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.

But ours is a privilege now to gather as God's people on the Lord's day and to worship Him. And as we assemble, we remember that our help is in the name of the Lord. Who may God be heard. Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with a lyre, with a lyre and the sound of melody, with trumpets and the sound of the horn. Make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. Father, we do gather as your people this morning to worship you. We gather with a view to being transformed by our worship into the one whom we behold, into the likeness of your son. We join with all creation in our worship, and we do it with joy. We give you praise as the one who has made creation. You are the measurer of the earth, and you are the one who has given us your spirit, given us new life, and given us the desire to worship you. As we lift high your name then, may we in obedience to Christ do so in spirit and in truth. We ask that you would exalt yourself among us today, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

Legalism is like a warm blanket. And if we're going to be successful legalists, we have to write some new definitions. Because while it's impossible to realize true holiness in the flesh, it's absolutely possible to manufacture that through legalism. It's absolutely possible to keep a bunch of external laws that God has not written, and that is in fact legalism, instituting laws where God has not. A man, it feels great to look holy while knowing you're not. Yeah, to be sure, legalism has a lot of problems, but one of the problems that the legalist has is that he is not rightly thankful. You may recall the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke chapter 18 verses 9 through 14.

The Pharisee expressed thankfulness, so what's the problem? Well he did it the wrong way. He was blessed to be a Jew. He was blessed to have the law. He was blessed in many, many more ways. But his expressed thankfulness reveals a wicked heart. He said, I thank you that I am not like other men. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. Well, this sort of thankfulness is actually perverse. And it advances a mindset of independence and self-sufficiency and self-righteousness. It's a weapon, all right, but it's a weapon that attacks our holiness. And it does so with a vengeance. Our holiness ought not to be what we are attacking.

We ought to be attacking our sin. This sort of thankfulness inflates pride. It robs God of glory, and it is oh so easy to do.

Perhaps you're here this morning clinging to vestiges of legalism in your own life, supposing that by your good performance you can actually impress God when the work of Christ is complete. The work of Christ, as you mentioned, on your behalf that you do not need to then work to impress the Lord. Perhaps you bought into false teaching that and have called things that God has called good bad. Perhaps you have been thankless. Perhaps you have taken for granted the countless blessings that you enjoy. Does your heart need the refreshing and the perspective alignment that comes with repentance and thankfulness, well then this is the time for you. Perhaps this does bring to your mind a particular sin or set of sins related to one of the things I've mentioned or perhaps other sins come to mind that require your confession and repentance. We're gonna take a moment right now in silent confession and if you'd like to and you are able to do so I would encourage you to kneel at this time and after a

few moments, I will pray for us corporately. Let's bow together. Father, there is a special kind of presumption reserved for those who think that the blessings that we enjoy are the fruit of our own efforts. And even as those gathered in this room, how easily we take for granted our occupations, our jobs, our families, our church, the roof over our heads and suppose that we enjoy these things because we've worked hard when our hard work is actually not that impressive to you unless of course it is spiritual which you energize anyway. How quickly we forget that being numbered among your people is not something that we can manufacture and the standard certainly isn't the righteousness of another sinner.

Please forgive our contenting ourselves with being better than the next person where no better off in practice than the Pharisee who proudly contrasted his piety with the situation of the tax collector. Our culture calls good what you have called bad. We are willing to call women men, and we are willing to call men women so long as they identify that direction. We call fornication healthy so long as it's monogamous. We rationalize our own self-destruction as long as we are not hurting someone else. Please forgive us. Forgive us for the presumption of redefining what you have created. us for our refusal to follow your instructions, to practice your laws, and to honor you as God.

As individuals, we default to thanklessness, to selfishness, to independence. And we need the orienting benefits of thanksgiving, and we need for you to give it to us, and we ask you to do so now. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Please stand. Our reminder of forgiveness this morning comes from 1 Timothy 2, verses 5 and 6. Our reminder of forgiveness is just that. It's a reminder of what's already promised us because of the work of Jesus. I cannot absolve you of your sins. That's not what this time is for. No man can do that. But what I can do is point you to Scripture and to the work of Christ and what He has done to help inform your worship and your thanksgiving.

read 1 Timothy 2 verses 5 through 6, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Christ, our mediator, our one mediator, has affected our forgiveness as he alone can do. This is cause for us to worship and to sing. So let's do that even now. Today's scripture reading is 1st Timothy 4, one through five. First Timothy four, one through five. Now the Spirit expressly says that in the later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God in prayer. Let's pray. Father, we come to you today in this time of political craziness in our country. We pray for our leaders, especially those that are sons and daughters of yours that are in the government and have influence to be strong witnesses in this time, to hold people's feet to the fire on how they should behave. The reason we pray for this is so we can lead quiet and tranquil lives and be able to proclaim the Gospel and train up the next generation to even make it better than ours.

We thank you for those people that are serving our government. We thank you that Jubal is back with us today. We thank Ben, who is up north in the Navy also, and that he is going to come down when he can to be with us. We thank you for those men's service in our government. We pray also for the fathers over the families in our congregation and the future fathers, the young men, that you would grow them into the men that they need to be, to be the leaders of their future families and their current families. All of those things, the generations, help us to pass that on. We pray for the wives and mothers and young women that will be wives and mothers and and all those things, the same way, though, and the way that they can be discipled and the way that they can bring up those underneath them.

Each generation, each stepstone help them to minister to each other. And while we create that atmosphere, we do come to you with prayers that, for sickness in our congregation, we think of Carmen Nielsen as she is still recovering. She still has dizzy spells and things like that, but incrementally is getting better. We pray that she would be patient and do the things she needs to do to keep on getting better. And we thank you that seemingly the tumor has come out with very little complication that could have happened. So we thank you for that. We pray for Mary Kay Durden, as we all know Mary Kay can be stubborn and wanting to do a lot of things, help her to obey the doctor's orders and to continue and be patient because it will be a long time for this infection to be cured and help her to recognize the little small steps of improvement that she's getting and help her to be able to get up and exercise a little bit and help Ralph and her to be able to team up together to help her exercise in that way.

We think of Brooke Higgins, Shawn's sister. We thank you that she is still with us as of this time, and that Sean and Morgan were able to be with her this week, and that she was able to communicate a little bit with them, and we thank you for that. And we pray that Sean, even though he's already delivered it, that it was a good message for the people, and that it came straight from his heart, from back to his home church. And we just thank you for the way that you are superintending that with Gail and I taking care of the kids here and all the rest of it as they're gone. So we thank you for the way that you do take care of these things in a supernatural way.

We thank you for our outreach of our school, for the Children's Law Center, placing kids in goods homes, and the Children's Home in India, where those women are being raised up to go out into their society. And we want to pray especially for those churches here in our Marysville community this morning. And we pray that they would preach the gospel accurately and be a good witness for you. And we thank you for all of those voices. But of course, most of all, we thank you for your son for without his sacrifice, we wouldn't even be able to pray any request to you. So we thank you for him. And it's in his name, Jesus Christ, that we pray.

Amen. Father, what rich promises we turn to in your word, and even as we get to sing them in the Psalms, would you please plant them deep into our hearts. Unlike the words of the wicked, which also fasten themselves, lodge in themselves deep within our hearts, as dainty morsels, we ask that your word would be planted there and would transform us. We're grateful that you are intimately involved in the details of our lives, that you keep our hearts beating, that you have given us, your word. We're thankful for your servant Paul, who inspired these words too. Well, who wrote these words to Timothy, and of course, under the Spirit's inspiration.

We pray that you'd help us to find application in them this morning. May our thinking be clear, and the soil of our hearts be well tilled to hear your word now. We pray in Christ's name, amen. This morning I want to advance a singular point, the terms of which I hope will make more sense as our time together goes on. The best defense against the doctrines of demons is sanctified thankfulness. I'll say it again, if you wanna write this down, you're welcome to do so. The best defense against doctrines of demons is sanctified thankfulness.

Now you might be wondering this morning, why on earth would we care about doctrines of demons? Obviously, if they exist, then there's something that needs to be resisted in them. And hopefully that will become clearer as our time together goes on. What do we mean by sanctified thankfulness? A thankfulness that is informed by scripture. Every time we give God thanks, we're not just saying thank you. You hear people say in almost glib fashion, Lord, thank you for this day. Well, yeah, if we're just being glib over and over and over again, that that is bad. But there is something fundamentally right about giving God thanks for the day.

You do that enough, your thinking is going to be changed. Rather, when we give God thanks, we don't just say thank you, we reorient our minds, we point to God as the supplier of what we need and what we enjoy. There is a slow, a gradual, a certain shaping effect to our constant thanksgiving. What if you resolved never to look at a sunset without giving God praise, maybe even out loud, for the beauty that's on display there, for the reflection of His imagination and His delight in the beautiful that we see? What if at every meal that you ate, you were thoughtful, you were actually thoughtful, and you're thanking God for the food?

Well, over time, this would shape you, and in very good ways. The faithful man, of course, will not give thanks for the things that he shouldn't have. And frequent thanksgiving will keep us from that as well. Yeah, to be sure then, Thanksgiving is itself a weapon. And Thanksgiving can be used to combat a variety of sins in our hearts, from selfishness to pride to ingratitude. But it does intend to skyrocket to the top of our weapons checklist. As we're assessing our arsenal, we don't make sure Thanksgiving is in there. when we wish to combat false teaching in particular. Like if I were to have asked you when you walked in this morning, if you were trying to address heresy and you could have a weapon to do so, what would it be?

And you say God's word, and that's true. We definitely need that. And God's word influences how we give thanks. We must receive the good gifts that God has given with thankfulness. In doing so, we'll combat a host of sins. That was the case in the first century at Ephesus, and it's the case in 2016 in Marysville. It always has been. There are lies all around us, forces compete for our affections, for our hearts, for our worship, and having our minds well informed by scripture, and then our consciences, of course, then our deliberate thankfulness can help us to fight against these forces. From the dawn of the church age at Pentecost, until Christ returns again and the church age comes to a close, there has been and there always will be the false among the true.

And I'm not just talking about unbelievers who show up at church, maybe even what we would classify as seekers, people who are not yet redeemed but are looking for some answer to the agony that's in their hearts. I'm talking about those who have been planted there by Satan, the deliberate false among the true who have an intent to destroy the church, what Jude calls hidden reefs. And a potent weapon that the devil has consistently used in this war against the church has been false teaching to try to deceive the people of God. Now for my part, though I have not always sat in pews in Orthodox denominations, I I've actually been the recipient of pretty Orthodox teaching all of my life.

I haven't had a tremendous poisonous heresy filling my mind where I've needed to. I mean, this has just been a mercy of God because of course you always want to have our filters on and want to have our guards up and be examining what we're hearing against God's word. But I have not been in that situation before. But in today's shrinking world, there's no shortage of false teaching out there. With the advent of the internet, the world wide web is a veritable cesspool of damnable lies. Everywhere you look, somebody is pandering what Paul calls a false gospel, another gospel, and they're from the minds of men. Some of course, some of these teachers are disguised better than others as wolves in sheep's clothing.

Others are more brazen. Their message is sweet. It's palatable. toxic. It doesn't taste like it. When it goes down, it poisons. It's easy on the ears. It satisfies our greedy hearts. It inflates our egos. It drives us from God. This is demonic. This is of the devil. And in some cases, it's literally of the devil. And what I mean is sometimes these speakers are actually being energized by demons. Other times, they're just the sort of lies that come forth from the the devil's forked tongue. And the church is not impervious to the presence of false teachers pushing insidious doctrines of demons. In the first century, the first generation of the church, this is written, scholars disagree, in the 50s or 60s AD.

So we're talking about the first generation after Christ's coming and then his ascension again. Paul wrote a letter to his son in the faith, Timothy. And Timothy, as you may recall, was an overseer. I'm using that word carefully. Obviously, we believe that bishop overseer, a lot of those words are interchangeable in Scripture with similar connotations. But Paul charges Timothy and Titus with appointing these other overseers. So his was a really important position of oversight in the Ephesian church. And this was a problem there, just as it is here. And this morning we're going to look at the first paragraph of 1 Timothy 4.

And I invite you to turn there if you haven't already. But before we get into the passage itself, I'd like to consider where this paragraph fits in the greater context of 1 Timothy and what is the faith from which these individuals are certain to depart. So a brief examination of the context. As I said before, Timothy was an overseer of the church in Ephesus and he was tasked with shepherding the Ephesian congregation, as well as training other Ephesian church leaders. And chapter 3 of 1 Timothy is one of the most important resources that we have regarding church leadership and the identifying of elders and deacons.

As even the subheadings in your copies of the Bible might suggest, we have the qualifications for elders in chapter 3, verses 1 through 7, And in chapter 3, verses 8 through 13, we have the qualifications for deacons. What's often missed, I know I've missed it a bunch of times, is the paragraph that follows. In 1 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 14 through 16, Paul presents for Timothy a miniature Christological feast. It is a Christological Orthodoxy, a creed that proclaims much about Christ and the mystery of godliness. And it's full of exactly the sort of doctrine that would make many an Ephesus either nervous or downright angry.

It did not reflect their conception of God or of the gods that was popular at the time. Read that paragraph with me. Chapter 3, verses 14 through 16. I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you You may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth. Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory." Now, just those last few lines would be enough to completely blow the mind of the typical Ephesian.

You have to understand that. The popular religion of the day and the philosophy that had infected the culture could not conceive of any God taking on flesh, let alone these other aspects of God in the flesh. This is one of the points that is so emphatically clear when we look at the Lord preparing the way for the gospel in what sorts of philosophies were prevalent and how close they got to the truth without being able to get there all the way. Augustine suggests that of all the philosophers, all the philosophical groups that we ought to be ready to engage, the disciples of Plato would be number one. They did a pretty good job because they got about as close as you could possibly get using your natural mind. But there's no room in the mind of natural man for God becoming flesh, taking on corruptible flesh, and dying for His creation. There's no conception of that. Dying for His worshippers in order to effect their salvation. And Paul calls the the church who is to hold up this truth, a pillar and a buttress of the truth.

If there's anybody in the ancient world who knew what a pillar served, what purpose a pillar served, it would be the Ephesians. You may remember from chapter 19 of Acts that they proudly housed the temple of Artemis. There are over 100 pillars in that temple. It's basically a bunch of pillars and a roof. It's not standing anymore.

replica over there in modern Turkey, it's in Asia Minor. But they knew what a pillar and buttress of the truth looked like, or at least a pillar and buttress. Paul could be alluding to that here. The truth is, of course, what the church is tasked with holding up, but Paul anticipates something entirely different. He anticipates that there will be by Satan the false planted among the true with an intent to destroy the church from within. And Satan had, in fact, planted false teachers at Ephesus, and he still does so elsewhere, even today. Paul, in his... This was almost prophetic. He warned the Ephesian elders back in Acts chapter 20, the chapter after Acts 19, if you do the math. And he said, they're coming, and now it's like they're here. And then church historian Eusebius This helps us see later on that they were, in fact, their...

Our outline for this morning is rather simple. It's a pretty straightforward passage. I want to talk about, in verse 1, the warning about false teaching. In verse 2, the purveyors of false teaching. The first half of verse 3, the nature of false teaching. And then the second half of verse 3, through the end of the paragraph, the guard against false teaching. So first examine with me verse 1 what I've entitled the warning about false teaching. Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. As I mentioned moments ago, Paul is revisiting here a concern that he expressed in Acts chapter 20 verses 29 through 30.

He says, I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them." So this isn't some sort of accidental introduction of error that is ready to be corrected.

Think of, um, oh was it, was it, who was it that needed to be corrected about was it Apollo? I forget an axe. But it was an honest mistake. And so he was set straight and moved on. It was an indaminable heresy. The intention here is with an intention to draw away, if possible, even the elect, but to pull away the disciples of Christ. And what do we know about the later times? Well, in our text this morning, we see Paul addressing this concern to Timothy. Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some of the part from the faith. The Spirit expressly stating this could be because Paul was the recipient of prophecy from time to time. The Spirit could expressly be talking to Paul, but more likely he's pointing to the wealth of passages from what was soon to be canonized scripture relating to this imminent defection from the faith on the part of these churchgoers. Jesus talked about it, that it would happen in the later times between His first coming and His second coming. And that's what the later times refers to.

It refers to this age that we're in now. And if it was imminent, His return was imminent then, it's imminent. It's even more so now. There's nothing more that needs to happen. But if this defection, this apostasy, characterized the church in the first century, how much more so now? The church is bigger now and there is way more error now than there was then. That's one of the things that we see when we look at those on whose shoulders we stand theologically, ecclesiologically. So people who wrote the creeds, for instance, when you look at the Nicene Creed and the apostolic creed, the Apostles' Creed, there's no mention of same-sex marriage. There's no mention of the, well, goodness, I could go on and on.

But where's the battle being fought? There, the church in its infancy had plenty of error, but the longer time has gone on, the craftier the enemy has gotten, and the more he has introduced error mixed with the truth. And Paul had seen, had read the teachings of Christ and knew that this was accurately prophesied. Apostasy to them was, as regular of an occurrence in the first century as it is right now. Some will depart from the faith. So some who enjoyed the safe harbor of church life had heard the Bible taught, and who had enjoyed the fellowship of believers will walk away from the faith. That has to be said that this is not language reserved for those who could possibly lose their salvation.

There actually isn't such language in Scripture. Even when we look at Hebrews chapter 6, those sorts of thorny passages, were the passage in 1 John that those who went out from us were not really of us, for if they would have been of us, they would have remained, we see that it is not possible for one to be actually among God's elect and then become un-elect. What we do see is that wherever possible, the enemy would love to, as much as he can, prevent people from coming to faith in Christ. The enemy cannot finally hurt the redeemed. He can afflict us just as He did Job. He cannot destroy us. But for those who are not gods, He has the green light.

And even those people who are not gods, when as long as they are maybe even in this congregation, they enjoy a special protection and a harbor, this is why church discipline is so effective. It's because the person who is in ongoing unrepentant sin is not allowed to commune with this body. then he is put out for the sake of Satan to have full reign with him, and so that he can come back to the full. Well, this is all tragic to be sure that there would be plants, false among the true to deceive and to pull away those who are church-going and enjoying fellowship. It is work then of Christians individually and corporately to guard against this.

But how does this apostasy happen? Well, in brief, by these churchgoers believing lies, by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. That is, by putting into practice the instruction of lying spirits, these men who destroy themselves. Now it's exceedingly rare for someone to leave the fellowship of a local church expressly to worship demons, although that does happen from time to time. But usually, spiritual destruction is far more subtle. It has long been the practice of the devil to mix truth with error, to twist the word of God into damnable heresy. That was Satan's tactic in the garden.

Heth God really said? And it's his practice with Benny Hen. It's a very effective method. A naive churchgoer perhaps lets down his guard, does not compare what he hears from a pulpit with what he reads in God's word. And the next thing you know, he's devoting himself to the doctrines of demons. the case with those in our text. That's why we invite you to open your Bible. And if you hear something that I say that doesn't square with what Paul has said, then that's a problem. Now many of the ancients recognized that the gods of men are actually demons. It's remarkable how when you read ancient writings, how many of them just assumed this.

And I'm in complete agreement with them. like Jupiter, Baal, Osiris, and Ra are in many cases demons demanding worship that would destroy their worshipers. And that is one of the most compelling evidences of it. When you look at the sorts of worship that they require, it is to the destruction of their worshipers. And why is that? Because those demons hate the image of God in man. So So whatever they can do to destroy the image of God in man, they will require of their worshippers. Things like gross sexual practices, frenzy drunkenness, hallucinogenic drug usage, self-mutilation. You think of the prophets of Baal who cut themselves repeatedly, and even though they did, far from answering, Baal would have said, do it more, if he could have answered it at all.

Now don't think I'm crazy. I don't believe that every object of worship, every idol is itself a demon or occupied by a demon. Some of them are just nothing. Some of them are just figments of man's imagination. You cut down a tree and you build a fire, and with the other half you fashion an idol and worship it. I mean, those things are nothing. Paul says that meat sacrificed to idols is not really a thing. But they are, at a minimum, inspired by—and the worship of these false deities, these gods, is inspired by—demons. It makes perfect sense, and it is also compelling when you look at the nature of the worship that they would require.

So while the destruction of the image of God in men's physical bodies was high on the priority list for these false gods, these demons, the destruction of the soul is far better in their view. So destroying their bodies, that's fantastic, but if we can get their soul, well, first of all, they are a soul and have a body. The body, it was just, we could destroy that image, but destroying the soul is better. So mixing the truth with damnable error is a very effective way of doing this. And so Paul will speak of the nature of some of these false teachings, which have, it's worth noting, external practices related to them in just a moment. But But first, he instructs Timothy about the teachers themselves.

And in verse 2, we look at the purveyors of false teaching. Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, the term insincerity is hypocrisis. So every other translation I've seen translates this hypocrisy. And of course, you may know that in ancient theatrics, a hypocrite, a hypocrisis referred to an actor who would act behind a mask. So if you've ever seen a little kid, a Halloween time wearing a mask, he might be smiling behind that mask but you cannot tell. So if it's a big scary mask and he's grinning from behind because he thinks he scared you, you have a duplicitous situation there. What is on the outside is different from what is on the inside.

And the insincerity of these liars, through their hypocrisy, they intentionally go about this. They deceive. A hypocrite offers an impression of a self that is, in fact, different from reality.

And these particular hypocrites act as though they love Christ and his flock. That is the mask that they put on. But they're actually inspired by demons, or in some cases, they're even possessed by them, wishing to destroy the flock. It's worth noting here that I think it's curious. And I don't think it is just because Christ has come and died and introduced a new heavens and a new earth and that the enemy is not free to deceive the nations like he once was. Satan is loose. He is. But there's no mistaking that the influence of the gospel has changed Western culture from the first century onward. And we enjoy a very privileged position having our culture has been flavored by the gospel. And one of the things that we see are the abuses inherent in that. Wherever there's grace you can count on it. Grace will be abused. That's why there are just as many demons running around now, influencing, occupying people as there were in the first century, but when you read the the Gospels in particular, they were able to identify that a whole lot faster than

we are. There was a man who was occupied by a demon and he used to, nobody could keep him shackled. There was a man had a son who had it was occupied by a demon and he would jump into the fire and so on and so forth. There was a man occupied by a demon walking down State Avenue waving his arms in the air and telling people to turn or burn a false teacher. That's an example, but how would we know that? They were more sensitive to it than we are now, but part of the reason for that is because of our the grace that we have enjoyed has bred insensitivity and callousness of heart. So speaking of callousness, The consciences of these false teachers in first century Ephesus were seared as with a hot iron.

They are spiritually insensitive. One with a seared conscience can intentionally harm somebody without blushing. And of course, that is not only to the destruction of others, but that is to the destruction of himself as well, the one who is doing the injury. So these are teachers with an appearance of love for Christ, to appearance of good intentions, hence their ability to get their way into the church. But they're actually, terrors among the wheat, false among the true. And Paul offers two examples. These are just examples. This is not exhausted by any stretch. Two examples of the sort of false teaching peddled by these savage wolves.

Look at the first part of verse three. This is our third point, the nature of false teaching. Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created. The sorts of false teachings, these doctrines of demons that are being peddled here in the Ephesian congregation, or at least that Paul anticipates, relate to externals. There's a set of rules that someone can obey on the outside even though their hearts are wicked. As John Calvin puts it in his commentary on this passage, they arise from that hypocrisy which, having forsaken true holiness, seeks something else for the purpose of concealment and disguise.

Now the ancient philosophies of the Platonists, the followers of Plato, the Gnostics had a foothold in the first century. The absolute disdain for the material and love for the spiritual was not easily cast off by the Ephesian Christians. So you have to keep that in mind. Their whole culture was influenced by these philosophies. Then they come to Christ. They learned that all these foods were clean. Even some of the Jewish baggage from the Old Testament. All these foods were clean. This way of thinking was pervasive and you can't easily cast that off. So that's why Christ is a stumbling block. God in the flesh is a stumbling block to the Gentiles.

It's foolishness. So again, this school of thought had a disdain for the physical. So the earthly is bad. There were abuses of Gnosticism. Some said the physical is bad, so it doesn't matter what we do. Or the physical is bad, so it only matters about the spiritual and we have a disdain for the physical. So some Gnostics, they would go on both ends of the spectrum, just over sexual practices and debauchery and all sorts of crazy things. It doesn't really matter. It's just stuff. What really matters is my heart. All the way, and then of course the reverse as well. And this was not easily cast off even when you introduce the gospel.

Even if it does, all makes sense. Instantly, wait a minute. That fits. flesh and actually fixes our problem. Yeah, that makes sense. And although these were... So there were external practices associated with eating certain foods. Of course, that's external. That's something I can measure. I can tell if I'm having these Cheetos or not, right? Cheetos are clean, by the way. And of course, there were other types of doctrines of demons, but Paul addresses these two examples. They relate to marriage and food. So now, why on earth would somebody prohibit Why would somebody forbid marriage? What's he saying here? Well, he's actually talking about the preaching of celibacy.

As Church historian Eusebius talks about three false teachers who preached abstinence from marriage in animal meats. This was several generations after 1 Timothy was written, but the seeds were being sown right here in Ephesus in the 1st century. And of course, even if that is well-intentioned, it's still misguided. The Catholic Church is absolutely riddled with accounts of abuses by those who have committed vows of chastity, abuses of sexual prohibitions. But that's not well, but this in our text is not well intentioned. Remember these false teachers are peddling doctrines of demons. They're trying to destroy the church from within. Now it is wicked to call evil what God has called good.

It is wicked to call evil what God has given to his people as gift. And that includes sex. The sexual union of a husband and a wife is blessed, it is pleasurable, and children are the very good fruit of this union. Procreation is itself so important that God has designed us with strong physical impulses in that direction. Sex is a gift. He wants his people to enjoy it, but it must be received rightly or else it is sin. And Paul is not silent on this point, but first, let's talk about food. What about the requirements of abstaining from certain foods? Well, this is more than simple Hebrew Christians who grew up abstaining from hot dogs and catfish.

This is teaching that keeping away from certain foods, yes, catfish are bottom dwellers, keeping away from certain foods actually makes you holy. And then conversely, eating certain other foods is actually evil. That is of the devil. So perhaps for your breakfast you prefer a bowl of M&Ms to a bowl of Cheerios, and instead of milk you fill the bowl with Mountain Dew. Well listen carefully. As long as you receive this with thanksgiving and a clear conscience, you can glorify God in the eating. We have to qualify that. In the eating. There is no biblical prohibition on these foods. There is nothing objectively sinful in the eating of them.

As long as it's done with thanksgiving and an informed conscience. The same goes for animals that chew the cud or pork products. I'm glad that bacon is clean. All foods are clean. The New Testament is clear on this. But also to be clear, while it may be possible to honor God in the eating, I don't think that somebody who routinely eats M&Ms and Mountain Dew for breakfast can glorify God in the living. That's probably poor stewardship of his body. But today, many food fussers and clean eaters behave as though foods that God has called clean actually aren't clean. That is wicked. If you want to eat clean, great. I recommend it.

I think it's, yeah, you're going to feel great and you're going to last longer. Maybe. But it must be done with a heart of gratefulness for what God has given and not because eating those foods is inherently righteous. Important distinctions. And those who exercise more dietary liberality are free to do so. Though we are not free, however, to incite others to sin along the way. And so the false teachers that Paul saw on the horizon in Ephesus would argue that external obedience to what God has not said was essential to please him. And that is literally diabolical. We saw some Judaizers earlier in the New Testament who said that Christians need to adhere to the law of Moses, need to be circumcised, things like that.

That is wrong. We need to adhere to what God has said. Now having anticipated these heresies, Paul now takes just a moment to address how to guard against these doctrines of demons. So this big guard against false teaching in our fourth point, our last one, the second half of verse three through verse five. To be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. Remember again our main point for this morning, the best defense against doctrines of demons is sanctified thankfulness.

That's the point I opened with. We must give thanks and our thanksgiving must be informed by the word of God. I've tried to make the case that thanksgiving is a weapon in this war on sin. It's like kryptonite to those false teachers. With a grateful heart, God's good gifts can be rightly enjoyed and the false teachers will wilt like Superman before that little green rock. And all of the advice that Paul could give, for all that he could give, he chooses this. Under the inspiration of the Spirit, he chooses to tell Timothy that these Ephesian Christians must receive God's good gifts with thankfulness. According to Paul, the ones who are doing the receiving and thanking are believers.

This is an important qualification. Look again at the second half of verse 3. To be received with thanksgiving by whom? By those who believe and know the truth." Paul is not concerned here with unbelievers, which makes sense since he's writing to Timothy about the Ephesian church. But additionally, Paul is of the mind that only true believers can rightly give God praise and thanks. An unbeliever and a believer alike can enjoy a bowl of ice cream. An unbeliever can eat a bowl of ice cream and enjoy it because it's yummy. That is a common grace. But those who believe and know the truth can eat their ice cream and enjoy it not only because it's yummy, but because it is a gift.

And not only is it a gift, but they also know the giver of that gift and what's more, they love him. The unbelievers then are not in a position to properly receive God's good gifts because they cannot do so with thanksgiving properly. They maintain rather an adversarial relationship with the giver of those good gifts. doesn't even allow for the possibility that an ungodly man can properly be grateful for bad things. So an adulterer ought not to receive somebody else's wife with thanksgiving. And then suppose that because he's grateful that makes it okay, of course not. And Paul emphasizes this point there in verse four. Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. So he uses the term thanksgiving there two times in two verses, and it is the right weapon to wield in this war on ascetic legalism.

He finishes the paragraph then with a further confirmation of what must inform our thankful receiving of God's good gifts, the word of God in prayer. We must inform our consciences in our receiving, or we cannot rightly give thanks. When we fill our minds with God's word, and we are rightly taught from it, we are better position to recognize God's good gifts. When we read and apply His word, we can discern the difference between feasting and gluttony. We can discern the proper sexual relations and sinful sexual relations. We can enjoy a forest without worshiping the trees. We can recognize that the good gifts that He's given are for our enjoyment and they are intended to point us toward Him. And our prayers or how this is all appropriated.

So by prayer, we ask God to illumine His word and to help us to understand it. By prayer, we labor to wield properly the weapon of thanksgiving. For instance, we ought to pray to be more thankful. And we ought to then work to give thanks wherever it's necessary. And it's necessary everywhere. And I'm not just talking about giving God thanks directly, though He owes our thanks for everything, but instead really being thankful people. Thanking others for saving you a seat this morning, thanking others for giving you a bulletin, for holding the door, for driving you to church, for fixing a lunch, for cleaning up afterwards.

You do this enough and you can count on becoming a different person. By prayer, we rightly understand the Word as we ask the Spirit to illumine it for us. And of course, rightly understanding the Word then helps us to inform our thanksgiving as well as directing our opposition to false doctrine. Remember, that's what we're talking about here. Scripture will teach us what is righteous and what we ought not to be receiving in the first place, let alone giving thanks for. I wish to conclude this portion of our liturgy with a reminder that for all of his efforts, Satan cannot prevail against the church, the doctrines of demons notwithstanding.

He knows the truth and he hates the truth and he keeps fighting against it, and he will until he is finally crushed and cast in the lake of fire. We must be faithful in this, but the story is already written. Our good works have been prepared for us. Now it's our duty to walk in them, and it's our joy to do so.

Let me read you two verses from a popular hymn, see if you recognize it. The church shall never perish. Her dear Lord to defend, to guide, sustain, and cherish is with her to the end. Though there be those who hate her and false sons in her pale against both foe or traitor, she ever shall prevail. Though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed, yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, how long? And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song. That's from the Church as one foundation, and it's good. Let's pray together. Father, we are thankful for these promises.

We are thankful that although there'll be those who hate the Church, she'll be victorious in you in the end. We can be as certain of this as we are certain of your word and your character. Christ is personally invested in presenting to himself a pure spotless bride. As individuals, we are a part of that collective body, that bride of Christ, meaning Jesus is personally invested in our sanctification, our increased holiness. We pray that you would give us wisdom. Help us understand your word. Guard us from error. And please, Father, help us to be discerning and increase our thankfulness. May we intentionally combat error by receiving with gratefulness what you have given and what you have called good.

We ask by your grace as we continue to worship you that you would be honored among us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Please stand together. We're going to invite forward our musicians once again who will lead us in a couple more songs. And this is our opportunity where we get to bring forth our offering collectively. It has liturgical significance, one bucket, one gift, one body, many parts. And we'll bring that forward.

do, we're going to continue to sing. If my math is correct, this morning is the 299th time that Trinity Evangel Church has celebrated communion since the beginning. If we were like many churches and had communion just once a month, it would be some time in the year 2034 or 18 years from now before we'd reach that many times breaking bread together. When it was first decided that we would have communion as a part of our weekly liturgy, there was some concern that it would lose its specialness to become just a religious filler in the church service. The passage that Jonathan taught from this morning warns that equating spirituality with saying no to good things is the doctrine of demons.

On the other hand is an equally false notion that overindulgence in of itself sanctifies activity. In Matthew 6, 7, for example, Jesus said, and when you are praying do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So how do we keep communion from becoming an exercise in vain repetition? In a word, thankfulness. Where thankfulness is expanding, so also are the occasions to express it. Go ahead and stand. I suspect that thanklessness often lies at the root of boredom with the familiar. Thanklessness turns our salvation into an event in the past, rather than a daily anticipation of a glory yet to be revealed that's beyond our wildest imagination.

Thankfulness, on the other hand, remembers what it was like to be dead in our trespasses and sins before we were adopted by God into His family. Thankfulness remembers what it was like to be blind before we could see. Thankfulness remembers what it was like to be unable to comprehend the love of God before he turned our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. Thankfulness remembers that hell was our future before God redeemed us and set about preparing the place for us in heaven. Is a weekly time for reflection and thanksgiving too little or too much? It depends largely on how much you have to be thankful for. For those of you who are new to our church, we welcome you to join us at the communion table provided that you have put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

And then as the worship team leads us in the song, we're going to come down the middle, grab the elements, go back down the sides, and then we'll all partake of it together. And again, if you prefer juice as opposed to wine, remember that there's one tray with a J on the front of it. So go ahead and please come as we sing. The person who wants God to adequately meet their needs brings a spoon-sized prayer request to him. The person who wants God to abundantly meet their need brings bucket-sized prayer requests to him. It's possible to be amiss in what we ask of God, but it's also possible to be amiss in not asking God at all.

You have not because you ask not. The Father is not stingy, nor is the Son. Jesus said you may ask anything in my name. That's a pretty open invitation. This is not name it and claim it theology. This is how big and how good is your God theology. Do you have needs in your life? There's good news for you. God is willing and able to meet those needs and that is something to be thankful for. Our benediction comes from Philippians 4 19 through 20 and 23 and my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus to our God and Father be glory forever and ever amen the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit

What happens when four people in the same family take sides and try to deceive each other? You get exactly what God planned for each one. It’s also true that a house divided against itself can’t stand.

The deceit in Genesis 27 is almost at presidential levels. Do they really think this will work? Isn’t someone going to notice a problem? Yet this is a true story with consequences that reach millennia into the future.

Up for grabs is blessing, the father’s blessing, and, in this case, the LORD’s blessing on Abraham’s offspring. Isaac was the son of promise, the chosen heir. The son of Abraham through Hagar as well as Abraham’s sons through Keturah got gifts and then they got the boot; they got none of the inheritance, Isaac was the only one. Genesis 26 revealed that the LORD personally reaffirmed the promises to Isaac and demonstrated the sort of protection and fruitfulness that comes with His blessing. Divine blessing is desirable.

But Isaac and Rebekah have twin sons. Esau was a little older by minutes, but he and Jacob shared a womb. Both boys should receive a portion, with the bigger portion going to the firstborn.

We also know that Esau sold his firstborn birthright to Jacob for some stew. It was impulsive and foolish on Esau’s part, and opportunistic and cunning on Jacob’s part. But it was still done. Stupid doesn’t make something unlawful. Their deal was not nullified or modified.

The brothers were different, the parents each had a favorite, the birthright transfer was nagging, and the LORD already revealed the eventual priority of one over the other (25:23). All this leads to Genesis 27.

The section is bookended with details about Esau’s wives. He took two Hittite wives in Genesis 26:34-35 and he takes another wife in Genesis 28:6-9. He seems unaware, or he simply doesn’t care, that Judith and Basemath “made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.” This bitterness makes Isaac’s intentions to bless Esau anyway at the beginning of the chapter less understandable, and it makes Rebekah’s argument to send Jacob away at the end of the chapter more plausible. Esau’s selfishness sets the scene and his misdirected efforts close it, but he is not the only selfish one in the family.

As men are in the habit of doing, Isaac wanted a couple things before he would be gathered to his people.

Moses said, When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, and Isaac said about himself, ”Behold, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.” He was around 137 years old. The death bell tolls for everyone, but the ringing in his ears was a little louder. He wanted a couple things ”before I die.” We also know that he didn’t die for around 43 more years.

What he wanted was a final meal and to give a father’s blessing. That could be okay, but his intentions were not pure.

He called Esau his older son, his favored son, not the son who held the legal birthright. But even if Isaac thought that “older” was sufficient, he should have called for Esau and Jacob anyway. The blessing was usually a more public ceremony, or at least a family ceremony. When a will is read, all the potential beneficiaries should be present. Jacob wasn’t called at all though he deserved something as a rightful heir. He actually deserved the blessing of the firstborn due to his deal with Esau. And he deserved priority according to the LORD’s word to Rebekah. Isaac intends to ignore all of that.

He really wanted his ”delicious food, such as I love”. That phrase is used in verse 4, and in verses 7, 9, 14, 17, and 31. Isaac apparently wants this game more than harmony in his house. He overlooks his annoying daughter-in-laws as long as his son will bring him this “savory meat” (KJV). Isaac’s belly drives him. He intends to exclude Jacob. He didn’t think that he’d have another four decades to live and to give account for that.

Esau agrees. He doesn’t argue; “But, dad….” He’s complicit in the deceit. He sold his birthright.

Esau went to the field to hunt for game and the secret plan is put in motion. Except it wasn’t so secret. Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau, note that it was ”his” son, not their son. Moses already told us that father and mother each had their favorites (25:28).

She waited until Esau had closed the gate behind him—so to speak—and went to her son Jacob to tell him not just what she heard, but what he should do.

Rebekah mostly quotes her husband and then:

“Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” (Genesis 27:8–10)

Rebekah doesn’t say everything; she assumes Jacob understands her intentions. He is going to have to impersonate Esau. She doesn’t say, “you’re going to have to lie to your father,” but that’s what she means. One wonders if she was irritated that her husband “loved” Esau’s “delicious food.”

Rebekah had not the slightest doubt that she could reproduce Esau’s gastronomic masterpiece—had she often smarted under this?—in a fraction of Esau’s time. (Kidner)

Did Isaac never compliment her dinners?

Jacob is unsure, not if it’s right or not, but if it will work or not. He’s okay with lying, he just wonders if he can do it convincingly enough. He’s especially concerned about the fact that ”my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me.” He’s not concerned about sight or sound or taste, just touch. And he’s fearful that if he’s caught, he’ll bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.

Rebekah has an answer for both problems. She sooths her son by saying, ”Let your curse be on me, my son.” That sounds nice, but neither blessings or cursing are transferable, otherwise Isaac could have transferred his blessing back to Esau when he found out he’d been tricked. Rebekah would be responsible for her own part in the conspiracy, but she couldn’t actually be the substitute curse target.

As for the hairy situation, the goat skins could be a substitute. Jacob got the goats, Rebekah got some of Esau’s best garments, and got to work in the kitchen. She prepared the food and the skins of the young goats she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. She dresses him up in a costume and sends him with supper to lie for his blessing.

Isaac conspired with Esau to deceive Jacob out of any blessing. Rebekah conspired with Jacob to deceive Isaac out of Esau’s blessing. Now it’s Jacob’s turn to live up to his name.

The interaction is awkward, the scene is tense. Will Isaac buy it? Will Esau, or someone else, interrupt and ruin the plan? If Isaac had not intended to keep Jacob excluded, this would not have even been possible.

Jacob said, ”My father.” Isaac said, ”Here am I. Who are you, my son?” That’s not a good start. Jacob’s response is too much. ”I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.” The description of himself is like he’s trying to convince himself. The direction to his father is overly eager as well. He’s in a hurry to get this over with.

But Isaac wonders, ”How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” In other words, “That’s amazing, son. Didn’t we just finish talking?”

Jacob replies that it’s not surprising, it’s supernatural. ”Because the LORD your God granted me success.” There isn’t any way to shine positive light on this. Jacob is blaspheming God, saying that God did something that He didn’t do. And Jacob said it to get the blessing of God. Jacob uses the God who never lies to cover for his lies.

Isaac is still not convinced. ”Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” ”The voice is Jacob’s voice,” but the goat skins did the trick, ”the hands are the hands of Esau.”

But he’s still not totally convinced, like pulling down hard on the rope swing to check if it will hold your weight before jumping over the edge. He asks Jacob point blank, ”Are you really my son Esau?” And when Jacob answered yes, Isaac asked him to come closer. Jacob brought him the food and wine and Isaac ate, then had one more test, the Sniff Test.

Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said,

“See, the smell of my son

Isaac finally believed that it was Esau. The taste of the food, the feel of the hands, the smell of the clothes convinced him; three out of four senses—since his sight didn’t work—satisfied him. He believed it was Esau, and he believed that God would bless Esau.

But it pleased the Lord thus to render his senses dull, partly for the purpose of showing how vain it is for men to strive to change what he has once decreed (Calvin)

This is not standard Abrahamic covenant promises, not like in Genesis 28:4. It must be because Isaac knew that Esau didn’t really care about all of it. This blessing is still good, just this-worldly.

Dew of heaven was water necessary for crops when it wasn’t raining. Fatness of the earth meant the best, plenty of grain and wine meant a lot. Physical prosperity is given by God, or not. “The last part of Isaac’s blessing over Jacob shifts from agricultural fertility (v.28) to political supremacy (v.29)” (Hamilton).

“Esau” would have power. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. His authority would be international, and also domestic. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. He only had one other brother that we know about, but this may be extended to cover generations.

The final part of the blessing is the gravity clause. If a man fights gravity, he will lose. If he remembers and honors gravity, he will do better. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you! “Esau” is to be the centerpiece, the one around whom other’s actions should rotate.

Isaac saw divine blessing as something that he could give to whomever he wanted. He saw it as a way to get another good meal. He also really believed that it mattered and that God would do it. His intentions were mixed.

Esau saw divine blessing as something profitable. All he had to do was hunt and cook, he didn’t have to depend on God or live in according to the family way. He didn’t want God’s blessing no matter what he had to do, he wanted God to bless what he wanted to do. If God could make that happen, great, he’d take it. His intentions were mixed.

Rebekah and Jacob saw divine blessing as desirable, transferable, and worth lying for. They believed that God would listen to Isaac as he pronounced the blessing, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone to such extremes. But did they not think God would be listening while Jacob was lying to Isaac? Their intentions were mixed.

Not one of these four characters should be imitated without qualification, though God is working out His intentions through all of them. We’ll see what happens next in Genesis 27:30-28:9.

Everybody wants blessing. Everybody wants to be blessed, to have good things and favor from others. Everybody wants blessing, but not everybody knows what true blessings are or the conditions for getting them.

Genesis 26 is a chapter about blessing. The word “blessing” is used four times (verses 3, 12, 24, 29). And the multiple parallels between Isaac and his father Abraham will demonstrate that Isaac is indeed the one through whom God’s blessing is channeled. Covenantal blessing is kind of a big deal.

But all of this could have been, I might argue should have been, written after Genesis 25:20. The content of chapter 26 is significant, but it is even more significant because of its placement.

The “generations of Isaac” started in 25:19 with the reminder that he married Rebekah. At the start of chapter 26 Isaac and Rebekah head toward Egypt because of a famine, just like Abraham and Sarah. God stopped them in Gerar at the bottom of Canaan and Isaac fears that the people will think his wife is so beautiful that they will kill him, just like Abraham with Sarah. Like his father, the son tells the people that she is his sister. They had “been there a long time” (verse 8) when King Abimelech saw Isaac and Rebekah interacting in the way of spouses not siblings. But didn’t we already learn about their twin boys, Esau and Jacob? Wouldn’t sons have been an obvious giveaway of their marital status? At least the first part of chapter 26 fits before Genesis 25:21 chronologically.

And what are verses 34-35 doing in this chapter? We are learning how Isaac is like his father. We are seeing how God confirmed His promises to the second generation patriarch. These are Isaac’s key moments. Why put this bitter news at the end?

The Esau stuff fits better at the end of the material in chapter 25. He sold his birthright. He didn’t care about his family responsibilities. He marries foreign women. He still doesn’t care. That would also flow neatly into chapter 27 when we see Esau and Jacob at it again, except that Esau does care about part of the blessing that belongs with his birthright.

Chapter 26 shows that God’s blessing on Isaac is like God’s blessing on Abraham. Chapter 26 also shows the nature of God’s blessing, which is not always as obvious to men such as Esau. God’s idea of blessing and Esau’s idea of blessing are not the same. Esau wants the part that he can see, but he evidently doesn’t want the Person he can’t see. Esau wants the blessing of God without depending on God. And that’s not how it works.

Gerar is in between Beersheba and Egypt, the route Isaac took to get away from a famine. In Gerar he receives the blessings of revelation, protection, and prosperity from the LORD.

There was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. Always there are people who see parallel stories in the Bible and conclude that the repetition must be a revision, not a new event. But it is an incompetent editor who refers to the previous story in his telling of another if he doesn’t want readers to make the connection.

Like father, the son heads toward Egypt where food is more likely to be found. Unlike his father, the LORD stops Isaac from crossing the border.

The rest of the paragraph is what the LORD told him.

And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” (Genesis 26:2–5)

Most of these things God already told Abraham. These are promises Isaac probably knew about because his father told him. But now, for the first time, the LORD personally reveals His purpose to bless Isaac to Isaac. Maybe Isaac heard the LORD’s voice on Mt. Moriah, but the LORD was talking to Abraham. Now the LORD is talking to Isaac directly.

In these verses God gives guidance: stay here. He gives reassurance: I’ll be with you. He gives hope: land and offspring are coming. And He gives reasoning: because Abraham obeyed. While God could have revealed Himself to Isaac at any time, the context of this word of blessing is famine, trouble, uncertainty. The blessing comes when Isaac needs to depend on the LORD, the blessing does not come so that Isaac won’t need to depend on Him.

Like his dad, Isaac didn’t always depend on the LORD even though he had every reason to do so. Like his dad, Isaac received the blessing of protection from the LORD, sanctioned through the highest level of government.

He obeyed and settled in Gerar. But when the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister” because he was in a panic. Abraham’s servant immediately recognized Rebekah’s beauty (Genesis 24:16) and that’s why the men were asking about her now.

But nothing came of it for a long time. When he had been there for a long time, so he had no need to hold onto his fear due to Rebekah. The longer it went on, the more reason he had to fear because of holing onto his lie.

Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. Pharaoh and his house were afflicted in such a way that he figured out that Sarah was married to Abraham (12:17); Abimelech had a dream in which God told him about Sarah and Abraham’s marriage (20:3). Here in chapter 26 Abimelech doesn’t need supernatural insight, just his eyesight. This may be the same Abimelech that Abraham lied to, though that would make him quite old. Age might explain why Rebekah hadn’t been taken into his harem; he was past collecting women. Maybe this is Abimelech a son, using the same name as a title, like Pharaoh in Egypt.

The king saw them laughing. It’s the same root as Isaac’s name. It’s the same root of Ishmael’s mockery. But through a window Abimelech didn’t see them sharing an inside joke or bickering like a married couple. More than likely he saw them behaving like married people who don’t know they’re being watched. The king must have thought highly enough of Isaac to assume that Isaac had lied rather than that Isaac was romantically interested in his sister.

The king summoned Isaac and confronted him as he had Abraham. And Isaac gives a similar self-protective answer, ”Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’”. But Abimelech was concerned about marital fidelity and the guilt that would fall on all the people if another man had taken Rebekah. The king shows more integrity than God’s chosen man. Again.

At the same time, God blessed Isaac with protection not only from the king but through the king. By grace God used Isaac’s fear of the men to get the men to fear the king. Abimelech protects Isaac with the severest legislation available. ”Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” It would be a capital offense to touch Isaac or Rebekah. Blessing again comes in the context of need.

Even though Isaac was a sojourner, he had been in Gerar long enough to plant some crops and take in the harvest. The yield was exceptional, reaping in the same year a hundredfold. It wasn’t mere agricultural skill, the LORD had blessed him.

The men of Gerar already had reason to look at Isaac sideways, and his possessions of flocks and herds and many servants made it so that the Philistines envied him. The trial of the famine led to the blessing of promise. Now the blessing of great wealth led to the trial of fussy neighbors.

It wasn’t just that they looked at him wrong, they filled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug. They didn’t capture the wells to use the water for themselves. They despised him so much that they deliberately ruined the wells so that no one could use them. That’s vandalism. So Abimelech urged him to leave the land, ”Go away from us.” Maybe the king called Isaac mightier because he was really concerned, maybe at this point he was being condescending.

He moved out of the city but trouble kept following him. Envy works best in proximity. Every time Isaac and his men dug out a well, presumably trying to mind their own business, the herdsman of Gerar quarreled saying, “The water is ours.” The first time it happened Isaac called the well Esek meaning “contention” because they argued. The second time it happened he called the well Sitnah meaning “opposition” because there was hostility. The third time it happened he must have wondered how many more times it was going to happen. But they did not quarrel over it. He had finally moved far enough away. That’s why Isaac called it Rehoboth meaning “open spaces.” Instead of fighting back or being frustrated, he gives credit to the LORD: ”now the LORD has made room for us, and Isaac anticipated more fruitfulness. He didn’t argue or complain but took his household where they would have peace.

Even though he found “open spaces” the famine conditions must have subsided enough to allow him to return home to Beersheba. When he arrived, the LORD appeared to him again.

And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.” (Genesis 26:24)

Isaac may have felt forgotten. But now the LORD reassured him. Isaac’s response is worship. He’s been moving around, but he built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. Blessing wasn’t coming like he had imagined, but he could see good from God.

Then Abimelech and his adviser..and the commander of his army paid a visit to Isaac. He does not welcome them with open arms. ”Why have you come to me, seeing the you hate me and have sent me away from you?” He’s hurt.

They were undeterred. As Abimelech—the same or the father with the same name—did with Abraham, he desired a peace treaty so that Isaac would not attack them. They come humbly, the three of them, and they did it rather than calling Isaac to the king’s court. They said, “We see plainly that the LORD has been with you….You are now the blessed of the LORD.”

Of course, if Isaac really was blessed by the LORD, they probably didn’t have any reason to think Isaac would act unjustly toward them.

Isaac warmed up and made them all a feast. After exchanging oaths they departed from him in peace. Then Isaac’s servants reported that they had found water (again). The LORD provided again. Even his enemies were at peace with him (see Proverbs 16:7). These are all signs of the LORD’s blessing as Isaac depended on Him.

This point doesn’t parallel the others because these verses don’t match the others. For the most part Isaac trusted and obeyed the LORD. Isaac wanted and received and thanked God for blessings. Esau didn’t.

He already sold his birthright because he despised his position, now he despises the way of the family again. He did not depend on his father to help him find a wife. He looked or a wife from among the Canaanite peoples unlike his dad (see him do it again in Genesis 28:6-9). And he took two wives. Esau desired satisfaction on his own terms, he did not depend on the LORD to provide.

In the next chapter he wants his father’s blessing, but not his father’s God, or faith, or worship. This also makes Isaac’s determination to give the firstborn blessing to this son less respectable.

The blessing of Abraham to Isaac is worth fighting about. In the events of chapter 26 we see the blessings of revelation, guidance, presence, land, children, reputation, protection, provision. Whereas, by ourselves, we are ignorant, uncertain, alone, wandering, weak, and exposed.

Two things about blessing: its context and its condition.

The blessings didn’t come in trouble-free contexts. There were still problems (famine, risk, envy, armies), and Isaac had to trust the LORD. They weren't "Blessings in Vacuum" or BIVs for short. In a vacuum there is nothing else, no conditions. To run an experiment in a vacuum is to isolate the experiment from the normal context to assess it. But BIVs are IDOLS. BIVs are lies. They don’t exist.

There are no trouble-free contexts of blessings from the LORD. There are also no blessings apart from trusting the LORD.

Dependence is the condition of blessings. Humans are made to depend on God. If we don’t depend on God, not only are we in rebellion against God, we are in rebellion against humanity. Autonomy is one of the most subversive soul tyrants, promising us freedom to do what we want while simultaneously enslaving us to despair.

Esau didn't want his father's blessing that way. He wanted the esteem from kings, a hundredfold yield on his crops and the wealth of flocks and herds. He wanted his servants to keep finding wells of water. But he didn’t want to depend on the LORD.

Esau wanted blessings in a vacuum. Esau wanted good things without standards, without dependence. But those are not true blessings.

In the fall of 1993 I took a class on the 16th Century Reformation. I was a sophomore at Milligan College in Johnson City, Tennessee. I was also a two-month old Calvinist. I had taken the nickname without knowing very much about the man with the name.

I loved that class; it is one of my top three favorite classes ever. Six students met for a few hours every Thursday evening. Our professor, Dr. Craig Farmer, was the only professor on campus who leaned Calvinist. When we read the debate between Erasmus and Luther on the bondage of the will, it was great to watch the other students try to defend Erasmus’ inconsistencies only to be frustrated by the weakness of his/their arguments. None of the other students were Catholic or even had Catholic sympathies, and yet they could not appreciate what drove the Reformers and Protestantism as a whole.

Durning that semester I had also started a small Bible study on Wednesday nights on the five points of Calvinism. Within a couple weeks news spread about a new “cult” on campus. I got comparisons to David Koresh, and got called a false prophet as well as “antichrist” by one passionate Arminian in the lunchroom. In the spring semester, the church history professor invited me to be a guest speaker for an entire class period when they started to study the Reformation era because he had students who couldn’t believe that anyone still believed like the Reformers.

I did. I do. We do, as elders, and it is reflected in our church statements of “What We Believe” and “What We Believe in Brief.” There is wider appreciation of the Reformation and of Reformed teaching in Evangelicalism today than there was in 1993, yet there is still a sizable group of professing Christians who do not know about, or who know and cannot agree with, the truth or relevance of the Solas and/or TULIP.

Reformation doctrines and emphases are important enough that we almost named our church: Trinity Reformed Evangel Church or Trinity Evangel Reformed Church (TERC for short). After some discussion we decided to leave “Reformed” out of the name but to give it prominent second place on the website. So we are “Reformed and still reforming disciples of Christ.” We embrace the adjective.

What difference does it make? Does it detract from the gospel? Does it (inappropriately) elevate men and men’s teaching? Do we believe everything every Reformer believed? What were they reforming and how does that relate to Protestantism?

October 31, 2017 will be the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the bulletin board at the church in Wittenberg, Germany. It is usually recognized as the turning point toward the Reformation age in church history, though Luther was not the first to see problems and abuses in the Roman Catholic Church. And, while the reformers agreed on many things, the Reformation was not a well-coordinated movement. Many countries in Europe had their own men and their own battles for a few generations.

Because of the upcoming anniversary, because it is so near to our doctrinal heart, and even because a few of our men who went to the last T4G conference said that they wanted to learn more about it, our Sunday evening series for 2016-17 will be on the Reformation. We’ll cover the five sola slogans, the five doctrines of sovereign grace, and biographies of some of the key preachers.

What does it mean to be “reformed”? Why are we still reforming?

Informed Christians—let alone ignorant ones—disagree about the definition of this adjective. Perhaps everyone can agree that it has something to do with the division of the church that cracked near the end of the 15th Century and finished splitting in the 16th Century.

For the previous 1,000 years or so the Christian church in the West didn’t have denominations. Some larger cities had larger gatherings of believers and had more influential pastors/leaders/overseers, but it was just the Church represented in local churches everywhere. As many things do over time, churches became a place for deceivers and power hungry, unspiritual men to seek control. The forces combined until eventually the Pope in Rome argued for his preeminence, and he gathered enough “theologians” around him to explain why God gave him authority over all the other congregations and individual Christians. The Roman Catholic Church wasn’t built in a day, but council by closed-door meeting by bargain with a king established the self-protecting and self-perpetuating structure.

Where there are chickens there are broken eggs, so where there are sinners there are rotten folk. There were a number of believers who smelled the stink. They wanted, if not to unscramble the egg, at least to stop adding more rotten ingredients. Erasmus is one of the more well-known Catholic reformers. He and Luther agreed on the behavior problems polluting the church. They disagreed, though, on the heart of the problem.

That said, at the start, Luther didn’t want to break up the church either. He desired reform not revolution, to reshape the beliefs and behaviors to be as they should be, not to start something new. But men in power see reform as a threat to their power.

Authority was a key issue. As William Tyndale and Luther and other first-wave reformers read the Bible, they grew into the biblical conviction that God’s Word has the ultimate authority. The Pope claimed that his teaching had equal authority to the Bible, that he could both pronounce new doctrines and that only he could give the correct interpretation of any Bible doctrine. The reformers didn’t deny that tradition could be helpful or that there were other authorities in the world. They believed that Scripture alone has the ultimate authority. Everything was to be seen in light of Scripture. This was the material cause of the reformation: sola Scriptura. Both sides agreed on the noun, the adjective caused the shakeup.

Roman Catholic leaders also strategically kept the Bible out of the people’s hands, only in the Latin Vulgate. They feared that the people might start reading their own copy of God’s Word.

As men read the Bible they realized that the Catholic Church had added to, and therefore abandoned, the way of of salvation. There were an assortment of problems on every doctrinal aisle, including undue liturgy and use of icons and abuse of clerical power. But the darkest cloud hung over the gospel. Instead of seeing obedience as a result of salvation, obedience was necessary to earn salvation. They taught that a number of works were necessary to prove righteousness to God and be accepted by Him.

But this is no gospel at all. It is not good news when there is always more money to give, more holy places to visit, and more rules to follow. A certain class of unconfessed sins meant loss of justification not just loss of joy. Luther especially targeted the sale of indulgences and the teaching about purgatory where men supposedly paid for their own sins (or their relatives) by money or by minutes of punishment before then going to heaven.

The reformers believed that salvation is in Christ alone; His sacrifice was enough. Jesus paid it all. Judgment is finished for Christians. He saved us by grace alone; He does not look for merit in us or give salvation as a reward. We receive salvation by faith alone; we believe the good news and boast in Him, not in our works. So God gets all the glory alone. The percentage is not split.

It’s not Christ and the Christian by grace and merit through faith and works. Scripture reveals the gospel of salvation by solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, and soli Deo gloria. This little adjective caused a great upheaval.

Closely related to the solas is the sovereignty of God in His saving grace. God saves sinners. The Bible doesn’t teach that man is merely sick in sin, he is dead. He can’t do good, he doesn’t want to. He is incapable of desiring or doing righteousness let alone of perfect holiness.

The Father must choose from among the spiritually dead whom He will save by His mercy because men are totally depraved. The Son laid down His life for those elected by the Father, a decision that was unconditional because none are worthy; one dead man isn’t more deserving than another. The Spirit irresistibly regenerates, opening their eyes to see the light of the gospel of the glory of God in Christ Jesus. The Trinity works together, in power and grace to give eternal life which, by definition, cannot be temporary. God causes new life and the perseverance of that life.

So we embrace the doctrines of Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Perseverance of the Saints. These are the five petals of TULIP, the five points of Calvinism.

At Liberty University a friend of mine and I had to meet with the Dean of the School of Religion and the Dean of the Seminary because we had written a letter to Dr. Falwell. Dr. Elmer Towns told us that he could be a Calvinist as well as long as he could define the adjectives. Sure, but that means he wasn’t actually a Calvinist. The adjectives change everything.

The sola slogans and the petal points go together. The reformers didn’t invent any of these truths, nor were these the only truths they taught, but they recovered these doctrines as they read and taught the Bible. These doctrines, the adjectives in particular, wrecked the man-centered, hope-gutting, wallet-emptying, this-worldly religion of Roman Catholicism. Men were captives to false teaching and the worldview that went with it.

When we say we’re “reformed” we mean that we stand with the protestors not the Catholics, and also that we believe in the sovereignty of God and His grace not in the sovereignty of man and his will.

We keep reforming because there are always bad eggs. A sulphuric stink still rises from our own hearts, let alone in a room full of sinners. Sanctification means growing-repenting and maturing—and the Bible reveals that process won’t be complete on earth.

We also acknowledge that the 16th Century reformers missed some things, either because they were busy trying to avoid being killed, or they were tired, or they were stuck in their perspective, or they were just wrong. Depending on which reformer, we don’t agree with their understanding of the relationship between the church and the state, or between the church and Israel. We don’t agree with most of them on baptizing infants, or with many of them about what’s happening in communion. But we wholeheartedly identify with their love of God’s Word and their love of God’s sovereign grace in the gospel of salvation.

There are a number of ways to read the reformers wrongly. One way is to make them saints who can do no wrong. That’s wrong. Another is to ignore them altogether. That’s ignorant. And another is to read selections in such a way as to defend dualism. What I mean is that those guys loved sentences, and they realized that preaching and writing changed living, transformed individuals and families and churches and nations. Justification by faith alone is an abstract doctrine, but the who are justified don’t think about faith in the abstract alone.

The reformation is filled with peasants reading the Word and working to the glory of God. Poets and painters and song-writers made new art. Some reformers went too far in their iconoclasm, rejecting beauty rather than rejecting the abuses.

But they did not throw the baby out with the baptismal water (though they shouldn’t have put the baby in the baptismal water in the first place). We have tended to make the Reformation a thinking man’s game. We can try to take glory for ourselves about our Reformed theology which says all glory goes to God. We make justification by someone’s reformed understanding of justification by faith alone. These are our Protestant and Reformed sins, and if we don’t repent from our sins, we will cause a different set of problems.

Though we do not formally subscribe to the Canons of Dort or the the Heidelberg Catechism or the Westminster Confession of Faith (which came later), those guys are our people. We are their sons and daughters and it is our joy to acknowledge God’s gift of them to us.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (Hebrews 13:7)

This year we will celebrate the heritage of the reformed world-and-life theology that includes love for God, belief in Jesus, and submission to the Word. We owe a debt to these men. We don’t worship them. But we are free to worship in truth because of their sacrificial work and we ought to give thanks to God for them and imitate their faith.

The ultimate reformation came about because of a refreshed, a renovated, a revitalized, and, for many, a Spirit-regenerated view of God in His greatness. Being reformed (rightly) not only doesn’t detract from the gospel, it highlights the gospel.

Though he was after the Reformers, Charles Spurgeon wrote:

Everybody admires Luther! Yes, yes; but you do not want anyone else to do the same today. When you go to the…gardens you all admire the bear; but how would you like a bear at home, or a bear wandering about loose in the street? You tell me that would be unbearable, and no doubt you are right.

So, we admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago; the past ages are sort of a bear-pit or iron cage for him, but such a man today is a nuisance, and must be put down. Call him a narrow-minded bigot, or give him a worse name if can think of one. Yet imagine that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and their (friends) had said, “The world is out of order; but if we try to set it right we shall only make a great (racket), and get ourselves in disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night caps, and sleep over the bad times, and perhaps when we wake things will have grown better.

Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and the pestiferous bogs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on. Note what we owe them, and let us pay to our sons the debt we owe our fathers.

It is today as it was in the Reformer’s days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it.

Look you sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today.

Stand fast, my beloved, in the name of God! I, your brother in Christ, entreat you to abide in the truth. Quit yourselves like men, be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

For us to be bored by the precision of an adjective is to allow generations to come to be swallowed up by error. Some errors are more than unpleasant, some error lead to eternal destruction. Our opportunity to study reformation truths and teachers is not only so that we would be more informed, but so that we will want to be more reformed.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,

It’s not too much to also say: Let the reformed of the Lord say so!

We always do what we most want to do. We are choosy beings, meaning that we think through the options available to us and then choose according to our preference, whether for or against. Who knows how many decisions any given person makes in a day, but the sum of all our choices define who we are. Sometimes just one choice demonstrates it all.

Five main characters in Genesis 25:19-34 make revelatory choices, choices that foreshadow tension, rivalry, and conflict for chapters to come.

We finished studying Abraham’s story at the beginning of chapter 25. We met Keturah, his wife-concubine, and six sons through her that were not chosen by Abraham or by God to receive the inheritance. Then we briefly saw “the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant bore to Abraham” in verses 12-18. Moses already explained the birth and banishment of Ishmael in chapters 16 and 21 respectively. Ishmael was also not the choice of Abraham or the LORD to carry on the covenant promises.

The son of promise was Isaac, and his “generations” cover Genesis 25:19-35:29. His is a story primarily filled with brotherly bitterness between Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau. This morning we’ll see the birth troubles (19-28) and the birthright transfer (29-34).

Sometimes in the middle of a trial we think we see so clearly how that trial could be resolved. And sometimes the resolution turns into a bigger pain than the original problem.

These verses are the introduction to the eleven-plus chapter story of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham fathered Isaac through Sarah, who isn’t mentioned by name, which is sort of interesting since both Keturah and Hagar are in the previous paragraphs.

The attention is now on Isaac’s story, and he was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean, to be his wife. We studied that arranged marriage in chapter 25, and learned that Rebekah comforted Isaac in Sarah’s absence. She apparently will be the woman through whom the covenant blessings will continue.

However, there is a problem. Those offspring who are to be as numerous as the stars of the heaven (Gen. 15:5) and like the sand on the seashore (Gen. 22:17) are slow in coming. They are so slow that we might begin to wonder if God had forgotten His promise. Like his mother, Isaac’s wife was unable to have children. Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife because she was barren. How could this be? Hadn’t the LORD made it clear to Abraham’s servant that Rebekah was the right one for Isaac? And hadn’t the LORD Himself said that Isaac was the chosen offspring? Had the LORD chosen wrong?

In verse 21 we’re not sure how long Isaac prayed for children. In the same verse, but a second sentence, he prayed and the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. So it initially seems that the answer from God didn’t take too long. But look at the end of verse 26: Isaac was sixty when she bore them. Forty to sixty means that Isaac prayed for twenty years. It means that Isaac and Rebekah waited two decades. There was no quick, let alone automatic, fulfillment.

Not too long after new life started to grow in her womb, Rebekah wondered why she was even alive. The children struggled together within her. Already we, the readers, know more than Rebekah, the mother, knew. There are children, not a “child.” Rebekah didn’t have ultrasound technology, but at some point a few months in, the babies struggled, they “jostled” (NIV), they brawled and battled, they were engaged in an “intestinal war” (ha! thanks for that image, John Calvin). Even as wombmates they couldn’t get along. Some kind of conflict was raging in the battlefield of her belly and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” But the question is probably more severe than that. “If it is going to be like this, I’m not so sure I want to be pregnant!” (NET Bible) Being barren would be better than this. The ESV note offers an alternative translation: “Why do I live?” Being dead would be better than this. She wasn’t only sick, she was sick of it.

It got so bad that she went to inquire of the LORD. Moses doesn’t say where she went or in what way she inquired, though it seems more liturgically formal than Isaac’s prayers.

She asked, God answered. His answer explained what was happening and provided explanation about what would happen once she gave birth. The fighting wouldn’t stop for a while, though they would eventually take it outside.

And the LORD said to her,

“Two nations are in your womb,

The LORD told her that she’s going to have twins! And those twins are going to be trouble. That trouble will include a reversal of roles, since the older would usually be stronger.

We would imagine that that wasn’t exactly the diagnosis, or comfort, that Rebekah was looking for. And even though it was short, she may not have understood it all.

On labor day the first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak so they called his name Esau. The name Esau may not be that descriptive itself, but red and hairy will become key plot points. As one commentator proposed, maybe it was hypertrichosis, or in layman’s terms, werewolf syndrome.

Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. The name Jacob (ya’a’qob) is close to the Hebrew word for heel, aqab, and it describes more than the object of Jacob’s first grasping. Even in English a “heel” is an inconsiderate or untrustworthy person.

The section ends with another mention of how old Isaac is; now he is sixty.

Knowing their names, now we read a brief description of their different natures. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. The hairy one was a hunter, a competent one, and he was at home outdoors. He is sort of like Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh; “Shaggy with hair is his whole body” and as a “hunter, a trapping-man” (Hamilton). He was a man’s man; he made his own bow and arrows; he shopped at Cabelas. His younger brother was quiet, but that probably means more like a homebody. He wasn’t a camper; he stayed with the tents because they didn’t have more permanent structures to stay in. Guests from out of town probably didn’t observe enough similarities between Esau and Jacob to identify them as brothers, let alone twins.

If those guests stayed for a while they would have noticed dissimilarities between the boys and disfunction in the family. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Nothing is wrong with enjoying barbecue, but playing parental favorites because of it doesn’t show great maturity on Isaac’s part. Isaac appears to be motivated by his belly. Moses does not say why Rebekah loved Jacob. Was it because he was a momma’s boy? Was she compensating for her husband’s favoritism? Was it due to the LORD’s prophecy? Regardless, it could not have helped the home be more happy. Barrenness really was better in a way.

Though only five verses long, the final paragraph in the chapter is one of the most famous stories in Genesis. It also took place in minutes, yet neither brother forgot it, especially Edom/Esau.

Once (upon a time) when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. So far nothing too surprising, except that Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted! Esau the “skillful hunter” and cooker of game is apparently back from the hunt with empty hands, and an empty stomach. He’s tired and starving, though more in an impatient and impulsive panic than a dangerous condition. He walked up to the campfire on his own. He’s not dying for real.

Esau asked for some of that red (stuff). It looked hot, thick, and maybe even looked meaty. The color was so significant that Esau called the dish by it, and then became called by that color himself. His choice of red soup over his birthright was a defining choice. (Therefore his name was called Edom). (Imagine that you forgot your lunch and money at home, that after driving home from your long commute you entered your house and saw your brother eating a Snickers. You’re so on edge that you say, “If you give me that Snickers you can have the whole house.” Then imagine that everyone called you “Snickers” for the rest of your life.]

If Esau and Jacob were five, we would tell Jacob just to share. “He’s your brother.” Or maybe we could imagine a bargain for future ingredients; one bowl now for three game birds later. But Jacob, as if he’s been plotting it, immediately asks for the highest possible payment. This is price gauging, an abuse based on an apparent meal monopoly. **”Sell me your birthright now.”**That’s not a reasonable response, nor one that Jacob would have heard all the younger brothers in the neighborhood making. It is so quick and brash that he must have been scheming about it already. The “spontaneous” reply comes from a settled selfishness.

Maybe more surprising is that Esau gives no resistance. If anything, he argues for Jacob, not against him. This demonstrates that he was also in a settled place. In other words, this is not when Esau started to despise his birthright.

He said, ”I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” He was right about one thing. He was not about to die, but his birthright was of no use to him. The problem wasn’t his growling belly, it was his hard heart. The birthright was worth a bowl of stew, and that’s what he got for it. He was no doubt hungry, but the repots of his dying were greatly exaggerated. He overstated his physical condition as much as he undervalued his birthright position. He was in line for twice as much material inheritance as his brother, and more than that, he was in line to be the representative of the family. But he didn’t care.

Jacob made him swear; there would be no returns. Esau swore. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. All it took to get him back on his feet was a little food. He left like it was no big deal. He didn’t cry out, “Oh no! What have I done?!” He didn’t try to change the agreement with Jacob, he just walked away. It showed that Esau despised his birthright. It had no value to him.

The author of Hebrews drew moral application from Esau’s choice (Hebrews 12:). He said we shouldn’t be slaves to our physical passions, to our immediate tongue hunger. Moses concludes that Esau chose wrong.

But so did Jacob. This is not a story told for us to be like one brother instead of the other. Both brothers chose wrongly. Jacob’s choice to take advantage of his brother and supplant his brother’s position wasn’t righteous. Isaac’s choice to favor Esau because he cooked meat was wrong. Perhaps Rebekah’s preference was also wrong. The only character in this story whose choice was not motivated by selfishness was God when He chose Jacob over Esau, the younger instead of the older. God chose for His own purposes, but not grasping purposes.

The moral of this story is: don’t be like anyone in this story.

There will be more selfishness, more rivalry, more disunity in the family in the coming chapters. Jacob has a lot of growing up to do before he becomes the father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. This is the start of Israel’s life and, were it not for God’s grace, we would continue to behave in only selfish ways as well.

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.

It's been a challenging week for our TEC family. Emergency appendectomies, brain surgeries, cancer. That's just some of the things that have been going on. Now those things are not unique to believers. They are common to all men. But what is unique to those who are his children is their perspective and their response to those challenges. We know that these things are not random acts of fate. Our hope for a better future does not rest on the flimsy foundation of wishful thinking. We do not thank our lucky stars, but rather the one who made the stars. We have been adopted in love by the one who holds all things together and who has ordained every detail of our human existence.

We know him to be good and just, the one who keeps our souls safe. And so, whether in laughter or in tears, we stand this morning and declare, our help is in the name of the Lord. For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

I saw my unformed substance in your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me When you as yet there was not one of them In father we do come to you this morning with grateful hearts mindful and aware That you in fact did ordain every single day before they even existed and we are now living them out There's not a single thing that happens in our life that's a surprise to you. And so we give you thanks, we give you praise because you are superintending all the affairs of our life. Father, we love you, we praise you, we honor you, we trust it this morning as you observed, as you are the audience, that you will be pleased with our attentiveness, our heartfelt thanksgiving and praise as we direct all of our attention to you now. We just pray in Jesus' name, amen. The circumstances that have brought me here today are what I want to bring to the forefront of our confessional time today, and actually during our whole worship service. You notice we're kind of wiped out. Some

families are on vacation. Other things have happened to us over the past two weeks that have been pretty amazing. So the circumstance of Shawn's sister's brook, Shawn's sister terminal brain cancer. Carmen Nielsen's benign brain tumor that was successfully taken out and she's home recovering well. Lila Massey's mother's cancerous tumor that was successfully removed. She's recovering all right. Ryan Hall's little episode to find out that he is all right, but it took a lot of examination. Mary Durden's back surgery that seems to be a good success and that they took away the sharp stabbing pains from her. Dan Houghlin's dad was passing a couple weeks ago and then Friday as I was preparing all this Ginger Her has an emergency appendectomy allowing us to let our congregation help along with the piano playing today. And me getting 70 years old in the middle of the week, you guys exhausted me with all the events that I did even before my birthday, and then Tuesday I come around and actually make it to 70. And then I have to go visit all these people in the hospital

and do all this stuff, and I'm supposed to be preparing this and making everything work. Who is this God that arranges these things this way? And that's really what I want to talk about all today. He's the one that is in charge and that put these things in front of us and how we respond to them. Every person here has all kinds of things going on in their lives all the time, sometimes very tough, sometimes very joyous. And I I wanted Jim to read Psalm 139, that the life of every person who has come into being inside their mother's womb and the history of our world, God knew before and as He formed them, which should be a great comfort to those of us who believe.

Who is the Master's hand behind these events and all events? Who made heaven and earth? The answer for all we who believe and know is the one and only sovereign God of the universe who we are here to worship today. He is the Lord over all, over religion, politics, science, art, the future. And as He has formed us, we're put in this world to operate like we should. And the interesting thing is God puts us here and then gives us, for those of us who believe, his spirit to guide us. And I just want to really put on your hearts today to think about those times when God has prompted you and maybe you haven't listened or you have, but if you haven't listened, let's confess that.

And if you don't think of God as God, all the time, confess that. He's the one holding you together, remember, and that He is the one that we are here to worship today. So now in our custom we take a moment and quietly examine our own hearts to confess our own sin, and you who are able and interested in are invited to kneel before the Lord, and we'll have a time of silent prayer, and then after a minute or so I'll get back up and close us. So let's do that now. Father, we thank you that you take us in our weakness and strengthen us through your Son and your Spirit. We thank you that through our confession of sin for your forgiveness, we praise your sovereignty over all things, which puts us on our knees with great thankfulness in front of you, with great rejoicing that you are the solution to our sin problem through your glorious Gospel.

We pray all these things in your Son's name, Jesus Christ. Amen. Okay, let's stand. And I have selection, as you're going to note as we go through today's thing. Everything except this starting part was taken out of the book of Philippians. So in our confession of sin and what the Bible has to say about it, I want to read Philippians 3, 8 through 9. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith."

The reading this morning is from Philippians chapter 4 verses 1 through 23, the entire chapter. And I'll be reading from the ESV. So again, Philippians 4 verse 1. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm, thus in the Lord my beloved. I entreat Eodia and I entreat Syntychus to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, True Companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of the fellow workers whose names are in the Book of Life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious for anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God. and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you.

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have received a revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. But it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the Gospel when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only.

Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of you according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Let's pray. Father, we want to be that kind of people who rejoice in you always. The truth is that we often let the cares of this world rob us of joy. When we like what you are doing, we rejoice, and when we don't, we rebel in our attitude. This shows that the object of our joy is not always really you. to strip away those things that hinder us from rejoicing in you as we ought. May we take to heart the words of the psalmist who wrote, But let all who take refuge in you be glad. Let them ever seen for joy. Spread your protection over them that those who love your name may rejoice in you. Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous. You surround them with your favor, as with the shield.

Thank you, Father, that even though Satan should buff it and trial should come, we have the blessed assurance that you will keep our souls safe and secure. May we pattern our lives after Christ, who the joy set before him endured the cross and despise the shame. Likewise, may we learn to endure temporary afflictions as we eagerly await the joy that's to be revealed one day. As we bring our supplications before you this morning, may the joy of the Lord crowd out all worry, fear, and doubt and replace them with peace, hope, and faith. We pray for Jacob and Jubilee Harrington as they exchanged marriage vows recently. May they have a very blessed marriage, and may you use them greatly for your glory and honor wherever you plant them.

We continue to pray for Andrew Schneider and his work on the permanence project. Thank you for the hundreds of children who have been moved from foster homes to forever homes through his ministry. May you help him to expand this work around the nation. We pray for Sanji and Yancey's work with young girls at the Good Shepherd Children's home in India. May you continue to protect them from those who are opposed to the gospel. We pray that the faith these girls have expressed would be genuine and something that will stay with them as they become young adults and eventually live on their own. We ask that you would be raising up Christian husbands for these girls when the time is right.

We pray for our political leaders. Father, you know what a mess it is. Our nation has spurned your blessing and you would be more than just to let our nation fall on history's ash pile. We ask for the sake of the few who still believe in you that you would grant repentance, the brain revival, and thwart the evil doers. Help us to live a gospel picture that is clear and compelling in our community. We thank you for what appears to have been a successful surgery to remove Carmen Nielsen's tumor. We pray for her speedy recovery and may she soon regain her sense of balance. We thank you that Sean and his family have been able to be with his sister and mom this past week.

Father, as best we can tell, his sister Brooke does not have long to live. Thank you for her salvation and thank you for the grace you are supplying her even now. We ask that you might yet work a miracle and restore her to health, but we also submit ourselves to your will in the matter. May the family time that they are having be extra sweet. Father, rejoicing always is not our natural inclination.

is much about this fallen world that argues against rejoicing. That is, until we realize that everything that is happening is exactly according to your sovereign plans. You are reigning on your throne every day. Nothing happens outside your will. You will be glorified and you will gather your people to yourself. So teach us not to fear men whose breath is in our nostrils, but rather to fix our hope and the glory that is to be revealed one day, increase our love for you and the lost, and help us to live our lives full of faith, always rejoicing, until you either come to get us or call us home. And then help us even now to offer up worship that is pleasing and acceptable in your sight. We pray all this now in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Father, I want to thank you for the book of Philippians that reinforces how we should rejoice always. Help each one of us through your word and the words you will give me through your spirit to understand the great victory of eternal life that we have in your son Jesus Christ and in whose name we pray amen. I think it's fascinating how I think Jonathan chose the songs before he left. By the way, Jonathan is doing a special favor to his dad. He took him to a Nebraska football game, and his dad has always wanted to do that. And Jonathan bugged out of here and went off and did that. And then he's flying back home, I think, this morning.

And he was even going to try to get here, and we told him when he was planning it, don't plan on that. But it's just amazing to me how the song selected, Jim and I spoke briefly about what I wanted to see happen, and what really convicted me this week is our worship service. And how ever since we've started this church, we have patterned our worship and this liturgy to always focus back that we are here to worship God. We're not here to get something.

here to give something. And that was a total turnaround for me in the way that I viewed church before. I always felt worship was kind of the music and I was there to pick up some funky facts for my Bible almanac and move ahead in my knowledge of the Lord. But doing this week in and week out now for five years is the most life changing thing that I've experienced and it's the one thing that I want to talk about. So in starting my sermon I'd like to read this. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epic of belief, it was the epic of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was a spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We We had everything before us.

We had nothing before us. We were all going direct to heaven. We were all going direct the other way. Hell. In short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil in the superlative degree of comparison only. to Charles Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities, for you and Omnibus that read it last year or the year before, whenever it was, it all blurs together. This description of the French Revolution, which was the time of turmoil, is just as it is today, and that was 1789 when that happened. We are still in the afterwards of that revolution instead of that reformation.

So we live in a time when revolution, not reformation, has become the norm. As America's war for independence is now known as the revolutionary war. But it wasn't that. It was the war for independence from a government that didn't respond correctly to the deal that they had. And yet we live in a world of turmoil.

is murdering peacefully or however you want to see it, millions of babies. The crazy political situation we are in. What are we to do in all of this? And what God says to do is rejoice, and again I say rejoice, in the Lord. Now, how does that work? How do I rejoice when we know that Shawn's sister, possibly within the next couple of weeks, will be going home to the Lord, how do we see that as a blessing? Well, part of it is we have to understand that we're here for how big a speck in eternity. We think we're really running the show and we've got everything to do and we're so important and all the stuff we're doing. But if you really, you know, at those times like when you go camping and you lay on your back and look at the stars and realize how big all this is and how long eternity is, you quickly realize your respect. But what does that do? Again, I say rejoice in the Lord, to think that God himself put us here. I chose to camp out on Philippians 4 because this was our main focus at our leaders retreat just a couple weeks ago

now. And that when we focused on that I thought it was funny how even at that time things were going on and people were unsure about this and that and the The issue was always to rejoice in the Lord, depend on Him, walk in the Spirit, all of that kind of thing. I don't think it can be said too much. And I think that the longer you live in the Christian life, the more you can smile at the crazy things and still go ahead and try to do your best. I mean, I'm not saying roll over and play dead, you know, get up, do things, be responsible, all of that. But the results really aren't up to you and it's crazy how that works out.

You can do the best job ever and the thing may fail, but that's not to make you stop trying. The title I chose for today's sermon is Rejoice or Rejoice Always. The or thing has become kind of a tradition around here. So rejoice or rejoice always. And that is the key ingredient to the Christian life. Philippians 4.7 is Jim just read, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Just think of that. Our reasonableness should be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything. Yeah, anything. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. We've had quite a run of personal opportunities in our church to practice this. And I want to rest on this point today. We need to rejoice in the Lord always. Getting technical, the verb is an imperative, present, active, indicative, second person plural. So you all need to rejoice in the Lord always.

I love that part. In our English, we miss out unless we're from the South, right, when it's spoken to a single you or you all, we have to say you all, but it's you all in that case. And yes, that is right. Rejoicing always, how does that work? And how can it only work? It can only work because it's supernatural. That's right. I did say supernatural. Oh boy, science fiction. No. Remember that the God who created the universe lives inside of you. You have his spirit inside of you to guide you. And the natural man cannot rejoice always. Only those of us who have been adopted into God's family can understand what it is to rejoice always.

The one thing to notice in the liturgy, as I've said before, is that all the passages are from Philippians except for Psalm 136, 13 through 16. And before we jump into Philippians 4, let's look back over Psalm 139. You formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. Who knits you together? God. Whoa, that's crazy. He's the one putting those little cells together. All of those things are happening, and God is superintending those things. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. fearfully and wonderfully made, so strong and yet so weak.

And we are held together by the Lord Jesus Christ, who holds together all the atoms in the universe. And in your soul, you know that. Just dwell on those things and be comforted by that. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. He knows every part, every intricate part of you. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. So in his book, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was not even one of them, was made. He knows our beginning from our end.

That's incredible. All of this, he knows. But that makes us even more responsible because we know him and we need to respond to him through his spirit and through his guidance, through his word and through our fellowship with each other, our encouraging each other, our body life interweaving all the time. Help us to behave that way. All the parts of our liturgy are there to drive us to worship our God, which is why we are here this morning to worship the one triune God. Let's look at the scripture that Jim read for us today in Philippians 4, the whole chapter. Philippians 4 starts out, therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

That is us as well as the Philippians. All of us who believe need to stand firm. Keep in mind Paul is writing this to the Philippians from Rome being a prisoner in Caesar's house. Even though he is a prisoner, his concern is that his disciples stand firm in the Lord. He eventually ends up being beheaded by the Roman government. He is prisoner in their house, and who is he concerned about the Philippians? He wants to speak to them in a very personal way, not just, oh, I'm praying for you. He knows these people. And that, in the next verse, becomes abundantly clear. I entreat Eoria and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

He knows these people, and he knows that they have this disagreement. it may be. And we here at Trinity, we never have disagreements or hurt feelings or people or anything that goes on or whatever we do or you do. And the thing is, we need to agree in the Lord. And agreeing in the Lord doesn't mean everybody is a cookie cutter. Remember that we are all unique and that we're formed and made to act out our particular role. And your role is different than my role, as my role is different than the next guy's role. And all of that works together in a miraculous way when we are all walking in the spirit. The trick to the Christian life, right?

Walking the spirit. I tell it lots of times, one of Sean's favorite things is when people ask him, how is it to live in your house with all your kids and then your in-laws and all the hubbub of ministry and everything. And he always says, and he smiles, it's great when everyone's walking in the spirit. Now, how often is that? Eh, I'd say maybe 50% of the time, all of us are in sync. But even then, when just some of us are out of sync, the other part is trying to get the other people to confess and get back in sync. So the whole thing is like this tippy ship that's going along, and then it levels out, and we go along, and things are great.

And then it gets a little out of kilter because somebody gets their nose out of joint, and we get back online, it's life. And it's a microcosm of your whole life that way too. One of the great benefits of living together like that is that we have old people with younger people, which is one of the things that our society, I think in this day and age, try to hide. They try to put the old people away in the home. Oh, they're getting disabled and let's put them over there because we don't want to see all of that. and one of the great joys in my life, and I had my 70th, but to have my granddaughter look at me and she said, Bob, when you get to the point where you need your rear end wiped, I'll do it for you.

That's love, okay? That's my granddaughter, not my wife, not my daughter. But it really is, that's what it's all about, And that's what we are striving for here and what we want to do to our community. We want to outreach that same way to all of that. So anyway, those people are arguing and he is asking them, yes, I, uh, I ask you also true companion help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. He, all these people he knows, and he knows that these women helped him in the progress of the gospel. How can they have their nose out all joint?

I mean, we saw that as we had our little hiccup when we started our church. How can people that you thought were working together for the gospel for you all of a sudden just turn away from it, and you want to be together in the Lord? So it's interesting how Paul's attention immediately goes towards the people who made up the body. Notice that Euryodia and Cyndyche had labored with Paul and somehow gotten crossways with each other. Note how Paul wants a good body health and how if the part of the body that is out of sync then the rest of the body needs to bring them back into fellowship with all of us whose names are written in the Book of Life in order to work together for the Gospel.

Now, a little sidebar here. Sometimes in your counseling or when you're working with people, one of the problems is we are trying to make non-Christian people be Christian. You cannot be a Christian without the supernatural help of God through His Spirit allowing you to do those things. So first, you have faith in what Christ has done for you, accept the the Gospel, become a Christian, and then obey that spirit. But if you haven't gone through those steps, you can put on all the fancy clothes, learn all the stuff, but through life's trials, it will come out that you are not genuine. The meat grinder will get you.

But the meat grinder can be a pleasurable thing to those of us in Christ. So how are we doing in this at TEC? Remember that we're working in a Trinitarian fashion to bring about God's glorious plan. Note that I said God's plan, not ours. We want to be in God's framework and we should be joyously wanting this to happen. So you say, well, what's God's plan? Well, we know that God wants His gospel to go forth. We know that He wants us to live in good citizens in the world. We know as we study the Bible, he's interested in all things. He wants us to be the best horseshoe ever, the best businessman, the best preacher, the best father, all those things.

He wants that to happen. But each one of us is gifted uniquely. So what happens is that comes out differently. And the guy that's the great engineer and comes up with a new formula for varnish, that maybe somebody's going to make a deck stain that can withstand the Northwestern winters so that you stain it once and then it washes off during the winter and you go, boy, that was really good. So we need somebody to come up with a Christ-like deck stain. So, amen. And that's the thing. All of that is in the purview of what we should be involved in. And sometimes we put all these things in different boxes. This is my spiritual box. This is my work box.

This is what I do in the morning. Don't bother me. All those things. There is no separate box. They all blend together. Life is all interwoven. So help us to understand that in a better way. Then he goes on, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. reasonableness. That's not something a lot of people say about me. Oh, Dave is so reasonable. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

That's incredible what he says there that the Lord is at hand. He's here. He's with us. And that by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving be your request be known to God. One of the things that I always talk about when we have prayer time and how we've evolved those things in certain groups where we take prayer requests and that kind of thing and We can be there for three hours while everybody gives all their requests. And then it comes prayer time and they may not remember to pray for it. One of the things we've done in our leaders meetings and stuff now is if you've got something to pray about it, you pray about it.

And you pray for the group. And then how that trains on other individuals as they hear that they go, oh yeah, and I'd like to pray for Sally too or whatever. So it interweaves those things instead of just handing out this request. You're involved in the whole process because really your prayer life shouldn't ever end. I keep, you know, in the rock song, Jesus is on the main line. And the issue there is when you call him up, he always hears you. Okay? So he's interested in what's going on. And if you're confused, a quick send up of your prayer can be a great comfort in that situation. There are times when I'm talking with people where I pray, give me the right response in this situation.

And sometimes that response is not exactly the way I wanted it to come out. And I realize, huh, that's interesting. That's what I should be looking at. So again, it gets back to that supernatural part of this. There's so many facts you can learn and you can just be yes, no, do this, don't do this. But there are sometimes when there's a great amount of wisdom that needs to be done before you bring down the hammer or don't bring down the hammer. So I've commented on this section, but again I say rejoice. The Lord is at hand, all of those things. In our little body here, you bring your supplications to God and to know that God and His peace will guard your heart.

And when it seems to get beyond where you can handle it, just meditate on the truth of these statements, that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your minds in Christ Jesus. So if nothing else, sometimes sit down, shut up, and think about who God is. That will vastly improve your outlook, I think. Then he goes, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you.

Think about this in our congregation. All these things that we're trying to do honor our Lord, that those things that are just and pure and lovely and commendable and worthy of praise, dwell on them and be thankful for them. And as you practice these things, the God of peace will be with you. And that includes your schoolwork, your workwork, your sleeping time, all of it, all of it becomes underneath this. And the more of this you think about and the more you dwell on it, the more it helps you understand that the God who made us is the God who is keeping it all together and running it to His good end for our benefit. This is crazy. He created this whole thing knowing Adam would take the bite of the fruit, knowing we'd have our sin problem and He comes along and He is the cure of that also, which puts us on our knees.

So in verse 10, I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound. And in every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Paul's speaking here that tent making, he could handle it, God was with him, all of that, but these people reached out to help him. And I think there's a lot of times when we become proud and we think we don't need any help, we can handle it, and yet one of the great blessings is to be able to know how to receive a blessing from other people that want to bless you, want to help you. And in that, that exchange allows both sides of that coin to be massaged and both sides of that part of your growing mature in Christ to be grown and exercised. I can do all things through him who strengthens

me. Each one of us may not have been in a situation that Paul was in, but as we mature in the Lord, we learn to be content with where He has us. Note that being content is not being stagnant, but on being strengthened in the Lord through all these circumstances. So when you're in that, you have to be content, be reasonable, and move, not just curl up in a ball and want to die. But if you get to that point, that's okay too. God put the big vice on you, he's got you curled up like that. Call out to him, help me to understand why I'm in this way, and he will bring you out of it and put you on to the next rung of the ladder so that you can go along. Yet it was kind of you to share in my trouble.

And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the Gospel, when I left the Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me, giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me help from my needs once again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied. Having received from Aphrodite the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering is sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus to our God and Father be glory forever and ever amen." As he's talking about this he naturally breaks into a prayer almost just talking about the abundance that God has given him. That's an amazing thing to think about that as God gives you those things and you appreciate them, when you feedback on that and understand that he gave it to you and you give him thanks back, that that wheel is just a powerful

thing for you and can take you through great difficulties. How the Church shared with Paul and what I want to commend to you, yes you TEC, as a body, how to to respond in those needs need wisdom and you guys have good wisdom. You handle a lot of difficult things over the past five years and have handled them very well and I think it's wonderful how you can go here and go there and the same godly advice can be had by all and how we want to keep everybody in the sheepfold. We don't want to drive them away but we do want to give them the truth and how it works in this body together, that all kinds of different people come across different people and help strengthen them. And sometimes the response is not meeting the need. Sometimes the response should be a swift kick in the pants to the one who is stuck in self-pity. Other times it is crying together, remembering all the time that is God who supplies your needs and it is done supernaturally to those who believe in Him. It really is amazing when you really start thinking about it, what causes me to take my next

breath, right? Oh that's just my natural function as a human animal, you know, you just do that. Well the Bible doesn't say that. God gives me every breath. He knows when I'm going to take my last one, when I'm going to take my next one, all of that. That's the great comfort and knowing that is, you know, the clock ticks on. And when you know that, what does it do? It puts you on your knees in thankfulness to the Lord that He gave that to you. So the next thing is that we need to greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. The saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. The saints in Caesar's household, the very Caesar who would execute Paul. Apparently his prison ministry was going well. Believers in Caesar's household are being strengthened through Paul's preaching and they end up killing him and he's glad for that.

Does that mean that we all Christians are to roll over and play dead to the rapture or death? No, no, no. Never. We have the truth. We have the gospel. We. Yes, you and I are the light to a world. To the world. To a dark world. Because we are His. We need to keep on keeping on making disciples of all nations for our generation and generations to come. And remember that your sphere of influence is way more powerful than you will ever think of it. You do not know how you talking to some guy that you come in contact with and he talking to somebody else, how that then transfers our life and the gospel. That's a powerful tool and all of those intersections cause all kinds of people to come to the Lord.

I've told it many times. I didn't come until I was 37. And all kinds, well, I had one aunt and uncle that showed us their prayer journals and they prayed for Gail and I for 20 years. They prayed for me and they prayed for my future wife that we would come to the Lord. And I was one of those Baptist kids that said I was, you know, saved, but they knew that I wasn't. So they were praying for me all the time. But it was incredible when we got saved, we had to go visit them and talk with them. And I was not a caged Calvinist at that point. And they just smiled as I lectured them about everything. But it was a joy when they took that out to show me that they had prayed for me for all those years.

and they got to see me come to the Lord. And they had very, I mean, they had a lot to do with it in praying, but they weren't the voice that was used to move me off the dime. There were many voices, and that's the thing that you just don't know how it works. So being responsible in those small things is so important. Just as we here at TEC believe that a key ingredient in being a leader is that you never quit growing. All of us should never quit growing until the Lord calls us home or we are raptured. And again, I do mean all of us who are in the Lord. So each one of us is a minister of the gospel. In our own lives, in our own quiet way, we are affecting the world.

And we affect it in all kinds of ways, whether you pick up the trash or you give the gospel verbally or you hold the door for somebody. All those things are all part of that. And it's a lot of times we think that, oh, I can't do anything, and I don't know this, and I don't know that, and I just came to the Lord last week, and what do I know? What you know is that you know how to take care of your sin problem, and that guy two weeks ago didn't know how to take care of your sin problem. So you now have the gospel. You have the most powerful thing in the world. And that's how the world can be changed. And remember that those circles of influence are so powerful and that they do come back and feed upon themselves and cause all these bubbles to happen.

I think it's interesting as we think about our world in turmoil and that we think about the Episcopalian church and those of us who are fundamental believers go, ooh, the Episcopalian, you know. Here they are a whole denomination, well Anglicans in England, founded because Henry VIII couldn't get a divorce. So he created his own church and they became the Anglican church. Over the years they have become an America, probably the biggest laughing stock with the lesbian priest over a whole synod or all the crazy things they're into. Yet in Africa, the Episcopalians there, the priests there, are the most conservative.

They are like us, fundamentally. And they've gone back to their home in England when they have the big conferences. And they're the ones that say, repent. You need to turn from what you're doing. The very country that sent them out, sent missionaries out, and created these Anglican denominations in Africa in all these war-torn countries with the child soldiers and the corrupt dictators and everything, and these priests come back screaming at the mother church to repent from her evil ways and get back to biblical living. That's exciting. That's really incredible how things that are upside down.

I mean, in no way, shape, or form do I think that I could get myself in an Anglican community, communion, in other words, join an Anglican church. And yet God is working through those guys to try to bring those people that have turned aside to sobriety. And this happens over and over as you discuss and think about things. One of the things Sean was going to introduce to us tonight was the introduction to the Reformation. And I think that this This year is going to be a whole interesting time as we go through this in our nighttime teaching on the history of the Reformation. And remember that these guys realized how bad it had become.

The Catholic Church had, well, it had two churches. It had the Pope in France and the Pope in Italy. It had all kinds of crazy stuff going on. The Medici bankers were just appointing Popes and they became the Popes. So it was just politically and in every way as corrupt as you could have it. And yet they're screaming at them, just reform. Get back to your roots. Get back to the gospel. And men like Luther found that it was by faith alone. And he comes and he thinks when he writes the letter that they're all going to go, oh, you're right. That's so glad that you pointed that out for us, Martin. But of course then that's his death warrant.

And we're still living that out. We are still, as we say on our website and times when people talk to us, we're reformed and still reforming. We need to keep correcting those errors that we have. And we that have come to this church have practiced that and have practiced it with some hiccups as we've gone along. Because certain people came with us and thought that we were just going to create another fundamental church that was going to teach the Bible and sing those rock-solid hymns, preach for an hour and make sure it was hellfire and brimstone. We had all our jots and tittles lined up. But we ended up by creating this service to worship God.

And as we worship God, He comes and has special communion with us and starts changing us. And as leaders as we change, we want to transfer that to you guys so that you change also. And God is going to change you, but what we want you to know is we're hand in hand. Isn't it cool how He allows us to grow in this and grow in that and realize, oh my goodness, God is actually interested in this. He's interested in my job. I mean, that Andrew is throwing up boxes in the UPS truck and the bottle of sulfuric acid is broken and then it dribbles down and gets on his arm and burns his arm after he has his job and he's doing good and then he gets hurt but he's here today. No big deal, right? Didn't rot your arm off yet. But it's just incredible how all those things just put you in focus all the time and God is interested in all of them. So all of this to say as As we go on this year to celebrate the Reformation, we're part of that.

We're moving forward. And we want to do that to honor God, to bring those people that have strayed back to the fold and bring our own thinking if it strays back to the fold. Now as usual, I've gone fast and I knew I was going to be short today. But the thing is, you know what, there's really not much more to say than what I've already said with the passages that we had and the experience we have in our congregation at the moment.

I know Sean really was disappointed that he couldn't continue and be here for the exciting thing, but I also know this has been a great time for his growth again. And as we've talked about and seen for those of us that have known Sean for a while, that the starting of this church and the worship in this church has changed him a great deal. He's the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed guy that came to seminary to learn every jot and tittle and to preach every word of the text correctly and to pound that home and get out of the way, this is the most important thing that I have to do. And over the past five years, God has put him in a situation that the most important thing sometimes in the day that he has to do is clean the bathtub and get some bath salts so that Mo can have a bath after her achy body goes through all the exercise routines and she is improving by the way we do see a gradual improvement she's not losing it she's using it and getting stronger all the time but those times are the most

important time for Sean to then be able to deliver the hard message and to You do it in such a way you know He's experiencing that also. And I hope for those that know me that you understand that I'm in that same spot all the time. And even though I'm laughing and all the rest of it, I'm going, I can't believe this isn't working out this way. Why is it going this way? And yet we have to just smile and accept what God is doing and allow people to keep growing. You just can't force the issue. We all need to get sanded off because we're those square pegs and God is trying to put us in that round hole and that's a lot of corners he's got to sand off before we get round and go through the little device.

So in that, I want to encourage you people that I think you're doing a great job. I know that all kinds of things have happened in the past couple years that I can look upon as great victories. I know that we're going to have a lot more. And I know that as we involve ourselves in our community and move out as we're going to do some crazy things this year, attending city council meetings and all that kind of stuff, I want God to bless us and make us understand how to make our community better, how to let the gospel light shine in our own neighborhoods. I want to close today in that before we left, one of our neighbors in our neighborhood came by with a black party flyer. They're going to supply the hot dogs, but you bring what you want to drink and some chips, and we just want to get to meet you. These people were all bubbly. You could kind of tell some people had looked upon them as crazy, and they came to our door. Morgan answered the door and looked at him and said, oh, you beat us to it. We wanted to do this for our family.

And they just bubbled up. Oh, my goodness, really. And so we looked at the invitation and we heard all this commotion. So I think all of us kind of were at the door and they realized, oh, my goodness, look at all these kids and what are you old people doing here and all of that. And then we said, oh, we'd love to come. And these people just brightened up. Oh, okay. And that'd be great. But my thing is, I think that this is going to be a great joke on me. My prediction is Alderwood is planning a church in Marysville, and this will be the family that came up here to plant the church. But that's good, because as we pray in our prayer time, we want the gospel to be spread, and God can use all kinds of people to do that in all kinds of different ways. So with that, I am going to close, and Let me pray and then we'll do our offering, okay?

Father, what you say in your word is so powerful and it's so simple and it's so straight ahead. And sometimes we can go on and on with our scholarly efforts, but it always gets back to do or don't do and help us to be those that do and those that are that stalwart place of truth in all kinds of people's lives that come across us, and that we are able to be wise in all the things that come in front of us, who to vote for, who to do business with, who to confront, who to accept that confrontation to ourselves. Help us to be those people. Help us to walk in the spirit. And we know that you will do that for us, and that your plan, not always ours, but your plan will be successful.

And we thank you that you even stooped to have us be part of it, and you designed the whole system to make us part of that. So we thank you for all of those things, and it's in your son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Okay, please stand. And this is the time when we're singing that our offering is going to be brought forward. And will you notice that even in this, Sean mentions it, but I think it's really beautiful. It's another collective thing. We have the bucket and then we bring it up and put it on here, where we're going to have communion next after we sing, and that that is a collective, all of us bringing that together.

Now as we come to the Lord's table together to remember what the Lord has done for those of us who believe, we will be demonstrating our rejoicing in the Lord in a tangible and right way, right now, together. Just contemplate this. Here we are celebrating the fact that the God of the universe who brought creation about to glorify Himself, then in His perfect plan He came to earth and died for our sin, that we may worship Him forever. How crazy is that? Right from the beginning he knew the story. As Ephesians 1 says, before the foundation of the earth, he knew us. He sets this plan up, puts it into motion, and then he himself has to be the payment for our sin, which does what?

Put us on our knees to thank him. And this is one of those moments where those who have been baptized into one body by faith and those who are penitents of their sin and put our faith in Christ are able to partake of this body and blood. So this is an open communion. We want Christians to take it. And we do it together, which is another part of our liturgy that I really like, and I know it's not prescribed in the Bible or anything, but I love the way that we come together, down, watching the families with kids that maybe don't quite know what's going on, other kids that do, and how we funnel through and come out and get this and then do all this together.

Just that picture alone is really moving and was very moving for Gail's middle sister who came to visit us last week and that it's one of the times she really was appreciative of our body. And another time that she spoke about was our fellowship when she saw us get together, how all the people are talking and they're interested in each other and all the kids like each other and all that commotion and how wonderful that fellowship and that community is. And community communion, we have communion with him. So we do this all together and as the song goes, you guys funnel into here, go and get your things, return to your seat, and then we'll do it together after we get done singing.

Okay? So let's do that. So now in my charge, I'm going to tell you a little history lesson that is not part of my notes. I did make mention of it, but because I dumped that wine, for those of you that maybe have toured Europe and gone into Catholic cathedrals, and when When you go into an old cathedral and you go up where the wall separates the altar from the congregation, you might have noticed that that wooden railing, there's all kinds of big gouges taken out of it. And you think, boy, that's really old. That church has been around since 1400, so that's really had a rough use, that railing. A lot of hands have touched it to get those big gouges in there.

Crazy, huh? But that's what they do. So I did not create that over here. So now for my charge and back to my notes. Be all the Lord will have you be so whatever you wish that others would do to you Do also to them for this is the law and the prophets live your life to the fullest You possibly can and with his strength and with his spirit strength So our benediction is Philippians 3 20 through 4 1 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown stand firm, thus in the Lord my beloved.

Crazy, huh? But that's what they do. So I did not create that over here. So now for my charge and back to my notes. Be all the Lord will have you be so whatever you wish that others would do to you Do also to them for this is the law and the prophets live your life to the fullest You possibly can and with his strength and with his spirit strength So our benediction is Philippians 3 20 through 4 1 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.

We come to the end of Abraham’s life and to the end of the largest of the “generations” in Genesis so far. Book Six started in 11:27 - “these are the generations of Terah,” Abraham’s father. We’d already seen five generations through the flood:

Then there are five more generations of patriarchs. This morning we’ll see the end of Abraham’s story in 25:1-11, then we’ll cover Book Seven with the (beginning and) end of Ishmael’s story in 25:12-18, and get ready for only three more:

Adam, Noah, and Abraham are the three key men in the beginning: Adam for the start of humanity, Noah for the restart of humanity, and Abraham for the start of God’s chosen people. God elected Abraham to be the father of many nations and the father of faith. Chapter 25 records his death, burial, and the generations to come after him. The sons of three women are listed: of Keturah (1-6), of Hagar (12-18), and of Sarah, starting in verse 19.

The first section of chapter 25 provides new-to-us information as we’re introduced to another woman in Abraham’s household before reading the summary of Abraham’s life.

It sounds as if after Sarah died Abraham met another woman. The placement of these details after Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah and Isaac’s being “comforted after his mother’s death” also suggests chronological order. Yet hardly anyone believes that Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah after Sarah died. Most believe that this report is out of chronological order, that Keturah came before he took Hagar or as a replacement after Hagar. Either way, she isn’t mentioned until now and isn’t mentioned again in Genesis.

Keturah was in Hagar’s category as a wife and as a concubine. The second description is most important because if either Keturah or Hagar had been equal to Sarah then their sons would have deserved a part of Abraham’s inheritance. Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country. He settled the inheritance questions before he died, a point Abraham’s servant made to Rebekah’s family (Genesis 24:36).

Something has to give. If Abraham had six sons with Keturah after Sarah, then wouldn’t we also need to call these miracle boys? He was 100 years old when Isaac was born and Sarah said at least nine months before that, “my lord is old” (18:12); it’s part of the reason that she laughed out loud when the angel announced a birth. Abraham was “as good as dead” when Isaac was born (Hebrews 11:12) Did God renew Abraham’s vitality such that it carried over for a additional decades, a position that “amplifies the glory of the miracle” as Augustine supposed? But why would Abraham even want another woman? Is it because, as Calvin thought probable, that “his mind had been wounded, by the divorce which Sarah had compelled him to make with Hagar”?

If, instead, he took Keturah before Sarah’s death, why is this the first we’ve heard of it? Sarah had significant territory issues with Hagar and Ishmael, but we should believe that she had none with Keturah or her six boys?

Without more details, like how old Abraham was, it’s hard to know for sure, though I don’t think it too fantastic that Zimrah, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah were born in his old age and after Sarah died. These sons of his with Keturah, and some grandsons through Jokshan and Midian, and some great-grandsons through Jokshan, become more of Israel’s future neighbors in the land we know as Arabia and the Arabian desert, eastward to the east country. (For example, Bildad the Shuhite, one of Job’s counselors, was part of Shuah’s tribe. The Midianties were the ones who bought Joseph from his brothers and sold him to Potiphar.)

Death makes people attentive, not only the one dying but those preparing for or recovering from the passing of a loved one. There is not a lot in these verses, but the last details are encouraging.

These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 25:7–8)

175 is old. He had seen a lot, a century’s worth in Canaan. Full of years typically means good, not just many. It described a condition of contentment rather than resentment. Good old age means that living wasn’t wearisome, fulfilling God’s promise that “you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age” (Genesis 15:15). Even breathed his last means that he passed peacefully and not in the frenzy or agony of battle.

That he was gathered to his people means that there was a place he went where he was reunited with others. The phrase is used ten times in Scripture, all of which are in the books of Moses (Hamilton). It’s not that he was buried in a family plot, it “denotes the reunion in Sheol with friends who have gone before, and therefore presupposes faith in the personal continuance of a man after death” (Keil & Delitzsch).

After Abraham was gathered to his people, his body was buried with Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron….There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife. Both Isaac and Ishmael buried him; it’s interesting that none of Keturah’s sons, just listed in the previous paragraph, were present.

Then the transfer of attention and blessing: After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi. There was a well in this spot where the angel of the Lord met Hagar. The generations of Isaac are coming soon, but God chose Isaac as the covenant son. The Book on Abraham is closed.

This is the next toledot or “generations” formula and, as is typical, the non-elect line is given first (Cain then Seth, Esau then Jacob). It is Book Seven according to Moses’ divisions, and “surprisingly…[Moses] devotes a whole book to the genealogy of a concubine” (Waltke).

After restating Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant, we meet twelve sons named in the order of their birth. More than name, Moses added by their villages and by their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes, most of whom also lived in Arabia. “The term for tribal group is ʾummá, which occurs only three times in the OT (here; Num. 25:15l Psalm 117:1)” (Hamilton), translated “peoples” in Psalm 117:1. There are historical references “that the Ishmaelites were once a confederation of tribes like early Israel” which demonstrated the combined power of these brothers (Wenham).

Ishmael lived 137 years. He breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.

Ishmael’s descendants lived south and east of Israel, settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria. Even the last statement about Ishmael fulfills the last piece of God’s prophecy to Hagar about her son (Genesis 16:12): He settled over against all his kinsmen.

Abraham is obviously a major figure in Genesis with over 14 chapters devoted to his story. The author of Hebrews also gives more attention to Abraham than any other character in the Hall of Faith in chapter 11, describing his faith in a section of twelve verses when most others get only one. So rather than move into Book Eight and start the Esau and Jacob rivalry, I thought we would finish this morning with two summary reminders from Abraham’s life.

From the human perspective, obeying God led Abraham into an uncertain future.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8–10)

God called Abraham to leave his homeland and family and the life that he’d known. God called Abraham to adjust to uncertainty in his circumstances and to embrace the certainty of His promises.

Our Christian faith is similar. Faith is not a one-time-in-the-past assent to news we heard about Jesus’ death on the cross for our sin, though it includes that. Faith is a ongoing-in-the-present trust that God will take care of us as we obey His Word. Do you know what will happen tomorrow? None of us do! But for those with faith in God, we meet the unexpected with, “the thing has come from the Lord.”

From the human perspective, obeying God led Abraham to an impossible loss.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. (Hebrews 11:17–19)

God called Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Even though Isaac was the promised son, let alone the cherished son of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, Abraham was willing to do it because he trusted that God would do another impossible thing. Abraham was “as good as dead” (verse 12) when God brought life through him, and God could “raise [Isaac] from the dead” (verse 19).

What defines us as Christians is that we believe that God took on flesh in the person of His Son, that He was born of a virgin, that Jesus lived without any sin in order to be a sacrifice for sinners, that He died, was buried, and rose again. To believe the gospel at all is to believe the humanly impossible, it is to believe in God who works through what we see and what we can’t. That’s why “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). God is not limited by our visibility.

Not everything Abraham did was driven by faith. No man in Genesis, or after, has. But God called a sinner to salvation by grace and promised to bless him and make him a blessing to others. We are blessed in him, blessed through Abraham’s generational offspring, Jesus. We are children of faith and trusting that God has prepared for us a city, designed and built by Him.

God sustained him through his whole life, amidst the most boisterous waves, amidst many bitter griefs, amidst tormenting cares, and in short an accumulated mass of evils; let us also learn—that we may not become weary in our course—to rely on this support, that the Lord has promised us a happy issue of life, and one truly far more glorious than that of our father Abraham. (Calvin)

The longest chapter in the first book of the Bible describes how Isaac met and married Rebekah. The LORD promised Abraham that he would have offspring as numerous as the stars and sand, but he only had one son and that son was still single. So nearing the end of his life, Abraham sent a trusted servant back to Abraham’s homeland to find a match.

The pressing mission lead to a providential meeting. Traveling over 500 miles to Mesopotamia with a ten camel caravan, the servant stopped outside the city of Nahor at a well and prayed for the LORD to give him success. He asked for a sign, that the woman who would give him a drink would also initiate to water his camels, a task that might have taken one or two hours.

“Before he had finished speaking” a woman came out matching more of what the servant wanted then he could ask or imagine. He didn’t know who she was at first, but she was the answer to his prayers.

She quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran back and forth until the camels finished drinking. Then the servant asked what family she belonged to and when she told him, he exploded in praise. Rebekah ran home to tell her family and that brings us to the third and fourth movements in the story: the Match (verses 29-61) and the Marriage (verses 62-67).

In the longest chapter this is the longest scene. Moses tells us more about the energy the servant spends trying to persuade Rebekah’s family than he told us about the servant getting there.

We meet the fourth key character: Laban. Verses 29-30 tell us not only Laban’s relationship to Rebekah, but also his motivation for hurrying out to greet the visitor. As soon as he saw the ring and the bracelets on his sister’s arms and heard the story he ran out toward the man. The singular ring was a nose ring (translated as such in the NIV), see verse 47, compared to plural earrings or rings for the fingers. And note where Laban’s attention goes: the servant was standing by the camels. Laban is checking out the goods.

And he said, ”Come in, O blessed of the LORD. Why do you stand outside? For I have prepared the house and a place for the camels.” He offers, “Come right in. I’ve got a place just for you.” According to the previous verses Laban didn’t delegate preparations let alone have time to do it himself. He sees something he likes and doesn’t want this fish to fall of the hook.

They went back to the house and got everyone settled in. Here we learn that the servant wasn’t alone: the men who were with him also washed up. But when it was time to eat the servant said, ”I will not eat until I have said what I have to say.” There’s not a moment to waste; dinner is not of first importance.

Verses 34-49 are an uninterrupted speech by the servant retelling of the first part of the chapter. The repetition is only valuable to the readers. Moses could have written something such as, “So the servant told Rebekah’s family everything and asked if they agreed” (see verse 66 as an example). We would assume a truthful pitch by the servant.

With the more expanded version we see the conviction and the rhetoric of the servant. He believed that what he was doing was a mission from the LORD, for the LORD, and guided by the LORD. He identified himself not by name but in connection with Abraham whom the LORD has blessed greatly. This is how the chapter started (verse 1). When Abraham sent the servant it was in faith: ”The LORD before whom I have walked, will send his angel with you to prosper your way.” When he arrived at the spring he prayed: ”O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, if now you are prospering the way that I go…” And when Rebekah revealed her identity he said, ”I bowed my head and worshiped the LORD and blessed the LORD.” The servant understood his mission as a divine mission and trusted that he would receive divine help.

Yet the servant also shows great skill in persuasive speech. What he says is true, what he emphasizes and what he leaves out are well-chosen to compel Rebekah’s family to agree.

He starts by describing material blessings. The LORD has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels and donkeys. In other words, “What you see on the camels—and I saw you looking—is only the petty cash. The vault back home is full of more.”

Abraham has money, and he only has one heir: to him he has given all that he has. There will be no dividing this substantial inheritance between multiple sons; there’s is just one that matters. Who is this young man? Turns out this fine catch is an eligible bachelor, and he happens to be interested in a particular type: someone who was a relative, someone just like Rebekah.

The servant leaves out why Abraham wasn’t still living in Ur or Haran. No need to bring up Abraham’s departure, or why he himself didn’t come. And since the servant reports to Abraham, he throws in that Abraham expected the woman to come to him, while leaving out that Abraham would not allow his son to leave. It’s a small detail. But the servant moves on before anyone can reply.

He’s told his mission and what future awaits such a girl, and now he shows—from his perspective—the miraculous answer to his prayer. He asked so specifically and Rebekah so completely fulfilled his request that he knew it must be God’s will. “Before I had finished speaking in my heart, behold, Rebekah came out with her water jar on her shoulder…”

Note what he adds now to the end of his praise. At first, verse 27, “The LORD has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsman.” Now, verse 48, the LORD had led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son.” The servant either counts his chickens before the courtship or is putting it so positively that they can’t help but be compelled into his perspective.

Then he pushes them. ”Now then, if you are going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, tell me, and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or the left.” He’s a closer and his final comment is loaded. They either know or he’s going to take his camels and gold and go. They can agree or they can be wrong. How could they argue with any of this?

Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, “The thing has come from the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken.” (Genesis 24:50–51)

Where has Bethel, Rebekah’s dad, been before now? He doesn’t act again in the story; Laban and his mom take charge. Whether he’s too old or debilitated to do more, he and his son agree to the match.

I am not convinced that they act out our faith or reverence to the LORD. They acknowledge the LORD’s name. They use the servant’s language. But we cannot speak to you bad or good is not an expression of rejoicing but of resignation, “one way or the other” (NIV) or “we have no choice in the matter” (HCSB), “we have nothing else to say.” They will get gifts out of this, and an honorable marriage for Rebekah. We know for sure later on that Laban has household idols, and his behavior is anything but upright. Even now it’s likely that he’s doing what will benefit himself.

The servant hears the “Yes” and that’s what he came for more than their thrill. So he bowed himself to the earth before the LORD in thankfulness and then brought jewelry of silver and of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave to her brother and to her mother costly ornaments. Losing a daughter/sister was losing a worker and any of her future kids as help; this was a kind of compensation. Then dinner.

They spent the night there and when they arose in the morning, he said, “Send me away to my master.” He’s ready to get back on the road.

But can a good story end so smoothly? Her brother and her mother said, “Let the young woman remain with us a while, at least ten days; after that she may go.” They slept on it, or maybe they didn’t sleep. This could be good-bye forever; they are sad. Or it could be that they already got the gifts, why not keep the gifts and the girl? The translation a while, at least ten days is fine, but it’s an indefinite period of time. They aren’t really proposing a schedule, just putting up a delay.

But [the servant] said to them, “Do not delay me, since the LORD has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.” Even after that, though they had agreed, they stalled again and put the pressure of the decision on Rebekah. She simply said, ”I will go” and no more hurdles.

As Rebekah and Deborah (see Genesis 35:8) left they blessed Rebekah and said to her:

“Our sister, may you become

They didn’t know how truly they spoke. Both the offspring and the defeat of enemies are promised to Abraham through Isaac (see Genesis 22:17), and now Rebekah will be part of it. Ten thousand is rebabah, close to rebekah and berakah (“blessing”). Posterity and prosperity will come from her.

How long it’s been since the servant left and returned we don’t know for sure. It’s been a minimum of two months and a day, but based on Genesis 25:20 it may have been closer to three years. Sarah died when he was 37 and he married Rebekah when he was 40. Isaac was dwelling in the Negeb, apparently not with his father who, last we read, was living near Hebron. Oddly enough, Abraham isn’t mentioned in this last scene at all and the servant reports to Isaac as my master. It could be that Abraham has died, but because chapter 25 details Abraham’s death and doesn’t drop this marriage onto the end of that timeline, it seems the servant had word or just knew to go to the groom.

Isaac went out to mediate in the field toward evening. The word mediate is questionable, though some time to think or pray by oneself is an old practice. While out minding his own thoughts he saw the camels, he recognized the group.

Rebekah also saw Isaac and dismounted from the camels and asked ”who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?” When the servant told her, she took her veil and covered herself, a typical practice for a bride. It’s interesting that our English word “nuptial” referring to wedding things comes from the Latin word nuptum meaning “cover” or “veil.” The servant told Isaac all the things he had done. No second or third repetition is given here.

Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her. It probably didn’t happen that same night, and Moses doesn’t say anything about the ceremony. But the marriage worked and Isaac came to love Rebekah and was comforted after his mother’s death.

[I]t would have been psychologically impossible for a wife to have replaced his father in Isaac’s affections. Rather, it underlines that Rebekah is the new Sarah, just as Isaac is the new Abraham. (Wenham)

This story moves the Abraham section of Genesis nearer its end. A bride for his son is another blessing and she would marry into the conduit of God’s blessing to the nations.

Again we see God’s power to bring people to the right places at the opportune time. We see God’s use of a man’s faithfulness and winsomeness and conviction to bring about decisions by others all toward the end that the LORD wanted. There is passion and prayer and praise and providence all to accomplish God’s word to Abraham.

We can always say, “The thing has come from the LORD.” But as those who know and trust the Lord, we can and should speak good. God’s sovereignty means that we can “give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” It means that we can “Rejoice in the Lord always” and “not be anxious about anything” when we pray with Him in perspective.

No other event recorded in Genesis gets more attention than the one in chapter 24. I doubt that Moses was just an incurable romantic at heart, or that he wanted to draw in his female readers after all the talk about property negotions in the previous chapter. The story is lengthy because God’s providence is busy. “The LORD had blessed Abraham in all things” (verse 1) and now He provides a wife for Abraham’s only son. The Hebrew word for “blessing” is berekah. The woman we meet is Rebekah. She comes into the blessings of Abraham and through her the blessings grow on.

I’ve given the ending away, and we won’t even get halfway through the chapter this morning. It’s just your typical “Patriarch sends servant to find a cousin to marry the promised boy” story. Alright, it’s not that typical. What is typical is that the LORD accomplishes His purposes through all persons in all places at all times, even if we don’t realize it until later. It is a promising match not just from the servant’s perspective, but as the LORD continues His faithfulness to His chosen one.

We’ll look at the first two movements of the Isaac and Rebekah match this morning: The Mission (verses 1-9) and the Meeting (verses 10-28).

Abraham’s wife, Sarah, died. In chapter 23 he buried her in a cave that he purchased from Ephron near the city of Hebron in Canaan. Now it’s just he and his son Isaac as family. Abraham knew he was old, well advanced in years, though he didn’t have complaints. The LORD had blessed Abraham in all things, some of which are rehearsed as the story unfolds. But as he nears the end of his life he has at least one unresolved burden: a wife for his son.

It couldn’t be just any woman either.

Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” (Genesis 24:2–4)

The woman must not be a Canaanite. A local woman would have been easier to find. The Canaanites esteemed Abraham as “a prince of God” among them. Though giving Abraham one of their daughters to marry his son would be more personal than giving him some of their land to bury his wife, intermarriage would obligate Abraham even more to defend them. It would be good for them, but awkward for Abraham. The LORD already told Abraham that He was going to destroy them, at least eventually.

Abraham heard a report that his brother Nahor had kids (Genesis 22:20-24). He’s too old to go himself, and he wouldn’t go even if he could, or send his son for a reason he’ll soon give to the servant. Abraham commissions his servant and wants his servant to promise, to swear by the LORD.

The servant could be Eliezer, mentioned by Abraham to the LORD in chapter 15 as a possible heir. But the servant’s name isn’t mentioned anywhere in the chapter, either when Abraham addresses him or when the servant identifies himself. We don’t know his name, but we know his character; Abraham trusts his future to him. The servant is already planning to go, but he does ask for clarification. ”Perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?” He assumes he can find a woman, even one willing to marry Isaac, but what if she’s not willing to relocate?

This is unacceptable to Abraham; this is the deal-breaker. And it misses the point of why Abraham wasn’t in his country with his kindred. ”See to it that you do not take my son back there.” He could have sent Isaac, unless he didn’t trust his son. The biggest reason is because God moved Abraham to a new country on promises.

“The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.” (Genesis 24:7)

God called him to this place. God provided for Abraham. He will provide and providentially bring about a match, someone willing to leave her homeland like Abraham himself did a long time ago.

If not, the servant will be free from his promise. ”But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.” In case it wasn’t clear, Issac stays here.

These are Abraham’s last recorded words in Genesis. Even as he nears the end of his life he needs, and demonstrates, faith. He even quotes the LORD’s promise to him about the land from Genesis 12:7.

So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter. Thigh is probably a euphemism, like a doctor giving a hernia exam. This mission is pressing and personal, the future offspring depend on it.

The servant is faithful and wise and believing. He packed an assortment of things that would represent his master’s blessing: ten…camels…taking all sorts of choice gifts. He also must have prepared supplies for the long trip, but the emphasis is on abundance, not need. In one phrase he traveled over 500 miles: he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, a trip that certainly took him close to a month if not more.

On arrival the servant puts himself in position and prays for guidance. The camels were thirsty but the servant doesn’t water them. He had the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening when women go out to water. It’s good timing, and a good place to meet people. It’s not quite a “Single’s Well,” but the daughters of the men of the city did come out at night.

The servant doesn’t know anyone. He can’t ask anyone for counsel, so he prays.

“O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.” (Genesis 24:12–14)

He asks for a sign as success, “cause to occur for me” (see the note in the NASB), and he asks for it today. Such specificity could be taken as presumption, but the servant asks from a position of humility and in the name of his master whom he knew received promises from the LORD. There are two things the servant is looking for: 1) a sip of water for himself and 2) water service to his camels. The first may be no big deal, the second quite a task.

One camel could drink up to 25 gallons of water. The servant had ten. Such an offer from a woman with one jug could take an hour or two and much effort. (For example 250 gallons, served from a 2 gallon jug would take 125 trips from the well to the trough, at just one minute a piece that’s over two hours.) It would require a serious commitment to hospitality and energy to work this hard near the end of the day.

The next phrase is key to the whole meeting: Before he had finished speaking a woman appeared, which meant that before the servant started praying God set this woman in motion. She is not just any woman.

Behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder. This woman wasn’t just from Abraham’s country, she was from Abraham’s clan. “Nahon was Abraham’s brother, and Milcah was the daughter of his older brother, Haran…. [That means that] Her father is descended from both of Abraham’s brothers” (Wenham). In addition, she was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. This is promising, though at this point the servant only knew she was pretty. Moses tells that she’s family and that she’s marriage-material to emphasize God’s providence.

The servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water to drink from your jar.” Here is the first test. She passes. ”Drink, my lord.” Then the second test. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” So she quickly got to work and ran around until she was done. She was:

“as a continuous whirl of purposeful activity. In four short verses (Gen. 24:16, 18–20) she is the subject of eleven verbs of action and one of speech.” (Alter quoted by Hamilton)

The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the LORD had prospered his journey or not. She’s running, he’s watching, waiting, wondering, maybe even stunned. Could it be this good?

He took some jewelry from his stash to give to the woman, then asked ”whose daughter are you?” He doesn’t even ask her name. He also asked ”Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”

She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” She also added, even if it wasn’t her place to say, ”We have plenty of both straw and fodder, and room to spend the night.”

Now the servant is excited and his immediate response is worship!

The man bowed his head and worshiped the LORD and said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the LORD has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsmen.” (Genesis 24:26–27)

He still hasn’t told her the whole story, but he’s not really talking to her at the moment, he’s praising God in front of her. She’ll soon find out why all this is so significant and even the providential explanation for their meeting. But his excitement rubs off and she ran off to tell her family. She’s not nonchalant. The fact that she went to her mother’s household first may be significant, but we’ll meet her brother and dad anyway.

There’s a lot of the story left to go, more than half of the chapter. The servant will tell Rebekah’s family how he got there, but even more significantly, who got him there. For him, there is no way to explain what happened apart from the LORD working behind the scenes.

The Lord continues to coordinate all things today. We don’t always know, but we also know that God’s (decretive) will is being done.

This means that an unbeliever cannot study history as science. In an imaginary conversation in That Hideous Strength, the psychologist professor Frost speaks better than he knew about transcendent influences.

“The real causes of all the principal events are quite unknown to historians; that, indeed, is why history has not yet succeeded in becoming a science.”

A (consistent) unbeliever cannot account for the invisible forces. He must make guesses as to hidden reasons and causes. But believers see what’s happened and bow in worship to the Lord of heaven and earth.

It doesn’t always occur so obvious to us, and Genesis 24 isn’t about a method for courtship. It is about the principle of God’s faithfulness and orchestration of human meetings and more.

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.

Let me read Genesis 5020 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 Who was speaking in that who said that I was Joseph Joseph was a Calvinist and so am I and by Calvinism I simply mean a champion of God's sovereignty I don't think that Calvin would have appreciated very much the tulip articulation or the acronym. I'm not going to talk about that tonight. I do think that that is, as it relates to soteriology, that is pretty confining. Rather, a Calvinist is one who walks in light of God's sovereignty. And that's what I want to talk about tonight.

I believe that God ordains whatever comes to pass. I believe that He does what He pleases and that He redeems and preserves those whom He has chosen from before the foundation of the world. I believe that God is sovereign and absolute control. He answers to nobody and that His plans cannot be thwarted and there are none who are able to do so. I believe that the lordship of Jesus Christ is pervasive. and knows no bounds, as Jesus is preeminent. I believe that as He exercises the Father's redemptive plan, we are human instruments for His use. I believe that Christ intends to present to Himself a pure spotless bride.

This bride, of course, is the church, and all of us Christians, modern Christians, are part of that. He takes very seriously her purity, and this plan is not subject to change or to reversal. I believe that man is responsible for his sin and accountable before God, the giver of all good gifts for any refusal to acknowledge a Creator. I believe that men cannot come to faith in Christ on their own any more than a corpse can walk out of its tomb under its own power. Men only come to faith in Christ once they have been given spiritual life and once God inclines their hearts toward Him. I believe that in their natural state, men hate God and love their sin.

And reversing this is a supernatural work that only God's Holy Spirit can do. And therefore anyone who loves God only loves God because of God's work in Him. Worship begins then with God and ends with Him. He is both the initiator and the object of worship. I believe there never has then been somebody who sincerely loved God and obeyed His commands but was turned away at the pearly gates simply because he was not numbered among the elect. Neither has there, on the contrary, ever been anybody who has dragged kicking and screaming into heaven because he was among the elect and didn't want to be. These are some charges that are often thrown against Calvinists.

I believe that with spiritual life, God gives his children new hearts to love and obey him. I believe that as men cannot manufacture their own salvation, neither can they lose it once Christ has redeemed them. But there was a time when I couldn't make that confession on those multiple bullets there. I could not have said that. It was not in fact until I was about 21 years old that I started to actually think in theological terms. And the straw that broke my once-Arminian back was a sermon by R.C. Sproul on Genesis 50 verse 20, my last brown paper passage message, and the one that I just read.

Genesis 50 verse 20 is a fantastic verse with a rich context and I believe presents an airtight argument for the sovereignty of God. And the first time I heard a sermon on it was the fall of 1999. But in order for you to fully appreciate how this sermon impacted me and why it brought me to a theological crossroads, I have to give you the background. But I promise before our time is is over we will land once again at Genesis 50 verse 20 but you might begin to doubt that after how much time we spend in the Gospel of John. When I was in college at WSU I was involved in the interdenominational Christian ministry. It's funny people will say hey you went to WSU do you know so and so?

Which I always think is hilarious because there was about 17,000 students there and Now there's about 21 or 22. But the funny thing is, I mean, that's like saying, hey, you live in Marysville, do you know so and so? Marysville's about three times that size. But the funny thing about it is that if the person was a Christian, I actually might have known the person because there are about 12 Christians in Pullman. And so the chances are, yeah. Plucked her out of there. Well, being a part of an inter-denominational Christian ministry, not surprisingly, I walked around with Christians from all sorts of theological stripes, so with different theological persuasions, with different denominational backgrounds or church backgrounds.

Looking back, it's safe to say that we could have categorized them in two ways, Calvinist and other. I think you can probably still categorize people that way. I'm kidding people, lighten up. These were not factions. These are not adversarial relationships at all. They're still not, of course. We were friends. But generally speaking, the Calvinists were the ones who knew what they believed. Generally speaking, who knew what they believed and why, theologically. It's safe to say that almost everybody else was poorly taught or theologically ignorant, although most of us attended Armenian churches. I have no intention of bashing Armenians to make.

That is not my point. I believe that heaven will have Arminians and Calvinists get there. They'll change to Calvinists once they're there. But part of why this has been so impactful for me is the path, the trajectory that it put me on after my eyes were opened to the doctrines of grace and God's sovereignty and how Scripture was illumined. But up until that point, I belonged to the latter group, the at least poorly taught group that did love Jesus but did not know the first thing about Reformed theology or Calvinism or Arminianism or the doctrines of grace or really about Soteriology, Eschatology, Pneumatology, Angelology, the rest.

What I was fond of saying was that those sorts of things were divisive and that there was lots of stuff in the Bible I didn't know so I was not interested in or I was not equipped, to quibble about doctrinal differences with other Christians. Again, indeed, I consider myself unqualified to do so. I was generally disinterested in theological conversations, though I thought that reading the Bible was important. What I didn't understand was, and what I would later discover, was that we cannot escape bringing presuppositions to any text. We can't escape bringing presuppositions to any conversation or to any sermon listening activity.

And the more accurate your presuppositions, the more accurate your understanding of the passage or the message is going to be. And I was very ill equipped to understand much of anything with accuracy or precision. And it was, and I'm not really gonna go into this much later on, it was very much enlightening when I began to examine a lot of problem passages and scripture through the lens of a sovereign God. When I began to look at it that way, all of a sudden, so many things that had been confusing before made sense, but I get ahead of myself. We'll fast forward to my junior year in college.

I was living in a big house with a bunch of Christian guys. There were 15 of us, and again, from all different theological stripes. My first semester, my classes started at 9.10 a.m., and so in all five days of the week, the classes started at the same time. I was able to get into a regular morning schedule that involved me reading and studying the Gospel of John for at least half an hour every day. Now I was a pretty new Christian. I had been a Christian for about a year and a half at that point. And I had no study tools, no resources. I had a Bible, a spiral notebook, and a ballpoint pen where I would write down thoughts and questions and observations on the verses that I was examining.

worth noting but just for information. I also had a stack of yellow cards where I would write down verses to memorize and I'd stuff in my pocket and then when I would put my hands in my pocket to walk in between classes and I'd feel it in there, I'd try to rehearse the verse from memory. So by adding students just a little life hack, by adding nothing more to my, I still had to walk from this point to this point. I added nothing more to my schedule is when I felt that I would try and see if I could rehearse it and if I couldn't, yeah, pull it out, boom, put it back in, just go. I actually memorized a lot of scripture that semester, and actually that whole year doing just that.

But it's fun to see now how God in His sovereignty was preparing me for what was to come. In His sovereign grace, He ordained, you can see my presuppositions now, that I memorized with and wrestled with a bunch of problem passages that would, well, that would be problematic for any Arminian like I was without knowing that I was in fact an Arminian and that he ordained that I even share a house with several Calvinists. There are a bunch of Calvinists in the house as well who are more familiar with scripture and theology than I was. Well that was hard to ignore. But what were these problem passages? Well if you're at all familiar with the gospel of John, which you should be because as a church we finished going through it just the last year I do believe, well you probably have an idea what sorts of passages presented problems for an ignoramus such as myself.

Now I had been taught, and maybe your testimony is similar to mine, I had been taught and I had come to affirm, I had come to believe that salvation was a gift that men had the ability and the duty to receive and maintain. I had been taught and come to believe that salvation was a gift that men had the ability and the duty to receive and maintain. But as I studied John's gospel, the plain reading of a host of passages sitting right on the surface, I didn't have to dig at all, confronted my inflated view of man's autonomy and challenged my presuppositions. And the head scratchers were always things that Jesus said, go figure.

So I'd like to look at several of them tonight and identify the sorts of questions and observations that the passages surface. So the next portion of my message, I'm going to identify, and we'll look at them together, some passages, and I'll tell you some of the things that came to mind when I was examining this. So hopefully you have enough context and you understand about the level of sophistication that I was bringing to the discussion theologically. Take a look at John 6.37. Jesus says, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. So a question that I had was, is this all ultimately conditional on man's cooperation or work?

Like under what conditions or terms does the Father give someone to the Son? Who's fit to be given? do then how do I get to be one of those presidents? Does this depend on their own righteousness? And if so, then how in fact are men saved at all? Well, in order for this to be true, the father and the son must have in mind a particular body of individuals. There must be names, a list, a quantifiable body of persons chosen for salvation. There are some who are gifts and some who are not. Again, try and put yourself in my shoes back in 1999 or 98, fall 98, sorry it was yeah fall 98 and wrestling with this. These are the sorts of things that came to mind. If this is true then the reverse must also be true, namely that those whom the Father does not give to the Son will will not come to the Son at all.

He also says, will come to me. If we are given to the Son by the Father, then can we finally resist that? Well, no. I mean, or God's not as strong as I am, right? If I can then say, no Lord, I don't want to be given to the Son, but what happens there? Well, of course we know that God changes our hearts, but he also says, I will never cast out. Hmm, if the Father gives us to the Son, and the Son states emphatically that we will come to Him, and He won't cast us out, then, yeah, gotta look elsewhere for any sort of defense of being able to lose your salvation. What about a few verses later, John 644? No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

We neither have, here's an observation, I think I still have this notebook, it's pretty funny to look at it, we have neither the permission nor the ability to come to the sun on our own, but we are drawn. Why does he allure us? And if God's doing the drawing, then can I just say, no? Is that a beckoning that we can resist? Well, it doesn't seem like it based on verse 37, just a few verses earlier. What about another one, John nine, verses one through three, you know this story. "'As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, "'and his disciples asked him, "'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, "'that he was born blind?'

"'And Jesus answered, "'It was not this man that sinned or his parents, "'but that the works of God might be displayed in him.'" Now, wait a minute, this is just not fair. So this guy had to live his whole life up to this point with blindness, just so that God could, I don't know, perform some miracle and be shown off or something. That's like an incredibly low view of man, isn't it? Are men merely instruments for the display of God's glory? I mean, not this man, no way. Doesn't that paint a very low picture of man after all? It's not the blind man's fault. I mean, it's not his fault that he was born blind. So why was he made to suffer all those years without sight?

Jesus says pretty clearly, but that the worst of God might be displayed in him. That man, that's a hard one to swallow. Is it possible that men are in fact, instruments for the display of God's glory? Is it possible that that's all we are? But isn't that pretty important? So, that seems like a low view of man, but isn't that like the point of the universe is the display of God's glory? And if that's the case, then it seems like a pretty small thing that a guy would live years with blindness. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. Let's move on. I mean, is it possible if this is right and good? if it brings about the greatest glory for God, as was the case when Jesus showed himself to be God by healing him.

What about John 10, verses 14 through 16? I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock, one shepherd. That's verses 14 to 16. Does Jesus actually know beforehand who his sheep are? I mean, they haven't even believed yet. What about those who have been offered salvation but have rejected it? Are there like sheep candidates in the economy of God? Like will be a sheep under certain conditions if he just starts to back correctly?

Then we'll call him. I mean, who's in charge here anyway? Jesus says that he must bring them in also. Well, says who? I mean, is that then a command from the Father as well? Or is it possible that he must do certain things in order to carry out plans of the Father?

You see the wrestling that I was experiencing. And again, I knew nothing of Calvinism, or what we have nicknamed Calvinism. John 10, verses 27 to 30, same chapter. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one. So wait a minute, Jesus. So are some people simply not ever going to become sheep? How on earth is that fair? And if Jesus gives eternal life, which I've been told somewhere, it doesn't refer to just duration, but also quality of life, it's a type of life.

He says in John 17.3, I'm not gonna get there. This eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So, eternal life begins at the point where we start to have a relationship with Jesus. If he gives it, and it's called eternal, then can I end it prematurely? How do so many Christians then argue that somebody can lose the salvation? And this is the first of the dominoes that started the tick for me. I do remember before I ever started confessing quietly in private groups that I think I'm a Calvinist. That's when I was going to Western. That was pretty funny.

I believe for a while, and there are actually many who would say, I'm not a Calvinist, but I do believe that a person cannot lose the salvation once he's Finally been given that. Yeah, so can a once redeemed man return to an unredeemed state? Having been bought, can I unbuy myself once more? Doesn't that then make God unjust if that's the case? Either our sins have been atoned for already or we'll have to do it ourselves someday. Can God require a double payment for a solitary sin? Is the sacrifice of Jesus not sufficient? Must I also pay for my sins when Christ has done so already? like Jesus has died for everybody and This person goes to hell. How does that work?

When is the father actually satisfied? If as Jesus said and if I'm a sheep, which I love Jesus, I am a Christian So I'm calling myself a sheep. Let's go with that if I'm a sheep and And no one is able to snatch me out of the father's hand. Well, then can I step out of the hand myself? Or does that then make me greater than God? He is greater than all except for me maybe I can just I Have heard that argument by the way. Nobody can take you out, but you can take yourself out What's next how about verses 16 to the first half verse 18? Truly truly I say to you a servant is not greater than his master nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him And if you know these things, bless you if you do them.

I'm not speaking to all of you. I know whom I have chosen." Now Jesus was speaking here to His disciples. I couldn't He chosen all of them? Like a few chapters earlier or in a different gospel or something like that, He like named them. I want this one, this one, this one, this one, this one. Is what kind of choosing are we talking about here? Not chosen to come to dinner. I've chosen all these people to come to dinner. He's talking about a different kind of election. Okay, well, was Judas destined to betray Jesus? And if so, is it actually his fault? Can he be held responsible for his actions? Let's skip a few chapters.

If we had, I don't know, a week, we could go through just John 17. Since about this time, this has been my favorite chapter in the Bible. And it is for this reason because the whole prayer, John 17 is a prayer, the high priestly prayer, Jesus speaking to his father. There is one sense that I'll get at later on, but the chapter is peppered with phrases that speak to Christ owning us and our being his. For instance, look at verses 6 through 8. I have manifested your name, remember this is a prayer, to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them, and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me."

Now in my sort of, my pretty immature assessment of this, I'm like, there is a specific group that he's talking about. This is not offered universally. Now, it seems like in this context he was talking about his disciples, and then the word of his disciples went on and saved many.

Because he talks about the son of perdition, whom I lost none except for him, that was ordained too, and so on and so forth. Again, way more to talk about than we have time to do. But there was an overwhelming sense that there is a finite body that Jesus is referring to. Though he's speaking of his disciples here, he's emphatic that it is the prerogative of the Father to do what he wishes with his creations. It is the prerogative of the Creator to do what he wills with his creation. And we're his creation. And that also sort of inflates my inflated view of mankind. The same sort of one that was offended by John 9.

It wasn't that guy's fault. like you let him go all those years just so that you could perform a trick. Jesus says next in verse 10, nine and 10, I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours, just in case there was any confusion. Now, all mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them. Isn't this just mean that Jesus isn't praying for everybody? Doesn't Jesus want everybody to be saved? Well, then we get into some theological distinction between the will, the decreed will of God, the desired will of God, and whatnot, but again, just on the surface level, how can he say this?

Though Jesus is speaking of his disciples, he is emphatically not praying for everyone. Now, if salvation is offered universally, how does that work? I didn't have answers for all of these, But, we do offer salvation liberally. We offer to everybody. We just believe that those who are saved are going to be made alive by Jesus. And the result is not up to us. The outcome is not up to us. God's Spirit will give them life. What else? Verse 11, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I'm coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one? Well, if Jesus is praying for the preservation of his gifted ones, the ones that were given to him, it sure seems like the Father won't say no. Like under what circumstances would the Son pray a prayer that is not consistent with the will of the Father? He says emphatically even in John, I do what the Father tells me. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

That's my sustenance. That's what gives me life and energy. So part of what's exciting about all of John 17 is he's praying a prayer that the Father loves and loves to answer, but it's also at the same time unsettling because the Father will answer that prayer that Jesus is crystal clear is not for everybody, but it is for us.

for these only, His disciples, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word. We are here as a testament to the genius of the Master's plan. The fact that He invested in twelve, who then invested in others, and we are here, it works. So here, He's praying for us. There's another reason why I love John 17 is He prays explicitly for us, modern Christians. But again, this is a particular group. And some are part of that group and some are not. The reverse is also true. I am not praying for those who won't believe through their word. Well, you get the picture. The overwhelming sense in my time in John, because there actually is a lot more, is there are a particular group of persons who destined by God to follow Jesus and I saw no way of getting around that. Also that God has a prerogative to do what he pleases with his people. Well as I work through these passages and I made these observations it's funny I would just sometimes just dismiss them as little like curiosities. So Jesus apparently has

certain people in mind when he's talking about the Father having given him certain people like their chosen and their salvation is really secure like they can't lose it huh I just move on but little by little I was amassing this this this mountain of question marks in the back of my mind that had they had a lot of data in front of them that when I had the right lens through which to view them they became exclamation points yet I still had at this time a lot of questions and a lot of obstacles to overcome even in my own mind. I had been taught that men choose God, but Jesus talked about having chosen his own and the elect were a gift from the Father to the Son. Well, how could those things harmonize? How could they both be true?

I choose Jesus, Jesus chose me, but that was actually, had to be determined beforehand because I had to be numbered among a certain people in order for the Father to even give me to the Son. Hmm, like how does that all work? Or I had been taught that having chosen to believe in God unto salvation, a Christian could fall away from the faith. That is the teaching of the denomination where I grew up even now. Having them once saved, he can lose his salvation. But here Jesus was saying that the Father is greater than all and none can snatch Christ's sheep from the Father's hand. I had been taught that God was crazy about me and wanted nothing more than a personal relationship with me.

He loved me so much. He sent his only son to make it happen. But he's also a gentleman. And he will not force himself on anyone. He cannot force himself into the heart of a person who doesn't want him. So salvation was offered as a gift that I could receive or not receive. If I would just have faith, I could be saved. But in John, I saw that I couldn't have that faith unless Jesus gave it. I saw that Jesus meets the needs of people who can't meet them themselves. Lazarus, the blind man. He gives sight to blind men, life of the dead. He gave faith to those whom he gave eternal life. Yet I had been taught that faith precedes regeneration.

You have to have faith in order for God to give you spiritual life. But it sure seemed like Jesus was teaching that you had to have spiritual life in order to have faith. But all this time, though I'd heard of Calvinism and Reformed theology, I'd heard of them. I just didn't know what they were. I'd heard of Arminianism. I didn't know what that was. I did not know what these systems taught or what they advocated. So I'd immersed myself in the Gospel of John for several months during the school your 98, 99. Sonya and I got married in the summer of 1999 at an Assemblies of God church here in Marysville. We started attending that church. And a few weeks after we got married, I started working at Eagle Hardware and Garden. This is all germane. Okay, this all pertains to the conversation, okay. That's why I love electrical and lighting to this day. Yeah, so if you have ever, if you're ever there when it was Eagle, one of the smoky point, The electrical and lighting department is right here and across the aisles, the flooring department.

Over in flooring there was an Orthodox Presbyterian guy named Chuck Adelano. He and I became friends because there weren't a whole lot of Christians who worked there at the time. So we had some good conversations and he always knew how to get under my skin. I would tell him about a prophecy that I just heard at the AOG church and he'd say, how do you know it was a prophecy? I say, what do you mean, how do I know it was a prophecy? The guy stood up and said, thus says the Lord, and said a bunch of things. I just found a whole lot like scriptures. Yeah. How do you know? What do you mean, how do I know? I was like there, and it was a prophecy.

It was like, how do you know he wasn't a really good actor? I mean, just, yeah, and he just kept putting it back in my court and like, I don't know. And he quipped one time, you know Jonathan? Like God's trying to tell you something, because like in college you had these buddies who were Calvinists, now you got me? I'm just saying. And I also couldn't argue with that. Well one day he gave me some tapes that I needed to listen to. And I couldn't tell you what the other ones were. I think he gave me a couple. But he gave me an R.C. Sproul tape where Genesis 50 verse 20 was the principal passage. Now R.C. Sproul's taught in writing, chosen by God, and in speaking a whole bunch on this.

So it's not hard to find something. I have not been able to track down that particular sermon to save my life ever since. But there is a wealth of stuff that he's written on this passage. And by that time, my curiosity was piqued, the soil of my heart was very well tilled and fertile. I had wrestled. I had wrestled with enough problem passages and failed to come up with conclusive answers. So now let's do it. Let's look at Genesis 50, verses 15. Well the whole paragraph will read verses 15 through 21. I've got it up here. You can turn to it. Break again with me at the passage and then we'll see how this helps to tie together all the loose ends presented to me by John's gospel.

Not all of them, but a bunch of loose ends presented by John's gospel. And pay particular attention because we'll read it a second time when we get to verse 20. Genesis 50, verses 15 through 21. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, it may be that Joseph Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him." So they sent a message to Joseph saying, your father gave this command before he died. Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you. And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.

Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, behold, we are your servants. Joseph said to them, do not fear for am I in the place of God? 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. So do not fear. I will provide for you and for your little ones. Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Once more, verse 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. Well, you're most likely familiar with the context of this passage.

This is the last chapter of Genesis and a lot of really bad things. I even have bad in quotes because can we really call it bad, had happened to Joseph up to get us to this point. Just a whirlwind tour where we'll get there soon. I'm working with chapter 23. Over there soon. Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob, aka Israel. Joseph dreamed that his brothers would one day bow down to him, and he shared this dream with his brothers, and that didn't go over so well. As you'll remember, his jealous brothers sold him into slavery, and they told their dad that his favorite son, number 11, was dead. Joseph was imprisoned, falsely accused, having been falsely accused of trying to violate the wife of his master, Potiphar.

And after interpreting the dream of Pharaoh regarding a coming famine, Joseph was elevated to high political status akin to prime minister of Egypt. On Pharaoh's orders, Joseph's counsel, his recommendations to Pharaoh about how to survive the famine, were put into action. And by doing what Joseph said, Pharaoh soon owned practically all of the people and the private property in Egypt. They didn't have enough money to buy more grains. Like, well, give me your land. And so pretty soon Pharaoh had it all. But the people survived. And because Pharaoh followed Joseph's counsel, there was enough stored grain to feed Egypt and her neighbors, those who came and bought grain, although the famine was severe.

And among those who were rescued from starvation was the entire household of Jacob. And of course, in a twist of irony, Joseph's brothers were made to come and ask help from Joseph whom they didn't know was him, whom they had of course betrayed and sold into slavery many years before. When they did this, interesting, Genesis 42 verse 9 says that Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. I wonder if that was the time where it really started to tie together. Wait a minute. I had those dreams back when everything was great, back in Canaan. And here we are, it's almost like God knew what He was doing or something.

No, it couldn't be. Of course Joseph was probably more full of faith all along the way, but he could see that it was planned from the start. So Joseph brings Jacob and all of his household goods to Egypt to take care of them, and they end up staying there for over 400 years, but that's a lot further in the story than we're going to get tonight. Eventually Jacob does die well advanced in years. He's buried at the tomb of his fathers. And he is very happy to be reunited with his son whom he thought was dead, reunited with Joseph. And on Jacob's death, Joseph continues to be kind to his brothers, much to their surprise.

And that, of course, is then when we find the exchange here between Joseph's brothers and Joseph. Now there's a ton in this paragraph, of course, that we can't... It's not my intention to try it to exhaust it or even really do it justice, but as we do drill down and zoom in on verse 20, I'd like to at least make a few observations. And first, I want to issue a disclaimer. Please don't accuse me of formulating a doctrine based on one verse. Just because I draw these observations out of this one verse does not mean that I'm building a system of doctrine on that one verse, which is something you don't want to do. Luther was emphatic that that's dangerous.

Just one verse, you can twist it to make it mean anything you want. You have to look at all of scripture to interpret scripture. Part of my point in sharing the passages from John with you is to show that in fact, the observations that I would like to make here are supported elsewhere in scripture. The questions that were brought up time and again in a variety of ways in the gospel of John were answered as I got to look at Genesis 50 verse 20. It distilled so much of what I had seen in the Gospel of John. Further, hearing R.C. Sproul explain it, explaining the text and its significance, was a luxury that, as you'll recall, I didn't have in my John study. I had no additional resources that I was drawing on. So I didn't have anybody to explain it to me. I was like the Ethiopian eunuch trying to understand Isaiah without somebody explaining it.

Further, having Dr. Sproul explain it, it was like, now that makes sense and harmonizes with these other things. So I maintain that the observations I'm about to make from Genesis verse 20, have mountains of support elsewhere in Scripture. End disclaimer. So, four observations, they're not very long. We can call that all introduction and this is the meat of it. I don't know. First, observation one is that men act volitionally. Men act volitionally. And so volition is will. So they act willfully. They do their things on purpose. He says, as for you, you meant evil against me. But God meant it for good. So there was no sugarcoating the evil intent behind the actions of Joseph's brothers.

What's equally undeniable is that they had intentions, they had plans, they had designs. They did this evil on purpose. They can't blame somebody else. Joseph's brothers acted according to their collective will, and their will was wicked. And Joseph does not dismiss or excuse the actions of his brothers, saying, you had no choice. Joseph didn't recognize the tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. He just laid them right beside each other. You meant this? He meant this? He doesn't say, it's not your fault. God made you do it. And you can't say that either. Neither can I. He simply acknowledges that God planned to use their wicked actions for His own good purposes.

They wronged Joseph. They meant to do it. And it's a really good thing that they did. Yes, I said that. Well, you may remember I had questions in going through John about Judas. Well, this answers them. This one little verse answers that. Judas willed to do evil, but God meant it for good. His behavior was inexcusable and wicked, but also completely necessary for the plan of God. And this of course is very tied to my next observation, which is namely, God has a plan. Now this is just, this is just Christian-y, right? People say this, God has a plan, God has a plan. Well, now I'm going to get eye-poky for just a minute.

Forgive me. If you're an Arminian, you can only believe that so far. has a plan, he's really hoping that I cooperate with it. J.I. Packer in evangelism, the sovereignty of God, I believe, has articulated pretty well that nobody prays like an Arminian because what is the point in asking God to move if we can do it ourselves? No, we have a volition. God has a plan. He does. And like so many things, that actually has tremendous implications and ought to bring tremendous comfort. You know why? Because He's sovereign. He has a plan and He is sovereign and He is good and He is going to work it out and we are on His side.

He is sovereign and He is good and He is for us. Joseph said, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. So you had a plan? God had a plan. Jacob's brothers had plans and God had a plan for those plans. Well growing up, like I said, I had been taught that God has a plan and men have free will. And to harmonize these things they said that God looks down the corridors of time and sees how man is going to act and then develops his will or maybe even his election, we'll use that word, based on his foreknowledge of what men are going to do someday completely independent of his will or influence.

Exactly. That's a problem because who's the sovereign one in that equation? That makes God the master responder, the great reactor to men's plans rather than being the sovereign one, the one who's in control. And what I could see in Joseph's words is that the will of men and their free choices are never at odds with the sovereign plan of God. Rather, men's volition is used by God in his plan. How many times do you read the Old Testament? God put it in this man's heart to do this. It was decreed by God, yes, it was decreed by God, that the serpent should deceive Eve, that Eve should take the fruit, that Joseph's brothers should sell him into slavery, that David should commit adultery with Bathsheba.

You know what happened after he married Bathsheba? Solomon was born. That actually turned out pretty well. Or that David should take security in the number of his military forces. Read the verses leading up to that. God had a beef with Israel, and so he put it into David's heart to do this. And then what happened? 70,000 men died as a result of God's corrective judgment there. It was decreed by God that Nebuchadnezzar should mandate idolatry. some really fantastic showcasing of God's glory came about in the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It was the decreed will of God that Romans should also mandate idolatry.

That Judas should betray Jesus. That Claudius should kick out the Jews from Rome. That Hitler should massacre Jews. And that Islamic terrorists should fly planes into the World Trade Center towers. Just because the canon of Scripture is closed does not mean that the pattern of God has closed. We learn from Scripture how God acts. And if those things were not the will of God, they would not have happened. And we can also see on this side of all of those things that all of them, every single one of them resulted in loss of life and judgment of the wicked. And tremendous, tremendous good has come about of that. And who gets to define what good is? God does. So sometimes even what we see as good, God does not.

Chuck's always saying it's hard and it's good. Yeah, God determines what is good. Joseph states this plainly when he tells his brothers the very same plan, one plan, man side, God side, that was intended for evil by Joseph's brothers was intended by God for good. The same plan, the same events. They meant to bring him harm, but their wicked act resulted in the preservation of God's people and the showcasing of God's wonders before Pharaoh in Egypt 400 years later and then of course much more with the Exodus giving of the law in the Messiah. So men act freely to be sure. They act absolutely freely within the confines of God's sovereignty.

Their plans are always within that scope. Third observation is that man's, I'm sorry, God's plans cannot be thwarted. God's plans cannot be thwarted. But first we have simply, men abolitionally, and God has a plan. God's plan cannot be thwarted. And I draw this from simply, but God. There's a contrast here. You meant this, but God meant this. So He had a plan for this, and you brothers could not undo the good plans that He had in place for this story. It'd be one thing if God had these grandiose plans that could be thwarted by the decisions of his creatures. I mean, that'd be tragic and pointless. So let's say God's got a really fantastic idea for the universe, but man, he's just ringing his hands and hoping that it all works out.

And there are about 7.3 billion X-factors right now, and they've all got to line up perfectly for this best option to actually work itself out. Well, if that's the case, then of course, God is not sovereign and in control. No creator is the subject, is subject to the will of His creation, and neither, of course, is God. We depend upon Him for our sustenance, for our life. And of course, this was confirmed in what I saw in John 6 and John 10 when Jesus insisted that His sheep were secure. If God plans to redeem a man, then the man is redeemed, and the redemptive work cannot be undone. We can't be unredeemed. Joseph's words here harmonize with the overall picture in Scripture of God's sovereignty that is painted masterfully throughout the other books.

Satan and men are constantly about the work of trying to thwart the plan of God, but instead they constantly support it and are cast members in it. You know, God kindly peels back the curtain and shows us behind the scenes in the opening verses of Job. And you see that Satan afflicting Job is absolutely within the purview of God's control. God gave him permission to do that, and Job was never given that insight that we have. But we see it. Men and Satan are constantly trying to thwart God's plan, and all they do is serve to advance And last, God's plan that he has is in fact good. God's plan is good. As for you, you meant evil against me, says Joseph, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

And again, we have to say, well, God didn't just have a plan for Joseph that involved periods of Joseph's suffering, but he had a good plan. A hallmark of its goodness was that it was a plan to preserve and deliver his people and to glorify his own name before the nations. Of course that happened later on in the latter chapters of Genesis, the story of Joseph, and the book of Exodus. But what is good? It's not what you and I think is good because we could see if there was a loss of a single human life then it was wicked. But not in God's economy. Can you consider if what men, the purpose that men serve is, if we are instruments to be used by God to showcase His glory, to instruct, to inform the worship of the angels, well then when God is glorified, that is good.

Well taking these things together, taking the Gospel of John, the thorny passages we we looked at and taking Genesis chapter 50 verse 20 together, my clear takeaway is that God is absolutely sovereign, and He ordains all that happens in accordance with His perfect plan and good pleasure. If you think that Calvinism is simply about predestination, well, if God is absolutely sovereign and in control, of course He chooses who's saved. But that's just one of a trillion things that He does. So that's why I call myself a Calvinist at this point, is because I began to, I mean, I became convinced that God controls it all.

And that's a Calvinist. Let me conclude this evening with an extended quotation from R.C. Sproul. If it sounds familiar, it should, because it's basically what I've said. And maybe you've read some of this before. Who knows? Like I said, he's written extensively on this passage. He's spoken on it extensively. None of my thoughts are original. I'll credit him with anything intelligent that's come out of this at all. RC Sproul is absolutely one of my heroes even today, and I totally disagree with him on a few points. And that's fine, because those are not primary issues. They're not salvific. But I absolutely give him credit for the main substance and a lot of the stronger points of what I said.

And you'll see why here in just a moment. Here, I'll let you read along with me. Consider the story of Joseph, whose brothers out of jealousy and greed sold their innocent brother into slavery in Egypt. At the reunion years later, and upon the confession of sin made by the brothers to Joseph, Joseph replied, You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. Here is the inscrutable majesty of God's providence. God made use of human evil by bringing to pass His purpose for Joseph and for the Jewish nation. Joseph's brothers were guilty of willful and malicious sin. By directly violating the perceptive will of God, they sinned against their brother.

Yet in their sin, God's secret counsel was brought to pass and God brought redemption through it. However, what if Joseph's brothers had been obedient? This really got me. Joseph would not have been sold into slavery. He would not have been taken captive into Egypt. He would not have been sent to prison from which he was recalled to interpret a dream. What if Joseph had not become prime minister? What would have become the historical reason for the brothers settling in Egypt? It would have happened, right? There would have been no Jewish settlement in Egypt, no Moses, no exodus from Egypt, no law, no prophets, no Christ, no salvation.

Can we therefore conclude that the sins of Joseph's brothers were in fact virtues in disguise? Not at all. Their sin was sin. A clear violation of the perceptive will of God, for which they were held responsible and judged to be guilty. But God brought good out of evil. This reflects neither a contradiction in God's character, nor a contradiction between His precepts and His decrees. Rather, it calls attention to the transcendent power of His sovereignty. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the substance of Mike Alvanism. And why I love to champion God's sovereignty whenever I can. But when we look at the good that came about as a result of the diabolical acts of Joseph's brothers and the other events that led up to the end of Genesis, and then of course we know the rest of the story, man, if Joseph had only known what was going to come, he would have said it even more emphatically.

You are not subject to change, and you are certainly not dependent upon our faithfulness, and for that we are also thankful. Thank you for your word, and thank you for the testimony of Joseph. Thank you for the teachings of Christ, and we thank you for the articulating of theology that so many men who have gone before us in past generations have done, as they have poured over your word and tried to rightly divide it. That we can stand here and take these things for granted is an evidence of your kindness. So be with us in a special way as we go about our week now and may we, even as we finish up the message, go forth in confidence in you who are sovereign and good and for us. We pray this now in the name of Christ, amen.

You are not subject to change, and you are certainly not dependent upon our faithfulness, and for that we are also thankful. Thank you for your word, and thank you for the testimony of Joseph. Thank you for the teachings of Christ, and we thank you for the articulating of theology that so many men who have gone before us in past generations have done, as they have poured over your word and tried to rightly divide it. That we can stand here and take these things for granted is an evidence of your kindness. So be with us in a special way as we go about our week now and may we, even as we finish up the message, go forth in confidence in you who are sovereign and good and for us.