LIVE DISCUSSION: Anthony Rogers - Sovereignty of God (Part 2/5)

What if the hardest words are the ones that set you free? We trace a through-line from Joseph’s mercy to Jesus’ shocking claims in John 6 and into Isaiah 10’s fierce vision of a God who wields history without excusing human evil. Along the way, we face two truths that Scripture refuses to separate: God is sovereign and people are responsible. Joseph provides for his brothers while naming their sin and God’s purpose. Jesus refuses crowd-pleasing shortcuts, calls himself the bread from heaven, and watches many walk away. Isaiah portrays Assyria as a rod in God’s hand, judged afterward for its proud and violent motives.

We talk about why “church growth by shrinkage” can be grace, how pruning exposes genuine faith, and why real revival often starts with humility rather than hype. Tertullian’s line about martyr blood as seed isn’t a slogan; it’s the sobering report of courage under providence. We share how trust in God’s rule shapes bold evangelism, lowers fear, and gives ballast in suffering. You’ll hear why omniscience terrifies the unrepentant yet comforts the reconciled, and how Romans 1 explains God’s justice in giving people over to desires they already cherish. The cross stands at the center: lawless hands did real evil, and God fulfilled a definite plan for the world’s redemption.

If you’ve wrestled with questions about evil, responsibility, and whether God truly holds your days, this conversation offers clarity without shortcuts. Expect a bracing honesty that ends boasting, lifts courage, and invites you to rest in a Father who wastes no pain. Listen, share with a friend who’s wrestling, and if it helped you think or hope more clearly, subscribe and leave a review so others can find it too.

Transcript

Joseph Holds Two Truths Together

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This present result to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and for your little ones. Notice Joseph doesn't say there's two options here that unfortunately Christians feel free to go with. Sometimes people will say that the brothers did evil, but God had nothing to do with it. God was just sort of a spectator. On the other hand, and I don't think this is as common, you'll get people who say, well, God was the one doing it all, and uh there's no responsibility on the brothers. No, Joseph holds both of these things together. God Himself was sovereign over this, he's the one who orchestrated it, and nobody can hold him to account. He's in the place of God. He is God, right? But the brothers did evil. So somehow, whether we are able to bring these two things together, somehow these two things are both true. God is sovereign in orchestrating all of this, and human beings who do do evil are responsible for it and will answer to God for it. We don't have the option, and this is an area where I'm really thankful to the Lord that I wasn't exposed to some of the different things that people have come up with to try and get around this. You know, people are uncomfortable thinking of God as sovereign over this sort of thing. They think it makes him evil or whatever. Uh, and so they they're trying to absolve God. And they also don't like the idea that uh if if, for example, uh they accomplish some great thing, that they don't get credit for it because it removes any kind of boasting from man. If if they do good and God is ultimately behind that, then it would seem to take away from us the ability to boast.

unknown 1:58

Right.

John 6 And The “Shrinkage Seminar”

Eating The Bread From Heaven

Many Walk Away And Why

No One Comes Unless Granted

Humility And The End Of Boasting

SPEAKER_02 1:58

So these sorts of things are are are at work and people will try and get rid of one element of this or another. What when I was converted, one of the texts that I was reading that really was at first kind of disturbing to me was John chapter six. In in John 6, Jesus gives what I call his great church shrinkage seminar. So people have heard of uh you know church growth seminars or revivals, right? Where they think that they're gonna orchestrate a big uh burst of spiritual activity and all this stuff. And so usually, unfortunately, what happens in that sort of thing is they say, we're basically going to tailor this to people's likes. We're gonna entertain them, we're gonna do all kinds of stuff. But Jesus doesn't do that at all. Jesus tells people exactly how it is, and people have to come to him on his terms. So Jesus in John 6 says things that are very disturbing to people. First of all, he says this He says to everyone, he says, You have to come to me for life. You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, which means believe in me, receive me by faith. This is disconcerting. Uh the the Jews there, for one, they think we're the people of God, we don't need you. Uh you know, we we've got all that we need. Uh so what what is this business? And if you're saying we need to come to you for life, you're saying we don't have it. You you're saying that somehow we don't have something and we need to get it from you. And and so this causes a lot of people to turn away from Jesus. Well, then the disciples come up to Jesus and they they point out that this sort of thing offends people. Right? Uh the hold on, I'll I'll pull up the text. Um, but a after a lot of people turn away, it says in verse 41, the Jews were grumbling about him because he said, I'm the bread that came down out of heaven. So notice, by the way, uh, this is mirroring the situation in the wilderness. When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they grumbled against God, and God gave them manna. Well, here Jesus is claiming he's the true bread that's come down out of heaven that they need to feed upon. That was all being symbolized in the giving of the manna in the wilderness. And the people are doing the same sort of thing, they have the same fallen heart that the people had back then. And Jesus is saying they need to come to him for life. And here's the part where the disciples come up to Jesus. It says, Therefore, many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, now remember, there's a broader group of disciples besides the twelve. Jesus, conscious that his disciples grumbled at this, said to them, Does this cause you to stumble? What if you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe. So, in a sense, what Jesus is doing here is upping the ante. He's not relaxing things, he's not trying to make this more palatable to people. They're upset with what he said, and instead of taking anything back, he says, Well, here, you know, is that a is that a problem for you? I said you need to feed on me as the bread that's come down out of heaven. What if you see me go back up into heaven? Right? How how will that suit you? Right? If the former didn't suit them well, they're not going to like that one either. But then it says, as a result of this, verse 66, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, You don't want to go away, also, do you? So notice there were thousands of people there, and people left. Now Jesus is here with the twelve, and he's saying, You want to leave too? And and then Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Now, what I skipped over is this is this is the real uh thing that gets rid of the vast majority of the ones that remained, besides the twelve. It's what Jesus said in verse 65. For this reason I said to you, no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him from the Father. Okay, so first Jesus says, I'm the bread that came down out of heaven, you need to come to me for life. That bothers them. So some leave. Then he says, What if you see me go back into heaven? That bothers others, they leave. And then he says, Not only do you have to come to me for life, but you can't unless it's granted to you by the Father. And so Jesus turns to the disciples and says, You want to leave too. So for me, when I when I read this, like I said, I didn't have people giving me different options, right? You can interpret Jesus to be saying uh something else. You know, I just took this as it stood. And I thought, okay, here are here are the stakes. Jesus is saying, I need to come to him for life, and I'm entirely dependent upon him to do so. I can't even come to him unless it's granted to me by his father. And that would mean then that at the end of the day, when I look back, I'm gonna have to give all glory to God. I can't possibly uh find any grounds for praising myself or boasting, vaunting before others. And by the way, that means that those who do embrace this understanding of God as sovereign should be the most humble people on earth. Often people who embrace this are caricatured at the least. Sometimes it might be true, but uh everybody's broadbrushed, you know, as being arrogant and haughty and so forth. But the whole point here is that this takes away all grounds for boasting. Right? You you can't boast that you're in Christ and uh have salvation or anything else because everything pursuant to it is itself because of God, right? He's the one who's who's behind all this.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Something you said that I really like, and I and I understood it as soon as you said it, and that was the shrinkage part. Because what you're talking about, and these words that you're talking about, that the Lord Jesus Christ that he says, these bring out truly uh when they land in the hearts of souls. This is what brings true revival. You see what I mean? This is what brings a true true revival because and because now what happens is most of us have a tendency to see revival as being the exhibition of a gathering based on numbers of folks, numbers, and the success of one is determined by numbers rather than what is understood about the Lord, and that's why I like what you said about the shrinkage, because when you talk about these things, what you are talking about, what our group talks about on a regular basis, the sovereignty of God, when you understand these things that you are already describing, it it distills those who are able and willing to embrace the truth about the Lord. So I just wanted to bring that up because I thought it was a very uh uh profound statement to talk about that shrinkage, even though a little ingest is true, is really true. But go ahead, brother.

Shrinkage That Sparks True Revival

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, yeah. And I I mean it and the whole thing is when people embrace this, it it does lead to, in you know, when when the Lord is pleased, it does lead to an expansion of the kingdom. This has been true throughout history. When people have humbled themselves before God's mighty hand, God is sovereign, it it may initially uh show itself in a painful reaction, right? The the world is reeling from this sort of thing. You see it at the time of Christ. He's he starts with twelve apostles. They're being persecuted, viciously persecuted, but what happens? Through that, uh the gospel spreads and eventually overcomes the empire, right? So uh you know, you've probably heard the statement of Tertullian, at least uh a paraphrase of it, which is that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. As the church was being persecuted and their lifeblood was being spilled on the earth, it didn't cause the church to die. It only grew all the more. People were looking at this thinking, what in the world is going on here that these men are willing to die? They're willing to give up their You're right.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Tertulli's perspective was that the blood of the saints was fertilizer for the salvation of the church and for the growth and the spreading of the church, the ripening of the church.

Persecution, Growth, And Tertullian

Bold Evangelism And Trust In Providence

God’s Attributes As Comfort Or Terror

Suffering Under A Sovereign Father

SPEAKER_02 11:15

And and I can tell you, you know, people uh so so I I've been a Christian for 30 years. I've loved street preaching and evangelizing. That's something I've done quite a bit over the years. I I've uh engaged all kinds of groups, and in a number of uh those contexts, they're they're very hostile. So one of the things that I do a lot is engaging Muslims. In fact, I'll be doing something uh on the streets in a couple weeks with large numbers of Muslims, and uh, you know, I've always gone into those situations with utter confidence in the Lord. That think about Jesus, you know, obviously I'm not Jesus. I don't know what he knew. Uh he had a very clearly spelled out mission, and he knew that that mission would be accomplished, right? He uh but but he's uh he's going through, if you read John's account, he often mentions the hour, and Jesus will say things like, My hour has not yet come. And he just sort of breezes through these situations uh until the cross. Jesus knew that he couldn't die before the appointed time, and so anything short of that time was not going to be the occasion of his undoing, right? And even when he died on the cross, it wasn't gonna be the end. That was just the necessary uh thing that he had to do in order to uh uh rise from the dead, conquer death, and ascend into the uh presence of his father. But uh I know that I can do all that I do with utter confidence that nothing's gonna happen to me apart from what God has planned. And that gives me a great deal of comfort. I I don't worry about it. You know, the I don't pretend that uh I have any personal ability to stop terrible things from happening, but I I know that there isn't anything that's going to happen that God isn't Himself ultimately sovereign over. So it gives you a great deal of confidence. I know that nobody can lay a finger on me unless God appoints it. And who am I to complain if God has appointed it? Because now here's another thing that I want to bring out about this, because I think it's uh very helpful, sanctifying, uh, but the the attributes of God, like his sovereignty or other attributes, are viewed either negatively or positively, depending on what side of God you're on, as it were, metaphorically speaking. Think of the omniscience of God. If if you're an unbeliever, the omniscience of God ought to strike terror into your heart. It's not a you know good thing, uh, it's not good news for you as an unrepentant sinner to know that God is omniscient. He knows everything that you do, everything you do in the dark, everything that you think in your dark heart, right? That's not good news. That should be terrifying. And if I knew this about God as an unconverted individual, I'd never be able to comfortably put my head on the pillow at night. I'd be terrified, right? That's why when I told you before I was converted, I had no thought of God. You're not running around having profound thoughts of God and his holiness while you're engaging in sin. That would just be terrifying. But if you are in Christ and and you know that God is omniscient, it's altogether good news. I know that he knows everything uh before me and behind me. Uh, he knows everything that's for my good, he knows everything uh that could uh you know uh that's down the pike or whatever it might be. So it's the same thing, though, with the sovereignty of God. I mentioned, you know, if somebody puts a finger on me, uh that it it first of all, it it they can't do it unless God has ordained it, but if they do it, I know that it's because my heavenly father has decided it's for my good.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Right.

Prayer, Limits Of Knowledge, And Job

Joseph, The Cross, And Accountability

Isaiah 10: Assyria As God’s Rod

Sinful Motives Used For Holy Ends

SPEAKER_02 15:11

I can have utter confidence. And I'm saying this as a person who's seen all sorts of hardship. I'm not, you know, I'm not saying this because life has been a breeze, right? I I've been through all kinds of crazy things in my life. Uh, you know, I started out my Christian life in prison, as I said earlier. I was 18 back in 1993. Uh that obviously wasn't a hospitable environment, uh, especially after becoming a Christian. And since then, I I've seen all kinds of hardship over the years. But I've always embraced these things as God's good purpose for me. I don't, this is another thing, I don't need to know all the ins and outs of it. I don't need to have all of my questions satisfied. I I usually think it's above my prey grade, probably, right? I if if the Lord explained, that's part of the reason when I mentioned Job, God could have said some things to Job explaining what's going on, but ultimately, if God just dropped it all on Job, he wasn't going to get it all. It's just it's it's you think about all that's happening in the universe. There are people that are able to excel in areas of thought that we can't. We all have natural giftings. Some people are good at this, some people at that. None of us know everything in our own field of expertise. Nobody knows every field, uh, and even all those fields, we're we're very much at the lower end of knowing all there is to know about them. God knows it all through and through. Right. He designed it. And so the idea that we're gonna get it, uh, if he I mean, one of the things I often think about is like prayer. I so I do prison ministry now. It uh I think that probably makes sense, right? One of the things I do as a pastor is I go into the prisons, and there was an inmate that I've been uh counseling because his mother died, and this is very hard for him. He's not in a good uh spot, obviously. He's he's in there and he's been there for decades, and he didn't get to see his mother, and and she's pretty much the the the one person who's always there still for him. So it's very hard for him. And he he he was telling me at one point when she was sick, he was saying, you know, I keep praying, you know, Lord, take me, you know, and and and leave my mother. And I said, Let me ask you a question. I said, you know, is your mother a believer? And he said, Yeah. And I said, What do you think your mother's prayer is for you? And he's like, Well, you know, that uh I follow the Lord and live a good life or whatever. And I said, So think about it. I said, You you've got a desire. You you want the Lord to take you and not your mother, but your mother is over there praying for you, not for herself. She's over there thinking, Lord, take me. If if there's an option in her mind, and the Lord knows it, even if she hasn't expressed it, uh, she also has this desire for her son. And I said, So, you know, part of the idea here is that uh I'm trying to remove from him any kind because you know, a person uh sometimes in these situations they get bitter, they think that uh this is an occasion to be angry with God. You know, first of all, his mother is God's creature, more so than his mother, right? God is the one that made her. And uh, you know, but I'm just pointing out to him that there's a whole lot more going on that's beyond our ability to fully uh understand. And God is the one who's working all of that together. And and so we kind of just have to accept that we're not God, he's God, and what he chooses to do is good, even if it hurts in in the immediate moment. That there are a lot of things that are going to be like that. And we know from in uh incalculable things in scripture that that the things that people otherwise shake their fist at God and rail against God for, God doesn't shrink back from saying he's ultimately responsible for, but he also teaches us through them that he's working good. And and uh he's working good for his people. That's why Joseph says, You meant it for evil, God intended it for good. Think of the worst atrocity in all of human history, obviously the cross of Christ. The Lord's own son was crucified, the eternal son of the Father, who's one with him, who's enjoyed eternal fellowship with him, the the eternal perfect object of his affection. When the father said of the son at his baptism, This is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased, the grammar there indicates that God is saying all of his affection resides in this one. There was no greater object of his love than the Lord Jesus Christ, and he gave him up for the world. Well, that event, even if we didn't have Acts 2 and Acts 4, we know that event was purposed by God. God purposed that event because it's written in the prior scriptures. And Jesus will repeatedly say in the Gospels as he's moving towards the cross, this has to happen, right? It is necessary, this must happen. He uses words of necessity and certainty. So God Himself has purposed this, but then you get to Acts 2 and Acts 4, and Peter says that he's talking to the Jews and he upbraids them and he says, You by the hands of lawless men, lawless men. So he says they're lawless, they're guilty. He says, You by the hands of lawless men delivered him over to death according to the predeterminate plan and foreknowledge of God. So God has predetermined this and still holds them accountable for what they did. Now, that leads me to a text uh that I really wanted to get into, and this will show you why I was uh saying what I was saying before when I was talking about Nebuchadnezzar. This is Isaiah 10. And this text really just brings a lot of things together uh and it helps to see a sort of bigger picture. Isaiah 10, I'll read, well, first I'll read verses uh five through 11. But uh I'm hoping people pay close attention to this. I know this is TikTok, and you know, maybe people aren't used to long reading or anything like that. This isn't overly long, but uh bear with me.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Okay.

Boundaries, Restraint, And Romans 1

Woe To Assyria And Just Judgment

Embracing Hard Providence In Witness

Blindness For God’s Glory

History, Islam, And Misread Success

Audience Q&A: God And Evil

Justice Of God Versus Human Motives

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Starting in verse 5, it says, Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. I send it against a godless nation and commission it against the people of my fury to capture booty and to seize. Plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets. Yet it does not so intend, nor does it plan so in its heart, but rather it is its purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations. For it says, Are not my princes all kings? Is not Kalno like Karshimish, or Hamath like Arpad, or Samaria like Damascus, as my hand has reached to the kingdom of the idols, whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall not I do to Jerusalem and her images just as I have done to Samaria and her idols? Okay, now I'm going to read some more in a moment, but uh notice that uh here it's talking about Assyria going against a godless nation. The godless nation in context is Israel, God's own people. And notice what it says Assyria is going to do. It says that Assyria is going to capture booty, seize plunder, this is verse six, and trample them down like mud in the streets. It's describing warfare. It's ugly, it involves blood, it involves death. God is saying this is going to happen to his people. Assyria is going to be a terror to his people. But notice that God himself is saying, he's behind this. If you look at verse 5, it refers to Assyria as the rod of my anger. The rod of my anger. So he's he's portraying Assyria as a rod, but it's in his hand. And think about this for a moment. Uh, when you look at the book of Proverbs, when it talks about a father disciplining his child, it speaks of a father applying the rod to the backside of his child. This is how a father disciplines his child. Well, that's what God is saying here. He is disciplining Israel, his child, and Assyria is the rod in his hand. And notice, I mean, it it's not something that can be escaped. God is clearly taking credit here. He says, It's the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. I send it against a godless nation and commission it against the people of my fury. So God is going to do this, he's saying through the prophet Isaiah, which means that ultimately God is the one who's responsible for Assyria capturing booty, seizing plunder, and trampling down people in the streets. Now, somebody can complain and say, oh, this is terrible, you know, uh, but those are going to be the people on the other receiving end of God's rod. And it's not going to get better for them, right? That's not the solution. The solution, I mean, think about it. If your parent is disciplining you as a child, the solution is not to lash out at your parents. Kick and scream, you'll probably get more, more, uh, more strikes, right? So the that's not the answer. That's the problem. So God is using Assyria, but but notice this. Verse 7, it says, yet it does not so intend. It's talking about Assyria, nor does it plan so in its heart, but rather its purpose is to destroy and to cut off many nations. So God is going to use Assyria, but Assyria, it's not thinking we're fulfilling the Lord's will. It's in its own heart thinking its own malevolent thoughts. Their goal is simply conquest and stealing and so forth. God's thinking to use the wickedness of Assyria for righteous ends to sanctify his people, bring them to repentance, and so forth. Assyria has altogether different heart thoughts, different motives. And it says in verses 8 through 11 that you know Assyria has these lofty thoughts of themselves. You know, we've just we've defeated other nations, we've defeated nations with gods, just like Israel. Notice it says uh our hands have stretched to the kingdom of the idols, meaning we've we've we've vanquished other nations and their idols. And so we'll be able to do the same to Jerusalem and Samaria and their idols, because that's that's why Israel's godless. They're worshiping idols. So they're saying we're gonna have sport, we're gonna have our way with them, just like we did on these other nations. That's what Assyria is thinking. So God is going to use Assyria, but that doesn't mean that Assyria is blameless in this. Assyria is evil. What's at work in the heart of the Assyrians is the evil of their hearts, and God is using it to his own just ends. So think about this for a moment, because uh this is this is, I think, uh uh helpful in in countless ways, too. The when when scripture talks about uh well, think about how it talks about water. In the book of Job, it says uh, thus far shall you go, and here shall your proud waves halt. It's referring to the fact that God has set a boundary for the waters, the otherwise chaotic waters that would overrun the earth if God hadn't put boundaries in place. Well, that imagery is an apt imagery for what's true of the human heart. According to Scripture, man's heart is a restless world of evil. But God restrains man, he uh puts boundaries in place, which he is free to remove at his pleasure to accomplish his purpose. So think, for example, of Romans 1. It talks about how God has revealed himself to all men, but people suppress the truth and unrighteousness, and because of that, God has delivered them over to the depravity of their own hearts. There's evil in the heart of man, more evil than men live out. And that's because God is restraining them. But if God removes the restraints as a punishment, that's the whole point in Romans 1. This is a punishment. When it says that it talks about men exchanging the natural desire, right? It's to dishonor themselves because they've dishonored God. It's it's Lex Tlionis, an eye for an eye, divine justice. It says they've exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God, and so God's going to give them over to shame themselves. So uh he delivers them over to their own depraved hearts. So when when God is exercising his sovereignty and bringing things to pass, it's not as if he's making people do evil that is not in their hearts to do. He's giving them over to that evil heart, removing the boundaries as he chooses, so that they end up pursuing their own course exactly as he determined it, right? So they're acting on their own evil. But God is himself sovereign over this every step of the way. So now this is why, if you notice, if you look at the first word of this section that I read, it says, Woe to Assyria. Before it ever says the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation, it says, Woe to Assyria, because God is saying, I'm using you as a rod of discipline, but you're not off the hook. You're responsible for the evil of your heart, and I'm going to hold you accountable. So as you go on in the context, it says uh verse 12, it will be that when the Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will say, I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness. For he has said, By the power of my hand, and by my wisdom I did this, for I have understanding, I removed the boundaries of the people, and plundered their treasures, and like a mighty man I brought down their inhabitants, and my hand reached to the riches of the peoples like a nest, and as one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth, and there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped. Then God says, This is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it, is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who lift it, or like a rod lifting him who is not wood. Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, will send a wasting disease among his stout warriors, and under his glory a fire will be kindled like a burning flame, and the light of Israel will become a fire, and this holy one a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day. Okay. So I I think you get the point there that uh God is using the evil uh Assyrians for righteous ends, and he's holding them accountable for it while at the same time, you know, remaining God and and uh holding them accountable and all that. Now, what's interesting about this uh is number one, I mean, it it shows, as I hope people can see without me saying this, it shows that God is sovereign and man is responsible. And those two things are never pitted against one another in Scripture. It never says, oh no, God is not sovereign. Man is just doing whatever he pleases independently of God. Uh, neither does it absolve man. Man is not absolved, he's responsible for his evil, and God is working his mighty good purposes through it. So there's no incompatibility between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. But it also, I think, should underscore uh the point that I was making before about, you know, when I said if somebody lays a finger on me when I'm out witnessing, I can accept that. I mean, I might not like the feeling of it, but I can think, you know, this is God's good purpose. Uh hopefully I can discern in it why he might have chosen this for me. Uh, but even if I can't, so be it, right? I know that at the end of the day it's it's a good thing. You know, maybe he's using it to uh show unbelievers what people who know the Lord are are willing to endure, and you know, or maybe it's because I do need discipline, maybe it's because I need sanctification, maybe it's you know, it could be any one of a number of things. Jesus said to the blind man, or about the blind man, uh, when people asked, you know, who sinned this man or his parents? Jesus said, neither, right? He doesn't mean they've never sinned, he means this blindness is not because of some particular sin they committed. He says, it's for the glory of God. This man was born blind so that Jesus could come along one day and heal him of his blindness and God be glorified. Are people willing to be that? I mean, you know, I I know that we all like our eyes, but if if you were told that that's the purpose, that was a purpose why you were born to be blind, you know, what if you lose an arm or a leg? You know, will you be content to say uh this is for God's glory? Well, that's that's what's happening in the account, and and that's the sort of thing that we should be able to derive from this. But but it also does another thing. It shows that you know um one of the things that uh is interesting when you look at the history of of the Christian church, the uh what Muslims, I I've mentioned Muslims before in this already. Uh uh you can kind of see why I brought it up before, because this is kind of where I wanted to go in a sense, because I think it helps to illustrate something. The one of the things that that Muslims will often say is their religion is true because they had great military success. They were able to overrun the churches of the East. The church had spread east and west, and they were able to effectively overrun a large portion of the Christian world. And in their minds, this makes them true. And I just watched a debate the other day where a Muslim was claiming that their great uh rapid expansion was proof of the truth of Islam. Okay, now my my point in bringing this up is not to talk about Islam, I just think it's illustrative of stuff. Uh think about it. In in the uh in the uh period when Islam came along, the churches of the East had given themselves over to idolatry. Okay, this is a fact of history. In the uh 700s, a a growing number of people had come to embrace the idea that it's okay to venerate images and statues. So the the East usually uses flat images in the uh in the West, which was uh now the West didn't do this until later. They they resisted this. Uh but in the meantime, God was stirring up a people in Arabia who were implacably anti-idolatrous. And if you if you take what it says here in a text like Isaiah 10, you can understand that God can use a pagan people to accomplish holy ends. And so you can't reason from the fact that somebody is militarily successful automatically to the conclusion that they have right on their side. This is exactly how God is active in history. This isn't the only example of this sort of thing. In fact, uh here's another text that is of a piece with this. It's basically uh getting at the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Uh let me let me what you want me to ask if anybody has any questions at this point? Oh, sure, sure. Does anybody have any questions that they want to ask uh Brother Anthony about? Anybody? All right. Uh Brother Penn, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah, so um one thing that that we'll hear is that God is light and he can't have there's no darkness in him. So how can he be associated with things in history that are considered uh evil? Like World War II, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Yeah, so first of all, I I always want to encourage people to be biblical, right? Meaning what people often want to do is they want to kind of operate autonomously and and sort of sit in judgment. According to scripture, the God who is light does these things. Okay, the God who is light wields Assyria like an axe in his hand. Okay, the the God who is light pours out judgment. And it's precisely because he is light. Uh if you think of it, I mean it's kind of like, you know, one way of looking at it is you people what people are trying to do is is make God uh morally equivalent to others when he engages in acts of judgment. And so if you think about, say, a state executing a punishment on a criminal, let's say a criminal has stolen something, or let's say somebody kidnaps somebody, right? What do we do with that person? We take that person and we incarcerate them, which is, if you're just looking at the outward facts, like a form of kidnapping, isn't it? But those two things are not morally equal. One is a punishment for the other. Same thing with uh murder. There's capital punishment for that. But the execution of a criminal is not morally equivalent to the act of a murder. One involves the unjust taking of a life, the other is the just penalty for unjustly taking a life. So God who cannot sin, when he acts in judgment and does certain things, he can't be impugned in all of that. He's the just judge of all the earth. He is executing his judgment. Now, you look at Isaiah 10, the whole point is the Assyrians are doing evil, but God is using their evil as a form of bringing judgment or punishment upon people who have done evil. So what God is doing is one thing, what the Assyrians were doing is another. And it's the same thing with something like World War II or anything else. The people that are engaging in it are acting out of the evil of their own hearts. But God being sovereign and just and good has his own ultimate purposes and ends for that, and he remains the just and holy God throughout the entire equation. One of the things that uh uh Augustine said in the early his history of the church, he says God can strike a straight blow with a crooked stick. Another thing he said is, you know, if you've got a horse with and a rider and the horse has a handicap, and let's say you're looking at the impressions on the ground and you can kind of see there's there's a stutter step or whatever. Um I'm no horseman, uh, but if if you could detect it by looking at the patterns on the ground, you know, that doesn't prove that the rider's crippled, does it? So you a rider on a horse can ride a crippled horse without himself being crippled. Well, God is just in using uh crippled people, or I mean morally crippled, right? If if they're morally handicapped, uh he's able to use that without himself being handicapped. And that and that's just the clear teaching of Scripture.