Lay down your sweet and weary head Night is falling, you've come to journey there From tent-toting patriarchs greeting promises from afar, to vagabonds and vagrants doomed to wander in a wasteland, God's people never saw final satisfaction in the journey, traveling and stuff going. We seek the promised land, a city with foundations, whose designer and builder is God, aiding you on towards the destination. Welcome to Journey's End. Happy New Year. This is the first day of 2012. And it also happens to be the Lord's Day. It's a great day for many people because they look at it as a way to start over. That's what people do on New Year's Day. They make resolutions and they want to change their life. But today might also be a scary day for some people because they've heard predictions of doom in the newspaper that the end of the world is going to take place in just under a year from now when the Mayan calendar runs out. These two perspectives are somewhat in conflict. One is basically a rosy view of the future. that says that the future is open to change. The other is basically pessimistic and says that we are doomed to come to an abrupt and horrible end. Good afternoon. You're listening to Journey's End, a radio show where we talk about walking the journey with hope, hope that comes from fixing our eyes on Journey's End. Good afternoon. I'm Doug Van Dorn, pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado, and with me is Tony Jackson, pastor of Reformation Baptist Church. Tony, in our bumper music, Annie Lennox sings, You Have Come to Journey's End. In light of what I just said about the presumed end of the Mayan calendar, has our music just tipped our hat? Should our listeners think that we have taken sides on this conflict about how we should view 2012 and the end of the world? Do we think that it's coming to an end in about 12 months from now? Well, I don't know, Doug. In fact, after this radio show, I was thinking about running out to Costco and buying some big bags of rice and beans just in case. No, I'm just kidding. I do believe that the world could come to an end if God wanted it to, but it's certainly not because of the Mayan calendar. In fact, the context of the end of that song is Frodo's journey in the Lord of the Rings. So you mean we're not supposed to take songs out of context? They actually have a meaning of their own? I can breathe easier and I can sleep tonight knowing that the world probably won't end at the end of this year. So does that mean we believe that the future is undetermined and that we can influence it? Well, that's really kind of a trick question, Doug. Not exactly. We do believe that human choices influence a future which we humans don't know about. But this doesn't mean that we believe that the future is undetermined, and that's really an important distinction. God does use our choices as part of the means that he has chosen to accomplish the future that he has planned out. We believe that human choices are real, but they work as a part of God's grand design that he has predestined. A planned future and human choices are not incompatible, but they're friends. So God can plan something and we can also make choices and these two things don't contradict each other. You just use the word there, the word predestined. It's a word that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, sometimes rightly so, because there's a lot of teachers that pervert the teaching of predestination and what it means from the Bible. But there's also students that as they're listening to the doctrine, they also pervert it. And so sometimes it's not justified that they get so upset about the term. We don't want to go there just yet. Let me tell you where I'm going to go with this. We have a plan for our own show. And unlike God, we may not carry out our plan exactly as we determined. We have shows set in order here for the next few weeks. Even a design to take us to the end of the year. We may not carry that out. But we're thinking about the story of redemption and looking at it through the lenses of the journey and the journey's end. And earlier I said that fixing our eyes on the hope of the journey's end actually gives us hope and power to walk the journey. But that presupposes that the journey's end is in some way already a done deal. So I thought that rather than going to the end of the story, it might be helpful for our listeners, if we go to the very beginning of the story, and I'm not talking about creation, I'm talking about before creation, before there was a heaven and earth, when God was in heaven planning out all that we see come to pass in history, and especially redemptive history. Okay, so when we think about history, Doug, How do most people think about what actually happens in our lives, what actually happens in history? How do people believe or what do they believe that actually drives history and brings us through our lives? Well, I think that it's pretty different than what we just set forward there about predestination. There's probably a couple of things. One would be the idea of chance that that history is just a matter of chance, just happened that way, the universe just kind of exploded into being, just happened, it was just a coincidence. And so then the future doesn't have any meaning either because it's all just a matter of chance. The only meaning it has is the meaning that we give to it. The other one I think is an idea of fate and fate is kind of the opposite of chance and yet in some ways it's the same thing as chance because fate and chance, neither one of them have a mind, do they? They just happen. So there's a song that I love that Dan Fogelberg sings called The Nexus. Check out these words. Outside the pull of gravity beyond the spectral veil. He's talking about the other world there, the spectrals. Within our careful reasoning we search to no avail for the constant in the chaos. That was the line that caught my attention. For the fulcrum in the void following a destiny our steps cannot avoid. So, in the song, he's actually combining chance and fate. He says, we're looking for a constant in chaos, and my question is, how can you find meaning in chaos? How can there be a constant? And yet, he's also saying that we can't avoid our destiny. So, he's talking about fate at the same time. It's very strange to me. Yeah, and I think a lot of people struggle with the contradiction between these things. Fate is something that's obviously very big in our culture. You know, you watch a lot of movies, especially the ones my wife likes me to watch with her, the chick flicks, and we're always talking about fate. Do you believe in fate? That somehow we'll meet again and it'll bring us together, and one person always believes in fate and the other one doesn't. Yes, Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack. Yeah, there you go. Right. So, at the end of the movie, you know, they somehow get brought back together because of this idea of fate. What is fate? It's an impersonal force that's driving them towards something they can't understand. Yeah, like in that movie, she writes down her phone number or whatever, but doesn't put her last name in a book. And then the book gets sold. And so he's just looking for this book for the next 20 years or whatever. And then he finds the book. And then he finds the girl. But there's no meaning to him finding the book. It wasn't planned that way. It just happened. Yeah, so there are both the idea of chance, it just really kind of comes out of chaos, there's no plan to it, but somehow there's a fate, somehow there's something driving them to that conclusion. An impersonal force. And also I think that a lot of people think that the only way that the future and the past have meanings is human will. So there's a will, but it's not from the mind of God, it's from the mind of human beings. So how does the Bible view the idea of purpose in history? Well, it tells us that history is planned from the very, very, very beginning. We are confessing Protestants of the Reformed Baptist flavor. We have a confession of faith. We've talked about that before. And we have a paragraph in it, in a section called God's Decree, that actually is almost identical to the Presbyterians in it. And it explains the And this is something I think a lot of people don't understand, but it explains the uniform belief of all of the first-generation Protestants, whether they were Lutherans or Scottish Presbyterians or English, you know, Anglicans or Baptists. It doesn't matter. They all held this exact same view. Here's how our confession puts it. It divides it into two sections. One is to explain the what, and then another one is to kind of explain questions people might have. So let me read that. It says, From all eternity, God decreed all that should happen in time. And this he did freely and unalterably, consulting only his own wise and holy will. Yet in doing so, he does not become in any sense the author of sin, nor does he share responsibility for sin with sinners. Neither by reason of his decree is the will of any creature whom he has made violated. Nor is the free working of second causes put aside, rather it's established. In all these matters the divine wisdom appears, as also does God's power and faithfulness in effecting that which He has purposed." Wow, there are really several things going on in that. Yeah, and it's hard to listen to that on a radio program, especially when you're driving or something. And it tells a lot of stuff. It does. One of the things, obviously, that it says, in fact you emphasized it, is that God consults only his own wise and holy will. So, it's not that God is open to the future, open to suggestion, if you will. You know, there have been a number of theologians that have written books about open theology, and they've proposed this idea that God is sort of waiting to see what's going to happen in the future, and this confession speaks very clearly against that idea. God's not rolling the dice. He's not a good numbers guy. He's not just running the numbers and guessing what's going to happen in the future. It actually says that he predetermines what's going to happen in the future according to his own wise and holy will. You brought up earlier to me that we both have written books and what would happen if you started taking people's suggestions for what should be in your book How would that make you feel? Well, actually there are a lot of books like that roaming around today. You may have heard of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Those are books that are written by a lot of different contributors. That was written way before my time. Well, those kinds of books are very popular today and maybe the reason they're popular is because so many people get to give their opinion. One of the reasons that blogging is so popular is because, you know, you read an opinion piece on a blog or a news site, and what do you read after you read the piece that the author writes? Everybody else's opinion. Right. Everybody gets to contribute. We live in a mash-up society where everybody wants their voice to be heard. But I'll tell you, when I'm writing a book, it's what I want to tell people. Yeah. Because I think I would hope that I would have something to contribute, otherwise I wouldn't want to write the book. And that's really the difference between what's going on in terms of understanding redemptive history from creation to new creation by way of redemption, understanding that what God has given us in scripture is really a story about God. It's really a story about the drama that he is writing in history. And so when we speak about predestination, we really need to talk about it in the context of this idea of story or narrative. Now, what's wrong with our thinking today about this idea of a story? I don't think there's anything at all wrong with it. In fact, it can be a very helpful analogy, as long as, when we're talking about the Bible, that we realize that the story of the Bible is not our story, like you just mentioned, but that it's God's story. He's writing it. It's about Him. It's primarily about displaying His glory to creation, and doing that through His Son, from beginning of Genesis all the way to the end, and about sending the Spirit And we get to be actors in the story, but I think too many times the modern story, you know, in post-modernism, it's all about narratives and meta-narratives and all this kind of stuff. But we're all writing our own story, and it's about us. And I think too often Christians can get this idea that the Bible is their story. And God plays second fiddle. He's the supporting actor, but they get to get the Oscar at the very end of the show because it's about them. Now, how often have we heard it said that, you know, in my life I put God first, I put country second, family third, you know, whatever. However we organize that in our minds, you know, it's the idea of bringing God into our lives. In fact, that's even the language that we have adopted in many cases, even in Christianity. People talk about accepting Jesus into their hearts as if We are the ones who need to invite God into our lives rather than God writing us into his story and telling us why we need to repent and turn to Christ in order to be saved. It reminds me of the verse that Jesus tells the disciples, and we often talk about it in terms of predestining salvation. He says, you didn't choose me, but I chose you. Well, we can talk about predestination, but The thing that I find remarkable about it is that God is choosing us. God is the one writing the story and for whatever reason he's decided to write the story with us in it. It's a more remarkable thing than to say that I'm writing my own story and he gets to be in my story. Paul said to the Corinthians, by his doing you are in Christ Jesus. There are verses that we can go to that would be more general than about salvation that would tell us that God is actually writing the whole story ahead of time. There's a passage in Isaiah 46 verses 9 to 10 that come to my mind. God says, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose. Wow, that's a great verse. Notice in verse 10, He said, declaring the end from the beginning. When an author writes something, when he puts his pen to the paper, his fingers to the keyboard, and he writes down words, he's really declaring something, isn't he? He's not looking in to see what somebody else is going to do. He's actually purposing it himself. Yeah, and that's why he says, my counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish my purpose. So if we think about that in terms of a narrative, if we think about that in terms of the story, What we recognize, as we've already said, is that the whole story from beginning to end is being written. God's not waiting for the end to be revealed. He's actually given us the entire story so that we can know how we fit into his story. Okay, so we've kind of talked about the beginning of, if we go back to the chapter, the paragraph in our confession, we've kind of talked about that first part. From all eternity, God decreed all that should happen, and he did it freely. of his own will. But then it starts talking about things that I think a lot of people have a lot of questions about, frankly. For example, this, in so doing he does not become in any sense the author of sin. Why in the world would they want to add that kind of a thought? What we tend to think with our sinful minds about predestination is that if God is the author of his decree of everything that takes place in heaven and on earth, from the beginning to the end, and that just makes us little robots. And why should we care about what we do in our life? Because God has decreed it anyway. Isn't that the attitude a lot of people have? I've heard that so many times, that if predestination is true, then we're all just a bunch of robots. Our confession actually affirms that there is a human will, and that the human will does things freely. The problem is that before this, it has told us, as the Bible tells us, that our wills are in slavery to sin. And because they're in slavery, they do it. They do freely, but they only want to do one thing, and that's to sin. So they're not out there running towards God for the same reason that criminals don't run towards the police station. Yeah, so I have a dog, and my dog doesn't really like vegetables very much. It really would prefer to eat meat. If I would give my dog meat every day, the dog would be a very happy dog. Why? Because it's built into its nature to eat meat. So our wills do what our nature tells them to do. Yeah. Martin Luther actually wrote a great book called The Bondage of the Will. It was one of the first books that I read that helped me think through some of this and recognize that we do have a will and our will is free, but we always choose to do that which is according to our nature. And if our nature is bound to sin, If it's bound to do the things that we want to do in our sinful condition, then that's what we're always going to do. Now, because of God's mercy, he holds us back from becoming as evil as we might become, but we recognize that our will is in fact bound to who we are. You know, a lot of people will view this topic, like I said earlier, they'll get pretty upset about it. There's a verse here that can really make a lot of people mad that I think about when Peter was preaching one of his very first sermons, and he's talking about what happened to Jesus. And he says that they were in the city and they were gathered together against Jesus, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever God's hand had predestined and planned to take place. Now that makes people mad because they don't like the predestination and planning part, but what's really remarkable is that he preaches this in the context of a sermon. How is that going to solve anything in a sermon. So earlier in the passage you read from Isaiah, Isaiah was talking about kind of the big picture that God has planned whatever comes to pass according to his own will. In Acts chapter 4 in this passage you just referred to, it's actually talking about, this is important to think about, he's speaking here about events that actually took place in history. So we move from kind of the general to the specific. From God's plan and purpose in history, that's kind of the big picture, to actions that people actually did. So yeah, I can see why you would think that that might make some people mad. So what I was thinking is it helps his cause in preaching the sermon because these are the very people that put Jesus to death. He's saying, look, he just killed him. But by the way God predestined that it would happen. No, he doesn't leave them there and say, well, no, you're all going to be damned to hell for it. He actually says that God did this. He planned it predestined for your good, because if he didn't do this, then you couldn't be saved. There's a wonderful picture of that in the story of Joseph going down into Egypt. And Joseph, when he's confronted by his evil brothers, they think that now he's the Pharaoh's right-hand man, that he's going to condemn them. You meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. So both of those things are working together. This is a hard topic. You can't really get very deep into the topic, but I think that we need to spend a minute asking some kind of practical questions here about how in the world is realizing that the story is written ahead of time supposed to help me on the journey now? And that's kind of what the intro of this show was about and kind of what we wanted to do in talking about the pre-written journey. How does that help me to know this? Well, I think first of all, Doug, we need to deal with, there's another passage of scripture, just briefly. Deuteronomy 29, 29 says, the secret things belong to the Lord, but that which has been revealed to us are for us and our children forever. That is the law of God. So in Deuteronomy 29, he actually tells us that there are two wills of God, if you will. There's the secret will of God and there's the revealed will of God. So back to your question, how does this help us in the journey and how does it help us get to the journey's end? I think first of all we need to admit that there is such a thing as the secret will of God. The fact that it's secret means that we don't know what it means. So we're not to spend our life in speculation. And a lot of people do that. They speculate into the things God has kept secret, and that does not help you walk on the journey today. If anything, it does the exact opposite. John Calvin uses the example of a labyrinth. If you've ever seen movies of old castles where underground they would have these systems of mazes that once you get in, you can't get out. And he says that trying to peer into the secret predetermined plan of God, like why he would choose me, why he wouldn't choose somebody else, how he goes about making his decisions, you enter into those places that he hasn't told you about, you will go into the labyrinth and you will never come out. It's not helpful at all. No, it isn't. The second part of that verse, the revealed will of God, is what's helpful. So, we recognize the fact that scripture does teach. So, asserting the fact that scripture and that God himself teaches us that there is a secret will of God and that God has predetermined and predestined all that will come to pass. All that's confessing is that there is a secret will of God. We admit it and it's a good thing to admit it. It's not a secret thing that there are secret things. It has been revealed that there are secret things. It has been revealed that God predetermines So we're to accept it because that has been revealed. Yeah, so we're not to become angry with God, but rather we're to trust God because he's a good God. Exactly. So we read predestination in terms of his nature and his character. He's holy. He's righteous. All that he does is good. He's loving. He's kind. He's compassionate. Tolerant. All of these kinds of things. And yet he's given us his revealed will, and it is his revealed will which gets us to the journey's end. And knowing that God is powerful enough to bring it about is what gives us the comfort and hope on the journey. Yeah, that's right. And it's a very profound experiential thing that I have come to understand, and I have a lot of friends that have as well. I'd like to thank you for joining us on this edition of Journey's End on this New Year's Day. Don't go home thinking that the world's going to end, because I don't think it's going to. Although God doesn't have an end to the world. We'll see you again next time. Journey's End is a production of the Reformed Baptist Churches serving the Front Range. Our show is dedicated to helping Christians think deeply about their faith and helping them understand that the destination is the purpose of the journey. At www.ColoradoReformation.com you will find an increasing number of helpful tools. We have local churches in the southern and northern metro areas to assist you in understanding both the journey and the journey's end. Our worship services are Christ-centered and driven by the teachings of Scripture. This leads to our people seeking to emulate our Savior through kindness and humility. We are rooted in the historic creeds of Christianity and our traditions arose out of the Protestant Reformation. We invite you to head to our website www.ColoradoReformation.com for more information. That's www.ColoradoReformation.com. We look forward to being with you again next week. to see