1689 London Baptist Confession (part 45)

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Our Father in heaven, we thank you this morning for your glorious mercy, kindness, love.
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And Father, even as we look to the London Baptist Confession of Faith, as we look to your word, see what it says about our salvation, about how you work in your people, and about how you are the prime mover.
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We are moved, you are the mover. And Father, we thank you for that, knowing that we would never come to you based on our own goodness or neutrality to the gospel.
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And Father, we pray that you would bless each one here this morning, that we would be encouraged, that we would be reminded afresh of the love that you have shown us in the person and work of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, last week we started, do
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I sound loud to you or is it just me? I mean, I could listen to myself all day long.
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No, just kidding. No, you couldn't? Okay. We started talking last week about,
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I guess I can call it the secret chapter of the London Baptist Confession of Faith, because it isn't included in the
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Westminster Confession of Faith, but it is in the London Baptist Confession of Faith. And it's entitled,
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Of the Gospel and the Extent of the Grace Thereof. It's kind of a little bit of a mouthful for a phrase, because it's not even a sentence, it's a sentence fragment.
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But when we're talking about the gospel, and then we think about the grace that is extended to us in the gospel.
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And I think it's important, because, and I say this from time to time, if somebody says to you, live the gospel, what are they asking you to do?
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Okay, obey what it says to preach the word. If it's somebody who's not a Christian, they're asking you not to judge them.
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Be gracious, be kind. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Live the gospel.
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Live in such a way that people will look at you and go, whew, I like to be like Charlie, which is pretty much what
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I say every day. I like to be like, if somebody says to you, live the gospel, what are they saying?
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What are they asking you to do, Brian? Cue up the theme of the man from La Mancha, to dream the impossible dream, right?
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If I'm asked to live the gospel, you know, where I come from, that is to not really
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Salt Lake City, I was going to say that, but Southern California, I was born in a Mormon church.
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And when they said, live the gospel, the law and ordinances of the gospel, that's in their statement of faith.
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So when somebody says to you, live the gospel, what they really expect you to do is live in a perfect way.
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But like Brian said, you can't live the gospel because the gospel is the finished work of Christ.
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That's the good news. You know, if we get down to what is the good news? I remember years ago, and I've mentioned this story a time or two, but we were having a yard sale.
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I think we were getting ready to move somewhere. I don't know, maybe it was Massachusetts. And so there was this whole, like, it was a neighborhood yard sale.
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And some of our friends were over from Grace Community Church, and these LDS missionaries, two ladies, were walking around the neighborhood.
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So my friend stopped them and said, you know, what are you guys doing? Oh, we're just sharing the good news of, you know,
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Jesus. And so he asked a few more questions. They said some things, and he says, well, that's not good news at all, because what you're telling me is
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I need to be good, right? And I can't be good enough. And what you're really doing is condemning people to hell.
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And by the way, have a nice day. It was a great exchange of ideas.
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Well, when we say of the gospel and the extent of the grace thereof, there's a clue in that, right?
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What's the extent of the grace of the gospel? Because if you say, live the gospel, then you're not saying this is a gracious thing.
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You're saying it's a, as Pastor Bob likes to say, worksy thing. What do you need to do to obey the gospel?
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Well, what you need to do is believe, and you can't even believe on your own, right?
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So we talked about that a little bit, and then we talked about the fact that the covenant of works, the confession of faith, says has been broken by sin and made unprofitable until life.
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In other words, it can't save the covenant of works. God was pleased to give forth the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman, as the means of calling the elect and beginning them in faith and repentance.
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In this promise, the gospel as to the substance of it was revealed there in effectual for the conversion and salvation of sinners, et cetera, ad nauseum.
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We even talked about the prototype of the gospel, which is found in Genesis 3 verses 14 and 15, and I'll just read that quickly, and then we'll get going in earnest here.
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The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, because you have deceived Eve, who then was complicit in her husband falling as well, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.
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By the way, just reading that, I'm like, okay, well, what does that imply? It implies that the livestock and all the beasts of the field are cursed.
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They're just not as cursed as he is. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
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I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. For just a moment, let me just kind of underline that when we talk about beasts and livestock and them being cursed, why would they be cursed?
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Part of creation. And when Adam and Eve fell, all of creation was then plunged into sin.
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And ultimately, that's what God is going to undo in the new heavens and the new earth.
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And when we think about the future, heaven free of sin and all that, well, what's he doing?
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He's getting rid of all sin, putting it where it belongs in hell and restoring everything to the way things ultimately were designed to be.
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Okay. Offspring, in terms of Genesis 3, ultimately points to Lord Jesus Christ.
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So let's go ahead and turn to Hebrews 11. Hebrews chapter 11.
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Pastor Mike is currently in Hebrews 5, so I would expect him to get to Hebrews 11 next week. I don't know why you people are laughing.
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I was listening to a sermon yesterday. It's from two years ago. And he was in Hebrews chapter 2.
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Yeah, well, he did take a break, but even so, it's, you know. Okay. Hebrews chapter 11.
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Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the people of old received their commendation.
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Now, note that well. For the people of old, speaking of Old Testament saints, received their commendation by what?
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By faith. By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
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By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous,
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God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
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By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.
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Now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. Verse six, and without faith, it is impossible to please him.
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For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
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By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
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By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
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By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.
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By faith, he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
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For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is
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God. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
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Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead, were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven, and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
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These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
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What does this all mean? Let me summarize it this way. Salvation is by faith and has always been by faith.
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People before the cross didn't know who Jesus was, but they trusted that God would deliver them from their sin.
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They believed that there would be a Savior, they didn't know what his name was. And it's interesting, by the way, anybody have the 1977 version of the
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NIV? As I was reading that, did you like any 1977
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NIV positive people? Because it says, by faith,
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Abraham. And I always think that's just a bizarre translation. Okay, so always by faith, that's always been the way that people were saved.
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And Hebrews 11, 39 and 40 tells us how the Old Testament saints gained the approval of God, and all these, after that long list in the hall of faith of Old Testament saints, and all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised.
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Since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
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The commentator Kistemacher says this, he says, and who commends these saints?
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God, of course, God forgets none of his children. He recognizes everyone who acts in faith, because he has promised to be the
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God of his people. As father of his children, he expects them to put their trust in him.
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Instinctively, a child puts full confidence in his parents, and sometimes expects a parent to perform impossible feats.
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So God wants the believer to come in faith and ask for seemingly impossible things.
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Why? Because God takes pleasure in commending the believer for his faith.
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I thought, you know, it is true, right? I mean, when I think back to especially my dad,
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I just thought he was like, you know, Superman. There was nothing he couldn't do.
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But then again, you know, I was used to watching this guy, he had a 16 pound bowling ball, and I guess the maximum they make now is 15, according to Andrew.
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But he had a 16 pound bowling ball, and he was right -handed. Well, actually, I can't say he was right -handed.
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He'd shoot a gun right -handed. He would write right -handed. He did a lot of things right -handed, but he bowled left -handed.
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I can't explain that. He played basketball left -handed. He caught with his left hand and threw with his right.
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I can't explain all that. But he would take that 16 pound bowling ball, and he would whip it down the alley, and I'm just like, if I was one of the pins,
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I would have been shrieking in terror. It was just amazing. But it just seemed to me like there was nothing my dad couldn't do.
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And it's that kind of, you know, awesome belief that he's referring to here, that childlike faith that your earthly father can do almost anything.
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Well, God can do anything, and he wants us to trust him like that. And that's how the
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Old Testament saints gained the approval of God, not by the things that they did, even though these acts of faith are listed all the way through Hebrews 11.
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They were sawn in half. They shut the mouths of lions, all these things that are listed. But ultimately, what
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God was pleased with wasn't their actions, but the fact that they acted in faith, their faith itself.
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Okay, now, let's listen for a second to, well, I've got several verses. Actually, we can, we'll read those.
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Let's go to the book of Luke. And I want somebody to read
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Luke 2 .25. Somebody else read
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Luke 2 .36 through 38. And someone else go to Luke 23 verses 50 and 51.
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So we'll start with Luke 2 .25. Luke 2 .25. Yes, go ahead,
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Vicki. Okay, now, just briefly, before we go on to the next one, what makes him righteous and devout?
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It's kind of included right in there, right? Because he's waiting for the consolation of Israel, which would be the
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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit was upon him. Okay, verses 36 through 38 of Luke 2.
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Again, notice what she's doing and what other faithful saints were looking forward to was the redemption of Jerusalem, the
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Savior, the Christ. They would call him the
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Messiah. And Luke 23 verses 50 and 51, Charlie. Okay, again, anticipating, looking forward to what the
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Lord was going to do in the future. Dr. Waldron says, such biblical evidence as this clearly shows that salvation has never been merely a matter of living up to the light of nature and serving the
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God of creation with a moral life. It rather has always been connected with faith fixed upon redemptive revelation.
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In other words, believing God for what he has said, for what he has promised, for what he has revealed to us.
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We even talked about morality last week and about how morality is kind of built by consensus.
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And that's just wrong. You know, if you think to yourself, well, I am living a good and moral life.
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What are you doing? Well, that's exactly the question, right?
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It depends on whose standard you're talking about. What is good and moral? And sorry, I'm just tying my shoe because if there's anything
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I've learned, it is entirely embarrassing to step on your shoelace and fall over while you're teaching a class.
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Does that happen before we have that in a video? I don't know. No, that's exactly right.
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When somebody talks about living a moral life or living up to a certain standard, what they're really doing is engaging a moral relativism and comparing themselves to other people rather than the perfection
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God demands. Because anybody who stands up and says, I deserve heaven doesn't understand one thing.
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Well, they don't understand many things, but there's one thing they don't understand above all else, and that's the perfection and the holiness of God.
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Because we all fall short of that. Every single one of us sins and falls short of the glory of God.
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And it is because of that that God sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to live, to die, to be raised from the dead, and thereby saving those who believe and trust in him.
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Well, how much could, you know, going back in our minds to Genesis 3, verse 14 and 15, the prototype of the gospel.
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I say that because I don't even want to try to say proto -Ewangelion. See what
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I mean? What could Adam and Eve have actually known about the gospel, about salvation?
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What do you suppose they knew? Okay, something had to die for the forgiveness of sins.
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I think if I don't have that, I want to, oh, I did do that because then in Genesis 3, verse 21, it says this,
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I put it this way, instead of justice, Adam and Eve received mercy, and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them instead of killing them for the sin that they had committed.
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He killed animals and clothed them with the skin since they knew now that they were naked. Okay, what else could they have known about the gospel?
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That something had to die. Yes, Joni? Okay, that it had to be,
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I guess we could say, by grace, grace, and I put sovereign mercy.
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Adam knew he had sinned, and according to the terms of Genesis 2 and 16 and 17, verse 16 and 17 of chapter 2, he knew that he deserved death.
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Let me just read Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17, and the Lord God commanded the man saying, this is before the fall, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die, right?
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So they ate of the knowledge, or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and yet did not die.
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Instead, they hid themselves. You know, did you ask, why do you suppose they hid themselves?
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What were they afraid of? What were Adam and Eve afraid of? Okay, the holiness of God, total disclosure,
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Carmen, did you have your hand up? She was just waving her finger like, okay,
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Gary. God's justice. That's what I have in my notes. They were afraid of justice.
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They knew what they deserved, right? And they weren't out front just going, Lord, give us what we deserve.
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They were hiding. I mean, it's kind of childish when you think about it, like, okay, how was that going to work?
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It didn't matter. That's what they did. I think that's a good point. Since nothing had died, right? And God said, on the day that you do this, you shall surely die.
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They may not have even fully known what it was, but they knew it was pretty bad, right? It was bad enough to where they were hiding out.
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Yeah. Okay. So salvation, they would have understood this, that salvation was by faith.
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God promised to defeat Satan. And what is the proper response to his promise?
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The proper response is always faith. Let's look at Romans 4 verses 13 to 16.
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Familiar verses. I think when Pastor Mike went through this some time ago, he went through Romans, what was it, 16 chapters, 16 weeks, and he actually did it even though nobody thought he could, did we?
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Come on, I didn't. I did it. Romans 4 verses 13 to 16.
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Would somebody read that, please? Now look back at verse 16, which you just read there, where it says, that's why it depends on faith.
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In order that the promise may rest on what? Grace. That tells us a lot about what faith is, right?
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It's belief in a promise, but it's all premised on grace.
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That is to say the unmerited or demerited grace of God, right?
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So faith, while it exercises itself, while it is shown by what we do, we demonstrate faith by what we do, faith ultimately rests on grace, on God's promise on his person, the fact that he does what he says.
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So back to Adam and Eve for a moment, they knew that salvation was going to come through a redeemer who would be the male offspring of Eve.
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We just read that a moment ago in Genesis chapter three. The faith in the gospel or faith in the gospel has always been the only way by which anyone was saved.
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And what do you mean? How could somebody have known about the person of Jesus before he was even born?
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They wouldn't have known about his name. They would have known something of his character and they certainly would have believed in the promise of God, which is the key, that he would send a redeemer, one to undo essentially what
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Adam had done. Pastor Bob notes, you know, in Genesis chapter four, when
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Cain is born, she says, I've gotten but by the grace of God or with the help of the
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Lord, I've obtained a or received a, I think it's man child or something of that nature.
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And, you know, Pastor Bob said, you know, she may have thought that she'd received the fulfillment of Genesis chapter three.
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And as it turns out, that was a bit premature, right? So she was, she was mistaken.
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She had faith. She knew that God would fulfill that promise. And so she was anticipating that and it just Cain wasn't the guy, obviously.
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Let's see. So the necessity, and this is where we're going to, where we're going ultimately is this, the necessity of special revelation from the confession of faith.
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This promise of Christ and salvation by him is revealed only by the word of God. Neither do the works of creation or providence with the light of nature make discovery of Christ or of grace by him so much as in a general or obscure way, much less that men destitute of the revelation of him by the promise or promise or gospel should be enabled thereby to attain saving faith or repentance.
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What does that mean? Well, I'll shorten and say this by general revelation, by nature alone, no one has ever come to saving knowledge of Christ.
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It is impossible. Men cannot come to saving faith merely by natural revelation.
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However, some of God's attributes are exhibited by creation, right?
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We know that he's a God of order. We know that he's powerful. We know that all these things are true.
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But before Paul begins his, you know, the world that we're living in, describing the world that we're living in, in the second half of Romans chapter one in Romans 1 16, we read this, for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. Well, if we say that there is another means of salvation, then we make
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Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Scripture or Holy Spirit out to be wrong.
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You can't, he can't say for I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone and then say, well, there's another way.
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People can, by general revelation, by looking at the stars and looking at the sunsets or looking at, you know, the platypus can come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
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They can't do it. But we also learn from Romans chapter one that people who have never heard of the gospel are yet condemned.
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Why are they condemned? Okay, because the law is written upon their hearts. Okay, their hearts condemn them.
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Well, yeah, I mean, if we could go all the way back to the Tower of Babel and we would see what that, you know, people who had the truth put it off and sought to establish their own way back to God.
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And so God split them up. And so eventually we could trace everybody back to the truth and then they departed from it.
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Or we could look at Romans 120, right? We could go with the anthropological route, or we could look at what the
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Bible says. It says for his invisible attributes, God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
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But here's the killer. It says, so they are without excuse. You know, even when
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I was teaching fundamentals of the faith way back in the day and people would say, well, what about, you know, what about the
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Aborigines in Australia? What about the, you know, they would always find some innocent people group who had never heard the gospel.
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And how could God be fair and send people who'd never heard the gospel to hell?
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And what's the answer to that question? How could God be fair and still send people who've never heard the gospel to hell?
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Joni, God isn't necessarily fair.
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Joni, how can you say that? But he is just, she says, how could she say that?
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Well, if you had grown up in the Cooley household, you would know the answer to that question because the answer is in Romans nine.
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So let's turn to, and we're going to hear the apostle Paul say exactly what Joni just said in a slightly elongated fashion.
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Let's start in verse 10 of Romans nine. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather
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Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.
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She was told the older will serve the younger. And then listen to this. This is before they had done anything before they were even born.
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Verse 13, as it is written, Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated.
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Paul goes on to anticipate the question, the charge. This isn't fair.
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Is it? Look at verse 14. What should we say then? Is there injustice on God's part?
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Is God unfair? By no means. In the Greek, it's may get a toy, right? There's, there's absolutely no way that we can accuse
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God of being unfair. Why? Verse 15, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
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I have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I have compassion. God is not obligated to be merciful, to be compassionate to everybody in the same way.
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Verse 16. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy for the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose,
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I have raised you up. Why? That I might show my power in you.
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And that in, or that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. In other words, why did he raise
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Pharaoh up to destroy him so that his power can be shown? Well, was he unfair to Pharaoh?
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No. Verse 18. So he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.
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And again, into the fairness question, verse 19, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault?
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In other words, how can he judge anyone for who can resist his will? He's all powerful.
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If he's going to harden somebody, how can he find fault? Verse 20.
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One of the toughest verses in all the Bible, because it says basically shut up.
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But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, you have made me like this.
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Has the potter know right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
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What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.
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What does all that say? How about this? And then I'll, I'll take questions or comments. The God in order to show his glory, as it says there, his justice, his holiness, his righteousness has prepared some for his wrath and some for forgiveness and for glory.
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And why would we say to him when Adam was our representative head and plunged us all into sin so that we all are sinful?
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You know, we come into the world sinful. We deserve death. We deserve justice.
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We deserve his wrath. Why would we say then that he's being unfair to those that he gives what they deserve, right?
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Fairness is getting what we deserve. Well, we all deserve hell. The fact that some receive his mercy, his grace are saved, have their sins imputed to the
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Lord Jesus Christ and have his righteousness imputed to them is not what we deserve.
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That is what we call grace, right? So when people say, well, that's not fair.
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The answer is you don't want fair. You don't want what you deserve.
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You don't want what you have earned. You want grace. You want mercy. You want his compassion, his kindness, not his justice, not his wrath.
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I think there's truth in that. John said, you know, is it true that God receives more glory by saving some than by saving all?
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And I'm going to agree with that. Why? First of all, it's because what God did and if God's purpose is his glory, as we would read in Ephesians 1 verses 3 to 14, if that is his purpose, then we're left to say, well, how would we understand his mercy?
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How would we understand his love, his kindness and all these things if we didn't have a picture of his wrath, if we didn't have a picture of ultimately how much he hates sin?
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And it's because of that, you know, it even says that in Romans 9 where it says, and I just read it.
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What if God desiring to show his wrath? Obviously he did desire to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.
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What does that mean? Just think about it. Every single day throughout the world, people are sinning, are rebelling against him.
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God endures them and even us with much patience, our sin, the sins of the world.
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He watches it and he says, I'm not going to judge today. I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait.
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I'm going to wait. But there is a day when his, his wrath is revealed.
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Yes, Brian. Well, I wouldn't, I don't want to get into the, you know, the force balancing the force or anything like that.
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But I do think, you know, without the existence of sin, without the existence of, you know, wickedness, we would really have no concept of what the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the sinlessness of God.
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We could not have any concept of what it means because we would have no concept of sin.
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And we would have no concept of justice because we would never have seen evil or wickedness or any of these things.
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So, I mean, I agree that we don't want to get into some kind of cosmic balance.
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And ultimately, is there going to be some kind of cosmic balance achieved in the universe? No, there's going to be a vanquishing of all evil and sin and Satan and all these things into eternal punishment.
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Other thoughts, questions, Charlie? Right. And it's interesting the way you put that, too, because, you know, if I put, if my thought was to put as many of my attributes on display as possible,
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I don't even know what that would mean. But, you know, when we talk about narcissism, we talk about pride, when we talk about arrogance, you know, it's the elevation of a person, a person elevating themselves and saying, look at me, aren't
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I magnificent? If God does that, it's not arrogance. You know, it's one of the things that bothers me so much about unbelievers.
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They'll say things like, well, a God who would do that is terribly arrogant, you know, an egotist or whatever.
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And I'm like, you know, your thoughts of God are too human, right?
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I mean, you treat him like he's just one of the boys and he's not. The right thing for God to do is to elevate himself and to display his his power, his mercy, his kindness, his wrath, all of his attributes.
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That that's an excellent point. There's nobody who's going to stand before God and say, you know,
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I wanted to believe I wanted to go to heaven. I wanted to be among the elect. Right. And God just wouldn't let me.
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I was ready to walk the aisle. I was ready to pray the prayer. But God heart my heart.
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He just wouldn't let me. He takes no joy in the death of the wicked.
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Right. I mean, the problem constantly, and I've said it, I just said it a moment ago, is with Erasmus.
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Right. Many of our thoughts of God are too human. We try to think of him as having only one attribute at a time.
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He's only love. You know, there's another thing unbelievers like to do to you. Well, you know, God is too loving to do that.
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OK, he is loving, but he's not only love. You know, he's holiness, he's righteousness, he's all these things.
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And don't forget how much he hates sin. And by the way, it doesn't just say in the
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Bible, here's another. I mean, we're talking through all the things that unbelievers like to say God loves.
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Well, he hates the sin, but he loves the sinner. But the psalmist wrote that he hates sinners.
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Right. So we the problem we have is we think of God as one of the boys, as just, you know, like us, that his attributes are exercised one at a time, that he's only angry or he's only loving or he's only this and that he switches.
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Well, he doesn't change. His wrath is fixed. His anger is fixed.
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And these things are withheld. But there one day there will be a day of judgment.
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And so we ought not to think of God like we think of ourselves. Can he love somebody?
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And at the same time, you know, it says for at the right time, while we were a mushing
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Romans five, but while we were his enemies, what Christ died for us.
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So how's that possible? The greatest act of love at the same time were his enemies, because because God doesn't think like we do.
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And we should be thankful for that. We need to close, but that's good. You know, we can't do this, which is to say we we can't divide
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God up and decide, you know, that we're going to take this part or we're not going to take this other part.
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We have to take the whole package. And that's what's really mind boggling about God. Right. When we think about his attributes, we're not limited to one or five or ten.
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There are innumerable attributes that are on display for us. And we will constantly be learning new things about God and being in awe of him because of who he is.
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But I want to just close with this. You know, the fact that that these things are true about the gospel and they're true about mankind and they're true about God, that there's no means of salvation other than the gospel, it really puts the onus on us to do what?
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To preach the gospel, if we think that our neighbors and our friends and our family are going to be saved by virtue of either looking around the world and thinking, oh,
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I just love when it's spring and the butterflies come out in the pollen of my nose, my ears, my everything else. That's not how it works.
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If we think we're going to live in such a way that they're going to say, well, I wish I had the peace that Steve has.
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I wish that I could handle this trial the way so -and -so does or, you know, this is coming into my life and I wonder how so -and -so...
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That's not how people get saved. I mean, they may ask you those things.
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I mean, I certainly think in my own life when I had become convinced of a couple of things that Mormonism wasn't true and yet that I knew there was a
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God and I wanted to find out who that God was and I went and asked somebody that I thought knew. But that's a lot of times not how it works.
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You know, the emphasis, the urgency in the New Testament is preaching the gospel.
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And I want to close just with Acts 17 verses 29 to 31, where Paul, speaking to the people at Mars Hill and Mars, yeah, no, on the
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Areopagus in Athens, he said this, 17, 29 to 31, being then
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God's offspring, he's talking to all these people there, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
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He's not that way. People want to say, well, God is just a creation of our imagination. No, he's not.
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The times of ignorance, God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to do what?
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To repent, to change their mind, to change their mind about what? About who he is, about what he demands.
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Look at verse 31, because he has fixed a day. There is a day coming on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't say that, but that's who he's talking about, whom he has appointed.
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And of this, he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
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We need to preach the gospel. We need to open up the book and present the truth of the gospel.
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I was just watching Andy Stanley this morning saying, you know, we don't need to demonstrate creation.
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We don't need to demonstrate Noah's Ark. We don't need to demonstrate any of these things, because the only thing we need is the crucified feet of the risen
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Savior. And then he goes on to say, this is a 25 second clip, he goes on to say that basically what he says,
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Christians created the Bible. And I'm like, you know,
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I kept watching that video and I'm like, that's crazy. I mean, even, you know, if somebody wants to argue, it's taken out of context.
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There's no context in which you will ever hear me say, other than if you'd cut this one little snippet out now.
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Christians did not create the Bible. Let me just say it that way, right? Christians did not create the
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Bible. God gave us the Bible. God preserved for us the Bible.
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Why? So that we could have it, so that we could study it, not just for our own edification, right?
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But so that we could be those who go out and make disciples of all men, teaching them all that he has commanded, right?
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That's what we need to do. That's why we have the word now. We need to go and share the gospel.
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Let's, we have to close. Father, we thank you for your word that we might know you, that we might come to be in awe of you, that we might come to love you and to worship you.
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And not only those things for us, but also to proclaim you, to share the riches of Christ, to tell people how they may be saved, how they may be redeemed and preserved and brought from condemnation into glory, transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of your dear son, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. It's by faith and faith alone in him who lived the perfect life, died the death he did not deserve, and then was raised on the third day.
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Father, give us not only the grace to believe it if we don't, but the willingness and the desire to tell our friends, neighbors, family, those who stand in danger every single day of the good news, how they may be saved, not that they can live the gospel, but that the gospel has been lived.