Sermon Tone Analysis

In Isaiah 45:11, God decrees His superintendency over all of history: /“ ... What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.”/

(Isaiah 46:11, NIV84).

God will do all that he has planned by providentially bringing his decrees to pass!

This is known as the Doctrine of Predestination.

As you know, that’s a loaded word!

Throughout the history of the Christian church, few doctrines have been so hotly debated as the doctrine of predestination.

Yet, when we come to a passage like this, we are forced to deal with the doctrine.

Last week, we looked at an introduction to the topic and I gave you a working definition of the word.

/Predestination means that God freely chooses some people to be the special objects of his grace and thus to receive eternal salvation, and then He providentially guides real-time world events to bring about that choice/.

Predestination simply means that God has a plan, and that God works His plan to bring it to fulfillment.

* Some, of course, deny that God has a plan for this world.

* Others believe that God has a general plan, but that it is not specific.

* Some, like myself, believe that God has a plan which embraces all event in all ages.

It is unthinkable that a God of infinite wisdom and power would create a world without a definite plan for that world.

And because God is infinite his plan must extend to every detail of the world’s existence.

If we could somehow see the world in all its relations, past, present, and future, we would see that it is following a predetermined course with exact precision.

As creatures created in the image of God we see the doctrine of predestination operative in our own lives.

Before we take a trip or undertake a course of action all of us set our goals and then work to obtain those goals in so far as we are able.

Before an architect begins his edifice, he makes his drawings and forms his plans, even to the minutest details of construction.

In the architect’s brain the building stands complete in all of its parts before a stone is laid.

The larger your enterprise is, the more important it is that we have a plan; otherwise all our work ends in failure.

If this is true of men, who were mere mortals, how much more is it true of the Creator of the universe?

Unlike ourselves, God has no limitations in his planing or His ability to carry out His plans.

He is all-wise in His planning and all-powerful in His performing.

It is a doctrine that reminds us that God is sovereign in His choices.

The Bible clearly reveals that the Lord announces future events, and then through the centuries, guides the movement of history to the fulfillment of what He has decreed.

“ ... What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.”

(Isaiah 46:11, NIV84).

!

I. THE DOCTRINE: ILLUSTRATIONS OF GOD’S PROVIDENTIAL HAND IN HISTORY

#. in the infinite wisdom of the Lord, each world event falls with exact precision into its proper place in the unfolding of God’s eternal plan

#. nothing, however small, however strange, occurs without His ordering or permission or without its peculiar fitness for its place in the working out of His purposes

#. and the end result of God doing what He has planned is for the manifestation of His glory, and accumulation of His praise

#. let’s consider some examples of God’s prophecy fulfilled through providence

* ILLUS.

After man’s Fall in the Garden, God intervenes and declares that the ‘seed of the woman’ shall bruise Satan’s head.

Generations come and go.

A flood ensues and a single family survives.

The sons of Noah repopulate the Earth.

In time, God calls a man named Abram and sets him upon a journey to a land that the Lord promises to give him.

Abraham’s descendants will become as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Then, just when it seems that God has reneged on His promise, Isaac is born, and from Isaac’s loins comes Jacob who becomes Israel and through his progeny a nation emerges.

Hundreds of years go by and God decrees His plan to provide an Anointed One through the line of King David.

A thousand years go by; prophets proclaim, the fortunes of the nation waxes and wanes.

Then one night an angel appears to a young Jewish maiden named Mary.

She miraculously conceives a son and when he is delivered names him Jesus.

Thirty-three years later he dies on a cross, and fulfills the prophecy that God made to Adam and Eve 5,000 years earlier.

He crushes Satan’s head.

* ILLUS.

We also see God’s hand plainly in the preparation of the civilized world for the proclamation of the Gospel.

Hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, a man named Alexander conquered the Mediterranean world and taught the whole world the Greek language and Greek culture.

After the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the disciples began writing gospels and letters to local churches that eventually became the Scriptures of the Church.

They were all written in Greek which means everyone could read them.

To the west of Alexander’s empire a nascent league of tribes clustered along the Tiber River in central Italy began to expand.

By they time of Jesus’ birth, Rome ruled the Alexander’s old empire and a whole lot more.

And everywhere Roman armies went they built highways and established the rule of law.

On those highways Christian missionaries went to every corner of the empire preaching the Gospel and establishing churches.

#.

only the most skeptical of unbelievers can look at world history and not see the evidences of God’s sovereign purposes around us

* /“ ... What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.”/

(Isaiah 46:11, NIV84)

#. the very essence of biblical theism is that ...

* God would have an exact plan for the world ... that

* He would foreknow the actions of all the creatures He proposed to create ... and through

* His all-inclusive providence would control the whole system

#.

I will tell you that some Christians really struggle with this

#.

if God is not in control of all things, then God is not sovereign

#. you’ll never hear God say, “Wow.

I didn’t see THAT coming!”

#. if God foreordained only certain events—the ‘big stuff’—God would constantly be having to develop new plans of action to counteract the unexpected actions of His creatures

#. even the sinful acts of men are included in this plan

#. they are foreseen, permitted and have their exact place in His providential plan

* ILLUS.

All of us would agree that the trial and crucifixion of Jesus was the worst crime of human history.

God the Son was despised and rejected of men.

Yet, we are told that this event was a necessary part of God’s plan.

* /“This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you,with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”/

(Acts 2:23, NIV84)

* /“The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.’ Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.”/

(Acts 4:26–28, NIV84)

#. the crucifixion of Jesus was not ‘Plan B’ that God implemented after the Fall of man in the Garden

#.

God’s decrees and plans are not successively formed as the emergency arises, but are all part of one all-comprehending plan

#. your salvation was part of that plan!

!

II.

THE DOCTRINE: SOME ASSUMPTIONS - Romans 9:18-28

#. it is tempting to focus on the controversial aspects of the doctrine of predestination and to forget the human reality behind the words

#. it helps to remember that in Romans Paul is grappling with the difficult problem of Jewish unbelief

#. why have so many Jews rejected Christ if he is indeed the Jewish Messiah?

#. this was no abstract theological issue to the Apostle Paul

#. his heart was broken by the reality that so many of his friends and loved one were going to hell

#.

I'm convinced that Paul wept when he wrote Romans 9

#.

these words come not from some theoretical discussion in a seminary classroom; they come streaming from a broken heart

#. let's plunge into this text and discover together God's answers concerning the difficult question of predestination

!! A. ASSUMPTION # 1: God has the right to do as he wills

* /“One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us?

For who resists his will?"

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?”/ (vv.

19-21).

#.

These verses sound harsh to modern ears tuned to talk of personal freedom

#. we live in a "Do your own thing" era in which the highest human value is to seek your own happiness

#. the heroes of our culture are those who did it my way

#.

those men and women who have put personal success and happiness above every other consideration in life