Just Open Phones for 75 Minutes on the Dividing Line Today

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line, open phones today at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341. I noticed that Sy10BruggenKate just joined the channel, so that'll probably mean that people on the channel are going to be distracted with his brilliance and not going to be listening to the program or anything like that, so that's sort of how that goes.

When the big guys show up, us little people just are left out in the cold, but I don't think that's what Rich was just laughing about, but anyway, 877 -753 -3341. I do have a King James only video queued up if we don't get enough calls, so I know that's threatening.

Used to be back in the olden days when we did actual radio and we paid huge amounts of money for just a few people to listen to us. When we wouldn't get phone calls, I would threaten to start playing John Denver music, which I actually love, but other people found that to be a highly threatening and probably offensive thing.

I can't imagine what it'd be like today, but anyway, that's just sort of how that goes. So, we already have, how do you know? Oh, how do you know that he joined it? Someone is asking me how I know that Psy joined the channel.

That's sort of an inside joke. So, by what standard do I know? Well, I run the channel, so I can get rid of him if I wanted to, but I don't want to. It's good to have him there. Anyways, 877 -753 -3341.

Christian Witness and Respect in a Muslim Mosque

We've already got lines full, so let's start with the first call for Sam. Hi, Sam. Hello, Sam. Hello, Sam. I got no Sam, man. Sam be gone. So, now we got a new one. Sam was going to ask me about a Christian architect designing a Christian mosque, a Muslim mosque, and assuming that the question was sort of, well, maybe not theoretical, but would I be able to do that?

There's two aspects to this. First of all, if I was an architect, I would respectfully ask that someone else do the work. Just as if I were designing a church, I would not feel comfortable asking a Muslim to design a Christian area of worship, and that's just simply being honest with the fact that we don't believe that the other is offering pure and true worship to God.

That's not disrespectful. I know in our society anymore that's just really disrespectful, but it's not when you think about it. In fact, I would think it would be actually a sign of respect. I would want to tell the Muslims that.

I would want to say, okay, if they didn't know about it in the first place, then there's no reason to drag them into it. But if it was a situation where you had communication, there's a great opportunity to be able to, in a very meaningful way, express what you believe about worship, show that you understand what the Muslim believes about worship, put it on both feet, shall we say, and maybe open a door for conversation.

I know there's danger of, in our day, in our society, everybody is offended about everything. But you have to try to get over that if you're going to open up any doors of communication. So personally, I would struggle with doing anything like that.

I would not be able to do that, but I would want to have the freedom to express why that is and maybe open a door of communication that way. So there you go. Sai is asking, how do you know? That's in Twitter, Sai.

Someone in Twitter asked, how do you know? Question, how do you know? So obviously, somebody knows you. So anyway, I guess we will pick up with line two then. Okay, let's talk with Kim. Hi, Kim. Hi, Dr. White.

How are you? I'm pretty good.

I love your program, and my pastor says you are great.

Well, you're always supposed to believe your pastor, so I guess we'll go with that.

Um, yeah, where I live, there are many unfaithful people, but I talked to this lady. Her name is Ann, and I've witnessed to her several times and have given her warnings, and she always comes back with, I don't care.

I've asked my pastor, how do you deal with that? What can you say? And he says, there are a lot of people today that says, I don't care. What do you say or what do you do? And the more I thought about it, Paul's word came back to me in Romans 1 and Romans 3 that there is no fear of God before their eyes.

Well, there's no recognition of their own mortal condition or the fact that they will someday stand before a holy God. You know, you can sort of do the way of the master thing and bring the law of God to bear.

This is a person who's made in the image of God. But at the same time, I have likewise spoken to people who, even when you bring the law to bear, there is zero evidence that there is any convicting work of the Holy Spirit in their life.

They are, you know, with each generation, it passes. We're going to be getting into more and more of a thoroughly and completely secular society where the person truly has bought the line and believes that they are a cosmic accident, that they have no spiritual nature, that when they die, they just simply turn to worm food and that's it, and that their only concern is to have a comfortable retirement and have enough to live comfortably in this life, which is why they don't care about future generations or having children or families or, you know, any of that.

Because once you're gone, what does it matter? You're not going to care. You don't exist any longer. So there is no magic bullet for something like that. There is no specific way of getting a person past that.

The best that you can do is to bring the law of God to bear. And if the Spirit of God is active in that person's life, then you're going to be able to go from there. Otherwise, if they just look at you and go, I don't care, you know, you can't force anybody to have a conversation with you.

And, you know, outside the United States, it's been more like this in Western culture for a lot longer period of time. And so Christians in Australia and Europe and places like that have been dealing with that humanistic apathy much longer than we have.

And so you can understand why they get excited when they have any opportunities, really, of encountering people where there's evidence of some spiritual activity at all. And so we've had it good in the United States for a long time, but that's changing, and we have to remain.

Faithful in spite of all that. Right. The only thing that really—I pray for her. I literally shed tears for her. She's 80 or 81, and if she dies, we never know when we're going to go. And I know where she's going, and that—if it breaks my heart, what in this world must it do.

To God's heart? But is it possible? Well, when you say she's 80, that's a different situation. I mean, that's someone who has lived in a land that was not secularized, and hence, what you're dealing with there is just the reality that when you just look at the numbers, it is a rarity for the Lord.

It happens. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's really a rarity for the Lord to draw His people to Himself at extremely advanced ages, to have allowed them to live their whole life in the clutches of the world and to bring such dishonor upon themselves, and so on and so forth.

When you look at Christians, the vast majority of them came to faith much, much earlier in life, and that's why there's so many warnings in Scripture. Do not harden your heart, because there's just so many times over nine decades that God has done things around you and you have seen things around you that you had to harden your heart against.

There's a lot of warnings against that, and so it's just a given. You don't give up on anybody, but it's just a.

Given to recognize that it is—. Is it even possible that she may not be one of God's elect?

Well, we don't know those things, so anything is possible, and we don't have that information, so you can't operate on that foundation. You pray for the person, but you also take a lesson that—here's a good illustration of why it is that you do not harden your heart.

And you get to 80, and you've hardened your heart many, many, many times against so many things. I mean, that's a lot of sunsets to look at without bowing the knee to your Maker. So that, you know, just the numbers tell us that's how it works.

Well, I thank you, and I enjoy your program, and I am enrichedly blessed by you and your knowledge, and I pray for you, and I am very thankful for how you answer the absolute insanity.

Of this world. Well, there's a lot of that out there. No two ways about it. So thank you for your call today, Kim. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you. God bless. Bye-bye.

Seminary Preparation and Self-Directed Study

Let's talk to Davis. Hi, Davis. Hello. How are you doing? Good. Hey, I just want to say thank you so much for everything that you do. God's really used you to strengthen my faith in a way that maybe only my pastor has done.

So I just want to say thank you so much. Thank you very much. So my question is in that I can't go to seminary right now, or currently I can't go to seminary, and I was wondering if you had any idea for a curriculum that I could employ myself, or do you have any suggestions for that?

Well, when you say you can't go, you mean quit your job, move someplace, right?

Yeah, I guess. I know there's lots of online stuff, but I just recently got married. I want to be a missionary with my wife. Right now I'm looking for a full-time job. We're living with quite a few other people, and I think it's kind of a priority.

Like, I still want to learn, but I need to be providing for her. And I want you to get us to have a good place where we can.

Maybe have kids. Right. Sure. Yeah. Well, and of course, taking kids in the mission field, too, is something to be pondering and considering as well. But there are a lot of, you know, if someone wants to learn, even in a situation like that, even if you only have half an hour a day or something like that, there is a tremendous amount that can be done relatively freely, assuming a person has some level of access to the internet.

There's so many good places offer video lecture series, which come with bibliographies. There's all sorts of, I'm not sure if iTunes University still exists, but I know that I've downloaded a tremendous church history classes and just all sorts of stuff at no cost whatsoever.

A lot of these schools, a lot of the seminaries, the better seminaries, and you always have to be careful there, too, but want you to, you know, they're willing to make stuff available to you for free so that, you know, that makes you think of them in a better fashion so that if you do decide to become a student down the way and are able to get the financial wherewithal to do it, then you're thinking about them first before anybody else, and that makes sense.

So, for example, I linked last year to Michael Kruger's class on the text and canon of the New Testament, and it's available online. Some of the classes are just audio. There are some that are video because he was going over certain manuscripts and stuff like that, and I mean, that's just fantastic stuff.

I was listening to it while I was driving back from Colorado, so, you know, it's a good refresher for those of us that actually work in the field, but that stuff is available. So, you know, RTS, you can look at RTS's materials and TMS, Master's Seminary, and places like that, and they're doing a lot of stuff making that kind of thing available, and then normally for each class, there will be a website with a bibliography with, you know, what the class readings are and stuff like that, and course syllabus will frequently be available to be downloaded, and that's some of the best ways to, you know, mine that data and to get the books that are actually being read right now, and things like that, and that way you can also look at your specific area of interest.

So, you know, when I was in seminary, there were a number of classes that, well, I was fortunate. I didn't have to take too many classes that I didn't have any interest in at all. I was thankful along those lines, but, you know, sometimes you do get stuck with some, at least if you're doing study on your own and sort of trying to prepare yourself for what may be coming in the future, you can at least start with what you're going to be able to really invest yourself in and have some real serious interest in.

So, you know, it would be good to get started before the kids come along, because after that, it ain't easy. Yeah, it ain't easy. So, I mean, both of my kids were born while I was in seminary,.

So that's where I lost all my hair. I have one further question. That's actually a little bit of a point of concern for me. If I get to just pick whatever I'm interested in right now, I'll spend some time online, I'll watch past Dividing Line episodes, or I'll read some books, but it's all based on what I'm interested in at the time.

Well, remember, once you get into a program,.

There are required classes, and so they force you to. But even then, you know, I've told the story a number of times about how I was one of the only people in the room that was really, really, really interested in Old and New Testament background classes, New Testament history, that is the history up until the point in the time of the New Testament, the background type history and stuff like that.

I was fascinated by all that stuff, because I was already involved in apologetics and most everybody else. I mean, if they had been given the opportunity to not take something, that's what they wouldn't have taken, because you could tell they were just bored to tears.

And I was all excited because I knew how important this stuff was. So, yeah, it used to be, I'm afraid it's changing in a lot of places, but it used to be that there was a core of required classes that was specifically designed to keep you from avoiding some of the foundational stuff that you would avoid otherwise.

It's sort of like the biblical languages. But a lot of the seminaries, unfortunately, are, you know, hurting and they're in competition with one another, and so it's not quite as good as it once was. But anyway.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Okay. All right. God bless. Thanks for calling.

You too.

Why John Emphasizes Believe and Obey Rather Than Repent

877 -753 -3341. Let's talk to Russ. Hi, Russ.

Hello, Dr. White. So happy to speak to you and so happy with everything you have on Sermon Audio. If that gentleman learns everything you have on Sermon Audio, he'll go a long way. I have a question about the Gospel of John.

Why do they avoid the word repent?

It's not a matter of avoiding the word repent. It does not appear in its normative form that you find in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in John, but you have the conjunction of believe and obey in John. And unless you isolate John from the other Gospels, which some people do for some theoretical reason, given that John seems to be the last Gospel written and does not pretend to be trying to exist apart from them.

I mean, it just seems like John assumes that his audience has already gotten the synoptic perspective and now his focus is elsewhere, and he's filling in on a lot of the stuff that the other Gospels don't speak on.

And this actually touches on a number of important subjects. A lot of people argue that the Gospel of John cannot be a historical work or have historical validity because of how different it is from the synoptic Gospels.

Well, if we assume that John is aware of the synoptic Gospels, which I think is a given, then the question would be, well, why is he writing what he's writing and why is it different in its format, layout, structure, what's being focused upon than the others?

And I think that touches upon your question because fundamentally, when you look at where the message of repentance is in, say, a Mark, it is in the public proclamation amongst the people. The vast majority of John is polemical.

Well, you think about it, it's Jesus talking to Nicodemus, it's Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman, it's Jesus interacting with Jews in all sorts of different contexts, in the synagogue, in chapter 9 in regards to the blind man, chapter 10 in the temple.

In other words, my theory is anyways that it's written enough later that John is willing to talk about a lot of stuff that Matthew, Mark, and Luke couldn't because of the people who were still alive at that time.

Developments had taken place since then. John's the last of the apostles. He is able to go into more, well, he does half of his gospel from chapter 13 onward, well, a half, but a major portion of his gospel dealing with Jesus' words to the disciples.

And so the repentance motif is primarily in the normative preaching of Jesus to the people, but you don't get a lot of the normative preaching of Jesus to the people in John. What you get is interaction with, look at chapter 8, for example.

It's all about dealing with the scribes and the Pharisees, and then there's even a division amongst them, and some of them like what he has to say, but by the end, they're picking up stones to stone him.

So I just think it's the focus. I think the concept is there when you put together believe and obey, but since it's not just another retelling of Jesus' public ministry and all the parables and stuff like that, I just think it's a matter of what John is emphasizing, writing after and in light of what's already found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and therefore he's not repeating that.

He's focusing upon something else. So that would be my understanding of why you have that difference in emphasis, is because there's a difference in context and audience when it's being written, and the assumption, I think, that John can safely function on, and that is that those other Gospels are already available to people, and that.

Information is already there. Thank you very much. And then, when will Rich have your discussion.

From Utah posted? The one with the Mormon gentleman. Yeah, Jason Wallace sent me a note about two days ago, I think, saying that because the video cameras that they were using were shooting different resolutions, Rich is cringing in the other room, that it's taking a lot of time to switch things over and to get the editing done.

So they're definitely working on it, but it's turning out to be a big task. So they'll get it up there. We'll let everybody know once they get it.

Posted. And we'll have another episode of The Church History this Sunday? You know what? I'm not.

A thousand percent sure, because the next natural topic is the Anabaptists. I'm ready to do Calvin, but I've started listening to a bunch of stuff about the rebellion at Munster, and there's a book I want to get through.

So I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that yet. And the two weeks after that, I'm preaching the Sunday morning sermons, so Brother Callahan will probably be doing Sunday school. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do Sunday yet, because I don't feel ready yet to do Munster, and I really want to do a good job on Munster, because there's a lot of—not only is it one of the most fascinating stories in Church history, and I can show pictures of the three cages that are still hanging in Munster, and I'm going to be going to see Munster hopefully in January next year.

I'm going to be back from Russia. But there are so many applications to be made, and so many dangers in the direction that the radical movement went at that point that can learn from. I just don't want to do it half-heartedly or half-prepared.

I really want to have some good material available. When I've taught Church history in the past, I've mentioned it in passing very briefly, like in five minutes, and I want to do minimally an entire class on it.

This time. So we'll see. I'm not sure. I appreciate that very much. That radicals movie you recommended, that gives you a lot to think about. I look forward to you covering that period of time. Okay, thank you, Russ.

Thank you. All right, bye-bye.

Yeah, that is a good video, by the way, for those of you who have not been listening to the Church history series that I'm doing at PRBC. It's just the regular Sunday school, adult Sunday school class that I've been teaching for years and years and years.

I did Church history, I think, 52 lessons on it back in the 1990s. It was recorded in real audio, if anyone remembers real audio. And so we decided to redo it again. We're somewhere in the mid -60s now, so I've obviously expanded things out a good bit.

We're getting toward the end. I'm only going to go through the Anabaptist period and Calvin. I'm not going to go beyond that time period. But if you haven't listened to it, I'd recommend that everyone watch the BBC Martin Luther Heretic movie, which is available for free on YouTube.

And then the movie called The Radicals, the story of Michael Sattler. I saw it in theater. I think it was available in a theater for one day in one theater. My dear brother Jeff Neal and I went and watched it together sometime in the early 90s, I think.

And Spock's dad's in it. I mean, I suppose that he was definitely the biggest name was Spock's dad was in it. But it's 1990s and it's a Christian film. And so, you know, there's no CGI or anything like that, obviously, but I think it's really, really well done.

And when I've taught church history, I've played both of those because you watch Martin Luther Heretic. It's like, yay, Martin Luther. And then you watch The Radicals and you go, oh, it was more complicated than that.

And it was. And when we went to Germany last year, everybody on our tour learned the reality that it's a lot more complicated than people think it is. And that's just the reality. 877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with Jay.

Hi, Jay. How are you doing,.

Dr. White? Doing good. Thank you for taking my call and thank you for your ministry. A quick word of encouragement to Kim, who called a while back. I gotta say, reasonably late in my life, but my parents, I gotta say, a couple years ago, both of them were 71 years old.

So sometimes he does wait a little longer. But yeah, I got a question about eternal generation, where the son's existence is eternally communicated to him. Existence?

Is that right? No, that wouldn't be an appropriate terminology. What we're talking about when we talk about eternal generation is, there are two things called the opera ad intra and the opera ad extra.

So you have the external operations of the Trinity and you have the internal operations. The external we see in what's called the economic work of the Trinity and redemption, creation, so on and so forth.

The internal operations are only available to us because Scripture reveals things to us about the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit. We would have no way through observation of creation or things like that to have this information.

And so there are only a few texts that specifically give us information on the eternal relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit that would not be available to us as created beings. And so the Carmen Christi in Philippians chapter two, the creation sequence in Colossians one, Hebrews chapter one, John chapter one, those great, normally primarily Christological passages, or then Jesus' own teachings in regards to John 14 and 16, and the Father and the Son sending the Spirit.

These are the primary texts that we go to because they're revelational and they're graciously revelational. In other words, I don't think God had to give us this information, but he did. So when we talk about eternal generation, what we're talking about is there's two terms that are used, eternal generation in regards to the Son and spiration in regards to the Spirit, and it's how the Father and the Son and the Spirit relate to one another.

Now, some post-Nicene writers went a real long ways down the road in regards to speculating on what some of these things might mean. I think we have to be very careful at this point in time, because going back to Calvin's I think very appropriate maxim, that when God makes an end of speaking, we make an end of speaking.

And I've said many times that one of the primary differences between Calvin and Edwards was the fact that Calvin feared going past a particular point, and in many ways Edwards did not. And so Edwards ended up in some self-contradiction, especially in regards to the origin of evil in Adam and the will of Adam and so on and so forth.

Even his greatest defenders admit that his work on that subject became muddled because he went beyond what had been actually given in revelation into an area of speculation. And our minds, even a mind as great as Edwards, is not up to that task.

And so what we have to recognize is that there is meaning in the terms Father and Son, that there is a relationship that exists between Father, Son, and Spirit, but that all of these are A, eternal, hence they do not imply origination, beginning, inferiority, that each of the persons is fully God.

Altafeos, in regards to Calvin's concern, emphasized regarding the Son, that is that their participation in the being of God is not secondary. It may be marked by a relationship, generation, inspiration, but those are natural, eternal relationships.

They were not something where God the Father decides, I'm going to have a son, or then the Father and Son decide they're going to have a spirit or something like that. Our big problem is that we import human categories to each one of these terms, whether we want to or not.

It's a function of language. I think one of the great things about eternity and our being freed from the limitations of abiding sin and things like that, entering into the eternal state, is that we will either learn to or immediately be able to communicate in the way that God can communicate, in the sense of not having the limitations that we have now, and therefore we will not read into divine categories the limitations that we have in human categories.

And so what has to be remembered when you talk about eternal generation is that we are not talking about a temporal act. We're not talking about a time-bound act. We're fully talking about a relational act, and whatever else you do with it, you cannot allow it to result in your denying that the Son, by nature, participates in the divine being with full equality with the Father and the Spirit.

It is simply a description of what that relationship is. Now, somewhat so far as to say that the Son derives that participation almost in a secondary way. And I think especially once you get to that point, you're going way, way, way beyond.

I just can't think of anything in Scripture that could be stretched far enough to say, yeah, here is firm light being cast upon that. So as with so many of the things when we talk about the deep things of theology proper, what we're doing is we're drawing a negative line.

And that is, instead of saying positively what's in the center of the circle, we're drawing a negative line based upon what Scripture says. And what we're saying is it can't be anything out here. It's only what is in here.

But what is in here may be beyond our comprehension or even our understanding, but given that God wants to be known truly, He's given us the boundaries in Scripture. And I think eternity is going to be spent filling in the inside of the circle.

Whereas in this life, we're primarily drawing that line to keep other things out of it and to say, no, it doesn't mean that and no, it doesn't mean that. And so keeping that temporality, that creaturely aspect out of it, I think helps to understand.

What's actually being said there. Is eternal begottenness, is that the same issue as eternal.

Generation? I'd have to have a context of someone using it, because I honestly haven't heard someone.

Use that term. Eternal begottenness? Okay. Yeah, I've not heard that. It was in the context of.

The Father eternally begets the Son. As long as that's referring to something that is a relationship that has no beginning and is speaking of two divine persons as they are related to one another within the Godhead in their participation, one divine being, yes.

A lot of people want to translate that into incarnational categories or messiahship categories or all sorts of other.

Things like that, which I think are inappropriate. Okay. Yeah, I think I agree with you that if it sticks to relational, then that's acceptable. But when it goes, because I've actually heard people talk about it in terms of his existence is eternally communicated to him or it makes the.

Son sound like he's dependent upon the father. Well, again, someone, I could see how someone would use that terminology, maybe in an orthodox fashion, but it's only after they've already established all the stuff that I just established.

Okay. Because if you don't do that, then yeah, that's what it sounds like it's communicating. They may be assuming someone already has all that background about autotheos and the eternal nature of these things and stuff like that.

And if you don't, then it can sound way off. Okay. That helps a lot. I appreciate it. All right.

New Calvinism, Prayer, and Christian Balance

877 -753 -3341. Let's talk to Robert. Hi, Robert. Hello, Dr. White. I want to thank you very much for your ministry and for all of the knowledge that you share with us daily. Well, thank you. Almost daily.

Not quite. Now, this is like the 500th time I call the line. Thankfully, I was able to connect. Now, I have two questions. The first one is brief. They're both brief. So, my first question is about New Calvinism and the Young and Reformed Movement.

And since you collaborate with many Christians who you don't necessarily agree on every subject, but you still collaborate for gospel ministry, how do you help your people think about the distinction that exists?

How do you warn them about novelty and other forms of worship, the dangers that are involved with this? Well, I think it's a matter of focusing upon.

Giving to people a solid foundation in knowing what is central, what's definitional, what's foundational, and what is then important, but not necessarily definitional. And then the next layer, it's those concentric circles and challenging people to be consistent and balanced in how you determine those things and to recognize that you may have brothers and sisters who will draw those circles a little bit larger or a little bit more tightly than you do.

And if you demand that everyone have the exact same listing as you, you're going to be a very lonely person in this world. And it just seems to me that Christian maturity over time demonstrates that, that it's natural that we end up in churches with like-minded individuals.

And as one who preaches and teaches regularly, I try to demonstrate and to illustrate and to be a model of consistency in trying to draw those lines. And yet at the same time, I will recognize that there are people in my own fellowship that are going to have tighter circles or broader circles than I myself have.

And once it gets right down to it, each one's going to be judged by the Lord, Romans 14. So for me, it's making sure that people see what the foundational issues are, the nature of God and what true worship is, and what the gospel is, what justification is, and so on and so forth.

Issues of bibliology and inspiration and that kind of thing. And when you do that consistently over time, I think a lot of that stuff sort of sorts itself out. But I recognize that for some folks, they just get absolutely focused upon one particular thing, and it ends up creating an imbalance.

And as a result, they just can't possibly see past that one defining thing. And maybe it's been an experience in their life. It's really common. If someone has come out of a particular movement in their own experience, it's real easy for someone like that to have a strong bias that this is the thing, and if you disagree with me on this, then I just can't have any respect that you know anything else at all.

And we have to, I think, over time, grow in our own maturity and examine our own hearts and to see where our own biases are. And that's not the easiest thing to do, but it is, I think, a necessary aspect.

So just trying to model for the Saints a consistency over time positively, I think, is the best way. Because I can't just sit there and say, okay, here's the line. You just follow me. And no, I want to consistently over time illustrate that to my people and let that line become their line by conviction, not just simply because I tell somebody.

Um, thank you. My second question is about prayer. You, uh, talking about prayer, you often say that, or you point out the fact that prayer doesn't change God. It changes me. It changes how I accept God's will in my life and in His world.

So should a Reformed Bible believer think about God's sovereignty, God's decree, God's impassibility, but also the duty to pray? And how do you cultivate that love for prayer? How did men of old, how were they able to bow down for hours before the throne of grace, but still knowing that God has foreordained everything that happens in this world?

How do you think about these things so that your hunger for prayer and your love for prayer grows?

Yeah, well, you start with obedience. Everything in the Christian life starts with, uh, with obedience. Uh, you're, you're commanded, um, to lay your petitions before the Lord. You're commanded to, uh, to pray.

So there is a, a beginning, uh, that is a matter of obedience. But obviously when we look at any act of obedience in scripture, there is a biblical context provided to it as to why God would command obedience in a particular fashion.

And we are able to see why the obedience to God's law brings blessings, so on and so forth. And so, um, there is a, uh, there is a reality when we look at the subject of prayer that reminds us of who we are and who God is.

As a Reformed believer, we should recognize the sovereignty of God, but we should also recognize, um, that the content of his decree is unavailable to us and we are not judged on the basis of that content.

And so we have to hold in proper biblical tension, and I think we're given examples of this in scripture, but we hold in proper biblical tension the reality of God's utter sovereignty and his divine decree and that that divine decree and sovereignty results in God's interaction with us in time, in the incarnation, in his dealings with Israel.