Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #119： Does God Create People For Hell？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to this episode of Real Christianity.

00:00:10.920 My name is Dale Partridge, where each week I offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough theological

00:00:16.680 and pastoral questions.

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00:00:36.320 social media by searching relearn.org on any social media platform. All right, everybody,

00:00:42.380 we have a big question today. Does God create people for hell? I guess a better way to ask

00:00:49.900 this question would be, does God still create people even when he knows they will never come

00:00:57.420 to the gospel? And if so, how should Christians view this in light of the fact that God is love?

00:01:04.200 And can a loving God predestine, or maybe use the word ordain, some for hell and some for heaven?

00:01:12.720 We're going to be discussing this and more, but before we begin, I just want to make one quick

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00:02:10.900 go to standinvictory.org, and this is a great way that you guys can also support our ministry,

00:02:15.880 because the money from that program goes directly into our nonprofit that supports

00:02:21.880 further ministry. Again, that's standinvictory.org. Okay, today's question is from Jonathan in Quebec,

00:02:30.780 Canada, and he asks, the more I study the scriptures, the more I come to the conclusion

00:02:37.980 that God is sovereign, omniscient, and omnipotent. When you realize this in light of salvation,

00:02:45.120 it's easy to swallow. However, when you realize this in light of the fact that some people go to

00:02:51.300 hell, it's harder to embrace. My question for you, Dale, is this. If God knows all things before they

00:03:00.420 come about, does God create people even though he knows they will ultimately go to hell? This is a

00:03:07.820 really good question. And thank you for writing in. We're also praying for you guys up in Quebec. I

00:03:14.120 I know I've heard how intense the COVID restrictions are there just by way of the government, and

00:03:22.000 I know that can't be easy.

00:03:23.220 I've heard from a friend that there's no church since March of 2020, fines for not

00:03:29.280 wearing masks outdoors without social distancing, and you can't even have a friend over for

00:03:34.440 dinner.

00:03:35.760 So, hey, just keep fighting, stand strong there, be of good heart.

00:03:39.360 So as for your question, okay, if this was a ball and I was a hitter, this is not a soft pitch

00:03:48.360 question. This is a difficult question that is very hard to hit. And I'm going to do my best

00:03:54.820 to answer this. This is also going to be an episode that's longer than the standard 15 to 20

00:04:01.900 minutes. I bet we're going to be into the 30 minute area by the time I'm done. So I'm going

00:04:07.100 to try to tackle this. I've got some notes here that will hopefully be helpful. So first, let's

00:04:12.000 all agree that justice is good. It's a righteous thing to receive consequences for evil or a

00:04:22.160 punishment for evil. What I mean is hell, in a judicial sense, is a good thing. It's not a

00:04:29.520 pleasant thing, but it's a place of moral justice. And when you see, for example, a mass murderer

00:04:35.800 shoot and kill 40 children out of school, you want physical, earthly justice. And this is righteous.

00:04:43.000 And in the same way, you want physical justice for earthly crimes. Hell is moral justice for

00:04:51.120 spiritual crimes. And so physical justice comes by breaking man's laws, and spiritual justice

00:04:57.480 comes by breaking God's laws. And so if you read the Bible, you quickly come to the conclusion

00:05:02.560 that you and I are one of those people who have broken God's laws. And as a result,

00:05:11.140 we are under God's wrath, if we don't believe in Jesus, and will experience God's justice

00:05:18.740 when we stand before God after our death. And the only way to escape this, this wrath,

00:05:25.560 these consequences for our spiritual crimes, is to receive the righteousness of Christ

00:05:30.740 through repentance and faith in him. But my main point, and we'll talk more about that stuff later,

00:05:36.480 but my main point is this, we all deserve hell. Nobody deserves heaven. So I want you just to

00:05:43.500 take that and just hold on to that for a second. So that's my first point. We all deserve hell.

00:05:49.380 Nobody deserves heaven. We'll talk more about that in a bit. Second, I just want to applaud

00:05:54.960 you, Jonathan, for noticing this. This is a pretty heavy theological reality that

00:05:59.380 we all must face, for those that study Scripture diligently, you'll run into this question.

00:06:07.980 And so, and I really mean that we all need to face this. I can't tell you how many Christians

00:06:15.540 have told me that they can't embrace Reformed theology, aka Calvinism, because they, quote,

00:06:22.800 can't believe in a God who would predestine some to hell. Now, anytime I hear that reasoning being

00:06:30.160 used, I always say, actually, you believe that God predestines people to hell as well. And they

00:06:39.340 usually look back at me with confusion and say, no, I don't. I don't believe that. To which I say,

00:06:45.200 yes, you do. You just don't know you do. And I know that word predestine, it needs to be

00:06:52.000 really defined, and we're going to try to do that here in a bit. And so there's a lot of

00:06:58.080 observations and qualifiers that people are thinking, okay, does God predestined? What

00:07:03.160 does that actually mean? So just give me a minute to unpack this. But let me show you how I would

00:07:09.060 answer this question and this response to somebody. I would ask them, is God sovereign?

00:07:14.800 Meaning, is there anything in the universe that God does not have complete power over?

00:07:24.800 And if they're a biblical Christian, they're going to answer, yes, God is sovereign, and no, there is nothing that God doesn't have complete power over.

00:07:37.220 And then I would probably read them a couple verses, so I'll read them to you here.

00:07:41.400 It's Psalm 135, verse 6, and it says,

00:07:44.800 He does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps. Meaning that there's nothing

00:07:53.460 that the Lord doesn't do that he doesn't want to do anywhere in heaven and on earth,

00:08:02.000 even in the seas and all the deeps of the seas. Everything is being orchestrated and ordained

00:08:08.780 by him. And there's just so many verses for God's sovereignty. I'm just going to give you two.

00:08:13.380 The next one is Isaiah 46 10. It says, I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end

00:08:23.640 from the beginning and from the ancient times, things not yet done saying my counsel shall

00:08:31.180 stand and I will accomplish all of my purpose. Okay. So when I'm done explaining that about

00:08:38.420 God's sovereignty, I then ask them if God is omniscient, meaning does God know all things?

00:08:47.560 And they're going to say, of course, God knows everything. He's not a God that's learning as

00:08:54.060 he goes. He knows all things. He knows, as it says, the beginning from the end. And I'll say,

00:09:00.380 hey, great. And then I would read them a couple other verses. Again, there's so many, but I'll

00:09:04.940 just give you a few. 1 John 3 20, it says, for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater

00:09:10.540 than our heart and he knows everything. That word everything means everything. And Psalm 147 5 says,

00:09:19.200 great is our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. These are big words.

00:09:26.660 They can seem small to us, but they're major words with huge definitions. And so God is sovereign

00:09:33.920 and omniscient, then the only sound conclusion is that God knew before he made the world

00:09:43.520 or anything in it, that certain individuals created by him would end up in hell. In other

00:09:51.460 words, regardless if you're an Arminian free will believing Christian or a Calvinist, you still have

00:09:58.840 to swallow the massive theological conclusion that God, who knows the beginning from the end,

00:10:06.260 still created people he knew would ultimately go to hell. Okay, I'm going to say that again.

00:10:13.920 God still created people he knew would go to hell. So in a sense,

00:10:20.360 that is a predestination statement, meaning that God created people even though he knew

00:10:31.760 they would never come to the gospel. So he's creating them in a place that he knows they're

00:10:36.360 going to be created and hellbound and not rescued from it. Now, the Reformed theologian believes 0.98

00:10:42.360 that, according to Scripture, all people have fallen short, all are guilty of sin, and all are

00:10:50.060 hellbound from birth. And because of the condition of sin in which every one of us is born, not one

00:10:59.220 person will seek God, okay? Not one person will seek God. Our hearts, before we know Christ,

00:11:07.760 are not interested in the lordship of God, and we will not seek him. We are only interested

00:11:16.040 in seeking self-rule. And the only way that that'll change is if we're born again and given a

00:11:23.160 new heart. And as a Reformed theologian, I believe that God's choice to rebirth and liberate some,

00:11:33.520 So pay attention here.

00:11:35.020 I believe that God's choice to rebirth and liberate some from bondage of their sin,

00:11:41.620 and this is the elect, right?

00:11:43.480 That he chose some by his grace through faith in Jesus Christ

00:11:48.480 while leaving the rest of humanity to justice.

00:11:52.960 So he liberates and rebirths and brings to life some,

00:11:57.640 because we're all dead, and we're all dead in our trespasses and sins,

00:12:00.880 and he leaves the rest to justice. And this is the doctrines of unconditional election

00:12:08.060 and predestination. In other words, because of Adam's sin, all people, all people sin. This is

00:12:17.200 original sin. This is the idea that sin is not just an act, it's a condition. We are born in

00:12:27.380 sin, which means that all people are guilty of sin from birth. And our hearts are wayward.

00:12:35.320 They're not towards God. They're towards ourselves. We love self. We don't seek God.

00:12:42.220 And God has chosen to save some, but not all. If he chose to save all, then nobody would die

00:12:52.580 rejecting the gospel. But that's obviously not the case. And my point is this, not one person

00:12:59.000 who goes to hell will go there unjustly. Okay, every person deserves hell. Even I deserve hell 0.96

00:13:07.480 as a saved person. I deserve hell. I don't get hell because of God's grace, but I deserve it. 1.00

00:13:13.020 And the fact that God has chosen to offer mercy to some and rescue some, he's a rescuer,

00:13:20.960 and not others is God's decision. And there is no injustice there. Again, no one's going to hell

00:13:30.560 that doesn't deserve hell. So there's no injustice going on here. And this also means there will

00:13:37.000 never be a person who wants to make Jesus Lord, but just can't because he wasn't chosen. No,

00:13:43.220 no person wants Christ until they've been born again. And we know this because the Bible tells

00:13:49.940 us this. It's Romans 3, 11 through 12. It says, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands.

00:13:59.240 No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one

00:14:07.280 does good, not even one. Okay, the idea of a seeker-friendly church, it's just a fallacy. 1.00

00:14:13.500 There's no such thing as a God seeker. The reality is that God seeks us first. He's the one that

00:14:20.960 draws us. No one can come to me unless the Father draws him, is what Jesus says in John. I think

00:14:28.520 it's John chapter 6. No one can come to me unless the Father draws him. No one seeks God on their

00:14:35.880 own. They're dead in their trespasses and sins, following the way of the world, completely

00:14:42.980 enjoying it, no interest in giving up their life for the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Not even one

00:14:50.020 seeks God. R.C. Sproul expounds on this theological reality in an article. It's titled

00:14:57.740 Vessels of Destruction. And he says, and I quote,

00:15:02.600 many misunderstand Reformed theology to say that God forces some to go to hell against their will.

00:15:09.980 Though God does indeed pass over some people, He never acts apart from their desires.

00:15:19.000 In our natural state since the fall, all men truly desire hell because they truly desire evil.

00:15:28.760 Some of these people He passes over, but in mercy He has chosen to change the desires of others so that they will love Him forever.

00:15:39.980 If you've been born again, thank God for mercifully changing your heart, end quote.

00:15:48.520 Big deal there. 0.97

00:15:49.700 However, the Herminian, that is the Christian who believes anyone can choose God on their own free will, 0.94

00:16:02.220 is offended by this idea of God making this decision for them.

00:16:08.920 Again, my personal position is that we have a will, it's just not free. It's enslaved to sin,

00:16:18.780 it's in bondage to sin, and it needs to be set free to—actually, it doesn't even be set free.

00:16:25.320 It needs to be changed so that we're no longer slaves of sin, we're slaves of righteousness,

00:16:29.960 we're slaves of Christ. And I know this doctrine to be true because I used to be an Arminian.

00:16:37.060 I used to believe that it was a free will issue and that it wasn't God who was sovereign over

00:16:43.220 salvation. But these people, they believe the idea of a God who has determined or predetermined

00:16:51.440 to not save some from hell endangers the character of God. I'm going to give you a quote from John

00:16:59.080 MacArthur who talks about this idea. When we have an idea about God because we just don't want him

00:17:05.500 to be a certain way because we feel that he should be another way, we got to be careful that we don't

00:17:12.140 project our own desires of who we want God to be instead of taking God for who he is by the text

00:17:19.440 of scripture. So MacArthur says, and I quote, we must never impose on God our sense of what is

00:17:29.780 fair. Fair sends the whole human race to hell. You don't want fair. God is God, and he's the

00:17:38.640 sovereign over the universe, and he doesn't abandon his sovereignty at any point, particularly

00:17:45.920 in the realm of redemption. As he says, quote, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,

00:17:53.620 and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Ultimately, if you attempt to build

00:18:03.300 a case that God didn't know and his plan didn't account for certain people going to hell,

00:18:12.840 then you've damaged both God's sovereignty and God's omniscience. If you believe that God

00:18:18.880 couldn't do anything to save these people, then you've damaged God's omnipotence because he says

00:18:25.700 he can do anything he wants. He's all-powerful. If you believe that a loving God wouldn't violate

00:18:33.240 the will of a certain person to save them, then you've actually made humans sovereign over their

00:18:42.340 own salvation and you've destroyed the doctrine of grace. If you could come to Christ on your own

00:18:49.500 without God, then you don't need the grace of God on your life because you just made a pragmatic

00:18:56.320 decision to come to God because you saw it was the better business deal out there. You know,

00:19:03.140 hey, oh hell yeah, I don't want to go there. Hey, yeah, I'm going to come and follow Jesus.

00:19:06.920 You've actually assigned some of the glory of your salvation to yourself because you were the one who was smart enough or wise enough or spiritually aware enough to make this decision and come save yourself.

00:19:27.080 And so, you know, a few scriptures I think about.

00:19:30.940 Psalm 6820 says, God is to us a God of salvation.

00:19:36.920 And to God, the Lord belongs ways of escape from death.

00:19:43.100 Psalm 3.8, salvation belongs to the Lord.

00:19:46.800 Psalm 135.6, whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and on earth,

00:19:50.900 in the seas and all the deeps.

00:19:52.300 We read that a little bit earlier.

00:19:54.240 In other words, if God didn't desire for a person to go to hell,

00:19:59.120 then they wouldn't go to hell.

00:20:02.580 Just, I'm just, you got to just let your head wrap that one for a second.

00:20:06.500 If God didn't desire for a certain person to go to hell, then they would not go to hell.

00:20:13.480 This is God's mercy and his desire to save the elect.

00:20:17.060 And if God desires that a person doesn't get redeemed, means that he doesn't offer that particular person mercy,

00:20:26.700 and instead passes over that person and leaves them to the justice of their sin,

00:20:33.520 then that's what happens as well. So for some reason, we have to realize that people

00:20:41.500 still die who have not been born again by way of the gospel and according to the Bible are

00:20:48.220 suffering the consequences of their sin in a state of eternal damnation. So Jonathan, what we have

00:20:55.260 here is kind of a conundrum, right? We have a God who could save all, but instead only saves

00:21:06.480 some. And so why would a loving God create certain people, these people, if he knew they were never

00:21:15.200 going to be redeemed? Isn't that just cruel, right? That's the question that we're asking here,

00:21:20.960 right? Why would a loving God create certain people that he knew before he created them

00:21:28.460 were never going to be redeemed? That's the core question that I think you're getting at,

00:21:34.600 and it's the core question I'm trying to answer here. And let me start with a little story.

00:21:40.660 Have you guys ever seen the movie Willy Wonka? Do you remember the scene where Charlie and Grandpa

00:21:48.040 Joe. They drink the fizzy lifting drink, and it elevates them off the ground, and they float up,

00:21:54.700 you know, up higher and higher until they reach the ceiling where there's those big blades,

00:21:58.500 that big fan, and it's threatening to kind of cut them into pieces. Well, that's basically what

00:22:03.560 we're doing with this question, okay? So we're entering into the heights of revealed theology

00:22:10.440 into territory that God has not allowed the faculties of our human minds and emotions to

00:22:16.860 fully comprehend. In other words, yes, God is sovereign over salvation. He is the author and

00:22:25.360 the finisher of our faith. He is the one who saves. But at the same time, the Bible teaches

00:22:32.400 that we are held responsible for our rejection of God. And there is this unreconcilable mystery

00:22:42.520 between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

00:22:47.280 I always say there's three great mysteries in theology.

00:22:52.380 Now, there's lots of mysteries, but there's three major mysteries,

00:22:55.600 and it's the Trinity, it's the hypostatic union,

00:22:59.800 meaning Jesus is fully God and Jesus is fully man.

00:23:05.060 And then there's the last mystery, great mystery,

00:23:09.080 is God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

00:23:12.160 How do you reconcile those two?

00:23:13.460 So that's what we're dealing with here.

00:23:15.440 And even if this stuff is all going over your head right now and you're overwhelmed by this

00:23:20.440 and it's just too much for you, just keep listening.

00:23:24.240 Because the reason is you have to hear this stuff a few times to start getting the technical

00:23:32.240 language, to start understanding the theological concepts, and eventually these things will

00:23:37.200 start to click.

00:23:37.840 That is how the Lord has worked in my life.

00:23:41.080 And we know that Jesus says, the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your

00:23:44.600 God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

00:23:47.740 And so we're exercising the mental part of that commandment right now.

00:23:53.700 Now, that said, all of this, we're not left completely without insight on this question,

00:24:02.360 this matter that we're talking about.

00:24:04.260 And I'm going to offer you three principles that I think might help you grasp how a good and loving God could create people, create certain people he knew would end up in hell.

00:24:21.200 Number one will be a quick, and then two and three are a little bit longer.

00:24:24.700 Okay, so number one, I just want to preface this whole thing with we can trust that God is good.

00:24:32.720 Okay, Genesis 18.25 says,

00:24:34.640 Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?

00:24:40.800 God is a just God.

00:24:43.760 Psalm 25.8,

00:24:45.620 Good and upright is the Lord.

00:24:49.660 Mark 10.18,

00:24:51.500 And Jesus said to him,

00:24:53.040 Why do you call me good?

00:24:55.220 No one is good except God alone.

00:25:00.140 So ultimately, we can trust that every decision God makes will be righteous, good, and just.

00:25:11.840 What I mean by that is that he's always going to do what is right.

00:25:16.940 Even if we don't understand it, he cannot do what is wrong.

00:25:21.120 And this should give us peace in this entire conversation.

00:25:25.860 In fact, I would even say, I would rather have my life and soul and eternal destiny in the hands

00:25:34.100 of just God than in the hands of Dale. And so we need to just rest in the fact of who God is.

00:25:42.760 We don't need to fully understand what God is doing because we know who he is. And so we can

00:25:50.880 just rest in that reality. So that's just preface this there because you're going to go, oh man,

00:25:56.620 God, I don't know. It just doesn't feel right. And I don't understand why. And I see this scripture

00:26:01.580 and it says this, and it's a hard thing to swallow. And then there's this scripture over here. And

00:26:05.760 there's a lot of mystery in this specific discussion that we're having here. And if you

00:26:11.280 can just settle in your hearts that God is good and He is working things out that are above us,

00:26:19.460 I think it's, gosh, is it 1 Samuel or 1 Kings?

00:26:23.460 You guys will know the verse.

00:26:25.480 It says, as high as the heavens are above the earth,

00:26:29.040 so are my ways higher than your ways

00:26:31.320 and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

00:26:34.780 That is, we got to just swallow that one

00:26:37.620 and just go, yes, okay, Lord, you are king and I'm not.

00:26:42.600 Okay, point number two I want to make.

00:26:44.180 I'm just going to read you a passage of scripture.

00:26:45.960 It's actually about three paragraphs long.

00:26:47.560 It's important. It's Romans chapter 9, 10 through 24. And it's probably the most direct

00:26:55.940 passage of scripture that deals with the issue that we're talking about today. And I would

00:27:01.860 recommend later going and reading this passage again. It's Romans 9, 10 through 24. I'm going

00:27:09.900 to jump kind of in the middle here. So I wish I had time to give you some more context, but I don't.

00:27:14.720 And so just bear with me.

00:27:17.300 It says,

00:27:17.880 And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might stand, not because of works, but because of him who calls.

00:27:41.860 She was told, that is Rebecca, she was told, the older will serve the younger.

00:27:48.800 As it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.

00:27:55.740 Okay, that's through 10 through 13.

00:27:59.780 In this very next verse, one of the great things that Paul's doing in this passage

00:28:05.240 is that he's anticipating the response that he's going to get from the reader

00:28:13.660 about the sentence that he just wrote.

00:28:18.060 So he just said that these boys have not done anything wrong,

00:28:24.360 nothing good or bad,

00:28:27.280 and before they were even born,

00:28:29.780 God chose and made a statement to love Jacob and hate Esau. And any person's going to go,

00:28:41.720 well, that doesn't sound right. They haven't done anything wrong, and yet you've already

00:28:47.520 making a moral judgment on this one? And so Paul expects resistance to what he just wrote,

00:28:55.760 and he anticipates it. And he actually asks a rhetorical question in verse 14. So he says,

00:29:02.740 what shall we say then? Is there any injustice on God's part? He asks the obvious question that

00:29:08.820 he anticipates them to ask. What shall we say then? Is there any injustice on God's part?

00:29:14.800 He responds by no means. Verse 15, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have

00:29:23.740 mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. This is God basically saying,

00:29:29.940 I'm God. You're not God. I'm God, and I get to choose who I have mercy on and who I have

00:29:39.060 compassion on. Verse 16, so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

00:29:50.040 Basically, you can't come to me.

00:29:52.780 It depends on me coming to you is what God's saying.

00:29:56.260 Verse 17, for the scripture, he uses Pharaoh as an example here, for the scripture says

00:30:00.980 to Pharaoh, quote, for this very purpose, I have raised you up that I might show my

00:30:07.840 power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all of the earth.

00:30:14.240 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.

00:30:22.100 So what he's saying about Pharaoh here is that God raised up Pharaoh for the purpose

00:30:30.140 to show, to magnify his hardened heart so that God can be glorified.

00:30:38.780 When you think about the plagues that happened, the only way that somebody would continue

00:30:47.140 fighting against God, against all that evidence of the plagues, is if God was somehow causing

00:30:54.800 or ordaining the hardening of his heart for the purpose that God could flex his power

00:31:03.440 greater and greater and greater for all to see throughout all time.

00:31:08.840 And that was the purpose of those plagues, is that God was showing his power,

00:31:15.060 Pharaoh would resist, and God would show greater power,

00:31:18.100 and Pharaoh would resist, and God would show greater power.

00:31:21.180 And he's saying that God was the one that was causing the hardening of his heart.

00:31:28.240 And we'll talk about that a little bit later in a second about hardening

00:31:32.900 and what that is. But again, he anticipates what his reader is about to ask. He anticipates

00:31:43.920 the frustrating question that these people in Rome who are receiving this letter are going to

00:31:50.860 go, wait, what? So the very next verse says, well, you will say to me then, why does he still find

00:31:56.900 fault for who can resist the will of God. So he asked this question saying, you're saying to me

00:32:04.780 that Pharaoh is guilty of standing against God, but it was God who actually caused Pharaoh

00:32:16.520 to be hardened against God? And you have to ask the question, well, why does he still find fault?

00:32:23.240 because who can resist the will of God?

00:32:26.900 And the very next verse is critical.

00:32:29.700 He says, but who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

00:32:35.240 Will what is molded say to its molder,

00:32:38.780 why have you made me like this?

00:32:41.940 Has the potter no right over the clay

00:32:44.940 to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use

00:32:49.680 and another for dishonorable use?

00:32:53.240 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make his power known,

00:33:00.240 has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction

00:33:05.060 in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy,

00:33:12.960 which he has prepared beforehand for glory,

00:33:16.500 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?

00:33:23.240 Okay, this is lots of stuff going on here, but basically he says, does God, does the potter not

00:33:30.960 have the power over the clay to make one vessel for honorable use to be saved and another one

00:33:38.880 to be lost is basically what he's saying. One for keeping and one for destruction. That's how some

00:33:45.660 translations will even translate it. What if God, he asked this question as a rhetorical question,

00:33:52.980 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make his power known, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

00:34:05.000 So he's asking this, making this point, basically, that God is allowing these people who he has passed over and he's leaving them to justice.

00:34:21.040 You think, well, why doesn't he, why does he even let them live? Why does he even let them be here?

00:34:27.100 Why doesn't he just send them directly to hell? Why does he endure and wait for these God haters? 0.99

00:34:34.000 And he gives them basically common grace. These people still get to love. They still get to laugh.

00:34:39.880 They still get to enjoy the sun. They still get to be in a relationship and have children and enjoy

00:34:45.180 some of the great things of life. If they're never going to come to Christ and he's passed

00:34:50.580 over them, why does he still allow them to live? And he answers this question here. He says,

00:34:58.720 what if God, desiring to show his wrath and make his power known, has actually endured

00:35:04.500 with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And why? Verse 23, in order that

00:35:15.180 in order to make known the riches of his glory and his mercy for vessels of mercy, right?

00:35:23.820 Which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

00:35:26.300 So basically he's saying, I've allowed these people to stay here as a way to magnify the grace upon your life.

00:35:36.400 When you see those who are lost, it shows you how much you've been redeemed.

00:35:44.740 It also shows you what you've been saved from.

00:35:49.260 And this is kind of going into my next point.

00:35:53.640 And I wish I could give a full sermon on this passage of scripture, but it's very complex and we don't have much time.

00:35:59.840 But my next point will expound on this issue.

00:36:06.940 And my next point is titled this, everything will give glory to God.

00:36:11.160 Everything.

00:36:11.620 A few days ago, I was actually pondering this discussion. I shared a thought on Twitter.

00:36:17.880 I wrote, everything, including your suffering and your sin, will glorify Christ. Your suffering

00:36:24.860 will magnify his perfectness, while your sin will amplify his holiness. Nothing is without purpose.

00:36:34.160 nothing. And the purpose of this entire universe, everything, is to give glory to God. And in the

00:36:43.260 end, everything in this world will glorify him, even our sin, even those who never receive the

00:36:53.080 gospel, even hell itself will glorify God. And let me explain what I mean. How can you give,

00:37:01.260 let's say, the most glory to the coloring of a white crayon. Well, you get to color next to it

00:37:10.140 with a black crayon, right? When the Lord created the world, he saw it best that sin, hell, and the

00:37:21.260 for some reason, would be included in that plan. And he saw that the light of his glory would be

00:37:31.860 more bright when laid upon the dark backdrop of the fall of sin, of darkness. Right now, I'm not

00:37:43.760 saying, so let me just pause there. That's a key point there. God saw that the light

00:37:52.880 would be more magnified and noticed and appreciated and have gratitude for it when

00:38:03.160 it's laid upon the darkness of sin and the fall. And so why does God still allow people to be here

00:38:11.720 who will never come to him, it's so that we will see how great he is by contrast. It's that we will

00:38:22.320 see and appreciate what we have been redeemed from because these people are no greater and no

00:38:29.680 less lesser than us. We were them. We were them and we deserve what they are going to receive.

00:38:37.500 and yet we still have experienced mercy. Now, an important question arises

00:38:43.540 is, well, if sin's in the world and darkness and hell, is God sovereign over sin? Yes,

00:38:57.760 he is sovereign over sin, but in some sense, he's not culpable or responsible for evil.

00:39:05.740 And so let me explain this just briefly and then we'll close. God is holy and can't be responsible

00:39:12.440 for darkness or for sin. But somehow he ordained it to be present without being responsible

00:39:23.840 for its placement here in creation. Jonathan Edwards probably is the best at explaining this.

00:39:31.860 And he said it this way, and I'm paraphrasing.

00:39:34.680 He says,

00:39:35.000 As the sun goes down, darkness enters in.

00:39:41.020 The sun is not responsible for the darkness.

00:39:44.740 The darkness is simply a result of the absence of the sun.

00:39:50.040 And the same is true of God.

00:39:52.040 God is holy and does not cause sin.

00:39:57.140 He didn't necessarily cause Pharaoh to sin.

00:40:03.600 But as the light of his presence pulls away, spiritual darkness always rolls in.

00:40:10.740 So the hardening of Pharaoh, in a sense, was God pulling his presence away from him.

00:40:17.600 And the further God pulls his presence away from a certain person, the more evil they will become.

00:40:24.760 because there's light that's pulling away and only darkness flowing in.

00:40:31.940 And so therefore, in some way, beyond our comprehension,

00:40:35.660 God can remain sovereign over sin without being the cause of it.

00:40:42.600 So hopefully that's helpful in answering that question.

00:40:44.680 But I want to just close this discussion with just a point here.

00:40:52.200 This discussion is deep.

00:40:54.760 and it's difficult to understand.

00:40:57.600 It was difficult for me to study for.

00:41:00.580 And what we do know is that Jesus says in John 6, 37,

00:41:06.540 all that the Father gives me will come to me.

00:41:11.560 And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

00:41:15.920 So if you've come to Christ, thank God.

00:41:20.020 Like, seriously, get on your face and thank God for changing your heart.

00:41:26.500 You would have never came to him on your own had he not rescued you, had he not chosen to show mercy to you.

00:41:36.660 Because no one seeks God, including you.

00:41:39.240 The only reason you sought God and repented and cast faith on Christ is because God chose you and resurrected you spiritually from the dead without your permission and redeemed you.

00:41:55.240 You and I are no better than any lost person you see walking in sin today.

00:42:04.040 We're not smarter.

00:42:05.940 We're not more special.

00:42:07.340 The only reason that we're saved is because God saved us.

00:42:12.980 He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

00:42:18.260 He chose to exercise mercy on us.

00:42:24.900 And that's an amazing thing.

00:42:26.540 That should just cause overwhelming gratitude.

00:42:29.920 And that should also be the fuel for all of your obedience to God,

00:42:33.580 because you're going, oh my goodness, Lord, you have given me all things in Christ. And therefore,

00:42:40.240 I'm not going to sin against you because it just doesn't make sense. I'm too grateful for what

00:42:45.140 you've done for me to sin against you. And so the fuel for our obedience comes from gratitude.

00:42:53.200 It comes from love and not from law. Now, if you have not come to Christ and you happen to be

00:42:59.820 listening to this episode. This is likely God calling you. God is drawing you. Come, repent of

00:43:09.860 your sin. Turn away from your sin. Turn to Christ. Trust in Christ. You currently have a guilty

00:43:18.800 verdict if you stood before God. If you died and you stood before God, you have a guilty verdict

00:43:27.200 on judgment day, because you're a sinner. You're a sinner. And the only way to earn a righteous 0.99

00:43:38.020 verdict is by trusting in the one who is righteous. And we get to trust in Christ,

00:43:45.900 the sinless, perfect, righteous one. And when we cast our faith, our trust in Christ alone,

00:43:54.100 He imputes or gives to us His righteousness.

00:43:59.740 You know, I explain it to my kids this way.

00:44:01.760 I say, if you stood before God, He would look at you and go, you're guilty, away from me.

00:44:10.140 And you would be under God's wrath and sent to hell.

00:44:14.940 But when we believe in Christ, it's like a robe that Christ comes and He puts this,

00:44:21.980 And I'll actually put a blanket over my kids and I'll say, hey, look, this is like Christ's

00:44:27.200 righteousness.

00:44:27.640 And I wrap them up in this blanket.

00:44:29.820 And when God looks at you, he doesn't see your sin.

00:44:32.820 He sees the righteousness of Christ that is given to you by faith in him.

00:44:39.800 And this is what we're called to do.

00:44:42.460 Trust in Christ.

00:44:44.640 Trust in his ability to give you that righteous verdict.

00:44:48.000 Repent of your sin.

00:44:49.100 Apologize to God.

00:44:50.520 Come to him.

00:44:51.980 Cast all of your hope on Christ alone.

00:44:55.660 And if you have ears to hear, it's because God has chosen to reveal himself to you.

00:45:01.040 So come, come and be redeemed.

00:45:05.040 All right, guys, as always, I wish I could talk about this more.

00:45:08.720 And I'm going to leave you guys with a few resources, three of them actually this time,

00:45:12.060 that are going to give you further understanding on this very complex topic.

00:45:16.100 And you can find them on the post page for this episode.

00:45:19.720 This is episode titled, Does God Create People for Hell?

00:45:26.080 You can just type that into the search bar at relearn.org, and you could find these resources.

00:45:32.060 The first is an article titled Vessels for Destruction by R.C. Sproul.

00:45:39.460 The second is an article titled, Why Did God Create People If He Knew So Many Would Go to Hell?

00:45:45.760 This is an article written by Amy K. Hall, really good read, short read. And then there's a video,

00:45:52.380 actually it's an audio clip, I should say, of John Piper explaining this. It's only about five

00:45:57.340 minutes long, and he answers the question, how does it glorify God to predestine people to hell?

00:46:04.440 Those resources will offer you much more clarity and further insight into this incredibly important

00:46:10.640 topic. For those of you who are a regular listener to Real Christianity, thank you for your loyal

00:46:17.400 listenership. Would you guys consider, if you have not already, leaving a review? Just tap the stars

00:46:22.440 on the podcast app. You can also write something. I'm very encouraged when people do write something.

00:46:29.920 I read every single comment that comes through, and there's over 5,000 reviews on this show so

00:46:36.900 far. So thank you if you would be willing to do that. Lastly, if you don't follow us on Instagram,

00:46:41.960 you can do so at relearn.org. You can also follow me on Twitter. I'm on there writing a handful of

00:46:47.820 different quotes and thoughts and ideas and sharing different articles and resources there,

00:46:52.140 and you can find me just at Dale Partridge. Hopefully this episode was helpful and edifying

00:46:56.480 for you guys. My name is Dale Partridge, and I will see you next week.

00:47:00.840 thank you for listening to this episode of real christianity if you're a regular listener to this

00:47:08.180 show would you prayerfully consider making a donation to support our ministry efforts

00:47:12.000 simply visit relearn.org forward slash donate again that's relearn.org forward slash donate

00:47:18.720 and for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home

00:47:22.860 you can download our free pdf ebook titled the basics of biblical house church by visiting

00:47:27.980 relearn.org forward slash house. Lastly, do you have a theological question you would like

00:47:33.220 answered on the show? Submit your question at relearn.org forward slash question. Thanks for

00:47:38.740 joining us on this episode of Real Christianity. We will see you next Wednesday.

Dale Partridge - November 11, 2020

Real Christianity #119： Does God Create People For Hell？

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