Absolute Sovereignty: Robots or Free?

If God is sovereign over all things and has determined all things whatsoever that come to pass and God has predestined everything to take place and predestined it before the foundation of the world and his eternal decree, then why pray? Why evangelize? Why try to do anything good or do anything at all? God has already predestined it. It's already ordained. It's here going to happen or it's not going to happen. Why does any of this matter? If it's all been ordained and everything has been predestined from before the foundation of the world to take place, then what about free will? What about human choice? One of that just makes us all robots falling some pre-programmed course of history. What really human history is not the working out of God's plan but really just a charade, a play where we are all unknowingly playing our parts. All these questions deal with the doctrine of God's sovereignty and his eternal decree. His absolute sovereignty, that's the phrase we've been using, his absolute sovereignty over the world to ordain all things and by his almighty providence bring about all that he has ordained to pass. The go to place to see God's sovereignty is Isaiah 469 through 11 where God says, "I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done." That's God's decree. Saying, "My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose," calling it "Bird of Prayer from the East," "The man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed and I will do it." God's counsel to remind you, God's counsel and God's purpose is his eternal decree. What gods were dain't and God's saying, "My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose." And God's saying, "I have spoken and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed and I will do it," speaks to God's providence. The outworking of his decree in the world. God's decree, to remind you, is what God has ordained, what God has planned, what God has set forth, and God's providence is his almighty power to bring about that decree where nothing can stop God, fork God, stand in his way, or cause him to react or change plans because God decreed all things from his infinite knowledge, his infinite wisdom, his attribute of omniscience. So God and his almighty sovereign rule over the world and all of human history is sovereign over the great things of the world like kingdoms and nations, raising kingdoms, lowering kingdoms, and he sovereign even over the smallest details of everyday life. As Regia says, "Are not too sphero-sold for a penny and yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Heavenly Father. That even all the hairs of your head are numbered." Why? Because God is sovereign over it all. As a 1689, London Baptist Confession says, summarizing this doctrine, "God has to creed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably all things whatsoever that come to pass." Remember, wise being the best possible plan to perfectly accomplish all of God's purpose, which was God's purpose, his own glory and the salvation and good of the elect, and holy, meaning that all that God has to creed is good, serves good, serves his good purpose to glorify his name and save his people. And then the 1689 also says, "He governs all creatures and things from the greatest to the least by his perfectly wise and holy providence." So the big idea, the foundation for the rest of the sermon is that God is absolutely sovereign. That God is absolutely sovereign over all things and is ordained all things whatsoever that come to pass. Now this doctrine, this attribute of God, his sovereignty, brings up some very important, very difficult questions. This week we looked at the problem of evil. Of how does God who ordains all things, call himself good and loving and still ordain evil, suffering, pain, death in the world? We looked at that last week. This week we're going to be looking at God's sovereignty and man's free will, man's choice, man's life, how God's sovereignty works over us. These are questions we need to answer so that we can praise God for all that he is. Because what usually happens, we start talking about God's absolute sovereignty is people just start arguing about God's absolute sovereignty instead of giving God glory for his sovereign rule over all things. So I want to answer these questions for you to help us worship God more fully, like I've told you before. The sovereignty of God is the doctrine that makes us or breaks us as particular baptists. You see doctrine that makes us or breaks us in the sense that God's sovereignty and how sovereign you think God is ultimately says how God you think God is. God's sovereignty says God is God and we are not. So we have to get God's sovereignty right. Well, it's the first question, one of the first questions outside of the problem of evil, it usually gets asked when you start talking about the sovereignty of God and God predestining all things whatsoever that come to pass. The question you're going to hear is, what about free will? What about free will? The question usually goes something like this. If everything is already predetermined, then doesn't that just make us mindless robots, following some pre-programmed course of human history, that if God has already determined it, then you and I really don't have a choice. If God's already determined it, then whatever we choose was what God had already ordained and if no one can for his will, resist his will, then do we even have a choice in making that choice in the first place? Now I'm not talking about here to make the queer distinction. I'm not talking about here free will in regards to predestination of the elect. So in regards to predestination of the elect, if you're talking about free will, the ability to choose Christ or reject Christ, that's one of the difference between Calvinism, which is what we are, versarminianism. In that sense, there is no free will. Our free will is enslaved to sin. All the free will we had was spent in Adam in the garden. So you and I still have a free will, but our free will is enslaved to sin to what serves sin. We get to choose whatsoever sin we want, but without God's regenerating grace, without God making us born again, we will always be blind. Like Lazarus in the tomb, Christ called him out. Lazarus did not come out himself. We need God's regenerating grace to restore the true free will of being able to choose good or evil. Every person outside of Christ has no free will. They are enslaved to sin. They can only choose sin. Even the quote unquote good things they do. I'm not saying that non-Christians can't love their wives, love their children, do good things. Of course they can. But they do those things not to the glory of God, but for something else. For some selfish gain, for some pride of their own glory. So in that sense, it's still evil. We need to understand that we need God's regenerating grace. So we're not talking about free will in regards to predestination and salvation. We're talking about free will as in, do you choose if you had the turkey sandwich or the ham sandwich, the arbitrary details of life, the choices you make every single day. And to help you maybe understand it, let me give you an example, an illustration of how these things might work together, that yes, we do have a free will and yes, God is sovereign overall things whatsoever that come to pass. The Bible says that God has foreknown his elect. He's foreknown those he would save. He is foreknown those he would choose in Christ and give to Christ and by extension if God has foreknown the elect, he has also stands the reason for known every single person that would ever live. God knew every single life he would create. Life comes from him. And in addition, the Bible says that the Lord determines the day's man's life. All the way from the day a man is born to the day he dies. Now without getting too much into the birds and the bees of it all, there are certain things that have to happen before someone is born, correct? We all know this. That for a child to come into the world, there are things that have to happen. Takes nine months to have a baby. Before that you have to meet your wife, hopefully, meet your husband, hopefully. So the idea of being someone born shares the biological DNA of a very unique mother and father. And that's someone born was foreknown before the foundation of the world, which means the unique DNA of that someone was foreknown before the foundation of the world, which means that Mother and half. father or foreknown to come together before the foundation of the world. Are we tracking with what I'm saying? Therefore, just look at it, just giving you an example of my own life. If one of my sons, if all of my sons were foreknown before the foundation of the world, then that means their unique DNA was also foreknown as coming from me and their mother. And that would also require that my marriage to Jessica would have had to be foreknown before the foundation of the world, that God had planned it, that God had determined it. Because my children would not be my children without that unique DNA of me and their mother. So here's the question. All that background, here's the question. Did I choose to marry Jessica or not? Was it predestined? Was it planned? Or did I have some choice in the matter? Was I free to marry her or not marry her or was it already determined? The answer is yes. God had predestined it. He had planned it before the foundation of the world. But I willingly chose to marry Jessica. I wanted to marry Jessica. I would still want to marry Jessica. So God's sovereignty, his predestination, did not violate my will, did not overcome my will, it carried out his will. The answer is it depends on what you mean by free. That's the issue when it comes to free will. If by free you mean that I was outside of God's control and that God was waiting to see who I would choose to marry so that he would see who he would bring into the world, no one's free in that regard. If there is, we've said it before, if there's one rogue molecule out there in the universe that God does not know that he is not sovereign over, then by definition God is not God and whole universe starts to fall apart. Literally. Because Hebrews 1, 3 says what? Hebrews 1, 3 says that Jesus Christ upholds the universe by the word of his power. If that's true, then to be outside of God's control would literally be to not exist. All things are upheld by him. So God is the first cause of all things. He is the unmoved mover of all things. He is the one putting the whole world into motion. However, if by free you mean free in the sense that we make free and willing choices, then yes, we are free even though God has predestined it to take place before eternity pass. Maybe think of it like this. I'm sure this explanation breaks down at some point. While you and I are not free in the sense that we are outside of God's control or God's sovereignty, where we could have chosen anything otherwise in your life, whatever that would have been, because according to God's eternal decree, even that other choice, quote unquote, would have still been part of God's plan. So we're not free in the sense that we're outside of God's control, but we are free in the sense that we are willing, voluntary agents. We do what we want. And in doing what we want and doing what we will, we carry out God's will. To give you an example from the scripture, Jesus tells Peter how he would die being crucified for the faith, saying, "Truly true, I say to you, talking to Peter, when you were young and you should dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, the idea of being free." Peter gets to make that choice. But when you're old, you'll stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. In other words, Peter, you're going to be dragged. You're going to be carried against your will. So for us, an understanding of how this all works together, to be free, a free will is not defined as outside of God's control or God's will, waiting to see what you're going to do, to be free is the willing to walk wherever you want to go, that you choose what you want. So while God does ordain it, whatever that is, he does so in such a way that he does not violate our will to accomplish his plan and to accomplish his purpose, rather our will fulfills his will. We are free and willing agents. God does not drag us anywhere we don't want to go. As 169 says chapter 3 paragraph 1 on God's decree, it says, "This decree," so God's eternal decree, "does not violate the will of the creature," that's the key, "or take away the free working or contingency of second causes." That's means. We're going to get to that. On the contrary, these means are established by God's decree. And for now, what you need to see is that the sovereignty of God does not in any way violate our will or make us unthinking, unfeeling, uncarrying robots or just falling some charade, falling some pre-program path. We still have real choice and real agency. We are voluntary agents, while at the same time God mysteriously orders and ordains all things in such a way that our wills, voluntary and uncoversed, fulfill, and we are not going to go back to the example God's will. There's a mystery there. To go back to the example I gave you earlier, I willingly chose to marry Jessica. God did not force me to marry Jessica. God did not force my will to marry Jessica. He did not violate my will to make it happen. I wanted to. But in so doing, fulfilled God's purpose of bringing our children into the world, because they were foreknown before the foundation of the world. This decree does not violate the will of the creature. This is why we said a few times already, just to hammer it in, "You and I cannot blame God for our sin." That God is not the author of sin. He's not tempting anyone of sin. He does not have fellowship with anyone in their sin. Why? Because we sin as free and willing agents. And God gives us over to the sin we so choose. Think of Judas. The example we gave last week, Judas was predestined before the foundation of the world to be the son of destruction. Someone who is going to be the son of destruction. Now that God violated Judas' will to make that happen, where Judas just went kicking and screaming, not wanting to betray Jesus, but God forced him so what's he going to do? That's not how it worked. Judas willingly betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus lays a blame on him. He says, "For the son of man goes as it has been determined." But woe to the man by whom he is betrayed. He even tells Judas before Judas leaves what you are going to do, do quickly, and Judas gets up. Judas was a free and willing agent. And by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Our sin falls squarely on us. God is not the author of our sin, although he is ordained sin to pass. Remember, how can God ordain sin? God ordain sin to show the glory of his grace in Christ, the whole purpose of the world. In other words, you and I have a quote-unquote "free will" because we freely choose whatsoever God has ordained. It does mean we are outside of God's sovereignty, outside of God's control, but we still are free and willing agents. Now, the application to try to make it practical, so this is in just theological mumbo jumbo, the whole sermon, the application for us is a real genuine conviction and acknowledgement that when we sin, we sinned as free and willing agents. We chose our sin. We willingly chose to rebel against God. We willingly chose to sin against him. So one of the things I should do is lead us to conviction and to ridden the heart of seeing how wicked we are of God who gives all good gifts, who gave us life that we took that life, took those good gifts and used them to sin against him and rail against him and hate him in our hearts. This should also show us the call to look to Christ for grace. The you and I and all of our choices willingly chose our own sin and the only way to be saved is Jesus Christ. The only way to be saved is to turn to him, to look to him, to say, "Jesus saved me." The only sinner's prayer and the whole Bible is what? Be merciful to me, a sinner. And God saves that man. He walks away, justified in Jesus' parable. We need to look to Christ for grace because we sinned as free and willing agents. Now that leads us to point number two. Okay, we talked about free will. We talked about the choice. But if God has predestined everything that is to take place, then does anything we do actually even matter? Does your life have any meaning? If God's already predestined, everything that's going to happen in the world, does it matter if you do something or don't do something because, hey, it's going to happen anyway. This is where you're really attacking the idea of fatalism in regards to God's sovereignty. That if God has ordained everything whatsoever that comes up pass and absolutely nothing can stop for or change his plan in sovereign will, then why try to do good? Why is it matter what we do? How does God even hold us accountable for what we do? If it's all predestined planned? There's no stopping it. What's the point of life? What's the point of it all? It's all going to happen anyway. This idea of, the idea of fatal is to just throw your hands up, say, who cares? God's going to take care of it. I don't need to worry about anything. This is where we need to understand that the sovereignty of God doesn't just ordain the ends of things as in the ultimate goal of things or what is going to happen. The sovereignty of God also ordains the means of things. How those things are going to happen? How those things will take place. As the 1689 again says, we looked at it just a second ago, this decree does not violate the will of the creature or take away the free working or contingency of second causes. On the, God's the first cause, second causes are the means by which God brings about his eternal purpose. On the contrary, these means, it says second causes, but to make it easier, on the contrary, these means are established by God's decree. So just as God has established the ends, God's established also ordained also how to get there. That's why your life does matter. Our lives matter because God has chosen to work through human actions and his providential government over the world to glorify his name. Remember, God ordained all things according to his most wise will. This is the best way for God to show his glory and the best way for God to show his glory is working through human agents to accomplish all his eternal purpose. Just because, in other words, God has ordained it, doesn't mean what we do doesn't matter. Fatalism would say there are no free acts. That is just people being pushed around like pieces on a chessboard. That's what fatalism would look like. But like we just saw, we have free will in the sense that we are moral, willing agents. We are voluntary agents. We are not pieces on a chessboard. We make real meaningful choices that have a real meaningful impact. Is it not true? What you so, you also reap. God has ordained the world in such a way that our choices have consequences. What you do is going to matter in this world. But God is also so mysteriously rule over those choices. He has sovereign over those choices that those real, free, willing, voluntary choices are actually the very means by which God accomplishes his will even in "unwilling agents." So what am I saying? So one of the reasons we believe God has sovereign over Satan, for example, that God is so sovereign, so glorious in power, that He can take even Satan and wicked men and use what they devise for evil to rebel against God to actually serve God's good purpose. God is in control. He is not in a chess battle with Satan, seeing who's going to win at the end of history. That's why Satan hates God so much because Satan can't get out of serving God's will no matter what he does. He's always serving God's will. So while God has ordained the ends, and all things that are ordained to happen are going to happen. That is true. God is also ordained that our actions matter because they are the means by which God brings about his own glory. They're the means by which God brings about his glory in the world. I'm going to give you a few examples how God's ordained the ends and the means we said earlier, God is sovereign over every day of life, right? He is sovereign over the day of your death, correct? You're not in a sense, you're invincible until God calls you home. But what you do matters, an example you use a couple of weeks ago, if you go jump off a bridge today, well that's God's ordained means to bring you home. It doesn't mean we can test God. If you smoke three packs a day, that means that three packs a day was the means by which God's short in your life. Your choices do have real lasting impact. Your choices do matter. To go back to the example earlier, with me marrying Jessica, if I had not asked her out, if I had not said, will you marry me? You can go back even further. If I had not moved all the way to Seattle to work at that church, if I had not made those free and willing choices, we would not be married today. Actions matter. Why? Because God's ordained your actions, your life to be the means by which you accomplish His will and fulfill His purpose for your life and glorify His name. God's established the ends and the means. That's the idea you need to see for why what you do matters. Scripture holds all these things together. Now there's tension for us because we're finite creatures. We don't understand how it all works out, but Scripture can put both these things side-by-side. Let me give you one example, Proverbs 2018. Plans are established by counsel by wise guidance wage war. So what's the Proverbs saying? The Proverbs saying, you can't succeed in a war, a battle, or anything if you don't have careful, diligent planning. Jesus gave the parable. If you start a tower before you know you can finish it, you're going to look like a fool, right? But Proverbs 21 and 31 also says, "The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to who?" The Lord. So both those things are true. You need to plan for the day of battle, but the end of the day, the victory is ultimately the Lord's. It's ultimately all in His hands. What we do matters and what we do has real effects despite the fact God has already ordained them. We see a brilliant example of this in Acts 27. This is really where you can start to see an overt, an overt example where God decrees something and how Paul obviously thinks, well just because God says it, I don't need to do anything, I can sit back and relax. That's not what he does. In Acts 27, Paul is imprisoned and he's on his way to Rome to make his appeal to Caesar, traveling by boat, and along the way, a storm comes up and starts tossing the boat, driving the ship about. And after several days, Paul stood up to all the men in the boat and he says this in Acts 27, 21 through 26. "Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Cree and incurred this injury in loss." That's what everyone's to hear in the middle of a hurricane, by the way. I told you so. We shouldn't have left. But he keeps going. He says, "Yet now I urge you take heart for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship." So Paul says, "Only of the ship." Why? How's he have this confidence? For this very night, there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship. And he said, "Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar and behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. So take heart men, fry a faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told, but we must run a ground on some island." So what you see is, Paul is being told, "By an angel of the Lord, no one's going to die." Now what's Paul's response? Immediately Paul says, "We need to run a ground. We need to get the ship to shore." Paul does not just say, "Well, God said no one's going to die, so don't worry about it. Just sit back, relax. Everyone take a nap." He says, "No, we need to do things so we can bring about the safety God has promised." Just short time after this, Paul notices some sailors getting scared because on this boat there's sailors, there's Roman soldiers and there's prisoners. And some sailors get scared and they say, "Well, you know what? We're out of here. We're going to jet and they start lowering a lifeboat. They are trying to escape." And Paul notices this and understanding everyone else on the ship doesn't know how to sail a ship. He goes to the Roman centurion, the Roman soldier, and he says, "Unless these men, these sailors, stay in the ship, you cannot be saved." Now, I know this Paul says, "You cannot be saved. It's not possible for you to be saved. They were absolutely necessary, but didn't God already decree no one would die?" Paul, didn't you forget that? That an angel told you that? Paul understood actions matter. Use wisdom doing what you know God has given you to do and you've put the results, the ends, in God's hands. So God's providence and sovereignty does not negate human responsibility or the significance of our choices and actions, but rather, like the confession says, it actually establishes the significance of those choices and actions, because God has ordained those means to be the means by which He will accomplish His ends. In other words, because God has ordained the means of your life, your actions of your life, your life is not fruitless and wasted and vain, where you could try all you might, but it doesn't matter in the first place, because God is sovereign and you and I, our only concern, is be faithful in all we know God has given us to do. This is why we can say what we do absolutely matters, because God's ordained means and ends. Two examples, again, to help you put this all in your mind, to examples of spiritual things. God has ordained, you and I would agree, God has ordained that all those those that believe. even Christ will persevere in the faith. Correct? No one's gonna lose their salvation. Jesus promised they are safe in my hands, they're safe in my father's hands. No one can snatch them out of our hands. If you are in Christ, truly in Christ, you cannot lose your salvation. God is the one who will keep you to the very end. It's a great comfort and a great hope for you and I that our salvation does not depend on us. It ultimately depends on the grace of Christ. However, you and I ordained by God to persevere what are the means by which we persevere? Persevering, striving after Christ, running after Him with all of our might, all of our strength, using the means of grace God has given, going to church, reading your word, repenting of sin, holding fast to Jesus. Those are the means by which God accomplishes what He has ordained to bring about His glory. You can think about it with the preaching of the gospel. We just said all the elect of God will be saved. There's no one that believed in election more than Paul. He gives a basic diet tribe on election and Romans 9 and 10 explaining how God is predestined everyone. He hardens whom He wills, He softens whom He wills. So Paul can go from that in Romans 9 to Romans 10 saying, what, how then will they call on Him, who have they have not believed, and how are they to believe in Him, whom they have never heard, and how are they to hear without someone preaching? Well, God's already ordained them to be saved. All the elect will be saved. Why do we need to evangelize? Why do we need to share the gospel at all? Because God has ordained the means of the preaching of the gospel to be the means by which He says to the elect. He calls them in. God ordains in and means what we do matters. The application, again, the application for you and I in our everyday life being do what you know God has given you to do. We don't know all of God's secret will. We don't know what tomorrow brings. We don't know what God has ordained or God has decreed that's going to pass. You know nothing about your life tomorrow or next week. What do you know? What God has said in His Word. So we can strive all we might to live all our lives for His glory, trusting that if we keep God's Word, obey God's Word, then what God has promised will surely be given to us. That your life is not fruitless, your life is not vain, and your life really can, really can bring God glory, which is the heart, enjoy, and desire of every Christian. Now it takes us to our third and final point regarding the sovereignty of God and eternal decrees. And it's related, but why pray? If God's ordained everything, if everything's going to happen no matter what, do we really need to pray and ask God to do things? If God's predestined all things that whatsoever that come to pass, and if nothing can stop or change God's decrees, not as if prayer changes what God's going to do, then why pray at all? For example, put it practically, why pray for the sick? They either ordained to get better or they're ordained to not. Why pray for them? Now you can take the cop-out answer of saying, well we can pray for them to have joy in this trial, which we should, we can pray for them to bear it and endure it, which we should. But James very clearly says, if any of you are sick, go to the elders, let them pray for you for what? For healing. But God's already ordained it. Why do we pray for them? Why do we pray for someone else's salvation? I mean, out of all things, if they're elect before the foundation of the world, why pray for anyone to be saved? The number of the elect does an increase or decrease based on how people are praying? That's set in Christ. So why pray for anyone to be saved? We say all the time that prayer changes things, but if God is predestined everything, does it change anything at all? How do we reconcile all this? Here again, just as with Paul's shipwreck, we need to see, God's ordained the ends and the means. And prayer, just like our actions, prayer is a means by which God uses to accomplish his ends. So it's not that our prayer changes God's will or changes God's plan, but that our prayer is God's means to bring about his will in answering our prayers to show us his glory. Prayer does matter and prayer does change things because God has ordained them to do so because God has ordained to answer our prayers. James says, you do not have, because you do not ask. Without prayer, I can tell you God will not answer. Without prayer, God will not answer. Just like without the sailors, no one on the boat can be saved. Same idea. So does prayer change anything? Yes, because God has ordained prayers to do so, this can give us hope in our prayers, that God does hear our prayers. Look at Philippians 119. As her Paul, he is suffering, and he says, "For I know that through your prayers "and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, "this will turn out for my deliverance." Now Paul was delivered. He was delivered by God, but he says he was delivered by the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, but also what? Through the prayers of the Philippians, that through the prayers of the Philippians, God delivered Paul. Paul obviously thought that the Philippians prayers mattered, that their prayers would lead to his ultimate deliverance. Then you might ask, why does God do this? Isn't that just going through a charade? Why not just do things? Why does God ordain prayers? For the same reason, God does everything for His own glory. When you and I pray, and God does answer that prayer, isn't there a greater love for him, for hearing us? A greater joy that we have had only Father that cares for us? God's ordained prayers has the means to show us His glory as our Father who loves us and cares for us. We don't pray to tell God what we need. Jesus said, God knows what we need before we even ask. Well, if God already knows it, why doesn't God just give it? Because God wants to show us that He's a good Father. And God wants us to know that He's a good Father. And so how does God do that? How does God bring about His glory by the means of answering prayers? We don't pray to change God's will. We pray to say to God, you are the only one that can answer us. You are our only hope. And because you're a good Father, we know that you hear us. Prayer is an expression of faith in the goodness of God and His power that alone can deliver us or help us. Well, what about a thing that's a very honest question? What about when God doesn't answer my prayers? I pray prayers that don't go answered. Have we all prayed for someone that was sick? We had someone in our church, we prayed for those sick. They still die to cancer. They God not answer us. They God just ignore us. The key for you, as a Christian is to remember, that God does always, always, always, always. I can say this with confidence. God does always answer your prayers. He always, always, always hears you. Well, we don't like sometimes and what we forget is that no and later are both answers to prayers. Just because God does not say yes, does not mean God is not hearing you and that God is not answering you. We might pray, but God might have something better in mind, saying no, and He might have something better in mind in regards to timing, saying later. We see both of these examples in Scripture. Remember Paul with his thorn in the flesh, this messenger of Satan sent to harass him. What does he say? He says, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord." That's strong language for Paul. Pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away. This is the Apostle Paul. If anyone could catch a break from God, you think it'd be him, right? Well, as God said to him, God's answer to Paul is basically no. I'm not gonna take it away. God has dead tells him, "My grace is sufficient for you. "My power is made perfect in weakness." God said no because God had a greater purpose. What was that greater purpose? Paul tells us that it might not become conceited. I don't know the wickedness of my heart as much as God knows the wickedness of my heart. And so God said no to give me something better, faithfulness to him. I can promise you just pastorally, we talk about all the time as pastors, for God's grace to keep us faithful to the end when you see men fall all over the place. I would take anything, any kind of suffering. It's hard to say, but we would take any kind of suffering if we could be faithful. So God's no is not, I hate you. I don't care about you 'cause that's what we think when God doesn't answer us. We think God's forgotten me, God's left me, God's abandoned me. No, he's always accomplishing his purpose. Sometimes God's answer is later, the martyrs in heaven, the saints of the first century being persecuted by Jerusalem, by Rome, being killed for their faith. They cry out to God, so now think about it. These are glorified saints, not glorified in the resurrected bodies, but they have a perfected spirit. They're standing before the Lord under the altar, no more sin. And yet they're crying out, when will you avenge us? When will you bring judgment on those that killed us? And God gives them white robes, symbolizing the perfect righteousness of Christ and says, wait a little longer until your number is complete. This is wait a little longer. Sometimes God's timing is better to reveal and manifest His glory. The key for us is trusting God's plan. We trust God's plan. We pray to Him as the Heavenly Father loves us, that cares for us, but we also need to know, yes, no and later are all answers that God gives. It doesn't mean God's for God new. It doesn't mean God's forsaken you. And the way you know, whether or not you're praying God's will, because like I said, we don't know God's secret will. If we're praying for someone sick with cancer, we don't know if God wills to save them or it's planned to not save them. And it's in poor old sense. We can pray for all things, even concerning God's secret will, but we also can know we are praying God's will when we pray for things Scripture instructs us. When we pray, what God has commanded, when we pray, what God has said in His word. That's what I said, the idea of, yes, pray for healing, but also pray for perseverance, pray for joy in those trials. Because even then, we know God answers those prayers. And your prayers are the means by which He keeps them. And we talked about it because I do feel pressure to answer it. Why do we pray for people to be saved? The elect doesn't increase, it doesn't decrease. There is say they're not saved. They're reelected for the foundation of the world or not. It's just like preaching. Your prayers might be the means by which in answering them, God brings glory to His name. Because think about it like this. My grandma is a faithful Christian, Southern Baptist of a Missouri. I'm sure she prayed for my salvation when I was a little kid. You don't think she rejoices in it? Thanks God for answering those prayers and saving me. It brings God's glory. And the ironic thing is, what's funny is when you actually, this is getting a little bit of weeds of cowards and arminism stuff. Because arminism is basically believed that God gives sufficient grace for everyone to see their say yes or no to the gospel. That they hear the gospel and God has already given them sufficient grace. And that God will not violate their will, that He makes it their free choice. Because that's the way they think that God can be fair in sending people to hell. The problem with that is, if you're Armenian, why would you pray for new salvation? Because God's not going to violate anyone's will. So what are you praying for? It has to be their choice. The hope you and I have is Calvinist because we believe God has sovereign over salvation and that the will is dead and enslaved to sin, that God who is almighty and all powerful through our prayers can answer those prayers and actually overcome our hostile will. This is why Puritans talks about how God's power in regeneration, and the new creation is actually greater than God's power in the first creation of the world. Because when God said let there be light, there was nothing that resisted Him. But when God says let there be light in regards to Christ, everything in us resisted Him and God in His grace and His mercy overcomes all in us that resisted Him, takes out our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. So you and I might not know who the elect are. We can pray for anyone, but we don't pray for everybody to be saved. We know God has not willed everybody to be saved. But we can pray for anyone, whether we not know they're elect, because until the day they die, that door is still open, and if God chooses not to save them. We've had relatives that have died that don't know Christ. I know where they go according to my theology. Do I question God's goodness, question God's plan? No, because what Paul says in Romans 9, a hard, hard truth, vessels of mercy we love, vessels of wrath we have a hard time with. But God has glorified in both. So we can pray and we can pray with great hope and great confidence. But the application also for us, the overall application for this is when we talk about why pray, we touched on it last week of the problem of evil. God has ordained all things and because God has ordained all things, we can trust His plan. Of course, it was most wise and holy providence. The hard things in life, the bitter providences, we can trust what God is doing. And when we pray for God to help us, save us, deliver us, answer us, we can pray with confidence that He always, always, always hears us. And our prayers even serve His ends. God's sovereignty and ordaining all things in eternity past and predestining all things that come about or take place does not make our lives meaningless. That does not make everything a charade, it is not all a play. We have real meaningful choices. In fact, God's eternal decree makes everything meaningful because they actually accomplish His glory. Our lives, our choices, our prayers and actions have real meaning and real purpose because God has ordained them to do so. Now, when I thought about to finish out the application for the sermon, because the last thing I want with sermon like this is just to be theological information. That is real questions we need to answer, but it's just theology. What differences does this make to my life? How can this sermon take away and lead you to a greater vision of Christ, a greater love for Christ? How does this sermon like this point to Christ? How do these doctrines do that? First, we talked about free will. And how our free will, we are all morally responsible agents before God that we all freely, willingly and voluntarily sin against Him. And now our free will is a slave to sin outside of Christ. We can't save ourselves. We need it and everyone needs it. We are a deemer, a rescuer, a savior, and that savior is Jesus Christ. Think about how this doctrine exalts the glory and the grace of God because you had a bunch of wicked rebellious creatures sinning against an infinitely glorious sovereign. And instead of God saying, you know what? Have at it. Have my wrath, have my justice, which would God have been perfectly good to do so. God reveals his glory of grace and mercy and forgiveness in sinning Jesus Christ. And the amazing thing about the gospel, we don't think about it enough, is not just sinning Jesus Christ to tell us a bunch of new rules and new ways to do things that we can be better people, but actually sending his own son to die for us in our place, to actually pay the penalty of sin our sins deserved as free and willing agents. Because Jesus on the cross was also a free and willing agent. He said, "I'm not my will, but your will be done." He laid down his own life, willingly. Did he say no one takes it from me? I laid down on my own accord. I take it up again. We saw earlier Hebrews 1, 3, he holds all things together by the word of his power. When the Roman soldier, you've probably heard it before, the Roman soldier would drive it in nails. Jesus Christ was the one keeping their hearts beating to accomplish God's purpose. That shows God's amazing grace and power and love for all those that trust in Christ. Because as you said, greater love is no one than this, that it's someone laid down his life for his friends. We don't know how great the grace of God is. We have pictures of it, but our finite minds really cannot comprehend it. We really cannot understand it. And this doctrine teaches us because God is absolutely sovereign to bring about our salvation. We can give Him great praise and great thanks. We can also say, like we said, we don't know God's secret plans, the secret things belong to the Lord, but we can know what God has told us, and we strive to live all our lives for Him. We do know that God says what? First, says, "Sellings for three. This is the will of God, your sanctification." People hate the doctrine of God's sovereignty, because they want to argue about the sovereignty of God when really what we should be doing is hearing this doctrine and living in light of it. That if God really is this sovereign, my life is His. It's not mine. Am I living all my life to the glory of Christ? Am I striving after Christ, as best we can, to follow His holy will and lead the rest up to Him, like Jesus prayed. Not my will, but your will be done. The doctrine of predestination and God's sovereignty of all things is a high mystery, but due to the army 29, 29, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you as the one true sovereign. And we praise you, God, for your great grace, to send your beloved son to die for us, to suffer the justice our sins deserved, and to give us the gift of saving faith, how God you and your kindness and your mercy. And we were all slaves to send children of wrath like the rest of mankind, Paul says, following the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air, that God you were merciful to us, that you brought the gospel to us, that you and letting us hear the gospel made us born again. You awakened us to the light of Jesus Christ, overcoming all of our sinful will to give us new hearts that love you, and that can cry out. It would be merciful to me a sinner. God would pray that we would live all our lives in light of this doctrine, that we would live all our lives for your glory, and that God you would use our lives to bring about the glory of your name, and the work, and the growth, and the advance of your kingdom. God would praise you, and we ask all this in Jesus' name, Amen.