The Lie God Doesn't Know Our Future Decisions – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. As we run life's race, we need a God who knows when we're going to cross the finish line. Today, Erwin Lutzer brings what for some is a theological debate down to where you and I really live. What does God's foreknowledge really mean?

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. We're in a series on ten lies about God. Pastor Lutzer, today you'll talk further about lie number seven, that God doesn't know our future decisions. You'll tell us that this position creates a lot of problems as we come to the Word of God.

Yes, Dave, it certainly does. And for those who are listening, I want to remind you that the reason that Dave says this is lie number seven, it's actually chapter seven in a book I've written entitled Ten Lies About God. But with reference to the foreknowledge of God, of course he knows the decisions of people ahead of time. Are you telling me that he didn't know for sure that Judas would betray him? Could it be that the Antichrist will change his mind and not become the Antichrist? No, God knows everything. And that's why it's so essential for us as believers to be able to trust him, and actually that foreknowledge is motivating even as we move forward. Well, at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to be giving you some info as to how this book can be yours, but for now, let us simply listen. Notice the phrase, I make known the end from the beginning. Now, listen, this is just between us.

Let me ask you something. How could God say he knows the end from the beginning if he did not know that Lucifer was going to fall? I mean, how did he say he knows the end from the beginning if he wasn't sure whether or not Adam and Eve would sin and was kind of hoping they wouldn't and then had to respond once they had? You know, it's interesting that in the book here in Isaiah, God actually uses his foreknowledge to separate himself from false gods. This is now in Isaiah chapter 41, and you know, we don't taunt one another today because we think that that is so disgraceful, but God loved to taunt false gods. The scriptures are filled with God shouting challenges to them and even making fun of them, and this is one example. In Isaiah 41, it says in verse 21, present your case, says the Lord. Set forth your arguments, says Jacob's king. Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen.

Tell us what the former things were so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. You idols, you tell me what's going to happen. Notice, tell us, verse 23, what the future holds so that we may know that you are gods.

Give us some information. Why is God ridiculing these idols this way because they're like Greek gods. They don't know what is going to happen, but what God is saying is I want you to know I can tell you exactly what is going to happen. It goes on to say that those who trust in these false gods are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless and those who choose you are detestable. That was God's opinion of gods who did not know the future. Perhaps it is of more than passing interest that Clark Penick, whom I in many respects admire, has long ago left the inerrancy of the Bible and now claims that there are errors in the Bible because once you begin, you know, on a certain train, once you take your ticket, you have to take this all the way to the station. Now there's some theologians who say no, we maintain inerrancy and we still believe that God does not know the future decisions of free creatures and I'll just let them and accept their word for it, but how long can you interpret passages according to your theological desires and still hold to inerrancy?

That's a good question, I think, that needs to be raised. Let me tell you another problem with it is the predictions of God. Do you know that according to their theology and they state explicitly and there are a number of theologians who are now accepting this that Jesus did not know infallibly that Judas would betray him. There was no way that he could do that. Judas could have backed out in the last minute. He could have just simply said, you know what, come to think of it, I'm going to rethink this and I'm not going to do what I was planning to do.

We do that all the time. Judas could have done it. I want you to notice and I don't even have enough time to ask you to turn to these passages. I have a friend who's preaching eight messages on this business of a finite God.

I thought to myself, you know, if I could have at least six, that would be wonderful. But notice this, it says in Matthew chapter 26 verse 52, Judas had just betrayed Jesus. Peter is taking his sword and he's cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus said, do you not think that I can call on my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels?

How then would the scripture be fulfilled that say this must happen in this way? Do you remember years ago? I don't expect you to remember, but I do. I remember my sermons better than you folks do, I think. Years ago I preached an entire message on that little word must, that little word must.

These things must come to pass. You know, Jesus couldn't have known that Judas would betray him according to this theology, but it gets worse than that. God did not know for sure that Christ would be crucified because everybody could have backed out. The Jews might have said, well, you know, he's giving us trouble, but there are some people for him. He's not worth the trouble.

Let him go. And the Romans, of course, they'd have been happy to oblige. And here Jesus comes to earth to die and there's nobody to put him to death because, oh God, he thought, he thought that they were going to do it and then they changed their minds and now he's stuck with a redemption that isn't working. Clark Pinnock says, well, God has plan A and if plan A doesn't work, then he goes to plan B. My dear friend, if he fails with plan A, what assurance do we have of plan B or plan C or whatever? I mean, think of the implications. What does the Bible say?

We'll look at this next week. Acts chapter 4, him he was offered by the predetermined counsel of God and him you crucified. And in chapter 2 of Acts, Peter says, by the foreknowledge of God and as your will was done, he was offered. He died at the right time.

There were no risks. God was not in heaven saying, I hope somebody is going to do the deed, but I'm not sure. What kind of a God is that? Which leads me to another question. Oh, by the way, why did I put my wristwatch here on the podium?

That was a bad decision. Did you know that God, just put this in your mind here. Did you know that God 100 years before Cyrus was born named him and predicted his most important foreign policy decision. That's in Isaiah 44 and 45, 100 years before he was born. Now listen, in order for God to do that, you know what he needed to do? He needed not only to know that Cyrus was going to come to the throne and have a conflict and would win so that he would be king of Persia, but he had to know who Cyrus's parents were and who their grandparents would be and their grandparents and all the way back and all according to this line, it had to be that Cyrus had to be born. He had to rise to be king of Persia and then God says, when he's king, he's going to let the Jews go back.

150 years later, when he became the king, he did what God said and you know what it says in Isaiah? God says, the reason I'm naming him ahead of time is because I want you to know that I'm different from all the other gods around you that don't know the future. Of course God knows the future. What about the faith?

It undermines the word of God, it undermines the predictions of God and it totally undermines confidence in God, totally. Now folks, you need to think about this. Here you are, you're driving along a highway and someone who is inebriated, to speak more clearly, he is drunk, is going along the highway at 70 miles an hour. God has no more idea where this is all going to end up than the helicopter number two that is hovering above the man who is driving. That's all that God knows. He has no idea because how in the world do you predict the decision of free creatures and nobody is more free than someone who is drunk going 70 miles an hour. So God has no idea.

Wouldn't you know it however, you are coming along the other side of the street and that man turns in and hits you and you're dead. Right like that. Now suddenly, much to God's surprise, you arrive in heaven because he did not know that it was going to end this way. Right. And so, you know, you meet Jesus and say, I can't believe this.

We don't even have your condo finished yet. And here you are. I honestly thought that you still had work to do here on earth, but what are you going to do? We live in a contingent universe and there was no way to predict where that guy was going to turn. He has free will. Can you trust a God who does not know in the morning that you're going to be dead by the afternoon? Can you really trust a God like that? Let's even make it more cosmic. Can you trust a God who does not know but that some people might actually gang together and set off a nuclear holocaust and the whole world be blown up by nuclear missiles and God did not know it ahead of time because he gave these people free will and they were operating on this basis and now God is faced with a world that's been blown up when he had so many other plans that he was going to do. And here it is.

It's all in shambles. Does it not almost make you want to weep for God? Doesn't it make you feel sad that he's so finite? I'm so glad that the God that these people talk about is not the God of the Bible. And you know what I think down deep in their hearts, they know that too. If they were faced with a man who had a gun and he was pointing that gun at them, even though they'd say, Lord, we know that you have no idea how this is going to end up, even though we know that you have no control over this gunman, Lord, could you possibly do something?

I think they would begin to pray like the rest of us would pray, believing that ultimately our future is not in the hands of fate. It's in the hands of God. And that's the God that I commend to you today at Moody Church. I want you to have a God whom you love and a God whom you can trust for whom there are no surprises. That's what I want for you.

And I love him and I hope that you love him and I hope that you trust him and know that not a single thing can happen to you without him knowing ahead of time. Well those strings on the violin, folks, listen, you give up God's omniscience. You immediately have to make, if he's finite with regard to knowledge, you have to make him finite with regard to power. One of these theologians says, well, he's doing his best.

Well, I know a lot of people who are doing their best and they're not getting anywhere. So he's finite with regard to power. He's certainly finite with regard to wisdom because he has no idea where this is all going to end up.

He couldn't predict the fall or anything else. No, that's a God, that's a different God. That's a different God. Now I want you to take your Bibles in turn very briefly, and I'm sorry that it has to be brief, to Psalm 139. And I think that the best thing I can do today is to simply give you an outline, make a comment, and tell you that at some other time, I'll preach a full sermon on this marvelous psalm. The psalm of God's knowledge. I want you to notice in verses 1 to 6, he says, oh God, you know me continually, or rather, you know me exhaustively. You know me entirely.

That's verses 1 to 6. Oh Lord, you've searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and you know when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely. Well, how could that be if he doesn't know what I'm going to say? Well, anyway, let's leave that. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely.

Oh Lord, you hem me in behind and before you've laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, saying I can't grasp it. I began this message by talking about libraries filled with books all about you. What a remarkable thing that is. I can't grasp it. We have computers today that have so much knowledge and so much information. I look at it and I say it's overwhelming. How can these computers know that much? Well, they know a lot, but they don't know the number of grains of sand you had on your shoe when you stepped onto the sidewalk this morning. And God knows that. God knows that.

You know me entirely. And then he begins to think, is there some way for me to get away from all this? I once read a story about a man who was in a prison and he was guarded 24 hours a day. He said that as he looked through the bars, he could always see two eyes and how freaky it was to have to live in that environment. Well, I want you to know that God has his eyes trained on us that way. And so he begins to ask, is there someplace where I can go that maybe God doesn't see me? Where do I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go into the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths and shield, you are there. I rise on the wings of dawn.

If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, here's my last option, maybe darkness. You notice thieves always work in the dark because they don't want to be seen.

That's tough news. The verses here are tough news because what does it say? Even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day for darkness is like light to you. All of the sins that we commit in the presence of God, we commit as in broad daylight.

They are open to him. All things are naked and open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Oh God, you know me entirely. God, you know me continually. You even know me prophetically. You knew me before I was born. You knew me when I was a fetus. Notice for you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth that is in his mother's womb. Your eyes saw my unformed body and all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. There's no way that some drunk can drive into my car and kill me without God not knowing about it and as far as I'm concerned it being part of his book.

Notice that. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before they came to be. My dear friend, you will never, never encounter a situation in life no matter how excruciating or how difficult or what a great surprise it is to you. You will never be in a situation like that whether it involves people or events for which the Almighty does not already have exhaustive and accurate knowledge and that's why you can trust him. He'll walk with you through situations that he knows are coming up. No wonder David says in verse 17, how precious to me are your thoughts oh God.

How vast is the sum of them. He says where I like to count them they would be more outnumbered than the grains of sand along the seashore and what he means is this not our thoughts about God but God's thoughts about us. As you'll see next week I have this view which I believe is scriptural that God knew us from before the foundation of the world and loved us already and chose us from before the foundation of the world and you know what that means? That means that he not only knew me in my mother's womb but he knew my mother in her mother's womb and all the way back and all the way back all these things are known to him. That's why you can trust him.

When I awake I'm still with you. Now he begins to talk about what we're going to do as a result of that knowledge and he thinks to the wicked he says if only you would slay the wicked oh God away from me you bloodthirsty men. We struggle with passages like this because he says I hate those who hate you and so forth. Remember David is talking about people who tried to kill him so he has nothing good to say in their favor but he also knows that they're going to be judged by God and he says I reject them. I hate them. I'm not going to be in their in among their friends but thankfully David doesn't leave at that point. Some Christians do.

They're very judgmental about others and then they aren't judgmental about themselves. Notice how it ends. Search me oh God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

If you're in the habit of underlining your Bibles there are three words to underline. Search me. Test me and lead me. Search me. Virtually every time I come before the Lord and say Lord search me if I wait long enough there's something in my heart that has to be confessed.

There's something that isn't right. Now you say well why does David say pray search me because he already said in verse one thou hast searched me and known me. Do you see the connection in the song? What he's saying is 39 verse 1 you have done it and now verse 23 God I know that you've searched me. I know all this about me. Why don't you now shine your light and show me what you see because I'm blind to it unless you unless you graciously reveal it to me.

Search me. You know that old story about a woman who came to a pastor and said you know there's something wrong in my life but I have no idea what it is. He said get on your knees and guess at it.

Good advice just guess at it. Most of the time we know right well if we got quiet before God we know exactly what it is. Search me and then he says test me and see whether I have anxious thoughts and he had some anxiety because of the wicked who wanted to kill him and see if there's an offensive way in me. Is there something offensive within me and God will show that to you.

I'll tell you he is faithful and then he says lead me. You know we always find people who are praying for leading. Oh God please lead me show me your will oh Lord lead lead lead lead and sometimes we don't say Lord seek seek seek seek test test test test. Once you have the what shall we say the seeking of God then you have the test of God and usually the leading of God follows. Ken Barker wrote search me oh God and know my heart today. Try me oh father and know my thoughts I pray. See if there be some wicked way in me and lead me oh Lord in your everlasting way. God knows everything.

You never surprise him you grieve him but you never shock him. He knows everything and because of that we can take confidence that he loves us and he accepts us on the basis of his son thankfully because it could be terrorizing to think that he knows everything but think of the comfort that it is. Have you ever been misunderstood?

Have there been ways that you've never been able to make your point with somebody? Isn't it wonderful to know that God knows? Let's pray together. Lord I pray and would you as a congregation pray with me in your heart? Would you say Lord search me? And it can't be done in just a moment so take that home with you.

Try me test me lead me. Grant that father we ask in Jesus name and thank you father that you are a God who knows all things. Amen. My friend this is Pastor Lutzer and let me be very clear the fact that God knows the future the fact that God knows the decisions that we are going to make should never cause us to collapse into a kind of fatalism and say well whatever will be will be the Bible does not allow us to go there. I have on my heart a burden that people might better understand God because remember the words of Tozer the most important thing about you is what you believe about God. That's why I've written a book entitled ten lies about God. Lie number seven you've just heard about the lie of course that God does not know our decisions ahead of time of course he does.

I hope that you have a pen or pencil in your hand because you can write this down go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 this book can be yours for a gift of any amount and let me give you that contact info one more time rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let me say this it is important for us to understand who God is if we are to understand who we are and the better that we understand God the better we understand ourselves and we see ourselves in great need of his mercy. You can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. Consider the possibility that the fall of mankind was planned from the beginning. Could God have wanted Eve to pick that fatal fruit? Next time on running to win join us on a mind expanding journey into God's intentions for the new human race. A journey that may not go where you think. Don't miss lie number eight that the fall ruined God's plans. Running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.