Understanding God's Sovereignty in Election (Part 5)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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March 10, 2011

Understanding God's Sovereignty in Election (Part 6)

00:02: Again, we're here tonight to to continue our study in Romans chapter eight, so I encourage you to take out your Bibles, turn to turn to Romans eight.
00:19: And if you think that I'm spending an inordinate amount of time on this particular text, I just want to remind you that this subject is going to carry on through Chapter nine, verse twenty four.
00:35: So what we are doing really is we're just setting up our lesson into Romans chapter nine.
00:43: So so if you think that we're spending a lot of time, this is just preparing us for what we're going to be learning in the weeks and in the months to come.
00:52: We began last week by talking about the common questions that surround the doctrine of election.
01:00: Of course, election deals with things like for ordination, predestination and God's sovereignty.
01:10: So tonight we're going to read again Romans eight, twenty eight to thirty, and we're going to pick up right where we left off last week.
01:17: So let's begin Romans eight, verse twenty eight.
01:23: And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.
01:29: For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the first born among many brothers and those whom he predestined.
01:44: He also called those whom he called.
01:47: He also justified those whom he justified.
01:51: He also glorified our father and our God.
01:56: We thank you for the opportunity to be in your house.
01:59: We thank you for giving us your mercy and grace and for being with us in this time.
02:04: I pray, Lord, now that as we examine this text of scripture together, that you would keep us in line with your truth, that you would remind me and keep me ever mindful of your Holy Spirit's power and Lord, keep me from error.
02:20: I pray that you would use me as a mouthpiece of your truth.
02:23: I pray also, Lord, that you would open the hearts of everyone present to hear and understand the word.
02:30: And Lord God, as we examine the truth of election and the questions that surround this doctrine, I pray, oh God, that you would mercy us and grace us with your presence.
02:41: In Jesus name we pray.
02:44: Amen.
02:45: One last announcement that I did forget for those of you who don't have email, and I'm not even sure that I sent out a white email on this subject.
02:54: You want to sit right there, Miss Priscilla? I'm sure she doesn't mind moving her purse.
02:58: There you go.
03:00: Jess, and I don't remember his last name, but it is it is Mariah's father, Shirley Dowling's ex-husband.
03:08: He fell and broke a vertebra in his neck and he had surgery and they wanted to put a halo on him, but he wouldn't let them.
03:21: So now he's going to be living with a neck brace.
03:23: And they said the neck brace only has a certain amount of healing potential.
03:28: The halo would have been much better, but he doesn't want the halo.
03:32: I haven't talked to him about that yet.
03:34: But anyhow, long story short, he needs a lot of prayer.
03:37: And it just came to my mind as I was praying just now.
03:40: So his name is Jess and I'll get his last name for you after service.
03:44: I'll look it up on my phone.
03:45: All right.
03:46: Last week, we asked the question, if election is true and by election, what we mean is that God has an eternity past preordained or chosen those who are going to be saved.
04:02: If election is true, we said there are some questions that go along with that.
04:11: The first question is, if election is true, what about evangelism? And we spent an entire hour last week answering that question.
04:19: But just because I know some of you weren't here, I want to give a very brief rundown of the answer of that question, because it's the first question that usually comes to people's minds when they deal with the doctrine of divine election.
04:32: If God makes a choice, what's evangelism for? Why do we evangelize? And I said, well, the first thing that we have to understand is that when we ask the question, why do we evangelize? The answer to that must always be because Jesus told us to.
04:46: If you ever ask why, and it's something that's a direct command from God, we don't necessarily have to know the reason why.
04:54: If God commanded us to do it, it's the right thing to do.
04:57: That's first.
04:58: However, we do know what evangelism is for.
05:01: We know that God has ordained the end.
05:04: He has also ordained the means to the end.
05:07: The end is the salvation of the elect.
05:09: The means to that salvation is the preaching of the gospel.
05:13: So if the gospel message is part of the divine decree, then by evangelizing, we become part of the divine decree.
05:23: We become part of God's plan when we exercise our responsibility to evangelize.
05:30: OK, that's an hour sermon in a nutshell.
05:33: If you want to hear the whole thing, go to sermon audio.
05:36: I'm really pushing that tonight.
05:38: All right.
05:39: Now, the next question that people ask.
05:43: And it is almost always a universal question when you're dealing with the doctrine of election is if election is true, what about free will? That is a tremendous question.
06:09: Now, I imagine I could spend an hour on this one, too.
06:13: And who knows? I just might depends on how the how I go in this.
06:19: But the first thing that we have to understand is that what do we have to ask this question to ourselves? What does it mean when we talk about will, when we talk about the word will? Will is an expression of our desires.
06:44: All right.
06:46: If I say I will to do this or I will to do that, that means I had a desire to do this and expressed it or I had a desire to do that and I expressed it.
07:01: And in that sense, every one of us has a will.
07:08: You all have desires.
07:10: You wake up in the morning.
07:12: You desire breakfast.
07:13: You desire to get up and go to work.
07:15: Maybe you desire not to, but you desire the paycheck more.
07:19: You desire not losing your job more than you desire not going to work.
07:24: So you make a choice based on the strongest impulse of the moment.
07:32: One of the things that Jonathan Edwards made very clear in his book, The Freedom of the Will, that was the book that Jonathan Edwards wrote on this subject.
07:41: He made it very clear that people always choose according to their strongest desire.
07:53: In fact, he went on to say, never is a choice made that is not made in accordance with our strongest desire, for instance.
08:01: And I love this analogy.
08:02: I've used it before.
08:03: Some of you heard me use it.
08:04: I love this analogy.
08:05: I think it makes the perfect sense.
08:08: If somebody came up to me and I was walking to my car after being out late one night and I'm walking to my vehicle and somebody comes in and pulls out a little revolver and they stick it in my belly and they say, give me your dough.
08:23: I don't know, maybe they live in the 70s.
08:25: I don't think this is how it's done, but they say they stick a little revolver in my tummy and they say, give me your dough.
08:32: I have to make a choice.
08:37: And the choice that I make will be in accordance with my strongest desire.
08:45: If my strongest desire is to not get shot in the belly, then I'll probably acquiesce.
08:54: Now, you may say, wait a minute, your strongest desire is to not give him your money.
08:57: No, that's a strong desire.
08:59: But my strongest desire is not to get shot.
09:02: The desire to not get shot outweighs the desire to keep my money.
09:07: Now, for some people, it doesn't.
09:10: And I'm sure there's some John Wayne commandos out there who would say, I'm not giving you my money.
09:15: Then they get shot and they get the money anyway.
09:18: But the point of the matter is, if they chose that, if they chose to say, no, I'm not going to give you the money, that's still an expression of their strongest desire.
09:32: Their stronger desire was to stand up to the criminal.
09:35: Their stronger desire was to keep their money.
09:38: Their stronger, strongest desire was to fight for their rights rather than simply acquiesce.
09:45: So in either case, they are making a choice based upon their strongest desire.
09:54: All right.
09:55: So in that case, we say, yes, man has a will.
10:02: We all have the ability to make choices.
10:05: However, the problem is when people throw in the adjective free, because I have already acquiesced and said everyone has a will.
10:20: But what I have also expressed to you is that your will is not free.
10:24: Your will is bound by what your desires.
10:30: I mean, then I already didn't already make that case.
10:32: That was the case I've been making this whole time is that your will is bound by what you want.
10:38: You may say, now, wait a minute, that's just that's kind of silly talk because you're saying my one is bound by what I want.
10:43: You know, what I'm saying is this.
10:44: And please follow me here, because this is vastly important.
10:50: The Bible clearly teaches that before God changes our heart, we do not desire God.
11:04: That being said, we are not free in the sense that most people think of freedom.
11:13: In fact, what adjective does the Bible use to describe a person who is lost in sin? A slave to sin, that's the honestly, is there any word that more fully gives an antithesis to the word free than the word slave? No, slave and free are the opposites of one another.
11:40: In fact, the Bible describes us in only one of two conditions.
11:44: It says you're either a slave to sin or you are a slave to God.
11:52: This is what Paul says.
11:54: He says you're either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
11:57: Never are you free.
12:01: Because your desires will either be opposed to God or God will change your heart and your desires will be for him.
12:11: You're still following your desires.
12:16: But your desires before God changes your heart are not for him.
12:22: So in that case, yes, you make choices.
12:26: Yes, you make in one sense free choices because you don't have an external force that's saying, OK, you're going to do this or you're not going to do this.
12:37: But you do have an internal force.
12:39: You have that internal part of you that is bound in sin.
12:45: Now, I want to move even further on this because I want to express something that's very important.
12:54: And that is the concept of divine providence, because you talk about predestination, you're talking about a particular aspect of God's divine grace that God has decided the destination to send the word free, meaning to go before or to to set aside before and the word destination to set aside before the destination.
13:21: That's what that means.
13:23: But when we talk about the word providence, the word providence is discussing how God works out his will in our lives, because if you get to make choices and we've already established that you do and those choices are according with your desires, we've already established that they are.
13:46: And if that's the way it works, how then can we say that God is sovereign over all things? If we're out here making choices all the time, according to our desires, how can we say God is in control? And the answer to that is very simple.
14:09: When we talk about God's sovereign providence, we are talking about something that and this this is kind of this is a big word.
14:22: I don't know how many I think I've ever discussed this with any of you before, a doctrine called compatibilism, compatibilism.
14:38: All right.
14:39: Don't ask me if I spelled it right, but write it that way.
14:41: And when you get home tonight, go to spell check and you'll know if it's right.
14:48: I think this is right.
14:49: Compatible IBL.
14:51: It should be right.
14:52: Ism.
14:53: All right.
14:55: Compatible is what does that mean? Sounds like a big word.
14:58: Sounds like I just made something up.
15:00: I promise I'm not just making it up as I go.
15:02: These words have meanings.
15:04: Compatible ism basically says this, that God has ordained.
15:12: That his will is going to be brought about through what are called primary causes and what we call secondary causes, primary causes and secondary causes.
15:34: OK, please don't lose me here because this is vastly important to understand what we believe about God's sovereignty.
15:40: What I teach about God's sovereignty is wrapped up in this because it's very important.
15:49: Let's say, for instance, that it is God's will.
15:54: That a bucket of water.
15:58: Be empty, OK? That's the simplest thing I can give a bucket of water sits in a room and needs to be emptied.
16:10: God certainly has the power to, with his divine command, cause that bucket to tump over or to lift that bucket up and dump it or to cause space itself to become an absorbent material and make that water into steam.
16:32: God certainly has that power, and if he exercised that power in that way, we would call that a primary cause.
16:41: God was the first cause.
16:43: He was the primary cause in that activity.
16:47: However, God also.
16:50: Has the power to ordain.
16:54: That a football team full of 300 pound thirsty linebackers.
17:05: Come into that room at just the right moment where all that is in that room is a large bucket of cold water and that bucket of water is going to be empty.
17:18: All right.
17:19: We would call that a secondary cause.
17:23: Is it still in line with God's ordination? Did God ordain the bucket to be empty? Yeah, I mean, in this scenario, did God or you might say it's not the Bible.
17:34: I know it's not the Bible, but in this scenario, did God ordain the emptying of the bucket? Yes.
17:39: Was there two methods by which God could have ordained the emptying of the bucket? Yes, he could have emptied it himself or could he have ordained 50 thirsty football players to come in? This is a very rudimentary explanation of primary causation versus secondary causation.
17:56: Here's where it gets real like rubber meets the road, though.
17:59: Remember the story of Joseph, remember, Joseph, remember, Joseph, he was his father's absolute favorite to the point that his brothers hated him.
18:17: And he had dreams that honestly, he probably would have been best to keep themselves.
18:24: But instead, he says, look, here's, you know, my weed and your weed all bows down to my we know.
18:30: No, they didn't want to hear that at all.
18:32: His brothers already didn't like him.
18:35: And now there's this problem.
18:39: They they don't want him around.
18:41: Well, they go out into the field and dad sends him with that nice coat.
18:48: He had, you know, he had that coat of many colors and he said he sent him out there and he had that fancy coat.
18:55: And what did the brothers do? Throw him in the pit.
19:02: And then what did they do? They said, we're going to kill him.
19:04: No, we're not going to kill him.
19:05: We don't want to kill him.
19:06: But what we'll do is we'll sell him.
19:08: Why? Because killing him isn't going to benefit us.
19:12: Killing him is not going to benefit us, but selling him, we get the money and we still get the same result.
19:17: He's out of our lives forever.
19:19: And then we'll kill an animal, take the animal's blood, put it on the coat of many colors.
19:24: We'll take it back to dad and we'll say, hey, you must have got attacked by an animal.
19:27: Poor guy.
19:28: And we'll have a big wake for him.
19:29: It'll be a great big thing.
19:30: And that'll be sad for a while.
19:31: But he'll get over it and it'll be all right.
19:35: Joseph goes to Egypt.
19:36: What happens in Egypt? Goes to the house of Potiphar.
19:40: Potiphar's wife kind of fancies Joseph somewhat, and she decides that she wants to have a relationship with Joseph, which ends in her accusing him of a form of rape and he goes to jail.
19:52: Then in jail, he rises to even being the head over the jail, in jail, head of the jail.
19:58: I don't know how that happened, but he must have been a pretty outstanding individual.
20:03: To the point that the end of the story is he is second to Pharaoh in Egypt.
20:09: Story goes on, he's second to Pharaoh in Egypt.
20:12: And what happens then? The brothers come.
20:15: It's my favorite story, don't you think I just love to tell the story because this is my favorite part.
20:19: When the brothers come and they find out who he is, they say, man, he's going to kill us.
20:25: And that's I mean, you can almost feel that expression when you read the text.
20:28: They're like, dude, he's going to kill us.
20:31: What are we going to do? And Joseph says, look, what you did, you meant for evil.
20:41: But God meant it for good.
20:47: So that this day, many people would be saved alive.
20:53: Thus, we use the word compatibilism.
20:57: Through primary causes and secondary causes, God's will was done.
21:06: OK, and that's how we understand God's providence.
21:11: Not that God is the primary swinger of the sword in every instance, but that the sword never swings apart from God's will.
21:23: That must be understood, because what we're saying in that is that if the sword swings, God has a purpose.
21:32: We may not understand the purpose and we may never understand it till we get to heaven.
21:36: But the sword never swings without God's purpose.
21:41: That's how we understand the providence of God.
21:46: It is compatible, the causes of primary and secondary causes are compatible in bringing about God's will.
21:55: Now, I want to simply ask, I ask him to bring it up.
22:01: We don't have we have a statement of faith that this church, which the elders labored over and produced for us, but we do not have what was called a confession.
22:12: We have a statement of faith.
22:13: There is a difference between a statement of faith and a confession or a creed.
22:18: Early in the Reformation period, there was an attempt to solidify the teachings of the Protestant Reformation and what were called the Protestant canons of the Protestant creeds and confessions.
22:33: One of those was the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.
22:39: Wait a minute, we're not Baptist.
22:41: Don't worry about it.
22:42: I just want you to hear something that's very important because that's the one you got brought up, right? The 1689.
22:48: I just want you to hear the description of how God, this is how great and intelligent men from the time of the Reformation and shortly thereafter, 1689, these men came together looking to the scriptures, looking to the truth of the word to give us a sort of a synopsis of this, of what I've just described.
23:11: And I want you to read that to us.
23:12: Just please.
23:52: Now, that's a lot.
23:53: And I'd be happy if you went home and relooked at that because it's a lot to take in in one sitting.
23:58: But notice what it talks about.
23:59: It talks about God is not the author of sin.
24:04: See, people think that because we believe in sovereignty, that we believe that somehow God is the author of sin.
24:10: No, we do not.
24:11: People think that because we believe in divine election, that we somehow believe God is actively causing people to be evil.
24:20: The Bible says God tempteth no one to sin.
24:24: So we have to understand there is a fine line between saying that God is sovereign over all things that he has.
24:32: He has.
24:33: Does anyone here believe God doesn't have the power to stop something when he has the power? Right.
24:39: So if he allows something to happen, if he ordains that something will take place, there's purpose.
24:45: There must be or he would not ordain that it be right.
24:49: That still does not make him the author of that.
24:56: Those things must be brought out, because if not, we are we are we are we are we are making God a sinner, something that is impossible to do.
25:11: For God cannot sin, because what is sin? Sin is a violation of God's will.
25:21: Right.
25:21: God has given a command.
25:22: We either choose to rebel against that command or we choose to go further than the command.
25:26: But either way you say it, sin is a violation of God's will.
25:30: And if God always does according to his will, then he cannot possibly sin.
25:37: You might not like what God does.
25:40: You might say, I didn't think what God did was right.
25:43: But you can't say it was sin because it was in accordance with his will.
25:47: This is the thing about like when the Bible says God told the Israelites to go in and kill every man, woman, child and animal in the land of Canaan.
25:55: You say, well, that's Canaanite genocide.
25:57: That's horrible.
25:58: It was according to the will of God.
26:00: We may not like it.
26:01: We may not understand it.
26:02: We may have a problem with it, but we cannot say it was sin because God's will was for that to happen.
26:09: And if God's will was for that to happen, we may not like it.
26:13: But it wasn't sin.
26:17: That's tough to hear.
26:18: That's tough to understand.
26:19: But it's nonetheless true.
26:25: No, no, no, no, no.
26:27: What I was talking about, I was talking about particular.
26:29: That's a good question because I was talking about particularly the Canaanite genocide because some people say God was wrong in commanding the Israelites to go in and kill every man, woman, child and animal.
26:39: They will say that's genocide.
26:40: That's wrong.
26:41: If God commanded it, God's wrong.
26:43: And as such, they're making themselves God's judge.
26:46: No.
26:47: In this case where you have this situation with Joseph and his brothers, Joseph was very clear what you did, you meant for evil.
26:57: But God still ordained it because it was going to bring about the good.
27:03: OK, they are still responsible for doing evil.
27:06: They are very responsible for desiring evil, for wanting evil and for doing evil.
27:11: But God had ordained, if you want to use the word allow, God had brought this to pass in this way.
27:17: OK, but God had brought it to pass in that way because he had a purpose for it.
27:21: If he didn't have a purpose for it, it wouldn't happen.
27:23: That's the key.
27:27: You know, people people don't like some of the things that happened to us.
27:32: I don't like everything that happens to me.
27:34: There are some things that I wish I could go back in time.
27:37: Sometimes I wish I had a five minute machine.
27:39: I used to go back in five minutes and not say what I just said or not do what I just did.
27:45: You know, but we don't have a five minute machine.
27:50: But you know what? What's funny is.
27:52: And I know I've said this so many times, you guys, if I could go back 20 years from now, there's a lot of things that if I was eight years old again, I'd probably change.
27:59: But right now, I wouldn't change it for the world because I can see purposes.
28:03: God saw the purpose all along.
28:05: God knew what the purpose was from the very beginning.
28:09: God ordained it to be because he knew it was the best way for it to be.
28:12: Even though right now.
28:15: I can see it at the time I would have anything to say.
28:25: Yeah, absolutely.
28:26: Absolutely.
28:26: They were the means that God had ordained and it was in accordance with their evil will.
28:32: Secondary cause their evil will was a second, just like those football players drinking that drink.
28:36: You know, God allowing them to go in there, drink that drink.
28:38: It's still a second.
28:39: It's still a causation.
28:40: But it's not as if God reached down and God did this actively.
28:44: It's and it's it is the difference between active and God using what is going on and ordaining it to his end.
28:55: All right.
28:57: We are.
28:59: Forty minutes in, let me see, let me go back to the subject of will subject of will we talk about free will.
29:10: I actually got a call this week.
29:14: I want to make sure that you don't ever say this.
29:18: OK, I got a call this week from a gentleman who doesn't go to this church.
29:23: He doesn't go to any church that I know of.
29:25: And he called me because somebody at his work said to him that he didn't believe in free will, that he believed that everything's already predetermined.
29:43: So we don't have to do anything.
29:44: God's already determined it and we don't have any responsibility whatsoever.
29:49: He was from a primitive Baptist church, the primitive Baptist church or what are called hyper Calvinists, and that's very standard thinking for them.
30:01: They don't teach very much on evangelism.
30:04: They don't teach very much on active discipleship because it's unnecessary because of their view of sovereignty.
30:11: Here is what you must understand if you are going to strike a right will subject.
30:17: Line on the doctrine of election, God is sovereign.
30:27: Let me second the idea.
30:34: And man is still.
30:38: Responsible.
30:41: For his actions, God is sovereign.
30:48: But we are still responsible for our actions.
30:53: If you are not responsible for your actions, God could not, in justice, send you to hell.
31:04: Now, he could send you to hell if he were unjust, but in justice, we are condemned because we are responsible for sinning.
31:20: You're a sinner and it's you who did the sin.
31:25: I've never sinned for you.
31:27: I've never had to.
31:29: And you've never sinned for me because you've never had to.
31:32: I've sinned good enough on my own.
31:34: I don't need your help and you don't need my help to sin.
31:39: You sin, you know, we were born that way and we're pretty good at it.
31:43: We grow up that way and that's just the way we are.
31:45: We're very good at it.
31:47: Now, here's the thing that really throws people off, because people look at the word responsible.
32:01: And they will say.
32:04: Because man is responsible, that automatically means he is able to go to God on his own.
32:15: Because if you're responsible to repent and if you're responsible to seek after God, if these are the things that you're commanded to do, but you're not able, how can you rightfully be responsible? The answer to that is this.
32:32: Just because you are responsible does not necessarily denote ability.
32:38: And I'll give you this one best example I know.
32:41: Is everyone in here responsible to keep the commandments? Let's just let's not talk about all the six hundred and some odd laws of the Old Testament.
32:51: Let's just look at let's look at the first commandment.
32:54: I don't think anybody would would disagree that Jesus reiterated the first commandment.
32:58: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
33:00: You know, the first commandment is not to have no other gods before the Lord.
33:03: That's first of the Ten Commandments, Leviticus chapter 20.
33:05: Jesus reiterated that.
33:06: Somebody said, what's the greatest commandment? Jesus said the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
33:12: Right.
33:13: Anybody in here able to do that? Are you able to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength? Not until you be with him.
33:29: That's right.
33:30: But does that make you any less responsible? No, it doesn't.
33:37: Because God is in no way keeping you from it.
33:40: Your desires are keeping you from it.
33:42: Your will is keeping you from it.
33:44: But God is not up there saying, oh, I know you want to come, but you don't like the way you do kids.
33:49: You hold them back by their head and they try to reach for you and you hold them back.
33:52: I know you want to give me a hug, but no, you can't, you know.
33:56: And but that's the picture that so many people have of the doctrine of election.
34:01: It's as if they see God with his hand on our forehead saying, no, no, no, you can't come.
34:07: That's an ignorant depiction of what we believe in, what we teach.
34:12: What we believe and teach is that no one will come.
34:17: And if their own desire not to.
34:20: And the only reason anyone does come is because God changes the heart.
34:24: And at that point, God's not holding anyone back.
34:27: And I've said this before, too, and I truly believe this.
34:30: And I've never met a reformed person who I've said would disagree with this.
34:36: If someone mustered up on their own faith in Christ.
34:44: I don't believe God would reject them.
34:48: The problem is, I know that will never happen.
34:51: But I don't know anyone who would say, yeah, yeah, somebody, if they truly were a faithful person, truly believed in Jesus Christ, truly sought after him, that God would reject them.
35:02: No.
35:03: God's not actively holding people back.
35:05: He doesn't have to.
35:08: He doesn't have to.
35:10: What he does have to do is extend grace because we wouldn't come without the extension of grace.
35:15: This is why people frustrate me when they say, God, if you believe that you believe God predestines people to hell.
35:21: But what you have to understand is, is while that may be true in one sense, it's not true in the grand scheme of things because now I'm about to get real deep.
35:31: So be real, real careful with what I'm about to say, because it's very important.
35:39: Predestination and election.
35:42: Is an action on God's part.
35:45: It's an action of grace.
35:48: It is an action of mercy.
35:50: It is an action of his will to say reprobation.
36:00: Is God assigning those who are by nature rejecters of him what they deserve? It takes no extension of grace.
36:12: It takes no extension of mercy.
36:15: It takes no extension of anything but justice.
36:20: And when somebody says God predestines this group and predestines that group, that's the error that is called, here's my big word, equal ultimacy.
36:29: It's saying God has to do the same for one group.
36:32: He's making this group good and this group bad.
36:36: That's wrong because God didn't have to make that group bad.
36:40: They were already bad.
36:42: They already deserve the punishment.
36:44: They were already under condemnation.
36:47: This is where and this is the second question, I don't think we're going to get there, but hey, we've arrived because the second question is, does election make God unfair? Does election make God unfair? That's a very important question because a lot of people ask the question, does election make God unfair because God has chosen to save some and not save others? You know what I find very interesting about that question is that if we lived prior to the New Testament, nobody would ask that question.
37:15: Because if you lived in the Old Testament, it was no doubt God had given a special amount of grace to Israel that he had given to nobody else.
37:24: He had given grace to Israel that he had not given to Babylonia.
37:27: He had not given it to the Assyrians.
37:29: He had not given it to the Assyrians.
37:30: One time through Jonah, remember Jonah went and preached to the Ninevites, Ninevites capital of Assyria, preached to them one time.
37:37: They all got saved all the way down to the animals.
37:39: I don't know how animals get saved, but everybody was just had ashes and everything, all having a big tent revival.
37:43: But a generation later, when Nahum the prophet, a hundred years later, Nahum the prophet comes to the same people.
37:56: It's not the same people.
37:57: It's a hundred years later.
37:58: It's the next generation.
38:00: And he calls God's condemnation on them and they are condemned.
38:03: Why? Because even though that first generation did receive repentance that God had granted to them, they didn't teach it to their children.
38:12: They did not pass on the teachings that they had to their children as a result, none of it was destroyed, but not under Jonah, under Nahum.
38:22: That's a whole other story.
38:24: But the point of the matter is you look at the Old Testament, you look back to the time of Abraham.
38:31: Hope your windows are up, guys.
38:33: Is the windows up? I actually go look and see if their windows are up.
38:43: OK, we talk about fairness when we talk about fairness, what we have to understand is that our idea of fairness.
39:09: And God's justice.
39:13: Are not necessarily the same thing, because what we think of fairness is this, everybody gets equal, right? But I will tell you right away.
39:24: That we can be very honest and say everybody in the world doesn't get equal.
39:29: Because I can I can point you, I can spin a globe and put my finger on that globe and I can pretty much guarantee I'm going to land somewhere where they haven't even heard the gospel yet.
39:39: And you hear it all the time, and if they have heard it, they've heard it intermittently and they've heard it through missionaries that might not even speak their own language, or they've heard it through Bibles that they only have one book or a half a book or a track that's actually translated in their language because it has clicks and clacks and all kinds of other things in the language.
39:55: They have a hard time even putting that on paper.
40:00: Actually, like I said, you just go look at a globe and you see how small America is compared to how big South America is, how big Africa is, how big Asia is, how big Russia is.
40:09: And know that during the time of communist the USSR, the gospel was pretty much thrown out of those communist countries and was not even allowed to be taught there in many, many places.
40:26: And beloved, I can tell you, life is not fair if your definition of fairness is that everybody gets the equal thing, that everybody gets equal opportunity and equal, equal, equal chance.
40:41: Some people don't even get a chance to live very long at all.
40:50: Some people live their whole lives and never hear the gospel.
40:55: How can we say, then, that God is fair? How can we say, then, that God is fair? Well, I don't normally say God is fair.
41:02: I normally say God is just.
41:07: I always say God is just.
41:08: Yes.
41:44: If you ever look at the book of Romans chapter one and you really study Romans chapter one.
41:51: It answers the biggest question that most people ask.
41:56: In this arena, because people ask this all the time, what about what about the poor, native, innocent African person? They'll say that and they usually say it just like that, they'll say poor, innocent, native.
42:30: And Africa, they describe them that way normally.
42:36: What about that poor, innocent, native in Africa, you know, who's never heard the gospel? If you've ever read Romans one, you should have an answer to this question.
42:51: And the answer, huh? Well, they had the light of nature, but but before we even go there, the first thing that we have to understand is that this one doesn't count.
43:05: We always say, what about the poor, innocent? No, stop right there.
43:10: If you believe that anybody in the world is innocent, what you're actually saying is that person has not sinned against God.
43:20: Oh, no, what I mean by innocent is I mean, they're not as bad as Hitler.
43:23: They don't have to be as bad as Hitler to go to hell.
43:28: All you have to do to go to hell is sin.
43:31: And guess what? Nobody doesn't qualify.
43:36: There's nobody who is not a sinner.
43:38: There is nobody who is absolutely innocent, even the little native in Africa and the person says, well, wait a minute, the little native in Africa has never seen the law of God.
43:50: Again, I point you to Romans one because Romans one is very clear on this issue.
43:56: It says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, though they knew the truth.
44:08: They suppressed it in unrighteousness, that tells us that everyone has what you said, the life nature, the inner the inner knowledge of what the truth is, and everyone suppresses that truth.
44:22: And Romans one goes on to tell us how they suppress it.
44:25: And this is the first I remember where I was sitting the first time I read this passage.
44:29: I was sitting in my brother's house on his couch.
44:32: He used to live in this little duplex apartment in Callahan.
44:35: It was two apartments together with a wall between them.
44:37: A little duplex apartment or somebody lived on the other side.
44:39: I was sitting there first time I ever read this passage.
44:41: I read it and I said, wow, this answers the question.
44:46: Why have nobody ever answered this question before? It was long before I ever went to seminary because I read it.
44:53: And I and I said this answers the question because it says instead of seeking God, they seek after worshiping idols, creeping things, things that walk on their all fours and and they build statues to worship.
45:11: My goodness, what do we see in every nation? Idol worship.
45:19: Why? Because sinners naturally point their affections towards things that they can see rather than the God who is invisible, because it's easier that way.
45:37: And somebody says, why do people make idols? You know why people make idols? Because when you make an idol, guess who's in charge? You are.
45:46: You made it.
45:52: Yeah, yeah.
45:52: If I make an idol and it somehow commands me because it can talk, I guess, or whatever.
45:57: If I don't like that idol's rules, I can change the rules because I am the sovereign one.
46:05: Going all the way back to Eve, what is man's most natural desire to be his own God? What did Satan say to Eve? God knows that you shouldn't eat that because it's done the day that you eat it, that you will become like God.
46:25: And boy, she couldn't wait to share it with her husband so that they could become like God.
46:41: Yes.
46:49: And yet we still sin.
46:51: Everybody knows right from wrong.
46:53: The law of God is written on our heart.
46:54: Yet we still sin.
46:55: So when somebody says, but what about the poor, innocent native? I stop him.
46:59: I says, wait.
47:01: They're not innocent, they're sinners.
47:03: What should become of a sinner? Well, wait a minute, they didn't get an opportunity to hear about Jesus.
47:10: So does that mean they automatically go to hell? It's hard to hear, folks.
47:16: But let me ask you a question.
47:18: What's the other alternative? What would be the other alternative that because they didn't get an opportunity to hear the gospel, that God is under some obligation to forgive them? Well, if that's the case, then we need to stop evangelizing.
47:34: If that's the case, we need to pull the missionaries back home, because if all it takes is ignorance of the gospel to be saved, then we don't need to preach the gospel.
47:44: If that's what if literally if people not knowing the gospel will save them, bring the missionaries home.
47:50: Don't tell them because now you're giving them an opportunity to not be saved.
47:54: That's right.
47:56: Yeah.
47:56: Yeah.
47:57: Stay at home.
47:57: Don't tell nobody.
47:58: It'd be our secret.
48:02: Absolutely.
48:02: Absolutely.
48:03: The point of the matter is the reason why we send out missionaries is because we do believe God has his elect in every nation.
48:09: We believe God has chosen people from every tribe, every tongue.
48:13: And on the Day of Judgment, when we are there with Christ and we're eating the lambs, the supper of the lamb and we're there with Christ and we're having our great time together, we will see people from every race and we will see people from every tribe and we will see people from every tongue.
48:35: Because God has ordained.
48:37: That those people hear the gospel, and that is why men wake up and women wake up and they hear in their heart a call to go to Croatia.
48:46: Who thinks to go to Croatia? Really? Who wants to go to Papua New Guinea or or or the heart of Africa or Asia? You know what? You know what? And I'm not oh boy, I'm going to hurt somebody's feelings.
49:01: I promise.
49:03: I promise you.
49:05: And if you're watching on live stream or listening on the computer, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
49:10: But I do want to say this.
49:15: I don't know how popular they are anymore.
49:19: But for a long time when I was doing youth work, the popular thing was what they called the mission trips.
49:27: And they'd get 20 or 30 young people and they'd send them on these trips.
49:34: And I guess they're still very popular.
49:37: You know, my my biggest my biggest hurdle with those.
49:42: Was when the kids came back and when I would talk to them, they talked about it like it was a vacation, not a mission.
49:50: To bring the gospel.
49:53: It was always about.
49:55: Well, yeah, I've been to this place or that place and I hate this because you say that again real loud.
50:06: It's true.
50:07: That's true.
50:07: And we're saying and oftentimes we're sending teenagers, which is not the teenagers can't preach the gospel.
50:14: But we're sending people oftentimes that are very ill equipped, equipped.
50:19: Again, I'm not saying that they're all bad.
50:21: I'm not saying they're bad at all.
50:22: What I'm saying is that my concern in hearing people about these trips, it was always about, you know, well, I've been here, I've been there rather than, you know, we took the gospel, you know, in what was always frustrating to me about that same group of people.
50:37: And again, I'm not trying to be ugly, but that same group of people, I could not, you know, people that I talked to, I never saw them going anywhere in their own city to share the gospel.
50:47: I never saw them sharing the gospel here.
50:49: They got on a plane to go to Siberia to do it because they wanted to go to Siberia.
50:58: I'm not being ugly.
51:00: I'm just yeah, I'm not I'm not I'm not doubting these things as a whole.
51:18: I'm not even doubting them at all.
51:20: I my biggest concern is getting back to the whole issue of of there's there are people in every tribe, tongue and nation and we should have a desire to reach them.
51:31: We should we should have a desire to support missionaries.
51:35: We should have a desire to support people who preach the gospel in these places, knowing that God has ordained salvation for people out of these tribes, these tongues, these nations.
51:45: I was just that really just came into my mind.
51:48: Yeah.
51:54: And I'm not saying all of them have and I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings.
51:57: However, yeah, yeah, we are responsible.
52:33: We're responsible for our sin.
52:34: We're responsible for following Christ.
52:36: We're responsible for all that.
52:37: But it does take that that opening of our heart for us to be able to because we don't want to to share it with them.
52:53: Yeah.
53:01: No, you're right.
53:01: You're right.
53:02: You're right.
53:03: Yeah, we don't know who we don't know who we're talking to and we could be the one.
53:07: We could be the one.
53:09: Very quickly, just to address what you said and then we'll pray and be done.
53:12: You said about no, just this last thing.
53:22: Yeah, about.
53:23: OK, I, I, I do not think I do not think and I'm not correcting you.
53:31: I just want to I want to build on what you said.
53:33: I don't think that we can share the gospel too much.
53:36: But what I do think is that we can share the gospel in such a way that it is it is no longer an attempt to tell the truth, but it is our attempt to change somebody's heart.
53:52: And once we make it our attempt to change someone's heart, we have we have taken out our ID card and we've removed our name and we put the Holy Spirit where our name goes.
54:05: And that's not our job.
54:07: Our job is not to change someone's heart.
54:09: Our job is to tell the truth.
54:10: Now, that may mean more than once.
54:12: That may mean that.
54:13: And what I always once I've proclaimed the gospel to someone, I look for opportunities for them to ask questions and to be engaging in them on things because, you know, I can talk forever.
54:24: Y'all know that.
54:26: But but once I feel confident that I've shared the truth with them, it is it's not my job to change their heart.
54:35: If you know, it's like I said last week, if I tell somebody you're standing on the edge of a building and you're about to fall off, I can get to the other side and I can say, come on back, come on back.
54:44: But until they until the decision is made, they're not going to step away from there.
54:48: And the only way that decision is going to be made is God changes the heart.
54:51: So I let's pray.
54:54: Father, we thank you for this opportunity.
54:56: I do pray that though we spoke about some very deep subjects tonight, that it is it has been a lesson that has been in accordance with your will and has encouraged your people.
55:06: I pray, Lord, as we go into next week and continue dealing with questions that you will that you'll just continue to to be on our heart and open our heart to the truth and and help us, Lord, every time we meet to glorify you and all that we do.
55:23: In Jesus name, we pray.
55:25: Amen.
55:26: If you have your name papers, if you have your name papers, please turn them in.
55:33: If you you know what, if I don't.