Biblical Talks with Elder Michael Tolliver Podcast
When the term Reformed theology is used, it often refers to something less historical. Often it refers to a theology that acknowledges the doctrine of predestination and holds to a high view of the Bible as God’s inerrant Word. Sometimes it is also identified with the so-called five points of Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. These are all important teachings of the Reformed tradition, but they do not fully encapsulate or describe Reformed theology.
A better starting place is five statements that have been called the five solas of the Reformation. These five solas (sola is the Latin word for “only” or “alone”) are sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), sola fide (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), and soli Deo gloria (God’s glory alone). Put together, these solas clearly express the central concerns of the Protestant Reformation, which was about worship and authority within the church as much as it was about individual salvation. The “alone” in each is vital, and they emphasize the sufficiency of God’s Word and the gracious nature of salvation, received by faith alone, in Christ alone. The last of the five solas, soli Deo gloria, is the natural outworking of the first four. It reminds us that Reformed theology understands all of life in terms of the glory of God. To be Reformed in our thinking is to be God-centered. Salvation is from the Lord from beginning to end, and even our existence is a gift from Him.
Biblical Talks with Elder Michael Tolliver Podcast
Sermon of the Week, R. C. Sproul: God's Hand in History: Understanding Divine Providence
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R C Sproul shows how faithful Christian leaders must understand the significance of biblical doctrines of creation and providence and teach them.
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Welcome to Biblical Talks Sermon of the Week. When we say the providence of God, what do we mean? The providence of God is the invisible and mysterious hand of God at work in the details of history to bring to pass His complete sovereign will. God's providence includes every part of creation, from the little, tiny microcosmic world to the individuals and entire nations. God's providence whether we realize it or not, god is running the show. Today we're going to hear from RC Sproles as he preached on creation and God's providence. Here's RC Sproles.
Speaker 2:I'd like to begin this morning by reading a portion of Acts, chapter 17, beginning at verse 16, and reading through verse 28. And since this is St Andrews, I will ask you to stand for the reading of the Word of God, because I'm afraid my people would stand anyway and they'd feel silly. Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace, daily with those who happened to be there. And then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him and some said what does this babbler want to say? Others said he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak, for you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean For all.
Speaker 2:The Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said Men of Athens. I perceive that in all things you are very religious, for I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship and I even found an altar with the inscription to the unknown God. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you God who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything, since he gives to all life breath and all things. He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they may grope for Him and find Him, though he is not far from each of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, for we are also His offspring.
Speaker 2:You've just heard the unvarnished word of God himself, which carries with it his divine authority and is supported and visited by his divine power. Please receive it as such and be seated. Let us pray Now, father, as we consider briefly the work of creation and of your providence that are so vital to our faith and to our lives. We ask that you would stoop to our weakness, to our fragile understanding, and illumine your Word by the power and by the presence of your Holy Spirit, who is indeed the Spirit of truth, for we ask it in the name of Christ.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 2:I think everybody in the room knows how much the Christian doctrine of creation room knows how much the Christian doctrine of creation has been the chief target of naturalists, materialists and unbelievers of every stripe and ilk. But what is often overlooked in these debates in our day is that there is an equal assault upon the Christian understanding of the providence of God, and I'm concerned that much of that assault has done its work within the church as Christians who on the one hand strongly defend the doctrine of creation but remain almost altogether silent about the biblical doctrine of divine providence. But we see that when Paul went to Athens and he came as a visitor to this glamorous city, which was the highest monument to Greek culture, greek culture and wisdom, instead of standing in awe at the art that had been produced by the golden age artists of Athens or being intimidated by the heritage of Socrates, plato and Aristotle Socrates, plato and Aristotle his was quite a different response, a visceral response as he looked at this monument to Western culture and his heart was profoundly moved because what Paul saw very few tourists of that day observed. Paul saw a city that had been given over completely to idolatry, completely to idolatry, and in this context of idolatry. He reasoned every day in the synagogue, in the agora, the marketplace, with Jews and with the Greeks, and finally he drew the attention of the philosophers of the hour, the only two schools of philosophy that are mentioned by name in Scripture the Epicureans and the Stoics, and they brought him from the Agora, which was a very short distance from Mars Hill, and went up to the Areopagus and began to interrogate the apostle about his strange views.
Speaker 2:And during the discussion, paul made an observation that I think was dripping in sarcasm when he said I perceive that in all things, you're very religious. Idolatry is a religious exercise. And he said and in your religion, I see that you've tried to cover all the bases and you don't want to miss any deity that might possibly exist. So you've built a monument over here to an unknown God. Well, that which you worship in ignorance, I'm going to declare to you in power. And in the beginning of that declaration he says this need anything, because he gives to all life and breath and all things. He's made from one blood, every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and he has determined the pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling.
Speaker 2:Do you see that when Paul the biblical concept of creation, he added to it immediately the biblical doctrine of providence From the very first line of sacred Scriptures. In the beginning, god created the heaven and the earth. The text itself suggests to us something about the nature of that creation, that that creation is not a staccato event like the deists would imagine, but the very word to create that you find in Hebrew in Genesis 1, bara suggests a work that continues and continues and continues, which immediately gives to us the essence of the doctrine of providence, because the doctrine of providence speaks in the first about the way in which God sustains everything that he makes. Now, in personal terms, let me put it this way I not only owe to God my creation or the beginning of my existence, but it is by His providence that I and that you can continue to exist moment by moment. If God did not sustain my life for one second, I would perish from the face of the earth. So whatever is out there is not only made by God, but it's kept in existence by the power of His sustaining providence. And there's a lot about that to think deeply upon.
Speaker 2:I've often said that, in my opinion, the most provocative and profound statement in all of the Bible is found in Acts, chapter 17, in the context of this debate that the apostle is having with pagan philosophers, philosophers when he makes the affirmation that in God we live and we move and we have our being. He talks about life, he talks about motion and he talks about being. If you're a student of the history of theoretical thought, you probably already know that the three most puzzling issues that were addressed by the greatest minds of antiquity were, in the first instance, the question of being, in the second instance, the question of motion and in the third instance, the question of life. We take for granted that we exist, we take for granted that there is such a thing as motion, we take for granted that there is such a thing as motion and we take for granted that life is real. But how do you explain these things? How do you make sense out of motion, for example, in our universe? This is a tremendous conundrum for modern geophysics, or astrophysicists, I should say, and for those who want to promote a naturalistic worldview opposed to Christian theism.
Speaker 2:The most popular concept that we encounter in the secular world is that of the Big Bang theory, of cosmogony, the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. And it goes something like this that for all eternity, all material, all mass and all energy was compacted and compressed to this infinitesimal point of singularity. And for eternity the law of inertia ruled the day that this point of singularity remained in a constant state of organization, inert, till, inexplicably, unexplainably, one Thursday morning, at quarter after ten, this thing blew up and exploded into the universe that we now perceive, defying the law of inertia that says that things that are at rest tend to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force and things in motion tend to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. But here we have this eternal inertia blowing up on its own, with no thanks to an outside force, that we've been preaching as long as there have been Judeo-Christian believers.
Speaker 2:Aristotle puzzled over the problem of motion. Over the problem of motion, his God, which was more a philosophical construct, an abstraction, than a personal deity such as we embrace, aristotle reduced his God to the idea of the unmoved mover. Why? Aristotle, arguably the most brilliant man of the ancient Greek world, understood the law of inertia. He understood that if you're going to account for change, for growth, for generation, for decay, for mutations, for any kind of movement of any sort, decay, for mutations, for any kind of movement of any sort, something has to get things started in the first place, or all of reality would remain eternally frozen in place. And so he postulated his idea of a deity, whom he called the unmoved mover. Will Durant likened Aristotle's God to the King of England, who reigns but he doesn't rule. He's a do-nothing king who, once gets things started, goes and takes a nap for the rest of time.
Speaker 2:Some of you may have studied the paradoxes of the philosopher Zeno, where he tried to show the absurdity of materialism by demonstrating that you can't have materialism without explaining motion. And he tried to reduce the whole concept of motion to absurdity. And so, from Zeno onward, people were scratching their head how can we account for anything moving in this world? And Paul said from all eternity, there is one who possesses the power of motion in and of himself, this God who, I'm declaring to you, is never inert, but he moves over the waters and he brings life out of the abyss of nothingness, out of the abyss of nothingness, and creates all things and sets their boundaries and establishes their borders. But in Him we move. Without Him we're stagnant. Without Him we're arrested. Without Him, we're stagnant. Without Him, we're arrested. Without Him, we're more abundant. And he alone brings to this universe life itself itself, the greatest mystery and most precious phenomenon, and he has life in and of himself. Paul says I want you to think about that. Where did your life come from If you don't know anything as a your own life in your own hands? For Paul, life did not begin in a primordial mud puddle that was stirred up by the forces of chance, which are nothing, and out of this primordial mud puddle came grown-up germs who evolved into human life forms.
Speaker 2:Just two weeks ago I was in Seattle. I was in a conversation with a man who was a tenured professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Berkeley in California and after decades of teaching in the university, he came to the end of his knowledge and he had a discussion one day with the head of the physics department and he was asking him about questions of dating procedures and the physicist said well, we date things this way and that way. And the biologist said well, how do you know that that's accurate? The physicist said well, we assume it is. He said you assume it is, you call that science. And the physicist said. Well, we have to assume something, and some of the assumptions that we listen to every day are maddening to say the least. But they have not yet really given a reasonable explanation for the origin of life itself.
Speaker 2:But Paul said I can tell you where it is. It's the same place where you find the power of motion. You have to find it in somebody who doesn't have a father and a mother. You have to find it in someone who has life in and of himself and can say let there be, can take a scoop of dirt from the ground and breathe into it life and it becomes a breathing soul. That's what I'm telling you about, and you think it's strange that I preach to you Jesus and resurrection. What is resurrection to the author of life? Who gives life, when and where and to whom he will?
Speaker 2:But, ladies and gentlemen, the biggest question of antiquity, the one that gripped the attention of all of the pre-Socratic philosophers as well as those who came after Socrates, was the search for the archaic principle, the search for ultimate reality, the search for the answer to the question of being. You know, the oldest scientific inquiry is this question. Why is there something rather than nothing, if you want to look for sufficient causality in your scientific inquiry. Sooner or later it should be sooner you bump up to that question why is there something? Why is there anything at all? And yet indeed there is something Only within the last year or so.
Speaker 2:Anthony Flew, the author of Flew's parable, when he was the most renowned atheist in Great Britain along with Bertrand Russell, anthony Flew wrote a book last year in which he chronicled his conversion to theism and he said that he was led to theism by science. He said I realized that the very word science, which means knowledge, is an impossibility unless the universe we are studying is ordered and intelligible. If it's not intelligible, it can't be known. And if it is intelligible, it has to manifest design in a way that we don't impose it subjectively upon it. You recall Carl Sagan's television series Cosmos and the book by the same name, and the very first page of that book he said as scientists we are committed to the proposition that the universe in which we live is cosmos, not chaos. But you see, without the foundation of cosmos is a mere gratuitous assumption. When you assume that, you assume it all. And, as my daddy used to say, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Speaker 2:Before Plato, parmenides stunned the world with his statement, before Bill Clinton came into the White House. I'll never forget, as a college student studying philosophy, the first time we studied Parmenides, and our professor stood up there in hushed tones and said whatever is is. And I said and he's famous the most provocative thought I ever had to entertain in philosophy was that one, whatever is is. My mind comes back to that again and again, and again again, because what Parmenides is saying is for anything to exist at all somewhere, somehow there must be being, there must be the power of being, or nothing could possibly exist. Heraclitus challenged that thesis by saying whatever is is changing. Everything that we observe in the material world is undergoing some process of change, and so he coined the term becoming for anything that is mutable, so that you and I in Heraclitus' book would not be human beings, we would be human becomings. And so there was a third category that was considered by the ancient philosophers the category of non-being.
Speaker 2:Non-being, non-being is the utter absence of being. It's the absence of anything. Non-being is a synonym for nothingness, and one of the most difficult concepts to define intellectually is the concept of nothing. I'm going to ask you just for a moment to close your eyes and think about nothing. You say that's easy. That's what I do all the time. It's very hard. Jonathan Edwards said nothing is what sleeping rocks dream of. I've always defined nothing as what my son did in junior high. Every day when he went to school He'd come home and I'd say what did you learn today? He said nothing. But, as I've said a million times, my people are tired of hearing. If there ever was a time when there was nothing, what could there possibly be now?
Speaker 2:Parmenides understood that, that if anything exists, even in the state of becoming something somewhere, must eternally, self-existently have the power of being within it, or nothing could possibly be. It's the easiest, shortest and most compelling argument for the existence of God there ever was, and you can't improve on it. We have a whole world of people who want to believe that once there was nothing and then, poof, suddenly there was something the rabbit out of the hat, without the rabbit, without the hat and without the magician. That's not science, that's mythology. And Paul said in one name, yahweh, I can answer the question of motion, of life and of being, and not only in terms of their origin but also in terms of their continuity of existence which we find in divine providence. So the first principle of providence is the doctrine of divine sustenance of all things. The second and the second point will not be as long as the first point, or I'd take up all of Dr Lawson's time. Then we might be even the second major consideration under the rubric of all nations and of all people, he governs the material universe. And this is where our doctrine of providence has all but disappeared from the church, because we have been taught from the time we go to kindergarten that we live in a closed, mechanistic universe where everything around us operates by the fixed laws of nature. If I pick up this bulletin and if I let go of it, we know what's going to happen it will fall from my hand because of the law of gravity. But we think that gravity is an independent law that works out there. Apart from the power of God no, no, no, no, no, newton's apple can't fall from that tree apart from the power of God. Apart from the power of God. His government is over all things. He rules the whole universe. There's no maverick molecules running loose in this universe, outside the scope of God's control.
Speaker 2:We make a distinction in theology that's an important one between primary and secondary causality. And what we mean by that is this that there are things in this world that have causal power. If I raise my hand in the air, I have chosen to raise my arm and, as a thinking volitional creature, I have the power to raise my arm. And as a thinking volitional creature, I have the power to raise my arm. I hurt my shoulder a few years ago, talked to the attorney for damages and I went into the court and the judge said what's your problem? I said I can't raise my arm any higher than this. He said how was it before the accident? I said oh, I used to be able to raise it all the way, like the kid who murdered his parents and asked for mercy because he was an orphan. But any exertion of power that I do as a human being is secondary causality. It's real causality. I can really lift my arm, I can really make effects happen, and you can and I can, cars can, horses can. But my power of causality is always secondary, because in Him I live and move and have my being, and without the providence of God I couldn't lift my arm at all. I couldn't do anything.
Speaker 2:That's why the third chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith begins with these words that God did, from all eternity, freely and immutably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Semicolon he ordains everything that comes to pass. Augustine said it this way that God, in a certain sense, ordains every single thing that happens, because nothing can happen at all apart from the primary causality of God. That's what we've lost in the church. We don't understand the government of God that in every election he casts the deciding ballot. If you don't like the current president, cast the deciding ballot. If you don't like the current president, it's God who put him there. If you didn't like the one before him, god put him there. Sometimes I wonder about God's politics. But he is the sovereign one. He's the one who rules history, he's the one who raises kingdoms up. He's the one who brings kingdoms down.
Speaker 2:And, of course, at the end of that semicolon, the away with secondary causes or to do violence to the will of the creature, which gets us, in Providence, to the mystery of concurrence how the God brings His sovereign will to pass through secondary agents, through the will of the creature, without violating the will of the creature, without violating the will of the creature. The classic example of that was found in the life of Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. And when he met with them again in Egypt and they feared for their lives, joseph said I'm not God, you don't have anything to fear for me. Yes, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Even your treachery, even your ruthless betrayal of me, your own brother, was ordained by the God I serve. Now that's heavy.
Speaker 2:I've been in conversations lately with an Arminian theologian who protests against the Reformed doctrine of God's foreordination of things and he insists in his writings, in his letter to me, that God doesn't ordain these things that happen, but they happen by His permission, his will of permission. Now, that's a heavy thought, I think, hmm, that's a heavy thought. I think, hmm. Now if God knows what you're going to do this afternoon, does he have the power to stop you? Does he have the authority to do it? He has the power, the authority and the right to vaporize you where you sit, and he knows what you're going to do before you do it. He knows what I'm going to say before I say it and at any time he so chooses sovereignly. He can stop me in my tracks, but if he knows what I do and permits me to do it. What does that tell you? He's chosen to allow me to do it and insofar as he chooses to allow me to do it, in that sense at least, he ordains it. So this little phrase permission doesn't answer anything. It certainly does not alter the sovereignty of God.
Speaker 2:My biggest fear for the church in our day is that we've lost sight of who God is, never mind what the secular culture is saying. Do we really magnify God as God? Do we really see Him in all of His creating glory? Do we understand that we're dependent upon Him for every breath that we draw in this world? Do we understand that he has appointed the end of my days before I reach them? That he is sovereign over nature and over grace? He is sovereign over all things that are within His divine providence. Is there any place you'd rather have your destiny be than in the hands of the providence of God? That's why we rejoice in the midst of suffering. That's why we can smile through our tears in this valley of death that is ours, because the Lord, god omnipotent, reigns. Let's pray, father, we thank you that you are the creator and sustainer of everything that is and that, by your providence, all things can work together for good to those who love you and who are the called according to your purpose.
Speaker 1:Beloved. Many Christians today have doubts about these biblical truths. We have been told from our youth, and especially today in higher education, that our existence is a result of chance and time, which is ridiculous. And time which is ridiculous. Rc Sprouls shows how faithful Christian leaders must understand the significance of biblical doctrine of creation and providence, and Christian leaders must teach this truth. Rc Sprouls Creation and and Christian leaders must teach this truth. Rc Sproul's Creation and.
Speaker 3:Providence. Hello, my name is Michelle Tolliver and Biblical Talk's book offer for the month of June is Providence by John Piper. From Genesis to Revelation, the providence of God directs the entire course of redemptive story. Providence is God's purposeful sovereignty. Its extent reaches down to the flight of electrons, up to the movements of the galaxies and into the heart of man. Its nature is wise, just and good, and its goal is the Christ-exalting glorification of God through the gladness of a redeemed people in a new world.
Speaker 3:Drawing on a lifetime of theological reflection, biblical study and practical ministry, pastor and author John Piper leads us on a stunning tour of the sightings of God's providence. From Genesis to Revelations, he discovered the all-encompassing reality of God's purposeful sovereignty over all creation and all history. Piper invites us to experience the profound effects of knowing the God of all pervasive providence, the intensifying of true worship, the solidifying of wavering conviction, the strengthening of embattled faith, the toughening of joyful courage and the advance of God's mission in this world. For any amount of donation to Biblical Talks, we will send you the book. Please go to biblicaltalkscom and click the Donate here tab. Thank you for listening to Biblical Talks.
