We've been here, I think, a couple years. It's good to be with y'all again. Thank you ladies for the food that we had tonight. It was wonderful. Everyone else that was involved in it, I always say the ladies, I don't know, men might be involved in it as well, so we always thank you for that. The hospitality, the hotel rooms, man, it's wonderful to have a hotel just right down the street and not have to Fight through all the traffic in Oklahoma City to get here. It's a blessing. Thank you so much again Turn with me if you would this evening over to Psalm 33 Psalm 33 Whenever I sent my messages to Brother Royce, I sent this message along with another one that was actually going to be one sermon that I was going to preach at my church, and yet it seemed it was going to be too long, so we split it into two parts. And so I thought, well, I'll just give him both of those, and I'll make a two-part sermon there, and maybe he'll pick that one. The Lord led him to it, so I'm glad he did. But a wonderful study that the Lord brought me through, and a comforting one. When we speak of the sovereignty of God, when we speak of the efficacious nature of Christ's death, when we speak of the victorious work that Christ has accomplished, finished, On behalf of His people, it's comforting to those who have ears to hear. There was a time in my life that it was a troubling message to me, a message I didn't like to hear, that I didn't care for at all. You can ask Tom. We had a few conversations back and forth. I didn't like the message at all. But I thank the Lord that He gave me a heart and a mind to understand these things and to love them, and I do love these things. You know, Brother Tom, I don't know whether to call you Brother Tom or Uncle Tom. You'll answer to any of them, right? I've often been called a mystic as well. And most of the time, the guys that call me a mystic call me a mystic because I believe that the Holy Spirit can teach somebody without the aid of a man. And that the Holy Spirit can quicken and convert and grant repentance and faith without the work of any man. And people say, well, you're just a mystic. How in the world can that happen without somebody being there to do the job? Well, praise the Lord that he does it in spite of men. Brother, I'm glad to be called a mystic if that's what one is called. But brethren, as Brother Tom said, all we have is the Word of God. That's where truth is found. Truth isn't found in your pastor or me or any other pastor. Truth isn't found in a confession or a creed or a commentary or a cemetery. Truth is only found in God alone and He has given us His word. He is revealed. Is this all the truth that there is? I don't know, He's only given us this. But everything that He has given us is truth. And the only truth. And if it doesn't coincide and go along with what this truth is, it's not truth. No matter how many books are written about it, no matter how many theologians says it is, This is God's Word, it's the final authority. And so we want to look to God's Word tonight to see what it has to say about our God. If we wanna know anything about God, we gotta go to where it's told to us, right? We gotta go to His Word. He has revealed Himself to us. Now the Bible says that can a man find out God by searching? And that's a rhetorical no. No, we can't find out God by searching. We're never gonna find the end of it, and we're gonna never exhaust it. We can't do it. But praise the Lord, He has revealed Himself to some degree in His Word, and what we believe about God must come from here. Not about what comes from in here. The heart is deceitfully wicked above all things, and who can know it? Our heart wants to tell us about a God that is kind of conformed to us, right? What we like. But yet, whenever we come to find out anything about the Lord, we've got to come to find out what He has revealed about Himself. And whenever we find in Scripture that God has revealed something about Himself, if God so give us an enabling to do so, we submit to that. And we say, well, whatever I thought, or whatever I learned, or whatever grandma told me, or whatever, you know, aunt or uncle so-and-so said, or whatever anybody said, that's different, I'm going to have to just turn away from that, that's not truth. And so tonight we want to look and see what does the Bible say about God and His purpose? What does God say about Himself and about everything that He does? So turn with me to Psalms 35 or 33 and I'm going to start reading actually in verse 8, but we're going to mainly be looking at verse 11. This is going to be the background to lots of verses that we're going to look at tonight, but I want you to turn fast with me because I want to move fast through these verses to show some of these things. Psalm 33 and verse 8, it says, Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. One of these days that is going to happen, brethren. It's not happening now, but one of these days that's going to happen. For he spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Can't say that about anybody else. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught. He maketh the devices of the people of none effect." You think the world's going out of control? You think what's going on in our country right now with what the leaders that we've got is crazy and that they're just going to run it all into the dirt? Listen, they're not doing anything that the Lord has not purposed for them to do. Everything is by His purpose. And he is the one who has set them up. He's the one who will take them down. And so they can't do anything. He bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught. He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. They think they're going to throw him out. They think they're going to You know, get everybody to move away from God and all these types of things. Let's quit having prayer. Let's quit using God's name. Let's get Him off our money. Let's do all this stuff. Listen, they can do all those things, but one of these days He's going to bring the heathen and their counsel and their devices to nought. And here we go, verse 11, the counsel of the Lord, it standeth forever. The thoughts of His heart to all generations. Now tonight, we're gonna use this backdrop in my next sermon that we're gonna use as well, but I mainly wanna focus here in verse 11 on the portion that says, the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his hearts to all generations. If you noticed in your bulletin, tonight is the purpose of God is eternal, and my next message is the purpose of God is immutable, and I think we find both of those in this passage. We can see that in both these passages. But first I want to talk about the eternality of God's purpose. Now, whenever we look in scripture, the words thought, the words counsel, the words purpose, God's will, God's pleasure, all those things, a lot of times we can kind of get murky with those and we seem to always use those interchangeable. Matter of fact, the Bible does use those interchangeable in some areas. Matter of fact, if you look at the Greek and Hebrew behind some of these words, you'll find that those other words are used in the translation of the scriptures. You'll see they're translated those words in other places. But I'm compelled to say that even though those words are interchangeable in God's Word, and even though those have very close similarities in their definitions and how they're used in Scripture, I'm compelled to think that there is a little bit of difference, there's some nuances between them things, and I believe that they, if you allow me this, because it's hard to speak of this when you're speaking of eternality, but I believe that there is a progression in how they work. know the Bible says in Proverbs that the, that the, that the counsel is, or the purpose is, is, well it just went out of my mind. The purpose is governed by the counsel of God. That the purpose is governed by the counsel. So if the purpose is affected by the counsel, then that means there's something different between those two things. And here we see the thoughts of God's heart is to all generations. The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The thoughts of His heart to all generations. Is there a difference between them? And I think there is enough there. And I may be wrong about this, and I'm always open for correction whenever I might misspeak of these things. And I pray that God Gives me to speak truth. But as I've been given to understand, the thoughts of God seem to speak of the ideas of God. The inmost motive and desire of God. Now whenever I say desire, I don't mean desire as though something is missing or deficient in God. But desire as in a directed, deliberate, and self-sufficient motive to act. Whenever the Bible uses thought, and I believe that kind of coincides with His will, that it speaks of the inner motive of God, His deliberate, self-sufficient desire to act, okay? At some point, God desired, or determined, or said, I'm going to create. And He did. And he said, I'm gonna create this, and I'm gonna create it just like this, and that's gonna happen this way, and this is how it's gonna end, which we'll get to in a minute. But God had a thought, a desire to act, but it was a self-sufficient desire. It wasn't something that was coming from the outside, coercing him. We know that God is self-existent. He is the I am, that nothing affects him, nothing makes him do what he does. He does what he does because it's his own will. It's his own pleasure. I see the counsel of God speaking of the determining within that Godhead an orderly way to carry out the thoughts and motives of God. The Godhead counsels within itself. It doesn't take counsel outside of itself. The Bible says that who can be God's counselor? Nobody can. God doesn't take counsel from anybody. We like to try to give God counsel, but God doesn't take counsel from anybody. The only counsel that God has is within Himself. And so therefore, the thoughts, the desires, that self-motivated will of God or desire of God to act is then determined and is carried out, and His motives then become action. And then we see the purpose of God, and I believe that that speaks of that determined plan that comes out of the counsel of God, and then that decree to accomplish the thoughts of God's heart. His purpose is what God has counseled to do that has come from the desire of His heart. And so His purpose, the Bible says here, The counsel of the Lord standeth forever the thoughts of His heart to all generations." So the desire of what God has determined to do within the counsel of Himself has become now a purpose and God has set that into action. And God moved upon the face of the waters. And He said, let there be light. And from there on, and here we are today, and it's going to reach on in until he comes back again. God is doing whatever he's doing, and it all comes back to the thoughts of his heart. But it says here that the thoughts of his heart is to all generations. Now, at first glance, we might pass by this, but brethren, if you think about it, the only way that God's thoughts can be to all generation is for those thoughts to have taken place before generations began. So when generation one started, God's thoughts were already made, counseled, and a purpose in place for that generation to know, and to experience, and to see, and if by His grace, praise and worship. Luke, if you would with me to Isaiah chapter 46. Isaiah 46, starting in verse 9, the Bible says, Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is none else. I am God and there is none like me. Now that ends all debate about other gods. Right? That ends all debates. He says, I am God and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times the things that are not yet done saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. Now, if you'll look there at verse 10, he says, declaring the end from the beginning. So God in his thoughts, in his counsel, in his purpose has declared all things the end from the beginning. Now, if you look closely in Scripture, whenever the Scripture uses the word, from the beginning, that generally means from the foundation of the world, before things began. It is at the point of the beginning. So we would call that an eternity. Before time was eternity. How it all works, I don't know. Ask Brother Royce, he might know. I don't. All I know is it was eternal. There was no time before he created time. Does things happen in eternity? Yes, it does. We know that Christ took on his role as the mediator before the foundation of the world, but he has not always been that. The Bible says that Christ was possessed of God before the mountains were created, before all things was created. The first creation of God, Christ was that man that God made to be the mediator between God and man. And it was before the foundation of the world. So we know things happened before creation that happened in sequence of things as far as we can understand, as far as God has revealed them to us. This says here, declaring the end from the beginning. So God has declared everything and how it is going to end. And He's done that from the very beginning. So some people say, well, God's predestination, Tom alluded to absolute predestination, I too believe in absolute predestination. I believe everything is predestinated by God. Every grass that moves when the wind blows, I believe everything is predestinated of God, everything. Not one thing is not predestinated, everything's predestinated. Now this right here says that He has declared all things, the end from the beginning, But it says, and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done. So what does that mean? Well, if he's declared the end from the beginning and all things that are not yet done, that means everything from the beginning that are yet to take place until it gets to the end, that would move me to believe that everything is everything. He has declared everything from that point of the beginning to the point of the end, everything in between is that thing. The things of ancient times that have not yet been done means everything from the beginning point to the ending point. And no, God doesn't react to things in time. Oh, here's the ending purpose that I have. Oh, this guy's getting out of the way, and that's going to mess up my purpose, so I better change some stuff to get him in. No, listen, the reason he went out of the way, or as some would say, out of God's will, was because God desired him to go out of God's will. The reason that anything happens and everything that happens is not a chaotic mess, it is a divinely ordered, I mean down to the very minutest thing, purpose of God. To get to that end. If you think about people having free will to just make choices and their free choices can decide this or that and all this stuff. And there's an ending thing that God has determined from the beginning and all the things that are not yet been done, if He's determined all those things, how in the world can there be a free will to choose or to choose otherwise? Because if you choose to choose otherwise, then somebody might choose something that might not get to the end. But brethren, if God has determined all things, the end from the beginning, than even those otherwise choosings were part of God's purpose as well. The wrath of man shall praise him, the remainder of wrath he will restrain. He has created all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of destruction. And I would even say the wicked and what their wicked hands do, as we will soon see. He says, declaring the end from the beginning from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. God's purpose is from eternity, it is eternal. He thought, He counseled, He purposed, and He declared and is bringing about all things by His providence to its ultimate end. Turn with me to Acts chapter 15 and verse 18. Acts 15 and verse 18. Scripture says, known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Now what does that mean, preacher? Well, I would say declaring the end from the beginning and all things that are not yet done, everything in between is his works. Here it says, known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. So God knows from all eternity everything that is going to happen from the beginning clear to the end. Romans chapter 9 and verse 11. You say, that's kind of a weird jump. Well, here's the thing. The purpose of God that is eternal that is mostly spoken of throughout scripture. In fact, the majority of scripture, if not almost all the scripture, speaks of is the purpose of God according to election. See, we can talk about all the grandeur of God, which is great, and we should do that and worship and praise Him for who He is, but brethren, when that gets down to it, How does the eternality of God's purpose, as Tom said, meet my experience? How does it meet my experience? How does the gospel fit in with the eternal purpose of God? If God's purpose is eternal, then that means the gospel is eternal. If God's purpose is eternal and everything from the beginning clear to the end was purposed by God, then that means your salvation is eternal. Your salvation didn't begin at the moment that you believe. Brethren, your salvation was something that God had purposed before the foundation of the world. And you say, well, you know, these are just kind of nitpicky things that y'all like to get into arguments about in theological groups. Brethren, it is of utmost importance to the gospel that we understand these things because whenever people start talking about our salvation is hinged upon something that we do, whether it's our faith, whether it's our works, whether it's being baptized, joining a church, doing whatever, if somebody places salvation, and the hinge point being something that we must accomplish, then it's not the gospel. It's a false gospel. And the people that preach those things in the book of Galatians says they are not a servant of Christ. A servant of Christ is going to preach to you the gospel of the finished, accomplished work of Jesus Christ and what He has done and the salvation is in Him alone. And so what does that have to do with God's eternality and His purpose? Well, because if salvation is eternal and it began in eternity before time ever began, then it means that you had nothing to do with it, you can't get your hands on it, you can't mess it up, and you can't hinder it. Salvation is a perfect work from a perfect God, perfectly orchestrated, perfectly finished, perfectly being carried out, and will perfectly be consummated at the end. And God knows all His works, and nobody's going to change his mind about it. It says, for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but him that calleth. God's purpose includes, and I would say primarily is, according to election. We see this often in the scriptures, that God's purpose having to do with God's choosing. God's redemptive plan of a people that He has given to Christ, and that Christ has died for, and that Christ has done everything as a substitute on their behalf. His obedience, our obedience. His death, our death. His resurrection, our resurrection. His glorification, our glorification. And so whenever we see that God's purpose is according to election, is God's purpose to glorify Himself? Absolutely it is. But brethren, we can't add anything to God's glory. God is glorious in who He is. We can't make God more glorious than He is. He isn't waiting for us to glorify Him in the aspect of adding glory to Him. We glorify Him by praising Him. We are speaking forth His glory, but we don't make Him glory. But yet in the midst of all of His purpose in glorifying Himself, the way that God in the thoughts of His heart has decided to glorify Himself is in the redemption of a people. Through the work of His Son that just so happened to be a death on the cross. God's purpose that is eternal is strongly and deeply connected to His purpose of election. In Jeremiah 31 in verse 3, the Bible says, "...the Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee." You see here that God's love for His people is an everlasting, that's part of His purpose. His election is an election based upon His love. God foreloved us and gave us to Christ. We belong to the Father. He gave us to the Son. Christ prayed, Thine they were. Thine are mine and mine are thine. We belong to God. We are His workmanship. We are His. And He loves us. And the Bible tells us that He has loved us with an everlasting love. So that is why He elected us. The Bible says that before the foundation of the world, there were names written down in a book. And He also says there were names not written down in a book. God knows the names of all His creation and He chose to write some names down and chose not to write other names down. In choosing some to write their names down, giving them to Christ, He loved us. Choosing not, what does the Bible say? Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. That's a strong pill for us to swallow, isn't it? That God does hate. But the Bible reveals that about our God. In Matthew 25 verse 34, the Bible says, Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. The Lord prepared a kingdom from the foundation of the world for a specific group of people. Those who were called according to His purpose. Those who were elected according to the purpose of God in election. The eternal purpose of God included everything for those who would be redeemed. 2 Thessalonians 2.13 says, But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. He didn't choose you because you first chose Him. He chose you to salvation. He chose you to be saved in Christ Jesus. And he says that was from the beginning, before anything. How could it be your choice if God did it from the beginning? How can it be in your hands? How can it be your destiny for you to choose? I've often heard it said growing up, well, God's a gentleman. He would never push himself on anybody. Praise God He did. He said, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. In 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 20, the Bible says, who verily, speaking of Christ, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you. Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world. That's kind of what I was talking about a while ago. When we speak of Christ, we speak of Christ in the role of Messiah, of mediator, the role of intercessor, the role of prophet, priest, king. All those roles is when Christ assumed that. says he was foreordained as that before the foundation of the world. The Bible tells us very plainly that he stood as a lamb slain before the foundation of the world. That speaks of the work of Christ on our behalf as our mediator, as our substitute before the foundation of the world. Now in time did he actually come and manifest himself? Yeah, that's what the Bible just told us but in these last times it's manifest for us. But brethren he stood on our behalf as that before the foundation of the world. We were in Him before the foundation of the world. We often hear in sovereign grace and reformed circles that we are put into Christ at the moment that we believe. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that our union with Christ begins before the foundation of the world. That's when we were united with Him. Brethren, if we were not united with Him, Ephesians would need to be torn out of the book. Ephesians 1, because it says, we were blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. God's purpose and specifically God's purpose in election, redemption, salvation is eternal. We find probably the greatest passage that tells this in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 9 and I'll conclude with that. The Bible says, speaking of Christ again, who has saved us? Past tense, right? Are people getting saved? We hear that a lot in modern Christendom. quote-unquote Christendom. We're out there getting people saved who have saved us past tense and called us past tense. Now again, I'm open for correction on this, but as I understand, this calling isn't the same as our calling whenever God grants us repentance and faith. To me, this calling is where God called us out from all that He would create whenever He sanctified us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. who has saved us, and here's the reason why. He 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." If you'll notice there, in between the commas, grammatically I don't know what this is called, But he starts a thought, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. And then he interjects there, just to let you know, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace. But then he moves on with the thought. So if we lift that part out and go with the full thought, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So there was a salvation and a calling before the world began that had to do with us. Is there something that happens in time? Absolutely there is. Our experience of that. The manifesting of that. It says, "...which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began." But what does it say after that? "...but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Who has done what? Who has abolished sin. Who has brought what? Life and immortality to light through the gospel. See, the gospel didn't bring life to us. It told us of the life that we already had in Christ. The life that was hid with Christ in God. That's the life that is being told to us in the gospel. You've been given eternal life. Well, who is eternal life? You say, well, that's the wrong question. What is eternal life? Well, you could say, what is eternal life? But if you look at the Bible closely, you can ask, who is eternal life? Because the Bible says He is life. In Him is life. Our life is His life. And we were united to that. The Bible says that we were in Him. In Genesis we see the Bible teaches that there are A seed that is His. A generation, the Bible speaks of, that is His. A progeny. We are His children. That means that His life is our life. The Bible set down a principle. It said that everything that God made, He said that they reproduced after their own kind. Right? That's a principle that God laid down for every kind God has made that they reproduce after their own kind because their seed is in them. And we read in 1 Corinthians that we, yes from Adam, have a fleshly seed that is corrupt and cannot please God and it doesn't get any better. But we're also of a heavenly seed. a life that began in eternity, but yet now, as Tom said, we are experiencing now. See, we have life because the first life had all the other lives in Him. When God made the first apple tree, All other apples that ever come came because of the seed of the one apple tree because it contained all the life of the rest of its kind. And we are a spiritual seed. And our life comes from the spiritual root, the spiritual beginning that came from eternity. before the world began. So God's purpose in glorifying Himself was through the redemption found in Jesus Christ to a people who in Adam has no life, but yet in Christ has been given life. And the Gospel manifests that. It shows it forth. It declares it. It tells us the finished work of Jesus Christ on our behalf and our involvement in the inheritance because of what Christ has done. Why is it important for us to see that salvation and God's purpose is from eternity? Because, brethren, it can't be lost. Yes. It can't be earned. That's right. It can't be messed up for a little while and then gained back again. It can't be changed. And we'll see that here tomorrow night. But praise God that the Lord chose us It should humble us, brethren, to know. See, whenever we think it's about our choice, that puffs us up with pride. I thank you, Lord, that you have not made me like this sinner. Well, brethren, sovereign gracers can say, Lord, I thank you that you've chosen me and not made me a reprobate. It's easy to say that. Brethren, we should be humbled to see that before anything was ever thought of, before anything was ever created, God thought of us. And He counseled amongst Himself to have a people to redeem through His Son. And He purposed to do so. And by His grace, all that is being manifested now. Amen? Thank you so much for reminding me. Good teaching.