The Return of the Seventy-Two

Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind.

When we asked the question of the Scriptures. Why is it that God chooses to save some but not all the after that the Scripture gives is for the good pleasure of his will literally question that has stunned Christians for centuries, and the answer makes many of the church uncomfortable. But as we will see today on Renewing Your Mind. The Scriptures give us clear, direct and solid answer. Continuing Dr. RC Sproul series through the gospel of Luke today and will pick up in chapter 10 verse 21 before I look at the Texas morning.

When asked you a simple question. If you are a Christian, surely you have relatives or friends that you know who are not believers. And you know people who have heard the same gospel that you have heard that gospel to which you responded positively and affirmatively and cherish in your hearts, while others that you know have rejected it out of hand. So my question is this why is it that when you heard the gospel. You said yes and your friend said no, let's consider some of the options for a second. Is it because you are more righteous than your friend. I hope that's not your answer.

I trust that that's not your answer because of it is your answer. It's the wrong answer. Second of all, maybe it's because your more intelligent than your friend who has rejected it again. That's probably unlikely that even if it were the case we would have to ask, from whence, your intelligence is that something that you earned or merited by your study for which your friend is lacking a negligent.

I hope that's not your answer.

I hope your answer, in part, is at least informed by the bulletin of our church run the back page.

Every week we print the solos of the Protestant Reformation, including our doctrine Scripture or doctrine of justification, a doctrine of Christ and the fourth Sola solar Grazie which teaches that our salvation rests solely on the work of God's grace for us and in us. The only correct answer we can give to the question why you're a believer and your friend isn't is there but for the grace of God go I. We are not believers based on any merit of our own, but purely by the grace of God. Now those friends that you may be thinking up relatives who are presently unbelievers may still become believers before they pass away, and we hope that that will be the case but what were looking at here is the very practical sense the doctrine of election. That doctrine that produces so much controversy. In fact, every time I preach on it or near it. I fully expect to lose half of this congregation, when in fact two weeks ago I did preach on it with respect to the joy that Jesus told us to have that our names are written in heaven. And so far most of our congregation is still with us but now I want to look at this text because as I said in my opinion it's the most strange prayer. The New Testament ever records coming from the lips of Jesus were told in verse 21, and that our Jesus rejoiced in the spirit fact if you look at this brief passage you will see that it is Trinitarian through and through that has reference to the father reference to the incarnate son and here reference to the Holy Spirit's by which Jesus is moved on this occasion to a profound sense of joy.

Remember there wasn't three weeks between what Jesus said here and what he said in the previous line that I preached on three weeks ago. Here we had that gap in time, there was no such gap, when the statements were made. Remember, Jesus was telling his disciples that they shouldn't be rejoicing in the power that they have received from God, but rather that their names were written in heaven and now after speaking about their joy. The spirit visits Jesus in a unique way and producing an extraordinary sense of joy in our Savior. Here comes that strange prayer under the spirits leaving Jesus says I think you father that's this translation. Other translations read.

I praise you father, so we don't know for sure whether Jesus prayer at this point is a prayer of praise or a prayer of thanksgiving, but in either case, the sentiment is the same here. The text says I thank you father for what first of all, he identifies with the father is Lord of heaven and earth, you're my father and you are Lord you are out of my you're the sovereign one, not only over heaven, but over our and everything in its by your Providence you govern all things, and so as Jesus makes this prayer of praise or thanksgiving. He acknowledges the sovereignty the absolute sovereignty of his father over all things in here is the crux of the matter. Thank you father, Lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to babes peers Jesus before his death. Before Jonathan Edwards lived before Paul even wrote Romans. Jesus already understood the doctrine of election and she says rejoiced in it. Notice he doesn't come to the father sovereign, one of heaven and earth insight why father mother. So many people to whom I preach. Who walk away in unbelief.

Isn't there anything more you can do to help these people come alive in faith and embrace the gospel of the kingdom that I've been preaching to them. Father why don't you save them instead to our parent astonishment, Jesus Synex the father not only for not opening the eyes of the unbelievers buddy thanks the father for concealing the truth from the above had people say no. I believe in predestination but not double predestination. I believe that yes God does or alternatively elect some people on the salvation but he leaves the rest of themselves and give them the opportunity to come.

There is no flipside to election. There's no such thing as reprobation. There's no such thing from all eternity.

God's decree that certain people will indeed be passed over. This is one of the most difficult aspects of the doctrine that we have, to deal with. Is it not I think we would agree that God has the power and the authority to save everybody but I think we also agree that he does not use that power or that authority to save everybody.

One friend of mine who was a theologian with whom I have profound disagreements has gone on record for saying that God saves as many people as he possibly can and I so your Universalist.

He said oh no, as he says the Holy Spirit is a gentleman and God will never bring somebody to faith. Who doesn't want to come to do so would be to violate the human will. I said if that's the case you are Universalist in the other direction because nobody would come unless God the Holy Spirit gives them the disposition so to do, which is a sclera teaching that we ever get from the Lord Jesus.

What I'm saying here is God for his eternal purposes.

Looks at a fallen humanity what Augustine called a mass of perdition and he chooses to give justice to some and mercy to others, he chooses to give the grace of salvation to some and withhold it from others and of course the protest that you hear all the time about that is the exclamation that's not fair, but God is not an entitlement deity. He knows that no center deserves salvation no center even deserves the opportunity for salvation.

The only thing that we've ever deserved from God, dear friends, is eternal damnation, because by nature.

We are in revolt and in rebellion against his authority and his sovereignty he owes us nothing. That's the essence of grace is that it's undeserved and that it is on merited altogether and so when we think that God owes us something we either don't know who we are more we don't know who he is now the question is why does he give grace to some and not others.

The answer is, why not. As Paul anticipated the response that when he spells this out in Romans nine he asked the rhetorical question, what then is there unrighteousness in God what is God not fair. What then is God unjust and he reminds his readers of what God had said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy that's God's prerogative and so for his eternal purposes and ultimately for his glory and for the glory of his only begotten son, God from all eternity is a plan of salvation by which he intends to work in space and time to bring some sinners to repentance, to face and the salvation that he plans to open their eyes to reveal to them the sweetness and loveliness of Christ. If you see the loveliness of Jesus this morning, I asked you worded that site come from here like Paul on the road to Damascus. He saw the light, not because he was looking for Christ. He was looking to destroy Christ. They had no interest in the kingdom of Christ, other than to extinguish it. But God in his sovereign mercy thrown to the ground and revealed to him who Jesus is.

Now, obviously, God didn't do that for Pontius Pilate. He didn't do it for Caiaphas that he did it for Saul of Tarsus and he did it for me. But again, it's not simply that God doesn't reveal Christ to everyone in a passive manner, but he actually conceals Christ from people. That's the hard part is we will see later, God willing, as we look at the parables that are in Luke the parables had a double edged purpose to reveal the truth to some, and to conceal it from others and this is where we struggle. But here's what I want to get this morning. If you don't get anything else.

Jesus praised God and God not only for revealing it to some before concealing it from others. How can he do that other than the incarnate son of God's sheer delight in the perfection of his father, and of his father's plan for which the second person of the Trinity and the third were in full agreement with the father from all eternity and even in his incarnation, and witnessing and feeling and receiving the fury of the rejection of people against them.

Even then, Jesus knew that the father's will was being accomplished and he could delight in it. Again I thank you father that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, particularly the wise and the prudent are the ones who are mentioned to talk about the intelligentsia you think of all the brilliant scholars in the world today who with magnificent acumen and academic brilliance are blind to the basic truth of God. I'm thinking of two well-known naturalist philosophers and scientists both at home teach that the universe came into being from nothing. One of them says that the universe not only can come in the bank from nothing, but certainly will come into being from nothing that gives an awful lot of power to nothing.

The other one is even perhaps more famous.

When asked about how it was possible for the universe to come in the being from nothing answered this question by saying that it started with fluctuations and out of the fluctuations ultimately came the big bang. Now the question obviously that a schoolboy would want to raise Santa Fe heard this Prof. little third grade Johnny Wood raises and say excuse me sir but what was it that was fluctuating and this naturalist would have to say nothing of course. But when nothing starts to fluctuate. You better look out because a big explosion is about to come on as if this nonsense. This is absolute nonsense by unbelievably learned and brilliant people that the world considers wise and prudent in Jesus as I thank you. You kept it from those people who are wise in their own conceits who set their own minds above the wisdom of God who have no fear of God in their hearts.

Thank you father for hiding these things from them and revealing them debates. Then he says even so, father, for so it seemed good in your sight. When we asked question of the Scriptures. Why is it that God chooses to save some but not all the answer that the Scripture gives is for the good pleasure of his will now I believe that every word sacred Scriptures inspired by the Holy Ghost, but also know that sometimes the Holy Ghost has to condescend to our weakness of understanding and stoop to our fertility of mind and sometimes even give himself for our benefit over to redundancy. I asked the question, is it really necessary for the Scriptures to speak of God's pleasure as being a good pleasure. What other kind of pleasure that it possibly be anything that pleases God. Anything that gives pleasure to God is good God doesn't have an evil pleasure. Only a good pleasure, but here it is again. It seemed good in your sight. Now Jesus is not suggesting that the goodness and righteousness of election was something that was only apparently good to God. It just seemed to be good mouth. This is just simply a manner of speaking, as it were, because obviously whatever seems to be the case in the divine scrutiny is indeed the case, not simply a matter of external appearance.

Then Jesus goes on to say all things.

Everything all things have been delivered to me by my father and no one knows who the son is except the father and who the father is except the son and the one to whom the son wills to review people know really know who God is until the sun reveals to us. We use the sun wills to reveal the character and nature of the father to his people. Nobody really knows who Jesus is except the father and those to whom the father is pleased to reveal him. Demo this church is 16 years old now and I preach one series here through the book of acts, but this is the fourth gospel that have been preaching through in the last 16 years and some people are vastly everything else in the Bible besides the Gospels that you keep preaching through the Gospels, but I could tell you this if there were 1/5 one that would be next, God willing, because you can't get too much. Jesus and the Gospels focus their attention on who he is and this is why were here to learn to know him to adore him and to search. Then he turned his disciples and said privately.

Blessed are the eyes which see the things that you see you realize how blessed you are drawn, Peter, James, Thaddeus, Mattel blessed you are the prophets indicating semi-Old Testament desired to see what you say they have not seen it, to hear what you hear and haven't heard it, if Jesus were here this morning they can say to you. Blessed are you who understood what you understand.

Blessed are you who hear what you have heard because there are millions of people in this world today. Never heard it. Never understood never seen it, and what a blessed thing. It is that you get to hear it every Sunday morning. Every time you open your mind every time you get on your knees. This is actually speakable to which we've done nothing to earn their for the grace of God and those of us who are the recipients of that unspeakable joy hammer marching orders dumping we have an immense responsibility. We've heard these things, we've experienced these things and we must cheer and explain these things to a lost and dying world. We study from Luke chapter 10 today here on Renewing Your Mind as we continue Dr. RC Sproul sermon series through Luke's gospel every Sunday. We returned to Luke, so that by the end of the series.

Dr. stroller covered the entire book helpful study companion for you is Dr. Sproles commentary on this gospel in 600 pages.

RC traces the record of Jesus life as told by Luke.

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Thank you and we thank you for joining us today and I hope you'll come back next week as we continue doctors groceries to the gospel of Luke here on Renewing Your Mind