The Mystery Of God's Sovereignty And Our Free Will, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. He says, how many things will work together for our good?

All of them. You mean that diagnosis? Yes.

You mean that crime that was committed? Yes. I mean everything. Why?

How do I know that? God's sovereign. This is what he says to us, I'll work it all together for good. He doesn't say all things are good. A lot of things are horrible.

And the reason they're horrible is because of sin. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Have you ever tried to explain the Trinity? Really. I mean I used to explain it with the lamest thing possible, water. You know, this is ice and this is water.

Listen, if you're talking to someone who has a brain in their head, they'll kill that. There's no logic, I mean not at all. But the point is, I can't explain that.

How do you know that's true? Because the Bible says the Father's God, the Bible says the Son is God, and the Bible says the Holy Spirit is God. And the Bible says there's only one God. So if the Bible says that, they're all God and there's only one. So we use things like the Trinity is three personages, I don't know what that word means, personages and one Godhead, stuff like that.

The reason is we can't really explain it. The cults, for example, who are always going to try to diminish Jesus Christ, they make hay on this. They talk to Christians about the Trinity and Christians have no idea how to handle it. And so Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus was an angel. He wasn't a man and he wasn't God.

He's just an angel. The Mormons believe that Jesus was an outwork of the physical Son of God and Jesus is the brother of Lucifer that we call the devil. He and Jesus are two brothers under the fatherhood of God.

And they get people to believe it. Because that makes more sense than me understanding what a triune God is. See, certain things about the essence of God are not something you and I can really explain very easily. That's the point. It's inscrutable.

You see, I can understand it. And that's an important factor. So in this subject, this subject has been debated for at least 16, 1700 years. The sovereignty of God and the free will of man, Pelagius and Saint Augustine debated it way, way back. Then it was debated through the Reformation by Calvin and Joseph Arminius. So you have Calvinism and Arminianism. And basically, they've been arguing about it for the last 500 years. And the method in which they go about their arguments are always the same.

And if you talk to someone who's going to explain it to you, they'll use these kind of arguments. The first thing is you quote only the verses to support your support your position. OK, can I find verses that support the sovereignty of God? Yeah. Can I find verses that support the free will of man?

Yeah. I only quote those. Then second step they do, they ignore the other side's verses. And the third one is they distort obvious verses that make their position even weaker.

You see, you know, they just distort them and you end up with all kinds of things. If you were an ultra Calvinist, you end up believing in limited atonement. OK. So you come to a passage like and that means Christ died only for the elect. He didn't die for everybody. He only died for them.

The elect. OK. So you see, John three, 16, for God so loved the world. Right. He sent his son into the world. And whoever believed. Right.

So you think that's great. No, the word world there doesn't mean world. Now, I don't know in what in any language I've ever seen in any Greek text.

I've never seen. John knew the word for elect. He also knew the word for world. Every time he uses the word for world, except in two places, according to them, it's always the same. But they say he know that that's so God so loved the elect that he sent his son into the elect.

Doesn't make sense at all. And then there's first John, chapter two, when John's telling his people not to sin. He said, my little children, I'm writing this that you do not sin, but if you do sin, we have an advocate with the father Christ Jesus, the Lord, who is a propitiation, not just for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. No, he doesn't mean that. He means just elect.

So you weaken the other position. How about Timothy and Peter both say God desires none be lost. He doesn't really mean that. He doesn't really mean that.

What says it? No, doesn't mean that. You try to change it in order to support your position. Now, as I said, I was a card carrier. And obviously, even today, if you said, are you more Calvinistic than Armenian?

Yes, clearly much more Calvinistic. But when I was young and didn't know anything, I love to argue about this. This was this was who I was. And so I can remember as a young believer, I've been saved a couple of years. And I asked Pastor Dave, who was a Dallas Seminary grad undergrad at Princeton, brilliant man, to come out to my house because I was going to get him with this subject. OK, he was gracious to come out. And listen, what I really knew about theology, then you could have put in a thimble.

I mean, I knew nothing. And so I'm giving it to him. You know, I got my own verses around. And he he said, well, Bill, I look at a little bit differently.

I said, oh, how do you look at it? He said, well, I picture myself standing at the gate of heaven and looking in. And it says right above the gate, whosoever believeth. Free will.

He said, now, when I walk through the gate and look back, the other the heaven side of the gate says the elect of God. And I'm real content with that. Not me. I didn't like that at all. That wasn't the answer I was looking for. It can't be that.

That's my thought. So I came down here and was a young pastor and became very close friends with a missionary named Art Yoner. And Art's one of the again, one of the godliest men I've ever met. Art was a missionary to the upper Amazon. And in the 1950s, he actually discovered two tribes of Amazonian Indians that had never been discovered by a white man before.

He led entire villages, the Jesus Christ. It's an amazing story that he has. And so Art and I would talk about everything.

So the one time I picked him up at the airport and I was eager to get into this again. So I said, Art, I'd like to talk to you just a little bit about the whole idea of the sovereignty of God and free will and predestination. I'd like to talk to you about that. And he said, well, Bill. I could talk to you about it, but and you could talk to me about it, but wouldn't do you any good. He said to talk to me about it all. He said, you have to understand, I am an absolute convinced Calvamian.

OK. And I thought he did the same thing to the most godly men. And what are they both saying? It's both end. You see, and I was in a business. No, I want to I want to explain this.

I want to analyze this. And it's almost like an epidemic with young men. Men are much women, by and large, estranged sons don't care much about this.

They're much more practical. But I can't even tell you the number of Bible studies I've had. We had a Bible study here at the church for men.

And I don't think I'm exaggerating, but I would say two thirds of the Bible study. There was an older man that came and he wanted to ask a question about predestination and free will. Every Bible study, no matter what I said, he had to ask that question. And he lived with this. It has it has to be what it has to be.

And no matter what you told him, it didn't satisfy him. So. It seems to me that God is clearly completely sovereign. It's one of the reasons, by the way, we have prophecy. The reason God gives us prophecy is not to give us insight or information on what's going on. All the prophecies of the old new to all those prophecies are designed so you and I know how sovereign God is. God says things about the second coming of Christ, even in the Old Testament. So thousands of years, he said, I'm telling you what's going to happen thousands of years from now. I'm telling you this is going to happen.

And it happens. God says, you know why? I'm sovereign. And you and I don't even think about God being sovereign. We think I got insider information.

I got something I can use at work and argue with a guy. You know, this is but that's not why God gives us prophecy. He reveals himself through his prophecy. And if you were going to be a prophet of God. What was your batting average if you were a prophet of God?

One thousand. If you prophesied one thing that didn't come true, you were stoned to death. You're no prophet of God. And again, I can remember just not very long ago, someone overheard someone in our church and they were assuring the another person in our church that the man who lost the election in America was going to win because one of God's great prophets prophesied it. He's not a great prophet. I can tell you that if he was in the Old Testament under Israel, he'd be stoned to death.

Oh, no, it has to happen because he said so if he is a prophet of God. But that's this whole idea of God is so sovereign, absolutely sovereign. And yet in John 12, for example, Jesus says nothing about God is absolutely holy.

So what does God do with sin? He judges it always. Yes, he's holy. He's holy. He'll judge sin.

That's why he came. But if he's absolutely sovereign, how can he judge us for something that he set up? In James, James writes, God said, I cannot even tempt somebody to sin. I'm right. I don't tempt people to sin. You see, I don't.

Why? They can do that on their own. That's their choice. That's their free will that operates. God doesn't tempt us to sin. He judges sin. There's no question about that.

So. If you think of having moral responsibility, how many commandments are there in the word of God? How many things does God ask you and I that we should be doing? If you and I don't have free will.

Why would he ask us? If you're going to give someone moral responsibility, they have to have free will. Otherwise, there's no moral responsibility. You're responsible.

You're sovereign. You see, you have to be so careful with that kind of thinking. See, God takes all the people that said yes to him and do as well, and all the people that said no to him and don't do as well.

And he puts it into one beautiful plan. That's how God operates. That's why he said, I'm sovereign over it all. But one thing I noticed in the word of God, God never usurps human free will. He never takes away your free will or mine that I see in the word of God.

Let me give you a real easy example of that. Joseph was hated by his brothers in Genesis. And so they wanted to kill him, but they decided they'll do a better thing. They'll sell him as a slave to Egypt. So Joseph goes down to Egypt and he ends up in prison.

And, you know, the whole episodes there. But he ends up becoming because of the ability to interpret dreams. He becomes prime minister of Egypt. Then there's a famine in his land and his brothers come down to get food. Now, he recognizes them. They don't recognize him. But eventually, eventually he introduces himself to them.

And they are terrified. Remember, they want him dead. And now he has complete authority and power over them.

And he makes that great statement. He said to them, look, you intended it for evil. God intended it for good. That's the sovereignty of God and the free will man. God didn't do that to them.

They did it themselves. God simply was sovereign over it for the good of everybody. It was a perfect application of Romans eight twenty eight. So what I find when I see these two things working together is that the sovereignty of God and the free will of man should give you and I comfort, especially in difficult situations. God is sovereign. I was just talking to someone in between services and what he was saying when we talked about the way everything is going in the world right now.

It's a little bit scary in its own sense. But he said, what if this is a what if this is a beginning of the end days? You see, what do you mean?

Well, do you know many things that have ever been a commandment? And have you ever seen the whole world face the same thing at the same time? Not likely. Even when we called World Wars weren't world wars. This is World War. Are all the people in the world being asked to act together?

Yes. So what if this is a preliminary to set the stage you see of the end times? Even if it isn't, is God sovereign in this?

So if God is sovereign in this, you know. And the other factor would be, if you know anything about end times, how much do you read about the end times, about America in the end times? Nothing.

Nothing. Now, some guys who write about the end time say we're included in the European Union. It doesn't say that, but that's an extrapolation. David Jeremiah says, I don't think we can do that scripturally. David Jeremiah said, I think it means we're irrelevant whenever that time comes. Well, so if the election didn't go the way you wanted to and the culture is getting much worse than you thought it would. Is this part of you and I and living in this culture and our culture becoming irrelevant?

Could be. I'm not saying it is, but God's sovereign. You see, nothing on Earth is going to stop it. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows the choices everybody makes. And so the sovereignty of God should give you and I a great deal of comfort.

And I'm not really so sure it does. I just want to end showing you two verses of this, even with regard to our salvation. Go with me to Romans Chapter eight, Romans Chapter eight. Verse twenty eight, knowing. Romans eight, twenty eight. We know that God causes all things to work together for good.

To those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. He's trying. He's trying to comfort us.

And he says, how many things will work together for our good? All of them. You mean that diagnosis? Yes.

You mean that crime that was committed? Yes. I mean everything. Why?

How do I know that? God's sovereign. This is what he says to us.

I'll work it all together for good. He doesn't say all things are good. A lot of things are horrible.

And the reason they're horrible is because of sin. So he says that. Then he says this.

Let me explain it even further. For those whom he foreknew, he predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he predestined, he called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Now, this is a tight package. This is us he's talking about. Now, there's some debate, depending on the side you're on.

I don't want to debate it too much. But what does the first term mean foreknew? I mean, on a simple level, to know beforehand. But one thing I want to say about the word foreknew there, it's passive. You know things ahead of time.

You receive it. That's called passive. Everything else that happens in these verses is active. God is acting. He said when the basis of what he foreknew.

So the question always comes down in the debate. Does God foreknew everything that's going to happen? Yes. Could God have a foreknowledge relationship with you? Yes. They're both possible.

I'm just saying it's passive. But on the basis of it, notice what he says. He predestines them. He calls them. He justifies them.

He glorifies them. So when did God foreknow that I would be a believer in Jesus Christ? Before there was a creation, we learned from the rest of the scripture. He always knew that. But he just didn't know that.

He didn't know just that. He didn't predestined me. He called me. He justified me.

And they're all past perfect tenses. He glorified me. So when was I glorified? When God foreknew me.

Before there was a creation. Now, why would you tell someone that? It should make you feel secure, shouldn't it? I mean, it's not like, oh, I hope I go to heaven someday. I know I'm going to heaven. I'm already glorified in God's mind. Notice what Paul, that's what his point is. Notice he then says this, verse 31.

What shall we say then to these things? Look, of God's force, who can be against us? This is what God's going to do. He's sovereign. You're in and you're in forever. And nothing can change that.

He's not done. Verse 35. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword?

No. Verse 37. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquered through him who has loved us. I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, principalities, things present, things that come, nor powers, height, depth, any created thing will ever separate me from the love of God.

You know why? He's sovereign. I'm his and so are you. That's the sovereignty of God. Now, last verse, just go back a page, I mean, ahead a page to chapter 10, verse 11. Paul writing, same context. He says this.

For the scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. Now, he wants to explain it. Who is whoever? It's whoever, right? Whoever.

He goes on. There's no distinction between Jew or Greek. The same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on him. So apparently the whoever is part of the all.

Doesn't matter if you're Jewish or Greek. Who are we talking about? We're talking about everybody.

Everybody. He then goes on and says this. Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Out of the all and the whoever, whoever calls in the name of the Lord will be saved. He says, how then will they call on him whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him if they never heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? He said, how will they preach unless someone sends them? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news and good things.

Paul says, look, I know how this works. You have to believe in the gospel if you're going to call on the Lord. You know, you're not going to call on the Lord unless someone tells you the gospel. And someone's not going to tell you the gospel unless someone sends someone to tell you the gospel.

You see, he's given the whole idea of evangelism and missions here. But his point is the human responsibility here. It's a whoever process.

You see, it's a whoever process. And that's why it's such an important thing. And so I haven't changed dramatically. I'm still Calvinistic, not hyper Calvinistic at all. I don't think I'd ever want to be. I mean, some of the ramifications of that are going too far, I believe. Remember this, when you say, for God so loved the world, if you ever talk to an unbeliever and you believe the world's the elect, you can't tell them God loves them.

You cannot. God might not love them at all. He only loves the elect.

He doesn't love them. Does that sound right to you? To me, that doesn't sound like God at all. You see, that's that's an important part of this. So there's a tension in this. If you say, well, Bill, how does the sovereignty and free will work? And no idea.

I don't think I'll ever have one either. But I believe they're both true. And that's a mystery for me that gives me comfort. See, it shouldn't be. Why should I try to explain things that God hasn't? And the other question is, who am I to explain God to people at his essence? You see, I'm not qualified to do that. So this is headache thinking, I get it, sovereignty of free will, you know, and I know it. I mean, I can't even tell you how many times I've run into it. And I know it won't satisfy you. I can't tell you how many times someone has said to me in the lobby or somewhere who's visiting, I asked, I need to talk to you. Do you believe in predestination or free will?

I always give him an answer that never satisfies him. I always say both. No, no, no, no. You can't believe in both. I can. You see, I can believe in both and so can you. I can't explain it. It's a mystery of God. It's like the essence of God. It's like the hypostasis of Christ.

But I'm OK with that. God has not asked me to have all the answers. God has asked me to trust in him.

Let's pray. Father, this subject is difficult, but I think we often make it more difficult than it is. But I pray, Father, that we understand and take great comfort in how sovereign you are. Knowing everything from the beginning, every single detail, nothing escapes you. I mean, you even say you even say in the word of God that you at any moment can count the hairs on every head in the world.

It's amazing. But it lets me know just who you are and who I am. I take great comfort in your sovereignty. But, Father, I believe with all my heart, your single greatest creation was free will. You now have beings who can freely choose you or not you, who can freely love you or reject you. Beings who obey you or totally disobey you. You have now the capacity to love them, forgive them, be patient with them, show them grace and mercy.

All because freely they decided to have a relationship with you. I pray, Father, this mystery gives us comfort. In Jesus' name.

Amen. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online. Or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.