My favorite novel is That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis. It's the third book in what's typically called the "Space Trilogy" but I prefer the "Ransom Trilogy," Ransom being the protagonist in all three books. While there are many planetary influences and supernatural elements in this final book--the primary reason why George Orwell hated it--the central conflict is not between men and aliens but rather between man and man's arrogance. An assault on the future of humanity comes not from extraterrestrial forces but from humanity itself.

The leading institution in THS is called, with vicious irony, the N.I.C.E., the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments. The NICE unites scientists, a psychologist, a reverend, politicians, professors, bureaucrats, journalists, and a police force in order to enable real progress. For example, men don't need to be punished for breaking the law, they need to be "reconditioned." If they die in the process, nothing is lost. Much is gained, in fact, toward the development of a better human race.

The inner circle of the NICE envisions that man can, even must, get to the point where he will not need food (or the hassles of producing and eating food) for strength, nor will he need sex (or the messiness of relationships and marriage and babies) for procreation. Man may advance so far that he will not even need a body. He will rule with nothing other than his head, literally.

In the name of Man, men will be sacrificed. It must be so. Man's values--which are entirely subjective--must be repurposed, and his feelings--which are physiological leftovers of less mature stages--must be ignored. Even their bodies should be willing sacrifices to the greater good. But this vision makes men without that which makes a man. Or as Lewis put it in a non-fiction book, they will be "men without chests." As it turns out, men are responsible for the abolition, the elimination, of man.

Lewis took the name for "that hideous strength" from a poem by David Lyndsay written in 1555. Written during the Scottish Reformation, the poem attacks the power of the Popes and Kings and compares their combined, institutionalized evil to "that hideous strength with a shadow six miles in length," the Tower of Babel.

When the sun is at the height,

(My modernized English of this.)

"Strength" most likely referred to a stronghold, a fortress. What man meant as a symbol of ability, coordination, industry, security, and control becomes a symbol of failure, confusion, emptiness, defenselessness, and catastrophe. Judge for yourself: did the shadow of that tower bring man up or down? Elevate or humiliate? It was a monumental disaster.

That is what happens when men attempt to make Man, make humanity, in their own image. Men were made by God to receive the nature of things not dictate them. In pursuit of "summits of power and mastery of the world" (Lucretius) men will have have neither. When doctors decide what lives are valuable and what are not lives but "tissue," when politicians or judges legislate the meaning of gender and marriage, when teachers and publishers insist on equality without any allowable distinctions, Man cannot continue to exist.

I have argued since Genesis 1 that men were made for relationships and responsibility. These capacities are unique to the human race. The civilizations, medicine, laws, communication, travel, food, and energy that man has developed are part of his commission to subdue and take dominion. They show man's strength. And it is our strengths that destroy us if they are not used in conscious reflection of God. Man is an image-bearer, not an image-innovator. He is made in the image of a Maker, but he cannot make himself into whatever image he wants. Ice cannot be made with fire, and triangles cannot have two sides.

God frustrates our strengths for our good lest our strengths obliterate us. The Tower of Babel is such a story. The story shows the danger when men forget that they are image-bearers.

At the beginning of Genesis 11 we see the last, literal vox populi, "voice of the people." Every living person spoke one language and had one collective desire, to make a name for themselves by building a tower with its top in the heavens. By the end of the story in verse nine there is no longer one language. There are many different tongues.

We know this from the Genesis 10. Noah's sons multiplied and the descendants of Ham, Japheth, and Shem became nations in their own lands, speaking their own languages. Genesis 11:1-9 is a flashback that exposes how it began. It's very similar to when Genesis 2:4-25 expanded a part of day six in chapter one. The "deliberate dischronoligization" (Hamilton) shows us that there is blessing and punishment in the dispersal of nations.

Moses links 10:1-32 and 11:1-9 together, since the next toledot after 10:1 occurs in 11:10. The Table of Nations set the stage in 10:1-32, it introduces us to relevant history, and the Tower of Babel incident reveals the beginning.

There are two divisions in this section. Verses 1-4 are the proud plans of man, verses 5-9 show the merciful punishment of the LORD.

Moses sets the scene.

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. (11:1-2)

The whole earth meant all the inhabitants of the earth. If the events in Babel occurred during the time of Peleg (10:25), then somewhere between 100-150 years had passed since the flood. Calculating an average of 8 children in each family in each generation (using 30 years as a generation) from Noah's sons, there could have been up to 30,000 inhabitants (half the size of Marysville, since there were 63,000 in the 2013).

Why wouldn't they have one language and the same words? Noah was still alive, Noah's family was the only family, it was natural that Noah's language was the only language. The phrase translated one language could be translated "one lip," indicating the same genetic structure and the same formations of the mouth. The same words meant that they shared the same vocabulary.

The people migrated from the east and found a plain in the land of Shinar. Everything's good so far. They moved away from the mountainous region of Ararat and settled in the fertile land of Mesopotamia. The LORD commissioned Noah's sons to replenish the earth, but there wasn't anything wrong with establishing a community along the way.

Things must have been going well for them. The first things to take care of when you come to a new place are making sure there is enough food and water along with adequate shelter. Only once those needs are established can you move on to other things. And they did.

And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. (11:3)

The people rally one another: Come, let us.... There's enthusiasm for the project, which in this case was making bricks. There were likely not many rocks or stone quarries in the plain. The research and development team determined that since stones for building weren't convenient, and wood was not as durable, they could mix clay with water--both of which were readily available--and then bake them into bricks. Again, so far so good. This is being creative with what you've got, a fitting thing for image-bearers to do.

Then we find out the motivation for their innovation, and it was not to reflect God's image.

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." (11:4)

The voice of the people unites again: Come, let us.... While Babel was described as being part of Nimrod's kingdom (10:10), he apparently was not the mastermind, so he is not named and he certainly isn't the only one punished. The united voice of the people unmasks their hearts and condemns them.

The people want a city and a tower, and from that glory and security. Better living through better architecture. The bricks were intended to build great structures such as a ziggurat. The great structures were intended to make themselves look great and perhaps protect them from another flood. Their accomplishments and their fame was their idolatry.

Cities are okay, in their place, but these people wanted a city not as a hub or outpost for filling the earth. They wanted to avoid being dispersed over the face of the whole earth. This was in direct defiance of God.

The tower with its top in the heavens would make a name for themselves (think: Chump Tower). The only thing higher than the skyscraper they had in mind is height of hubris/arrogance believing that they could resolve their insecurities.

The pride was virtually written on the city council letterhead. It was the tagline for tourist commercials: "Come enjoy the sights from our heights. We're the best humans on the planet."

The point of view switches from man to God.

The sarcasm is thick.

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. (11:5)

For however high the tower was, the LORD had to come down just to get a glimpse. The reason He had to come down was not because He was previously engaged, not paying attention, and now He has to do something before it's too late. He had to stoop over to see.

Not only did He "come down," but the remark is made that the children of man were at work. That's precious. The Hebrew is "sons of man," and the ESV may or may not provide the best nuance, but the irony is beautiful. (The NAS totally blows it by merely mentioning "men"). In other words, the LORD descends to see what the little guys have been up to.

Verse six is crucial for our understanding of God.

And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. (11:6)

Does this mean that the LORD feels threatened? Is He afraid that men are going to take over? I don't think so. But let's see how He responds first and then come back to the why (next Lord's day).

With a similar pattern to the voice of the people, God speaks to Himself.

Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech." (11:7)

The (hint at the) Trinity is back; let us go down. Previously we saw the Godhead speaking before creating man and woman (1:26), and perhaps even more relevantly, in discussing the sin and punishment of Adam and Eve (3:22).

It's a simple plan. He will not flood the earth to destroy them. He could have taken any number of approaches to punishment, including breaking down the tower. What He does, however, strikes at the core of their failure to recognize themselves as image bearers. The LORD disrupts their relationships and makes their self-determined responsibilities impossible.

He confuse[s] their language. The story doesn't say exactly how it happened, but men started speaking differently. Imagine the confusion and then the frustration. They wouldn't have had any idea what was happening. They hadn't seen, or more appropriately, heard, anything like this before. It was incoherent nonsense that led to full-fledged chaos.

So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. (11:8-9)

The language confusion led to frustration which led to separation, families moving away from Babel. I used to think that two things happened simultaneously here, that God picked men up (by the scruff of their neck, or blew them like Aslan blew Jill and Scrubb in The Silver Chair) and dropped them in new locations around the world with new languages. But that's not what happened.

The dispersal transpired as relatives, who could understand each other no longer, moved away from each other. Confused language was the engine that drove them apart. They got exactly the opposite of what they wanted. They settled so as to avoid being scattered and now their settlement was scattered.

That they left off building the city would be less significant if the majority of the population in Babel vanished immediately--a rapture-like phenomena as I assumed before. They stopped building because they couldn't understand each other anymore.

Note that the city was called Babel, not the tower ("they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel"). It's like the Seattle Space Needle. The tower project was a never-completed project, and never forgotten.

The people of Babel had image-bearing strengths. They had ease of communication. They clearly had been being fruitful and multiplying. They were creating and building. What were they missing?

They were missing what it means to be Man. Relationship and responsibility are NOT what it means to be human. Relationship and responsibility are parts of bearing God's image. Relationship and responsibility are reflections of our God. There is nothing but a confusing catastrophe when men make Man in their own image.

Near the end of That Hideous Strength, Merlin cries out in the spirit of Mercury:

They have despised the word of God, from them shall the word of man also be taken away.

So it was in Babel, and has been ever since when men refuse to worship God.

Nations are not going away. The spread of humanity that starts in Genesis 10 changes things forever. It may not be as significant a hinge as Genesis 3 and the difference between Genesis 1-2 pre-fall, pre-sin and then Genesis 3 afterwards. Nevertheless, all the streams of civilization after the flood flow from this genealogy.

This is a watershed chapter. There is glory that is coming at the bottom of the hill that endures in eternity. This is as much a part of God's story as is the creation of the universe. The creation of peoples and clans and families and languages serves to bring Him greater glory.

This map provides a good, if oversimplified, picture of where the sons of Noah spread.

Last time we looked at the first two sons of Noah starting with the Japhethites in verses 2-5. They're mentioned first not because Japheth is the oldest but because his descendants lived furthest away from Israel's experience. From Japheth we believe came the Indo-Europeans (Europe and one branch into Persia and India); or, the Gentiles. Most of us in this room probably are descendants of Japheth; if you want to call yourself a Japhethite, feel free.

Ham and his descendants are mentioned next because they were those closest and most well known to Israel. From the Hamites come those in Africa such as Egypt and Ethiopia. Egypt, of course, plays a big part in the story of Israel by the time we get part way through Genesis. An entire book of the Bible in devoted to Israel coming out of Egypt, Exodus, the book that follows Genesis.

From the Hamites also come some of the Middle Eastern countries in the Mesopotamian region in particular the Canaanites and the Amalakites and the MacArthurites (no, sorry, thats a different context), but all of those 'ites' who were inhabiting the land to which God will call Abram.

This is the third son of Noah. Often in Genesis the group mentioned last in a genealogy is the focus group. From this point on in the genealogy and throughout the rest of Genesis we're concerned with what happens to the sons of Shem.

There are a few other indicators from the paragraph itself that this is special group. No other group of descendants from Noah's sons has an introductory sentence like verse 21 (compare with verse 2 and verse 6). This paragraph also extends to the fifth generation of Shem. Only two generations from Japheth are mentioned and only three from Ham. And Shem's line won't actually be concluded until the end of chapter 11.

To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. (10:21)

This is an "extra" verse. It's extra not in the sense that it surprised the Holy Spirit but in the sense that the Holy Spirit put in an extra verse to get our attention. Unlike the previous two sons of Noah who are immediately identified by their sons, Shem is actually identified as the father of all the children of Eber, his great-grandson. Why? Why does Eber get top billing? It isn't just the Shemites that are pivotal, but the Eberites in particular. As Shemites is to Semitesk so Eber is to Hebrew. It's a different pronunciation but the same group. When we talk about the Hebrews we are talking about the sons of Eber. Genesis 14:13 refers to "Abram the Hebrew" meaning that he's from Eber's line.

The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. (10:22)

Verse 22 lists the sons of Shem, then verses 23-30 list the grandsons of Shem. I'm not going to try to give information about each of these guys. There is information about all of them, or at least there's suggested connections with them, in various commentaries and other historical books.

From Elam came the Persians who lived northeast of the Persian Gulf. From Asshur came the Assyrians who lived between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. From Arphaxad came the Babylonians who lived in Chaldea. From Lud came the Lydians who lived mostly in Asia Minor, and some traveled across the Mediterranean and settled in northern Africa. From Aram came the Syrians who lived north and east of Israel.

The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. (verse 23)

Aram may have been someone significant since the Aramaic language lasted a long time. It was the language for the leading nations of the world such as Assyria and Babylonia. Some parts of the Old Testament, such as sections in Daniel and Ezra, were written in Aramaic. Jesus spoke more Aramaic than even Hebrew or Greek. Even today many people speak Aramaic or some child language of the broader category of the Aramaic language.

Uz is a grandson of Shem, and Uz is a place too, probably where Job lived (Job 1:1).

Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. (10:24)

Then we see the son and grandson of Arpachshad. Eber was already mentioned; that's why we care about the Shemites because from the Shemites eventually become the Eberites, the Hebrews.

To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, (verse 25)

Other than Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, there's more digression about Peleg than anyone else in chapter 10. The comment that in his days the earth was divided gets our attention. When we studied Genesis chapter 5 I talked about how to look at a genealogy, to look for patterns and to look for things that break the patterns. This is a pattern breaker. The name Peleg means "division," and Moses was writing: for in his days the earth was divided. That has to be a reference to the tower of Babel. It is the line of Shem through Peleg to Abram that we'll read even more about in Genesis chapter 11:18-26.

and his brother's name was Joktan. Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. (10:26-30)

Verses 26 through 30 give us Joktan and sons. Peleg was one of the sons of Eber and Joktan was the other. And so in the second part of verse 25 through verse 30 finishes off a cul-de-sac of the genealogy.

By the way, if you can learn the names of people and places in The Lord of the Rings then don't get irritated that there are actually weird names and places that don't sound like Bob and Billy Joe as you're reading the Bible.

These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. (10:31)

The formula that we've seen already comes again in verse 31 as the finishing summary to this part of Shem's line.

Here is the finishing bookend compared to verse 1.

These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. (verse 32)

This genealogy sticks, that it is the watershed from which all people and families and us then come is not a throw-away statement for as simple and as summarized as it might be.

Why include this chapter? It's always important to ask why did God include such and such a verse, a paragraph, a chapter, a book, in the Bible.

I said in the last message that I think God includes this genealogy because it's showing God's blessing. The LORD told Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply and here is proof of God's faithfulness to bless humanity. That's why the result of the spread comes before the reason for the spread at Babel City. If the tower of Babel came first we'd be likely to interpret these divisions only as evidence of God's fury. As it is, there is both favor and fury. Why are there nations? Is it because God is happy about nations or because nations are a judgement? Yes. Both. This genealogy begins to show us is that it is a sign of God's blessing. Chapter 11 will show the part that is God's judgment.

Is there anything else?

We have been walking up the flights of stairs in God revelation. We are on floor ten (in Genesis 10). We can see the door to floor eleven. Let's take the elevator up to the top of the building for a few minutes and look back down over the other eleven hundred sixty some chapters. Let's get a view of what the rest of the building of revelation looks like, then we'll take the elevator back down and start walking up the stairs verse by verse again.

Paul said in his message in Athens in Acts 17:26-27, "he made from one man every nation of mankind." He's thinking about Noah, "made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they may feel their way toward him and find him." Nations exist with languages and boundaries and borders so that people will realize there is a God. Men don't, they reject that, they ignore that, and yet that's God's purpose.

Here are five ways I think the genealogy sets the stage for God's purposes in history.

The genealogy exists to get us to Abram. It's moving us from the flood to God's call of Abram, one of the sons of Eber, and the beginning of the Hebrew nation. The rest of the book of Genesis from chapters 12 to 50 is talking about Abram and the first few generations of his descendants.

I mentioned this at the very beginning when we started introducing Genesis. The first 11 chapters of Genesis refer to perhaps a couple thousand years and the last 39 chapters cover only a couple hundred. Cataclysmic, worldwide events happen in the beginning of the book and yet the majority of the book deals with one guy.

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 12:1-3)

God set up a bunch of other nations so that he could call out one man to do something special. If you don't like Abraham then Genesis is not a good book for you and really the rest of the Bible is no good. Abraham is the father of God's chosen people.

The Hebrews comes from Abram, Abram comes from Eber. One chosen man becomes a chosen nation in God's plan to do something special.

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves." (Deuteronomy 7:1)

If the land would have been empty it wouldn't have been as amazing that God removed hostile enemies to give them such great land. It's part of God's story to show off His care, His ability for His people.

"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations." (Deuteronomy 7:6-9)

His election would not have been as significant if there weren't different groups of people to choose from. God put nations in place so that His own people would know a special kind of care and power as He called them out. His people were also called to witness to those nations. That's why our Scripture reading this morning was 1 Chronicles 16:8-36. "He is to be exalted among the nations" even though Israel is his special people. It was through Abram that all the nations of the earth, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

When we read Psalm 46:10, "Be still, and know that I am God" we often think of that as personal Kumbaya time. Be still and know that I am God. It can tend to get really narrow focused on me. Yet note the very next phrase, not even a new sentence:

Be still, and know that I am God.

"I will be exalted among the nations." Part of the point is if He can control the nations, then we can trust Him in the nitty-gritty. The more we know about His control of the nations the more we can be still and know that He is God and exalt Him in the earth.

It's from Noah to Abram to Judah to Jesus with lots of people in between all of those different generations. Matthew 1:1 begins: "the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham". If Genesis 10 is getting us to Abraham, that also is necessary to get us to Jesus who is the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman who will crush the seed of the serpent. No genealogy in Genesis 10, no Jesus.

To the degree that there are more nations expanding out is the degree to which Jesus becomes more precious and special as the seed of the woman. It's also in Jesus that all of those nations can come back and have God as their God rather than just Israel. Galatians 3:26-29.

in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:26–29)

He built up the nations to break them down (unlike breaking them down to build them up, which is true, too.)

The church is that growing body of disciples who are identified not only by their earthly nation but by heavenly citizenship. That's why in Matthew 28:19 Jesus commissioned His disciples: "Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations." That task is overwhelming to us now because of Genesis 10, and then lots of years of people being fruitful and multiplying after that. God knew when He divided all the languages that that would make the Great Commission a little tougher. Yet "repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations" (Luke 24:47).

In Jesus we are one body, there is no longer spiritual distinction between Jew and Gentile. He is the propitiation not only for the Jews, but for the entire world (1 John 2:2).

As Abram receives promises and those promises are continuing to be fulfilled and will finally all be fulfilled in Israel, in Jesus, through the church, experiencing some of those leading to eternal praise where people from every tribe and tongue and nation forever worship the Lamb slain.

God is the God over all the nations. He's the one from whom they came, He just chose one of them (Israel) as a special people for Himself. And He will get praise for eternity because He reigns over all the nations. He is the ultimate King.

Many students don't say the Pledge of Allegiance anymore and, when they do, "one nation under God" may not mean much. But actually it's "all nations under God" whether they like it or recognize it or not. He's the King of kings and Lord of lords; He'll get eternal praise for being over all of them.

Heaven is the place where countless worshipers will share one song. Those singing that one song will have different skin colors. The diversity of tribes and tongues and nations in harmony will bring Him greater glory.

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God,

Genesis 10 frames our thinking about why nations exist, what their purpose is, and where they're headed. Nations are intended to get us to "behold our God sovereign and good, matchless in power, king over all the earth. Fear not my soul, trust in his plan, over all the world God reigns. Behold our God." Our God.

So the genealogy in Genesis 10 is very much like a hinge on which the rest of the redemption story swings. Genesis 10 is a watershed, from the flood to streams of civilization, from mbl (flood) to bbl (Babel).

Nations are from Him and through Him and to Him. The Table of Nations may not be for memorization, but it should at least be for appreciation and God's eternal glory in His Son.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

There are a lot of jobs a parent has that are hard. Anybody that's raised kids knows that's to be true. One of those hard jobs starts as soon as you find out you're going to have a baby. That's picking a name. Most of us can't even make up our minds at a Baskin & Robbins 31 flavor store, let alone trying to pick just one name out of the tens of thousands or more possibilities. I went out, I did my research on this topic, I went out to a baby name website and I found that there are, was over 20,000 plus choices you had for your baby's name. Expecting parents spend hours saying the potential name out loud over and over to hear how it sounds. They just kinda keep rattle the name out loud. How does it sound when it's combined with our surname?

How does it sound or does it rhyme with anything bad? You wanna watch out for that. Does it remind them of someone that they don't like? oh, I love that name, oh wait, that person in first grade, I really didn't like them, so I can't name them that. It's amazing that they ever come up with a name given all that goes into the decision. In addition to how the name sounds, they labor over what the name means. We go through all the little baby name dictionaries, you know, what do those names mean? The meaning of the name seems to be especially important to Christians. They often turn to the Bible for inspiration when looking for names.

And there are a lot of wonderful names in the Bible to choose from with very rich meaning. But there's also some pretty bad ones that you might want to stay away from. One of the best names in the Bible not to name your child is Nabal. In case you don't know, Nabal means fool or foolish. He was the husband of Abigail and you can read about him in 1 Samuel 25. We're not going to go into that story. Who would name their child Fool?

Now I know what some of you parents are thinking right now, but be careful, Matthew 5.22 warns against calling a brother, let alone a child, a fool. I was curious as to how many people might actually be named Navel today in the world. So I went to that one place that I could think of where I could search for a lot of names and that was Facebook. Facebook has over one billion active users. So I went in there and I started searching for Navel, and lo and behold, I found one Navel. But that Navel was a Muslim girl whose parents probably had no idea who Navel is and what the name meant.

It would seem that foolishness is on the rise today as our culture increasingly rejects the common sense wisdom that God has given to all men. It is tempting to agree with Mark Twain when he said, The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right. Think about that. Fools may not be lightning rods in the physical sense, but we're going to see from Proverbs that they are very much our lightning rods in a spiritual sense. And the consequences of their foolishness have a real world implication for them. And so we're going to be in Proverbs chapter 1, verses 20 through 33 tonight as we take a look at that.

The sermon is titled The Folly of the Fool because we're gonna see a pattern here where wisdom is calling out and making herself available. But the fool rejects it and we see some consequences. Proverbs one in general has a lot to say about the fool but specifically in verses 20 through 33, wisdom makes an offer and gives a stern warning to those who don't accept the offer. To the one who follows wisdom's instruction, there is the promise that they will live securely. To the one who rejects wisdom's call, there is the opposite promise of a life filled with pain and hardship. This passage describes the progression from simply being naive to becoming an outright fool and shows how ignoring the wisdom God provides leads to destruction.

All of us start out life as foolish individuals. Proverbs 22.15 says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. So guess what, we all get to start life there. When we're cooing over that newborn baby, we don't usually think to ourselves, ah, what a cute little fool, or foolish, I should say. But that's exactly how the Bible describes us at birth. Being born foolish is not our fault. It's a result of the fall. But remaining foolish and becoming a certified fool as we grow up is our fault. The problem is not a lack of opportunity to become wise. The problem arises when we harden our heart to wisdom's call and think that we know better.

And I'd like to, just for a moment, all of us can learn from this today because nobody is exempt no matter how old you are. But particularly for young people, I want you to really pay attention because that is a season of life when you really are gonna have some decisions to make, and you're going to be confronted with lots of choices. Some of them foolish and some of them wise. And it's for whatever reason, it's an age in life when we tend to think we know more than we know, and we sometimes block up our ears and don't want to listen to wisdom. So you guys take particular heed because you are still in the season of life where you can make the right choices and avoid yourself a lot of pain.

Some of us with gray hair, no hair, know lots of people that made very bad choices as young people and today still live with those consequences. So we would really like to be able to spare you that if at all possible. It's really tragic and maddening watching someone who insists on rejecting wisdom rail against the inevitable consequences their foolishness yields. It's like hearing a man curse the hammer he is hitting his own skull with. Just sitting there bashing himself and cursing the hammer as he hits himself in the head. It's that crazy. Let's take a look at Wisdom's call. It starts off in verses 20 through 23.

Wisdom shouts in the streets. She lifts her voice in the square. At the head of the noisy streets, she cries out. At the entrance of the gates in the city, she utters her sayings. How long, oh naive ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, and fools hate knowledge. Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you. So as we break that section down, we first see the cry, verses 20 through 21. The foolish person might have been excused had he never had the opportunity to learn wisdom. If you could say, I never knew better, well then maybe you have an excuse, but we don't.

Wisdom has made herself available. She's available in various forms in God's providence. The reality is that wisdom has been revealed and can be found by those who really wish to find it. Creation itself reveals the wisdom of God. Proverbs 6, 6 tells us that we can learn from the ants the values of hard work and preparing for the future. Job tells us we can learn by watching the animal kingdom. He says, ask the beasts and they will teach you and the birds of the heaven and they will tell you. Psalm 19, 1 says, the heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanses declaring work of hands. We read those verses and we somehow think they're just a nice poetry.

No there is a truth there that even nature itself can teach us something about the wisdom of God if we will take the time to observe and open our eyes and study. I'm afraid that we've become so dull, so fixated on our little electronic devices that we miss out on the message that God is broadcasting through His creation. Romans 1.20 says God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." You're not going to be able to stand before God and say, I didn't know any better. He's going to say, I broadcasted throughout all my creation. You have no excuse. In addition to natural revelation, we have direct revelation in the Bible. What more do we want from God? He is not stingy when when it comes to telling us how to be wise.

The Apostle James wrote, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, and he who gives generously to him without reproach, and it will be given to him. No one who is looking for wisdom will come up empty handed, that's the point. It is readily available to the person who wants it. Wisdom itself speaks elsewhere in Proverbs, Proverbs 8, 17, and says, I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently, find me. Do you want wisdom? Ask for it, but don't reject it if it isn't giving you the answers that you want to hear. So continuing on, verse 22, we see the rebuke. After declaring her availability, wisdom rebukes those who turn a deaf ear to her call.

She identifies three stages of foolishness there. She talks about the naive, the scoffer, and then the full-on fool. There's a clear progression that leads a person from being simply naive to becoming a hardened fool. Again, everyone starts our life in the naive classification, as I mentioned earlier. The progression to fool, a full-on fool, happens when we reject wisdom's instructions to us. So the naive person is simply untaught in the ways of wisdom. Again, you can think of a very young child who just doesn't know any better, doesn't know, not supposed to put your hand up there on the hot stove. They're just naive.

are unlearned. He is not stupid, but rather ignorant of the ways of wisdom. He is not like the fool who understands wisdom's call but rejects it. His exposure to life and wisdom has been limited. All young children fall in this classification, but it's not just limited to children. It's a part of a parent's job to train Niebode out of their children. When you encounter a fool in their adulthood, it is because they either were never trained in the ways of wisdom, or they were, but they rejected that training. Sadly there are a lot of secular approaches to parenting that help increase the odds of raising a fool today.

I'm not going to go into my parenting seminar now, but it drives me nuts when I read some of the stuff out there, and I think, wow, guaranteed formula for making a fool. As Christians, personal time, reading and obeying the Bible is a primary way that we we grow out of naivety and increase in wisdom. And so again, as parents training younger ones, you do want to instill in them a healthy habit of personal devotions, reading the word, memorizing it. Because again, that's the primary avenue we have for learning wisdom. Well, moving on from the naive person, we then move to the next level of a fool, which is the scoffer.

The scoffer is the one who has heard wisdom, but disregards it and even derides it. They are becoming smug as their self-confidence grows. They haven't given up all of the concerns what other people think, so they often do their mocking and sniping from darkened corners rather than in broad daylight. The scoffer shows up in various ways. The smirking student in the back of the classroom who won't participate. The person who mutters under their breath, just enough so you can sort of hear their displeasure, but you can't really make out what they say. They're muttering against some authority. They're too afraid to say out loud what they are thinking.

The person who hides behind their anonymity as they post online comments railing against this or that, you'll often see that. Today, we've made a forum for lots of fools, and anonymous is always saying something silly and foolish out there. They scorn the ways of wisdom and those who abide by wisdom's teachings. They mock a wise instruction and they view those who do follow counsel or instruction as weak or gullible. It's part of being the scoffer is when you do see somebody who is following advice, following counsel, being obedient to the authorities, the scoffer will mock them and make fun of them, and oh goody two shoes, or look at you, you loser.

They will just pick apart because again, they don't like the fact that their foolishness is being exposed. The scoffer seeks out others to affirm him in his foolishness. Together they view those who are calling them to wisdom with suspicion and or derision. Scoffers like company, they just gather other fools in the making around them to reinforce their view, their position, and they stand alone against all the rest of the world. Everybody else is crazy, us five, we know what we're doing, we know what we're talking about. Their foolishness is beginning to cloud their judgment to the point that they think they are the smart ones and everyone else are pawns under the oppressive hand of some authority.

Any teachers in here? You've never seen this exhibited ever before, right? Appeals to them are met with more soleness or surliness. They are caught in the snare of their own folly and don't realize that they are well on the road to destruction. And that brings us to the third stage, the fool. The fool is an advanced scoffer. They are in stage four of scoffer cancer and without repentance they are in serious jeopardy. Symptoms of the stage are outright arrogance and near total rejection of any input from others that runs counter to their own thinking. They are much more vocal and open about their opposition. The scoffer tends to want to still hide in the corners, hide in the shadows, kind of snipe at you when you're not looking.

The fool, a fool on fool, doesn't care anymore. He's out there in the street corners broadcasting his foolishness. They don't perceive that they are opposed to wisdom. They don't realize it. They think they're the smart ones. They think they're the ones that have the wisdom, when in fact everybody else is looking at them and embarrassed for them because of their foolishness. They think they're wise. In their blindness, they think they're wise and everyone else is the fool. They no longer care what others think and are out in the open and very public in expressing that foolishness. Examples of these kinds of fools are everywhere.

Some of the most popular personalities in the entertainment industry with last names ending in IAN or RUS put on profoundly ugly displays, you can think about that later, who those would be, you know, just think Ian or Russ on the end of the name, displays of foolishness and millions of adoring fools applaud them. How tragic it is that our media is saturated with people who are just flat out fools and we've got the cheering masses. Yay! Let me pay you $150 to go here. You'd be more of a fool. It's like ludicrous and we reward our fools today in our society. NARAL. Does that stand for what National Association, NARAL, looked at?

You guys know who NARAL is, but they're pro-abortion. They tweeted their foolishness this past week by accusing the maker of Doritos of humanizing fetuses in their Super Bowl commercial. I don't know if you saw that commercial or not, but it's a situation. They're in a hospital room, husband and wife. The mom's pregnant. They're doing the ultrasound. They can see the baby on the screen and the baby. And the dad realizes all of a sudden that if he waves the Dorito like that, the baby's going back and forth, trek in the Dorito. Then all of a sudden, the wife finally gets mad, and she rips the Dorito out of his head, and she throws it across the room, which causes the baby to basically be instantaneously born, chasing after the Dorito.

But Nairow, they didn't see the humor in the commercial. They were outraged, and they accused Dorito of, get this, humanizing fetuses. How dare they imply that that's actually a human being in the womb? Now we look at that and we know, what a foolish, ignorant, stupid statement to make, and yet they are so blinded in their foolishness, they're willing to tweet it to the universe of how outraged they are that somebody would actually call a baby, a baby. Amazing. When pressed, the fool rages against wisdom and uses mockery as a defense mechanism. At some point, the fool has rejected wisdom for so long he has become dull and unable to even perceive wisdom.

Proverbs 17, 10 says, a rebuke goes deeper into one who is understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. Think about that. A simple rebuke has more impact on a wise man than a hundred physical blows on a fool. Can you imagine that beating that fool 100 times and he still doesn't get the point? I guess that means that you can't really beat some sense into some people. If a fool hasn't already been given a reprobate mind by God, they are certainly getting very close to it. A reprobate mind is where a person no longer has the ability to judge right from wrong. God has seared their conscience and leaves them totally vulnerable to sin's destructive powers.

Well then moving on to verse 23, we see an offer. Wisdom makes an offer. Thankfully, because of God's grace, even a certified fool is not beyond reach. Verse 23 tells us that a fool, if he will repent and humble himself, can become wise. Turn to my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you. This verse reveals God's tender mercies and the fact that it's never too late to turn from our foolish ways. Dave was referring to Nebuchadnezzar this morning And again, I'll refer you back to that passage. He's an example of this. The book of Daniel records the story of how Nebuchadnezzar became such a fool that God caused him to go mad for seven periods of time, where he lived like an animal in the wilderness.

I mean, literally he's living out in the fields like an animal, eating the grass, and nails are growing long, hair's getting unruly. Basically he's a beast at that point. He's lost all human reasoning, ability. And then in Daniel 4.34, we see recorded what happens when finally he came to his senses. He says, the moment when his sanity was restored to him, he says, at the end of the days, the days of judgment, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever for his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing and he does according to his will among the host of heavens and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? Sounds like a man who's been humbled. But it started with him finally turning his eyes back to heaven and recognizing who God is and who he is. He had to humble himself. Verse 23 provides comfort to those who have a loved one who currently is walking the fool's path. The fool may have long stopped listening to what we say, but they can't escape the hound of heaven that Francis Thompson wrote about in his famous poem.

With God, there is always hope, and that should fuel our unending prayers for the repentance of our loved ones bound in their foolishness. And I know there are people even in this room today who still hearts ache, because they see loved ones who are trapped in their foolishness and refuse to see it, refuse to repent of it. And so I take courage from these passages I just read that don't give up praying, don't give up hope. It's not too late, so continue to believe and trust and pray and see what God might do.

So what happens if a person persists in foolishness and becomes hardened? It's not good. Most people in our culture and quite a few believers tend to emphasize the love of God and neglect to remember that he is also a God who executes judgment on the wicked and discipline on his children.

It is true that God is amazingly and undeservedly patient towards sinners, but he isn't blind or indifferent. He's just not the benevolent old guy in the sky who's just going to give us all the bit of want and wink at our foolishness. God will judge, he will deal with that. There is a point in which the quote unquote chickens come home to roost, so to speak, or to put it in more biblical terms, there's a time to reap what you've been sowing. Starting then in verse 24, we see just how callous a fool becomes even though wisdom is all but begging him to listen. Wisdom continues to make her plea to the fool, but there is a limit to wisdom's patience.

Verse 24, because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention and you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof. In these verses we see wisdom continue to graciously extend herself to man. It starts with a simple call and then an outstretched hand and then a word of counsel and finally a strong reproof. Throughout this whole process, the fool continually rejects the wisdom's call and develops a more and more calloused heart. We see four character traits of the fool revealed in these couple verses. How do you know you're dealing with a fool? Look for these four traits. Starting in verse 24a, the fool is stubborn.

Wisdom calls out, but the fool refuses to listen. Wisdom calls out in many ways through God's word, his providence, teachers, parents, other godly people. No matter how the call is made, The response is the same, stubborn resistance. Few things are as frustrating as when several counselors sit down with a fool and they're all in agreement in their counsel, but the fool still refuses to listen, believing he is right and everybody else is wrong. It's possible all the counselors are wrong, but that would be a pretty rare case. Proverbs tells us there's a safety and a multitude of counselors. Folks, if you find yourself odd man out in most of the debates, and it's not in defense of a biblical truth, it might be time to consider if you're walking in foolishness.

If you're sitting down with five or six brothers or sisters in Christ and they're all in agreement that something you're doing is not wise, and you're still fighting for your way, that's at least a warning sign, that's at least an idiot light on the dashboard. You might be right but you ought to really be taking a huge step back and considering if maybe not you haven't become blind in some area. Continuing on we see the fool is indifferent, another trait 24b. Wisdom is persistent, she not only calls out but she reaches out. It's as if wisdom is saying hey, over here, I'm trying to get your attention. Even still the fool, hears it all remains unmoved and indifferent to wisdom's overtures.

In the early stages of becoming a fool, they are willing to engage in a debate. I've talked to some people before who are starting down the trail, and they will have conversations early on. But then they aren't moved, but at least they'll talk. As they advance in their foolishness, they become indifferent to wisdom's call. Your voice becomes really faint and distant. Their response is a shrug of the shoulders and an attitude of whatever. If you do get them to sit down and listen, they just sit there like this and you just see it on their face like, you know, whatever, just yak while you want, I'm not going to change my mind.

Well, there's a third stage then we see, a third trait of the person who's becoming a fool and that is that they are negligent, 25A. The word used in the NAS for neglected here means to let alone or to avoid. To avoid something, you have to be aware of its presence. You can't avoid something that you didn't know was there. So the fool is aware of wisdom's offer. They're aware of what they're hearing is the truth, but they choose to neglect it, choose to deny it. The fool is not unaware of wisdom. He simply chooses just to go his own way. Typically, when a person turns from their foolishness, they say something like, I knew better, but I just didn't want to do it.

That's very common is when you find somebody sees the light and they say I knew what you were saying was right I just didn't want to do it. I didn't want to listen They don't they don't say I had no idea what I was doing was a bad idea How often have you seen a person knowing the wise thing to do deliberately turn his back and pursue the path of foolishness? This is the result of the blindness that foolishness creates and it's another trait of of a fool. They just, it's just, you just, you want to scream and reach out because you just see them go in the wrong direction and they, they won't listen. They, you know, they, they stop and turn for a moment and then they turn and they just keep walking in the wrong direction. Well the fourth trait I see here is that the fool is not teachable 25b. When all else fails, wisdom escalates your response to reproof, hoping that at last the wayward person will come to their senses But even though she now shouts at him, it's to no avail.

The fool is not teachable and continues hardening his heart until the cry from wisdom is just barely perceptible off in the distance. This is the stage where even 100 blows will not get through to the fool. It is at this point that the fool had better watch out. The seeds of foolishness have been sown and they're about to bear fruit. Let's take a look at that. I call this the resulting calamity. We just went through what I call the fool's callousness. This is the resulting calamity. 26 through 32. Wisdom speaking here. I will even laugh at your calamity. I mean, wisdom, you understand, this is God speaking, right?

I mean, think about what he's saying here. I will even laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your dread comes. When your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you, then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would not accept my counsel. They spurned all my reproof. So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satisfied, satiated with their own devices. For the waverness of the naive shall kill them and the complacency of fools shall destroy them."

When I first read that passage, it just kinda gripped me. It's like, wow. God says, fool, when you start to reap the fruit, and then you cry out, I will laugh at you. I will mock you, you mocked me, I'll mock you. That doesn't quite fit the picture of the benevolent grandfather in the sky He's just always there, and God's all love, right? This is a different picture of who God is. Trouble will come, 26 through 27. The fool may think for a season that he's getting away with rejecting wisdom's call. In reality, he is wandering ever so closer to the brink of his own destruction. Proverbs 6, 27 asks the rhetorical question, can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

What do you guys think? take a burning log and hold it to my chest and expect my clothes to not burn. Pretty obvious, huh? Some might be thinking, now, wait a minute. I know a lot of people the Bible calls fools, but they seem to be thriving. They're not experiencing any sort of trouble. Don't let the lull before the storm deceive you. It's kind of like the guy who jumps out of a skyscraper and halfway down, he says, well, so far, so good. Yeah, that's the kind of thinking the fool does. Psalm 37, seven through 11 reminds us, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.

Cease from anger and forsake wrath, do not fret. It only leads to evildoing. For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more, and you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. It will be bad enough when trouble comes to the fool, but on top of that, God says that he will laugh and mock the fool in their day of calamity. What a frightful thought. The only one who can deliver you is laughing in your face. This passage might make God look harsh, But in fact, it's just the opposite.

We've already seen how he pursues the fool with great long suffering until at some point, the fool is crossed to point where wisdom's invitation is withdrawn. When the storm of wisdom's judgment comes, two realities will hit the fool in the face with full force. So they've been, the wisdom's called out, they've been callous, the calamity has come, And they're going to have to basically face the situation. And there's two realities that are going to hit them full force in the face. Verses 28 through 30. First, we're going to see there's going to be no escape. The fool might be tempted to think he can ignore God's wisdom until trouble comes and then expect God to bail him out.

But he's sadly mistaken. When calamity strikes, it will be too late to cry out for help. The Epiconeser had to go through those seven periods of time eating grass and acting like a crazy man. The one who turned a deaf ear to wisdom will now themselves be on the receiving end of being ignored. The fool has no one to blame but themselves, and they too, and they will be all too aware of the fact they can cry and fume all they want, but it's not going to do any good. The fool hated knowledge and refused to fear the Lord. The fool thought he could manage his own life, and so God leaves him to his own devices to solve his problems.

Again, for a season, God will often abandon the fool in his situation, even when the fool is supposedly calling out to God. Now, typically, what you see is that a fool will initially have lots of regret, not repentance. They won't like the consequences of their decisions, but there's not true repentance, and so they will call out to God, but their heart isn't really where it needs to be. And the second reality, the second truth that's gonna slap them in the face when this calamity hits them, is that you reap what you sow, verses 31 and 32. In life, there is a season of sowing and then there is a season of reaping.

The fool sows folly and he reaps destruction. You can't expect to sow foolishness by rejecting wisdom and then reap God's blessing. It doesn't work that way. Galatians 6,7 puts it very succinctly, do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Many people today foolishly live their life, never giving God a second thought. Then when tragedy or trial arises, they think they can call on the man upstairs. You know, we see that over and over and over again. They treat God like a genie in a bottle. The bottle sits on the shelf collecting dust. When calamity strikes, they grab the bottle and start rubbing it furiously, expecting the genie to pop out and deliver them from the consequences of foolishness.

But it's not what's gonna happen. You're gonna just wear out the bottle, rubbing it, no genies popping out. The fool can call all he wants and even kid himself into believing that God is listening, but the reality is that he is totally on his own. The only thing God will listen to at this point is a sincere prayer of repentance. In essence, God has said, you reject me, I reject you. What utter despair the fool will feel when finally they realize just how foolish they've been and know that they have no one to blame but themselves. Again, just a tragic situation. The chickens have come home to roost, the consequences are weighing heavily on them and they realize, I was a fool.

All their arrogant boasts and slander against wisdom will come back to haunt them. In their hour of greatest need they will have no one but themselves to turn to. Can you imagine being in total desperation and the only one who can save you, mocks you and laughs at you. Typically when a fool is caught up in consequences of their foolishness, they call out for help. As I mentioned this a moment ago, often though this is only a case of regret and not true repentance, they aren't sorry for the foolish choices. They are just regretting the consequences and they want someone to bail them out. As agents of God's grace, we need wisdom ourselves to know when we're dealing with with a regretful fool or a repentant fool.

We don't want to be foolish ourselves by trying to fix the fix. In counseling, that is always something you have to discern. Is this person really repentant, or are they just regretful of their decisions? I foolishly spent my money on things that people warned me were a foolish expenditure, and now I don't have money for food, and they want you to come help fill their pantries. That's fixing the fix. No, you get to go hungry for a little while so that you can remember and learn from this lesson. I'm not talking about being incapacitate. It's actually very compassionate to require a fool to sit in the mess they've made until such time as they are repentant.

Once they're repentant, you bet, dive in and help. But watch out. We can be very easily manipulated, especially certain types of personalities can really respond to the hurting person, But if they're hurting is because of their foolishness and they're not repentant, you're not helping them by jumping and bailing them out. You don't have to be mean, but also be wise and don't fix the fix. We've already seen that with God, there is always the possibility of being renewed to a right mind, but that does not mean that a fool won't be forced to experience the fruit of their folly for an extended period of time, nor that there won't be long-lasting consequences of their foolishness, even if they do repent.

And again, young people, I want to stress, if your parents and your teachers are talking to you and saying you aren't making wise choices, pay attention. Because there are people today who've had to live with consequences for 40, 50, 60 years, the rest of their life, because of foolishness. Spare yourself the pain and the grief. Listen up. It's not just a path you want to go down. Well, verse 33 then gives us the correct response. What should the fool have been doing? But he who listens to me shall live securely and shall be at ease from the dread of evil. We have seen how wisdom cries out faithfully to the fool, longing for him to turn from his wicked ways.

We looked at the callousness of the fool and how he mocks wisdom and rejects God the counsel. And we have seen the calamity that ultimately strikes the fool in the midst of his arrogance. For those of us who would learn from this study on the folly of the fool, there's a conclusion, or a point, that verse 33 brings home to us. The lesson to be learned is this. Listen to wisdom. Listen. It's available. It's there. It's all around us. It's in the trees. It's in the sky. It's in the revelation. It's in God's word. It's in the mouths of your teachers and your parents. It's all around you. available. How simple and yet how contrary to our human tendency, man wants to be self-legislating.

We don't want to be dependent on anyone for anything. But if we will humble ourselves and truly listen to wisdom, which implies reading the Bible and obeying it, then instead of experiencing the calamity of the fool, we can enjoy the comfort of our God. Another Another point worth making is that it is only God's right and prerogative to mock and laugh at the fool's calamity, not ours. Nowhere in that passage did it say that we can mock the fool, that we can laugh at them. That is God's right, God's prerogative. It would be sin for us to respond this way to the consequences of another man's foolishness. The right response for us is to pray for the fool's repentance and to continue to to try and speak words of wisdom to them.

All of us are fallible humans prone to walk in foolishness to one degree or another. And guess what? We do. There's an old saying, once a fool, always a fool. Thank God that isn't necessarily true. If a fool will truly humble themselves and confess their sin of rebellion, God will once again make wisdom available to them and give them the grace to work through the consequences that their foolishness brought about. Like Nebuchadnezzar, the fool can lift his eyes up to heaven, which is a metaphor for being humble, and his reason will be returned to him. The choice before us is pretty simple. Walk in wisdom and live securely and free from the dread of evil, or walk in foolishness and wait for the calamity that's sure to come.

Let's pray. Well, Father, this is a very powerful passage that just kind of grabs us by the throat and punches us in the face a few times and insists that we pay attention. What more could you have done? You have made your wisdom abundantly available to us. It is there for the taking. And yet, all of us, to one degree or another, at different times, have certainly, at least started on the path of the foolish one. And sadly, some have gone down the trail a long way and are now experiencing the predicted and promised calamity. We do pray that you would give us here tonight ears to hear hearts that would seek after wisdom.

If any of us are already in the process of maybe we're still naive or we're in a scoffer phase, that we will wake up and consider what has been shared tonight and amend our ways. Father, protect us from the folly of the fool, and thank you that even for those that have become full on fools, that even for them if they will lift their eyes to heaven and repent, that you are so gracious that you will once again open up wisdom and make it available to even them. Father, how good you are, how gracious and long suffering and patient, even when you are disciplining us in ways like these. Again, there's still always a way back home. Thank you for that. May you bless us as we go out this week and may we walk the path of wisdom in our decisions that we make. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

double chocolate chip cake. Isn't it funny how four little words grab us by the salivary glance and get our attention? Unless you're in that rare cap of those who don't like chocolate, I just evoked very pleasant thoughts in your mind. We really want our cake and eat it too. We don't stop and consider the ingredients, labor or baking techniques that went into getting all that goodness into our mouths. We just know we like cake, and yes, I'll have a second piece, please. What if, instead of eating cake the way we normally do, we saved on the labor and baking time and just ate what goes into a cake, one ingredient at a time?

First we'll smack our lips on several cups of flour. We'll follow that with a couple of cups of granulated sugar. And then we'll chase it down with a couple of raw eggs. Imagine eating your cake that way until all the ingredients are gone. Eating cake doesn't sound quite as appetizing now. My cake eating illustration shows how we often look at the sovereign events that touch our lives. Some ingredients in life taste good going down like chocolate chips. Other events go down like un-sifted flour. When it comes to understanding the sovereignty of God, it is helped to remind ourselves that God is baking a cake, as it were, and the ingredients He pulls from our life's shelves shouldn't be critiqued apart from the cake He's baking.

Some ingredients will be sweet, some will be bitter, some will be almost impossible tolerate. But they all must be present if the cake is going to be as awesome as the chef intends it to be. The next time you are tempted to question the sovereignty of God because you can't see the point of some circumstance he's allowed in your life, remind yourself that he is the master chef and knows exactly what ingredients are called for in the recipe. If we are patient and and wait on him, we won't be disappointed with the results. And so we wait, enduring with patience the sifting and stirring and beating and baking, never losing hope, but eagerly anticipating, because our help is in the name of the Lord.

We may be having a murder.

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings to open doors before him that gates may not be closed." And this is what God says to Cyrus, I will go before you and level the exalted places. I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes and secret places that you may know that it is I the Lord the God of Israel who call you by your name for the sake of my servant Jacob in Israel my chosen I call you by your name I name you though you do not know me I am the Lord and there is no other beside me there is no God I equip you though you do not know me that people may know from the rising of the Sun and from the West that there is none beside me I am the Lord and there is no other I form light and create darkness I make well-being and and create calamity, I am the Lord who does all these things. And Father, we do humbly bow this morning and offer up our praise because there is no other God to

whom we can bow. You are the one who moves pagan kings like Cyrus to accomplish your purposes under the heavens. You are the one who builds up and destroys and none can stop it or righteously question it. We know all that happens is not chance. It is not randomness. It is not impersonal fate. The universe is imposed on us. From the micro to the macro, each and every detail of our life is an ingredient carefully chosen by you and mixed into the bowl of history in just the right amount and just the right time in order to that final product will be most glorious. As we take this time this morning to consider once again the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, may you help us to come to terms with this doctrine and to let our understanding of it decrease our skepticism and increase our faith and worship. Amen. Last week I mentioned a particular laziness that characterizes Calvinists as we tend to justify our inactivity or laziness under the umbrella using the excuse of God's sovereignty. And Dave actually asked me to continue something in that vein

this morning to try to tie together our liturgy. An automaton, perhaps you've used the word yourself or heard it used, is defined as a mechanical figure or a contrivance constructed to act as if by its own motive or power, a robot. Well that term is thrown around sometimes in Christian circles and theological contexts because some suggest that if God is in control of everything, if he ordains, as the Westminster Confession suggests, whatever comes to pass, well that means we're just a bunch of automatons, thinking we're making decisions but actually just executing what God has programmed us to do. And we won't even stop there. We'll go further than that. We'll suppose that if God's in control then it doesn't matter what we do since it's evidently his will.

Well scripture teaches something decidedly different. When asked about this very thing related to man's responsibility and God's sovereignty, Charles Spurgeon was once asked, how do you reconcile those two things? And he said, I don't. And when asked why, he said, I don't try to reconcile friends. Our responsibility, our willful decision-making, our voluntary actions do not remove God from his throne. Judas voluntarily committed the most heinous act of betrayal in human history, eventually bringing about the sacrifice of Christ and the redemption of men. Joseph's brothers intended evil for him when they sold him into slavery and they saved millions of Egyptian lives in the process as well as, oh yeah, the nation of Israel. And the same is true when it comes to good deeds. Paul tells us that God in fact created good works beforehand that we should walk in them. But we still have to put one foot in front of the other. God gives us his spirit. He gives us new hearts. He gives us a love for him that we engage. We engage those hearts in our

worship. He gives us new life. He gives us saving faith. Our salvation is monergistic. There is one agent working. It is not cooperative. We cannot cooperate while we are dead. He changes our desires and then we act according to our desires. We are, it is true, volitional creatures. We have wills that we act according to. Of course, that does not mean then that our wills are completely free. We are not free to live righteously unless God gives us a love for Him. And neither are natural men, those apart from Christ whom God has not yet called, absolved from guilt when they willfully hate God. So in all of this we see a paradox. We see that God ordains the decisions of our wills and we do what What we do because we want to do it.

Scripture makes no apology for this tension as if the human intellect and human reason were determiners of truth. And you might wonder why I would harp on this this morning. It's important for us to get this right. Otherwise we can find ourselves worshipping a God of our own contrivance. We can worship a God of our own imaginings. We can worship a God then that we can understand more easily than the complex God of Scripture. And also, we can find ourselves justifying our sin rather than excusing it when God does not excuse it. Wrong views of God and wrong views of ourselves require our confession and repentance.

So if your wrong views of God, if your wrong views of yourself are the sorts of things that you need to confess and repent of this morning, this is your opportunity to do that. If it brings to mind other things that require your confession and repentance, this is also a great time to do just that before we proceed in our worship. So if you'd like to and you're able, you're welcome at this time to kneel in humble confession. I will close us in just a moment or two. Father, we have made our human reasoning the standard by which we judge you. And that is wrong on a whole host of levels. We have not started with what you have revealed about yourself to us, but we have started with what we like, and it has diluted our worship. It has enhanced our sin.

Forgive us of this presumption. We start with the assumption that you have to accept some people into heaven, and then we operate under the assumption that we're better than the next guy. But what you have said is that you are holy, holy, holy, and we are not, and we need quite literally the righteousness of somebody else because ours is not good enough. And of course, you have provided this in the substitute Jesus Christ. You have been gracious to us, practicing patience in regard to our sin, and in typical fashion we have trampled upon that grace. We expect you to grant us mercy, and so we sin willfully. Please forgive us of this presumption.

Allow us to see each sin as exactly what it is. That is an infinite and cosmic offense to you, sufficient to damn us forever and great enough to drive Christ to the cross. We have excused our sin by citing your sovereign control. We have said along with Paul's interlocutors, who can resist his will? We have earned then a righteous rebuke, and may your spirit rebuke us today. We thank you that by the sacrifice of Christ we stand before you as both justified and positionally sanctified. You delight now in your people and may that drive our glad worship. We pray this all in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. You understand what's again? A reminder of forgiveness this morning comes from Luke chapter 15 verses 8 through 10. This is a passage about confession unto salvation. Confession and repentance unto salvation, but it does serve as a helpful reminder, I think, that when we confess and repent, heaven pays attention.

This is also true of Christians who do the same thing, not just unbelievers repenting to be saved. The passage says, or what woman having ten silver coins if she loses one coin does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I lost, that I had lost. Just so, I tell you that there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. God hears our prayers. The one who made and sustains even his enemies. The one who holds together the universe, bends his ear when his people confess their sins and repent. And he also pays attention when we worship. And And he energizes that as well, so let's continue our praises even now.

Our scripts we're reading this morning is from 1 Samuel 14, verses 14 through 23. And if you're going to follow along in your Bibles as you're turning there, I hope you'll notice that that song is distinctively Trinitarian. I may have mentioned it before, but I say this so that you'll never sing verses 1 and 4 by themselves ever again. need to sing all four verses, come thou Almighty King, that's the first person of the Trinity, come thou incarnate Word, that's the second person of the Trinity, come Holy Comforter, that's the third person of the Trinity, and then to be great one and three, that's the Trinity distinctively all together. So kind of like Luther's, Almighty Fortunes are God, they all play after one after another, seeing it, seeing the whole thing. Always, always, always. That was free information.

I'm going to be reading from the New American Standard Version this morning for reasons that David might make clear later on. But the NASV, rather than the ESV, 1 Samuel chapter 16 verses 14 through 23. Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil Spirit of the Lord from the Lord terrorized Saul's servants then said to him, Behold now an evil spirit from God is terrorizing you. Let our Lord now command your servants who are before you. Let them seek a man who is a skillful player on the harp, and it shall come about when the evil spirit from God is on you, that he shall play the harp with his hand, and you will be well.

So Saul said to his servants, Provide for me now a man who can play well and bring him to me. Then one of the young men said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethamite, who is a skillful musician, a mighty man of valor, a warrior, one prudent in speech, and a handsome man, and the Lord is with him. So Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me your son David, who is with the flock. Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread and a jug of wine and a young goat and sent them to Saul by David his son. Then David came to Saul and attended him, and Saul loved him greatly and he became his armor-bearer. Saul sent to Jesse saying, Let David now stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.

So it came about whenever the evil spirit from the God came to Saul, David would take the harp and play it with his hand and Saul would be refreshed and be well and the evil spirit would depart from him. Let's pray together. Father, we give you praise this morning as the God who saves, as the God who is both sovereign and good. You are the author of creation. You ordain all that happens, and you are no more tainted by the evil that you ordain than the author of a story is shaped by the decisions of his characters. You love us, and you love to bless your people, and you are at work among us. This is both staggering, and it is a joy.

Please grant your people blessing today as we submit ourselves to your word. Grant us understanding in it as well, as some of the things that we'll undertake to learn even today are certainly beyond us. We pray to you today as the only God who can do anything about our prayers. The gods of men are not omnipotent. They are not omnipresent either. They cannot be everywhere. And they love chiefly themselves, if not only themselves. Without the work of Jesus, we'd have no way to pray to you at all, but because of his work and leaning entirely on that, we come before you now, making our requests. We want to pray for the continued recovery of Ralph Durden from his recent cataract surgery. What a joy to see him here this morning without any glasses at all.

For his wife Mary Kay, as she continues to minister to him and also continues her own long road to recovery from her foot surgery some months ago. For Carol Slice, as she continues to recover from her knee surgery in great fashion. As she had last fall, her physical therapy continues now. Please be with her in a special way. For Doug Ewan from his successful cancer surgery in December and normal hearting as she continues treatment for her back pain, looking to avoid surgery.

All these folks have really enjoyed good progress, and we thank you for that. We thank you for the blessings of modern medicine. And in most of these cases, the problems were the sort of thing that affected people would just have to live with or die with some time ago, but now continue to grant them good health and bring each to a speedy and a full recovery. We thank you for Sean's progress this week. We ask that you would relieve his migraine and please bring clarity for the doctors as they're trying to figure out what exactly caused his hospitalization a week and a half ago. So they continue to find out precisely what went wrong, what caused it. We ask that you would grant wisdom and that you prevent any recurrences. Please bring him to a 100% healthy state very, very soon.

We want to pray for Janice's friend, Marilyn, who visited us from New Mexico a few weeks ago as she had a stroke last night. And as it appears to have been a mild one, none of them are good. We thank you that it could have been worse, but was, well, they were able to catch it quickly, and I thank you that she is able to speak fairly clearly now and grant her speedy healing, and we ask for no recurrences in that situation as well. We ask that you continue to grant comfort to Christina Barnes' grandmother who is on hospice care. We thank you for saving her, that she has led a long and fruitful life, and she has a spiritual heritage that she is leaving behind. We pray that these final days for her would be sweet ones.

We continue to pray for the comfort of Chuck Weinberg's dad as he is fighting a bacterial infection as well as some compressed vertebrae. We don't know if he is in his final days right now himself or if you will again heal him and give him many more years to minister to others as you have done before and he has faithfully served for decades. But you know we acknowledge And we are glad that you who are sovereign and good are not caught by surprise when you ordain these things. Please work your will in that situation. And also in the Weinberg and Lug clan, we thank you for the safe arrival of little Ava Joy Laughter Lug this week.

Thank you that it was so uneventful for Kimmy that she is looking bright eyed and bushy tailed even here this morning. It's crazy. Thank you that all are home from the hospital and of course are even with us today. doing well. Thank you for that. Please give grace to Ian and Kim as they venture to raise Eva Joy in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, surround them with wise and godly help along the way. We ask that you would work out the details for Chris and Izumi Martin to be able to adopt little Kate and a little boy for whom they've been able to serve as foster parents now on several occasions. And we thank you for the developments in that situation this week.

and now we ask you to work out the rest of the pieces so that he can become a Martin in a more official way adoptively. We know that that is of course something that is near and dear to your heart as you have adopted us. You've begotten one Son and you have adopted many and we are co-inheritors with Christ and we have a lot to be thankful for this morning. We have a lot to sing about. Increase our appetite for your word. Help us to know you rightly. Enable us to give expression to all of it in our worship even now. We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen. Let's pray for the word. Father, help us to understand you in a deeper way so that we can worship you more fully than we ever have before. Help us peel away another layer of the onion to understand your mysterious ways and yet your glorious ways for those of us who are yours. So we thank you for this and I would ask that you guide my words and guides people's thought through the great teacher your spirit as we look at these passages. Amen. God is totally sovereign and we are totally responsible. God is continually involved in all created things by, number one, preservation, which means keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them. Number two, with concurrence, which means he cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties and causing them to act as they do. Number three, with government, he directs them to fulfill his purposes. In the following statements, the verses that we're going to be reading, if the following statements are true, then to be outside of God's providential control

would simply be not to exist. You wouldn't exist if God wasn't in control. In absolute freedom," end quotes, totally free of God's control is simply not possible in the world providentially created, sustained, and directed by God Himself. It's impossible to be absolutely free. It seems appropriate to conclude from the following statements, the verses we're going to look at, that everything that God does He has planned before the creation of the world. In fact, these things have been an eternal plan with him. The benefit of an emphasis on God's providence is that he helps us to realize that God does not make plans suddenly as he goes along. That's the present heresy out there of process theology. Oh, what do I do now? This has happened and God is up in heaven. What am I going to do? I've I've got to rearrange something else.

Literally, there are theologians that teach that. That's straight from the pit of hell, as people like to quote me. So that's a heresy, process theology. He knows the end from the beginning. He will accomplish all his good purposes. For those of us who believe this should greatly increase our trust in him, especially in the difficult circumstances. Again, causing us to worship on a deeper level. And that's what, since we've started this church, the main focus is we are here to worship God.

I'm gonna be reading a whole bunch of verses today. I think it's probably best you don't try to keep up with the page turning because they jump around a lot. just kind of sit there and absorb the phrases and all the things of God's in control of this, he's in control of that, he's in good, you know. Okay, I get it. It's gonna get that way. And I have 5,800 words here. I'm not going to read all of those. The sermon is supposed to be 2,500 words in that area to get done. I talk a little faster than the 2,500 mark. And so what I've done is I'm pairing some of the verses down. In some way, I'm gonna put them up on the church website so that you can get the references of the ones that I'm not gonna read.

But I'll read like a subject matter and then I'll give you maybe six other verses that are the same thing said in different ways. It is phenomenal how many verses that speak to the issue of God's sovereignty, okay? And it just keeps on going. But before we start, let's keep these things in mind in our heads as we look at these things. Matthew 10, 28 says, And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Who would that be? That would be God. Proverbs 9, 10 through 11, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Psalm 11110 says the same thing, Proverbs 1.7 says that, Proverbs 4.7 says that. And then we have 1 John 1.5. This is the message we have heard from him and to proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. And then we'll end this first section with a glorious promise for those of us who are believers. Romans 8, 28 through 31. And those we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

order that he might be the firstborn a man many brothers and those whom he predestined he also called and those whom he called he also justified and those whom he justified he also glorified what shall that what then shall we say to these things if God is for us who can be against us a glorious promise for us and that goes on into eternity. Okay under the first kind of heading of the verses and grouping and the problem is these categories drift over into each other so sometimes you'll hear some of the same sites because it's proving some of the same points but preservation will be like a subject that we're going to talk about now. Remember that preservation keeps them existing and maintaining the properties in which he created them so the things he created have these properties and he alone causes them to stay that way. Hebrews 1, 1 through 3, long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom

he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. If he's upholding the universe, I guess we really don't like to talk about much else, right? But God thinks, well maybe these guys aren't going to get it, so I'll give him more hints on what I'm doing here. Colossians 1 15 through 17 he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together they would all blow apart if he didn't hold them together. 2 Peter 3 7 by the same word the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire and being kept until the day of judgment

and destruction of the ungodly. So God is holding them until he releases them to remake them into the new heavens and the new earth. So that's the promise there. It's not going to be by water next time, right? By fire. Psalm 104.29, When you hide your face, they are dismayed. When you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. He controls our every breath. Acts 17.26 through 28, speak of this. Nehemiah 9.6 speaks of it. Job 34.14 through 15 speaks of the same subject. The next one is concurrence. Concurrence is the cooperates with created things in every action directing their distinctive properties and causing them to act as they do.

So everything he creates, he's moving them around, he's moving the pieces of the puzzle around. Ephesians 1.11, in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Job 38, 32, can you lead forth the Maseroth in their season, or can you guide the bear with his children? What does that have to do with Providence? Well, Maseroth is a Hebrew term for galaxies or constellations. He leads the constellations in their season. Or can you guide the bear? The bear is the big dipper. So those stars, can you guide them with its children?

All the stars of the heaven are being guided around by God. Proverbs 16, 33, the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Every time you throw the dice, what comes up is God ordained. Flip a coin, God ordained. God ordained Hillary's coin to do six times tails, or whatever she called. Acts 17, 24 through 26, "'The God who made the world,'" and remember this is Paul speaking in Athens, "'The God who made the world and everything in it, "'being Lord of heaven and earth, "'does not live in temples made by man, "'nor as he served by human hands, "'as though he needed anything, "'since he himself gives all mankind "'life and breath and everything.

"'And he made from one man every nation of mankind "'to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. Every nation, every man, how it's going to work out around the world since it began. Psalm 139 16. Your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were written every one of them. The days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. Before we were ever born, he knows all the parts and how it works for us. Galatians 1.15, But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, Paul speaking about him repeating that same truth.

Jeremiah 1.5, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations, speaking about Jeremiah, before he was even in the womb. That's early. Jeremiah 10.23, I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that is not in a man who directs, sorry. I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. In other words, God is making you move around. Proverbs 20, 24, a man's steps are from the Lord. How then can man understand his way? By knowing the Lord, right?

Proverbs 16, nine, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Proverbs 16, one, the heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Did I, I think I just read that one. Proverbs 16, 1, the plans of the hearts belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Luke 1, 52, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate, Mary praying in the Magnificat. Proverbs 21, 1, the king's heart is a stream of water, and in the hand of the Lord, he turns it wherever he will. Psalm 33, 14 through 15, from where he sits in thrones, He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth.

He who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. Job 37, six through 13 speaks to the same issue about weather and the breath of God and all kinds of things like that. Psalm 104, 14 through 15, causing the grass to grow. Matthew 5, 44 through 45, love your enemies and the people who persecute you. Matthew 10 29 are not two sparrows, little hopping. He ordains that. Acts 14 16 in past generations, he's done all these things. Daniel 4 34 through 35, Nebuchadnezzar's words, we're gonna read those later, but it's the same subject matter under this category. Job 14 five speaks to the same issue. Acts 17 28, Psalm 75 six through seven, Psalm 127.3, 1 Corinthians 4.7, Psalm 18.34, Ezra 6.22, Ezra 1.1, Philippians 2.13.

That's incredible. All of those things are speaking to his concurrence and operating everything for his will. Now, why am I just reading these verses? Each Each one of these, you could make a sermon out of them, talking about the effects of this phrase, that word, and all of that. The idea is this subject is so mind-bending, you know, like Jonathan was describing in his, you know, introductions and stuff, that you can't get your head around it, really. And that's because we're finite creatures trying to understand the infinite, God. But if God isn't infinite, Would he be worthy of worship? Well, of course not. That's why he's God.

And we don't get to be God, but he bends down and gives us this information from his word about himself. And it's up to us to read it and comprehend it the best we can by not getting bent out of shape and ascribing things to him that aren't said there and all of that. But then, of course, comes the problem of evil. How does that work out? Where's that coming from? His Wayne Grudem references in his systematic theology Calvin quoting Augustine. So this is John Calvin quoting St. Augustine. There is a great difference between what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for God. For though the bad wills of evil meant, or for through the bad wills of evil men, God fulfills what he righteously wills.

For through the bad wills of evil men, God fulfills what he righteously wills. The reading we had, and it's on your kids' corner, Isaiah 45 seven, the last verse in that section. I form light and create darkness. I make wellbeing and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. On my notes here, calamity is in red. We're gonna talk about that in just a minute. Lamentations 338. It is not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come.

The words here translated calamity and bad is raw. It is the basic Hebrew word for evil.

It's used 600 or 262 times in the exact form that it's used in Genesis that I'm gonna reference coming up and it's used 520 times from the root in the Old Testament. When it's used exactly in that form, evil should be used every time for it. When it's used in the root form, about 85% of the time it should be translated evil. Now, why don't they translate it that way? If you have an ASV from 1901, the American Standard Version, which was the next step to give us a literal translation since the King James, there's no problem. You will get evil when it's there. But then as the translations move into more modern things, they keep changing it up. And you're going to see some fascinating things. I mean, Jonathan stole a little bit of My Thunder by reading the part in Samuel out of the Nasbee. And we're going to discuss that because it's even interesting what the the ESV has done with it since they editorially put it together in 2001 up until the 2012 version.

So anyway, I'm making the case now that in Isaiah 45.7 it should say, and create evil and lamentations, it is not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come. And I'm doing this because the same word is used in Genesis 2.9. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Same word, same form, same jots and tittles, exactly. Genesis 2, 17, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.

Same word, same pointing. Genesis 3, 5, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3, 22, then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever. Genesis 6.5, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intentions of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Same word, same vowel pointing exactly that are in these other two verses where they put calamity and bad. Genesis 50.20, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about, that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

Jonathan referenced that in his talk on the confession. Then other verses, Genesis 45 five, Psalm 105 17, the same way, just demonstrating evil. And then we get to Exodus, and this is another controlling and the power of God to control the people that are there. And this one is with the issue of Pharaoh's heart being hardened. You hear it all the time when you get in this discussion, well, Pharaoh hardened his heart, and God hardened his heart, and they both hardened his heart, so what's the big deal? Well, let's look at what the Bible says. A little sidebar story here.

My first year Greek teacher, the guy had been on the translation committee for the NASB, translation committee for the NIV by the time I came to be a student of his in first year grief. And I had just gotten saved literally a year before and I'm attending this class and I'm reading all these books and I kept talking with him and he thought it was interesting to have this older guy in the class because most of the guys were 20 and I was in my late 30s at that time. And so he'd answer all my questions and I said, why don't you write a theology?" And he says, I'm spending my life to make sure that I get what's written correctly translated so that I don't interfere and make a interpretation with my translation. I want to give out the proper translation.

And he was on the board to do the NIV. Even as a young Christian, I knew I didn't want to read the NIV. So I would ask him those questions and I said, why do you cave on this verse? Why do you cave on that verse? And he said, these things are all done with committees and you have Lutherans and you have Methodists and you have all these people and they're all voting on each and every verse and they want their viewpoint, you know, intact. If they hold kind of a strange doctrine, they want that verse to be translated that way or what I consider outside of what it literally says. So he really instilled in me to look and see what the word is and the only way you can do that is return to the original because every translation is an interpretation okay you got to remember that too but just reading the general sense of this situation with the Pharaoh and who hardened his heart so it starts off in Exodus 4 21 and the Lord said to Moses when you go back to Egypt see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will

harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then in Exodus 7 3 4 he tells Moses, but I will harden Pharaoh's heart and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the lands of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment." The first time it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart is not till Exodus 8.15. So we've already had God telling us what's going to happen in 4.21 and 7.34. So who is the prime mover in this? I'll leave that up to you to decide. Exodus 8.15 says, but when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them as the Lord had said.

So that's the first notice when Pharaoh hardens his own heart. But you notice the tagline in, as the Lord had said. Exodus 9.12, but when the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh and he did not listen to them as the Lord had spoken to Moses. Exodus 10.20, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he did not let the people of Israel go. Exodus 10 27 but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not let them go. Exodus 11 10 Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land. Exodus 14 4 is another statement of hardening Pharaoh's heart.

Exodus 14 8 the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh the king of Egypt, Exodus 1417, and he hardened the heart of the Egyptians. He just hardened all of them. Then Romans 9, 16 through 18, we're going to read that whole passage later, but that's the whole discussion of Pharaoh and his heart being hardened. Then we can turn to Psalm 105.25, he turned their hearts to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants, God discussing how he is going to control nations. Judges 3, 12, and the people of Israel again did what was evil, the people of Israel did again what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord strengthened Aglon, the king of Moab, against Israel because they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord. An example of the Lord using an ungodly people to come back and punish his people because they're not being obedient. Judges 9 23 and God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherous with Abimelech. God

sending an evil spirit to these leaders. Joshua 11 20 talking about the same thing hardening people's hearts. Judges 14 3 through 4 and now we get to 1st Samuel 16 14 through 16. Jonathan read to you from the NASB. I want to read to you.

It really fascinated me and I didn't recognize this until I I had a copy of the ESV that I got at together for the gospel and in that copy it's publishing date is 2012. In my Bible works program, the data and the ESV is coming from 2001 when they first published the ESV. So when they first published the ESV, this is the way it read. 1st Samuel 16 14 through 16. Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul's servants said to him, Behold now an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our Lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful and playing the lyre and when the evil spirit from God is upon you he will play it and you would be well. And in 1st Samuel 1623 and whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul David took the lyre and played it with his hand so Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him. Now in In 2012, and probably most of the ESVs you have, these things all say, thus says the Lord, no,

it says a harmful, sorry, yeah. It says instead of an evil spirit, it says a harmful spirit from God. Now remember, this is the same word, same vowel pointing, everything, evil. And they then brush it down, because that's hard to swallow. How do I deal with this? And the interesting thing is, most of the verses I'm reading you until I make a comment, I'm reading right out of the current 2012 edition of the ESV, and all the verses that are out there, all the evil spirit to Abimelech and all that, they don't cover that up. They just find these little places that commentators have really delved into, and they start fudging the language.

We don't need to protect God. If he's telling us what he's doing, why do we need to do that? Now can we totally understand that? No, keep in mind he's light, there is no darkness in him, all of that. But he's saying what he is doing. And just because he's using these agents doesn't taint him. Did God create Satan? Yeah. Is Satan bad? Yeah. Okay. So, 2 Samuel 12, 11 through 12 is another reference to this same thing. And in 1 Chronicles 21-1, then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. And in 2 Samuel 24-1, again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he, the Lord, incited David against them saying, go number Israel and Judah.

Whoa, what happened here? Who did it? Satan or God? God did it through Satan and God did it directly. If you wanted to make sure, David made that mistake. Job 112, and the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. Satan doesn't do anything God doesn't want him to do. That's hard to take. That's up straight. That's what it says. Job 119, another reference. Job 121 through 22. And Job said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. And all you gotta do is read page after page of Job to figure out this is not a place you wanna be. In 1 Kings 22-23, this is against Ahab who was a bad dude. Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, your prophets. The Lord has declared disaster for you. God made sure the whole thing would come crumbling down. Ezekiel 14.9, And if the prophet is deceived, and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. God again messing with the prophets.

Isaiah 10.5, another reference. Jeremiah 25.8-9, same kind of reference. Jeremiah 25.12, same kind of thing.

Then in Amos 3 6 is a trumpet blown in the city in a city and the people are not afraid does Disaster evil same word does evil come to a city and the less the Lord has done it Then in Amos 4 6 through 13, it's a huge long listing. I'm not gonna read that long one because Because of time but that's another reference to the same thing Then underneath this same thing Proverbs 16 for the Lord has made everything for its purpose even the wicked for the day of trouble and read for the day of evil all these disaster trouble all those things are that raw word of evil but they want to soften it you know it's really hard to read the Lord has made everything for its purpose even the wicked for the day of evil you know we see a lot of evil out there. They were made to do that. Another verse that speaks to this is Psalm 7610, Luke 22 22, Matthew 26 24, Mark 14 21, Isaiah 66 4, all of those speaking to that issue and the idea of evil. Don't let it rock your house. If God's not in charge of that, we better be worrying. We have the yin and yang, you know, and the

little symbols in the black and the white and we're all wrestling and oh boy I hope God wins I hope he's strong enough I don't want to worship a God like that that would be just a fake God that's not God who created the whole universe and holds it together you know the farther we look with the telescopes another you know solar system another solar system the better the microscope tiny or tiny we've discovered the smallest particle and then 50 years later oh there's something more you know and they just keep going going and it's It's just crazy. God is like beyond what we are and that's why we should worship Him.

Government, He directs them to fulfill His purpose. Psalm 103.19, the Lord has established His throne in the heavens and His kingdom rules overall. Psalm 22.28, for kingship belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations. Daniel 4.34 through 35, at the end of days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me, this is after he was out there growing the fingernails and all the crazy thing, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored him who lives forever. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation and all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth And none can stay his hand or say to him, What have you done?

That's powerful. Romans 11, 36. For from him and through him, and to him all him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen. First Corinthians 15, 27. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is expected who put all things in subjection under him.

Over and over, all things are under him. Ephesians 1.11, in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will." Philippians 2, 9 through 11, Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. All of those just reiterating over and over God's declaration. I want to put a plug in for a night teaching that I did a while back.

It's called Desire and Will. And it discusses these verses, especially like in Ephesians 1, 11, where you have obtained an inheritance having been predestined to the purpose of him who works all things according to his will. Will gets used in a lot of different ways with God's desire and I address that with the Greek terms and it's another one of those things that if you just translate the word desire and the word for will it solves the problem you know God wills all men to be saved no he doesn't he would desire that in his heart but that's not what happens all men don't become saved so it solves those kind of problem verses that's a subcategory of what we're talking about but it is a thing you should think about about and go, oh, but what about that?

Okay, the last section is God's power. He's gotta have a lot of power to hold all this together. God's nine, Exodus 9.16. But for this purpose, I has raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. Romans nine, famous chapter, Romans nine, 14 through 24.

This is the chapter, when I get down, This is what I read. And the reason is, you can't, there's nothing here that doesn't solve your problem. God is working on it. So if you think of it that way, instead of fearfully going, oh, am I one of them or all of that? Remember, he promises in Romans 8 that if you're one of his, you'll be sustained. So here he's just demonstrating how he goes about these things. So Romans 9, 14 through 24. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means may it never be. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. How much mercy does God have? Overflowing. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom ever he wills. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault, for who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to the molder? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honor, honored use, and another for dishonorable use?

What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared, yes, prepared, heiress tents for destruction? All of this to praise Him and put these things in the proper thing. nothing outside his control, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he is called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles. Praise the Lord we Gentiles got in for those of you that aren't Jewish out there. Amen. Isaiah 63-17 speaks to the same issue. Jonah 1-15 through 16 speaks to the same as you. Jonah 2.3, same kind of thing. Acts 2.22-23, now we are speaking about the most evil occurrence in human history, God being murdered by evil men.

Men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves though. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." That's Peter speaking, 2, 23 through 22. And then in Acts 4, 27 through 28. For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you appointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your predestined your plan had predestined to take place so again reiterating God was in charge of the crucifixion all right even though who killed Jesus we all did through our sin right second Thessalonians 2 11 through 12 therefore God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had the pleasure in

unrighteousness, speaking about future crumbling of the society. First Peter 2, 7 through 8, so the honor is for you who believe but for those who do not believe the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and the stone of stumbling in a rock of offense, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. The people that stumble over the sown have been predestined to stumble over the stone. That's a hard one. Then we have, and it's amazing to me, and I think this is a real testimony to our body and how we we communicate with each other and how we're supernaturally doing what God wants us to do. Jonathan put this verse in his confession part. He didn't know I was going to use it. I want to end on it and I think it's just it's it's just crazy good that it happens like that. Ephesians 2.10, for we are his workmanship. This is about after we've all been saved and all of that by faith, We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

He's already set it up. The good things you're going to do two weeks from now, the good thing you did six weeks ago was preordained before the whole thing even got created. And we get to walk in them when we're walking in the Spirit and being part of his family. It's just incredible. So that's it. That's a lot of verses. That was a lot of talking. Most of the time what happened today was really good because all I was doing is reading Scripture. So I can't mess up when I do that as long as it's translated right. right. So just rest in that, think about it. I mean it's a never-ending thing.

There's all kinds of good books. If you don't have Grudem's systematic theology, his section on God's providence, I think is really excellent. It is clear, it's easy to read, Berkoff and other theologians that have written things, it can get a little heady to try to read it. Calvin sometimes and those kind of guys, lots of words and you can get lost. But in Grudem it's very straightforward and he's got a lot of footnotes and can turn you back to other theologians and stuff like that to think about this. So please stand and now we are going to have our offering where the musicians need to come up and we're going to have our offering and remember that our offering is we don't pass the plates and we do that again because we want to do it together as we do communion together. All of this is all of us working together for God. Okay, so thank you. Present in this room right now is a representation of the greatest display ever of God's sovereignty. You, me, us. And if you'll let me, I want to read again

Ephesians 1 3 through 6. Dave just mentioned it in his sermon. Listen to this words and Shawn often tells us that you can kind of get the gist of what the passage is talking about by focusing on the word count and just think about how many times us shows up in these three verses. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ Jesus with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will and to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

Everything God has done and is doing, according to his will, serves one overarching sovereign purpose, and that is to love into existence his elect according to the praise of his glorious grace and to dwell among them for the rest of eternity. As we reflect on all that is packed into this tiny passage, it should evoke feelings of both solemnity and celebration. It should invoke solemnity because we know just how unworthy we are that God has chosen us to be members of His elect. Now note that I said unworthy, not worthless. Some have been taught to consider ourselves worthless as we approach the table. That's very bad theology.

That has not chosen a worthless people. He has chosen us even though we are unworthy. We will forever be unworthy. Get used to it. But that is exactly why this time should evoke a joyous celebration. We who were dead in our trespasses and sins have been chosen by God for adoption as his sons and daughters. Do you think he would do that for someone whom he does not also value and cherish? I will never know why God chose to reach down into a large staunchly Catholic family almost forty years ago and choose me. But I am grateful, beyond grateful, that He did. I don't fully comprehend His capacity to keep loving me in spite of the many times I sin and fail to act like one of His children.

And as is our practice, we will come up the middle aisle, grab the elements, go back to your seats around the sides, and then we'll all partake together in just a moment. Go ahead and come forward. Few things are as pleasing to the nostrils as the aroma of a cake baking in the oven. Conversely, the odor of a burnt cake has quite the opposite effect. As you experience the sovereignty of God in your life this week, what aroma or odor will you give off? If you don't like the bitterness of the ingredient God is adding to the recipe at the moment, Be patient and trust Him. The cake will be worth the wait. For our benediction, I have chosen Ephesians 5, 1-2, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. You are dismissed and we hope to see many of you back tonight.

And as is our practice, we will come up the middle aisle, grab the elements, go back to your seats around the sides, and then we'll all partake together in just a moment. Go ahead and come forward. Few things are as pleasing to the nostrils as the aroma of a cake baking in the oven. Conversely, the odor of a burnt cake has quite the opposite effect. As you experience the sovereignty of God in your life this week, what aroma or odor will you give off? If you don't like the bitterness of the ingredient God is adding to the recipe at the moment, Be patient and trust Him. The cake will be worth the wait. For our benediction, I have chosen Ephesians 5, 1-2, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Imagine if televisions had pipes for antennas. Perhaps they could receive and then blow all the political hot air that fills the airwaves into our homes so we could warm ourselves as we sit in front of the TV, watching all the debates. Speaking of pipes, much of what is being promised to us this political season will turn out in the end to be pipe dreams. We are being told that we can have our cake and eat it too, and it will hardly cost us anything. We are assured that we will be great again and that we are going to win everything, everywhere, every time. Listening to all the rhetoric starts to turn your brain into a mental merry-go-round, spinning faster and faster.

There are only so many times you can go round and round this caucus carousel before the polished political ponies start to lose their luster and the flavor and their promises taste like licking the stick that once held your Tootsie Pop. If all that sounds a bit bleak, then take heart, because we aren't banking on the next POTUS that's President of the United States. We are not banking on the next POTUS saving the day, because Jesus has already saved us and is busy preparing a place for us in heaven. None of us knows where the political winds will blow in the months to come, but we do know that this world is not our home, and we have every reason to rejoice this morning because our help is in the name of the Lord. Thus says the Lord who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth the chariot and horse, army and warrior, they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick. Remember not the former things nor consider the things of old. Behold,

I am doing a new thing now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert the wild beasts will honor me the jackals and the Ostriches for I will give water in the wilderness Rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people the people whom I formed for myself That they might declare my praise and father we do indeed declare your praise this morning wilderness and desert are apt metaphors for the times we live in. Thank you for the refreshing river your spirit flows into ours. We do not despair nor lose heart because we know who has written the history we are living out. Help us walk in faith and joy and not be like those whose lives are governed by fear or hatred. Renew us, fill us, lead us, and protect us. And if the world should hate May it be because we are acting like Jesus and not like them. Help us now as we seek to align our hearts and minds with one goal, which is to corporately offer up all the glory and honor that is due your name. Amen. There is a laziness that characterizes all of humanity. And then there's a particular kind of

laziness that's characterized and practiced among Calvinists. Let me explain. The God of Scripture is sovereign. He answers to no one. He is in constant and complete control. He ordains whatever comes to pass. Quite simply, if he is not sovereign, he is not God. Some churches emphasize this doctrine more than others but it is thoroughly orthodox. It's not actually up for debate. We can hate it, we can love it, but that doesn't have any bearing on its truthfulness, its reality. But that's not all. Some of us just simply don't believe this doctrine, though we may know it. We go a step further and use it to justify our laziness.

We don't bother sharing the gospel because we think that if God is in control, then our evangelistic efforts are unnecessary.

We don't learn from our trials because we think they come from the hand of an unpredictable who's going to do his will anyway, so what matter does it make? We don't bother voting or being informed politically because we suppose that God doesn't need our votes to keep certain parties out of the White House. Well, Scripture teaches something entirely different. It teaches at the same time that God ordains both means and ends, outcomes and the paths to those outcomes. Thankfully, church history is full of examples of faithful Christians who use their confidence in God's sovereign control to actually energize their activity. From the evangelistic efforts of George Whitfield to the political efforts of William Wilberforce, we can know that if God is in control, like them, they believe that, then we can go forth with confidence in knowing that his will will went out. Paul doesn't blush or qualify his exhortations to Pastor Timothy or Pastor Titus, to properly esteem their political rulers ungodly

though they may be, and to pray that they would then lead righteously. The ancients knew that kings have a high accountability to the people that they rule, and that God raises them up and brings them down. So in this political season of unrest, we have a duty as Christians to both embrace the sovereignty of God and to optimistically walk in the good works that He has prepared for us. We should pray for God to raise up righteous rulers and we should pray at the same time for Christ's speedy return. We should work to influence our leaders with patience, grace, even winsomeness, and we should submit to them as of the Lord until such point as they ask us to sin, of course. And then we need to disobey like Christians. We need to disobey faithfully with full confidence in the sovereign goodness of our God. If this for you brings to mind sins that you may have committed that require your repentance, whether it's apathy or justifying your laziness by referencing God's sovereignty, well then this is a time for you to repent and

for you to go forward in our time of worship with unharboard sin. If you're able and interested you're invited at this time to kneel and I will pray to close us in just a few moments. Father ours is a culture that celebrates the efforts of those who take matters into their own hands with no evident dependence upon you. We promote laziness and we invent new ways to get out of work. Still other times we become incensed when our civil liberties are taken away as we stand by inactively because after all you're in control. Please forgive us for this and other manifestations of our laziness, for our creative justification of it.

Grant us a confidence in your sovereign control and a right understanding of your character. May our acknowledgment of these things come as readily for us as they did for Job, who blessed your name in the immediate wake of conflict.

Forgive us for having weak and little faith. We've known your word without believing it. We've proclaimed it to others at times without speaking it to our own hearts. Help us to know your promises, to rehearse them regularly to our own hearts, and even to you in times of prayer. Help us to not only champion your sovereignty, but then to use that confidence to get to work with joy. We thank you for the work of Christ who knew better than any of your sovereign goodness and what that meant for Him. We're thankful that He was not lazy on our behalf but rather worked and redeemed us. We thank you then for that redemptive work and because of that we can enjoy forgiveness and we seek your forgiveness even now in His name. Amen. You may stand. Our passage reminding us of our forgiveness in Christ actually comes from the Old Testament Proverbs 28 13 whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy we do not celebrate our sins but we celebrate mercy we don't glory in our transgressions but we can glory and

having been forgiven what Christ has purchased on our behalf is worth our glorious expression of praise and that gives us even more reason to worship now with gladness. So let's do that with full hearts and voices. Our scripture reading this morning comes from Titus chapter 3 verses 1 through 11. Titus 3 1 through 11 I'll be reading from the English Standard Version. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us

richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people but avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him. Knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self-condemned." Let's pray together.

Father, you are merciful. You have not treated us as our sins deserve. You've rescued us from the consequences of our sins, and you have given us your word to help inform our thinking and our living in this world. Even as evidenced by this passage, which gives direction for how Christians are to relate to those in authority and even the rest of the world, we pray that these hallmarks would be reflected among the people of Trinity Evangel Church in this community and beyond. And then, of course, we have opportunity to partner with other ministries as well, even thinking of the Good Shepherd Children's Home and the opportunities that they have under the direction of Saji and Yancy Thomas in southern India to be lights in that spiritually dark part of the world. We pray that you would give them grace. We pray that you would energize their evangelism and their enculturation of those young ladies. We think of the Children's Law Center of Washington and the gospel driving that ministry, that non-profit. We know that those who lead, Andrew Schneider and his wife, want to place

children in forever homes because you have adopted us. Even at Andrew Classical School, as we train students to do, to actually practice Titus 3 verses 1 through 8 anyway through the the rest of their lives and in a dark and dying world. We recognize that in some senses things will get worse, the dark will get darker, the light will get lighter, and you will return. And we pray that for our part, we would help contribute to the light getting lighter. With confidence, because of the work of Christ and because of what you have said, we come before you in supplication now, asking that you would answer these prayer requests while increasing our dependence upon you.

We think of Christina Barnes' grandmother who's on hospice care. We pray that you would grant her peace and comfort and surround her with love in these her final days. May her passing be sweet as of course she knows you and this is a home going for her. For Ralph Durden as he recovers now from his successful cataract surgery that he had last Wednesday, we thank you that it went well, even though there were some complications, some temporary loss of vision and to the side of one of the eyes and we just ask that you would grant patience to him and both Mary Kay, as she is having opportunity to put the drops in his eyes and minister to him, grant them patience.

We ask that you would bring speedy healing to Sean, as he still is recovering from this episode last week. We don't know, the doctors don't know what has caused his discomfort, his low blood pressure is bleeding, but we thank you that they've been able to rule out a few of the possibilities, and of course, we are very grateful that you are both sovereign and good and you know and none of these things catch you by surprise but in fact you ordain them. So we pray that we would have opportunity to rehearse our Calvinism even now, our championing of your sovereignty while we have opportunity to fill in on his behalf.

We pray that they would be able to accurately diagnose the problem in the coming days to be able to nail down the necessary measures going forward that they need to take. In particular we ask that you would give grace to Morgan, Dave, Gail, Maggie, Calvin, Howley, Keelah, as they try to function as normally possible without Sean while he is laid up. Please allow them to be a blessing to him as he recovers. And please sustain Morgan in particular as she has been combating headaches and other physical discomfort of her own while trying to be an advocate for Sean and keep others in the communicative loop and minister to him.

We thank you for the progress of the Masses' brother-in-law Fred. He's still unable to move his left leg, but he is making progress nonetheless. We ask that you grant patience It looks like he has a long road ahead of him, undergoing physical therapy, protect him against any recurrences.

This morning, Chuck Weinberg's dad is in the hospital once again with some severe pain, likely caused, at least in part, by his diverticulitis. If it is your will, we know that, of course, you are capable of bringing about his speedy healing, and we would ask you that you do that. But please, keep discouragement far from him and from Chuck's mother. We thank you for the full and blessed life that you've given him the last 82 years and that whatever happens, we can be confident that he is yours. And if he does pass on, then he'll be with you. We thank you for the couple of generations of Christians that he has faithfully discipled and what a rich spiritual heritage he is leaving behind.

We ask that you would provide new work for Andrea Hill as she would love to be able to worship with us consistently and enjoy fellowship in the weekends off. her wisdom and joy in this search process. For others who are out of work altogether, we ask those in our congregation, we ask that you would bring them to the right places, help them to find favors and perspective employers.

Keeping all this in mind, we have to be so much to be thankful for in Christ. We ask that you would energize our worship as we even filter these prayer requests through the sieve of your sovereignty, knowing that what comes out is perfect and pure. We pray that your spirit would be at work among us and help us to sing as you deserve. So we ask that in this process you be pleased with what you see and hear among us even now. Because of that we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Father Son like that just can't help but lift the soul right into your very presence. We have just sung how wherever we turn, wherever we look, Whatever we experience, there you are at work.

And indeed, our souls must cry out, how great thou art. We are embarrassed. We are saddened by the times when we forget that, and we let the things of life, from the heavier things to even the more mundane things, we allow them to cause us to freak out. We forget that you are sovereign. forget how great thou art. And Father, as we approach the study of your word, even now, we thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, who was the word incarnate. We thank you for having given us your word and written form that we can look at it. We can study it. We can understand it.

Those two, Father, are expressions of how great thou art that you haven't left us here alone to figure it out for ourselves. And so help us now as we spend the next few minutes just pondering, considering what you've written in the book of Titus chapter 3 to us that you might let it sink in and challenge us anew. It'll be a new or be a familiar passage for many of us, but a passage that we probably all have room for improvement in. So help us, help me as I speak to be clear and may the hearts of the receivers be prepared as well. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. You may have noticed that my sermon title is a twist on a popular Christmas song, Walking in a Winter Wonderland.

Taking the wonder out gives a whole new meaning to the phrase and describes the mindset that a lot of people, Christian or otherwise, operate under. When you think about the word winter, we talk about nuclear winters. an older person is said to be in the winter of their life. For whatever reason, winter is often associated with death and decay. We all know Christians who talk a good game about joy, but their life is a virtual winter land. Why?

Political pundits are talking a lot about angry voters out there who are rooting for the non-establishment candidates. Included in this group of angry voters are a lot of so-called evangelicals. It does appear that there is a lot of freaking on going out there within Christian circles about how bad things are getting political or otherwise and there certainly are some pretty good reasons to be concerned. One political curiosity that has come about is the unexpected embrace of evangelicals that the embrace evangelicals have given to presidential candidate Donald Trump. Now don't worry, I'm not going to turn this into a political sermon. In large numbers, professing Christians have thrown their support to Trump over other candidates who seem to have a much clearer profession of faith in Christ and who espouse similar conservative viewpoints. Now it's not my intent to stand up here and endorse one candidate over another, and I'm not speaking publicly for any particular candidate, but this particular case will serve to lead me into what I

want to talk about. I came across a blog this past week written by a gentleman named Paul Prather who's a pastor and a columnist and he was writing about a poll that was conducted recently by a political scientist named Matthew McWilliams. McWilliams was curious as to who was supporting Trump and why. He writes the following regarding his findings quote, I found that education, income, gender, age, ideology, and religiosity had no significant bearing on a Republican voter's preferred candidate," he said. Only two of the variables I looked at were statistically significant. Authoritarianism followed by fear of terrorism, though the former was far more significant than the latter.

So he found that authoritarianism was the common denominator attracting people to somebody like Trump. He goes on to give his characterization of what he calls authoritarian Christians. According to McWilliams, they are described this way, quote, in a world overrun by brigands and terrorists, authoritarian Christians prefer a ban, bar, and bomb president even if he's a self-promoting heathen, end of quote. Now Prather, who wrote the blog, provides some of his own commentary on McWilliams findings. He divides Christendom broadly into two camps, those who he says live according to law and those who live according to grace. He defined these two groups this way. So according to Prather, here's what the law group looks like. They are all about God's authority, the Bible's authority, church leaders authority, men's authority, civil authority. They are the church's cops and prosecuting attorneys. They serve a stern God who lectures dryly from above, brooks no descent, and expects them to flog the daylights out of the dense and disobedient. They

operate largely from their own fear, fear of God's wrath, fear of being wrong, fear of outsiders, fear of the public's jeers. And then he defines what he calls the grace group this way. They are a people who serve a God who is unimaginably merciful, infinitely liberating, and surprisingly understanding of every kind of birdbrain. They believe their job, being his children, is to love all colors and nationalities and faiths and political views and theological quirks. They are about forgiving their enemies and making peace and welcoming strangers and helping the poor, no questions asked. Grace folks drive the authoritarian mad."

Don't get too hung up on those definitions, but you get the gist. Given these two groups of Christians, Prather says it makes sense to him that so many authoritarian Christians are drawn to Trump. He writes, to these law folks, he, Trump, stands for authority. He's large and in charge and vindictive and brazenly unapologetic.

He's as good an approximation of their God as they're likely to find in such gone to blazes world." Ouch. He's as good an approximation of their God as they're likely to find. That's a pretty stinging remark. Now there are plenty of things that we could pick at in McWilliams' poll or Prather's blog, but I think it does lend support to the reality that there are no small number of Christians who live and respond to life very much like your average non-Christian. I'm talking about people who are saved and who will be in heaven, but who have lost sight of who they are in Christ. They continue to exhibit old fleshly patterns in how they live life and respond to it. It's become hard to distinguish them from non-believers except for the religious jewelry they wear or the bumper stickers they have on their cars. I'm talking about church going, choir singing, Bible studying believers who have lost sight of their identity in Christ and who have succumbed to the anger and the freaking out that marks

our culture today. It's no wonder that the voice of the Christian is becoming faint in the ears of our culture. We preach a message of hope and resurrection and then mope along with the doomsayers. We preach that the truth will set you free, but we walk around rattling our chains of fear, doubt, and worry. Now you might accuse me of using a hyperbole and maybe I am, but But is what I'm saying that far off the mark? What we need in the midst of the doom and gloom blaring from every media orifice is a good reminder from scripture. And so if you want, you can follow along as we go through Titus chapter 3 verses 1 through 8.

In Titus 3, we come to a passage where Paul is instructing Titus to remind the Christians of some things. He wants to remind them of who they are in Christ, who they once were apart from Christ, And finally, what the Father, Son, and Spirit did in bringing the change about. And kids, in your kids' corner, that'll be the three main points, remembering who we are in Christ, who we were in Christ, and what God did in bringing us to Christ. Titus was an elder who had been assigned by Paul to oversee the churches on Crete. It wasn't an easy assignment. Titus 1.5 tells us that he was supposed to set in order what remains, and it appears there were a lot of things to set in order.

Crete is a large Mediterranean island located between Syria and Malta. It is southeast of Greece and north of Africa. The island itself is about 160 miles long, and it varies in width from five to 35 miles, so it would easily fit in the Puget Sound area. It had an ethnically diverse culture, including many Jewish settlers. Christianity was possibly introduced during Paul's stay on the island, During his trip to Rome, we find some recordings and acts that would indicate that. The Cretans were known for a lot of things, some good and some not so good. Historically, their civilization had been known as a great one.

At the time that this letter then is written, the time Letter to Titus is written, the Cretans were known for their expertise in archery and sailing, and they were also known for their skills in the art of ambushing in times of war.

they had another reputation. They were known for their immorality and their untruthfulness. Paul refers to this in Titus 1.12 where he quotes a Cretan prophet who said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. How was like that for your moniker? Another example of the Cretan's tarnished image was the expression that was commonly used to Cretanize. If you said somebody was cretinizing which it was a synonymous what they are lying Polybius the Greek historian wrote of the cretins as being constantly involved in insurrections murders and internecine wars that's the kind of place where Titus was called to be a pastor doesn't quite sound like a typical church the churches in Crete had attracted many rebellious men empty talkers and deceivers, especially of those of the circumcision, according to Titus 1 10. It was apparent that Titus would have his hands full as he went about the task of setting things in order. So the first thing he said, instructed Paul's instructing Titus to do is

then to remind them of who they are in Christ. We see a list of six traits that should characterize follower of Jesus. As we as we are moving through these now these next six characteristics, I'd like you to be asking yourself how well they describe your own life. So picking up there in verse 1, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. So let's take them one by one. The first trait of a Christian is that they are submissive to rulers and authorities and obey them. The command tells us to willingly place ourselves under the authority of our civil authorities. We actually consciously place ourselves under their authority. Now this can't possibly apply to our situation today, you might be thinking. Paul didn't know how bad our current White House administration was going to be when he wrote this. He didn't know about all the

ungodly legislation our leaders were going to enact. I was talking to a fellow believer some time ago who for years had not paid any federal income tax even though he should have been. Part of his justification was how bad the government was. He argued that since it was not honoring God, since the government was not honoring God in many of their decisions, he had no obligation to come under their authority. There's only one problem with that thinking I pointed out to him. It wasn't biblical. What do you think the Roman government was like when Paul wrote Romans 13 when he says to submit yourself to the governing authorities? He wrote that letter at the time Nero Claudius Caesar was Emperor of Rome. One author describes Nero this way, he describes them as one of the most despicable manifestations of human flesh ever to disgrace this planet.

There's an insult for you. Submit to the governing authorities, Paul, to the most despicable piece of human flesh to ever disgrace this planet. This was a man who had had his own mother killed and who turned Christians into human torches to light his evening garden parties. We may not like all of our political leaders today, but I'm pretty sure they're not quite in Nero's league yet. It does not matter how good or bad our ruling authorities may be, we are still to submit. Proper submission is demonstrated by a proper attitude towards the authorities. You can't be in submission to and gripe about your leaders at the same time.

It follows that if we are to be subject to the ruling authorities, then we must obey them as well. We may not like all the laws and regulations that they set up, but this command requires that we obey them. And as Jonathan mentioned in his prayer, the only exception to this is when man's laws are in violation of God's laws. If obeying an earthly leader would cause you to disobey God, then you must disobey man. And in this situation, you are still in submission by accepting the consequences your disobedience may bring about. You may go to jail for your disobedience, but that may be the exact right thing to do. We live in a society where moral relativism has become the norm. As a result, many base their choices to obey or not on what they perceive the outcome will be. They think it's a dealer's choice when it comes to obeying. If obeying is convenient, I will obey. If If disobeying is more convenient and not too costly, I will disobey.

Minor examples of that for us as Christians would be just the issue of speeding. I'm late for work, I can justify it, so I'm going to break the law and speed. Christians should obey simply because it is right, even if obedience is inconvenient and costly. The second trait Paul gives us, you guys all pass that first test, okay. The second trait Paul gives us is that Christians are ready for every good work. Five times in the Book of Titus we are reminded to practice good deeds. Paul wants us to understand that genuine Christianity is always marked by good works. This is true within the community of believers and it is also true in the larger community within which we live.

So it's not just limited to us and these four walls. It goes out into the community. Galatians 6-10 tells us, so then while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. It's just not limited to our own group. Unfortunately, in an effort to avoid preaching a social gospel, many Christians have shied away from opportunities to do good works in the community. We often fail to do good works because we simply aren't paying attention to the opportunities that exist all around us. We just put our heads down and plow forward in our lives and we're just not taking the time to look around and see what opportunities are there for some good works.

The result is that the unbelievers are left to do the good works and then they can control the message of what is good and right. Sadly, in our communities today, it is the pagans, it is the unbelievers who are dominating, providing the care, taking care of the needs in the community. but they also get to give the message of what is good, what is right, what is honorable, and the Christians are encouraged to stay in their stained-glass aquariums. The command is to be ready for good works. This implies a readiness, willingness, and eagerness. It is also a major way of spreading the gospel.

Consider Matthew 5.16 which says, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your God who is in heaven? What kind of opportunities are we missing to let our light shine so that the people out there will give glory to our Father who's in heaven? This is more than just responding when asked about or when asked but requires us to proactively seek out opportunities for good works. It's not just simply sitting there and saying well if somebody asks somebody call sure I'll be happy to help but this is actually out on the hunt looking for opportunity. It's It's another example of the kind of work image bearers are called to do.

The next trait a Christian should have is that they do not speak evil of anyone. If this trait were lived out universally in our culture, it would eliminate over 50% of the political ads and more than 90% of the political conversations going on in our living rooms. It is very common today to hear people slander our civil leaders.

Christians it is never appropriate for us to speak in an evil or derogatory manner about any leaders or anyone for that matter. We are commanded to pray for them. When we resort to mean speaking we effectively eliminate our witness. Of course, unkind words are not reserved for just our leaders. From bosses to spouses to children to unpleasant neighbors, we invariably sin in this area by saying things that are unkind and leave a bad impression in other people's minds about the people of whom we speak. The New American Standard version of Colossians 4-6 says this, let your speech always be with grace as those seasoned with salt so that you will know how you should respond to each other. It's kind of a curious verse. How does grace and salt relate in that verse? We use salt to enhance the flavor of food. We don't use it to try and make the food less tasty, more tasty. In the same way, our speech should be seasoned with grace and thereby enhance our words in the ears of the hearers. Evil speaking has the opposite effect. What effects have your words had on those

around you this week? Have your words built up? Have they edified? Have they encouraged others? We do not care in the test so far. The next trait of a believer is that they avoid fights or quarrels. We'll skip that one and move on. Now we got to talk about it. This command is limited to just the times we are talking. I wrote down this command is limited to just the times we're talking. So my humor, right? Get sense of humor. This command only applies when you're talking. That's the only time you don't have to quarrels when you're talking. It includes all the times we're talking about politics or other contentious topics, whatever conversations we get in, we are to avoid the quarrel. It is very easy to feel resentment towards all the ungodliness we see around us. Sometimes leaders make decisions like our Roe v. Wade that really upset us. Even in situations like these, we are called to be uncontentious. We are not to be belligerent or quarrelsome. Romans 12, 18, very plain, he says, So far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Now being peaceable does not mean we simply accept evil and learn to live with it. It does mean that we not resort to evil words or actions to try and effect change. The bombing of abortion clinics is an extreme example of what we're not supposed to be doing. Peaceful protests within the scope of the law are perfectly acceptable. Not being quarrelsome does not mean being limp pacifist. The apostles were pretty bold and even brazen as they went about spreading the gospel. So we're not talking about being weak at all here. We speak up, but not in a quarrelsome way. They spoke boldly before civil and religious authorities, but never in that quarrelsome manner.

Contrast this with many of the protests we see today marked by nasty signs, angry shouts, and disruptive behavior. When Christians resort to these tactics, It is especially offensive. You probably have seen in the news over quite a few years now a group called the Westboro Baptist. Good example of what not to do. They are known for showing up in military funerals in other venues and causing a very ugly scene. They are particularly upset by our society's acceptance of the homosexual agenda, and we would agree with that. But their protest tactics are as ugly as they are sinful. All right, the fifth trait of a Christian is that they are gentle.

Now synonyms for this would be moderate, humane, compassionate, and tender. And the opposite of gentle would be words like harsh, rough, cruel, or callous. Some might see gentleness as synonymous with weak, but it can actually be quite powerful. Proverbs tells us that a gentle answer turns away wrath. How many conflicts on a personal or national level have been escalated because one or both parties failed to be gentle in the early stages of conflict? The examples in our world of this are pretty humorous. I was online just kind of looking for examples where this is true, and I found an example where online where they were talking about the pastry war.

And here's just a brief description I found online describing this war. It lasted for about a year, and it was between the French and the Mexicans. So here's how the pastry war got started. In 1828, angry mobs destroyed large parts of Mexico City during a military coup. One of the victims of the rioting was an expatriate French pastry chef named Romontel, whose small cafe was ransacked by looters. Okay, so they broke in and stole all his donuts. Mexican officials ignored his complaints, Sir Romontel petitioned the French government for compensation. His request sat on notice until a decade later when it came to the attention of King Louis-Philippe.

The king, so he's now petitioned, they stole my donuts and they won't pay me back. He's appealed to his king, it sits in wherever for 10 years. The king finally gets it. And the king was already furious that Mexico had failed to repay millions in loans and now he demanded they pay 600,000 pesos compensate the pastry chef for his losses. That's a lot of donuts. When the Mexicans balked at handing over such an astronomical sum, Luis Felipe did the only reasonable thing you could think a king would do. He started a war. 250 men lost their lives in this war, and the famous Mexican general, Santa Ana, who had been in retirement, came back out of retirement to lead the charge, and he ended up losing a leg in the battle.

Eventually, the British government had to step in and broker a peace deal. You just can't make these things up. Truth is stranger than fiction. So there you go. Now there's your history lesson. You know all about the pastry war. When Gayle and I had a personal example of gentleness and what it can do, it comes from Gayle's and my own life. When we first moved into our home almost 30 years ago, we moved into a neighborhood where most of the people were already into the retirement years, years and here we are coming into this baby season of life. You can imagine their thoughts as they saw us pull up. But we had several run-ins with one particular neighbor. There were several times we felt pretty exasperated and retented to give them a piece of our mind.

But wisdom prevailed and we practiced gentleness as we worked through the issues. Eventually we saw a turn in their attitude and we became really good friends. They even started joking about adopting us as their kids, and we were able to assist them quite a bit in their old age. And today, the surviving widow, she's off in our retirement home now, but she really became to think of me particularly as her son, and we attribute that to just a little bit of gentleness going a long way. Our society is sorely lacking today in gentleness when it comes to expressing viewpoints. Shouting and finger-pointing have replaced civil discourse.

live in homes where walking on egg shills is the norm, lest someone with a bad temper is set off. We are called to be peacemakers, but that won't happen if we are not defined by gentleness. The final trait of the godly person Paul mentions is that we are to show perfect courtesy towards all men. The word used here can also be translated as gentleness or meekness. It carries the idea of being humble in spirit and other oriented. Vines, if you look up a definition in there, they describe it as an attitude that's the opposite of self-assertiveness and self-interest. It is equanimity of spirit that is neither elated nor cast down because it's just not occupied with self at all.

It's a very other oriented trait. This person puts others before themselves and seeks to serve rather than to be served. They are not preoccupied with their needs but are sensitive to the needs of others. You won't find them pushing and shoving as they jockey for position in line. You'll find them giving their place to someone else. You won't find them shouting over others so as to be heard, but rather listening with care to what the other person has to say. Don't confuse this kind of person with the doormat person. They are not weak. They are meek. They practice giving preference to one another with honor, as Romans 12-10 instructs us to do.

So, how are we doing with our self-examination? Does this describe your life as you respond to the decay outside the church and the messiness inside it? Are you submitting to the authorities in your life from the heart? Are you laboring in good works and preparing yourself to do even more?

Are you gentle in your interactions with others and do you avoid quarreling and speaking negatively about people? Do you look forward to ways to put other people's needs before your own? It's not a very long list, but I suspect all of us can check the needs improvement box on the evaluation form. What would our culture look like if this list characterized the people? What if it just characterized those who follow Jesus? What kind of a politician would this kind of a person be drawn to? What kind of impression would this kind of a person leave on those who do not know Christ. That was Paul reminding them of who they are in Christ and then he moves on to reminding them who they were before Christ. He goes on he says, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, let us stray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. It's interesting to note that the The character qualities that Paul has been espousing that believers should have, that

they should demonstrate, are the antithesis of what we formerly were like. In other words, believers aren't just decent people who are made even better by the gospel. God did not look down and say, there's some good raw material I can work with, let's just make them a little bit better. We were these kind of people that I just read. Disobedient, evil people, and we need to understand that there's been a radical change. When a person comes to Christ, we are re-cored. Whereas now we have access to the wisdom of God, we were trapped in our foolishness. The word foolish means complete lack of understanding of something.

In this case, the something would have been the knowledge of God. The wisest unbeliever on earth is still the biggest fool in heaven. Corinthians 120 where is the wise man where is the scribe where is the debater of this age has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world whereas now we are called to be submissive and obedient we were just the opposite in our disobedience before salvation all of our good works were like filthy rags according to Isaiah now we're called to do good works that God has prepared for us to do according to Ephesians 2 10 we were enslaved all kinds of passions and pleasures, and hurting others along the way, but now we are gentle and we have self-control.

We were given to malice, envy, and hate, but now we are characterized by being peaceable, considerate, and humble. The magnitude of these sinful character traits in a non-believer may vary from person to person. Not everybody is equally bad, equally evil, but the fact remains that these traits describe what we were formerly like. I think Paul reminds the Christians what they were like, not to rub their noses in it, but to make them stop and glorify God for the amazing change that He brought about in their lives. Believers don't ever make the mistake of somehow in the back of your mind that somehow we were basically pretty decent people, that's why God saved us and we're not like those heathen out there in the world.

were every bit as he even as they were. We were as every bit under the condemnation of God and we just need to keep impressing upon our hearts what God did in transforming us. Remembering who we were can also generate then more sympathy for the lost and less of a critical spirit in us towards them. The lost are blinded by Satan. Living out the six traits of who we are in Christ will bear more fruit than trash talking about the lost as though they are the enemy. And I do think we are guilty of doing that at times. We begin to speak of the unbeliever as the enemy and they do certainly many things that we do not like, but they are lost. They are blinded and we hope and pray that God will save them. But us trash talking them is not going to win them. Us living these six traits is what's going to make the difference. Well, Paul then finishes this section by calling to our remembrance exactly how we were saved. He makes it clear that our salvation was all God and not in any way our doing. As he rehearses how we are saved, we see all three members of the

Trinity actively involved in the process. He writes, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works."

If our Bibles were somehow animated, if our Bibles were somehow animated, I imagine that this transition from verse 3 to 4 would be full of flashing lights and happy noises. You were all these horrible things, but wait, there's more. That's not the rest of the story. You can almost sense Paul's eagerness to get to this part of the lecture. With one word, Paul transitions from some really bad news to the best news mankind's ever received, but God. A proper understanding of God's holiness and our sinfulness should bring us to our knees and in total thankfulness for what he's done in our lives. Paul lists three attributes of God that led him to bring salvation to us. Those attributes are his goodness, his loving kindness, and his mercy. One aspect of God's goodness is his willingness to give of himself without reservation. Luke 6 35 reminds us of God's kindness towards all men and his expectations that we will be like him in that regard. It says in there that for he God himself is kind to ungrateful

and evil men. Does that sound like us? Kind to ungrateful and evil men. Even ungrateful and evil men, God's goodness is displayed. The fact that he doesn't execute judgment immediately each time we sin is proof enough of God's goodness. I always shake my head in an amazement when people say, God's not fair. And I'm saying, bite your tongue. I don't want God to be fair because we would be instantly annihilated or off to hell. We wouldn't be here. God's loving kindness is the second attribute of God in Paul's, that Paul lists. The word used here for love is philanthropia and it can be translated love of mankind. We get our word philanthropy from it. It involves more than just the emotions. It is a love that sees and need, feels deep compassion, and acts to alleviate the situation it sees. God is genuinely concerned about the condition of man and is moved by compassion for it. You can't help but think about the verse where Jesus was standing over Jerusalem and weeping over Jerusalem and how I

would have gathered you like a mother hand gathers chicks under her weans.

That's the sense of what we're talking about. That's the attitude that God has as he looks down on man. This verse affirms that God deeply cares for us and is always at work in our lives. And then the third motivation we read about is his mercy. The mercy of God goes hand in hand with his kindness and love. It's an action word. The mercy of God causes him to feel pity for man's plight and to do something about it. That's something of course was to send Christ. Romans 9 22 through 24 shows us how the mercy of God mitigates the wrath of God because we again we were all about God as love but we forget about that God is also a wrathful God. So just kind of listen to this these few verses. What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory even us whom he is called not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? The wrath of God is a rubber band, that's a poor

illustration, but it's getting tighter and tighter and tighter and someday the wrath of God will be unleashed. But the mercy of God is holding it back for a season as he's gathering his elect to himself. The Father driven by his goodness, mercy and loving kindness saves us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit who he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. By this time we ought to be feeling pretty good about what God has done for us. But we must not get smug. All of this attention from God wasn't because we deserved it. Verse five reminds us that he saved us not on the basis of deeds, which we have done in righteousness. There is nothing man can do to commend himself to God. We know that truth, we all know it here. But we still sometimes fool ourselves to think that, hey, I'm not so bad. We do a good work and we pat ourselves on the back. Salvation begins with the Washington regeneration and it continues by the renewing of the Spirit. The Washington regeneration

simply refers to rebirth. Jesus himself said that we must be born again. Now some have used this verse to support the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, that is, you must be baptized to be saved. This verse is not speaking of the ordinance of baptism at all. The Washington regeneration refers to the fact that we are made entirely clean. Ephesians 5 26 also refers to rebirth as a washing.

That verse tells us that Christ gave himself up for the church in order that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. There's no mention of the ordinance of baptism here. Not only have we experienced rebirth but we also are being continually renewed by the Holy Spirit. Salvation is a one-and-done event in terms of our justification but not our sanctification. We need the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit for us to be made into the image of Christ. Rebirth is followed by new life. It's the spirit of God that energizes us and enables us to live a life pleasing to God. Second Corinthians 3 17. I know I'm giving you a lot of verses, but just to remind ourselves of these truths. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the spirit, all about the process of sanctification. As we look more into the mirror, look at Christ, look in his

word, we become transformed. The spirit of God takes us through the transformation process from who we were in the flesh to who we were are in Christ. Notice that the spirit has been poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ. The idea here is that there is no lack of power to do all that God has called us to or to handle whatever circumstances he has come our way. Sometimes life gets so discouraging that we think to ourselves that's it. I'm done. I'm just tired. That is not the spirit talking. That is the flesh. The Holy Spirit can and will energize us, but we have to walk by faith in obedience. The fact that the Spirit has been poured out through Jesus Christ reminds us that the work required to make our salvation possible has been done. It is finished and we don't have to gin up anything in order to make ourselves more presentable to God.

The result of this trifold work of God is that we are now heirs to eternal life. I'm afraid we read things like that and it just doesn't impact us like it should. If I told you that you've all just been made heirs of Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, your ears would prick up and your eyes would widen as you considered what that meant. Admit it, your pulse just went up a couple beats per minute. How does that compare to being an heir of God, the Father, in joint error with Jesus Christ his Son? That ought to make the pulse quicken just a bit, I would think. It is easy for us to become dull to the realities of who we are in Christ Jesus.

Throughout history, God has instructed his children to remember. They were to remember what life was like before and after God intervened. The problem has always been that man has a very short memory, especially when dealing where God's dealings with him are concerned. Go through the survey of the Old Testament. You would just be convinced these guys to never brain how quickly they forget what God did until I remember to myself when I'm accusing them of not having a brain. I then remember how often I forget what God did. I realize I'm the same cut out of the same cloth by calling us to remembrance, once again, Paul has given us the reason why we can and should live our lives, separate and distinct from the rest of the world. There is a reason we should act differently than the world does. There is a reason we should be full of hope and joy and confidence. And there is a reason we should not be freaking out about who the next president of the United States will be or any else, other matter for that fact. Believer, remember who you were and more importantly who

you are. When you do that and live it out consistently, it just might begin to change the culture for the good. Let's pray. Well Father, as we've briefly considered these few verses, nothing new, nothing that we haven't heard before, but I dare say lots that we have, need improving on. And Father, we so easily do get suckered into the freaking out we see in our culture we too begin to gripe and complain and struggle to be to cheerfully submit to our authorities we do make critical comments we use our names almost like a cuss word Lord help us to not be like that help us to be like the people who you have made us to be and may in so doing may we be the kind of people then who are really making an impact on our community as they look at us and look at us walking about in joy in peace and happiness recognizing that yeah there's a mess to going on and needs to be cleaned up but again in perfect peace perfect hope perfect joy just guide us now on the rest of our time together father and help us just again continue in our attitude of worship this morning and

praying Jesus name. Amen. You can go ahead and stand and we'll invite the those are gonna lead us in worship to come on back up. This is the time in the service where we have our opportunity to worship in the form of a giving to the Lord and so we're gonna invite Andy or whoever is here today to bring the offering forward and again let's just continue in our worship and really really seeing our hearts like people who really understand what we were and who we are now in Christ. Now comes our fourth C, communion. After that preaching we have a lot to be thankful for and that's what I want to focus on as we think about it before we partake in communion. We've reached the point in our service where we as believers get to celebrate all that we have in our Lord.

Just listen to the verses four through seven in today's passage from Titus that Jim shared with us this morning. But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing and regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So that being justified by His grace, We might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. What a blessing. How much of that is just amazing that God has done that for us, those of us who are believers.

And that's why we celebrate communion in our church. We want to be just ever grateful for what God has done for us. We have an open communion in our church. That means anybody who is a believer is welcome to partake with us. And we have our tradition where we stand and then we come through the center aisle, get the things, then come back out, sit down and then we all partake together. So let's get up and take the bread together.

So now we got commissioning, all right? The last C, our fifth C and the charge. So now is the time for your pastor to encourage all of you who believe to go out into his world, God's world, and be the light that he has made you. Again, a reminder in the passage that Jim taught today, Titus 3.8. Thus the saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. Excellent and profitable for people. So now the benediction, Colossians 3, 12 through 17. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against you, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so also, you also must forgive.

And above all these things, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Go and be filled.