All right, we're gonna continue tonight on reform theology, Calvinism, what it is. We've covered all the way up through limited atonement, and we're not quite moving on to irresistible grace, which is really effectual calling, and perseverance of the saints, which there's really not a lot of debate about, at least not amongst Baptists, not amongst the South, where we're at. But we'll get to those eventually. What I wanna continue to do is answer some of the verses and concepts that have or will naturally be raised against what we have taught so far. So I'm gonna reiterate some of that teaching from last week about how the Bible speaks about all men or everyone, but it means all men without distinction rather than all men without exception. I should have cited this last week, this verse, John 12, 32, and I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. That is just a classic example right there of him, Jesus, speaking of all men without distinction. And we know that for a fact, because if he was speaking of all men without exception, then that means literally every single person would be drawn to him. And there's people that we know die without having ever even heard of Jesus. So that doesn't make any sense. And so we recognize that it is all men without I'm just realizing now I forgot some of the recording. I've been very discombobulated with the trying to get that computer going. This isn't absolutely necessary, but it's a little bit easier. Sorry about this. So John 1232 should have been cited last week. That's a clear example of all men without distinction rather than all men without exception. And if you take that verse and look at those two possibilities, you You either have Jesus as a liar, that he doesn't really draw all men to himself, meaning he would not be God, or you accept our understanding that all can be used based on the context of all men without distinction rather than all men without exception. I know I keep saying that. Quickly, we want to move on to a couple verses that frequently get cited against our tradition and the way that we understand scripture. And a big one of these is 2 Peter 3, 8, and 9, which we read, But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish. but for all to come to repentance. So if we take that and isolate that text, read it out of its context or outside of its context, then people say, there it is right there. He doesn't want any to perish. He wants all to come to repentance. And it's as simple as that. The Reformed faith is wrong. So the question we are left with is, does God want every single human being ever to be saved? Does he have a universal saving desire for all mankind? And I'm putting those in quotes because we're going to have to give some definition there. And this does actually get into some deep theology about the doctrine of God, about theology proper. We have preached on this text before, so you may have remembered some of these ideas, but We want to cover it again here so that we have it in its completeness, so nobody has to go and listen to all these old sermons and listen to a whole sermon because those weren't teaching, those were kind of preaching. And it was, you know, expositional. Here's what's important though. In this verse, prior to 2 Peter 3, 8, and 9, Peter is talking about the scoffers in the world. And he says, it escapes their notice that God created the world and that he destroyed it with a flood. But then he turns his attention to his audience, whom he refers to as beloved. And he tells them what ought not to escape their notice. So he says, the scoffers, they miss this. Don't you miss this. And for that, he quotes Psalm 90, verse four. He says, for a thousand years in your sight, or like yesterday when it passes by, or watch in the night. And he's referencing that. He's calling attention to God's otherness, the creator-creature distinction. He's not like us. Time for him is not like how we view time. He's simply saying that God is radically different. He has a radically different perspective on time. He's the creator of it. He's both sovereign over time and he is outside of time. So this long time of waiting for Christ to return is like the blink of an eye to God. That's Peter's point. It feels like this really long time to us, right? Well, it's like a blink of an eye to God. So Peter's giving an explanation to the Christians as to why Christ hasn't fulfilled his promise yet of returning, because that's what he promised. And he says he's not slow about his promises. Don't think of him in terms of this time concept. And that's what we see in verse 9. The Lord is not slow about his promises. Some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. So that's the context of what he's talking about. So he's saying God's not being lackadaisical here. Peter is saying the return of Christ is delayed while the Lord patiently waits for all of his elect to be gathered in, for all of them to come to repentance. Each and every last one of them has to come to faith and repent, and God is giving time for that to happen. So he's not being slow about it, he's being patient about it. Since his elect are from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and since they are from across all time and all places, there's myriads of them, some are yet to even be born yet, then it is understandably going to take a little while. At least in our eyes, the way that it feels to us, it's gonna take a little while. But for God, it is not a long time. He doesn't view God like us, or time like us. So God's not being slow, he's being patient. And Peter's point in these verses is clear. make that point by saying anything confusing. It's only by taking this verse out of context that Arminians and Synergists essentially see it as a refutation of Reformed teaching. When he says he does not wish any to perish, they take that wish as a desire about how God feels. But he has not chosen to make that happen either. So that's hard to reconcile. How can he feel and want a thing that he doesn't choose to make happen? Where it says any, doesn't wish for any to perish. They take that to mean any human being that's ever existed. Any human, ever. He doesn't wish for any human ever to perish. And where it says he wishes for all to come to repentance, they likewise universalize that to mean all human beings that ever exist, he doesn't want any one of them to, or he wants all of them to come to repentance. Therefore, they say God has this universal saving desire for all mankind. Desire. And if that's the case, then unconditional election is false, limited atonement is false, total depravity, spiritual inability, all that must be false because that would not comport with what they're reading in this verse. So you can see how these implications of getting the text wrong, they pile up pretty quickly. Very soon it gets to the entire soteriological system, how we are saved, the whole system, and who God actually is, his very character. All these implications, of course, go against the very nature of who God is as revealed in scripture, I would argue. But before we even get to God's desires, we can see his desires. We can see from this context the passage is not actually even about salvation. It's not. That comment about repentance is just made in passing. The context is about the delay in Christ's return. and that promise to return. So listen to this obvious context, starting at verse three. It says, know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lust and saying, where is the promise of his coming? See, he made this promise to return. He's not returning. Where is this promise? It's false. Christ is false. And they'll go on and say, forever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice, the mockers, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. So it escapes their notice that God created the world and destroyed it with a flood. But by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." So it escapes their notice that he created the world, he destroyed it, and he's keeping it now for a future judgment. Then he says, but do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved. So he switches audience. He's talking about the scoffers. Now he turns and talks to the beloved. That's his audience. That with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, remember that promise for Christ to return, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. So, Peter is clearly not trying to teach about the doctrines of salvation. We will also note the universalized interpretation that they force onto this. He's giving explanation about the delay in Christ's return. That's what he's doing. But if we universalize it, the way that Arminians and those that reject Reformed theology, if we universalize it, then they forced onto the text what would amount to Christ never returning. Christ would never return unless every last person is saved. So the reason for his delay is because not everyone has come to repentance yet. So unless everyone comes to repentance, then he won't come back, is what that amounts to, if you universalize it. Because Peter's saying, Christ is intentionally not returning in order to give time for repentance to happen. Because if he comes before that, then there's gonna be non-repentant people and they are gonna perish, and he doesn't want that to happen, therefore he withholds his return. We see that desire for them not to perish, applying to the elect, and we'll explain that in a minute, but if they see that as universal, then Christ's return would have to be delayed indefinitely. Otherwise, he'd return, and some people would perish, and he doesn't want any to perish. You see how that would work? So universalizing it doesn't actually work in the context, the simple context, basic hermeneutics, read it in the context. The scoffers would permanently prevent Christ's return through their non-conversion. All somebody has to do to prevent Christ from returning is not repent because he doesn't want me to perish and he won't come back and see me perish because he doesn't want that. So by not repenting, I can prevent Christ from returning. And there'd be this perpetuation of disbelief amongst the others, the scoffers. Because as long as they're unbelievers, then Christ would be forced into this situation he supposedly doesn't desire, that being the eternal death of the unrepentant. So in other words, the universal reading advocated by Arminians and Synergists is nonsense. It does not work. It completely undermines Peter's very explanation for Christ's delayed return. So when we read verse nine, We are right to understand it in the context of who he literally just addressed by name in verse 8. That is, the Beloved. So he set up that us-versus-them dichotomy, or you-versus-them, you know? Them being the scoffers, talking about in verse 7, 3 through 7, the mockers, the scoffers, and them being the beloved, and he's contrasting. This escapes their notice, but you don't let it escape your notice. This other thing. So verses eight and nine are for the beloved, and you can see it if you read it. Read it like this. He says, the Lord is not slow about his promise, beloved, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, beloved, not wishing of any of you, beloved, to perish, but for all of you, beloved, to come to repentance. That's the context. Now, should he write it like that? No. It's obvious from the context, but if you wrote it like that, that's very clumsy, right? So of course he doesn't write it like that, because we don't speak like that. But if we are careful about it, and we don't unnecessarily universalize it, that's what he's saying. So it's not universal. He's not writing to everyone. It's directed at Peter's intended audience, who he made very clear. We obviously know he just called him the beloved in verse eight. directed verse nine at them specifically. He began chapter three. by saying, this is now, beloved, the second letter I'm writing to you. So just a few verses prior, he mentions them, directs, this is my second letter, this is 2 Peter, not 1 Peter, right? And we can look at the beginning of 1 and 2 Peter to see it's the same audience, to know exactly who Peter is talking to, because it's the same set of people in both, it's the ones that the Lord is being patient toward, these are the ones that the Lord does not wish to perish, Second Peter is said to be written to those who have received the same faith as ours, same kind of faith as ours. First Peter, same audience, is said to be written to those who are elect, exiles of the dispersion. First and second Peter are written to the elect. They are the beloved. So we are forced to conclude that the beloved are the elect, the chosen ones by God's grace. That is who God is patient toward. And thus they are the ones who will actually come to faith and not perish. They are the ones who Christ is waiting till they all repent until he returns. Universalizing God's saving grace here does not make God more gracious. It simply makes grace ineffectual. Everyone gets it, but it doesn't save anybody. It's not enough to save anyone. Now, yes, we do agree that all people receives common grace. But saving grace is effectual, it's different. And we say saving grace is enough. We don't have to add our consent to saving grace to make it capable of saving us. And we'll talk about that probably next week when we talk about irresistible grace or effectual calling. It's about grace being effectual, effectual grace, right? So grace doesn't require consent in us, it creates consent in us. The text in verse nine says it is God's will for all the beloved to come to repentance. And since we know from 2 Timothy 2.24 that it is God who grants repentance, he acknowledges it right there that repentance is granted, then we can be sure that it will happen. If repentance is something granted by God and he's waiting for us all to come to repentance, then he's going to grant all of the beloved repentance and then he will return. So God's will will be done. All the elect will repent. None of them are going to perish. Christ isn't going to... begrudgingly return to earth like, oh no, some of the elect that I wanted to save haven't repented yet and now they're stuck and they're going to go to hell. He doesn't begrudgingly come to earth. That's not the implication of this text. The implication of this text is not the Arminian understanding where God is constantly and eternally disappointed by the perishing of scoffers who he wanted to save. but rather the implication is that God will bring all of the elect, all of the beloved to repentance through the entire duration of the last days up until Christ. So there's no getting around that conclusion that if you read this verse in context without violating basic biblical hermeneutics, this is the conclusion. So it's proven that this verse does not say what the Arminian says, and any honest Arminian would say, all right, I get it, 2 Peter 3.9, not gonna use that to argue against the doctrines of grace. But they may still say, you know what, even though I'm not gonna use that verse, and I can't justify that argument using that verse, because you're right, it doesn't say that. You still haven't answered the heart of the objection that God does want everyone to be saved. That's what he wants, quote unquote. He has this universal saving desire for every single human being ever, and he loves them all the same. That's the heart of their actual disagreement, right? That's the heart of their objection. So, all right, fair enough. We'll look at that. The immediate response to that objection, he loves everyone the same, always go to Esau. Did he love Esau? No, he hated Esau. He hated Esau, and he talks about hating sinners, and we already talked about that in the previous lesson, so I'm not gonna redo all that, but we have to return to Romans 9 again. Romans 9 is gonna answer a lot of these objections explicitly and very thoroughly, because the context there is salvation. We're talking about salvation here, his will to save all. And that is about God's sovereignty and election. We see what it says about Esau. We see what it says about Pharaoh, right? What's it say of him? Did God want to save Pharaoh? Want. Did he want Pharaoh saved? Well, it says, for Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. So then he has mercy on whom he has mercy and he hardens whom he desires. Seems like he desired to harden Pharaoh. Did he want Pharaoh hardened or saved? Here we are with this conundrum of desires when we speak of desires of God. Well, he raised up Pharaoh to make his power known in him, and he hardened him so that he could demonstrate his power. That was the purpose for why Pharaoh was where he was, why he did what he did, and that's what God did. If he wanted to demonstrate his mercy in Pharaoh, then he would have granted him mercy and saved him. If that was his desire, what he wanted with Pharaoh, that's what he would have done. But instead, God created him for something else. He created him to make his power known. He hardened him by withholding grace that would have softened him and withholding grace that Pharaoh didn't deserve in the first place anyway. So he's not doing him any injustice. God could have raised up Paul to demonstrate his power in him. He could have done that with Paul. He could have brought swift justice on him on the Damascus Road instead of mercy. Couldn't he? Paul's on his way to persecute Christians in Damascus and strike him dead, raise up power known, destroy a persecutor of the church. But did he raise up Paul for that purpose? He didn't. He raised him up to make his mercy known in Paul and show the power of effectual grace. Same could have been done of Peter when he denies Christ three times, boom. Raise him up, make God's power known. Could have done that. No reason he couldn't have. Peter wasn't deserving of more grace than Pharaoh, nor was Paul. Conversely, Judas could have been raised up for mercy instead of justice if God so chose to demonstrate that through granting Judas sincere repentance. After he betrayed Jesus with a kiss so that the guards knew who to arrest and who to take off to murder, He could have done that with Judas if he wanted. It didn't depend on any of those men. It didn't depend on Jacob, Esau, Pharaoh, Paul, Peter, Judas, any of them. It was not dependent on them whether or not they received hardening or mercy. And our salvation does not depend on us. We are not the determining factor. We will always make the wrong choice unless God chooses to grant faith and repentance like he did with Paul and Peter. We cannot will our will to will what it will not will. We've laid that out before. And we see that in Romans 8. We've cited all this. This goes right back to total inability. For the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace, because the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those that are in the flesh cannot please God. We cannot will our will to will what it will not will. It's Romans 8. Therefore, we state again, it doesn't depend on us. It doesn't depend on our choice. Grace doesn't need our consent. It creates our consent. Our will is not the determining factor. That's why we cite Romans 9.16, so that it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. And of course, our mini-objector immediately says, that's not fair. It's unjust for one man to receive mercy and not another. We've covered all this already. Yeah, we agree, God's not fair. He chose just Israel. He had one nation that he made covenant with, it was Israel. Only Israel, of all the nations of the earth, only you have I known, does he tell him in Amos 3. Is that fair that he picked one? No. Is it unjust? No. So, this is who God is. This gets to the heart of who God is, right? And that's why Exodus and Romans 9 are so important. There's no injustice with God, is there? May never be, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Citing people like Pharaoh that could have gone either way. Same is true of Paul. Paul knows it when he writes it. He says, I am the greatest sinner of all. I persecuted the church of God, yet I received mercy. So this is who God is, the God who chooses to whom he will be gracious. This gets to the heart of who God is. And let's ask then, what if God didn't want to save someone in particular anyway? What is that but a choice of whom to have mercy or compassion on? If he chooses not to give mercy and compassion to someone, does he want them to be saved? Because he has another person he wants to be saved and he gives them mercy and compassion so that they come to faith and repentance. He grants them faith and repentance. What is this want difference that we have here? Because that's how God describes himself as someone that chooses whom to give mercy and compassion to. Would he be wrong to not want someone's salvation? By what standard is it wrong that God not want someone to be saved? I'm not saying that's the case. I think it's the wrong category to speak of want. And I'll talk about that in just a second. But still, even if that were the applicable category, there still is no real basis of objection. Because people that disagree with us, what they say, they wrongly require that God treat all people exactly the same, even though we have for undeniable proof that he does not do that. They require that God treat all people the same and have this identical disposition towards everyone, that he wants everyone to be saved the same amount. And that is simply not who he is. That's what Exodus 33, 19 and Romans 9, 15 are all about. That is not the God of scripture. And the American church hates that fact. They don't like that fact. But we have to submit to what scripture teaches us about God, not what we want him to be like. So he'll have mercy and compassion on whomever he chooses. He'll have mercy and compassion on anyone that he chooses. No one can claim injustice because it's not deserved in the first place. So what I think is a better category is speaking about the decree or the will of God. It's better to speak of what God will do, not what he wants to do. Wants is a human category, will is a divine category. Not that we can't will, but I'm saying God doesn't want, God wills. So if we want to get technical about this, God's wants or desires, then I must say it makes far more sense to talk about his will or decree. It's a category error to treat God like he experiences human emotions like we do. He's not a man who can have an unfulfilled desire. God cannot have an unfulfilled desire. There are not things that he wants but cannot have or does not get. He's not restrained in his actions in terms of his nature. He can't lie, he can't do evil, but he's not restrained in terms of what he wants to do. There's nothing that he wills to do that he can't do, is probably the best way to say it. He's a creator who ordains and decrees what comes to pass. He cannot not be sovereign. He can't forfeit any of his sovereignty, any of his attributes. He can't not be God. We recognize that some translations do speak of God's desires. We get that, but the original Greek and Hebrew behind that is not meant to be a contradistinction from the idea of willing or determining something. As if he desires it, but he doesn't will it. It's not like a separate word or something like that. So when the question of God's desires comes up, it's helpful to shift the discussion into the proper categories of God's will. because people are misusing those English translations of desire and want. And once we do that, once we shift it, then we are able to speak of God's will in two different senses. And we've taught this before. It's his sovereign or decretive will and his prescriptive will. His sovereign or decretive will is that which he sovereignly decrees to happen. Nothing happens in this sense outside of God's will. He decrees that it happens and it happens. That's his sovereign will. And we confess this in chapter three, paragraph one of the London Baptist Confession. God hath decreed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably all things whatsoever comes to pass. That's talking about his decree. He's decreed it by his own will. That means it will happen. And that includes evil and wickedness and sin. God has decreed that sin happens in the sovereign sense. He decrees those things without authoring sin and without directly causing being the immediate cause of those that commit the sin or do evil. They're not doing so against their will. God's not making anyone do it. They choose to do it. God doesn't make them do it. His prescriptive will is different. We know this term prescription, right? Prescription is like you go get a medicine, you should take this medicine. It doesn't make you take the medicine, it's saying this is what you should take to get better or something like that. So his prescriptive will is different. It's what he prescribes for us to do and that is found in his commands, the law of God. It is how we ought to live, that is his prescriptive will. And these are derived from his character, or they're in place for a time, such as positive law, they're in place for a time, and a people for a particular covenant. They are meant for mankind to live in peace and holiness. It's how they ought to live. He prescribes for us how to live. And unlike his decretive will, his prescriptive will is broken all the time. Every time we sin, we're breaking God's prescriptive will, because he doesn't prescribe for us to ever sin. Here's the funny thing, he does not decree everything he prescribes. When we're talking about God's will, we have to know which one we're talking about. He does not decree that his prescriptive will never be broken. He doesn't have two individual wills, as if there's two conflicting sets of desires. That's not what we're talking about. But we have his decrees, and we have his law, and both of them can be talked about in terms of his will. Each can, in a sense, be spoken of as the will of God. We just have to know how we mean that. Even though his prescriptive will is generally closer to the idea of his desires, probably, it's still a misunderstanding to conflate the two. To say his prescriptive will is what he wants, it's a conflation that gets confusing. It gets into a category error. If we ask that question, did God want Satan to fall into sin? Well then it sounds weird, right? Did he want, did he prescribe that he doesn't fall in sin? But he didn't decree that he doesn't fall in sin, he decreed that he would fall in sin. Same with Adam and Eve. He didn't make any of his creatures infallible. when he created them. He made them able to fall and sin. And he knew that it would happen. When he made them that way, he knew that it was going to happen. He's not unsure of the outcome when he creates. Like, here's these spiritual beings, I'm gonna make them fallible. I hope they don't sin, I don't want them to. That's not how God is. Same goes for man's sin. God sovereignly willed for that to happen without causing Adam and Eve to sin. He decreed that they would sin. He prescribed that they don't sin. He didn't make them sin, they did it on their own. What about Christ's death? Did God desire that his son be beaten, mocked, spit on, murdered? Did he desire that? Did he want it? You see how the category error is there? Acts tells us twice that God predestined it to happen. Acts 2, Acts 4, I think 2, 23, 4, 27, and 28. It tells us that those that crucified him did what God planned. That's his sovereign, decretive will. We're told in Isaiah 53.10 that it pleased the Lord to crush him and put him to grief. So we take that and we say, well, then God wanted it. Did he desire it? You see how this human category of desire doesn't technically fit? And that's why we want to get more technical. It makes more sense to speak about God's decretive and prescriptive will. When we're talking about wants, think in terms of decretive versus prescriptive. He prescribed that innocent men are not murdered, but he decreed that Christ would be. He prescribed that Adam and Eve not eat the fruit. He decreed that they would. Desire is not the right category for God in the technical sense. Desire is an emotion, and we confess in our confession, chapter two, paragraph one, God is a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions. He doesn't have passions or emotions, he has perfections. We understand that when scripture speaks of God's desire, or his anger, or even his regret, that's what we call, and there's a big word, forgive me, but it's an anthropopathism. It means, a big word, I know. It's a concept that we've taught, it's a concept that we know. It is a figurative use of human emotion being applied to God. And we understand this clearly when it comes to anthropomorphism. I know, another big word. It's describing human or even animal parts to God, which we know that he doesn't have. They're meant figuratively, right? We know that when Psalm 91.4 says that he will cover you with his feathers under his wings, you will find refuge. We know he doesn't literally have wings and feathers, I hope. When Exodus 31.18 speaks of the Ten Commandments being written by the finger of God, we know God doesn't have a finger. Because he doesn't have a hand, and he doesn't have an arm, or a shoulder, or a brain. Sounds irreligious to say God is brainless, right? Doesn't know where coconuts come from? I don't think so. It's very, all right, I'll explain that joke later. But he doesn't have a finger or a hand or an arm or, he doesn't have body parts. He has no body, right? So when he talks about the finger of God, we don't take that literally. We know that, that's an anthropomorphism. When Jesus is repeatedly called a rock. or God is repeatedly called a rock in 2 Samuel 22, 47. That's not meant literally either. You know that, it's just basic hermeneutics, right? We recognize that easily when it comes to describing God using creaturely forms. We know it's figurative, but we also have to see that when it comes to emotions or passions. Those two are not meant literally, they are figurative. Therefore, it is figurative when God is described as wanting or desiring or regretting. That is figurative language. That is a human action being applied to God in a figurative sense in order for us to be helped in understanding him. In spite of his incomprehensibility, he speaks in this way to help us understand. He doesn't intend for us to take it literally, but it communicates to us. It is accommodated language for us. It is successful in communicating truth. It is a way to describe God in the language of human experience and human emotion that we can understand without being literal. And it works. We get it. But we cannot apply figurative language technically when it's only meant rhetorically. So we read about his body parts and passions and we believe that in the rhetorical figurative sense, but we still confess in the technical sense that God is without body parts and passions. We say God is impassable. And again, I know we're using big words here. I know that we've heard him before and we've taught him before, so they have to come up here again. God being impassable means he's not acted upon, he cannot be acted upon by anything either from inside himself or outside of himself. Therefore, he can't be saddened or suffer, undergo change or an emotional experience because we're not doing something that he wants, such as not repenting, or such as Christ returning to an earth with non-repentant people, and he's like, oh no, this is not what I intended. I didn't want for any to perish. That cannot happen. That does not happen with God. He cannot suffer or change. His so-called emotional state does not vary either because he decreed it to vary or because of what we do or what happens in creation. He doesn't experience emotional changes because he is his perfections. He's perfectly angry with all unrighteousness. He perfectly is love. He is perfect wrath, is perfect love, is perfect holiness. So don't get me wrong. It's not wrong to speak about, you know, God's mouth or his mighty hand or the arm of the Lord. Just as it's not wrong to speak of God regretting making Saul king or regretting making man, like he said before the flood, or being provoked or relenting stopping from doing something or desiring something. It's not wrong to say that, to speak in that way, as long as we recognize that as figurative language that cannot be literally said of God because God cannot be acted upon. We must recognize an imprecision in that sort of language, the way that that carries a bit of imprecision. If you're trying to get into the technical details, which the objection that we looked at today is. It's talking about God's desire or wanting. So we have to get into these technical details, but God doesn't have longings. He doesn't have unmet desires. So we say that God does not literally hope. He doesn't hope people come to faith. He doesn't hope that we repent. He commands all men everywhere to repent and believe, as we hear in Acts 17.30. That is his prescriptive will. The commands of God are his prescriptive will. Do this. It is what you ought to do. Repent and believe. He commands it. And God decrees Only his elect will be saved. Only they will repent and believe because he makes it happen. He sovereignly wills it to happen. He grants it to him. It is his decretive sovereign will. That's why repentance and faith are both spoken of as something that is granted by God because he wills for it to happen. And there's no contradiction there at all because these are different categories. If someone presses on what God wants as if he has unattained desires, then redirect the conversation to these categories, these two categories. Desire is not properly or literally a divine category. It is a human category, though we grant that it is sometimes figuratively used of the divine to communicate in a way that we understand. We get that. But if they're trying to make it technical, then we have to get technical. In the case of repentance, it communicates his prescriptive will, his law. God wants it in the sense that he prescribes that all men everywhere repent. Not his literal longings for what he wants to happen, though. People tend to get confused, though, because God does not decree all that he commands or that all of his commands are followed. He does not decree all of his commands are followed. He does not decree heaven now. He decrees a fallible world, a world that falls into sin and that he redeems. But that's because his purpose for creation was not merely to display his ability to create a paradise full of perfect people who perfectly obey. That was not his purpose in creation. He could have done that if that was his purpose, but it wasn't. His purpose was to display his attributes, including his holiness and his justice and his wrath, as well as his mercy and his compassion and his goodness and his love. Therefore, he decreed the type of world that we see. To do that, to display both aspects of who he is, or all those various aspects, he decreed a fallible world with fallible, fallible, fallible creatures, and he decreed that they would fall. He decreed some would receive justice, he decreed others would receive mercy, and those that are not okay with that structure of the world are not okay with the God of the Bible. because that's what he's done and that's who he is. A lot of people don't like that, but it's up to us to accept it. Now, I will also want to take that understanding a little bit and take that into 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 4, because there we read, At least verses three and four says, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved, to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now very much like 2 Peter 3, this is another one citing that same idea, desires all men. There it is, God wants it, right? Now we've already done all the hard work of how to handle this. And as always, we start by basic hermeneutics, look at the full context. So if we start at verse one, we say, first of all then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgiving, be made on behalf of all men. What's the difference in the alls that we talk about? All without distinction, all without exception. Which one is it? Let's find out, because verse two tells us, for kings and all who are in authority, oh, here we are, categories of men, all without distinction. so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. So we see here's the immediate indicator that it is all men without distinction, right there. Because Paul starts giving those categories. We pray for kings and even those in authority. Don't exclude them just because they might be doing evil or persecuting you. He desires all men to be saved. Not literally every single king that ever lived, but he will have elect and saved many kings. So pray for them. Pray for kings. Don't exclude kings because of, and those in authority, just because they can be bad. What he's not saying is that we need to collect all the names of every human being that has ever existed and then we need to pray for every single individual. Because he said, I urge entreaties and prayers and petitions and Thanksgiving made on behalf of who? All men. So if there's a single individual, then that means what? That we failed in our entreaties and prayers and petitions because there's one person we didn't pray for and do that? No, it's all without distinction. You see again how the verse collapses on itself. What Paul actually argues for collapses on itself if we universalize it. So then the all men he desires to be saved are all types of men. And he will save all types of men. There's not some class or category of men or race of men that are excluded from God's saving will. He will save from all tribe, tongue, people, and nations. His prescriptive will says that all men everywhere should repent and believe. But his sovereign will is that all men, meaning from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, will do that. Others won't. Not every individual will. The universal will of God for all to have faith must be understood as his prescriptive will. He prescribes it. He does not decree it. The desire for all men to be saved in verses like 1 Timothy 2, 4 and 1 Peter, 2 Peter 3, 9, must be understood in light of that context. The context, we have to interpret them in light of all of scripture, make sense of all of it, so that we can say there is no want In God, there is only will. God wills what he does. What he wants, he wills. But he also reveals how we ought to live in the prescriptive sense. So, there is no want in God. And when people cite those verses, those are the answers. I know it gets long, it can get technical, but that's how we respond to those verses where it talks about he wants all people to be saved. Hey, we got through that in less time than I thought, which is great. We do have a few other verses that maybe we'll save them till the end. If you wanna hear more about different verses that you think of that get cited, just let me know. But we can move on to, I think, Irresistible Grace and that sort of thing next. And we'll keep it a little bit shorter. I think Irresistible Grace is one of the fastest ones. So we'll cover that next time. Are there any questions about what we covered tonight? Yep. A really good verse, I think, that clarifies this, should all women be saved, is when Christ says in Matthew 24, verse 42, he says, there's a tribulation that never occurred to Gloria in the wilderness. He says, unless those days are short, no flesh will be saved, but the flesh stays here. So you can't easily say, for the sake of all men, Yeah. Yeah, he's showing clear favor in those verses to the elect. Just like he does in his high priestly prayer, he's showing clear favoritism. If we want to call it favoritism, he's not being fair to all. You know, why not for everyone's sake are those days not short? Why is he not praying for every single human being ever? Why is he isolating his prayers, these good prayers from our high priest? He's isolating them just to the elect and he says so. So, I think people miss how frequently God is unfair. And they just don't like that language of him being unfair. But he's not fair. Yep? About the inability of man? Romans 8, 6 through 8. That's Romans 9, 15 and 16. It does not depend on the man who wills or tries or the man that runs, but on God who has mercy. Yeah. So when the elect, the last one, that God elects, I'm curious about that. Like, how much time is in between? Like, the last one? Is it like, he comes to faith, and then... Man, that would feel good to be that guy, right? Mr. Irrelevant? Mr. Irrelevant, right? He has, like, what, a matter of seconds of his Christian walk? And all of a sudden, like, it's over. It's like, whew, just made it. Yeah, I don't know. I wonder how long his delay will be, right? I don't know. I've wondered that same thing. Yeah. But he does talk about the fullness of the Gentiles. There is some set number. I saw a few others. Jared? Yeah. Yeah, so that's really interesting. So the context of that, this is the questions about when he approached Jerusalem and how he expresses a longing for Israel to be saved, but he says, but they would not. So one, that's Jesus in his humanity. So in his humanity, yes, he does have emotions in his human nature. Second of all, if you read it very carefully, He's condemning the Pharisees for their unwillingness to lead the people to the Messiah, to recognize him as the Messiah. And he says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather your children under your wings, but you would not. So he's condemning Jerusalem as the leaders because they don't want the Israelites to come to faith. So it'd be like if I said, oh, McCoy's, McCoy's, how I long to take your children to the park, but you would not. It doesn't say anything about your children, it says something about you not wanting me to take your kids to the park. Which you probably shouldn't, I'm not a good supervisor of your kids at a park, right? But my complaint would be towards you, not towards your kids. So Jesus is condemning the leaders of not wanting people to follow Messiah. And that's what we see in the unforgivable sin. The Pharisees, the leaders of the people, Watch Jesus do these supernatural acts that he can only do if he's coming from God. And they are so dead set against him that they're willing to ascribe the mighty deeds that he does to the powers of Satan or Beelzebub, the demonic power. They're willing to say it's demonic power just to convince other people not to follow him. Don't go after him, Israelites. This guy's fake. Follow us. Follow our traditions. Keep us in power. We are the leaders of the temple. Listen to us. And that's what he's condemning. So Jesus condemned the leaders very, very harshly all the time. And that's what that condemnation is about when he approaches Jerusalem. That's a good one. Well, if I had time, I would have included it in this because it's another one that talks about the desires. So Jesus, yes, he wants them all to be saved. And any time Jesus speaks about emotions, we can say, yeah, he's a man. He had real emotions. Is there any sense where some of the other scriptures you referenced that references God's desires that you said were figurative, is there any sense where possibly that could be God coming down to our level so we can understand humanly, maybe reflect his humanity? If it's talking of Christ, yes, we can accept any of that as literal with Christ's desires. If it talks about God in the divine sense, then we just take that as accommodated language. In anthropopathism, which I don't expect anyone to remember that word or anything, but it's anthro, which is man. popathism, which is essentially a suffering or an emotion. So it speaks with the emotions of man to communicate something to us, and I think that would be his prescriptive will. It's communicating to us the prescriptive will for all men is to repent and believe, and God says that for everyone. You ought to do this. This is what's best for you. Do it. So yeah, we have to read context closely if it's speaking of Christ the man or God in his divine nature. section of Peter, he said that Arminians would admit to God's foreknowledge in the fact that His coming is delayed. I mean, in a sense, it's like they're admitting that He knows the last one. Yeah. Right, right and it makes a mess Yeah So the question is about the the foreknowledge of God knowing who is going to repent and and Christ returning Waiting for everyone that he knows is going to repent to repent I I mean they would maybe try to get around it that way that verse doesn't talk about it that way Yes. This is where they pick and choose where to be consistent. So if God foreknows who's going to be saved, then that means it is a determined number. So they have to admit some form of determinism, which we've said here already in these lessons, unless you get rid of God's omniscience, then you have to agree to some form of determinism. So I remember I was responding to someone from one of my former churches. He was trying to respond to a push for reform theology amongst some of their people, and he says something like, these reform people, or Calvinists, they believe that when a baby is born, God already, it's already determined whether they'll go to heaven or hell. And I wrote to him, I was like, you know you believe that, right? You know you believe in God's omniscience. and he knows that person is going to go to heaven or hell, therefore it is determined, right? And he said, oh, yeah, I guess so. Which I was surprised that he admitted it, not that he corrected it over the pulpit or anything, but it was nice of him to do that, I guess. So this is where it starts to undermine their objection about God's character, because if he knows And yet he creates someone that he knows isn't gonna be repentant and go to heaven and come to faith or whatever. Why is he creating them then? Or why doesn't he intervene in their life more substantially? Why do people die without ever having heard the name of Christ or heard about Christ? If God has this desire, the moral monster argument that they use against the God that we say is real in scripture, is just as applicable to them unless they make him completely oblivious. They have to dethrone God in his knowledge and power in order to prevent him from being responsible, as they claim, for people going to hell. Because if he creates someone, he's literally forming them in their mother's womb, and he says, this person's not coming to faith. That's too bad. I want him to, but he's not going to. I know it for a fact, and I can't be wrong. It's too bad. Why does he keep creating them? Right, he's a gentleman, right? It's yeah, for a fact, not true. Yeah, yeah, they'll say will not intervene in our will. I really hope a loving God would intervene in my will. If your kid goes out and plays in the street and you're like, well, he's got free will and I don't want to intervene in his will. That's not loving. Yeah. Yeah. It really doesn't, yeah. He changes wills. He changes wills and he prevents people from following sinful wills at times. He'll even do that with unbelievers like he did with Abimelech. He restrains him from sleeping with Abraham's wife because it would have been a horrible thing. And Abimelech even himself didn't want to do that. He recognized it by natural law that it was evil. And God says, I prevented you from doing so. He restrained his will. So yeah, God does that all the time. Oh, yes. That makes him learn from his own creation. Yeah, which is why we did a lesson on foreknowledge explaining the ridiculousness of that idea. I mean one of the things is The reason we come to faith and do good works is because we've received grace. So if God was trying to decide who to give grace to, and he looks forward into time, and he wants to base it on who comes to faith and does good works, then he would be looking for the results of grace in order to determine who he gives the grace to that would produce those results. So that's like somebody deciding, if someone could look forward in time, they're trying to decide whether or not to jump in a pool. And they look forward in time, they see that they're wet. And they're like, oh, I must have jumped in the pool and been happy about it. Therefore, I'm going to jump in this pool. They would be looking at the results of their decision to determine their decision, which doesn't make sense. My explanation right here might not make sense. I don't know if you followed that entirely. But that foreknowledge argument is nonsensical. It doesn't actually work. And it also, the worst of it is, it makes him learn about what's gonna happen in the future based on his creation. So he'd create something and be like, let's see what happens. Well, they came to faith. Yes, that's what I wanted to happen. Good. Now I'll predestine them because of the thing that they did saved them. Therefore, I'll predestine them which now doesn't mean or do anything because they already came to faith to get saved. Therefore, my predestination is nothing. Yeah. Yes. that when you see this, the God in the Bible, that you need to understand, not the God in your mind, and you start seeing it, well, then I felt very conflicted in how to share the gospel. Because I didn't know where prior to that I could share the gospel and say, well, you just believe, you just believe. Yeah. Yeah. And we did talk about it a little bit last week, but you're exactly right. The big hang up is, with so many of us, it's the same with me. This is not the God I thought I knew. It's like yeah, it's not you are being corrected by the Bible on who God actually is and For some people that rocks their world and other people like once you submit to it I think things fall into place and it's very very reassuring makes grace incredibly Gracious. Grace is gracious. Newsflash. It makes grace amazing. Truly amazing. But in terms of evangelism, yeah. People then are like, well, they always were taught to evangelize. Christ died for you. Now do your part and show him how much you love him by appreciating it and doing, you know, obeying. That's not how the apostles evangelize. And it's what we said last time. Tell him the truth. If you repent and believe, you will be saved. If you turn to Christ, you will find him to be a perfect savior. That's all we have to say because that's true and we can say it to anyone and everyone. You don't need a universal election. You don't need universal atonement. None of that matters because if you say that to someone and they believe it and do it, Then it's like, okay, that person was elect and they did it. And it was by the power of the Holy Spirit working in their heart. Because you can say that to everybody and some people it changes and some people it doesn't. So those people that do it and obey it, is it because they're smarter, more humble, more obedient? What is it? Is it grace or is it because they're better? We say it's grace. Some people believe it, some people don't, and the difference is grace. Being effectual, doing its job. We just tell the truth. And it frees us up to be the clumsy, inarticulate people that we so often are, to be the hypocrites that we are in our life. It frees us up to just tell the truth. If you repent, Christ will save you. Oh, is there a different one I was thinking of, not remembering? Yeah, and something super interesting about that is the verse tenses, I believe it's that verse, the verse tenses in there Oh, is it that verse or is it a different one? I think it is that one. The ones that are currently believing have been previously born of God, and that is the reason that they are believing now, is what the verb tense is technically telling us. It tells us that it's the perfect sense, which is the past of the past. It's past tense in the past, so it talks about a past event. that had already previously happened. So there's an ongoing effect, and that's the perfect tense in the Greek. And he's saying the ones currently believing, ongoing current belief in these people are because in the past, what happened to them was they were born again, and that is the reason they believe now. Did we cover that verse? I can't remember. That might be in one of the previous lessons, but we're on, I think, part eight at this point, so I can't remember. But yeah, sorry, I didn't realize that was the verse you were talking about. Yeah Yeah And a good way to think of it is the verse in Philippians, work out your soul salvation for it is God who wills in you to both will and to work for God. So we tell people to do good and to will good things and we just recognize when they do it and when we do it, it's because God willed us to do it. He wills in us to do it and then we do it. So it looks like we're doing it and we are doing it, but it's because God did it in us and then we do it. So what is that Philippians? It's either two or three. I can't remember, two, eight? Two, eight and nine, maybe? I'm gonna make my kids memorize it so that I learn it. So all the verses I wanna remember permanently, I make them memorize and then I hear them say it every week. All right, anything else before we close? All right, I know this one was a little bit longer, but very good discussion. All right, let's pray. Lord God, we are thankful that in spite of what can seem like difficult verses to reconcile, we understand who you are. You've revealed enough about yourself in scripture that if we work and dig through the word and read it properly and in context and we submit to what it says rather than what we want it to say, Lord, then we can know you truly and who you are and what you have done. And when we do that, when we see that, we are turned to greater worship. Because it reveals in us, or to us, a God that is incredibly gracious. It reveals to us a grace that is amazing and effectual. And it reveals to us that all the good that we do is because you did it in us. The faith and the repentance that come from us were produced in us by the power of your Holy Spirit. And so we take credit for nothing, we worship you for absolutely everything, and we honor you as our gracious and mighty Lord who has had mercy and compassion on us when we did not deserve it. Thank you for raising us up to be vessels of mercy, rather than displaying your power and justice in us. We thank you and praise you for this great gift and the work done by Christ to make it just. We pray it in Christ's name, amen.