Now last week we looked at the
concept of perception as it related to the will or choice that men
make. We looked at that subject in
reference to what the scriptures declare about man's natural ability
or natural man's ability to perceive spiritual things. We found that
where no perception of a thing exists, no choice can be or will
be made of that thing. It's that simple. We use as an
example Nicodemus, who thought he knew something about Jesus
Christ, who versed some truth about Jesus Christ, but Christ
told him, you cannot know these things unless you're born from
above. that which is of the spirit is
spirit, that which is of the flesh is flesh. We also saw that
man chooses freely among the things that he can perceive. The conclusion is that man who
is born into a natural realm cannot and will not choose that
which is spiritual because it lies outside the possibility
of his perception. This is one of the aspects of
man's inability to rise above his carnal nature. Another being
inclination and affinity and preference, as we looked at the
week before that. And one of the things that stumped natural
man in the concept of spiritual death is this matter of the will. It simply does not register with
natural man that a person with all the faculties of natural
life A man who makes decisions and judgments every day of his
life cannot then, with those faculties, choose salvation. It doesn't make sense to people.
Several years ago, I taught a children's class here on Friday nights.
I had some of the young people, Stu and Stan. Where's Loretta
Crowe? Did they leave? I had Stu and
Stan, and Tejas, I think, was here for a while on Friday night,
and had some other kids. And I made this statement, and
it was then I began to really see how What a difficult job
we have if we try to explain spiritual death. I was trying
to explain to a bunch of young people, a young boy, I can't
remember who it was, but I said, man is spiritually dead. And
he looked at me and said, I'm not dead. And he wasn't dead,
he was living. The old faculty. And I realized
then, this is a bigger thing to explain than most people think
about. We who know the truth run into the brick wall of human
logic when we try to explain it. The fact is, and it is not
a cop-out, that we who know the truth cannot by powers of persuasion
cause a natural man to grasp what can only be grasped spiritually. We can't do it. If we could,
all our friends would be saved and all our enemies would be
on their way to hell and that right quick. So Barnard said,
you better be glad I ain't gone. The person who desires spiritual
things does so because he has been raised from death to life.
And he had nothing to do with that quickening. And it rubs
our nature the wrong way. But that is simply how it is.
Even in this study, I found as I was studying these things,
some of the things gripe me a little bit. They bug me a little bit
about this. But yet I know they to be true.
And my flesh rebels against these truths. Man is an actor. He's an actor. I'm not talking
about being on stage, I'm talking about he acts. He acts. He acts on the basis of his choice
and his choice or will is always consistent with the desire of
his mind. This makes man what we call an
agent. An agent. An agent is one who
acts or has the power to act. Now I know in spiritual things
we have no power whatsoever. But in our natural realm we do.
We have power. Physically we have power, don't
we? I hope so this Monday when we go to pick up that wood. I
hope somebody in that crowd's got some power. Because mine
is diminishing day by day. But I hope somebody has some
power. We have power when we want to do something. Generally
speaking, if we're not prohibited by natural laws or providential
hindrances, we can generally put our back to it and get it
done physically. So man has power. So if what
he chooses to do, generally he's able to do by the power that
operates in the realm that he lives. makes him an agent, one
who acts with power and one who acts. Agency is the condition
of being in action. And within man's nature and within
the realm of nature, man is able to act and has power to do so.
He does not have sovereign power, but he can freely act where he
is not prohibited by natural laws or providential hindrances. The law of gravity prevents him
from soaring into the ether, by his own power, because it's
a physical impossibility. But when we're talking about
the will, we're not talking about a physical impossibility, not
at this stage anyway. What we're talking about is man's
mind as it relates to his choice. That's what we're dealing with.
In this case, the mind is the ability to choose and the will
is the act of choosing. That make sense? The mind is
the ability to choose and the will is the act of choosing. That which distinguishes man
from the animal kingdom is the ability of moral choice. That's the difference. I saw
on TV this morning a man had trained a border collie to recognize a
thousand different words He would put out 40 or 50 toys on the
floor that each of them had a name, and just have them pile there.
He'd tell that dog, Mouse Buddy, or something like
that. And that dog would look around that pile and find that
Mouse Buddy, and pick it up and put it in there. He'd tell him
another thing, and that dog never missed, got it right every cotton-picking
time. And the way it ended in the conversation, they began
to apply, I don't know, what do you call it, anthropomorphisms
to the dog. give it human qualities. And
I saw they were going, I said, it won't be long before they
get that dog a lawyer. And that's what would happen. But that dog
has the ability and the mind to think and make choices. But it can't make a moral choice.
It can't decide between good and evil. It can't look at something
and mull over it whether it would be vice or virtue. Can't do that. Only man can do
that. Man's mind in his natural realm
has the ability to choose in that natural realm between right
and wrong and good and evil. This distinguishes man from the
animal. Man can, within his realm of existence, choose between
good and evil based on his moral compass. His moral compass. Now there are certain natural
laws that have permeated all mankind since the beginning,
especially since the fall. They're just there. Now before
the fall, there was nothing but good. Our Lord said that. Everything
was good and very good. But then when Adam sinned and
disobeyed God, evil entered into the world. And then on, everything
was good and evil. Everything! that we can fathom
in this world, this natural world, is both good and evil. And every
good thing in it, every good thing in the spiritual world,
is attacked and hated by everything in the world of the flesh. They are always contrary to one
another. Before the fall there was nothing but good, but after
the fall good and evil fill the realm of humanity and thus man
from that day till this day is faced with continual moral choices. You and I make them all the time.
All the time. And we've been doing that since
we were old enough, as Jonathan Edwards said writing about the
will, old enough to talk. When we can talk. Often in this
day, these natural moral choices are assigned to religion and
end up in some separation of church and state court battle.
But that's not what it is. There are natural things that
go on. I don't care where you travel, certain things are always
true morally in society. Wherever you go. You can go to
the remotest part of some uncivilized world. They have a sense of property.
Don't they? They have a sense of property.
They know that it's wrong to steal. They know it's wrong to
steal from another. They know it's wrong to murder.
They know it's wrong to take another spouse. And all that
without so much as a mention of Christ or any so-called Christian
influence. Those are natural things that
are true. So I use the word moral in this context because it is
a concept that is understood though the word is not found
in Scripture. The word moral is not in Scripture. is a free moral agent. A free moral agent. But still,
he will act or choose according to the inclination and affinity
of his mind. Now he's free, but he's not free
to want what he doesn't want. That's stupid. Or to will what
he will not. That's stupid. It simply don't
happen. You may say that's some philosophical concept, but it's
not. I cannot want. I cannot want
what I do not want. I cannot choose what I will not
choose. It's as simple as that. Being
a moral agent does not mean that man is moral in the sense of
being good. It means that he makes moral
distinction based on what is natural and pleasing to him. In our text, we see a very bad
moral decision. But a moral decision is made.
Made by men who are reprobates. Men who are without hope. Men
of whom it can be said there is no possibility of recovery.
And yet they grew up and were born into this world with that
natural concept of deity. They could look at the world
and say God created that. And give God glory for it. But
when it came down to where the rubber hits the road, that is
when God deals with humanity, They wouldn't recognize Him and
honor Him as God, and so God gave them over to what is called
a reprobate mind and all manner of uncleanness. And they refused
to acknowledge God, and they end up this way, who knowing,
now these people aren't ignorant of God's wrath or the judgment
to come, or that God will punish sin and all sin is worthy of
death. They understand, they know that. who knowing the judgment
of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death,
they know that. And this is their moral choice.
They not only do the same, but they have pleasure in them that
do them. So, what do they do? Within their
realm, they have an understanding of some concept of deity, as
all human beings do. Everybody born in this world
Like old Bob Dylan said, everybody's going to serve somebody. And
that's true. Everybody's going to serve somebody.
Everybody's going to have a God. It's because man was born, man
was made to serve God. The fall put him in a state of
mutation. But he did not change the fact
that he must worship. He can't live without worshiping.
You say, what about the atheists? They are so few in number. that
they're not even worth talking about. And even them, given the
right circumstances, like the old saying, I think that came
from World War I, there ain't no atheists in foxholes. If the
situation gets dire enough, they'll stop being atheists, at least
for the time that the situation is dire. So in our text we see
man as a free moral agent. He knows that those who do such
things as recorded in the previous verses of chapter 1 of Romans
will surely suffer the wrath of God but his moral choice is
to do what is pleasing to him because that's always the choice
you'll make. What pleases his mind is of greater
influence even than his understanding. Understanding of the horrible
consequences of his choice. Yet He chooses what He wants,
chooses what He pleases. We might consider such action
as insanity, but our life before grace was filled with such moral
choices, such temptations, and even after grace. We've all been
tempted in a thousand ways and have always acted one way, according
to what we wanted. Isn't that right? Anybody hold a gun to your head
when you were stiffed and say, you got to take this side? No.
What pleased you? What your mind desired? That's
what you chose no matter the temptation. The indictment is
repeated about the attitude of Israel in the time of the judges
It was repeated over and over again, and it was this, men did
what was right in their own eyes. They did what was right in their
own eyes. Now they forgot God, there's
no doubt about that, and they did so because that's what they
wanted to do. They wanted to forget God. They
did it up one day and forgot that God was. It pleased them
to put God out of their mind. It pleased them, as a fool says
in his heart, no God for me. They did that which pleased them
and that which was right in their own eyes. What is that? That's
free moral agency. They acted according to their
own moral compass and chose what was pleasing to their mind. A
man's will is is his own. But in the exercising of it,
the man is entirely subject to the will and purpose of God. And we will look at man's will
and free agency in light of God's sovereignty at a later date.
For now, I want us to consider something. Two things. First,
necessity. Necessity. Necessity is God's purpose. It's going to come to pass. That's
necessity. And we'll also look at man always
choosing the desire of his mind. It's free moral agency. So we
have necessity and free moral agency. And let me tell you,
if you came to Christ, if God taught you and you came to Christ,
you know why you came to Christ? Because you were pleased to do
so. There was no gun held to your head. I know the old Puritans
like to say that God saved man against his will with his full
cooperation. No, he didn't. He saved you against your will.
He changed your mind. And what you suddenly desired,
you did. And that was to come to Christ. You did. You did it freely. You weren't
compelled. You were changed. A new creature
existed that suddenly spiritual things were pleasurable things
rather than the sin having its pleasure for a season. I want
us to consider one event, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I won't take long. We know that from the clear declaration
of Scripture that our Lord's crucifixion was ordained from
the foundation of the world. He is even said to be the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world in Revelation chapter
13 and verse 8. From when God slew those first
beasts in the garden, it was prophesied in type and throughout
the Old Testament, the death of the substitute. the Lord Jesus
Christ. From the Paschal Lamb to the
New Testament that declares that Christ is our Paschal Lamb or
our Passover. All of those rites and rituals,
those dyings and deaths of various creatures from lambs to bullocks
to goats to turtle doves, all of them pointed to Jesus Christ.
And part of that purpose was for man to act against Christ. to act against Christ, but to
do it according to the desires of their own heart. Because that's what man does,
what he wants to do. If he can, he does what he wants
to do. In order for Christ to be crucified,
men must do what is right in their own eyes. They must be, must do that. They acted according to their
mind's desire which was to be rid of Jesus Christ. That was
what they wanted. Scripture says that Pilate, who
was another man choosing to save his own hide, because it pleased
him to do so. In Luke chapter 23 and verse
25 it says Christ was turned over to their will, to what they wanted. to the revelation
of what they wanted. They said, we want him crucified,
we want him crucified, crucify him, crucify him. Well, if that's
your choice, I turn him over to your choice. And I will let
Barabbas, the true murderer, go free. Now Christ had done
the same thing in John chapter 18 when they came to fetch Him.
And He said, I am, and they fell away backwards. He proved to
them that if He goes, it must be a voluntary act. And then
the second time He said, I am, and He allowed them to take Him. You see, the choice of men at
the cross was to put an end to the Lord, and they acted freely
from the enmity of the carnal mind. They acted freely. What
they could not perceive is that while they were doing that, they
were doing what God had ordained to be done. Now, we who know
God understand somewhat of the concept of predestination. And
I say somewhat, because you and I both know that when we really
start working it over in our human logic, we go places we
shouldn't go with it. We go places the Scripture don't
go with it. But the first mention in Scripture of the word Proorizo
predestinate is in Acts chapter 4 and verse 28 when the church
came together and said this, For against thy holy child Jesus,
Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Jews and the Gentiles gathered together.
Now why were they doing that? Because that's what they wanted. They wanted that. That was the
desire of their minds. Crucify Him. Let's put Him on
the cross. Let's get rid of Him. We shall not have this man reign
over us. Why were they doing it? Because
they wanted to. They were acting freely. They
made a moral choice. But they were fulfilling the
purpose of God. For it says, "...Herod and Pontius
Pilate, and the Jews, and the Gentiles, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever the Lord had aforeordained to be done."
That's Pro Oriso, the first use of the word predestination in
the New Testament. I don't know about human life.
I don't know much about providence. I can look back and see some
instances where I'm sure God's hand was protecting me, overriding what would seem others to be
a sure death. I don't know what blocks and
stumbling stones and gates and doors and byways and highways
and what societal influence and prohibitions and machinations
of the conscience were placed in the course of humanity by
divine providence beginning in Eden and all those millenniums that
passed to the time of our Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary Street.
I don't know all about that. I don't know what went on. By
no, it worked exactly like it was supposed to. Even those who were for Christ
at the time of His crucifixion disappeared. They weren't like
those standing out in the courtroom last night at twelve o'clock
with signs saying, what about Kaylee and all about that baby
that was killed. There weren't no riots going
on. They disappeared. Peter, James, John, the elders, From Eden to Calvary, can you
imagine God dealing with men's minds by moving them this way,
and moving them that way, and moving them this way, till the
Jewish religion had came to a place that their altars were covered
with tears and God said, you're nothing, I'm going to rub your
face in the dung of your face. The religion was nothing. They
worshipped at a place the priest faked going into the holy place
in the temple, but there was no ark there. It had been stolen
by the Chaldeans some 150 years prior to that. There wasn't no
ark there. That was the big surprise when
it was rent from top to bottom. There wasn't no ark there. It
not only meant that people had access to God, but there wasn't
no ark there. Because that religion was defunct. All those things,
all those little things. And then for it all to come together,
that one crux of human history that settles all things before
it and all things after it. Those few hours on the cross
where the creatures that God had given life and breath had
blessed, had cursed, had given children, had given old age,
had given possessions, all those things, whatever he did, whatever
course humanity took, it came to that place right there. And
all of us were there. The kings of religion, Herod,
the kings of society, Pilate, the Jews, the religious people,
the Gentiles, the irreligious people, they were all there. Why? For to do. whatsoever the Lord
had before ordained to be done. Why were they there? Because
that's where they wanted to be. So we have necessity, the purpose
of God, and the free moral agency of humanity. Men were turned
by God, for He says, I turned. Well, men confess that they've
been turned. But they turned willingly, even to that hour
when they had had enough, invented all that made up human experience
against God and His Christ. Purpose and destiny were fulfilled,
how? By men doing what was right in
their own eyes, under the sovereign rule of God's will and purpose. Now next time, we'll consider
the reasonable consequences of the false teaching of free will. Father, bless us through our
understanding, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Good day.