Well, good morning, brethren.
Good to be with you here again today. Coming to you from the Smith
compound. This is Sovereign Grace Baptist
Church at Joplin, Missouri. Again, our church has decided
to cease our gathering due to the COVID-19 and in compliance
with the Request of the government. They're not controlling us again.
We make that very clear the government has no control over the Lord's
churches and we are autonomous bodies of Christ and we can meet
not meet when we choose to do so and we also like to follow
the prescriptions of the Bible that says that we are to live
at peace with every man and and that we are to honor our leaders. And so due to the fact that it
isn't causing any major problems with us, we are choosing to do
so for the safety of our elderly and to also honor as much as
we can the request of our leaders But again, that has no bearing
on the Lord's churches. So if we decide we wanna start
meeting again, we will be sure to start doing that again. It's
good to see everybody that's joining in this morning, and
I pray that the Lord will bless you today. Before we get started,
I wanted to ask you guys to remember The, uh, uh, I sent out a little
message earlier, uh, this morning, but, uh, sister Louetta Carlson,
one of our founding members, uh, she has, uh, recently fallen
and broken her hip. If you remember, I sent out a
prayer request for that a couple of weeks ago. Um, since her fall
and now she's back, she was back in rehabilitation at the, uh,
assisted living center where she lives. Um, she, uh, has had
a stroke. and the The stroke has definitely
affected her right side. It has caused her speech to be
where it's hardly able to be understood. She is
within her right mind. She understands what's being
said to her. She's able to respond by nodding
and things. But it has affected her right
side and her speech. We ask that you guys remember
her in your prayers. Um, she is, uh, uh, in the hospital
right now out at mercy. They're going to, uh, uh, be
looking into why she had this stroke considering the fact that
she was on a drug called Plavix. That is a blood thinner that
should have not caused any kind of blood clots, but they're thinking
it was caused by a blood clot, and they're trying to find out
why that's happening. She also has stents in her heart,
and so she's having that looked at as well, trying to find out
kind of really what's going on. Um, all that's bad. And we understand
that, uh, that, uh, it's, you know, a tough thing to go through
and, and everything, but boy, my mind here, uh, the last couple
of days has just really been going to the fact that we're
not able, uh, her family, uh, has, uh, restricted access to
her. Uh, they've, they don't let me
get to go in and, uh, pray with her or talk with her or see her.
And even out of the assisted living home, they've got that
locked down also. for visitors being able to come.
And so we've been able to talk to her a few times on the phone, but not since the stroke. But
my heart just really goes out for her because she's had to
go through basically both these things, the broken hip and now
the stroke, basically alone. Now her family has been able
to have some contact with her. And they've been giving reports
back to us and everything. We're transferring those to you
guys. But please remember Sister Louetta in your prayer and her
family. All this stuff that's going on
with her and everything I'm sure is really a burden to her. And I just pray that the Lord
would give her grace in dealing with all these things. Well,
let's bow and have a word of prayer, and we'll begin this
morning. We're going to get back into
our study that we began last week. But before we do, let's
ask the Lord to bless this morning. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we come to you this morning, and we ask for your mercy and
grace. We ask, Lord, that you'd be with
our sister Louetta this morning, as we've already spoken about. look to you in all things. We
know that you are the sovereign God over all creation and that
you are accomplishing your purpose throughout all the world. Lord,
we know that even this with our dear sister is nothing that has
surprised you or came to be without your will. And so we ask, Lord,
that whatever your will is in that, that you would just be
with our sister and that you would give us understanding,
that you'd give us grace. Give her grace and mercy, Lord,
through all this. Be with those who are ministering
to her in the hospital and in the assisted living. And Father,
Lord, we just pray for her and her family. Lord, we ask you
to be with us today during this time of preaching. We ask, Lord,
that you would just minister to those who are listening. Father,
we pray that you might bring forth the Word of God in truth
and that you would keep me from error. Lord, I pray that you
would guide me in my speech, not only to make things clear,
but Lord, to speak truth, to speak God's word and not my own
thoughts and my own opinions, but Lord, that it truly might
be backed by the word of God. And so I pray Lord that today
that the word of God would go forth and not Michael Smith's
words. Father, I pray for all these
that are tuned in, listening and watching. I ask Lord that
you just might encourage them, edify them, Lord, may you teach
them by your Holy Spirit. We need you to come, Father,
and give us a touch from above to understand and to know and
to praise you rightly. And so, Lord, we just ask that
you today would meet with us as we preach. And for those who
are listening, whether it's today or in the days to come, Lord,
we pray that this would be a blessing to them. But we pray also, Lord,
that it would be bringing glory to You, honor to our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. We thank You for Him. We thank
You for salvation that we have through Him, Lord. We have forgiveness
of sins. We have reconciliation to God. We have union, and we have inheritance. Father, we have hope and promise
all because of what Christ did for us. And Lord, we thank you
for loving us, for saving us. And Lord, we look for your soon
return so that we might be with you forever. Lord, again, we
thank you for all that you have done. We thank you for this time
together. And may you bless it. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen. Well, brother, we're going to
be in part two today of our subject of God's sovereignty in sin and
in evil. And I guess the underscore is,
is God the author of sin? We kind of began that last week.
Here in just a minute, I will kind of recap a few of the verses
that we touched on. But I wanted to kind of make
a few things clear again here, and hopefully everyone can kind of have an
understanding of where I'm coming from. The reason for this message,
not only because this is a teaching and a doctrine of God's word,
and that we are to teach the whole counsel of God's word,
but mainly because there is a lot of misunderstanding that's been
out there and there's been a lot of accusations that's been cast
towards me and our church because of what we believe and what we
teach. And then also there are a lot
of dear brothers out there that I truly love that I've communicated
with over the years and truly respect and do consider them
as brothers in Christ, but we've disagreed on this. We've always
had chats back and forth on Facebook and different places like that,
but to be able to sit down and in an exegetical way go through
the scriptures and look at things, maybe sometimes I say sometimes,
I know is more helpful than banter back and forth in a chat group. And so a lot of times we lose
the effect of what we're saying whenever we're texting back and
forth in chat groups and Facebook and different things like that,
emails. And so that's one of the reasons why we wanted to
do this study is so that we can have a time to get into God's
Word and to exegetically go through these things together. And hopefully,
whenever we're done looking at this, the teaching that we find
of the scripture will mold what we believe and not vice versa. What we believe mold what the
scriptures are saying. We never come to the scriptures
with our presuppositions or with what we think we know and try
to make it say what we think it says. what we believe should
come from what is revealed to us in God's Word. And so this
study on God's sovereignty in sin and evil, or the underlying,
I guess, second, Brother James Guyot, if you ever listen to
him and his messages, he usually has one, two, or twenty-five Titles for his message brother
James if you're listening or watching I'm just kidding there
with the 25, but he does usually have a couple of Subject matter titles, so but
anyway God's sovereignty in in saying hey sister Cindy good
to have you with us this morning you to Danny and This subject
is something that I think has been misunderstood by many. God's
sovereignty in sin and the underlying subject of God being the author
of sin. I think a lot of times men are
dividing over this and breaking fellowship with one another over
something that is really a misunderstanding. Now, I'm sure when you get down
to the brass tacks of everything, there are some that's going to
disagree with what the Bible says. We know that in all things
that people disagree over these things. But as far as this particular
point we see that I think a lot of times just the phrase itself
is a phrase that men kind of shy back from God being the author
of sin and The reason is is because like I said last week we get
so ingrained with these things from human and man's traditions
from From the worldly churches from you know quote-unquote churches,
from places of theological debates and things like that, that we
don't truly just sit back and think, you know, what does God's
Word say about that? And that's kind of what we wanted to do with
this study. And I've really come, as far as this phrase of author
of sin, you know, there's some brethren that has broken fellowship
with me over the fact that I have no problem saying that God is
the author of sin, but I've come to believe that this phrase itself
is really a phrase that needs to be defined by the one who's
using it. You can say God is the author
of sin, but what do you mean by God being the author of sin? To somebody, the phrase God being
the author of sin may mean that God is a sinner, that God actually
sins, or that He loves sin, and that would truly be wrong. To
someone who says that God is the author of sin, to them it
means that God is in control of all things that happen, and
that He has predestinated all things that happened, but yet
is not a sinner. And so that phrase could mean
one thing to one person and one thing to another. And so whenever
somebody comes and says, do you believe that God is the author
of sin? Yes or no. Yes or no. I don't want a long
drawn out question. Just yes or no. Give me a yes
or no answer. It's hard to give an answer that
way. A lot of times we like things to be in black and white, but
oftentimes we can't just give a black and white answer. We
can't give a yes or no answer because God's word is so deep
and so rich and there is study line upon line and precept upon
precept and there are subject matters within God's word that
you just can't go to one verse and say, here we go, God is not
the author of sin. or God is the author of sin. You can't go and find a place
like that, and so what we have to do is we have to scour the
Word of God and see what does the Word of God say about this
in all of its aspects, and that's kind of what we started doing
last week whenever we began going through the Old Testament, seeing
what does the Bible say about God, in regards to man's sin,
whether it's a moral sin or whether it's a calamity or an evil or
some kind of a disaster or something like that. Now, we all know that
the phrase, God being the author of sin, is not even found in
scripture at all. This is stuff that was made up
by theologians. It was put into confessions and
creeds many years ago. But we don't find that phrase
actually in God's words. So why men argue over this phrase,
to me, I don't really understand. I don't really have a problem
with the phrase, and the reason why is because it's not in the
Bible either negative or positive. So I really don't have a problem
with that. My thing is wanting to know what
someone's thought is behind that. What do you believe about God
being the author of sin? Whenever you say God is not the
author of sin, what do you mean by that? What is it that God
is not? be doing? What is it that you
think God is going to be guilty of if he is the author of sin?
What is the premise of your statement, God is not the author of sin,
and why is that such an egregious thing to anybody? If God does
something that he says he does, But yet there's a phrase that's
put over that that people tend to shy away from and say, well,
if you believe God's the author of sin, then you're a heretic.
If you believe that God's the author of sin, then you believe
that God has sinned or God is corrupt or immoral or something
to that effect. That is what I mean by this.
Whatever the definition is that you pour into God being the author
of sin is very important. And so that's why I say we can't
just cut and drive, you know, black and white, answer that
question if someone asks that. And I've been asked that in the
past by some dear brethren, whether I believe that. And I've tried
to say, you know, I can't answer that just succinctly, I have
to give a long, drawn-out, detailed answer of what I do believe,
and if that fits your definition of God being the author of sin
or not being the author of sin, so be it, whatever it be. I can
only tell you what I know from what God's Word has told me about
Himself, and so that's what I wanted to try to do. You know, a lot
of people, they look to the Confessions of Faith and they stand against
that phrase because a Confession of Faith says that. You know,
I know that the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Baptist 1689 Confession
of Faith all states those things. I know that other Confessions
of Faith have said that. But again, we're not interested
in what Confessions of Faith says. We're interested in the
Word of God and the Word of God alone. You know, whenever we look at
a confession of faith, all that is, is what a group of people
at one time put forth and said, this is what we believe the Bible
to say. Okay. And those people are, you
know, and mostly, you know, like the 1647 confession of faith,
that was just a, a confession of faith of seven churches in
England that got together and said, hey, this is what we're
going to put out as what we believe. 1689, similar situation. The
Philadelphia Confession of Faith, the New Hampshire Confession,
all these are confessions of faith that a group of people
have got together to say, this is what we think that the Bible
says, and so we're going to put that out. Every one of those
churches and every one of those people are just like you and
me, and we can fall into error. We can take something and we
can believe it, but not have a full understanding of that
because the Spirit has not yet given us that understanding.
We can be speaking something to what we know, but it may not
be the full understanding of that. So we can be in error. We can truly be wrong. And as I've mentioned, I've been
wrong in many cases in my life as far as preaching and teaching
is concerned, that I've had to readjust my teaching, that I've
had to change my doctrine, that I've had to go back and apologize
for things that I've preached wrongly as God's Spirit has taught
further and further in God's Word. And the more I study God's
Word, the more I understand some things. And there are some people
that may know more than me. They can help correct and rebuke
and reprove and so forth. So when we look to these confessions
of faith, we don't look at them as solid things that we are to
trust because that says that. It's God's Word who is the only
rule of faith. It's God's Word that we are to
look for, and we should believe what God's Word says above what
men say. And so I pray that that's kind
of what this study is helping us to do, is to look at what
God's Word says and believe what His Word says above what mom
and dad and grandpa and grandma and aunt and uncle or, you know,
favorite preacher, theologian, has said that it's coming from
God's Word. As much as I love my grandpa,
he was a preacher for many years before he passed away, and I
loved him. He was very persistent in his
study and things, but he wasn't always correct. There were a lot of things that
he even understood towards the end of his life. There were things
that he even confessed that he was wrong about. And so I'm thankful
that God has given us His Word to go by, because if we do look
to man for things, man is wishy-washy. Man has fleeting emotions. They have clouded judgment on
things. And so we go to God's Word whenever
we look to these things. What I've come to understand
about God and the connection with Him and sin is not something
that I was taught growing up. It was not something that I learned
when I first came to the doctrines of grace even. This has come,
as I said, over time studying God's Word. And the more I search
the scriptures, the more I see God's absolute predestination
of all things, even his predestinating sin and evil. But before we go on any further
in the study, what I want to again make clear for all those
who might be watching or listening is I do not believe that God
can sin. Nor will he ever sin. He's never
going to change. I do believe that God, as the
Bible says, is holy and he's righteous and therefore everything
that he does is holy and righteous. He cannot sin because he is the
essence of divine holiness. He is holy. And so I want to
make that clear at the very beginning. I do not believe that God can
ever sin or will ever sin and nothing that he does can ever
be called sin. And and God can do whatever he
wants, but he whatever he does he cannot sin I Do not believe that God forces
man against the man's will to commit sin or evil I never believed
that he is Forcing against someone's will now again. I'm a firm believer
that man does not have free will but what I mean in that is that
God is not forcing somebody to do something that is not already
in their nature to do. I'm going to explain that a little
bit further in our study, what that actually is talking about
when we get into some of these New Testament passages. But I
don't believe that God is forcing man to sin against his will or
against his nature. the man's will or the man's nature. That can't be said. The man,
whenever he sins, he does so because he wants to sin and he
does so because that's his nature and his nature is to sin. And
so again, I'll unfold that a little bit more as we go along as well.
I also do not believe that God tempts men to sin, okay? God does not tempt men to sin.
Temptation comes from the lust of man. We'll be studying that
also, but I want to make that just a disclaimer at the very
beginning. In what I'm saying, what I'm teaching is not that
God tempts man. And you can't say that any of
this stuff that happens is God tempting man, because if God
reveals that He is doing this, Okay, we read a bunch of verses
of what God did last week. We're going to recap. But we've
seen that God is actively working in providence by his, you know,
he's got a purpose and a will. Okay, that was all before the
foundation of the world. He has decreed all things that's
gonna take place, okay? And that decree came because
of His purpose and will. And so underneath that decree,
now in His sovereign rule over all the creation, He is bringing
about everything that His purpose desired and that His decree has
been, He's bringing that about by providence. That's His active
control in all things. So in that providence in that
active control over all things God brings about everything that
he desires to take place and That is not God tempting men
Okay, that is not God tempting men Temptation doesn't come from
God temptation comes from self now Thirdly, I do not believe
that God infuses sin in men, in the fact that he makes men
inwardly want to sin. And again, I'll further explain
that as we get on to the nature of man here in just a little
bit. But as I said, what I do believe is that God has purpose,
plan, predestined, and by providence brings about all things whatsoever
comes about according to his wise decree. And in fulfillment
of that purpose, including sin and evil, God never sinning or
doing evil. Okay. So hopefully that's clear
and everybody realizes that and hopefully you understand and
see that that is biblical. The Bible teaches those very
things and I think most people that even would disagree with
my understanding and our teaching on this topic would agree to
that. God purposed before creation
to glorify himself. of his son saving a sinful people.
That was God's purpose. God's purpose of creation and
time was to bring glory to himself through the redemption of God's
people through the atoning work of his son. And this was all planned out,
all made clear in the everlasting covenant or in the covenant of
grace. And so God purposed that sin and death would enter into
the world because he purposed that Christ would redeem a sinful
people by death, okay? So sin, and death, the very things
that Christ came to redeem man from, was purposed because Christ
was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the
Bible says. So we have to say before anything ever happened,
before Adam ever sinned, before anything ever came about, God
had purposed before the foundation of the world that sin and death
and evil because of sin, sin and death would take place would
come about and be part of his creation would be part of his
timely purpose and why creation was made in bringing glory to
himself. And I really think that if you
can't get past that, if you can't understand that, it's going to
be hard for you to understand a whole lot of these other things
that I'm going to say. But that right there is probably one of
the most elementary things that we can learn from the Bible,
is that God's purpose is to glorify himself. It's not about you,
it's not about me, although we're included in it, thank God we
were included in that. But his whole purpose is to glorify
his son Christ. And in glorifying his son Christ,
the plan to glorify him was that he be a redeemer, he be a substitute,
a surety, a substitute, a propitiation for him to be the savior of a
people. And in doing that, bringing these
people out of sin and death, bringing them out of that was
going to be the apex, the height of God's glory. And that is going
to show His righteousness, His justice. We've all heard in times
past in Christ's death and the work on the cross, shows God's
justice on one side it shows his hatred
of wrath or hatred of sin and his wrath and his judgment and
justice but it also shows on the other side God's love and
his mercy and his grace in the sending of his son to do that
as a substitute for his people. And so the purpose of God in
both the negative and in the positive all culminated in the
cross of Jesus Christ for the glory of God for all eternity.
And so to say that sin and evil was a accident that happened
with Adam at the beginning and God came in with plan B is completely
against what all scripture says. Scripture first starts with the
fact that God purposed before the foundation of the world to
save us. If you'll look at 1 Timothy,
turn with me to 1 Timothy, I'm sorry, second Timothy. I
think it is. Hang on. I've had a brain blockage this
morning. I'm sorry, brother. I'm sorry. Second Timothy chapter
one and in verse nine. It says, Who hath saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. So here we see that the
saving, the calling, That was before the world began. The purpose
of God is according to election. That's what Romans chapter nine
says, that God's purpose is according to election. His purpose was
that he might elect a people for himself to be saved and that
out of that salvation he would bring glory to himself in Christ.
And we also see that that is true in Ephesians chapter one. for our church. These are verses
that we're very familiar with, that they come up in so many
topics and discussions. But the Bible says, blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places, in Christ,
according as He hath chosen us in Him, before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love." So that was God's purpose before the foundation
of the world, that we should be chosen in Christ, blessed
with all spiritual blessings, and that we should be holy and
without blame before Him in love. Verse 5, having predestinated
us, that predestinated means to Choose your destiny to destined
beforehand. That's what predestinated means
that he before chose the destiny of all of us, predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. So again, this goes back to the
foundation of the world. before the foundation of the
world that He chose us, He blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
All this is pertaining to the work of Christ even though no
creation has ever been made yet. No fall in Adam has ever taken
place yet. All this was planned and purposed
by God before the foundation of the world. So the cross was
planned before ever a sin entered into the world, before death
even came upon man. that would even enable Christ
to die on the cross, death had to come into the world. Sin had
to come because death comes by sin, the Bible says. And so sin
and death was purposed by God to come in so that the good of
Christ dying on the cross would bring the glory of God for all
eternity. Now, if you remember last week,
we talked a little bit about Joseph and how Joseph, how his
brothers had, beat him up, threw him in a pit, and sold him into
slavery, and how that was bad, and the Bible considers that
bad, and it was considered a sin. But the Bible says that what
those brothers considered to be evil, or what that was considered
to be evil, God meant for good. That purpose of evil, and that
action of evil, God's purpose was for good. And so what was
bad for man is good for God. What is bad for man, crucifying
the Lord Jesus Christ, is good for God. So we can put in our
mind a category of God can do things that seem or God can bring
about things that are sinful and evil in His providence by
His purpose through the work of man, who actually does the
sinning, does that evil thing, God is not the one who sins,
but man does it, and God can purpose that, and by providence,
bring that about through that man, or men, or women, for his
good, and it's called good. The cross of Jesus Christ, probably,
we can all agree, is the most excellent thing in all of time,
but yet it is the most horrific evil of all time. That's how
we can have evil and sin being done according to God's purpose
and plan, but what is actually evil for us to partake of it
and be in on it, God means it for good, and it's good for Him.
It's good in His eyes to see that, okay? It's good. The Bible
says that even though God forsook His Son on the cross, He still
looked and He saw that He was pleased to bruise His Son. The
Bible says in Isaiah that it was God's pleasure to bruise
His Son. Why? Because of the overall good
of what He was accomplishing in that, in glorifying Himself
through the redemption of His people. Okay, so this tie between
sin and evil and God doesn't have to be a black and white
thing that, oh, if it's sin and evil, then God's hands are off
of it. Nope, not me. I didn't have anything to do
with that. All I'm doing is making sure that it just keeps bounced
into play according to what my purpose is. And if it looks like
it's going to get out of line and go somewhere where I don't
want it to, then I'll change the circumstances down there.
Well, you're not. Again, if if God's letting it
go there. He's letting it go there if he's
letting it go here He's letting it go here. If he's not letting
it go. He's not letting it go. God is controlling it so either
way either God's purpose and will was that he Permitted it
to keep going or his will and purpose was that it stopped brother
Gabriel reminded me last week one of the verses that I forgot
to Excuse me that I forgot to mention Was that the Bible says
that? The wrath of man shall praise
him the remainder of wrath God has restrained And that is very
true man and all of his fury and sin against God That God
has designed that for his praise we read last week in Romans chapter
9 that God has made vessels of dishonor so that the vessels
of honor might see the glory of God. Okay, so there again,
we have to have that compartment in our understanding that God
does these things. that God uses sin and evil to
glorify him even though he hates sin and that he hates evil and
that he is gonna punish and judge sin and evil. But yet he uses
those things to bring forth his glory. And so in this study,
I'm hoping that we see that and get to a place where we don't
get so wrought out with our brothers and sisters in Christ whenever
one brother or another holds to this But anyway, those are just some
of the things that I believe that I hope that people understand
about my position on that. But let's go back to God's word
like we did last week and look at a few things. Now I want to
remind you of just a few verses that we looked at already in
our previous study. We started off in Exodus where
God has given his name to Moses and that was I am that I am and
we talked about that and how that word or that phrase I am
that I am speaks of God's sovereign control over all things that
God does what he does he is who he is and He's self-existent. Nothing has made God to be who
He is. We talk about, in human terms,
we say, well, I'm the man that I am because of the influences
in my life. This man had an influence, that
woman had an influence, a teacher, a coach, or somebody had an influence
that has made me the man that I am today. Well, nothing can
be said about God like that. Nobody has made God to be the
way that He is. He is who He is. He just exists as who he
is and nothing causes him to change The Bible says that he
is God and he doesn't ever change there is no shadow of turning
no change God cannot lie He can't say something contrary to who
he is or what he is saying or has said okay, and so He is who
he is. And in that passage of scripture
at the very end of it, he says, this is my name forever and this
is my memorial unto all generations. And so God is saying the fact
that I am the sovereign controller over all things is who I am. And this is how I want to be
known in all generations. I want this to be reminded to
every generation that I'm in control. I'm in control. I'm
in control. I control all things. Nothing
happens outside of my will. I am that I am and nobody changes
me, tells me what to do. Nobody goes against anything
that I say. And there's other scriptures
that will coincide with that. We also seen last week that God
was actively involved in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.
Exodus 4.21, he told Moses to go down and tell Pharaoh to let
his people go, but he said, but I will harden his heart and he
will not let the people go. And so we've seen in several
passages that God actively hardened Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh
would disobey God and not let the people go, but there was
a purpose behind it. And we've seen that. He said,
I will harden Pharaoh's heart and I, I'm sorry, I got it on the wrong
verse. He said that I would harden Pharaoh's heart, but in hardening
Pharaoh's heart, he would do so so that he would get honor,
Exodus 14, 17. I will harden the hearts of the
Egyptians and they shall follow me and I will get me honor upon
Pharaoh. In Romans chapter nine, we've
seen that he said to Pharaoh, you know, for this reason, I've
raised you up that I might show my power. in you. So the purpose
of Pharaoh's sin and the hardening of his heart actively by God
was for the glory of God. Was it evil? Yes, it was evil.
Was it sinful? It was absolutely sinful. And
who controlled that? God controlled that. But who
did the sin? Pharaoh did the sinning. But
God purposed that sin. God actively was involved in
bringing that sin to fruition by the work of Pharaoh. And it
was for his glory. Now, that one instance, if we
just had that one instance, that would be enough for us to be
able to say that, okay, in that context, God is the author of
sin. God didn't sin. God didn't cause
Pharaoh to do something against his will. He did something that
Pharaoh in his heart already could do because of his nature
to sin. And he did do in his nature of
sin. And God hardened his heart actively. He didn't do it passively. He
did it actively. And so that one verse there in
and of itself is enough for us to be able to say that we cannot put away the fact that God is
actively involved in sin and evil. Now, we learned in Joshua,
it was of the Lord to harden their hearts. In 1 Samuel, we
read that the Lord sent an evil spirit to Saul to trouble him. God sent an evil spirit to Saul
to trouble him. We see in 1 Kings 22-23, the
Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets. Okay, so the Lord did that. It's
not a sin for us to say that, is it? No, the Bible says it. It's not a sin for us to believe
that, is it? No, the Bible teaches that. Psalm 105, he turned their
heart to hate his people, to deal subtly with his servants.
God turned the hearts of those people to hate the Israelites
so that he could deal subtly with his servants, okay? So for the correction of his
servants, God caused the people to sin against God and hate the
people that were God's people. God did that for his glory, for
his purpose. He did that for a greater good.
God did that and caused that to take place. Proverbs 16, four,
the Lord has made all things for himself. Yay. Even the wicked
for the day of evil. So God has made himself, uh,
for himself, all things. So all of creation, everything
that has been made has been made for God. Matter of fact, the
Bible speaks to Jesus Christ said all things were made by
him and for him. Christ being the one who created
all things. But it says, yea, even the wicked
for the day of evil. What was the thought in the writer
of Proverbs mind? Well, somebody might think that
he's made all good things, but what about the bad things? Did
he make all the bad things? And he kind of put an exclamation
point on it and said, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
God has made for himself the wicked for the day of evil. Okay,
for the time of evil, and we can go back to Adam, we can,
what we just looked at in Joseph, or excuse me, in Pharaoh, you
know, or in Joseph, those days of evil, God made those people
and the wicked that was gonna make those things happen, he
made them for that purpose. Proverbs 20, 24, we read, man's
goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand
his own way? So all a man's goings are of the Lord. We read that in Jeremiah 10, 23, I know that
the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps. It's God that directs his steps. Proverbs 21.1, the king's heart
is in the hand of the Lord. As the rivers of water, he turneth
it whithersoever he will. So man's heart is turned by God
one way or the other way. And so if anything is happening
in man's walk, in his direction, the way he's walking and stepping
and his goings, the Lord is turning his heart one way or the other. Isaiah 63, 17, why hast thou
made us to err from thy ways and hardened our heart from fear? Return for thy servant's sake
the tribes of thine inheritance. There we see they are crying
out, O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways and hardened
our heart from thy fear? God had actively caused them
to err from their ways and harden their heart so that they would
not fear him. Okay, so again, Does God do those things? Well,
yes, the Bible says He does. So is it a sin for us to believe
that He is actively involved in bringing about purposing and
providentially bringing about sin and evil? No, it's not a
sin, brethren, for us to teach that and to preach that. We have
to rightly divide that. We have to rightly teach that.
that just because God has purposed that and does that, does not
mean that that's okay for us to do, but that God has done
that and can do that because He is God. Again, we should be
very reverent before God, that we should, with fear and trepidation,
speak of these things, not in a, just flaunting it, but that
it is the truth of Scripture, and we need to rightly divide
that truth if we are to speak correctly and to speak truthfully
of God. We read in Lamentations, it says,
who is he that saith and it come to pass when the Lord commandeth
it not? Out of the mouth of the Most
High proceedeth not evil and good? So again, we see the scriptures
teach that nothing comes about unless the Lord's commanded it.
And if he's commanded it, then he's purposed it. And I know
there are some people that wanna divide, like I said last week,
they want to divide God's decreative will and his permissive will. Okay, God has a decreative will,
he's decreed this, and then he permits this. And again, my question
to everybody who says that If God permits something to happen,
let's just say here in Pharaoh, if God permitted Pharaoh to not
let his people go, okay, he permitted that, then that means God said,
okay, Pharaoh don't wanna let my people go, well, I'm fine
with that for right now. Is that not what that means?
If he said fine then, then that means that was his will. And
we know that everything that is his will was purposed before
the foundation of the world. Known unto God are all his works. The end from the beginning. That's
what the Bible says. And so, if God permits something
to happen, then that means he has approved for it to happen,
which means that he is okay with that happening. But here's the
thing, brethren, that we need to remember. God has purposed, as we've read
and studied already in scripture, these things from the foundation
of the world. And that in time, he is not sequentially making
things happen as things transpire, okay? He's not reacting, he is
acting, okay? He's not passive in all these
things, he's actively bringing about in this. Just like I said,
who is he that saith and it cometh to pass? when the Lord commandeth
it not. So anything that transpires is
because the Lord has commanded that to transpire. So whether
it's a permit or whether it's a predestined, it makes no difference
what word you use other than the fact of one can be a little
more shady to hide an errant doctrine of God's conditionalism,
which is unscriptural. But here we see that God has
commanded all things. So if he's permitted it, then
he's caused it. Okay. If he's permitted it, he's
commanded it to happen. That was part of his plan. If
it wasn't part of his plan, it's not going to happen because he
didn't command it. And I know people are gonna bring
up all different kinds of illustrations, but we gotta take those things
that are gray, in the gray areas, and look at them in the things
that are in the most light, okay? The things that are black and
white. The things that are black and white is God says that he
created light, he created darkness, he has made peace, and he is,
made evil, created evil. We know that the Bible says that
he has created all things for himself, yea, even the wicked
for the day of evil. We know that nothing happens,
that he has not commanded it, that out of the mouth of the
Most High proceed if not evil and good. Those are black and
white things. As we'll see when we get into
the New Testament scriptures, we're going to find out that
there are people who were ordained to condemnation. Those are black
and white things in those gray areas we need to look at and
and and and we need to exegete those scriptures in light of
the Black and white areas the the ones that have the most light
on it already. Okay, so we had that and Did I read some 76 10 if I read
that That was the one I believe that brother I think that was
the one that Brother Gabriel had reminded me of. There was a lot of good comments
last week as well. 7610. Yeah, surely the wrath of man
shall praise thee, the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.
It was that. Well, let's look at a few New
Testament passages this week, and then I wanna go on to speak
about Adam, because that always comes up in the discussion of
God being the author of sin. But let's look at a few things
in the New Testament. We mainly was in the Old Testament
last week, but look in the New Testament with me. Turn over,
if you would, into Acts. Hopefully y'all are still with me and I've
not been rambling on too bad Everybody's been quiet today Acts chapter 2 Look it with me if you would
verse 22 This is a Peter's sermon He says ye men of Israel hear
these words Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God among you
by miracles and wonders and signs Which God did by him in the midst
of you as ye yourselves also know him Jesus being delivered
by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have
taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. Okay, so the Holy Spirit, by
the way of Luke, by the way of Peter, Luke wrote Acts, but Peter
is the one who is being quoted by Luke. But the Holy Spirit
is the one who brought all this about. The Holy Spirit wrote
here in Acts, Jesus was delivered by wicked hands and crucified
and slain, okay? Look with me if you would. If
you got your Bibles open, look down and follow the passage with
me. Don't just take my word for it.
Follow the passage with me. Him being delivered by the determinant
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye, Who are the ye? Well, these are the men of Israel
that he was talking to, okay? Ye have taken and by wicked hands
have crucified and slain. So, what does that verse tell
us? Well, number one, it tells us that Christ being Crucified and slain was
wicked. And the hands that did that were
wicked hands. So who was wicked? The men were
wicked. What was wicked? The act was
wicked. But why did that take place? Because the determinant counsel
and foreknowledge of God determined it to be so. Look at those words
there, brethren, by that he was delivered. Him being delivered. They're talking about the act
of Jesus being betrayed, handed over to the religious leaders
and going through all the trial that he went through and being
brought to the place of being crucified and slain unto death. That was wicked and that wickedness
that being delivered to that wickedness was by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. The determinate counsel,
what does that mean? That word counsel, okay? That
word counsel, that means that whenever somebody counsels, that's
the advice or that's the recommendation that somebody gives you, okay?
If someone would come to me and say, hey, pastor, you know, I'd
like to get your counsel on what I should do about my marriage,
okay? Well, what do I do? Well, I give
them a recommendation. Or I tell them, well, this is
what the Bible says, this is what you ought to do. So it comes
by the recommendation. Well, this is by God's determinant
counsel. Now remember, last week, we talked
about God and we said that there's none that can be God's counselor.
There's none that can be God's counselor. Okay? You know, God
is who he is and he has nobody that gives him counsel and tells
him what he should do. And so if we look here, the determinant
counsel is by God and God alone. It isn't by what God determined,
and you say, well, why do you bring that up? Because there
are some that looks and says, uh-huh, but look, in foreknowledge
of God, God looked down the corridor of time, and he saw what was
gonna happen, and so out of that foreknowledge, God said, okay,
well, I'm gonna permit that to happen, and so he determined
that that would go ahead and take place. Brethren, that's
not what he said. He says this, whom God hath,
excuse me, him being delivered by the determinant counsel. The
only counsel that God has is within himself. The only counsel that God had
is amongst Himself. He is the only counsel. And notice,
if you would, it's a determinant counsel. He determined. It wasn't anything else. It was
Him who determined. God didn't determine based upon
something He foresaw. His foreknowledge, God's foreknowledge,
and again, we've talked about this before here at our church,
God's foreknowledge has two different kinds of, well, actually has
more than two meanings, but whenever we talk about foreknowledge in
God, we talk about one, a foreknowledge An intimate relationship, the
word knowledge, the word foreknowledge that is used in Romans 8, that
is a foreknowledge meaning that God had an intimate knowledge
or an intimate relation to those persons that he predestinated,
okay? For whom God foreknew, he predestinated,
okay? That word foreknew is the same
word that is used that speaks about Mary not knowing a husband,
okay? We also know that the word foreknowledge
in God's economy, speaking of God, that that word foreknowledge
comes, he knows what's gonna happen, not because he is a prophet
that looks down and sees this vision, or he looks down the
corridor of time, he has foreknowledge of what is gonna happen because
he has determined what is gonna happen by having a purpose and
a will to do it. and that is going to be executed
because whatever God has purposed and willed will take place because
none can stay his hand. And so God has a foreknowledge
of these things because he foreknew what he was going to do. Known
unto God are all his works, the end from the beginning. Known
to God known what God's gonna do. He has a plan he has that
purpose and he's gonna execute that plan and purpose and nothing's
gonna keep him from doing that and so God's foreknowledge here
in verse 23 is not a looking down and seeing what would happen,
but I have a full cognitive understanding of this because I have determined
this in the counsel of the Godhead. And I have known from all eternity
that this is going to be the place where I'm going to show
my glory, is in Christ and His death. And it's going to happen
by the hands of wicked men. So here again to say that God
has not purposed or predestinated acts of sin, see the conditionalists,
the primitive Baptist conditionalists, they will say that it is only
salvation that it is the adoption of sons that it is the salvific
part that is predestined but the actions the everyday ordinary
things every event all things that happen sin and evil all
those things those aren't predestinated but this right here says that
it is the wicked hands crucifying and slaying jesus that was determined
in the counsel of God and it was according to his knowledge
or his understanding of all the works that he is going to accomplish
from the end to the beginning. So it is God's determination,
God determined that sinful hands would take Christ and would slay
him and crucify him and slay him. So if that's the case, if
that's the truth of scripture, then did God determine before
the foundation of the world that sin and evil would be in this
world? Absolutely he did. Did God determine that that specific
act of sin would take place? Absolutely he did. He's speaking
of an exact act of sin. And that was purposed by God.
Now, can we say that God is a sinner because of that? Absolutely,
we cannot. Can we say that God was unrighteous
to determine that? No, we can't. But did he? Yes, he did. He did. Look with
me, if you would, to Acts chapter four. This is reiterated again in Acts
chapter 4 and look with me if you would down to verse 26. Acts chapter four, verse 26.
Please read along with me here. And again, I'm encouraging you
guys. I know you're watching by video and it's easy just to
keep that phone or whatever in front of you and watch. Get your
Bibles and read this. Look at the word. I tell my church
all the time that whenever studying God's word, every word counts.
The Bible says that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God
and is profitable for correcting, rebuking, reproving, instructing
the man in righteousness, that we might be equipped, thoroughly
equipped as the people of God and to do the works of the ministry
of God. And so all scripture is given by inspiration, so every
word in scripture is important. And whenever we look at these
little ways that God has said things, it makes a difference
in our understanding of them. But look, if you would, at Acts
4, verse 26. It says, the kings of the earth
stood up, and their rulers was gathered together against the
Lord and against his Christ. for of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done." Listen, brethren, What was the evil there? The
kings of the earth stood up against Jesus Christ. The rulers of the
Jewish people were gathered together against Jesus Christ. Herod,
Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, the Jews, all of the people of
Israel that was there was against, remember, Jesus came in to Jerusalem
with palm branches. And everyone was saying, you
know, Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord. You know, they were giving him
praise. And just a week later or so, they're like crying crucify. Everybody's crying crucify. But
look what it says here. It says that all of these men,
all of these people that came there, they came together against
Christ Jesus to do whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel
determined before to be done. Did God purpose? All those sinful
acts and sinful hearts that cried crucify, was it sinful for them
to cry crucify to the Lord Jesus? Was it sinful for them to choose
Barabbas, a murderer, over Jesus Christ? Was it sinful for Pilate
to say, hey, I washed my hands of this, go ahead and crucify
him anyway? He even said to Jesus, he said,
I have the power to keep you or turn you away. And what did
Jesus say? The only power you have is that
power that's been given to me, been given to you from above.
See, everything that Pilate was doing was doing, and Pilate was
even there at that appointed time, in that appointed place,
for that appointed time and purpose of saying to Jesus, well, okay,
I'm gonna go ahead and let them crucify you. See, Pilate didn't have any say-so
in the fact that God had purposed that Pilate would be part of
this. Herod, whenever Jesus was sent down to Herod, and Herod
did all the junk that Herod did and everything, Herod was part
of it. He was purposed to be that person.
And then every one of those leaders, those religious leaders, do you
think that all those religious leaders who had come to be evil
over the course of the 400 years of silence, and how the Jewish
community, the Hebrew community, and the Jewish religious system
had come to be what it had come to be. What they were practicing
in Jesus' days was not what was being practiced in Moses' days,
okay? It wasn't what was being practiced
in, sorry, not Abraham, but in David's day. But what was being
practiced in Jesus's day, all those men and how their minds
had changed from the word of God and what they were there
for and what they should have been doing, pointing men to the
Messiah, but they were pointing them to Moses. All of that was
according to God's determinate counsel. It was part of his plan
leading up to that. What about Judas betraying him?
That was part of it. Why? Because he was a child of
perdition. The Bible says that he was a child of perdition,
his being betrayed. The Bible says that he was betrayed
as the Bible had said he would do. It was prophesied in the
Old Testament that there would be one who would betray Jesus
Christ and Judas was that man. He was ordained to that task. So we cannot come and say that
God did not purpose and ordain, had not had a hand in purposing
and ordaining these things to take place when the scripture
is clear about those very things. This is moral evil. These are
morally evil things that God purposed. And that's why, and
I say that not to parade it, I say that because men say that
God's predestination has nothing to do with moral evil or acts
of men, but his predestination is of just of salvation. Or they will say that God, God
tempts no man, and so he can't have any activity in this moral
evil. Now, he can bring calamity like
tornadoes and hurricanes, COVID-19. He can do all that stuff, but
he can't make men have moral evil. What is this, brethren?
And again, I am open for correction and instruction on what this
is. If this isn't moral evil being
done, then what is it? If this is not sin, then what
is it? And if it is sin, and if it is
moral evil, then what can you conclude out of that other than
the fact that it says God determined beforehand that this would take
place? That's why I've had to adjust
what I believe. I used to not believe that. I
used to think that God didn't do these things. I used to not
believe that God predestinated everything. I used to believe
that God didn't do all these things that
we're talking about now. I didn't believe that and I preached
hard against it. I was adamant against it. But
that's because I was ignorant of scripture. That was because
I had not been taught of God. That's because I had yet to get
in and study. A lot of times I was just kind
of skimming the surface, and I had a feeling of what I thought
God was, and I had an understanding from what I had been told that
God was from other men. But see, me, just like them,
I told people, hey, God doesn't do that. And if someone was as
naive as me and listened to me, You know, and then they believe,
well, Hey, that can't be because, you know, Mike Smith said that.
And I know Mike Smith and he seems to be a pretty good guy
and seems to kind of be knowledgeable in what he talking about. I wasn't. That just showed you
I wasn't. And I'm still not. I still have
a lot to learn. I'm still being deceived in a
lot of things, I'm sure. And we see in the glass darkly.
We don't know all the things that we are to know. But one
thing I do know is this right here, I have to believe that
because that's what it says. God determined this moral evil
to take place for His good, for His glory. Look with me, if you
would, at 2 Thessalonians chapter two. 2 Thessalonians chapter
two. Now, brethren, while I'm turning
here, let me just say, these things aren't easy to preach,
and I know that they're hard to swallow. They were for me. These aren't things that we ought
to always – I'm not saying ought to. These aren't things that
we're going to harbor on all the time. It just so happens
that this kind of is something that has come up with a conversation
with our church. Has involved me specifically
lately Questions that's been going around the internet a little
bit here the last few days also But and it's happened in the
past as well, but here were the last few days and everything
and so, you know a lot of times, you know, we we want to make
these things clear by the Word of God and and address these
things people have questions and want to know about these
and I was specifically asked what I believed about God being
the author of sin and You know this brother that asked me that
I think is a dear brother and we conversed quite a while On
that and I said, yes basically shared with him a lot of things.
I'm sharing with you all today and everything we we had a great
conversation about that and But it came up because I've been
accused of some things by other brothers. And listen, I don't
hold that against those brothers at all. I love them. And I don't
hold that against them. I think, like I said at the beginning,
I think there's been some misunderstanding. And if not misunderstanding of
what I actually believe, misunderstanding of what maybe God's word says.
So that's why we've been addressing these. So it's not that I'm just
trying to flaunt this and kick a dead horse. or anything like
that. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2,
and look with me if you would at verse 10. It says, and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because
they receive not the love of the truth that they might be
saved, For this cause, God shall send them strong delusion that
they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who
believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
So here again we see. The fact that God's sovereignty
is over even those who believe and what they believe. We see
that God sent a strong delusion that they should believe a lie. I have to take that for what
the Bible says. God is the one who sent the delusion. It was
a delusion to believe a lie. and they'd been and they believe
the line they believe the line uh... but he had a purpose in
that he had a purpose in that it isn't just uh... uh... a cavalier
act upon god god has a purpose in all these things that we've
uh... been talking about not to go
on more about what all that verse means but i mainly wanted to
read that verse uh... as it pertains to our study here
of his god uh... sovereign even overseeing an
evil Look now with me if you would, and this will be the last
New Testament scripture we look at, and then I wanna get to talking
about Adam and what happened in the creation of Adam, how
sin entered into the world, and how that pertains to God and
this phrase, God being the author of sin. In 1 Peter though, chapter
two and verse seven, 1 Peter chapter two and verse seven, It says, unto you therefore which
believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the
stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of
the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to
them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto
also they were appointed. So the disobedience of these
that is being spoken of here was disobedience, the act of
disobedience, they were appointed to that. Just like we talked
about last week, there were the false prophets that were ordained
to that condemnation. They were ordained for that very
purpose and to be condemned for that purpose. And so, God has
ordained from all time, again, we spoke, known unto God are
all his works, the end from the beginning, that all these things
has taken place. Who has said it? That God has
not commanded it, okay? Out of the mouth of God does
not come good and evil, the scriptures say, okay? And here we see that
these men were appointed to disobedience. Again, we have to take God for
who He is revealed as. He said, I am that I am. I will
be who I will be. And if He is the one who has
appointed somebody to disobedience, then we have to take that and
say, okay, well, that's what He's revealed about Himself.
And we have to put off any other notion that says otherwise. If our tradition says that He's
something else, then we need to put away that tradition. If
our previous teaching has said that, we need to put that away.
If our whole understanding of things is shattered because of
that, well, let it be shattered. Let God's word dwell in your
hearts, brethren, and let that be your rule of faith. Because
really, and I say this, Because this is the thing that I had
to conclude and I had to come to grips with within myself.
If I seen something in God's Word and that was to me, I seen,
well, that's true, but I looked and I said, well, the ramifications
of that, if I believe that and if I preach that, then this and
that and this and that, That's gonna go away. Those people aren't
gonna like me. I'll probably never get to do
this again. I'm gonna be outcast You know all this kind of stuff
there may be a split in my family There may be friends that never
want to speak to me again. There are ramifications to that
Jesus said that that he's gonna bring a sword it's gonna cause
division and it's gonna bring family members against each other
and and so We understand that to be true. And so I had to come
to the realization, and as does anybody else, that what difference
does it make if we know the truth, but if we don't speak the truth?
Well, number one, I believe that that would be sinning if we don't
speak the truth and we're speaking a lie about who God is. But second
of all is obviously then the truth would not be of any worth
to us if we know a truth, but yet we hide that truth. I thought
of the lousy song that just came into my mind. Are we going to
hide the truth of what we know about God under a bushel so that
it is more convenient for us? No, we shouldn't be doing that.
We shouldn't be doing that. And this is one of those things,
whenever we come to these passages, that the Bible clearly says that
these men were appointed to this disobedience. We got to deal
with that. We got to figure out then how
were they appointed? When were they appointed? Why
were they appointed? And did God do that? Well, obviously
He did because He's the one that's doing the appointing. So, several
verses that we've seen in scripture that speak of God and speak of
His direct involvement in providence
of sin and evil, not only in His purpose. God didn't just
purpose and decree sin and evil. But he also providentially brings
that sin and evil about, and especially, I believe, again,
the Acts 2.22 and Acts 4.26 passages make that extremely, extremely
clear. Anyway, whenever we see all these
things and we talk about that, I think that we have now a category
in our mind is that does God have an active involvement or
has He purposed, is He a part of this? I think we have to say
yes if we're going to be truthful to God's Word. With all that verse there, and
I believe that, I don't know, counting back on this, how many
verses did we look at? One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. 33 passages in scripture showing God's active involvement in sin and evil, controlling
it, purposing it, I think that it's safe to say that we have
scriptural backing to say that very thing. But usually whenever we start
talking about this subject of God and the author of sin, a
lot of times what comes up is what is talked about in James,
Turn with me, if you would, to James chapter one and verse 13. James chapter one and verse 13.
It says, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempted he
any man. And so that's usually the first
verse that men run to whenever we start talking about these
things. But brethren, in everything that I have read, all these scriptures,
these 30-something scriptures that we just read, was there
any scripture in there where God tempted anybody? No. God did not tempt any man in
any of those. But I think it'd behoove us to
understand what this passage means and what temptation is,
what sin is, where does sin come from? If we wanna say that God
is not the author of sin, we probably ought to know what sin
is, and we probably ought to know where does it come from.
And how does it happen? And once we understand that,
then we can come back to this verse and say, well, did God
tempt anyone? Because again, I've had this
conversation with many a men, and this is probably one of the
most popular verses for all those men. And for God to ordain sin,
to purpose sin, to will that sin happen for his
purposes and then providentially bring those things about is not
tempting the man to sin. Now, first let's talk about what
sin is. What is sin? Well, sin is the transgression
of the law. Look with me if you would at 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. Look at verse
4 with me. 1 John chapter 3 and verse 4. The
Bible says, whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law,
for sin is the transgression the law Okay, so sin is the transgression
of the law now. I want you to just keep that
in mind here Okay, keep that in mind because we're gonna come
back to sin. We're gonna come back to transgressions
here in just a few minutes Okay, so hang with me on that, but
I wanted to get that in front of you sin is the transgression
of the law Now How does this – what do we talk about whenever
we talk about God being the author of sin? Well, ultimately, whenever
we say that God is the author of sin, if anybody claims to
believe God is the author of sin, and again, if you haven't
heard what I said at the beginning or last week, that phrase, God
being the author of sin, is only as good as the definition that
someone pours into it. So to take that verse at just
face value, God is the author of sin, you have to know what
does that person mean by that. So, me saying God being the author
of sin, if you don't know what I mean by that, you probably
want to go back and start again and start listening to what I've
already said last week and so far this week. If you don't know
what I mean by that, I made it really clear some things that
I do not believe that God being the author of sin means, but
again, that phrase is not in the Bible. That phrase has neither
a positive nor a negative connotation because it's not in the Bible.
So to use that phrase, I shouldn't kick somebody out because they
use it, and I shouldn't disagree with somebody if they don't use
it. It all depends on what does it mean and what do you believe
about the underlying issues of what it means. Ultimately, though, whenever
we talk about this, it inevitably goes all the way back to Adam.
It goes back to Adam. I've taught a lot about Adam
over the last several years, and even to some of my close
preacher friends, I don't think all of them are completely in
agreement with everything that I say about this, but most of
them have come to agree with some of these things. But God
created Adam, whenever God created Adam, He created Adam natural
of the earth, earthy. We read that in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. Let me get over there and I'll read
that. He says in 1 Corinthians chapter
15, it says, so it is written, the first man
Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening
spirit. However, that was not first,
which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and after that,
which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth,
earthy. The second man is the Lord from
heaven. So what we derive out of that is the first man, Adam,
is natural. He's of the earth, earthy. And
so he is a natural man. He wasn't a spiritual man. A
lot have been taught, and I was one of them, and I've also taught
in the past that Adam was a spiritual man who had a spiritual death. and that spiritual death brought
in sin and evil. When he did that, he died spiritually. Well, there's nowhere in the
Bible that says that Adam was spiritually alive, that God made
him natural. not spiritual it says here that
that which was first was spiritual but that which was second or
excuse me that which was first was natural but that which was
second or the second atom was spiritual the first man is of
the earth earthy The second man is the Lord from heaven. What
does that have to do with natural and spiritual, or spiritual and
natural, and what does that have to do with those who are born
again and those who are not born again? Well, we know one thing,
that whenever we're born again, that the Bible says that that
is a new creation and that we are born from above and that
life comes from above. And so that new life that we
get in quickening, Comes from above it's a and it's a spiritual
life in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 the Bible says in 1 Corinthians
1 and verse Or excuse me in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14 it says But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. But he that is spiritual judges
all things, yet he himself has judged no man. For who hath known
the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have
the mind of Christ. We also learn in the passages
before that, it says, but God hath revealed them unto us by
his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things
of God, for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit of man which is in him. Even so, the things of God knoweth
no man. No man knows the things of the
spirit of God, but the spirit of God. Now we have received
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things which are freely given to us."
So whenever we're born again, the spirit of God comes to us,
and that spirit is what gives us the understanding to know
what was freely. We can understand the gospel only after we've been
born again. We've been made spiritually alive,
and that's what leads us up. to verse 14. Well, let me read
13. Which things also we speak not
in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, and there's a lot of
that out there. I'm guilty of man's wisdom teaching,
but I pray that I become more in biblical teaching. But the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
That is set in stone, brethren. The natural man Receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him, neither can, that's an inability, neither can he know, because
they are spiritually discerned. You have to be made spiritual
to understand spiritual things, to know spiritual things, to
love spiritual things. You have to be made spiritual.
Now, Back to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. The Bible says of Adam and
the creation of Adam is that the first man is of the earth
earthly, but it said that the first man Adam was made a living
soul, not a quickening spirit. He was made a living soul. And
it is written the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last
Adam was made a quickening spirit. How be it that was not first
which is spiritual. Okay, so Adam, the first, was
not made spiritual. He was made, what does it say,
but which is natural, and after that, which is spiritual. So
first came the natural, then came the spiritual. Adam was
made a natural man who cannot perceive the things of God, who
cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God, who is
devoid of the Spirit of God. That's why. That's why we're
reading these, is to understand how Adam was made. Adam, according
to the Bible, okay, what does the Bible say about Adam being
made? Adam was made a natural man. What does the Bible say
about the natural man? He receives not the things of
the Spirit of God, or can he, because they're spiritually discerned,
he must be born again, he must come into another birth wherein
a spiritual nature comes in, where a new creation comes in,
that which is from above, Because just like he made that in 1 Corinthians
2.14, he said, hey, the spirit of man understands the spirit
of man, but only the spirit of God understands the spirit of
God. The spirit of man ain't gonna be able to discern the
things of the spirit of God. He has to have the spirit of
God in him to discern the spirit of God. Okay, and so we see that
Adam was made that way. Okay, that's the truth of scripture
Adam was made natural, but all this foolishness that we've been
taught by seminaries and and theologians that Adam was made
upright with a spiritual nature that Fell and he lost that spiritual
nature that doesn't and that's not found anywhere in scripture
and we're going to deal with the verses that everybody goes
to about Adam being upright and things like that and being made
very good and all like that. That doesn't say what these theologians
are saying. God's word is clear. And again,
like I said a while ago, we need to take the things that are gray
and interpret them in light of the things that are black and
white. We need to take the things that are kind of shaded and interpret
them according to the things that have all the light shone
upon it. And the light has shone upon
this in the fact that Adam was not made spiritual, he was made
natural. And so we find no scripture that
says that. So Adam being made, Natural and
the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God
nor can he know them because they're spiritually discerned
now turn with me if you would again to Genesis Turn with me to Genesis and I Want us to look at Genesis
chapter 2 and Genesis chapter two, and look
with me if you would at verse 16. It says, and the Lord commanded
man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die. Okay, so here we see that now
God has given a law to Adam. Now, remember, Last week we talked
about this. How did the law come in? Hold
your place there in Genesis. Turn back with me. Romans chapter
5. Romans chapter 5. And please turn. Please turn.
Please read. Please mark your Bibles. I'm
going to harbor here in Romans chapter 5 for just a little bit. Okay? Bear with me. If you've
been listening and you've got to go to the bathroom, try to
hold it. I want you to pay close attention
to God's Word here in Romans chapter 5. Because there's a
lot of things in here that we miss because we read through
this fast, we skip over words, and we miss some things that
the Holy Spirit is saying to us in this passage as it pertains
to how all of this began. How Adam's transgression came
about. Remember again, we're talking
about sin. What is sin? It's the transgression of the
law. We're talking about God. Is He the author of that? Meaning,
is God the author of sin? And what does that mean? If God's
the author of sin, we need to know what sin means. And if we
know what sin means, we need to know how did it start, why
did it start, and is God the author of that? Okay? So, pay
close attention with me in Romans chapter 5. Now, if you'll look,
Romans chapter 5, the first 11 verses is speaking of
God's justification and our salvation in Christ by His death. And then there seems to be kind
of a parenthesis starting in verse 12. down to verse 19, okay? And actually, I guess 20 and
21 is part of that before it goes into chapter six. Now remember
guys, the Bible, whenever it was written, it wasn't written
in chapter and verses. These breaks were given here to kind
of help us in learning and studying and following along and things
like that. But remember, this was a letter, and there is a
context. There is a group of people that
is in the mind of the writer and who he's sending this to,
and there is a context, and he's laying out some things with a
methodical reason on why he's saying these things. When we
go into chapter six from five to six in the original letter,
you know, there ain't these page breaks and chapter breaks and
everything. But we can see at verse 11, he's
speaking of the work of Christ and salvation. But then in verse
12, all the way down through verse 21, before he goes into
chapter six, there is this little parenthesis where he begins to
bring up the transgression of Adam, the sin of Adam, and how
there is this parallel between the sin of Adam and the work
of Christ, okay? That Adam being the one who brought
sin and death into the world, and Jesus being the one who brought
grace and righteousness into the world. Adam for his people,
Christ for his people, okay? But I want you to pay close attention,
please, please follow me on this. If you don't have your Bibles
out, please get it, get your pen, pencil, marker. I want you
to follow and pay close attention to some of these words that the
Bible uses. Verse 12, wherefore is by one
man's sin entered into the world and death by sin So death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned. Okay? Wherefore, as by one man, sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for all have sinned. Okay? So sin and death came in
by one man, and we know that to be Adam, okay? Sin and death
came in by one man. Now, again, Was that God's purpose from the
foundation of the world? Well, we have to say yes, because
who has said it and God has not commanded it, all right? Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned,
after the similitude of Adam's transgressions. So here we have
a few things that I want to point out. Number one, Adam had transgression,
okay? There was transgression by Adam.
I think all of us would agree with that, right? What is transgression? That's sin, okay? transgression
of the law is sin sin is transgression of the law okay so that would
be like like an equation you would have this equals this okay
so this equals this sin is equals this the transgression of the
law so the transgression of the law is sin. So Adam's transgression is talking
about Adam's sin. Nevertheless, death reigned from
Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam's sin or transgression of the law. Who is the figure
of him that was to come? So what is that saying? Well,
for one, it's saying that even though the law that was given
to Moses had not came yet, from that point all the way back to
Adam, that sin and death reigned because everyone had sinned. There was sin by everyone. Okay,
even though they had not sinned after the similitude or in the
same way that Adam sinned, okay? That sin and death reigned and
we know that sin and death comes because of, or death comes because
of sin, all right? So verse 15, but, and pay close
attention, here's one of the words, but not as the offense,
okay, that's going back to the transgression of Adam, right?
That's speaking of Adam's transgression, that was just what was before,
verse 14. Death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's
transgression, but not as the offense, so also is the free
gift. For if through the offense of
one, many be dead, Much more so, that means Adam's
sin brought death in for everybody, okay? For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that
sinned, okay, so there's this word sinned, we've used the word
offense twice, we've used sin a couple times, transgression
once. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation. but the free gift is of many
offenses unto justification. Mark the word offenses there.
For if by one man's, here's the word again, offense, death reigned
by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and
of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus
Christ. Therefore, as by the, here's
the word again, offense of one, Judgment came unto all men to
condemnation. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life. For as by one man's disobedience,"
okay, there's a word that's been brought in, we've used sin, we've
used transgression, we've used offense, Okay, now he's using
the word disobedience. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Now here's verse 20 that we talked
about last week and about the law and why did the law come
in. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound. Now, I've used this passage to
prove the fact that Adam was not made spiritual for several
years now. And most of the time, men come
and say, you know, and I use this verse and I say, the law
came in so that the offense might abound. There you go. God gave
Adam a law, don't eat of that tree. so that it would bring
forth that, that would show forth what was already there in Adam.
Okay, and some would say, well, no, that's saying something,
that's saying something after the fact, that's saying something
after the fall, that the law came in after the fall to show
us to Christ, it didn't have anything to do with Adam. Brethren,
what is the context of verse 20? The context of verse 20 is
God using the illustration of Adam. His offense, his offense,
his offense, his offense brought in sin and death. His offense
was the transgression. His offense was disobedience.
And it says here, the law entered that the offense might abound. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound." Why? Because that was the glory that
God was going to have for himself, that he would show forth grace
in the work of Christ in saving his people. So sin and death
had to come in for that to take place. So God purposed sin and
death to come in so that would take place. God gave a law that
He knew, a man that He created that could not keep the law,
natural man. He could not keep the things
of the Spirit of God. He's a natural man. He created
that so that the law, that the offense might abound, so that
grace would much more abound. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded and it abounded.
Why? Because God purposed it to abound. God gave a law to shine the light
upon man who was natural that he cannot keep God's law. God gave a law to shine upon
natural man that he is not worthy, that he is enabled. that he is
in need of a savior, God gave the law to shine that light.
Does not the Bible say that the law is our schoolmaster to show
us and to point us to Christ? That's what was happening here.
The law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ the Lord. Look if you would in verse 21
at that. You'll see the first Adam and the second Adam there.
That as sin hath reigned unto death, Even so might grace reign unto
eternal life. Sin was purposed to reign unto
death so that grace could reign unto eternal life. The purpose
of God in sin and evil is so that it might be shown juxtaposed
to God's grace and mercy and love and righteousness. That's
why we read in Romans 9, there are vessels of dishonor and vessels
of honor, and those vessels of dishonor are made so that God
might show to the vessels of honor His glory. Just a side note though, look
at verse 21. Pay close attention to the words
here. You see that? God's making a parallel here,
Adam and Christ. But in the second part, he adds
the phrase, through righteousness. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life. It was through the righteousness
of Christ that brought in eternal life. It was because of Christ
and his righteousness that any man receives eternal life. Grace
is God giving eternal life. Grace is God giving us salvation. Grace does it and it comes through
righteousness. It comes through righteousness.
What was Christ's righteousness? His obedience to the law and
his death, burial, and resurrection. That was his righteousness. And
that would not have happened if sin and death had not entered
in. Notice if you would also, if it's a parallel here, grace
reigned through righteousness unto eternal life. If we take
the opposite of that, or we take, yeah, we take the opposite of
that in what Adam happened, you see sin hath reigned in Adam,
grace had reigned by Jesus. But notice if you would, we can
actually take the opposite through righteousness and take the opposite
of that and put that in how it's applied to Adam in the other
side of it. So how would that read? That
as sin hath reigned through unrighteousness unto death, Even so might grace
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Sin hath reigned through unrighteousness
unto death. So Adam's sin was unrighteousness. Christ's grace came through righteousness. It was because of his righteousness
that he can give grace. God can't give grace. The Bible
says that God cannot acquit the wicked, that he is not gonna
give forgiveness, that he's not gonna justify the wicked, okay? The only way that God can give
grace is upon grounds of justice and righteousness. Christ's righteousness
is what give God the grounds to be. just in forgiving, just
in loving, just in reconciling, just in acquitting the wicked. That's what made Christ's righteousness
is what give God's the ground for that. That's why Christ was
the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. So that from the
very foundation of the world, all of Christ's people, even
though they are of the same lump of Adam, they are by nature children
of wrath that hate God and sin against God. Even though they
are just like everyone else by nature, He can in justice and
righteousness forgive and love and save them when He in His
justice should condemn them. That's grace. And the Bible says
that He can give grace to whoever He wants to give grace. And He
can give mercy and compassion on whomever He wants to give
mercy and compassion. But if you'll notice here, and
I didn't mean to get too far off on that side note, but I
just wanted you to see that the offense, the whole context is
Adam's sin. Adam's sin. And the law came
in that Adam's sin might abound. Now, back again with me, if you
would, to Genesis chapter one, or excuse me, Genesis chapter
two, verse 17. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Notice if
you would there, it says, not if thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die. It wasn't a conditional thing.
For in the day, he gave the law and said, what's gonna happen
when you eat of it? He gave the law, and he give
the punishment for the breaking of the law. It's a factual thing. God was telling him what had
been determined before the foundation of the world would happen. And
us, looking back on all of this, see that God's purpose was that
the offense might abound. That's why the law came in. We
also see that it is the purpose of God that Christ be glorified
in his death and resurrection, that grace might be put upon
his people. And so for that to happen, the
determination in the counsel of God was that sin, wicked hands
would take Christ and kill him. So wickedness would take place. Wickedness comes from sin. Sin comes from something. Sin
comes from somewhere. Where does sin come from? Well,
that's what we're trying to get to here in just a little bit.
Now, Uh, so the law came in so that sin might abound. Now, um,
that word there, um, the, uh, uh, let me get turned over here real
quick. I'm sorry. Yes. That word, offense, is, and I'm
gonna murder this word, I got it wrote down here, it's paratoma,
paratoma, I'm gonna just say paratoma. You Greek people out
there can correct me on that. But anyway, that word, that Greek
word offense there in Romans 5.20, speaking of Adams, sin, right? I looked that up
and the way that the Bible defines that word, you know, we can go
to Strong's Concordance Dictionary and look up a definition, or
we can go to the Webster's Dictionary and look up a definition, but
that's going to tell us what man says it is. If we take the
word that God used, which was Paratoma, okay? If we take that
word and then we find it everywhere that it's found in God's word
and see how God used it in the context of how God uses it, then
that defines the word according to God. I encourage everybody,
define your words that way, not by running to lexicons and Bible
dictionaries and theology majors and all that stuff. Define God's
word by God's word. Look that word up and see how
that word is used throughout scripture, and then that will
tell you what that word means. When I took that word paratoma
and run that through and seen where it was found in all of
scripture, I found that nine times the word was used as trespass,
seven times the word was used as offense, three times as sin,
two times as fall, two times as fault, okay? So again, we
can see here that the word offense here obviously means a trespass
against God, a sin against God, falling short of the glory of
God, a fault. in adam right okay so the offense
of adam is that it is a sin it is a fall into uh uh from the
glory of god okay fallen short of the glory of god it is a fault
that was within adam now While Adam was created upright, he
was not perfect. He was not perfect, nor was he
infallible. If he was infallible, he never
would have sinned. If he was perfect, he would not
have sinned, okay? And this is the second verse
that most guys run to, besides the one in James, is the one
in Ecclesiastes 7 and 29. Turn, if you would, to Ecclesiastes
7 and 29. Because usually whenever you
start talking about Adam being created a natural man with no
spirit of God in him, created with the ability to sin, people
say, well, what does the Bible say? It says, lo, this only have
I found that God hath made man upright, but they have sought
out many inventions. There you go. Adam was made perfect. Adam was made holy. Adam was
made righteous. Okay, well, brethren, that no
more tells me that Adam was made perfect, holy, and righteous
than the verse right before it did, which has nothing to do
with the context. You say, well, how's that, Mike?
If he's made upright, he's made upright, right? Adam was made
upright. What does that word mean? Well,
run to your lexicon, run to your dictionaries, and find out what
the word upright means. But if you wanna know what upright
means, look at what God's word says, okay? I looked up the word
upright and I found this in Job. Job chapter one, verse one. There
was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was
perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed
evil. Let me ask you a question, brethren.
If the word upright, as you're putting it on Adam, means without
sin, means holy, means righteous, Perfect. Some of you may agree
with some of those words. Some of you may not agree with
some of those words Part of those words, whatever whatever you're
saying about Adam before he sinned and Then we come here to Job
who is after Adam sinned. And according to the normal model
that most people preach and teach and believe, I'm not saying it's
the biblical model, I'm saying that's the one that's most understood,
is that everybody after Adam came after the fall, and in this
fall, Now man is corrupt. There's nothing about him. He
comes from the womb corrupt. And so there's nothing about
him that's good and holy or righteous. There's none righteous, no not
one, which the Bible says, and I believe that. And I believe
them other scriptures too, I just believe them in their context.
What about Job? Job came after Adam's sin. So
that would put him in your category of fallen humanity, that there
is no sin, or excuse me, that there is no sinlessness, that
there is no righteousness in. But yet the Bible says he was
upright. So is Job upright like Adam was upright? How do you
know the distinction? Because the word is the exact
same word. How do you know the distinction? Well, you'll say,
well, because Job sinned. Well, so did Adam. Adam sinned
too. Well, there was a sin nature
before Job sinned, and so that's what caused him to sin. Okay. Well, maybe there was a nature
before that caused Adam to sin. Maybe it was because he was made
natural and not spiritual. Maybe it was because he had a
nature and sin had not yet entered in. Okay, remember, all things
had been created and everything was new, right? Nothing had transpired
yet. There was a point in time where
there was gonna be a transpiring of this, but up until that, nothing
had happened. But does that mean that the nature
was not there? Whenever you're born, the time
period from the time you're born until you make that first sin,
is the nature there? It was there. Has it manifested
itself in sin yet? Not yet. Not until you transgress
the law. Then it manifests itself, that
it was there. Was it already there? Absolutely,
it was already there. It just not had manifested itself.
Why? Because the law had not come
in that the offense might abound. What about Job? Job was an upright
man. If Job was an upright man and
had a nature to sin, can we not say Adam was? Look with me if
you would at 1 Samuel 29. 1 Samuel 29. 1 Samuel 29. And look with me, if you would,
down to verse six. Now this is speaking of David,
who the Bible says was a man after God's own heart. But yet
it also says of David in 1 Samuel 29, and verse, what did I say,
six? Then Asius called David and said
unto him, surely as the Lord liveth, thou hast been upright,
and thy going out and thy coming in with me and the host is good
in my sight, for I have not found evil in thee since the day of
thy coming unto me unto this day. Nevertheless, the Lord's
favor thee not. Okay, now was David? Did David
have a nature to sin before this time period? Yes, he did. And what did the Lord say about
David? He said he was upright. He said, thy going out and thy
coming in with me and the host is good in my sight. He said that, oh, your actions
are good. You're good. You're upright and
you're good. For I have not found evil in
thee since the day of thy coming unto me until this day. He didn't find any evil in David
from one period of time until another period of time. So what does that have to do
with anything, pastor? Well, number one, the word upright
here is being used of a man who was born with a sin nature. How
can that be? If he has a sin nature, how can
he be called upright? And if he's called upright, even
though he has a sin nature, why cannot we say the same thing
of Adam? That Adam can be said to be upright with a nature that
cannot keep God's law that has a, if you want to call it a sin
nature, has a nature that will sin But yet it just hasn't happened
yet because God said here that there was a period of time from
this point to this point that David, he saw no evil. I have not found evil in thee
since the day of thy coming unto me until this day. Can that also
be said of Adam's time from the time that God breathed life into
him until the time that he ate of that tree? that from that
time until that time, he had not found any evil. He had not
seen anything that Adam had done evil. Why? Because Adam hadn't
done anything evil yet. But does that still not mean
that it was in his heart to be able to do that? Absolutely.
Just as in David's heart, there was the things that he could
do and did do. But yet it had not manifested
itself. But yet still God called him
upright, still God called him good. God called him upright
and good, okay? God called Adam upright and God
called Adam good. But yet Adam sinned, just like
David sinned. Look if you would at 2 Samuel,
chapter 22. 2 Samuel 22. This is David singing unto the Lord and the
Holy Spirit recorded this for us. Verse 22, for I have kept
the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my
God. Verse 22. Look at verse 24. It says, I was also upright before
him and have kept myself from mine iniquity. Did David have a sin nature?
Yeah, he did. Was David without sin before
this time? I don't think so. What's it talking
about? He's talking about a specific
point in time, a specific period of time under specific things,
okay? And so we could easily say the
same thing about Job. We can say the same thing about
Adam. While Adam was upright, before
he ever sinned, he was upright, meaning that he had not yet sinned.
He may have even feared God and eschewed evil, okay? to some degree or another. But
that doesn't mean that he was spiritually alive. That doesn't mean that he was
holy and righteous. That doesn't mean he was perfect
and infallible. The very fact that he sinned
shows that. Now, let me just ask a question to everybody listening
here, and I'm sure everybody here has heard this. A lot of
people use as a illustration or use as a proof about Adam,
they say, as far as Adam's nature, they say, well, he had the propensity
to sin. or he was created perfect, but
yet he was created with the bent to sin, or the propensity to
sin, or with the ability to sin. He wasn't infallible. He was
made where he could fall. There's some other phrases that's
out there, but I think you know what I mean, okay? Well, what
difference is saying that, that he was made perfect and upright,
but he was made with a propensity to fall? What does the word propensity
to fall mean? What does that phrase mean? Doesn't
the phrase propensity to fall, meaning that he has the ability
to fall? That he has the ability to sin?
Doesn't that he was made with a bent to sin mean that he was
created with a nature that could sin? Well, if he was created
with a nature that could sin, then he has created with a nature
that can sin and did sin and caused him to sin. The nature
is what caused the sinning. He was created with a nature
that could not keep God's law. And so we can't take the word
upright in Ecclesiastes and apply that to Adam and say, well, he
was made perfect. So what you're saying about God making Adam
with a nature to sin is unscriptural because God made man upright.
Well, he made David upright and Job upright. There's other places
in scripture where the word upright is being used by other men as
well. But two examples right there of men who the Lord had
made called upright But yet they were after Adam and his sin and
they themselves had sinned But yet God called him upright So
I think there there's a category that we can look at Adam where
Adam can be called upright even though he has a nature to sin
That's no different than saying it about Job. No different saying
it about that. And I think what we're gonna
get to at the end of this, if you'll keep following me on all this,
is we're gonna see that Adam was made and he is the head of
his kind. Adam is the head of his kind.
He is the head of all mankind. In fact, that he is made a natural
man and everybody who comes from his loins are also natural man. Because Adam is a sinner, we're
all sinners. Not because of necessarily an
imputation, but because of a natural generation. We are created in
the same way that Adam was created. We are created with a nature
devoid of the Spirit of God, and that we'll sin whenever law
comes in, sin will come in. And that we are given that because
we come from Adam. But yet we have, if we're the
elect of God, we have another representative that because of
that which comes from above, that is put in these earthen
vessels, that cannot sin. And we have him as our head.
And so him being the head of his kind, the spiritual kind.
So we have the head of the natural kind, we have the head of the
spiritual kind. Every man is part of that head
of the natural kind, but only those who are chosen of God from
the foundation of the world are part of those who are of the
head of the spiritual kind, Christ Jesus. And so Adam was made natural. Now, I've heard it said that
Adam had a free will. He was the only man in all of
history that had free will, and that was only until his fall.
But after the fall, then he didn't have free will anymore. The Arminian will say that he
had free will even after the fall, but most Sovereign Grace
guys that don't believe what I'm teaching here, they will
say that Adam had free will, which to me is crazy that Adam
had a free will. So that meant that Adam had the
free will to choose or choose otherwise of eating of that tree.
So that means that if Adam had have chose to not eat of that
tree, He would have lived forever, never brought in sin and death,
and the predestined work of Christ on the cross never come to play. Brothers, I find that so far
of a fetch to try to believe than to believe the fact that
Adam was made to sin. I can, because there's so much
scripture that shows Adam's condition on how he was made and how sin
and death came into the world and what sin and death is and
how that works. Listen, there is so much stuff
to say that, there's more stuff that says that than there is
that says Adam had a free will or any man has a free will that
can do something contrary to God's purpose and God's will.
That just don't make any sense to me even even when it comes
to Adam even when it comes to Satan They did not have free
will They did exactly according as God had purposed and planned
Adam did not have a free will Again I reiterate God did not
say if you eat of the tree He said in the day thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die God was making that factual declaration
Now, so whenever God give the command to not eat, the law came in. And what did
the Bible say that the law was meant for? The law came in that
the offense might abound. And that offense is talking about
Adam's offense. That the offense might abound. So God's law to
Adam was so that the offense might abound. And so whenever
God give the command not to eat of the tree, he give it for the
purpose of showing and manifesting Adam's inability to keep that
law. He give that so that Adam would
see that he could not keep that and that Adam was given a command
to not eat and the law revealed that he had a nature that couldn't
do that. That is where sin comes from, brethren. Now, Look back
with me, if you would, back to James again. We started there
when we was talking about God and temptation. But look with
me, if you would, at James chapter one. Because now we're getting
to the place of what is sin and where does temptation come from?
So Adam was given a law. And that law was given so that
the offense might take place. Now we learned that that word
offense means sin, transgression, it means fault, it means to fall
short. So we've seen that that's what
that means. 1 John 3, 4 said that sin is the transgression
of the law. We know that Adam transgressed
the law, right? Keep your finger there and James,
let me read a couple things to you. In well, we already read
them Romans chapter 5 verse 14. We saw the Adam had transgressed
I don't know if I read this one or not, but Memories faulty already
1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 14 we see that the Bible says For Adam was first formed, then
Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but
the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding,
she shall be saved in child… We don't need to read that. For
Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but
the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Okay? So Adam was the one who was transgressing
and Eve was part of that, although Eve was deceived in being part
of that, Adam wasn't deceived. Adam knew exactly what he was
doing going into the transgression. And so we see here that the Bible
claims that Adam transgressed. What is transgression? It is
sin. Okay, so Adam sinned. Adam transgressed the law of
God or sinned against the law of God. The law came in that
the offense might abound, right? Okay, so Adam has a transgression
or it has a Sin that word transgression twelve
times the Bible defines transgression as iniquity One time the Bible
translates that word transgression as unrighteousness So there was
unrighteousness in Adam there was iniquity in Adam Now you
remember whenever? It talks about Satan and before
he was banished. And I don't know all about this,
I'll be honest with you. There's some stuff that I'm still studying
right now that some other brothers has brought to my mind about
some things. But it talks about that there
are elect angels and non-elect angels, right? that there was iniquity found
in Satan, right? Iniquity was found in Satan. That means that it was there,
but it had not been found yet. It had not manifested itself.
So see, even Satan didn't have free will whenever he rebelled
against God, okay? And again, like I said, I'm still
studying some stuff on here on whether or not this pertains
to Satan or whether it pertains to something else. But anyhow,
to my knowledge right now and understanding, speaking of Satan,
and I know some brothers out there, that is going to correct
me on that and I'm fine with that. But anyway, as far as I
understand it, that when Satan sinned against God in rising
up in pride and saying, you know, I'm going to put myself above
God and things like that, that was manifest what was already
in him, that iniquity was found in him. Okay? There was iniquity
already in him and it was found when it manifested itself in
his prideful act. Okay, same thing with Adam. Okay,
the sin was there it just manifested itself when the law came in the
law came in that the offense might abound right, okay, so
There was iniquity in Adam. There was unrighteousness in
Adam. Why because Adam transgressed the law Transgression is iniquity
Transgression is unrighteousness that was in That was in Adam. So how did Adam sin? Well, look
at James chapter one. James chapter one. Look at verse
14. We're just about done, brethren.
Hang with me. Just got a little bit more. James chapter one. Verse 14, it says, but every
man, but every man. Does that disclude Adam? Or is
Adam part of the every man? Well, I don't know. Some say
that this doesn't pertain to Adam. It talks about everybody
after Adam. But let's go through it and see because we might be
able to find out, is this what happened with Adam? If it is,
then he's included in the everyman. If it doesn't include Adam, Adam
doesn't fit this bill, then it doesn't include Adam. And I'll
stand corrected, right? Verse 14, but every man is tempted. Okay, we've been talking about
temptation earlier, God tempting man, all that stuff. It says
right here that man is tempted, and this comes right after saying
that God doesn't tempt any man. So now you're gonna tell him
how man is tempted. If God isn't tempting them, then
what is tempting them? But every man is tempted when
he is drawn away of his own lusts. and enticed. So for there to
be temptation, that means you have to be drawn away by your
own lust. That's why God doesn't tempt
any man. Because every man is drawn away by his own lusts. But again, where does that come
from? Where does the lust come from?
If Adam was drawn away by lust, for eating the fruit or for the
pride of being able to be as God, whatever the case might
have been, Adam was drawn away by his own lust. But where did
that lust come from? It came from the nature that
God created him with. So in that, in that, is not God the author
of sin? God created Adam, made Adam natural
that cannot keep the law of God, and gave him a law so that the
offense might abound. And it did abound. Why? Because
there was iniquity found within Adam. It was manifested when
he was tempted and drawn away, enticed by his own lust. And
when, as it says here, what does it say? Then when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin. How did Adam sin? Well, he had
to sin according to the way the Bible says man sins. Man sins
by being drawn away and enticed by their own lust. Where does
that lust come from? It comes from their nature. Where
did the nature come from? It comes from God. So does that
not make God to be the author of sin as defined by the scripture,
not by man's philosophies or creeds and confessions? God is
the author of sin in that way, in the fact that he created man
that way. Man did the sinning. It's man's
nature that was given to him by God, yes, but that nature
and that man is the one who does the actual transgression and
sinning. Not God. God does not sin. God
cannot sin. God's holy. And he doesn't tempt
man to sin. Man is tempted by his own lust
in his heart, tempted, drawn away. And look, what does it
say here? But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his
own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death. by one man, sin entered into
the world, and death by sin. Is that what happened to Adam? Every man is tempted when he
is drawn away of his own lust. Was Adam drawn away by his own
lust? Yes. Was he enticed? Yes. Did his
lust conceive and bring forth sin? Yes. When sin came and was
finished, did it bring forth death? Yes. So is Adam part of
every man? Yes. So does God tempt him? No, he does not tempt him. Can
God as the creator create him in that way though and still
not be counted as and charged with sinfulness? See brethren,
if we take the Word of God and let the Word of God determine
our thoughts and beliefs about these things, we'll find out
that we can be a lot more generous with each other in our discussions,
plus we'll also be speaking the truth and not be speaking some
sort of a man's philosophy or man's tradition speech. God's
word determines those things. So Adam sinned and he couldn't
have sinned except that he had a nature that could and did lust
after what God forbid. And so whenever Adam's lust conceived,
it brought forth sin. Whenever he sinned, it brought
forth death. Sin and death entered into the world by that one man
just as God had designed it to do. And now the manifesting of
the redemption of God's people began to be seen throughout time
As out of that one lump, Adam, the vessels of honor, the vessels
of dishonor would be made manifest, who by nature were of Adam. But out of that one lump, vessels
of honor and dishonor would become manifest. It would be brought
forth, shown, who was the ones of God, who was the ones that
are not of God. The separating of the sheep from
the goats, it's showing those who would and wouldn't be. How?
In the fact that God saves them, in the fact that God quickens
them, the fact that God brings them to faith, to trust and believe
only upon the work of Christ alone for their righteousness. And for all that to take place,
sin and evil had to be. Sin and evil had to be. Why?
Because sin and evil is the tool that God used to bring in those
very things. The wicked are the ones that
God has created for the day of evil, so that the day of righteousness,
for the day of justice, for the day of love and glory will be
seen. Sin and evil proceeded from the
nature of man. God created man as earthy and
natural. So brethren, in that way, in
this way that I've talked about, that I've taught, in that way
God is the author of sin and I don't have a problem saying
that. If you don't like that phrase, I won't use that phrase
if I ever come to your church. I won't say that phrase. It's
just a phrase. And again, the phrase only has
as much meaning as what you pour into it. If that means God is
the author of sin, meaning that God is the cause, the first cause
of all causes, which I believe he is, the Bible is very clear
about that. If he's the first cause of all causes, then how
come we can't say that he's not the author of sin? He would be
the cause of sin coming into the world, right? How did he
do it? By creating a man that did it. not sinning himself, not forcing
the man against his own will or against his own nature. God
didn't force Adam against his nature. God gave him that nature
and he did exactly what that nature could do, not keep the
law. And he gives the law, not so
that Adam would stay righteous, but that the offense might come
in. Well, brethren, that's about
all that I have on that. There's probably a lot more that
I could probably have said about that, and I know I've went quite
a while again this week, but hopefully that's been of some
profit to you. Hopefully it's of the truth.
Hopefully I'm not twisting scripture to suit my ways. I've tried to
look at this from every angle. I've taken correction from several
men that I respect and love that have given me verses to look
at, and I've looked at those, and a lot of them I've dealt
with in this study, and I respect them for loving me enough to
correct me and to reach out to me. But at the end of the day,
it comes down to does God's Word say it or are you trying to reach
into tradition and philosophy or what I think about God or
what does the plain text of Scripture say? If God's Word says that
He's done all these things and He's made things this way, then
we have to believe it that way and everything else should adjust
to that, right? Do I believe all the scriptures
that says that God is holy and that he hates sin and he can't
look upon sin and all that kind of stuff? Absolutely. I believe
every bit of that. And I don't think that it contradicts what
we've talked about here, that God can purpose those things
and bring those things about by his providence. and that he
can judge that. I mean, it's no different than
the argument that the Arminian makes towards those who believe
in the doctrines of grace. You mean to tell me that God
created some to be non-elect and never created them to be
saved and then punishes them in hell even though he's the
one that created that? Again, it comes back, who art thou,
O man, who replies back to God, has not the right of the potter
to say, or has not the potter power over the clay to
make it however he wants. Can the clay say to the potter,
why has thou made me thus? It still comes down to that.
You know, we don't have the right to question God about what he
does and how he does it. All we can do is say, well, the
Bible says this, so I believe that. If it says that he's holy,
then I believe that he's holy. But if it says that he sent a
lying spirit into somebody's mouth to speak lies, if he says
that he ordained some men to condemnation, if it says that
he sent a strong delusion to believe a lie, if it says that
he determined that wicked hands would come and take Jesus Christ,
I believe that too. And so, you know, I have to believe
both of those. But anyway, that's what I understand
the Bible to teach about this whole subject of God's sovereignty
and sin. And as I said, there's probably
a lot more that I've probably missed, even though I spent over
two hours last week, and I don't know how long this week. I can't
see my clock on my phone, but quite a while this week. There
may be a lot of stuff, and I'm interested if anybody else has
got some things to add to this. There's some brothers out there
that I've talked to, Brother Brandon Kraft and Brother Gabriel
Gonzalez and Stephen Brown. A few other men and everything
that I've talked to, and my Uncle Tom, and I think Denny, he's
on here. I don't know how much Denny agrees
with me on all this stuff, but a lot of men that has been in
my life over the last several years that I've been able to
bounce some of these things off of, and some have come to be
able to believe the same things. Some have already believed those
things before I came around. But none of us have a handle
on the gospel or God's Word, and there's nothing new under
the sun. And it's the Holy Spirit that
does the teaching. So if any man knows anything because something
I said is because the Holy Spirit taught him, not because I did. And if I have anything, it's
because the Lord taught me. And if it's not from Him, then
it's from myself, and it should be you know, not paid attention
to. But anyway, I'm thankful for
all those that have been out there that has engaged me with
these things, positive and negative. Some of you brothers that are
out there that disagree with this, that has discussed this
with me over the time, I'm thankful for you too, because you've caused
me to get in and dig and search the scriptures in places about
certain passages that I had not considered before and how they
do that. And the way that it is is that even though through
searching through those scriptures, I found that through the context
and through the rest of scripture that there is no contradiction.
in that and what we've just learned through the Word of God. But
anyway, I thank you also for bringing those things and causing
me to dig and study more. I hope you have been blessed
by this today, brethren, and I hope it's been for the glory
of Christ and the honor of Christ. If anybody has anything that
you'd like to add to it or anything like that, feel free to leave
comments in there, any questions that you might have, you can
message me directly either here. I think the email address, if
you email on the site here, it'll send it straight to me, but you
can either send it in Messenger personally or through the church's
website, through the church's Facebook site, through Sermon
Audio, we have Sermon Audio. Also, if you've not listened
to some of our messages on Sermon Audio, I'm slowly trying to convert
over. After our recording device broke,
I've recorded, I've been Translating the audio from my Facebook messages
and starting to put those back on Sermon Audio. So Sermon Audio
is back up and running again. It's got all of our past stuff
and with the start of this study and on the church. It started at part three. We
didn't start recording videos until part three, so part one
and two of Ekklesia's study is lost in nowhere land. We don't
have it. But starting with part three, I'm starting to work my
way forward, and I think I've got the first 13 messages or so of
Ekklesia. There's a whole lot, about a
year's worth, and we've still got more to go. We're taking
this time during COVID to to go through some other things
since we're stuck at home, because that study on the ecclesia is
a study that was requested for our church to study together.
And I want to wait till our church is gathered back together again
to continue in that study. But until that time, as we preach
from this venue, we'll kind of deal with other topics and subjects
and teachings and stuff. But we'll get back into the Ecclesia
study. And whenever we come back, we'll
be starting on the Lord's Supper. So that's another point of contention
with a lot of people in the Lord's Supper, whether it's closed communion,
closed communion, open communion, that's contention. And then also
whether it's by the biblical elements, the unleavened bread
and wine, or the unbiblical elements, whatever bread and grape juice. So I tip my hat there. But anyway,
we'll be dealing with the Lord's Supper and what the Bible teaches
about it, not only as the memorial and how to do it, but also the
background of all of it and how it started, the discipline that's involved
in that. And so we'll be talking about
the second ordinance of the church. whenever we get back together.
But anyway, don't know when that's exactly going to be, but hopefully
soon. All right, brethren, well, God bless you guys today, and
continue to pray again for Sister Louetta. Also pray for my Aunt
Jay. She's also been on my heart. She's in the hospital over in
Oklahoma and been there since Wednesday. None of her family
can come up and be with her or anything like that. She's been
having a terrible time with some kidney issues, and they'd started
a surgery and couldn't complete the surgery, and she had to go
home with a tube hanging out her back. and uh, she's been
having all kinds of issues and they're trying to get it to get
rid of some of the huge stone is uh, Blocking the entryway
into her kidney and it's causing stuff to back up So they had
to put this tube in to relieve things and stuff. And anyway,
just a bad situation. So be praying for my aunt jay
Also be praying for my aunt Judy. She's been having a few health
things as well And pray for her keep her in your prayers sister
Louetta, and then everybody in general that's going through
all this Covers up. Oh, I'd also ask you to be praying
for my boss JD Smith Um, he found out this, uh, this last week,
uh, or right before this last week, anyway, he had surgery
on it earlier this week, but he found out that he had a cancer
in his finger and it was a superficial cancer. But, um, whenever he
got, got in it, it ended up it's down and attached to the bone
and they may end up having to take part of his finger off.
But hopefully, Lord be merciful and that not happen in just a
little bit of radiation. But they started to do just some
cutting off, because this particular cancer was only at the surface.
Well, they found out it was there long enough that it got down
to the bone. And as they shaved off parts of his skin clear down
to the bone, they found out, well, it's in your bone, so we
can't go any further. And so he's got like part of
his finger missing from where they've shaved it off, and they
may have to end up taking that knuckle off. So it's on his forefingers. right in here. Anyway, be praying
for my boss, JD. He's a good boss. He's really
taking great care of me, and me and him have had a lot of
good conversations over the years. Best boss probably I've ever
had besides my wife. Anyway, I better see a light
come up from Lori on that. Anyway, love you guys and appreciate
everybody that tunes in and watches and listens. If you ever think
about it, share this message if you would. We'll see you,
Lord willing, next Lord's Day. God bless you.