Time to begin. So, our call to worship this morning is going to come from the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 7, and we will be looking at verses 1 to 14. Exodus chapter 7, verses 1 to 14. Seven chapter 7 verses 1 to 14 Exodus chapter 7 Now beginning in verse 1, these are the words of the triune God. Let us give them our undivided attention. And the Lord said to Moses, See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. Moses and Aaron did so. They did just as the Lord commanded them. Now Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh. Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, when Pharaoh says to you, prove yourselves by working a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh that it may become a serpent. So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers and the magicians of Egypt. Also did the same by their secret arts for each man cast down his staff and they became serpents But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs Still Pharaoh's heart was hardened. He would not listen to them as the Lord had said Then the Lord said to Moses Pharaoh's heart is hardened. He refuses to let the people go Let us pray together Oh, supreme moving cause, may I always be subordinate to you, be dependent upon you, be found in the path where you walk and where your spirit moves. Take heed of estrangement from you, of becoming insensible to your love. You do not move men like stones, but do and do them with life, not to enable them to move without you. but in submission to you, the first mover. Oh Lord, I am astonished at the difference between my receivings and my deservings, between the state I am now in and my past gracelessness, between the heaven I am bound for and the hell I merit. Who made me to differ but you? For I was no more ready to receive Christ than were others. I could not have begun to love you had you not first loved me, or been willing unless you had first made me so. Oh, that such a crown should fit the head of such a sinner! Such high advancement be for an unfruitful person! Such joys for so vile a rebel! Infinite wisdom cast the design of salvation into the mold of purchase and freedom. Let wrath deserve be written on the door of hell, but the free gift of grace on the gates of heaven. I know that my sufferings are the result of my sinning, but in heaven both shall cease. Grant me to attain this heaven and be done with sailing, and with the gales of your mercy blow me safely into harbor. Let thou your love now draw me nearer to yourself. Wean me from sin, mortify me to this world. and make me ready for my departure. Secure me by the grace as I sail across the stormy sea until I see you face to face. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. All right. So we are again in the confession chapter three on God's decree. And you'll find that in your modern translation, I believe, on page 16. It's also in the back of your Trinity hymnal. So if you want to go ahead and dial that section up we are again going to be looking at paragraph one yet we are going to focus specifically on a couple of sentences within that paragraph as we add on to what we began last Lord's Day. So essentially we're looking at answering the question this morning. How is it possible that God's decree is the cause of Pharaoh's heart being hardened and Pharaoh is also the cause of his heart being hardened, right? How is it that both God and Pharaoh are responsible for the hardening of Pharaoh's heart? And are they responsible in the same way and in the same manner? Right. That's what we're answering. How does God's decree fit with the will of man so that both are legitimate causes and yet their causality is not equal, not in the same manner or in the same way? OK, so I'm going to read paragraph one and then I'll pause to focus on what we're going to look at. OK, so if you have your confession open, if you'd follow along. Paragraph one says, from all eternity, God decreed everything that occurs without reference to anything outside himself. He did this by the perfectly wise and holy counsel of his will, freely and unchangeably. Here's where we're going to focus. Yet God did this in such a way that he is neither the author of sin, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, nor has fellowship with any in their sin. This decree does not violate the will of the creature or take away the free working or contingency of second causes. On the contrary, these are established by God's decree. So here we're getting into the understanding of causality or what the confession talks about as secondary or second causes. And so we're reminded that God is the only self-existent being, which means He is not dependent on anything outside of Himself. God is the uncaused cause, right? He is the first mover. God does not need us to exist, but we need Him to exist. This divine causality is not only initiated by God, it is also continually sustained by God. God not only gave us our being, our existence, but he also is the active cause of all of our movement. So you exist because of God, and you move because of God, right? Existence, self-existence, is not something that God has given to mankind. There's only one self-existent being, and he is God. If God were to give human beings self-existence, what would we then be? Gods, right? So we are only existent by His previous power and ongoing power. We don't, he didn't say, here's self-existence, live it out. He's causing us to be, and he's causing us to move. Where do we see this? We'll text like Acts chapter 17, very familiar, right? The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything. Since he himself gives to all mankind life, breath and everything now, here's the here's the phrase in him we live and move and have our being so Every action that you make Nate's rubbing his eye because God is moving Nate to do so how that comes about is important is God lifting Nate's arm and jamming it into his eye socket and Right, but Nate can't get his arm off his lap to his face unless God Causes it to be that's what we're getting at. Okay, that's what we're trying to say. He is moving you you are not an Independent mover there is only one independent mover. You are a subordinate Dependent mover all of your motions depend on a first cause That's that's kind of ultimately what we are after here So Paul makes a distinction here between our being and our emotion, and confirms that both are from God. To move in God is to be active in accordance with His divine power and operation. We see this also in the Old Testament, places like Isaiah 10, verse 15 says, Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? as if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood. Notice here how the divine author describes two aspects about agency. The thing itself that acts, and the power by which it acts. The axe and the saw do not set themselves in motion. Same as Nate. You track of what I'm saying? They do not set themselves in motion. Let me finish. But are put in motion by another. This motion, though caused by another, does not violate their respective natures, but works in tandem with their nature. This means that creatures can only act or move in accordance with the power that causes them to exist. So no created thing can act autonomously or independently, because apart from God's active power, they do not exist. So, when I use a saw, I'm using the nature of the what? The saw. But the power that's activating the saw is not the saw's, it's mine. God is causing Joel to think now and to nod his head, right? And he's doing it in accordance with not God's nature doing it for Joel, but the power is being activated in Joel's nature and Joel's nature is acting according to its properties and power. Not on its own, but in regards to its nature, in accordance with it, but by the power of another. Okay, so let me pause there. Are you understanding that? This is all review, but it's needful review. This is really important understanding of how we begin to understand God at work in election, in reprobation, how God's at work in evil and in sin and not the author. God is the decreer of all of it. he is responsible for it but his responsibility in it is different than your responsibility in it and the reason we know that it's because there's two actors that are working together in all these things and how that plays out becomes important so any questions at this point right now we're just establishing the idea of second causes coming from the first cause and not being able to act apart from the first cause but acting in the Accordance with their own nature not the nature of the one moving them. Go ahead Joel Yep Yeah Yeah, yeah Yep, so so the difference would be Purpose right? So then God's purpose in moving you Joel and your purpose in moving both are a Actual causality of what's going to happen But your motivation and his motivation are different And because those two motivations are different, you're responsible for something that you're wanting to have has happened. He is responsible for what he wants to have happen, but they're not the same motives, though the same action is the outcome. Is that making sense what I'm saying? He wills for you to do what is righteous in this act. You're willing to do what is sinful in this act, but both causes bringing about the same act, but different motivations or ends in them. So he is blameless and you are worthy of blame. He is innocent and you are guilty. He's moving you to do this in your physicality, but not in your morality. Make sense? See the distinction there? That becomes really, really important. And that's kind of what we're establishing. So we've got to at least have a category for second causes in this reality. And then how do those causes work together? We talk about the divine Idea or the doctrine of concurrence not a new term we've heard this before to all of this that you're going to hear today is reminder or Refresher but but for some of you it may sound like it's the first time and that's that's okay So second causality because God is the ultimate cause and Nothing happens apart from him. Nothing moves apart from him everything moves and lives and has its being because of him and yet there is a Secondary cause that as it's being moved has its own responsibility and will be in Relation to that responsibility judged accordingly. So this is the doctrine of concurrence, then. This does not mean that man does not act or cause things to happen. However, it does mean that creatures can never be first and ultimate cause, but only secondary and dependent. So there is never an action or event in the universe in which there is a divine and human trade-off. By this I mean, if one acts, it cancels out the action of the other. That is to say, either God does it or man does it. But both cannot act at the same time fulfilling the same purpose. That's what some people believe. That's why an ultimate understanding or a wrong understanding of free will, you're gonna argue with people in the church and in the world, they're gonna argue for what they think is an autonomous free will. There's only one being in the universe that has an autonomous free will, and that's God. When he acts, he acts, he doesn't share that responsibility in regard to needing anything prior to him to cause that action. Where you cannot act at all unless something prior to you is causing that action to be. That's what we mean by autonomous, right? This false assumption is built on an erroneous cosmology in which God and man are self-existent, therefore independent, which I just demolished that argument, right? Is man self-existent? God did not put self-existence into humanity. So, no human being is self-existent. We're all God-existent. So there is no autonomy, okay? So, God then, God acts according to... A biblical cosmology teaches us that... Causes in the creation are not an either-or equation, but rather a both-and scenario. God acts according to his agency, and creatures act according to their agency. We've kind of already outlined some of that. These two causes concur with one another working together. God as the first cause works through all second causes to bring about his purposes. So if we have two causes working to the same outcome, how should we think about the distributed Distribution. Wait a second. Distribution. Get my eyes to work with my brain here. Distribution of workload. This is where a Biblicist reading of Scripture can get us into trouble. Case in point. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 9, For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building. What does it mean when we say that we are God's fellow workers? What's a biblicist way of understanding that? Yeah. Yeah, a synergistic way of saying that we're sharing the workload. I do some, he does some, and together we get the whole thing accomplished. Yep, yep. Yep to God like we carried a lot of stuff for Matt yesterday two guys on each end, right? I got half you got half and together. We got the whole thing up Does do you ever carry any of God's half? Are you pot? Are you capable of carrying God's half? I No. So you see how important this is, even just understanding these concepts about God and causality and self-efficiency and you being dependent in regards to how you just read the Bible. You are not helping God carry out his will. God is causing you in his decree to carry out his will. Right. He's causing you to be so, as we've said before, You and God are carrying the load, and God is carrying you as a means to carrying the load. God is underneath sustaining and doing it all, and he's ordained for you to be a means by which he's already decreed to use to bring that about. But you're not helping him as a coordinate to equals. You are a subordinate reality. You are not a equal, you are subordinate in his plan. Okay? All right. So, God exists without man, but man does not exist without God. So man does not cooperate with God co-ordinately, but rather subordinately. Our movement of an object is absolutely dependent on his prior movement of us. So let me give you a very early theologian, Wilhelmus O'Brockle. and a quote from his systematic theology. One should not understand this cooperation to be such as if God were collaterally involved in the activity of the creatures, as is true when two horses draw a wagon. This would mean that the creature, by virtue of a God-given innate ability, would then function independently, rather than that God would energize that creature in order for it to be in motion. This would additionally mean that God would merely join himself to the activity of the moving creature, executing this task jointly, each by exercising power independently. However, God's initiative proceeds the motion of the creature, stipulating the creature to a specific object, place, and time. Having initiated and determined the creature's motion in this manner, God then proceeds to further involve Himself in the creature and its motion, thus accomplishing what He has purposed. We therefore understand the cooperation with God not merely to refer to His omnipotent and omnipresent power, whereby He preserves the existence and faculties of all creatures, but also to be a special, physical, natural, immediate, and tangible operation by which He proceeds the creature in every motion, directing this motion and preserving the created object while in motion. Thus he permits all secondary causes and their motions to their conclusive effect." Okay? So, secondary causality in the decree, and that secondary causality is working in concurrence with the decree to carry out the ultimate end. Okay? So, pause there for a second. Questions on secondary causes or the understanding of subordinate concurrence. Go ahead, Scott. Yeah. Thus he permits all secondary causes and their motions, or excuse me, he permeates all secondary causes and their motions to their conclusive effect. Conclusive. Finished. Questions? It's not new, right? Anybody think this is new? Not heard this before? Heard this before. concurrence so God and man are both operating Simultaneously to the same end but with different motives Sometimes they could be the same motive. Sometimes they could be different, but they're both working at the same time for the same end It's not an either-or it's not God's doing something and man's not or man's doing something and God's not that's not possible in this Greek in this cosmos and Right. God acts, man acts, and they're both acting for the same outcome. But their actions within those outcomes are according to their agencies. Man doesn't have divine agency and God doesn't override human agency. And even in their motivations for the end are different. God is always aiming to what? His glory and good. Can he aim for anything else? What do you aim at? Everything. Mostly yourself. Right? Can God take your selfish? Wrong word. Does God use your selfish motives? Your sin? And work it into the decree in order to bring about His good purposes? Praise God. Praise God. And is He causing you to sin? No, He's not. No he's not. That's what we're going to get to soon. Got that? We're good? Okay. Press on here. Now we're going to get into modes of causality. Establish second causes. Understand concurrence, how causes work together. First cause, second cause, concurring together. Now we're going to talk about types of causality. Efficient causes, final causes. This all becomes important to understand where we are at in bringing about the final end of what is being purposed. So this idea of models or of causality becomes important. Answering the question if God we're just answering the question if God has decreed all That comes to pass and is actively the cause of all of our movement. How is he not responsible for evil and sin? right God's responsible for everything. He moves you you sin God's guilty That's a logical deduction unless we got the categories right to understand how that cannot be. We've already established some of those categories and we'll move on further. But first and foremost, we've talked about this to help us with that. The first way we get to understanding that God is not the author of sin is to understand that evil and sin are not substances. right? That's the first order of business we have to take care of. God, in decreeing sin, sin is not a created reality. It's not a thing that has self-existence because it's not a thing at all. It's not a efficient cause. It's actually a Deficient cause. Can God be a deficient cause? What kind of cause can God be and only be? Efficient. If God says it, what happens? It happens. He can only be an efficient cause, which even from that level tells us that he can't be a deficient cause in any way, or he can't be God. Right? It goes back to immutability, it goes back to aseity. Cameron touched on those things when he taught. And so, tying all these things together, okay? But first and foremost, sin and evil are not things. They do not have existence in and of themselves, and they would not have existence apart from the created order. In the sense that what I mean by that is their reality of our understanding would never be there without us being a part of that reality. And so I'm going to read some things here that you've heard a hundred times, but just good to establish. Evil is the absence of good where good ought to be. It is a deprivation, a lack. In the process of sin, the will does not turn toward something evil, but only toward a lesser good. Evil is making a bad use of good things, right? We've talked about this. Sin is sin ever, ever, ever in the action. This is not a trick question. Never is sin in the action. Okay, why? I just told you why at the beginning of what we were talking about. Why can sin never be in your movement? Come on. Because in Him we live and move. If you've murdered someone, who caused you to move when you used the gun? Did you do it independently? Did you do it self-existently? God caused your movement. What was the motive of your movement? Righteousness or evil? Evil. Right? So where's sin located? In my motive. When the burglar broke into Jeff's house, it was going to tried to harm his family, and Jeff shot the burglar, and he died. Who moved Jeff's hands to shoot the gun? Did Jeff sin? What was Jeff's motivation? Protection of his family. Same act. Same act. Sin lies not in the action, but in the motive. Always in the motive. Notice how we're separating now God from you in action. This becomes really, really, really important. Really, really important how we think about that. So, as I said, evil is making bad use of good things. This is so because there are no evil things in the world created by a good God. No created thing is evil so far as it is naturally existent. Nothing is evil in anything except a diminishing of the good. Bhavik. If sin were a substance, there would exist an entity that either was not created by God or was not caused by God. Impossibility. Sin, accordingly, has to be understood and described neither as an existing thing nor as being in things that exist, but rather as a defect, a deprivation, an absence of good, or as a weakness in balance, just as blindness is a deprivation of sight. It's a lack. That's what sin and evil are. Okay. Questions on that? I want to read to you something I thought was helpful this week that I came across from a Italian theologian. Gerolamo Zanke, I'm going to read this to you. He says, every action as such is undoubtedly good in being an actual exertion of those operative powers given us by God for that very end. God therefore may be the author of all actions, which he is, and yet not be the author of evil. An action is constituted evil in three ways. Let me pause here. What makes an action good? How do you know you're doing a good work? Give me the confession answer. Movement, amoral. Am I sinning right now? I look dumb, but I'm not sinning. Am I doing a good work right now? How do I know I'm not doing a good work? How do I know I'm not sinning or doing good right now and doing this? Well, how do I know? How do I know if I would have followed that out? I could have been moved into sin if I keep going. How do I know? What's a good work? How do I know I'm doing a good work? How do you know Monday morning you're carrying out good works? What do they have to be? Describe by God's law. Yep. By God's word. No, you 100% right on. Describe by God's word. So they're in alignment with the truth of God's word. What's their aim? God's glory. And what's the power that I use? Cam said, by what? By faith. My dependence is upon him, not on me. By faith, in accordance with the truth, aim for God's glory. That's a good work. So when my actions are towards that end, I know I'm doing a good work. Zahnke says evil and evil work is the opposite of that which makes perfect sense doesn't it when you think about it and he'll go on to say an Action is constituted evil three ways by proceeding from a wrong principle Right, so it's not by faith I'm not acting by faith here. I'm acting by fear. I'm acting by greed and acting by lust. I'm acting by pride by being directed to a wrong end and self-centeredness not God's glory, right and Being done in a wrong manner Not according to God's Word But by lying or cheating or stealing does that make sense? So in that reality your motions in life are an amoral reality What gives them good or evil comes in the motivation of the heart. Are you aiming for the glory of God, depending on him by faith to walk out in the word? Then you are doing a good work by God's grace that he has enabled you to do. Are you aiming at the opposite of these things? Then you are walking in evil. And God is moving you both of those categories now when God when you do a good work and you carry it out did you carry that good work out in your own strength did God cause you to move And did God cause you to will? And did God cause you to act? And did God cause all of it actively moving upon you in such a way as to give you what you did not have? In good works. Can man do good works apart from the spirit of the living God? No. And so God is acting in you efficaciously, right? He's working in you efficiently to bring that about. He's moving upon you in a way that apart from Him, you couldn't do it. Now, when you sin, is God efficiently and effectually causing you to sin? What is He doing? And don't say nothing. What is God doing when you sin? This is back from last week. Think about permissive will. Think about permissive will here. God doesn't have three wills. He has one will. We understand His will. Three ways from our finite understanding right decree precept and permissive good Joel So so in God's permissive will remember we talked about this God's will is free completely free Does he have to give the same amount of mercy to Nate as he does to Cam? Does he have to give the same amount of goodness to Chris as he does to Taylor? No. Does he have to do good when he acts? Yes. Can he measure that goodness by his will? Yes, right. God has got ultimate power. But as God decreed it powerfully that all men be saved. No. So his will is free. In that regard, then he can will to effectually renew Chris's heart, enabling him to do what he commands. Yes. Praise God, right? Thank God for election, predestination, effectual calling and regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification. Praise God for his effectual work in Chris' life to bring that about. At the same time, in those who are workers of evil, could God have stopped Pharaoh from hardening his heart? and he willfully didn't. Not because he hardened Pharaoh's heart actively, right? Here's where scripture again, we've got to get our categories right. He actively, willfully withheld from Pharaoh what he could have given him, but just decreed not to. He could have efficaciously willed that Pharaoh not harden his heart and set the people free. He could have efficaciously made that happen by giving Pharaoh a heart that obeyed him. He withheld that power. He withheld that grace. He willfully chose not to give it. and left Pharaoh to himself, and Pharaoh was what kind of man in himself? An evil sinner. So what's Pharaoh going to do when God withholds special grace from him? He's going to work according to his nature. Secondary causality, concurrence, and he's going to carry out what God has decreed to happen. with evil, and that evil ultimately turning out for good because God has willed the good to end in it. But using, causing the evil, but not causing it in the same way Pharaoh caused it. Pause there. We tracking with that? We understanding that? Oh, go ahead, Scott. Well, we would say special grace. Yeah, we'd say special grace. God has willfully chosen not to give special sanctified or salvific grace to some humanity, the non-elect. He willfully chose that. It wasn't a, I chose these and these are the leftovers and whatever happens to them happens. I willfully am going to affect their salvation, and I'm willfully not going to affect theirs. One is an active and one is a passive, but it is, again, I know this sounds like a contradiction, a paradox, it is an active passive. An active passive. God said, I will not give them this. And this is how they, this is what reprobation is. He didn't infuse sin into them. He didn't infuse rebellion into them. He didn't keep them rebelling by forcing them to rebel. He just simply didn't give them what would change it. He didn't give them what would reverse it. He didn't give them what would restrain it. He did give you that. He did give that to you. Not because you were better than Pharaoh. So we pray today, who are we that we should receive that, that grace? No one. We're no one. Right? It's God's sovereign, free, decreed of will. Yep, go ahead, brother. For what at that point freedom from the law as a means of earning our our covenant relationship with God are keeping it so freedom there is we've been set free from the Demands of the law in obedience to God for life Because those that law has not been set aside it has been upheld so freedom in that regard is that but freedom in regards to our relationship in which we are creatures is a dependent freedom, right? It is a subordinate freedom. It is always a freedom within, not a freedom without, meaning apart from God. So Just we're talking about when the Bible uses freedom context is going to matter What are we being taught when we talk about freedom free from what or free how or in relation to whom? So that does come into play So Decree God has decreed all things in such a way as to validate secondary causes in the decree Concurrently His will, your will, his choices, your choices, working together for the same end, concurring together, working together in the same act. You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. That's what we're talking about. Right. And in that. There are means of causality, which we'll get into more next week as we get into a few more talking about distinct areas of causality. But first, when we talk about that, we're just getting it from that causality. If God's moving me and I'm sinning, how is God not the author of sin? Two ways. One is sin is not a substance. We've got to always have that in our minds. It's a deprivation. And secondly, we talked about The idea that when that reality comes to pass, it is us in our actions and God either not giving or giving what we need to fulfill the commands. He's either withholding what he could give us or he is giving what we need in order to obey. But he is not wrong in either one. He's not violating his own will or excuse me, his own being to do so. He's not bound to do so. God is not bound to give good to all creatures. He's not bound to do that. He is bound to be good. But he is not bound to give you All good in the same measure. His will does not bound him to do that, and that's how we understand the differences between those two things. Then we'll get into some of the idea of causality, or different causes, okay? All right. Good? So just, if you're gonna go home, and you should this week, causality, what is second causes? Kids, this week, ask your dad what second causes are. Ask your dad what concurrence means. Right? Ask your dad where sin is located. Ask your dad what evil is. Dads, answer your kids. Help them. Right. All right. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these realities. We thank you that you have helped us to understand them by your teachers throughout the history of the church, articulating for us in very succinct words in our confession that is being drawn out of the realities of scripture that help us understand how you are the sovereign decree of all things. And yet sin, you are not the author of. We are thankful to be able to make good distinctions here and understand that. We pray that you will solidify these things in our minds as we continue our walk and journey with you. We pray that week after week, they'll take more root and eventually, Lord, produce a bountiful amount of fruitfulness, not only for our souls, but the souls of our children and the souls of this community to the ends of the earth. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.