God's Sovereignty: Evil's Role in Christ's Glory

"everything exists including including the devil and his sin including adam and his sin for christ in order to make christ look great now i'm going to go further with this but before i do you say a word about why this matters and and why you should care about this least beginnings of it and i hope you'll hear more i think in in my preaching about in my ministry about helping people defensively and offensively in life pastors should be defending their people and should be mobilizing them for offensive action in the world and the the great defense is i want you to really really believe romans 8 28" [00:00:18]

"the story of joseph in the old testament has a line in it that my guess is all of you are familiar with with and it is so valuable here's a sentence okay we're into sentences so genesis 50 verse 20 is one of those sentences that you get in the devil's face with and you get in your other self's self with is talking to you and these brothers who sold him wickedly into slavery are cowering before him you remember after they discovered he's now the vice president in egypt and could wipe them out for their evil and he says to them as you remember you meant it for evil but god meant it for good" [00:05:36]

"the universe is to get hordes and hordes of people shaped into christ-likeness so that the older brother is radiant through them in the universe that's the good he is working in us a kind of image you know what images are for don't you images are for imaging so okay good that's luther i'm always trying to pair up the people up there with the speaker so i get luther hmm he kind of foul mouth wasn't he you're going somewhere with that and and macarthur had whitefield we won't talk about that anymore images images there's an image the point of the image is to image luther think luther that's why it's up there i guess images are for imaging when you are those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the first born among many images of him" [00:09:20]

"the kingship in israel belongs only to god period for a thousand years he made that plane and he wouldn't have made it plain if he'd skipped that chapter the kingship in israel belongs only to god clear thousand years don't ask for a king i'm king god says that's why i said in first samuel 8 7 they have rejected me from being king over them as they asked for themselves a king if he had started with abraham and isaac and jacob and moses and joshua and they were all kings everybody would have assumed well it's natural and appropriate that israel have a human king and god isn't the king people are kings that's not going to be the case now because he's had a thousand years of direct kingship over this people and the way the king comes into being is through treason so this is pretty clear god will be the only king in israel" [00:24:37]

"he means in doing it this way to inaugurate a line of human kings all of whom would fail except one all of them so you ever read first second samuel first second kings verse said chronicles what a litany of failure you think it's going well and suddenly somebody's in bed with somebody and chopping off somebody's head and doing last-minute revenge including david so he has now chosen to have a thousand-year season of direct kingship they want a king in rebellion against me i'll give them kings and they all fail that was important to see because it's pointing something do you remember the last thing jesus said to the pharisees that shut their mouths and they never said another word to him he said quoting psalm 110 verse 1 the lord yahweh says to my lord the messiah david is talking the lord says to my lord sit in my right hand until i make your enemies a footstool to which they respond david's son i guess he says if david calls him lord how is he his son" [00:25:15]

"judas was one of the twelve apostles christ chose him to be an apostle and he says in the gospel of john he knew from the beginning who would betray him this is a plan from the beginning christ never says oops and he didn't when he discovered what judas was about to do that night he was entrusted with the money bag where he proved himself to be a thief how many betrayals in ministry have come through the love of money but that too is another sermon he was sitting close enough with jesus at the last supper to dip the same cup you have 12 men judas has a very close place how did that come about he betrayed him in the garden with a kiss john michael talbott which probably none of you have ever heard about what's uh i'm i'm wrong michael card it's michael card who sang this song that's not what a kiss is for that's the line i remember from the song it's not what a kiss is for very powerful song very powerful line" [00:31:11]

"so he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd later in the garden he did it with a kiss and jesus death was sealed with a kiss question when it says satan entered into judas why would he do that didn't he know that if he seals the death of jesus he's committing suicide doesn't the devil know this because it's so clear that at the cross christ disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to a public shame triumphing over them in him didn't the devil know this did he did he or did he did he not know this did he think i'm just going to get rid of this jesus does he not know if he dies for the sins of the world i will be undone which he was undone i think he knew it let me tell you why i think he knew it and then your second question is going to be why did he do it" [00:33:36]

"the scriptures prophesy that jesus will be pierced but none of his bones will be broken and so you read in psalm 34 20 one of the uh i mean john 19 34 one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear that was sin it's a sin to run the spear into the sight of the son of god and it fulfills holy scripture number five scriptures prophesy that jesus would be betrayed by a close friend for 30 pieces of silver jesus said i'm not speaking of all of you i know whom i've chosen but the scripture will be fulfilled he who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me or matthew 26 24 the son of man goes as it is written of him but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed so my first answer is where is god when judas is selling his son into death and satan is rampaging to rub it in and make it as bad as possible and the answer is god is ruling in heaven to fulfill dozens of scriptures in those sins" [00:43:32]

"god was in heaven putting his holy word in the mouth of his son and seeing to it that we not only had scripture predicting the sins but the son of god himself predicting the sins i tell you this very night peter before the crows you'll deny me three times and that will be sin and oh how you will weep over it it's going to happen it's ordained my father and i will rescue you from it but it's going to be from these prophecies from jesus and the old testament we know god foresaw i'm just going to put it as softly as i can god foresaw and did not prevent and therefore ordained that this come to pass i could say it a lot stronger in fact i will in just a minute but right now just say it as softly as i can because it is in scripture that all these sins happen in bringing christ to his death we know god knew it was going to happen that way and we know he could stop it" [00:46:37]

"he brought them to pass isaiah 53 6 and 10. all we like sheep have gone astray we've turned everyone to his own way the lord laid on him the iniquity of us all verse 10 it was the will of the lord to crush him he has put him to grief there wasn't any suffering that came upon jesus not put there by the father nothing was by accident it was the will of the lord to crush him it was the will of the lord that he betrayed it was the will of the lord that he be denied it was the will of the lord that he be abandoned it was the will of the lord that he be spit upon his beard be plucked he'd have a corn a crown of thorns that'd be hit with rods that they stripped him naked they mocked him put a crown on bow down these were all god's doing and sin every one of them sin" [00:48:44]

"truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant jesus whom you anointed both herod and pontius pilate along with the gentiles and the peoples of israel in other words everybody that had any hand in this at all to do what your hand and your plan had predestined to take place that is crystal clear i'll read it again truly there is in this city gathered together there wasn't a city gathered together against your holy servant jesus whom you anointed both herod can you remember what he did put the robe on him tried to get him do a miracle soldiers around him mocked him sent him back to number two pilate washing his hands consigning him to be whipped expediently giving him up to be crucified there weren't any worse sins in the world than these cluster of sins here they were gathered together herod pontius pilate along with the gentiles that'd be the soldiers who nailed nailed him speared him mocked him traded for his garments and the peoples of israel crucify him crucify him all four of those groups to do whatever your hand and your plan predestined to take place" [00:50:10]

"i want you to come to the cross and not say that the substitutionary atonement is divine child abuse i hate that i'm trying to rescue it for you i'm trying to preserve the bible for you i'm trying to help you go to the cross and feel loved by the father there is so much mystery left we just we're just scratching away at the tip of an infinite iceberg which is a totally contradictory image for all you mathematicians because an infinite iceberg doesn't have a tip it goes down forever goes up forever 10 is forever let's do it right i think 10 of infinity is infinity so we get an iceberg here and forget that illustration it doesn't make any sense we got an iceberg here and a little teeny bit of it that goes down forever at least is sticking out and pipers are scratching it i want to understand what's going on here and what's going on is that in ordaining the fall and ordaining adam's fall lucifers and adams in ordaining a tower of babel in ordaining treason so that there could be a line of human failing kings leading to a human god king in ordaining so much enmity and betrayal and denial and abandonment and then all the nails and all the suffering and in ordaining all that sin he's doing it in order that you might be conformed to the image of christ and spend the rest of your eternity enjoying making much of the glory of the grace of christ which comes back around and saves all the treasonous people who will simply trust" [00:56:01]