Does God Know the Future?

Hi, good morning. Y 'all know that last week we ended our year-long study of Galatians. And starting in September, I am going to begin a 12-week overview of systematic theology. But we're not in September yet, and I take two weeks off in August.

It's my vacation time. So, I did not want to start the systematic theology study now, because if I started it now, I'd have to stop it when my vacation came. So I talked to Pastor Mark last week, and I decided that in the interim time, I'm going to deal with some important topics that I feel like are relevant to all of you and are individual.

Now, today's topic may take more than one week, and that's fine. I've got, I think, three or four weeks before my vacation, so I'll have time. If I don't get through it this week, I'll get through it next week.

But I felt like this was relevant for a couple of reasons. One, as many of you know, Set Free Ministry, Pastor Mark teaches that God is sovereign. And some people come out of church traditions where they understand sovereignty differently.

And therefore, it is good to have an opportunity to deal with the questions that always come up when you deal with the sovereignty of God. And one of the areas which I am most confident is talking about this area.

If you want to talk about stuff I'm less confident in, ask me about the Millennium. I don't know. And I'm willing to say I don't know. I give you my opinion, but I'm not as firm on that. But when you want to talk about something that I am firm about, that I am confident in, it is in my theology of the sovereignty of God.

And so, when I know Pastor Mark believes something and I believe it, and I know that it's not easy to deal with, I feel like that's an opportunity to come in and share some insights. And so today we're going to be asking this question that I have written on the board.

If God is sovereign, if God knows the future perfectly, and He's already determined what He is going to do, then why pray? If God is sovereign, He knows the future perfectly, and He's already determined what He is going to do, then why pray?

Confidence in Salvation and the Question of Prayer

Open your Bibles to 1 John 5, 14 and 15, and that's where we're going to begin our study. 1 John 5, 14 and 15. We're going to read the verses, and then we're going to pray, and then we're going to begin breaking down this subject.

Actually, let's begin in verse 13 because I like what verse 13 says too, even though it's not particular to the topic, I just like to hear it. Verse 13 says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

That's great. That's just good. We can just stop there. The whole book of 1 John is about having confidence in your salvation, knowing that you're saved. The word know shows up multiple times in every chapter of the book.

The whole book is about confidence in your salvation. I write these things to you that you might know that you have eternal life. Verse 14, And this is the confidence that we have toward Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him. Let us pray. Father God, I come to You in Jesus' name. And Lord, I am an imperfect man, and I am a fallible man, and I am capable of preaching wrong.

So I pray for the next hour, Lord, that You would keep me from error. But Lord, I also am a weak man. So I pray that You would also keep me from cowardice. I pray that as the Word is preached, that You would open up hearts to believe.

Lord, that the message would go from the mouth of the preacher to the ear of the hearer, but that it would not stop there, but that it would go into the ear, through the mind, and down into the heart.

But Lord, only You can apply the message. Only You can teach a heart. And we know that it is not by my words of wisdom that a person would be moved by the Word of God, but it is by the power of Your Holy Spirit.

So I pray that Your Spirit would be today present with us, that He would mix the words of preaching with faith, and that He would create in the heart a new understanding, a better understanding for those who believe that today would be life-affirming and encouraging, and for those who have not yet believed that today would be convicting and confounding, and Lord, that it would cause them to look at their own hearts and their own lives and know whether or not they are in Christ.

And Lord, for those who are not in Christ, that they would be brought to the foot of the cross and realize that the Sovereign God has not suggested that they repent and believe, but O God, You have commanded that we repent and believe.

We pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen. When I told Pastor Mark last week I wanted to preach on the subject of prayer, I had several avenues, several directions I could go. And in the weeks to come, I may end up doing some more on prayer depending on how today goes.

Because if we were talking about prayer, I could talk about how to pray. I could talk about the different types of prayer. There's prayers of invocation. There's prayers of benediction. There's prayers of supplication.

There's prayers of adoration. There's prayers of confession. There's prayers, all kinds of different ones. We could talk about each one and how each one is in the Scripture and how they should lead us to being better prayers.

We could go through the model prayer and see how Jesus exemplified prayer in that prayer when His disciples said, teach us to pray. And He gave that. We could talk about how we shouldn't pray. I once heard a man say, God sits up and takes notice when I put a command on His will.

Honestly, I don't suffer fools well and that man's a fool. And I don't have time for foolishness. And that's straight foolishness. If you understand who God is and you understand what you are, you would never say such a stupid thing.

You do not command God. You don't demand God. You submit unto God or you rebel and make yourself an object of His disdain. But you do not demand the Sovereign of all things. You see, the problem is we have a too high view of ourself and a too low view of God.

And that's always the problem, right? That's what John the Baptist said. He said, He must increase. I must decrease. Right? See, that's the way it works. It's like a teeter-totter. If I'm on a teeter-totter and you're on the other end, when I go up, you have to come down.

And when you go up, I have to come down. And that is the way the relationship works with God. Every time you exalt yourself, you have to bring God down to do it. Every time you seat yourself upon the throne, you have to make Him get off the throne.

And guess what? God is not into sharing His seat. God has no desire to give you the position of Sovereign. This whole idea of you being the captain of your destiny, you being in charge of your life, you're the one who makes yourself the determining factor of your success and failure, hogwash.

God is Sovereign. Many are the plans of a man's heart, but God directs His steps. The king's heart is like water in the hand of God. He turns it wherever He wills. He does what He pleases in heaven and on earth.

And who are you to say, why have you done this? Who are you, old man, who answers back to God and says, why have you done this thing? Will the thing formed say to Him who formed it, why have you done this?

See? That's the God I'm talking about. I don't have time for the limp-wristed, weak God of modern liberalism because that is no God at all. The God of modern Christianity is a God who begs you to come.

And the God of the Bible is the God who commands you, come or else. That's a different situation. It's a different relationship. It's a different God. At the turn of the 19th century, there was a theologian who noticed the rise of liberalism in the churches.

And one of the things that he noted was that liberal Christianity was not another form of Christianity. Liberal Christianity was not Christian. He said this isn't another way of looking at Jesus. This is another Jesus.

This isn't another way of interpreting the Bible. This is a denial of the Bible. And what we have seen since that time, since that prophetic voice made that statement, is we have seen in 100 years the results of liberalism coming in and absolutely turning the Bible on its head.

Where now God has to ask your permission before He can do anything. I heard a preacher say that. He said God doesn't intervene in the world unless we invite Him. Hogwash! Absolute hogwash. It's garbage.

It's baloney. It's scuba line. You say, what's that? That's Paul's choice word. It means dung. You say, well, why are you so angry? I'm not angry. I am convinced that of all the problems that are in the church right now, this is among the most important.

We have a wrong view of God. We have a low view of God. We have placed ourselves on the throne. We have taken God off the throne. We have exalted ourselves and therefore we have diminished God. And that way whenever we start talking about how God is and how God truly is, people get offended.

How could God call the people of Israel to destroy every man, woman, and child in a nation? How evil is God? Maybe that's the question I should have answered today. Because that's the kind of thing you hear from people who don't know God.

See, God doesn't owe you anything. You are a rebel against His will. You are guilty of high treason against the King of the universe. If you committed treason against the President of the United States, you know what would happen?

You would be killed. You would be hung. You would be shot. You would be needle in the arm. That's what I'm saying. Capital punishment. You would die if you committed treason against the President of the United States or against the Congress or against the Senate.

If you were a traitor to this country, you would die a traitor's death. And every one of us has been a traitor to the King of the universe. And yet we think, for some reason, He is somehow indebted to us.

You know what debt we have? Death. That's the wages of sin. But the gift of God is eternal life. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. You know why it's called a gift? Because He doesn't have to give it.

God is not obligated to give it. I've never been obligated to give a gift in my life. I have been obligated to give a wage. I have hired people to do jobs for me, and I was obligated when they were done doing those jobs to pay them for those jobs.

But I have never walked up to somebody who did a job for me and said here's your gift for doing the job. No, you don't give gifts when people do jobs. You give wages. The wages of sin is what you owe.

The gift is what you don't deserve. The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life. If you're saved today, you don't deserve it. And until you realize you don't deserve it, you'll never appreciate it.

So you say this has nothing to do with the question. This has everything to do with the question because how you view God will determine how you understand this question. How you understand God will determine whether or not you're even on the same wavelength of what I'm trying to talk about.

Because each one of these questions, and it really is a series of questions. It's one long question with three premises. And each one of these premises has to be understood before you can understand the question.

Because the question, if God is sovereign. I'm going to change that. Since God is sovereign. Because it's not a matter of if. He is sovereign. I don't have to say if. I said if to make you look at it.

Every time somebody asks me that. And I have that happen. Well, pastor, if God is sovereign, I say stop! Don't finish that sentence. Stop. Put it in reverse. Back up and change that if to since. Because we're no longer dealing with the possibility.

He is sovereign. You want to know? Let's just look at a few verses just to help us out. Go to Isaiah 46. Isaiah 46, verse 8. And we're going to read to verse 11. Now this is the prophet Isaiah speaking and he says this.

He's speaking on behalf of God. Remember this and stand firm. Recall it to your mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things of old. For I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like Me.

I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done. Saying My counsel will stand and I will accomplish all My purpose. I call a bird of prey from the east and the man of My counsel from a far country.

I have spoken and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed and I will do it. What does that tell us? One, it tells us about the uniqueness of God. He says I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like Me.

I like that verse. I remind people of that often, especially when those people come up on Saturday morning and want to give me that Awake magazine. Want to give me that Watchtower, Bible and Tract Society book.

I say, what do you believe about Jesus? Well, we believe Jesus is a created God. Can't be. Jesus is either God or He's not God, but He's not a created God because created God is an oxymoron. You can't be a created God.

There is no other God. God says it. I am God and there is no other. There is none like Me. So that's an important passage. But He goes on to say, I declare the end from the beginning. What does it mean to declare the end from the beginning?

It means I say what's going to happen. Let me ask you this question. Why does God know the future? Because He has already determined it. It's not as if He just has a crystal ball. He's not like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost who just has some kind of magic power to see the future.

That was a 30 year old reference. God knows the future because God determines the future. It's not a matter of just looking and seeing. God doesn't just look and see what's going to happen. He declares that this will be.

In the book of Daniel, God gives Nebuchadnezzar a dream. In the dream, there's a statue. Golden head, silver chest and arms. Remember this? I think it was a brass stomach and bronze legs. Maybe I'm missing copper or something.

I forget the metals, but you understand there's four different metals and each one represented a different government. The head and arms represented the Babylonians. The chest represented the Medes and the Persians.

The stomach and thighs represented the Greeks and the legs represented the Romans. You say, well, why does this matter? Because God gave that dream to Nebuchadnezzar which was then interpreted by the prophet Daniel and then when we look at history, not the Bible, but when we look at history, we follow the history down and we see Nebuchadnezzar was the king and then his son Belshazzar and then Darius of the Medes destroys the Babylonians and the Persian Empire is set up and then Alexander the Great with the Grecian army comes in and destroys long after Daniel's gone.

But Daniel said it was going to be this way and then the Romans, of course, because that's who's in charge when Jesus comes, right? Daniel said this was going to happen long before it did happen. How?

Because God had declared it from the beginning. God had said, I'm the one who raises up nations and I'm the one who brings them down. This is one of the reasons why I don't really worry too much about America.

Because as much as I see problems, and there are problems in our nation, there's hatred, there's violence, there's destruction, there's corruption, but I know this, America will stand or fall at the Word of Almighty God.

America will stand or fall based upon His will. And if I wake up tomorrow and we are in the People's Republic of China Part 2, God's will will have been done. China can't thwart the will of God. Joe Biden or Donald Trump can't thwart the will of God.

No one can thwart the will of God. He declared the end from the beginning. That's why I trust the book of Revelation. If I didn't think God was sovereign, I would have no reason to believe all of the things that Revelation tells me is going to take place.

I would have no reason to be confident that you know... And by the way, you want to know what the interpretation of Revelation is? It's real easy. Jesus wins. That's it. However, yeah, however you, whether you are amillennialist, a premillennialist, a postmillennialist, whether you are a preterist, a futurist, a historicist, or an idealist, or whether you don't have any idea about the 7 or 8 words I just said.

Because all of those are different ways of interpreting the book of Revelation. I don't care how you interpret it, at the end it's always the same. Jesus wins. White horse, name that no one knows, and it says King of kings and Lord of lords, and He will come and a sword will come out of His mouth and will destroy His enemies, and His enemies will be made His footstool.

He wins. That's it. How do we know that though? Because He said it. He declared it from the beginning. And He cannot fail. Can't lie, can't fail. I talked about that last night. People say God can do anything.

No, there's a lot God can't do. God can't lie. Because He said He cannot violate His own nature. He is just, therefore He cannot be unjust. He is loving, therefore He cannot be unloving. Right? So He can't violate His own nature.

And God cannot lie, and God cannot fail. He does what He purposes to do in heaven and on earth. Turn to Daniel real quick. Daniel 4 .35. Now what I love about this passage is the person who's speaking.

Because in Daniel 4, when you get there, I want you to look and see who it is who's talking. Nebuchadnezzar. Now let me ask you this. In Daniel 4 .35, what just happened? What happened right before Daniel 4 .35 or 4 .34 and 4 .35 is Daniel 4 .33 where it says that Nebuchadnezzar was sent out into the wilderness to eat grass like an ox.

He lost his mind. See what happened was Nebuchadnezzar, like all men, had an issue with pride. Pride is the great sin of sins. Pride is the sin that causes all other sins. Because pride is what makes you think you can violate God and do so without fear.

So pride is the reason why you sin. Because for some reason, you think you can violate the will of God and there will be no consequence. That's pride. That's what caused Eve to eat in the garden. You will be like God.

That's pride. Nebuchadnezzar looks at everything he has accomplished. And he's accomplished a lot. He was quite the warmonger. He was quite the strategist. He was a man of war. And he had done wonderful in his mind things.

I say wonderful from his perspective. He had done things that were amazing. And he looks at all of his conquests and he says, look at what I have done. And God says, wait, wait. Slow down. Oh, nay, nay.

Because it says this, verse 33, immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox. His body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagle's feathers and his nails were like bird's claws.

Dude went nuts. That's the proper interpretation of what I just read. Dude went nuts. He did. He went absolutely crazy. Lived like an animal. And you think about it, I've got to wonder, because I've thought about this a lot.

Daniel is one of my favorite books. The narrative of Daniel is so important. And this particular narrative particularly. Because you've got to imagine, people saw this happen. I mean, they're walking by going to the fruit stand or whatever in Babylon.

Ah! There's some guy in the bushes looks like a six foot tall eagle. And they say, Is that Neb? I think that was Neb. I mean, yeah. Neb is having a rough day. But notice verse 34. And what's interesting about verse 34 is it's the words of Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Here's the thing about this. I don't know if Nebuchadnezzar ever was saved. That's the thing. Because some people think he was, some people think he wasn't. Whether or not you believe he was or wasn't is really not the point.

What the point is to me is we're about to read what he says based upon the experience he has just had. So it's either the experience of an unsaved man who is still amazed at the almighty work of God, or it's a man who because of the work of almighty God is now a saved man.

But his words are recorded for us in the Bible. And it says, At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar... That's how we know it's him speaking. I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever.

For His dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. Now this is the important verse. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And He does according to His will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

And none can stay His hand or say to Him, What have You done? Now that's a pagan man. A vicious king. One who hated Israel and Israel's God. But he now knows that God is sovereign. Because when he boasted about his own sovereignty, when he boasted about his own control, when he boasted about his exploits and accomplishments, God said, and that was it.

I mean, yeah. You on fire? That's it. He said, why are you talking about this? Because if God is not sovereign, we have no reason to trust His promises. If God is not sovereign, we have no reason to trust what He says.

Because He can't accomplish anything. If God needs my permission to act... By the way, if God needed Nebuchadnezzar's permission, I'm pretty sure He wouldn't have been allowed to put him out eating grass for seven years.

If God is not sovereign, we have no reason to trust His promises. If God is not sovereign, we have no reason to trust His promises. A .W. Pink. And by the way, if you ever see a book in the library here or on a shelf written by A .W. Pink, read it.

It is worth your time. And this is what he wrote. The sovereignty of God. What do we mean by this expression? We mean the supremacy of God. The kingship of God. The Godhood of God. To say that God is sovereign is simply to declare God is God.

Because if God is not sovereign, He is not God. So, if God is sovereign, we change that to sense. And our first premise is true. It is true that God is sovereign. The second premise, and He knows the future perfectly.

I think we have demonstrated that. So that is true. And He has determined already what He will do. Now this part, those people. God's already determined. Well, think of it like this. We're going to look logically, then we'll look biblically.

Because I do think you have to kind of look at this first logically. If God has already known the future perfectly, can it change? Then He wouldn't know it, right? That's an important question. If God knows the future perfectly, can it change?

Now from our perspective, it can change. I don't know what tomorrow is going to be like. I don't know what the rest of the day is going to be like. I could drop dead right now. I always wait when I say that.

Just to make sure. Because I've said that before. I give it a minute. Make sure I'm not nailing it. That would be the ultimate last words. I could die right now. But that would be a rough day. I wouldn't know.

Well, you would know. It would be rough on y 'all. But I want to introduce you guys to a term. You may have heard this term before. But if you haven't, it's an important theological term. And it's the term immutability.

Immutability. I'll write it down. The word is immutable. Immutable. No, not the same. Close, but not the same. Mute. We often think a mute is like quieting something, like you mute the television or you mute the radio.

But the word mute actually means to change. Right? So, immutability or immutable means changeless. It means unable to change. Now let's think about God's Word for a second. Four verses. If you want to write them down, you can.

Numbers 23, 19. 1 Samuel 15, 29. Malachi 3, 6. James 1, 17. I'll say it again. Numbers 23, 19. 1 Samuel 15, 29. Yep, 1 Samuel. Malachi 3, 6. And James 1, 17. By the way, if you're ever writing down Bible verses, just write down for numbers, write like N, M.

And for 1 John, 1 J. That's a quick way. I've been to a lot of conferences. I've taken a lot of notes. The last one is James 1, 17. I usually write James as JMS. It just takes you in your mind. And when I'm doing sermon prep, when I'm printing verses, that's how I normally do it because it gives me more room on the paper.

And it's quick in my mind. So let's read those real quick. You don't have to go there unless you just want to, but I'm going to read them in succession. Numbers 23, 19. God is not man that He should lie, nor is He a son of man that He should change His mind.

Has He said and will He not do it, or has He not spoken and will He not fulfill it? So Numbers 23, 19 is telling us something about the nature of God. And it says He is not like man. Men change. We evolve.

Not like from a monkey to a man, but we evolve from a baby to a toddler to a child to a pre-adolescent to a teenager to an ogre and then to a young adult and then to a middle-aged adult. I just hit 40 this year, so I am now officially middle-aged.

And one day I will evolve again into an elderly man, if God sees fit to allow me to live that long. My father is 75 years old. Bright white hair. He has evolved. I have pictures of him when he was younger.

He had a hair like Elvis. It was jet black, combed into a duck butt. You know what a duck butt is? Where they pull the hair back into the back and it looks like the rear end of a duck. My dad has evolved.

Some of you, your hair is missing. Because as you have aged, your hair has begun, some people's turn white, some people's turn loose. And that's evolution. It's change. Not evolution like I said, not monkey to man.

It's the person. People change. I am not the same person I was yesterday. Two nights ago was my wife's birthday. Took her out to Salt Life. Out in Fernandina we had dinner. And then we walked out onto the beach and let our kids play in the water.

And I stood with my feet in the sand as the water was rolling up my ankles and rolling back out. And I noticed, and I know this is not really profound, but for me it was a moment of clarity. I noticed that the sand that was there was never the same.

It was always changing. The sand was there, and then the water came and took that sand away and brought different sand up. Or maybe it had some of the sand from the last time, but it was in a different mixture.

And it was never the same. And I must have watched it for two or three minutes saying, this beach will never be the same as it is right now. It's constantly changing. I'm constantly changing. The cells of my body have changed since I was born.

New ones have come. Old ones have passed away. And this is the context that we see when the Bible says God is not like man. God does not change like we change. 1 Samuel 15 .29. The glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind, for He is not a man that He should change His mind.

Malachi 3 .6 I the Lord do not change, therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. I like that verse because what God is saying to Israel is the whole reason why you still exist is because I'm good and that goodness doesn't change.

Because if I was basing everything on you, I would have destroyed you a long time ago. If this was you, I would have already taken you out. But I don't change even though you change. And then the New Testament, James 1 .17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like the shifting shadows.

Or we might say in context today, like the shifting waves. God does not change like that. And here's the thing. Logic tells us God can't change. And I'll give you the logical syllogism. God is perfect.

If God changed for the better, that would mean He wasn't perfect. If God changed for the worst, He would stop being perfect. And if God made a lateral change, neither good or bad, it would demonstrate the need for change and therefore question His perfection.

The immutability of God is based on the perfection of God. And people say, well, what about those times where the Bible seems like God does change? Doesn't the Bible say God repented? Isn't there a verse out there?

Yes, there is. There's a couple of times in the Bible where it says God repented. But I don't like that word. I think that's a bad translation. And it is not translated that way in most translations, but some translations use the word repent.

And the reason why I don't like that word is because repent means to change your mind. And I don't believe that God changes His mind. Therefore, I don't think that's the way you should translate that word.

I prefer the word relent. Because there are times where God makes the statement of judgment, but with that statement, there is a statement of conditionality. For instance, Jonah and Nineveh. Forty days, there's going to be destruction.

But they repent. Therefore, God does not destroy them. The warning had conditionality. Jonah knew that. That's why he didn't want to go. Remember what Jonah said at the end of Jonah? He said the whole reason why I knew you were going to be good to them.

And he didn't want them to be. Jonah hated the Ninevites. They were his enemies. God says go preach repentance to them. No, I don't want to go. I'm going to go get on a ship and go to Spain. And God says, nope, you're going on the first submarine ride right back where I said, because I'm sovereign.

Right? Going where I told you to go. And he ends up on the shores of Nineveh bleached white from the gases of the stomach of the fish that he was just in. And he goes, repent. And everybody said, yep, I think we're going to listen to you.

You look like you just came out of a fish. You smell like it too. You're the real deal. You're the real deal. So there are times when God uses conditional language. And there is also times when the Bible uses anthropomorphic language.

The anthropomorphic language means that God has given human characteristics. For instance, it talks about God's hands. It talks about God's eyes. It talks about God's ears. Those are anthropomorphisms, meaning it gives a form of God.

God doesn't have hands, by the way. God is Spirit. God doesn't have eyes like we have eyes. He is Spirit. But the Bible says He has eyes to see and ears to hear and hands to gird us up. That's an anthropomorphism.

In the same way that it says He girds us under His wings. God don't have feathers, y 'all. You have to understand. That is figurative language. It is anthropomorphic. And that's actually called zoopomorphic, which means to ascribe animal characteristics to God.

God is Jesus and the Lion of Judah. Right? Zoopomorphism. Yes. No, go. I appreciate you asking. Very good. Somebody has a question. You have a question. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I am very familiar with the...

Yes. And that's a promise that's going to happen. The New Covenant is what we're in now because of the work of Christ. Yes. So, when we talk about God... Yes. Anthropomorphism. I think so. I think that's an example of an anthropomorphism.

But then again, Jesus... I believe Jesus is physically present in His body now because Jesus has a glorified body. Yeah, but if you think... In Acts 7, when Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand, he said he was standing at the right hand of the glory of God.