Romans 9_21-24： God’s Glory in Sin, Justice, and Mercy with Dale Partridge
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Summary
God controls the salvation of his people. Why did the vast majority of the Jews reject Christ? Is there injustice on God's part? Or is it based on our own works? In this sermon, Elder Trevor talks about the election of Ishmael and Esau, and the role that God played in their births.
Transcript
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Stand for the reading of God's Word, Romans chapter 9, verses 6 through 24.
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But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from
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Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but
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the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
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For this is what the promise said, About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall
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And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather
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Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order
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that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of his call.
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She was told, the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
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What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses,
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I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.
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So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
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For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you,
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and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
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You will say to me then, Why does he still find fault?
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Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?
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What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
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in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy,
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Even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles.
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Well, keep your Bible open because we're going to be having heads down, heads up,
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quite a bit today as we go through the scriptures. Now, over the past several weeks,
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we have seen Paul's presentation of God's sovereignty over the salvation of his people.
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That's what we've been looking at. In chapter 9, Paul anticipates three common, and I would even
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say carnal, questions from those who are struggling with the doctrine of election. Is that you? I mean,
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think about it for a second. Are you struggling with the doctrine of election? We grew up in an
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America that has really kind of skipped over Romans 9 as a teaching on the doctrines of
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grace or Calvinism or the sovereignty of God, whatever you want to call it. But do you struggle
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with it? And if you do, this sermon, I think, will certainly help. Now, remember that we just came
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off the heels of Romans chapter 8, which said that God causes all things to work together for good
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for those who are called according to his purpose.
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Well, if God controls the salvation of his people,
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then why did the vast majority of the Jews reject Christ?
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when you hear that God causes all things to work together.
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The vast majority of the Jews rejected Christ.
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To which Paul responded, because not all the Jews are elect.
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We saw, we just read, Elder Trevor just read this through.
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And these elections were made prior to their birth
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without any recollection to works that have been done
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having no basis of their election from their own works?
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To which Paul reminds his readers of God's sovereignty over humanity
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and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
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He goes on to show how God's election is connected to his will and that his will cannot be altered
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He gives an example of God's will controlling Pharaoh's will.
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Pharaoh is the most willful individual in biblical history and God makes an example
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of him showing him that God even controls his will.
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Again, I've made the connection that if God said he only controlled ants, it would be
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okay for us to say, well, he doesn't control superior beings like humans.
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But when God says he controls kings and wars and weather, it's ridiculous for us to think
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He concludes in chapter 9, verse 18, so then it depends, that is election, depends not
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on human will or exertion free will is not a biblical idea you have a will it's just never
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free it's either enslaved to sin and the flesh or it's enslaved to righteousness in christ
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you have a will it's just not free to change its nature and affections from being loving sin
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to loving christ christ needs to change your nature for you he needs to do the resurrection
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he needs to make you going from blind to seen he needs to be the one that makes you
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deaf to hearing this is the purpose of the miracles to show that god is the one that is required
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to do the work to change the nature you're free to sin if you're a sinner and you're free to obey
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if you're a Christian. What you're not free to do is change your nature. It says, so then
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it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. So then he has mercy
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on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. Now the carnal mind responds to
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this with a question of injustice. Injustice. Essentially saying, if this is the case, how can
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God still find fault? For who can resist the will of God? There it is. You want to look for the
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doctrine of irresistible grace? Look down in your Bible. It's right there. Who can resist the word
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or the will of God? You can't resist the will of God, which led to question number three.
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Question number three, which we will be focusing on some today. How is it just for God to condemn
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someone for not having repentance or faith or unbelief or hardening if it's
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according to his will if God hardens an individual how can God still find fault
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if God controls the will of men and women as he did with Esau and he did
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with Ishmael and he did with Pharaoh and causes or prevents them to coming from
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him for repentance how can we still find or how can God still find fault on those individuals
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and as I mentioned last week this might have been the most blasphemous question in the entire new
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testament maybe the entire bible because it presupposes that humanity deserves mercy
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and to this Paul answered with what I called a checkmate response he says who are you who are
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you oh man who are you to reply against God will the thing form say to that which formed it
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why have you made me like this it's intended to be a statement of absurdity
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We saw how this question mirrored the narrative of Job.
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his creatureliness, his clayness, his finitude.
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And after Job was made aware of his limits, he responds to God by saying, I am foul.
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It says right here, you know, who are you to reply against God?
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So this absence of a response from God for how he has chosen the elect
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and he's not chosen others is the only certain answer that we receive in this text.
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It's one of those elements of black door theology.
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Well, here's the black door that you can't enter.
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Well, here's the black door that you cannot open.
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Ultimately, these types of questions put God into our court,
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and it disorders the relationship between the creature and the creator.
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There are things that we just don't have access to.
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God does not reveal the reasons or conditions for his electing grace.
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Why did he elect that person and not that person?
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There is no conditions by which we know and no conditions by which we fulfill that we
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just as he does not explain why a family may experience a stillborn
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If you were in those situations, you would be like,
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Job, Lord, give me an answer, and he would give you 77 questions.
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All we know is that according to Ephesians 1.11, God says that he works all things according
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I don't know how you get around that, not including everything, but all things according
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We know that God is good and he's holy and he's just.
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We know that God loves mercy and kindness and is compassionate to his people.
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We know that we are sinners and we do not deserve anything besides hell and wrath.
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Now today, we're going to deal with a second dimension of this third question.
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Now the one, this question can quickly snowball into theological scholasticism, okay?
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I felt like I was turning into Jonathan Edwards while I was studying this week
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because my brain was feeling like it was going to explode
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with all the discussion around this particular verse.
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is connected to hundreds of other really big questions.
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and I believe kind of the most prominent charges
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that the apostle is attempting to vindicate here
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Is it wrong for him to show mercy and harden others?
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Now, the real questions are actually under those questions
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oh, wow, these are questions that are connected to deeper questions.
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And those questions are like, if God is sovereign,
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why did he even create a world where sin exists?
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Where fault and wrath are even a category and why redemption is even necessary.
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If God is so good, why did he create this fallen place?
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And Paul offers a response that I believe answers
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In fact, there's no ending even to this sentence.
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There's been several theologians that are frustrated that this is translated as a question.
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It's more of an emphatic or rhetorical statement
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and still find fault why does he save some and not all why did he create a
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world at a system of redemption where he saves some and not all because he wants
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to show his wrath he wants to show his wrath and why does he want to show his
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wrath because his wrath is a part of who he is. Wrath is a part of who God is. And we live in a
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time where the love of God has become the sole focus of much of the church's preaching, and the
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wrath of God has just been kind of pushed under the table. Remember, the good news is good because
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the bad news is bad. You preach a gospel without the bad news and all you have is a gospel
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that lays flat. The bad news is what makes the good news so good. We avoid the full nature
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of God by focusing only on his more palatable aspects in the church today because ignoring
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his justice, his holiness, his vengeance, his wrath, his fury allows people to minimize
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That's why we don't talk about those things.
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Why are there churches that are filled with people that claim to be gay
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or people that are pro-choice or people that sleep with their boyfriend
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Because we don't talk about the other dimension of God.
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the intense, resolved, courageous elements of Jesus.
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But when you view Jesus according to scripture
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and you see that Jesus is the most masculine man
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that ever walked the earth, well, then you get the men.
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What we have to see is that proclaiming God's wrath
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and therefore it's a crucial point to understanding the gospel.
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You cannot understand the gospel without understanding God's wrath.
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You'll never be grateful for the salvation that you have.
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In other words, the love of God can only be fully understood
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The mercy of God can only be fully understood against the backdrop of the justice of God.
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It's to show them that they can't keep it and that they're sinners and they need a savior.
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Understanding God's wrath is the only way to understanding the gospel.
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And we've had too many pastors stand up there and go,
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God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
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In fact, I would say the majority of our churches in Prescott
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and it produces false converts everywhere.
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the only thing worse than not having the assurance of salvation
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Having the sense that you're saved and not being saved.
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America is filled with people who have an intellectual gospel.
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And they have never actually been broken over their own sin.
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They've never actually appreciated the work of the Savior.
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They actually never had the moment where they feared hell
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Now, by God's grace, some of us were raised in Christian homes,
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I mean, Jonathan Edwards says that salvation is sometimes like a lightning bolt
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So I don't want to project a need for a particular testimony on an individual,
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but we do live in a time where we have tried to persuade people into the kingdom of God
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instead of just being faithful and preaching the gospel,
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Now, you may wonder why God allowed his good world to fall into sin.
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Why did God, after saying, and it is good, allow his good world to fall into sin?
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The answer is that sin allows God to demonstrate the fullness of his character.
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Hopefully, this answers a lot of questions for you.
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The answer is that sin allows God to demonstrate the fullness of his character,
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his wrath, his justice, his vengeance, his righteousness.
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Without a world that included sin, those elements of God would not be seen.
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For those of you who have heard my teaching on glory,
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you know that glory is found where identity meets activity.
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When you see something operating as it was designed to do or as it should,
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When you see a woman that's pregnant and a loving marriage, it's glorious because she
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is operating, her identity and her activity are aligned.
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Now, because God's identity includes his wrath, a world with sin allows his identity to be
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One theologian said, God cannot have attributes that do not have functions in the world.
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God cannot have attributes that do not have functions.
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A world without sin leaves God with attributes without function.
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For God to be glorious, his identity must be fully expressed through his actions.
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And what I mean by that is that a world with sin, a world with sin, brings about more of
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A world with sin brings about more glory for God than a world without sin.
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In 2010, at the National Ligonier Conference, R.C. Sproul once said, quote,
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evil is not good, but it's good that there is evil.
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John MacArthur made a similar statement at the same conference.
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He said, is God made more glorious because evil exists,
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or is he made less glorious because evil exists?
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That is, our highest praises of God are because of what he has done to overcome evil.
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Think about your highest praises have been in the moments that you realize how sinful you are, were.
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I could teach an entire sermon on that concept.
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we have an all-wise and all-perfect and all-powerful God.
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Do you think he would figure out if there was a better way
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The world we have, the world with rape and murder,
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the world with wars and tragedies and tsunamis,
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it's not God responding to the accidental chaos of the world. We know that the wind
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and waters obey him. No, this world that we have is the world that God created perfectly.
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There is no other world that could have been better. We can't imagine, I wish God would have
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created a different world. No, God is all perfect and all wise and all holy. If there was another
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world that he could have created that is better than this world then he's not
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God this world we have is the world that gives God the most glory and gives us
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the ability to have the highest worship this world with your cancer diagnosis
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and your job loss and your chronic illness and the difficulty that goes on
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in our culture, in Pride Month, this world, God actually created this world intentionally.
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Intentionally. And he works and causes all things to work together for good for those who are called
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according to his purpose. I'm not going to pretend like I can understand the reality,
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the interconnectedness between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. I'm not going to pretend
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that I understand the mysteries of why God created the world this way but we
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have to realize that according to God's character of being perfect and all wise
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that the world we have is the world that gives God the most glory now it says in
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the second half of verse 22 if you look down with me it says has endured with
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much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction okay i'm going to just read that
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first part of it too just so we have it together um what if god desiring to show his wrath and to
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make his power known has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction okay
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First, there is a real category of humanity who are vessels of wrath prepared,
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or your translation might say fitted, for destruction.
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The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.
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I've often wondered how God can endure such blasphemy.
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I watch these ridiculously wicked individuals at pride events mocking Christ.
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And I've wondered how can he allow such evil to continue?
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like how does he not immediately cast down these people how does he allow the
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rapist and the murderer to continue to live and laugh and eat and the answer
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is he endures them for his own glory he endures them for his own glory in other
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words the wicked vessels who the Potter has made for dishonorable use are not
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without purpose. What does it say? Proverbs 16, 4. I'm going to read it again. The Lord has made
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everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. We don't have a world where
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there is something in it that does not have a divine purpose. The ants have a purpose. The
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flower petals have a purpose. The weather has a purpose. The grass has a purpose. Your job has a
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purpose, the hair on our heads have purpose, and the wicked have purpose. Now, there are three
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purposes being fulfilled in this discussion here, and I want you to follow along with me. First,
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first, in the enduring of these vessels of dishonorable use, in the enduring, the first
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purpose, that God is demonstrating his character to his people. He's demonstrating his character
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to his people in the endurance in the patience he is demonstrating his character to his people
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psalm 145 says that the lord is gracious and merciful slow to anger slow
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to anger i don't know about you but i can look at one of these
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In James 1.19, the apostle calls us to imitate this divine character.
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He says, Beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow
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One, I like to talk, and two, is that it's difficult to be slow to anger against the
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I think about the incredible patience that Christ had against his enemies on the cross
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slow to anger you want to look at that look at the cross watch him as he's getting mocked as
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he's getting spit on as he's getting nails driven into his hands and feet and what does he do
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father forgive them for they know not what they do slow to anger God's glory is actually shown
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Second purpose for why God endures these vessels of destruction
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Second purpose is God will demonstrate his justice even to them,
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He'll demonstrate it in such a way that even the wicked will praise them in their own death sentence.
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When the end comes and they stand before the Lord,
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they will actually be praising God for the justice served upon them
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God is building up a story that gives him glory.
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In other words, the first purpose is to show the saints his patience.
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The second purpose is to show sinners his patience.
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The first purpose, we get to see, man, oh, the Lord is slow to anger.
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I cannot believe he's not smiting these individuals.
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The second is for the sinner who's going to be condemned.
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so when the wicked seemingly thrive in earthly affairs do not see this as an injustice see it
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also I should say not merely as an injustice see it also as a glorious patience that will end
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in glorious condemnation glorious condemnation we are going to witness the wrath of God in a
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wrath prepared for destruction. It tells us, if you
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right, we're smart Bible interpreters, in order
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that, or in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he
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Why does God endure these vessels of wrath prepared beforehand for destruction?
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In order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy.
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God has made these vessels of dishonor and wrath
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and endures them as a means to offer perspective,
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You know, he elected some Jews, not all Israel are of Israel.
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And he also is now doing this in the gospel age
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We see this in verse 24, even us whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles.
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Now, again, we have the apostle introducing another category of humanity.
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Now, the purpose of the wicked is that in their sinfulness,
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the redeemed might see the greatness of their own salvation.
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but I have certainly watched the wickedness of the world
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Oh, Lord, I can't believe you saved me from that.
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You look back at your own past and the things that you enjoyed
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Robert Haldane, mid-1800s, commented on this verse.
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quote, the awful ruin of the wicked is necessary for the full display of the riches of divine
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In a sense, the vessels of wrath become these visual memorials that are in the world of
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what we have been saved from, the dominion of sin and death and the coming of judgment.
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You get to look at them and you go, oh, such were some of you.
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We actually see, and I'm going to talk about that verse,
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we see Paul using the wicked as a visual memorial
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to offer perspective to the elect in 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11.
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Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
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nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor
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swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God such were some of you but you were
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washed but you were sanctified but you were justified in the name of the Lord
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Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God and when you really grasp the
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magnitude of what's going on in the gospel when you can grasp the mechanics
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of the gospel you can read verses like that I don't care how strong you are and
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Now, I want to make a point that's really subtle.
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And I almost passed over this, but I think it's important.
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And I want you to do a little bit of Bible study with me.
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the vessels of wrath were prepared for destruction.
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Maybe your Bible, if you're over the age of 50, says fitted.
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Okay, if you've had a Bible for a long time.
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Most of the newer translations are prepared for destruction.
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And here in verse 23, it says that the vessels of mercy
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In your Bible, both phrases are translated as prepared,
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but in the Greek, they are two totally different words.
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I took enough Greek to understand what's going on.
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rather than being explicitly accurate to the text for expositors.
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So they expect, as a translator, to have expositors, pastors like myself,
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to know the Greek so that they can do the exposition on their own.
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They're trying to make the best translation they can
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that's the most readable and most true to the text.
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And there's all types of moments that if you don't know the Greek,
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And I think this is one of those nuances that's very important.
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the vast majority of your Bible is really accurate, by the way. I've translated Greek
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to English, and you don't want my translations, okay? They're not good, all right? But the
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translators at the ESV and the NASB, they're great translators, so you can trust your Bible.
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I'm not saying that you can't trust it. There's every now and then you just get a passage of
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scripture and you go, ooh, that's different. I didn't realize that. And so here's my interpretation
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of what I think is being stated in this subtle emphasis, okay?
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of the cause of the vessels of wrath, in verse 22,
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of the vessels of mercy on the predestination of God.
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Again, we see that the first is merely prepared for destruction
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and does not specify that God is the agent of that preparation.
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It doesn't even say God's involved in that, actually,
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though we know earlier it says that He hardens some,
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and the context of this passage would say that He does create vessels for dishonorable use.
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So there is all types of theological realities here.
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But the second clearly states that God prepared them beforehand for glory.
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And so again, as you're doing Bible study, these are the subtle things that you want to take notice.
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In the act of election, we have included in that act reprobation.
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When you choose one, you inadvertently don't choose the others, right?
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So there's a sense when I choose a wife, I inadvertently do not choose all the other women available.
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And so my point is that the emphasis of predestination in the Bible is not equal between the elect and the wicked.
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there's not God's positive predestinating to the elect is not a parallel act with God's negative
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predestinating of the wicked. Does that make sense? Is that God is not actually predestinating
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the wicked with the same revealed force as he clearly has for the elect. There are so many
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passages of scripture that speak to God predestining the elect. You cannot get around it.
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It is a massive emphasis by frequency alone. There is very little to say that the same force
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is being used in the negative predestinating to damnation. Now,
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in election, and this is why I think it's important, why would God do this? Why would
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God put an emphasis on one and not the other? Well, here's why. There is no human involvement
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that justifies election. Okay? Therefore, the emphasis is on who? It's on God. We have nothing
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involved in our election. So the emphasis can't be on us. It has to be on God. In reprobation,
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human involvement is the central cause that justifies their reprobation.
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Why is the emphasis not on man and predestination?
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Why is there less emphasis on God and more emphasis on man for the damnation of men?
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Well, because we as sinners are the central cause of our own damnation in sin.
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Now, this does not mean that God doesn't harden these unelected individuals.
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The scripture says that he hardens, or he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens
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What it does mean is that God didn't make them sinners.
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Every theological discussion between the top theologians throughout the ages
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You cannot say that God is the cause of your sin.
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That is the only emphasis that we get in Scripture.
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Now, God may go further in hardening these sinners and demonstrate His wrath
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as a way to demonstrate his mercy upon those who he did make saints.
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But you can see, as I started off the sermon, the deep end of this pool goes very far.
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And again, we don't get to just sit here and go, I understand.
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I totally get the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.
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After all of these books throughout church history have been written,
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trying to debunk that reality, we got it here at Kingsway.
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No. No, it's extremely difficult. And you get to the point where you realize it's paradoxical.
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It's unknown. It's mysterious. We get to know what is revealed. And then we get to sit there
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like Job and go, I'm foul. I don't know. All I know is that you're good and you're just and that
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you're going to do what is right. And thank you for that which you have revealed, that I understand
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any of it. But then in the last verse, verse 24, the apostle brings it back home. And he
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says, even us, even us, you could be reading this whole book. You're in Romans 9. You've
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been sitting down for an hour and a half reading through this letter from Paul. And then he
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finally lands here and he goes, even us, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews
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This isn't some ethereal, distant theological reality.
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If you don't have a personal gospel, if you don't understand how it is actually connected
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Even you who have been called and believe in Christ.
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If you believe in Christ, he's talking about you.
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So why? Have you been elected? It's because you were, is it because you were intellectually
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persuaded by the gospel? No. Romans 3.11 says no one understands. Is it because you were
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pursuing Christ? No. Romans 3.11 says no one seeks for God. No, you were elected because
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God saw that your redemption would bring him glory.
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You get to heaven, and you're standing there before the Lord,
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and his atoning work on the cross paid for my sins,
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and his righteousness was given to me by faith.
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No matter what you do, you get yourself into a boast.
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I was smarter, I was wiser, I was more spiritually equipped,
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The only answer that you can offer God, why are you here?
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I have no idea why, but my redemption brought you glory.
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God doesn't save you for any of these reasons that we might project upon the scriptures.
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There are many secondary and tertiary reasons why God saves a person, but the primary reason
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why God saved you is that it pleased Him to save you.
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In the same way that the attributes of His justice and holiness and wrath are glorified
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in these vessels of destruction, the attributes of His grace and love are glorified in these
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You see, Calvinism, the doctrines of grace, the sovereignty of God, whatever you want to call it, is not meant to make you prideful that God elected you.
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It's meant to make you humble that God elected you.
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The Bible continuously tells you that you had no involvement.
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Yes, you did choose Christ, but only after God first chose you and changed your affections.
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Took the blinders off, made you hear, resurrected you from the dead.
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It's pretty hard to say after all of that, it was me who did it.
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And children, when you meet another kid at a park or at school, I'm talking to you kids.
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And you meet these families that clearly don't serve the Lord.
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my kids often ask other kids if they're Christians I love their boldness when
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you look at these families that don't serve the Lord they don't go to church
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their parents are divorced their their lives are difficult when you look at
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them and you realize that God by his mercy has placed you among his people
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about different tribes or people in different countries
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and I go, look, the Lord placed you in our home.
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Yeah, the normative operation is that God saves in family lines.
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The supernatural operation is that God randomly saves the Hindu kid
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that had no possibility of hearing the gospel
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unless God sent a missionary out there and a preacher
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and he was one of his sheep and then he left the 99 to save the one.
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And we don't want to rely on supernatural realities
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We want that God gave us children that we raise
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and the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
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So children, be so blessed that you are placed in the family
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And adults, when you look upon the brokenness of this world, it should anger you.
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We need to have a righteous indignation, a frustration, that we might have some sort
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of ambition to change the wickedness of this country.
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It should compel us to proclaim the righteousness of the gospel, but what it has to do before
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that is remind us of God's glory. It has to remind us of our election, that God is patient
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with the wicked, that he is going to punish the wicked and he's actually letting them
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go for our own benefit, that we might see what we've been saved from, that we might
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not forget the magnitude of the gospel and the sin forgiven. I believe Colossians, and
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I'll close with this, Colossians 3, 15 through 17,
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and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom,
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singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
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I think it's easy to live without thanking God enough.
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And so, people, if you want to see your lives changed by the gospel,
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it needs to start with recognizing the greatness of your own election,
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so that the gratitude becomes the motive for your obedience,
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We don't want to just be out in the city doing things
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No, we want to constantly be looking at what happened,
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Lord, we ask that you would teach us and show us the magnitude of the gospel, Lord, that
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it would cause a great deal of gratitude to overwhelm us on a regular basis, that it would
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not fade, Lord, that for some reason you would give this church a supernatural degree of
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gratitude, that it might fuel and turn this congregation into a force for the kingdom
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of God in this city. We thank you for your son, Jesus, and your work on the cross. In Jesus' name, amen.