2 Peter, 3:8-13

All right, 2 Peter 3, 8 through 13 is where we're at today. And just to give ourselves some perspective. Let's see here. Ticking. There it goes. We are at the last stretch here on 2 Peter. And so this is from now through the very end of end of the book is kind of one section of its own. It has a theme that runs throughout, and boy, it ends in a crescendo. It is phenomenal, but that'll be a few weeks away. Right here, we want to get some perspective on it, and that is what we see at the top of page 1.

The scoffer has tried to say that God hasn't intervened in the past. Everything's been the same since the very beginning, and perhaps even before that. And that God, therefore, won't intervene in the future. That's the perspective that the scoffer comes with. The scoffer, of course, would much prefer that there were no consequences to any of his actions. God hasn't intervened, God won't intervene, and I don't want Him to because that would hurt, right? That would be inconvenient.

So, what Peter makes clear, that's not a wise perspective to take on, that there are no consequences. How well does that work for anybody you know? Life has no consequences, how you live doesn't matter, In 2 Peter 3, 3-6, Peter had written this, and this is in the section we looked at last week. Knowing this first of all, that's first priority, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? Ha ha ha ha.

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. Nothing's changed. God hasn't touched a thing. God's not been involved. We don't need to worry about it. For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. So far in 2 Peter, Chapters 2 and 3. Peter's been taking us for a look back in order to see examples. Remember some of the examples he's given? What are some of the examples that Peter's given that God has intervened in the past?

Sodom and Gomorrah, okay? Others? What's that? The flood. Yeah, hey, blah blah blah. Balaam, right? He's another one. So here are instances God has intervened, and one of the things is these are not things of small consequence, and they're not things of minor scale, especially when you talk about forming the earth and incidents like the flood.

Now, he's been conveying the message that yes, God has intervened in history, but the claim that He hasn't doesn't hold up. God has intervened in judgment in the past as well. He's been conveying the message that God's intervened both before and after human beings were on the planet. God was involved before any human being was even here, and once human beings are here, He's been involved as well. He has been involved.

Now, beginning with last week's passage in verse 7, there was kind of a turning point, and so He's getting The readers turn towards the future. Here's what it's going to look like. And so remember the last verse we looked at last week. But by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. All right, 2 Peter 3, 8 and 9, which is starting into our passage here this morning.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. Do you have a handout? Do you have a handout? The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you and not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

Now, I want to know, did this escape your notice? He's got a pattern here, for when they maintain this, this is last week's passage, it escapes their notice. And so what does he say? Don't let this escape your notice. It escapes their notice, the mockers. They didn't see this. Make sure you do. Don't let it escape your notice. So Peter has said that what escapes the notice of the scoffers, but he is warning his readers not to let this next fact escape the notice of those who believe.

With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. Okay, we've got a question. Can we use that as a plug-in thing for interpreting the Bible? Anytime you see the word day, just plug in a thousand years. Or anytime you see a thousand years, plug in a day. Does that work? I see heads going like this.

Why not? What's the problem? Ah, out of context. OK, that's that's one problem is out of context. The other thing is, what exactly did Peter mean by this? And that is a question in context, isn't it? What did Peter mean by this when he says a thousand years a day, a day is a thousand years?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God's not stuck in a time mode. Yeah, Doug. Okay, Doug's Doug's thoughts exactly and Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, Doug's pointing out people will use this to try to come up with, you know, days and years and try to, yeah, come up with an equation. The point is, he makes this statement in the context of judgment, right?

Not plug it anywhere you want in the Bible, right? So that's one thing. He is making the statement not to give some little equation that we can plug in, but to say that God doesn't perceive time like we do. An illustration that I've used in the past, I'll do it just with the risk of redundancy, is we're inside time, aren't we?

We're right here and we look back on things that have taken place. and we look forward to things that are happening, and we hopefully have better hindsight on what's happened than things that are going to happen. Biblically, we're given a perspective on both things in the past and things in the future, aren't we? But we do so from inside the moment that we're in right now. We can look back even on our own lives and say, well, that's my past, and we can look ahead and say, there's my future. We have a time perspective. God, however, is not stuck in that time perspective.

So the illustration goes like this. This represents time. And if this is the beginning of creation, and this is the end of time, here's Christ on the cross somewhere in the middle of this. God stands outside of it and sees all time as one. outside of it. Let's have a question. Has time always been, or is it something that God created? Yeah, it's something that God created. At the very beginning, let there be light, and there was evening, and there was morning, the first day, and so on. God created time. On the fourth day he created things to mark time for our benefit.

There used to be greater and lesser lights in the sky and we kind of clocked things by that. But God doesn't put himself under that unless he expressly determines to do so. When did God step inside of time? When Christ came at the right time, did He wait inside of time to wait for the right time? No. He stood outside of time and said, I see the whole sweep of time, and I see Brad, and I see Jack, and I see all the people here, and I look back and I see Job, and I see Noah, and I see when Christ will reign. He sees those all at once.

It is no problem for him, he looks at the cross and he says, yeah, Vern is going to live 2,000 years later, but that's no problem for me to take his sins and place them on Christ's shoulders, on his body. It's no problem for him to identify me with Christ 2,000 years prior. Time. He's on the outside.

Yes? Is it a problem for him to take those sins of somebody 2,000 years before, put them on his shoulder? Yeah, I have a question. How about 2,000 years before? Abraham. Can those be placed on Christ? Yes. Yeah. Good question. Time is not the issue, is it? God can look at both of those things and say, no biggie. To Him, it's all one.

Here's another perspective on this. Psalm 90, 1-4. I think it's perhaps possible that Peter was restating verse 4. For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by. See that? But look at the whole context of the passage. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born and you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn man back into dust and say, return, O children of men, for a thousand years, and your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night." Was God intending that Peter write some kind of plug-in formula? No. The intent was, this whole issue of time is not God's limitation. That's the deal. Time and our perception of it is our issue. It's not God's. God is not stuck in a time perspective like we are. He stands outside of it.

One of the things that comes out here, on the top of page two, Jesus is speaking, and He says, Your father Abraham, speaking to the Jews, rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Verse 58, Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

Present tense. And it's said in a way, because he says this, the same pair of words, ego, eimi in the Greek, that means, I live in the eternal present. I live in the eternal present. For God, it's all now. All times are now. He said, let there be light for him that's now. He saw his son on the cross and his wrath was poured out on his son. That's now. We sit here this morning studying God's Word and gaining insight into how the Lord has worked in our lives and the lives of others. That's now. The Lord will come again, and that's now. For the Lord, He lives in the eternal present. He isn't waiting for something to happen. To Him, it's all at once. It's all now. And that doesn't blow His circuits like it would you and me.

Scripture doesn't put it this way, but some have said that God lives outside of time, and that's probably, I think, a good way to think of it. Time is something that God has created, something that God has made. It's a part of this universe. He's not subject to it except in those instances where He has determined to step into it, as Christ did and will do again.

But it's not like God is waiting around for something to happen. To Him, it's eternal present. Imagine, we look at thousands of years passing between Christ's first coming and His second coming. For God, is He waiting around? No. For Him, both those events are happening as He looks at it right now.

And what does this mean? For the Lord is not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. Oh, then everybody's getting saved, right? Why not? What's the problem with that? Ah, okay, so there's some difference here. I thought God was sovereign. Is God sovereign? Yeah? Okay, so what's the deal here? What do we got going on? Well, okay, let's look at that.

He's going to use this word will right here in the verse we have in Matthew 23. Matthew 23, 37. Here is Jesus looking at Jerusalem. He's just come from Jerusalem in the temple area, and here's what He says to the disciples. We're in front of the disciples looking at Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

How often I wanted Here's Christ. Is he speaking as a human being, or is he speaking as God? As God, right? How often I wanted, and the Greek word there is thalo, which means to will, to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were, what? Unwilling. In fact, in English we have that as one word, in the Greek it's two. You were not willing. Same word, thalo.

God wills, He does. At the same time, and it's a mystery to us, He also has us with the ability, God-given ability to will. Now does Scripture, does He explain all that? How that works out? No. There's nowhere that Scripture really resolves to human satisfaction. How do you resolve those two? But you know what, for me personally, here's what comes across from Scripture.

One, I take great confidence in God's sovereignty. Great confidence in His sovereignty. Here at the end of Romans chapter 8, God works all things together, everything, for good. for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. At the same time, what He'll do is say, believe, and built into the Greek is an act of will.

Does He resolve that? No. But do I have a problem in terms of what I need to do each day and every moment? I trust in His sovereignty every moment, and I do so willingly. How about that? Yeah, amazing. Isn't that something? Not my will, but yours. Yeah. He subjected his will to the Father, right? And that's what we're after. Yes.

Some say that God's sovereign, but he's not powerful enough to make a being with a free will. If he really is sovereign, if he wants to make a being with a free will, he can do that, because he's sovereign. The interesting thing is, people will come up, essentially this thing, God is not powerful enough. Hello?

We're talking about a God who can create everything that we see and far beyond what we see and know. and just says it. And when this earth is done, and by the way, Peter says this is reserved for destruction, so the Lord is holding that in abeyance right now. He is powerful enough to do that. And He is powerful enough to just terminate everything on this planet and everything in this present physical universe.

He is certainly powerful enough. Power isn't the issue. The difficulty is not with God. The difficulty is not with God's limitations. The difficulty is in our human limitations to comprehend what He is doing. But we do a disservice to the truth of Scripture by trying to force a limitation based on what we can understand. I know clearly that Scripture says, God Sovereign. At the same time, I know clearly that He has called for me to place my trust in Him. Could he have just said, okay, I'm going to make you trust me? Yeah, he could have. He didn't. And he doesn't explain how that gets resolved. And I'm okay with that. Because he understands it. That's good enough for me.

Yes? Are the angels kind of an example of this, that they were created apparently with a will? Yes. Because Lucifer and others could choose to disobey him. Right. But then he marked a point and said no more. Sure. You've chosen this and no more angels can fall.

Yeah, Nancy is talking about the angels had a time window in which they could choose. It does not appear that they have any opportunity to make that choice subsequently or to reverse that. We, as human beings, since we are not all created at once as the angels appear to have been, but are instead brought into life sequentially, have a kind of a moving window throughout the mass of humanity, but a window for each person. And what's interesting is that at one point in time, and there will be a point in time for us as well, this issue of will is fixed. But there is for both, not identically in time, but there is for both angels and human beings a time window to choose.

Real interesting how the Lord works that out. And again, it's not all explained, but there isn't any question To us, to each of us, what the Lord has called us to do. The Sovereign Lord has called us to choose to trust Him. And I can believe He's Sovereign. I can trust Him. Matter of fact, believing He's Sovereign is part of trusting Him.

And we're in a place now where there's no question what needs to take place with me as a human being. One for whom Christ died. There isn't any question at all. Yes. It seems so amazing to me that God gives us the opportunity to be alive in Him. Yeah.

Because we're all born separated by our same nature and forgives us the opportunity to be made alive in Him. But the angels who chose to follow Satan continue to be dead in their trespasses and sins. Yeah, the angels are dead and they continue to be. We have the unfathomable opportunity to believe and to be alive in Him, to be alive to Him.

Here in the middle of page two we have this frequently quoted, and the Lord is not wishing for any to perish but all to come to repentance. What's interesting is that what doesn't come across in the English is he uses a particular Greek word. The Lord does not have it at heart. that any should perish, but he used the word ulamai, which does not convey itself all the way to final action.

What does that mean? The Lord does not determine the outcome. That's what this word, that word holds off on enforcing God's will upon us. Isn't that something? The Lord does not have it at heart that any should perish, but he does not determine that outcome. But, what does he do?

That all should come to repentance. That all should choose to come with an outcome. With an outcome that we choose. God has a heart that all should come to repentance. He does not force and dictate that. The Greek word for that is thalontes, for determine. God acts of will and it does happen absolutely. He didn't use that word. He used a word that says God's heart is that all should come to repentance. Let's take a look at some passages. Here's out of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel says there in Ezekiel 18.23, Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord? than that he should turn from his ways and live? And verse 32, for I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord, therefore repent and live. The Lord does not dictate as some say, oh, this one I'm going to pick, that one's going to go to hell. The Lord does not choose, this one's going to hell and that's just all there is to it.

That's where they're going, and that's where I want them to go, and that's what I take pleasure in. No. The Lord does not make that choice. Yes? In other words, too bad for Tulip. Too bad for Tulip? Yeah, there are some hardliners who actually hold to God has chosen those who are going to hell, and He takes pleasure in that. And that's just simply not biblical. It fits a system. of human rationality, but it is not the biblical position.

By the way, we often hear of, in New Testament times, we'll hear of the Sadducees and the Pharisees as two Jewish groups. Anybody hear of the Essenes? Ever hear of that group? That group taught double predestination. That is, God chooses those who go to heaven and those who go to hell. Interestingly, we've had that 1,500 some odd years later come up again in parts of Christendom.

And finally, Ezekiel 33, 11, say to them, as I live, declares the Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways. OK. All right. Second Peter 3, 10.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up. It's interesting this phrase, the day of the Lord, is one that is used for everything from right after the rapture, the time when the church is taken up to be with the Lord, until the end of this present heavens and earth. That is the day of the Lord. A day.

Not a thousand years exactly either. So it's not an equation, it's just saying here is a span of time, from the time right after the Rapture until the end of this present Heavens and Earth, that gets called the Day of the Lord. And by the way, that's both Old Testament and New Testament terminology. The Rapture is sometimes called the Day of Christ, which is a different thing there.

It's followed by the Tribulation. The beginning of that time of the Day of the Lord will come as a surprise to all, and many will be surprised by subsequent events as well. Even though it's told in Scripture, they never looked at it or they never believed it. So what happened? I wasn't expecting this.

Now look how the Apostle John poetically describes the same terminal event. Here's in Revelation chapter 20 and 21. In verse 11 of chapter 20, Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away. fled away. And then in chapter 21 verse 1, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea in the new heaven and new earth. Of the two authors, Peter describes this terminal event of this present heavens and earth more fully, a roar, intense heat burned up. And then in verses 11 and 12, some more description.

Likely he does so because his purpose is to show the fleeing temporal nature and absolute end of everything that our senses know here. Even in Peter's own day, and this is an interesting thing to think about, in Peter's own day, the classical understanding among those who believed in the Greek gods and those who didn't was that the universe is eternal. Even the gods come and go, but the universe is eternal. That was the understanding. And interestingly, our own culture is tending to drift in that direction as well, more so, as people adapt this long-term evolutionary thing throughout the universe. So our own culture has tended to go in that direction. So Peter's sense of this present world and its ephemeral character comes as a new revelation to a number of the readers who are more of a Greek background, at least compared to the days before they came to know the Lord.

Here's Peter. He's not just giving a geology or an astronomy lesson here. He's about to underscore his point with personal application. He's going to take it personally. Remember, I've encouraged that before. Take it personally. Peter's going to do that.

Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat? But according to His promise, we are looking for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. Now, what's happened? Peter has scattered the destiny of this present heavens and earth throughout this passage.

Look here at 2 Peter 3.7 that we read from last week, but by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction by ungodly men. And then in 10-12, further indication. the heavens will pass away with a roar, the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works burned up. In the end of verse 12, because of the heavens which will be destroyed by burning, the elements will melt with intense heat.

Now Peter is pounding the point home here. If you think about it, he keeps starting in verse 7. It's all going to end, folks. And let me tell you how it's going to end. It's going to get burned up. There's going to be intense heat and he keeps coming back to the point.

He's not trying to get people to just get paranoid. He's not trying to get people to just be afraid. What's he trying to do? What's his point here? Why does he keep bringing this up? And why doesn't he just bring it up once and drop it? Why does he keep coming back to it? This is one key thing, very important. The Lord is telling us about things that are going to happen in the future, because Scripture has a lot of it. Someone has said about, in round numbers, about 10,000 prophecies in the Bible. About 5,000 of those have been fulfilled.

The point is the Lord wants us to get real prophecy hyper, right? He wants us to be prophecy nuts? No. Prophecy is given in order for us to have perspective and live now in such a way that we understand what's going to happen in this universe, what matters. That's why we have prophecy. Not so we can be prophecy nuts.

Now, top of page four. Here are the portions of the passage that reveal the response that Peter is looking to bring out in his readers. What sort of people ought you to be now, in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening in the coming of the day of God, that our anticipation of And I'm looking for, at one time, John Walford, who some of you may recognize the name, for years was head of Dallas Theological Seminary. He's home with the Lord now, but I can remember one time when someone asked him about the Lord's coming, and he kind of looked out the window and he says, I hope it's today. I hope it's today. And it's that anticipation that's a good thing. That's a good thing. But according to his promise, we are now looking for new heavens, new earth, then, in which righteousness dwells. A new one, then.

What Peter is seeking to drive home in the minds and hearts of his readers is a time perspective that views things beyond what this present world can see. Here's the summary. Peter wants us to live this day for that day. See it? This day for that day.

See the world, if you look at it from the world standpoint, if you've got some number of decades and then you're done, that's the time perspective the world likes to operate with. Peter is encouraging anything but that. He says, there's a day coming and unless you have it revealed to you directly from God's Word, you don't even know about it. He says, I'm telling you, this is what really counts.

Live this day for that day. A time perspective that the world isn't going to communicate to you. It's not going to come across in the advertisements between the TV spots. But it most clearly comes through here. He keeps coming back to it. This day for that day. I live this day because that day is coming. And it's as certain as can be. It's as certain as the breath I just took. This day for that day. There will be a time, if time is quite the right word, that everything that is in this present world that occupies our time and activities will be gone in a flash, and that's not a figure of speech. Gone in a flash. Done and gone.

Peter wants us to see that there are perspectives to hold, lives to live, and things to do and not to do in this present world now that will impact our lives for eternity. Are we determining whether or not we're saved? No, that's not the issue. The place we have in Christ is eternally fixed in the heavenlies, untouchable, it cannot be touched. He's not threatening that. He's not talking about losing our salvation or chipping away at that in any way. He wants us to start living eternity right now. See, here's the deal.

We are, and Paul has written this a couple places real clearly, we are new creations in Christ Jesus. Part of the new creation of which Christ is the first. The new creation. He wants us to be living now like and because we're part of the new creation. And that new creation will fill all the nows in the ages to come.

Since you're a new creation already, it doesn't make any sense to live any other way. You are right now part of the new creation that will be ultimately very evident, but don't wait. That's his perspective. Notice what he ended with in verses 11 and 12.

What sort of people ought you to be now, in holy conduct and godliness, in the New Heavens and New Earth in which righteousness dwells then? Now we typically think of things like holiness and righteousness as something abstract. But in the New Heavens and New Earth, we find both confirmation of the very things Peter wrote about here, and confirmation of the presence of the Lord. It won't be, there'll be righteousness then because there'll be this abstract thing and it's just kind of there. It will be because the Lord Jesus Christ will most certainly be there and dwell among men. And He is by nature righteous. He doesn't just have righteousness. He is righteousness. He's the very definition.

If we look there in Revelation 21, 22, and 23, I saw no temple in it that is in the New Jerusalem, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. Righteousness, lighting up everything. Now, something to think about, what is the glory of God?

The glory of God is the radiant essence of who He is. Is He, by character, righteous? Yes. His righteousness is one wavelength, if you will, of His glory. His glory is the radiant essence of all of His attributes. Righteousness is certainly a part of that, and it's infinite.

The next one, Revelation 22, last half of verse 11 and verse 13. Let the one who is righteous still practice righteousness, and the one who is holy still keep himself holy. Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the A to Z. When you wrap it all up, this is A to Z, I know it all. Beginning of time, end of time, it's all one to me. There's nothing that escapes my notice. There's nothing that escapes my involvement and influence. God doesn't go, oops.

So Peter's challenge as we look at this passage, I come back to, Peter wants us to live this day for that day. He wants us to have that time perspective. And he doesn't want us to simply look at it as that day is all there is, and I'm just kind of waiting around. He wants us to start living that new creation now. Not by something we try really hard to do, but by everything that God has already done. After all, what did Christ say on the cross? It is finished. Finished. Thoughts, comments, exasperations? Steve?

Back there on page 2, there are a few classic verses that refer to predestination. Romans 8, 29, Ephesians 1, 5, 11. How do those intersect with Notice when it does say that, what are we predestined to? What are we predestined to? Is predestination some sort of a cosmic machine and you just get ground up in the gears and that's the way it goes? Or is predestination something else? What I would suggest to you is if you look at those verses carefully, the predestination is that you as a believer be conformed to the image of the Son. Well, guess what? This isn't something dreadful and fearful and mechanistic. This is, I'm a believer. This is, I'm saved. And the Lord's saying, don't worry about it, you will be conformed to the image of His Son.

He says something very similar without using the word predestination in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 9. Basically says, God's faithful, He'll pull it off. that predestination is not simply a matter of this world being a cosmic machine that just grinds on and it's all going to happen because God preordained every little jot and tittle down to the next breath that you take. But instead, what's preordained is the conformity.

Now that doesn't answer every question we might have, and all we're told is all things work together for good, so that's not giving us a lot of detail. But the reality is predestination It is not God just turning the crank on the cosmic machine. It is saying, look, all kinds of things are going to happen in the midst of this. I haven't explained to you, but you have all sorts of choices.

But no matter what happens in the end, you will be conformed to the image of the sun. And that's what predestination is really looking to. And rather than take it as something, well, God's going to do whatever he's going to do, and I can't have any impact on it. Instead, it is a matter of taking comfort in it. Yeah, the predestination word, is one that is used for Christians. And again, the whole scope of it is not explained, but if I get the sense of what you're saying, we are predestined as believers to be conformed to the image of the sun. It doesn't make everything in the universe one cosmic machine in which we're just one tooth in the set of gears. Instead, what it does is it says, as a believer, I can take great comfort in that. Because here I am as a believer, the Lord is going to conform me to the image of His Son. He's going to pull it off. He's going to do it.

The Essenes, E-S-S-E-N-E-S, is kind of a third group. In Jerusalem, the southwest corner of it was called the Essene Quarter. They denounced what was going on in the temple because they figured the Sadducees and the Pharisees had it pretty well polluted. They're generally thought, some exceptions, to have inhabited the village of Qumran at the north end of the Dead Sea, and to have been the primary ones for setting aside the scrolls that are now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Yes. Yes, God knows. It's interesting. We have various things to talk about, you know, the kind of dividing the sheep and the goats. And we've got all sorts of different things about that division. But yes, he knows in advance where it is. Yeah. You know, here we are in time. And think of, here's the Apostle Paul.

Here he is, he's headed to Damascus. What he thinks is, I'm going to Damascus and I'm going to take out as many Christians as I possibly can. That's what he thinks is going on, right? What does he write later that we just read about in our Galatians study?

He says, from the womb, the Lord has set me apart. Now, he spoke to the Philippian jailer and said, you know, to be saved, you must believe. He put that in an imperative. And the imperative implies a choice. And at the same time, Paul could speak. Here, when I was determined to go to Damascus to kill Christians, I became one.

Do we understand that and explain it all? Nope. This whole thing, I mean, I think it's helpful to sit there and look at a pen or something like this and get the illustration, but the reality is, if we think that we're going to reduce this thing down so we've got it all in our nog and how this whole thing works, ha ha ha ha ha, forget it. Yeah. Good, thank you. Other thoughts?

We've answered every question you possibly could have. That's spectacular! Moments of blazing insight. Not only is the light bulb turned on, but the flood lights have been turned on. Right? Okay. Let's do pray, okay? Lord, we're thankful for Your precious Word.

We're thankful for Your precious Son. And certainly there's much here in which we can look at and gain insight, and also much we look at and say, boy, Lord, I'm glad I can trust you for this, because there are things beyond our ability to comprehend.

You've told us indeed that Your ways are higher than our ways. And we trust You for all these things. For Your sovereignty. For the choices that You've told us to make. And for the things that we don't understand that put those together. And we're thankful, Lord, that we can trust You in all things. Both the things we understand and the things we don't. And we thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.