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What we're experiencing now is not the end of the story.
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You know, one day we will be with him.
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And this is a life is very short, very short.
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That's why 1 Peter 5.10 says, after you've suffered a little while, the God of all greats who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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And that's just a wonderful, wonderful verse to look forward to.
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You know, we should say that's our future.
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Right.
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God is going to perfect us.
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He's going to confirm us.
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He's going to strengthen us.
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He's going to establish us.
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This world is not all there is.
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Are you looking forward to that day?
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You know, that is the future of those who believe in Jesus alone for eternal life.
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Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 5.10, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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You know, we may ask if God is all-loving and all-powerful, why does he allow evil?
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Why do bad things happen for no apparent reason?
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But for those who believe in Jesus for eternal life, we are encouraged by Peter's statement.
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Hi, I'm David Dennis with the Kansas Community's Ministry with the Navigators.
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Thank you so much for listening to Making Disciples Naturally, where we believe that making disciples should be a natural part of every believer's walk.
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This is the third of three podcasts with Mr.
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Mike Bullock.
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Mike taught at a Bible college in Detroit, then spent most of his career in hospital finance, having served as CFO for several healthcare entities.
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He holds a THM degree from Dallas Seminary and has a special gift for making the difficult understandable.
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Be sure to check out our show notes for a free download of Mike's notes on this topic.
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Also, stay tuned to the end of this podcast for some more helpful resources.
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Today, Mike shares more about the perfect world coming, a world where God has defeated evil.
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Creation today kind of groans and travails, awaiting the day of redemption.
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Yes.
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And uh you know, you think you think about all these things, this body it says for when this 1 Corinthians 15, 53 to 58 says, for this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
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But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come the saying that it's written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
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Oh death, where is your victory, oh death, where is your sting?
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The sting of death is sin, the power of the sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you as much as you know it's your toilet is not in vain in the Lord.
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This perfect world is that that is coming, the best possible world.
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It's kind of what scripture says is gonna happen.
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You look at uh Romans 8 28, it says uh for all for we know that everything works together for good to those who are are called according to his purpose.
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Um you know, and that's that's that's uh it's it's it's uh it's not something that is meant to be uh it's not meant to give the uh to give an excuse for everything that happens.
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I think but it's basically saying that uh what we're experiencing now is not the end of the story.
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And uh, you know, one day we will be with him.
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And this is a life is very short, very short.
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Uh yeah, that's why uh no, first Peter 5, 10.
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It says, after you've suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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And that's just uh a wonderful, wonderful verse to look forward to.
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You know, that we can say that's our future.
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Right.
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God is going to perfect us, he's gonna confirm us, he's gonna strengthen us, he's gonna establish us.
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And uh, you know, that's that's that's him.
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And you know, wait earlier he says, uh, but according to his promise, we're looking for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
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Therefore, my beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to um to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, so that you're not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your steadfastness, but grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
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So that's that's what we want.
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And uh He we have a living hope, a living hope that uh is uh imperishable, undefiled, won't be won't fade away, that's kept by the power of God reserved for us in heaven.
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That's that's those are wonderful, wonderful things.
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And that's the optimism, that's the hope of Christianity.
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That since God, since an all-powerful God can destroy evil without destroying free choice, and an outaliving God wants to wants to defeat evil, that there's an assured hope that one day He will defeat evil.
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That's the walk of faith.
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Yes, it's the walk of faith.
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So, what about physical evil?
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We kind of alluded to we've already talked about a uh some of the things that happen, you know, that it can happen when there are morally free agents, and and uh we can it's about things it's about decisions we make.
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It can be about decisions others make.
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It can be the result of God's judgment or warning.
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I think God God sometimes allows certain things to happen.
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Certainly, God allowed things in the old testament to happen that were judgment, that were physical storms, physical things that happened, that were a warning.
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The nation of Israel, he said, if you if you if you if you refuse to follow me, he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring, I'm gonna not allow your crops to grow, I'm gonna give a famine, I'm gonna give uh, you know, uh you know, all kinds of things.
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You know, people are gonna take come eventually take your land.
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You know, some of these can be uh the result of God's judgment or warning uh that people need to start thinking about the future.
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Some of it can come from Satan and demons, uh, and he is certainly capable of that.
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Some of it comes from just the laws that govern a physical time-space uh universe.
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And since we live in a physical world covered by physical laws of energy flow, it's possible that that's the only way that a physical world could be constructed, at least the least the one we're in now.
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And so that floods and droughts and earthquakes and fires and tornadoes and other natural uh disasters may be necessary byproducts of this physical world, and that this physical world is necessary for the achievement of the best possible world.
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So if you have water for swimming, you're gonna you're gonna have some people that drown.
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If you have mountains to climb, some people will fall.
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If you have uh cars to drive, some collisions will uh will occur.
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So can God be sovereign and still allow free choice?
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Because there's a you know, we call that attention or whatever people would say it's impossible to combine those two.
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What would be your thoughts about God's sovereignty and free choice?
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Yeah, well, let me just say some of my thoughts on a couple of things before we just end with this thing as uh uh uh Norm Geisler is uh a guy that wrote The Roots of Evil is a good book.
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Uh he's also got a book, Chosen but Free, a balanced view of divine election.
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And uh, you know, he said he said something uh interesting.
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He said that uh that God's predestination and human choice are a mystery.
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God's predestination and human free choice are a mystery, but not a contradiction.
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They go beyond reason, but not against reason.
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That is, they're not incongruous, but neither can we see exactly how they're complementary.
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I think that God, you know, and this is gonna be the this is one of the major areas that uh Christians disagree on, but I think uh that uh uh God had infallible foreknowledge of the future, uh including our free acts.
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And if he had that, then everything that happens happened in history was predetermined, even our free acts.
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But that does not mean those actions were not free, it simply meant that God knew how we were going to use our freedom, and he knew it for sure.
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Early Augustine said that our free actions are are determined from the standpoint of God's foreknowledge, but they're free from the vantage point of our choice.
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He had this one thing that shows how this the logic of this he said that no one's ever demonstrated a contradiction between predestination and free choice.
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And uh he added this little thing that's uh I like to kind of look at.
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He said, God knows all things, including the future.
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Okay, and God knew from eternity that Jesus would die on the cross.
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Acts 223 clearly indicates that.
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Therefore, Jesus must die on the cross because if he hadn't died on the cross, then God would have been wrong in what he foreknew.
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But an all-knowing, omniscient God cannot be wrong in what he knows.
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But Jesus, it says in John chapter 10, verses 17 and 18, freely chose to die on the cross.
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Therefore, both one and the same event is both predetermined and freely chosen.
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Okay, and so the same logic applies that applies that apply uh applies to predetermination and free choice and either salvation or condemnation.
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God knows what we're going to do, he foreknew, he foreknows what comes to pass, therefore it has to come to pass.
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It's just part, it's part of this predetermination and God knowing about it, all happen intuitively and they happen coextensively.
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In fact, this is if if you read uh 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 2, it says, We're chosen according to the foreknowledge of God.
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Okay, now it's interesting that election is not based on foreknowledge of God's choices, but it's not exercised independent of it either.
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John Walver, who is the president of uh Dallas Seminary for a long time, at least when I was there, said that that verse, uh, 1 Peter 1 2 teaches not a logical order of election in relation to foreknowledge, but the fact that they're coextensive.
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They happen together.
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You can't have one without the other.
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God can't know the future without knowing what's gonna happen.
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He does.
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And that's one of one of the reasons that we can have our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life before time before we created time.
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He knew already who was gonna accept him and who wasn't.
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But that doesn't not mean that we were not free to make that choice.
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He just knew what choice we're gonna make.
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So I think human freedom is a delegated sovereignty.
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God, uh God made man sovereign over his own moral destiny, part of that, and that's part of being created in the image of God, I think.
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God is still the source of salvation through Christ, and free will is the means by which it's received.
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And the Bible teaches that both divine sovereignty and human responsibility sometimes are in the same passages.
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Uh, I remember uh when I went through this in seminary, um, I had a professor, Phil Hooke was his name.
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Um he said this about it.
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He said, God's not afraid to say that he planned, designed, and accomplished salvation.
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That's the first thing.
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The whole thing is his design, he's the source of it.
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Okay, everybody believes that.
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In scripture, he says, secondly, scripture decides this describes the decision-making process of man to be a real process wherein responsibility for the decision is implicit.
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Okay, so we all have a decision-making responsibility.
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Uh you you re you can't read the word of God without believing that.
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In fact, the whole thing, if affirming God will not violate the free choice of any any human being in order to save a person is Arminian, he says every major church father from the beginning, including Justice, Irenaeus, Clement, Tartullian, Origen, Cyril, Gregory, Jerome, Chrysosome, early Augustine, Anselm, Thomas, Aquinas, they all would have been called Arminian.
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To say that you don't have a decision that is yours to make, I think is I don't think is right.
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But the third thing he said is that these two perspectives rest side by side in scripture without any apparent contradiction from God's perspective.
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The beautiful thing is that God has done something about evil.
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Uh, he's capable of, he's ultimately in control of history, and he's capable of using our choices and evil to bring about that which is going to be for his glory and our greatest good.
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In fact, one of the things that uh I think that he's allowing evil for is to say that when it's all said and done, there isn't going to be any possible thing that can happen that is going to be able to challenge him.
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He he's going to demonstrate that he's going to be able to have control over everything.
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Um, and so and he's so he's capable of using our choices and evil to bring about that which is for his glory and our greatest good.
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I mean, uh God, God doesn't wish for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
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Whosoever believes in him has eternal life, he says.
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First Timothy 2, 4 says God desires for all men to be saved, not just the elect, he desires for all men to be saved.
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Um and so it's only the elect that are going to be saved, but that's that's basically who based on his predetermination and his and his uh election.
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Um He sent his innocent son to experience the worst of evil and suffering for us, and by faith we can experience God's love and have hope that one day he will come again to destroy evil and allow us to experience the purpose for which he created us.
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And that's that's the beauty.
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Uh that's the beauty.
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Uh at the heart of this whole story stands the cross, where evil did its worst and met its match.
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And it's there that love shines forth.
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So excellent, yeah.
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Let me ask another question.
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I this is this is excellent, Mike, what you've shared with us over this over these podcasts.
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Um speak now, maybe as a pastor or a friend, to the hurting person who has lost a loved one, lost a child, lost a baby.
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What uh what encouragement would you have for them?
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Uh because they just can't see how this could possibly work out, you know, for God's glory.
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Part of it is you have to recognize that if they were if they were a believer, you are going to see them again.
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That's that's the that's the that's the beautiful thing about about uh our salvation.
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It is secure.
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And uh that that's a whole nother story that uh that we have.
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But scripture indicates that uh it's not we're not gonna be able to lose that salvation.
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That we are his, we're held by his hand, and God uh certainly you can say God allowed that to happen.
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Uh we all are gonna die at some point.
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Um to me the the peace is is knowing that you belong to him, and uh this is why it's important to you know, with your kids at an early age, try to share the gospel with them.
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You know, yeah, make sure God is loving, God is love, God is not in trust, and he's he's not gonna send anybody to hell uh that's uh that didn't choose that.
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Right.
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And uh, you know, some people say, Well, can you get a second chance?
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Well, there comes a point where God says he knows where people have come to the place where they're locked into their viewpoint.
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And yeah, so he says, Okay, your will's gonna be done.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And uh hell, hell, I remember hell, hell is a place where man is condemned to his own freedom.
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Interesting.
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Yeah, you wanted that freedom, here it is.
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Yeah, so it's hard.
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I mean, uh we don't have the answers.
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We have uh we have our faith in the Lord Jesus, we don't see why people are killed in natural disasters, we don't see why my child was taken, but yet we walk by faith, not by sight.
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Yeah, and uh it's not easy, and it's um in fact it's very difficult.
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But it's uh but it is a walk of faith, and that's what he calls us to.
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No one can please him unless uh we do come to him by faith in Hebrews chapter 11.
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When tragedy and evil hit close to home, we find it difficult to put the pieces together.
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We may ask, why, Lord?
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Why did you take my child, my parent, my friend?
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He asks us to walk by faith, not by sight.
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Hebrews 11 6 says, But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
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You know, Mike spoke about the fact that as believers we will get to experience this new world and that we will see our loved ones again if they are believers in the Lord Jesus.
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We know it's one thing to analyze this topic of evil and suffering from an academic or intellectual viewpoint, but it is quite another to experience it firsthand.
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If you are going through difficult times, please know that we care about you and we pray for you that you will sense God's presence.
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Now, in the show notes, we have not only Mike's notes that you can download freely, but there's also a list of helpful books that we think may be a comfort and light to you in your darkness.
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Some of these include a book called Harsh Grief, Gentle Hope by Mary White.
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Mary and her husband Jerry lost their 30-year-old son tragically.
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Another book that we have found helpful is by Robert Rogers called Into the Deep.
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And that's available only on his website, and that's linked in our show notes.
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Many resources from Johnny Erickson Tata, which are well known, but a particular one we would recommend would be When God Seems Unjust.
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And also A Grief Observed by C.S.
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Lewis is a classic book that is very helpful in going through difficult times.
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And finally, Paul David Tripp wrote a book called Grief, Finding Hope Again.
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And that's available on Amazon.
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I put the link to that in the show notes.
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Well, I want to encourage you that you can know with certainty your eternal destiny.
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Where are you in your spiritual journey?
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Perhaps you just stumbled across this podcast by accident.
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Or maybe you've been in the church for a number of years, but have never really been certain of your eternal destiny.
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You are trying, but you just aren't certain about things.
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Have you placed your faith in Jesus alone for eternal life?
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Listen to these verses.
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John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Ephesians 2.8 and 9, for by grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
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It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
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And the wonderful promise in John 6.47, where Jesus plainly promises, He who believes in me has everlasting life.
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Do you believe in Jesus alone for everlasting life?
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If so, you can be certain of your future in Christ.
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That's the best news ever.
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He promised everlasting life to all who believe in him for that life.
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Won't you do that today?
00:21:54.640 --> 00:22:00.319
Becoming a Christian does not mean being perfect, nor trying harder, nor trying to obey the rules better.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:06.559
It means simply believing, placing your faith in Jesus' promise for eternal life.
00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:12.720
Well, join us next time as together we continue to learn more about making disciples naturally.
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What we're experiencing now is not the end of the story.
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You know, one day we will be with him.
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And this is a life is very short, very short.
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That's why 1 Peter 5.10 says, after you've suffered a little while, the God of all greats who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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And that's just a wonderful, wonderful verse to look forward to.
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You know, we should say that's our future.
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Right.
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God is going to perfect us.
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He's going to confirm us.
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He's going to strengthen us.
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He's going to establish us.
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This world is not all there is.
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Are you looking forward to that day?
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You know, that is the future of those who believe in Jesus alone for eternal life.
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Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 5.10, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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You know, we may ask if God is all-loving and all-powerful, why does he allow evil?
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Why do bad things happen for no apparent reason?
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But for those who believe in Jesus for eternal life, we are encouraged by Peter's statement.
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Hi, I'm David Dennis with the Kansas Community's Ministry with the Navigators.
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Thank you so much for listening to Making Disciples Naturally, where we believe that making disciples should be a natural part of every believer's walk.
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This is the third of three podcasts with Mr.
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Mike Bullock.
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Mike taught at a Bible college in Detroit, then spent most of his career in hospital finance, having served as CFO for several healthcare entities.
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He holds a THM degree from Dallas Seminary and has a special gift for making the difficult understandable.
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Be sure to check out our show notes for a free download of Mike's notes on this topic.
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Also, stay tuned to the end of this podcast for some more helpful resources.
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Today, Mike shares more about the perfect world coming, a world where God has defeated evil.
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Creation today kind of groans and travails, awaiting the day of redemption.
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Yes.
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And uh you know, you think you think about all these things, this body it says for when this 1 Corinthians 15, 53 to 58 says, for this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
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But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come the saying that it's written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
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Oh death, where is your victory, oh death, where is your sting?
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The sting of death is sin, the power of the sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you as much as you know it's your toilet is not in vain in the Lord.
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This perfect world is that that is coming, the best possible world.
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It's kind of what scripture says is gonna happen.
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You look at uh Romans 8 28, it says uh for all for we know that everything works together for good to those who are are called according to his purpose.
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Um you know, and that's that's that's uh it's it's it's uh it's not something that is meant to be uh it's not meant to give the uh to give an excuse for everything that happens.
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I think but it's basically saying that uh what we're experiencing now is not the end of the story.
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And uh, you know, one day we will be with him.
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And this is a life is very short, very short.
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Uh yeah, that's why uh no, first Peter 5, 10.
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It says, after you've suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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And that's just uh a wonderful, wonderful verse to look forward to.
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You know, that we can say that's our future.
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Right.
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God is going to perfect us, he's gonna confirm us, he's gonna strengthen us, he's gonna establish us.
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And uh, you know, that's that's that's him.
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And you know, wait earlier he says, uh, but according to his promise, we're looking for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
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Therefore, my beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to um to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, so that you're not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your steadfastness, but grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
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So that's that's what we want.
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And uh He we have a living hope, a living hope that uh is uh imperishable, undefiled, won't be won't fade away, that's kept by the power of God reserved for us in heaven.
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That's that's those are wonderful, wonderful things.
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And that's the optimism, that's the hope of Christianity.
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That since God, since an all-powerful God can destroy evil without destroying free choice, and an outaliving God wants to wants to defeat evil, that there's an assured hope that one day He will defeat evil.
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That's the walk of faith.
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Yes, it's the walk of faith.
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So, what about physical evil?
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We kind of alluded to we've already talked about a uh some of the things that happen, you know, that it can happen when there are morally free agents, and and uh we can it's about things it's about decisions we make.
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It can be about decisions others make.
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It can be the result of God's judgment or warning.
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I think God God sometimes allows certain things to happen.
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Certainly, God allowed things in the old testament to happen that were judgment, that were physical storms, physical things that happened, that were a warning.
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The nation of Israel, he said, if you if you if you if you refuse to follow me, he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring, I'm gonna not allow your crops to grow, I'm gonna give a famine, I'm gonna give uh, you know, uh you know, all kinds of things.
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You know, people are gonna take come eventually take your land.
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You know, some of these can be uh the result of God's judgment or warning uh that people need to start thinking about the future.
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Some of it can come from Satan and demons, uh, and he is certainly capable of that.
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Some of it comes from just the laws that govern a physical time-space uh universe.
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And since we live in a physical world covered by physical laws of energy flow, it's possible that that's the only way that a physical world could be constructed, at least the least the one we're in now.
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And so that floods and droughts and earthquakes and fires and tornadoes and other natural uh disasters may be necessary byproducts of this physical world, and that this physical world is necessary for the achievement of the best possible world.
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So if you have water for swimming, you're gonna you're gonna have some people that drown.
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If you have mountains to climb, some people will fall.
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If you have uh cars to drive, some collisions will uh will occur.
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So can God be sovereign and still allow free choice?
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Because there's a you know, we call that attention or whatever people would say it's impossible to combine those two.
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What would be your thoughts about God's sovereignty and free choice?
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Yeah, well, let me just say some of my thoughts on a couple of things before we just end with this thing as uh uh uh Norm Geisler is uh a guy that wrote The Roots of Evil is a good book.
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Uh he's also got a book, Chosen but Free, a balanced view of divine election.
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And uh, you know, he said he said something uh interesting.
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He said that uh that God's predestination and human choice are a mystery.
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God's predestination and human free choice are a mystery, but not a contradiction.
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They go beyond reason, but not against reason.
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That is, they're not incongruous, but neither can we see exactly how they're complementary.
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I think that God, you know, and this is gonna be the this is one of the major areas that uh Christians disagree on, but I think uh that uh uh God had infallible foreknowledge of the future, uh including our free acts.
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And if he had that, then everything that happens happened in history was predetermined, even our free acts.
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But that does not mean those actions were not free, it simply meant that God knew how we were going to use our freedom, and he knew it for sure.
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Early Augustine said that our free actions are are determined from the standpoint of God's foreknowledge, but they're free from the vantage point of our choice.
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He had this one thing that shows how this the logic of this he said that no one's ever demonstrated a contradiction between predestination and free choice.
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And uh he added this little thing that's uh I like to kind of look at.
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He said, God knows all things, including the future.
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Okay, and God knew from eternity that Jesus would die on the cross.
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Acts 223 clearly indicates that.
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Therefore, Jesus must die on the cross because if he hadn't died on the cross, then God would have been wrong in what he foreknew.
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But an all-knowing, omniscient God cannot be wrong in what he knows.
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But Jesus, it says in John chapter 10, verses 17 and 18, freely chose to die on the cross.
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Therefore, both one and the same event is both predetermined and freely chosen.
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Okay, and so the same logic applies that applies that apply uh applies to predetermination and free choice and either salvation or condemnation.
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God knows what we're going to do, he foreknew, he foreknows what comes to pass, therefore it has to come to pass.
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It's just part, it's part of this predetermination and God knowing about it, all happen intuitively and they happen coextensively.
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In fact, this is if if you read uh 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 2, it says, We're chosen according to the foreknowledge of God.
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Okay, now it's interesting that election is not based on foreknowledge of God's choices, but it's not exercised independent of it either.
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John Walver, who is the president of uh Dallas Seminary for a long time, at least when I was there, said that that verse, uh, 1 Peter 1 2 teaches not a logical order of election in relation to foreknowledge, but the fact that they're coextensive.
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They happen together.
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You can't have one without the other.
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God can't know the future without knowing what's gonna happen.
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He does.
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And that's one of one of the reasons that we can have our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life before time before we created time.
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He knew already who was gonna accept him and who wasn't.
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But that doesn't not mean that we were not free to make that choice.
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He just knew what choice we're gonna make.
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So I think human freedom is a delegated sovereignty.
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God, uh God made man sovereign over his own moral destiny, part of that, and that's part of being created in the image of God, I think.
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God is still the source of salvation through Christ, and free will is the means by which it's received.
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And the Bible teaches that both divine sovereignty and human responsibility sometimes are in the same passages.
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Uh, I remember uh when I went through this in seminary, um, I had a professor, Phil Hooke was his name.
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Um he said this about it.
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He said, God's not afraid to say that he planned, designed, and accomplished salvation.
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That's the first thing.
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The whole thing is his design, he's the source of it.
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Okay, everybody believes that.
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In scripture, he says, secondly, scripture decides this describes the decision-making process of man to be a real process wherein responsibility for the decision is implicit.
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Okay, so we all have a decision-making responsibility.
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Uh you you re you can't read the word of God without believing that.
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In fact, the whole thing, if affirming God will not violate the free choice of any any human being in order to save a person is Arminian, he says every major church father from the beginning, including Justice, Irenaeus, Clement, Tartullian, Origen, Cyril, Gregory, Jerome, Chrysosome, early Augustine, Anselm, Thomas, Aquinas, they all would have been called Arminian.
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To say that you don't have a decision that is yours to make, I think is I don't think is right.
00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:13.600
But the third thing he said is that these two perspectives rest side by side in scripture without any apparent contradiction from God's perspective.
00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:17.919
The beautiful thing is that God has done something about evil.
00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:29.440
Uh, he's capable of, he's ultimately in control of history, and he's capable of using our choices and evil to bring about that which is going to be for his glory and our greatest good.
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:46.559
In fact, one of the things that uh I think that he's allowing evil for is to say that when it's all said and done, there isn't going to be any possible thing that can happen that is going to be able to challenge him.
00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:53.759
He he's going to demonstrate that he's going to be able to have control over everything.
00:14:54.159 --> 00:15:05.759
Um, and so and he's so he's capable of using our choices and evil to bring about that which is for his glory and our greatest good.
00:15:05.919 --> 00:15:11.440
I mean, uh God, God doesn't wish for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:14.960
Whosoever believes in him has eternal life, he says.
00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:22.960
First Timothy 2, 4 says God desires for all men to be saved, not just the elect, he desires for all men to be saved.
00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:34.960
Um and so it's only the elect that are going to be saved, but that's that's basically who based on his predetermination and his and his uh election.
00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:55.759
Um He sent his innocent son to experience the worst of evil and suffering for us, and by faith we can experience God's love and have hope that one day he will come again to destroy evil and allow us to experience the purpose for which he created us.
00:15:56.159 --> 00:15:57.840
And that's that's the beauty.
00:15:57.919 --> 00:15:58.960
Uh that's the beauty.
00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:06.639
Uh at the heart of this whole story stands the cross, where evil did its worst and met its match.
00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:09.919
And it's there that love shines forth.
00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:12.240
So excellent, yeah.
00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:14.000
Let me ask another question.
00:16:14.080 --> 00:16:19.759
I this is this is excellent, Mike, what you've shared with us over this over these podcasts.
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:32.000
Um speak now, maybe as a pastor or a friend, to the hurting person who has lost a loved one, lost a child, lost a baby.
00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:35.759
What uh what encouragement would you have for them?
00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:42.639
Uh because they just can't see how this could possibly work out, you know, for God's glory.
00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:50.399
Part of it is you have to recognize that if they were if they were a believer, you are going to see them again.
00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:59.679
That's that's the that's the that's the beautiful thing about about uh our salvation.
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:01.519
It is secure.
00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:06.880
And uh that that's a whole nother story that uh that we have.
00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:12.160
But scripture indicates that uh it's not we're not gonna be able to lose that salvation.
00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:21.759
That we are his, we're held by his hand, and God uh certainly you can say God allowed that to happen.
00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:24.400
Uh we all are gonna die at some point.
00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:36.160
Um to me the the peace is is knowing that you belong to him, and uh this is why it's important to you know, with your kids at an early age, try to share the gospel with them.
00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:51.599
You know, yeah, make sure God is loving, God is love, God is not in trust, and he's he's not gonna send anybody to hell uh that's uh that didn't choose that.
00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:52.400
Right.
00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:56.240
And uh, you know, some people say, Well, can you get a second chance?
00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:04.640
Well, there comes a point where God says he knows where people have come to the place where they're locked into their viewpoint.
00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:09.599
And yeah, so he says, Okay, your will's gonna be done.
00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:10.480
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:18.559
And uh hell, hell, I remember hell, hell is a place where man is condemned to his own freedom.
00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:20.640
Interesting.
00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:24.160
Yeah, you wanted that freedom, here it is.
00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:27.359
Yeah, so it's hard.
00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:29.359
I mean, uh we don't have the answers.
00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:41.440
We have uh we have our faith in the Lord Jesus, we don't see why people are killed in natural disasters, we don't see why my child was taken, but yet we walk by faith, not by sight.
00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:46.720
Yeah, and uh it's not easy, and it's um in fact it's very difficult.
00:18:47.359 --> 00:18:51.039
But it's uh but it is a walk of faith, and that's what he calls us to.
00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:56.640
No one can please him unless uh we do come to him by faith in Hebrews chapter 11.
00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:03.279
When tragedy and evil hit close to home, we find it difficult to put the pieces together.
00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:05.440
We may ask, why, Lord?
00:19:05.599 --> 00:19:09.599
Why did you take my child, my parent, my friend?
00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:13.359
He asks us to walk by faith, not by sight.
00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:23.599
Hebrews 11 6 says, But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:33.119
You know, Mike spoke about the fact that as believers we will get to experience this new world and that we will see our loved ones again if they are believers in the Lord Jesus.
00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:42.000
We know it's one thing to analyze this topic of evil and suffering from an academic or intellectual viewpoint, but it is quite another to experience it firsthand.
00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:50.400
If you are going through difficult times, please know that we care about you and we pray for you that you will sense God's presence.
00:19:50.720 --> 00:20:00.480
Now, in the show notes, we have not only Mike's notes that you can download freely, but there's also a list of helpful books that we think may be a comfort and light to you in your darkness.
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:06.480
Some of these include a book called Harsh Grief, Gentle Hope by Mary White.
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:11.279
Mary and her husband Jerry lost their 30-year-old son tragically.
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:16.559
Another book that we have found helpful is by Robert Rogers called Into the Deep.
00:20:17.839 --> 00:20:21.599
And that's available only on his website, and that's linked in our show notes.
00:20:21.839 --> 00:20:29.759
Many resources from Johnny Erickson Tata, which are well known, but a particular one we would recommend would be When God Seems Unjust.
00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:33.680
And also A Grief Observed by C.S.
00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:38.559
Lewis is a classic book that is very helpful in going through difficult times.
00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:44.079
And finally, Paul David Tripp wrote a book called Grief, Finding Hope Again.
00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:45.759
And that's available on Amazon.
00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.559
I put the link to that in the show notes.
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:53.200
Well, I want to encourage you that you can know with certainty your eternal destiny.
00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:55.279
Where are you in your spiritual journey?
00:20:55.359 --> 00:20:58.319
Perhaps you just stumbled across this podcast by accident.
00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:03.759
Or maybe you've been in the church for a number of years, but have never really been certain of your eternal destiny.
00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:07.519
You are trying, but you just aren't certain about things.
00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:12.000
Have you placed your faith in Jesus alone for eternal life?
00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:13.279
Listen to these verses.
00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:22.400
John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:27.440
Ephesians 2.8 and 9, for by grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
00:21:27.599 --> 00:21:31.119
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:40.559
And the wonderful promise in John 6.47, where Jesus plainly promises, He who believes in me has everlasting life.
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Do you believe in Jesus alone for everlasting life?
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If so, you can be certain of your future in Christ.
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That's the best news ever.
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He promised everlasting life to all who believe in him for that life.
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Won't you do that today?
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Becoming a Christian does not mean being perfect, nor trying harder, nor trying to obey the rules better.
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It means simply believing, placing your faith in Jesus' promise for eternal life.
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Well, join us next time as together we continue to learn more about making disciples naturally.
