of unbelievers.

Well, what would you do for the worst of unbelievers?

You'd pray for them and you'd give them the gospel.

I mean, who is it exactly that's outside of the reach of the grace of

God?

Nobody, really.

I mean, if you can take somebody like Saul, a persecutor, a murderer,

all these heinous things, and by the grace of God, transform him into the

Apostle Paul, then who is beyond the grace of God?

And the answer is nobody.

So would it be wrong to pray for those people?

No.

R .C. goes on to say this, as far as I can see, the Westminster divines in this section drew an inference from the text

that is unwarranted.

In other words, they forbade prayer for people who had committed this sin.

And he says where the scripture says that you do not have to do something.

So he says, if those great and godly minded could collectively make a slip like that, it

should alert us to our own tendencies to do the same.

In other words, our own fallacies.

Right.

And that's an interesting concept and one that he didn't raise.

And so maybe I'll read some other guys and see if they agree with it.

But, you know, even it's plausible given the context because it says, the confession says,

but not for the dead, nor for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned the sin unto

death.

So if you can say, but here's the here's the question in my mind, though.

Even so, how many people do you know?

See, it still doesn't answer it for me because I wouldn't pray for anybody who was dead.

Right.

Period.

Whether I knew they went to heaven or not.

And so then it says here, not for the dead, nor for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned

the sin unto death.

So let's say we know that they were sinful right to the end and therefore they

are facing spiritual death, meaning eternal death, meaning hell.

Right.

Therefore, I ought not to pray for them.

But those people are, that's a subcategory of, I don't know, maybe.

I mean, to me, it's just kind of because there's no specification just for the dead.

I would just take it as general dead people.

And then it doesn't it doesn't make much sense to me then to further classify that.

But you could be right.

So that's a matter of further, further study.

So I'll let you know, I'll take a look and see if I can find anything.

It's interesting.

It's an interesting possibility.

OK, now we're going to move on to prayer for all things lawful.

Yes, Gary.

Well, the same way we would know that's a good question.

How would we know what a person's state is the same way we would know whether somebody's violating the Sabbath or not?

Because we know the thoughts and tensions of people of their hearts all the time.

It, you know, Pastor Bob likes to say we're worksy people.

I also would say this, that we are judgy people.

We like to judge other people.

Why do you suppose we like to do that?

Because we're the church lady.

You know, I mean, what makes the church lady so awesome?

And if you don't know who the church lady is, it's because you're that old like me.

Church lady was a Saturday Night Live character in which the church lady would sit there and just kind of

as the arch type of Christians, you know, judgmental and saying, you know,

isn't that special?

And, you know, people shouldn't do that because who else does that?

Satan, you know, and just those kind of things.

And it pleases us to do that because it makes us feel better than other people.

So we ought not to judge unrighteously.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, it is kind of an interesting question, right?

Why would you pray for the dead?

Because God has fixed their place.

We can't change that place.

You know, again, just a plain reading of scripture, it's pointed to men, wants to die and then to judgment.

Not to then, you know, I mean, there is a, that sounds kind of a almost Mormon

thing.

They believe in eternal progression, the idea that you can move, constantly be

moving up.

You know, you join the corporation, the eternal corporation at such and such a level, and then you get to keep moving up

until eventually your own CEO, you've got a spinoff corporation.

Yeah, but the idea of moving up, you know, or even out of purgatory.

Why purgatory?

And I know that's why it's there.

You know, the idea of praying for the dead to get them out of purgatory.

Purgatory doesn't exist.

It's not anywhere in the Bible.

And if it was, in fact, an important doctrine, you'd think it would be.

And they say, well, it's in the Apocrypha, which they don't even say is canonical.

Anyway, we're going far afield.

Prayer for all things lawful.

This is a crazy illustration.

R .C. says, years ago on a TV show, it was one of these

talkies, an interview between the host and his guest.

And his guest on this particular occasion was a man who was the owner of

the most successful brothel in the Western United States.

I don't know how many there are in the Eastern United States, but it says the West.

I don't think there are very many on the East Coast.

And he was asked the secret of his success.

And at first I thought, I don't even care what this is.

This is a silly illustration.

But listen to what he says.

This is the owner of a brothel.

And he says, I prayed this business to its level of success.

When I started this business, I gave it to God and said, God, if you prosper my

business, I will give you 10 of the proceeds.

I have done that from the beginning, and God has poured out the blessings of heaven upon me.

R .C. says he was serious.

He had prayed for God to bless his enterprise, one that is explicitly prohibited

by the word of God.

His prayer was an insult to God, a blasphemous assault on the character of God.

I can assure you that God was not pleased with that prayer, because it was not for anything

lawful.

So when the confession says prayer for all things lawful, it's not necessarily talking about things that are lawful

according to the laws of the land.

Like in Nevada, it's legal to run a brothel.

There are regulations and rules and everything about that.

But it's still unlawful in the eyes of God.

Are there other examples in modern America today of things that are

lawful, they're legal, but they're unlawful in the sight of God?

Okay, I would agree with that.

I think if people are smoking marijuana to get intoxicated or you get a buzz or whatever, I agree

with you.

Other ideas?

Abortion is legal, right?

But it's still murder in the eyes of God.

Gary?

Legalized gambling, I would agree with that.

Okay, now I think that's a great point.

A young person wants to get engaged to an unbeliever, wants to essentially get married to an

unbeliever.

Parents say no wisely, right?

If you're, by the way, if you're the parent of a believer who wants to get engaged to an unbeliever, you should

say no, stop, halt.

I said to somebody this week, I said, love is blind.

It's also deaf and dumb.

We're here to help, right?

We want to talk people out of making stupid decisions like that, and that's what parents are to do, right?

You don't know what you're doing.

I know you think you're in love with this person, but let me tell you why this is wrong, even though your emotions have run ahead of the train

here.

And you say, well, that's kind of a gray area.

Well, if the young person then prays to God, God, would you either change the

heart of my parents or would you just give me a piece about it, which is probably what they're gonna say.

I have a real piece about it.

Well, I'm not surprised.

You went to God and you said, God, this is what I want, this is what I am determined is

right, and would you please give me a feeling that you approve of it?

It's not surprising that that feeling comes about, because it's not God, it's you giving

yourself your own approval.

But other things that are lawful in the United States that are not lawful inside of God, how about homosexual marriage?

It's lawful, it's not lawful.

It's lawful, but it's not lawful.

It's legal, but it's not legal.

There's a big difference between what is permitted by the law of man and what is forbidden by the Bible, and

it's always been that way.

It's always been that way, unless you go back to Israel being a

theocracy.

Right, I mean, there are all kinds of areas where we can look at it and say, well, that's not, is it illegal to

lust?

Is it illegal to feed your face on gluttony day, also known as Thanksgiving?

No, but is it a violation of the law of God?

Well, it might be, depending on what you're doing.

I mean, one person's gluttony might be my second spoonful of stuffing or whatever,

so I don't know.

The Confession of Faith goes on, or it's still talking about, for all sorts of men,

living, or that shall live hereafter, but not for the dead.

So talking about, again, prayer for the dead, he

notes that Augustine, he gives a story about a woman coming up to him at a

Ligonier event and saying, I love this book, it's a little red book, not by Mao.

Little red book, it's good that there are folks old enough to understand that.

Comes up and is excited about this book that she's got on prayer.

She goes, this is a fantastic book on prayer.

It was written by Augustine.

She says, there's one little problem.

It's got a whole chapter in it about how to pray for the dead.

So Augustine wasn't a perfect theologian.

But it is a fine thing to pray for the unsaved, right?

Even for, as the confession would say, for the unborn.

What does it say there?

Or that shall live hereafter.

In other words, somebody who's not even alive yet.

That's fine.

And even of the not yet conceived.

What would you pray for unborn children?

Children that haven't even been conceived, what would you pray for them for?

Faith, right?

We have Lord willing, next month, a little fish coming into the world.

Fish child, when they're adding to their school.

And we want that child to be saved.

Well, what else would we pray for that child?

Health, how about

that their future spouse would be saved?

I mean, when I think about, here's the kind of the picture I have in my mind.

I think about what my parents went through in their lives.

What we lived through as kids, what my kids lived through.

And I want every generation to get better, not just economically or socially

or whatever, but spiritually.

I think of the disadvantages that

Janet and I were born with.

And then the advantages that my kids eventually got after we both got saved.

And now their kids are being raised in Christian homes.

And so every generation just improving and increasing, and these are good things.

And so what do I want to pray?

I want to pray that the Lord would continue that.

That he would continue it with all my grandkids and their kids and just on and on and on.

I don't want anybody to go to hell.

And I especially am thrilled when I see children and grandchildren coming forth and receiving

Christ.

Okay, to sort of

underscore what we were talking about before, because we did say it, but I want to underscore it.

It's not just wrong to pray for the dead.

It is actually sinful, because nobody can be saved.

There is no second chance.

After they're dead, they cannot be saved.

Purgatory false.

R .C. says, for what possible reason will we pray for the people who have died?

If a saint passes into glory, how can we improve his lot by praying for him at that point?

What's better than glory?

What's better than heaven?

Move up into a better place in heaven.

What does that mean?

And why would our prayers affect that?

And he says this, and here's the real key.

If we affirm justification by faith alone, in other words, that we have no merit of our

own, that it's only by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and we get his imputed

righteousness, his righteousness imputed to us, we should not deny it by

assuming that prayers for the dead will have any efficacy.

Jesus Christ is enough.

Jesus Christ is enough.

Okay.

Okay.

To clarify that, I think, I think, I think what you're saying is, is it wrong to pray for somebody because

who's died?

Because we don't know what state their soul was in when they died.

What do you think?

Okay.

Which is, Lord, please let it be that my father trusted you before he died.

Okay.

So somehow defeat the space time continuum.

Well, I don't know.

What do you think?

I'll tell you what my thought is, and then you can just sort of tell me.

I think it's us looking for confirmation.

And the Lord's not going to tell us, right?

Steve, take it from me.

I mean, we're not going to get anything like that.

So then, the point of it is, I just, I want

to believe that my father, my mother, my brother, whoever it is, believed in the Lord Jesus

Christ, but I don't know.

And therefore, I want to pray just hoping that somehow God

will act outside of time or something so that they will have

believed.

And I think the answer is, we just go back to a plain reading of Hebrews.

Keep wanting to put it in Romans.

Hebrews 9 .27, because I love Romans 9 so much.

Hebrews 9 .27, it's appointed for man to die once and then to judgment.

And so, it may be unclear to us, and here's how I try to think of it, because I

have had loved ones who've died and I'm not really certain where they are.

I try to think of it this way.

I don't know where that person went.

I don't know if my father's in heaven or not.

I mean, mathematically, you know, if I were setting the odds, if Vegas were setting the odds,

the odds would seem pretty small.

But here's what I know.

I know that my father heard the truth many, many times, especially in the last few weeks of his life, probably more than any other

point in his life.

At any point, including the point where he was having a heart attack and dying,

God could have convicted him and saved him.

I don't know.

I have no particular reason to think that he was saved.

But I, and I'll get to you in a second, what I have to think to myself is, I don't know if he's saved or not, but I

know this, God does what is right.

And nothing is outside of his control, and if he wanted to save my dad, he did.

So, if my dad's in heaven, that's great, you know.

And I have, you know, I have a hope, because the odds are really immaterial.

If God determined to save him, then nothing could stop that.

Okay, well, let's just, we're going to address this, and maybe there will be one other question, but then we have to, let's go

to Ephesians chapter one, because that's an important issue.

He asks, he says, you know, we were always taught in the Catholic Church that everybody

praying for somebody might sway the mind of God, and that he might change his mind,

because he hasn't decided whether or not to let somebody into heaven.

And, you know, part of the problem there, if I, if I could just philosophize for a minute, part of the problem there is this

idea that somehow our prayers would tip the scales.

Now, our prayers do have an effect, but can our prayers tip the scales with God?

And it also kind of gives us the idea that maybe that person wasn't quite good enough to

get into heaven.

And so maybe the prayers will kind of nudge him over with God.

You know, God's like, well, he's like 51 -49.

I don't know, it's a close call.

I don't know which way it's going to go.

But you know what?

Your prayers kind of changed the scoreboard.

And now it's, you know, 51 -49 in favor instead of 51 -49 against, so I'm

going to let him in.

The problem with that is that the reality is that every single one of us is not

at 51 -49 or 60 -40 or 70 -30 or we're at 100 against and

0 -4.

We have nothing to commend ourself, right?

We all stand condemned rightly because of our sin.

If we don't have the righteousness of Christ on judgment day, if we

don't stand before God and just wrapped in the robes of Christ's righteousness so that when God looks at us, he

sees Jesus Christ.

If we don't have that, we're not going in.

I don't care how many people are praying for you.

If you're not in Christ Jesus, you can't get into heaven because you have to be

perfect and only Christ is perfect.

So there's no 80 -20, 90 -10, none of that stuff.

Now I sound like a health insurance salesman.

You have an 80 -20 plan.

Okay, sorry.

Ephesians chapter 1, I'm going to start at verse 3.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, who is us,

the people he's writing to, believers in Ephesus and other churches in the area around there,

and himself.

He's blessed us believers in Christ with every spiritual

blessing in the heavenly places, even as, listen, as he, the father chose

us in him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world,

that we should be holy and blameless before him.

So here's the picture.

You know, the idea, if God is deciding whether to let us into heaven, well, that's not true.

The Bible says that before the foundations of the world, in other words, before time began, before anything existed,

God the father chose some people for salvation.

And in time, Jesus Christ died for them, rose from the dead.

They believe, the Holy Spirit seals them, that's the plan of redemption.

There is no kind of God scratching his chin, should I let that person into heaven?

Because he doesn't let us into heaven based on our own works.

He lets us into heaven based on the works of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's not undecided about whether Jesus' work is enough or not.

He accepted it 100%.

So if a person's in Christ, if a person is a believing Christian, God isn't

scratching his head, he is welcoming them into heaven, because it's as if he's welcoming

his beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have his righteousness, not our own.

If we had to get there on our own, we'd be sunk, right?

And I think that's a great point.

And I think it's really a picture that's given to us.

I mean, if you start doing a one -for -one correspondence on the parables, things fall apart.

But if you look at the parable of the prodigal son, parable of the two sons, the

way the father rushes down the road to meet his, you know, really despicable in

every way son, is a picture, I think, of the love of God.

And the joy, you know, even in Luke 15, Jesus says there's more joy

in heaven at the repentance of one soul than, you know, there is for all these.

And I forget exactly how it goes, because I'm not looking at it right now.

But basically, the idea is that there's rejoicing in heaven when people come to faith.

God doesn't reluctantly let us into heaven.

He joyously lets us into heaven, right?

Andrew, then we have to close.

Well, we're commanded to pray, but we also, I think there's a sense in which when we pray,

when we bring our concerns to God, there's a sense in

which He works, the Holy Spirit works, to align us with the will of God.

You know, so it's not so much a question of us convincing God as maybe the Holy

Spirit convincing us, you know, and just understanding who we are,

keeping our creatureliness in mind.

And ultimately, what we want to say is, not my will, but thy will be

done.

We need to close because we're way over.

Father, thank you for this time.

Thank you as we look to the confession and to your word, as we contemplate really

important truths about prayer, about our

souls, about salvation, about whether we can

ultimately change your mind.

Father, we thank you that your plan has been

determined from the beginning of time and you are working it out in time.

Everything that we see around us is not an accident, it's not chance, it is your providential

decree, it is your plan, it is your purpose, you are working it out.

And Lord, we praise you, we give you all the glory, and we would pray for each one here that we would come to

not just resign ourselves, but to delight in your will, to love your

will, and to align ourselves with it.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.