Knowing and Growing – Being conformed - what is that process?
Vern Peterman · May 14, 2017
Knowing & Growing, No. 18
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492655611717

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Just one of the things that even in recent weeks, even this last week, I continue to be stunned, amazed at how ultimately clear God's word is. Just about every passage has multiple interpretations. So is that what God intended? No. God intended one single me, to come across. He's a God who reveals Himself. He had one intended meaning at the outset, not two, three, four, five, six.

So it means that if you're gathering a collection of how do people interpret a passage, only one of them is correct, and maybe not even that one. But God intended only one specific understanding of each passage. And one of the things I've been looking at more and more lately is, among those, how can I be certain about one particular specific interpretation?

Which is kind of astounding, and I'm not being arrogant with that because, you know, I've changed my mind about things and whatnot, but it's not me I'm impressed with. It's the Lord's work. That's what impresses me. OK, let's take a look at this handout. And what we're going to be doing here, we've been through four weeks of, and this has been spread out over Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday as well, but we have the bullets at the top of page one with physical and spiritual aspects of human being. This is the diagram where we have on the left side the physical part. of the human being, and on the right side of that diagram, the spiritual aspects of human beings, and particularly what's the difference between those who are saved and those who are unsaved in that regard. Next, we talk about the image and likeness of God.

We talked about that begins in Genesis 1.26, where it talks about image and likeness, and he created the male and female in that passage. And then from there on, it's very interesting, that continues as a pattern in the New Testament. But from early chapters in Genesis on into the New Testament, what is used is either image or likeness, but not image and likeness. So a very interesting pattern. It's as if one is used as an equivalent, a synonym for the other.

Next, we have the identification truths with regards to the above, that is, dead to, alive to, joined to, and separated from, for both the unbeliever and the believer. So, we talk about the identification truths for believers. The truth is, as we talk about the identification truths for believers, there are truths for the unbeliever as well. Yeah, I know what he's working on. So then we have, you know, so how about that Holly Hill spending one Sunday on identification truths? Boy, that's almost unheard of, right?

So anyway, we have following that, in Adam, the old man and the old sin nature, and in Christ, the new man and the new nature, and the continuity of person or continuing person, It's the part of each believer that God is changing over time. Okay, the next thing that we have here, we're going to be talking about being conformed, essentially for four weeks. And the pattern that we'll do that with is a pattern we're going to be using for other words, like for example, transformed, sanctified. We're going to be looking at that. Growing. And it'll have this pattern, or a similar pattern, May 14th, which is today, we'll have Being Conformed, what is the process?

So first of all, we're going to define the word and give some understanding as to what does the word mean? What is God doing in the life of the believer? At Holly Hills, we're inclined to talk about our position and our condition, right? And we will less often use the word possessions. We have possessions that are a result of our position, and now our focus here is going to be the processes.

We have our position, we have possessions because of our position, and thirdly, we have processes that only go on in the believer. The unbeliever does not have these processes going on. There isn't any conforming to the image of Christ for the unbeliever. There isn't any being transformed, so it is only true of believers. So that's what we're covering here primarily, is we'll talk about our position, we'll talk about the possessions that we have, when the Bible says we have, for example, the redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Ephesians 1.7, Colossians 1.14. Both of those say that same thing. We have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins. That's a possession we have. So here it's processes. So the first one, what is the process? The next one, what is God's doing? What is God's part in that process? And what is our part? Why do we have our part after what's God's part?

Why not just jump into here's our part? He has to lead. If he didn't do his part, and if we don't understand his part, then we've got a problem. If he didn't do his part, we wouldn't have any part to do, right? It is only because of what he has done that we have anything to do. That's part one. Part two is we have to understand what he is doing in order to complement what he is doing.

Otherwise, the human tendency is to do what God's already doing, and there are plenty of Christians who do that. Bless you. So to understand what God is doing in the life of the believer, and to understand that so that we're not reproducing what he's already doing. And then the other part is the opposite end of it, where we say, well, God does everything and I just don't need to do anything.

Not realizing, oh yes, you do have a part, and you need to understand what is being conformed, and you need to understand what God is doing, so that when we talk in the third week about what's the believer's part, That's done with intelligence, because it's not that we want to be all intellectual, not at all. That's not the point. As a matter of fact, if all you're interested in is being intellectual, then that's a problem. But we want to live to walk. That's individual, by the way. Walk.

Individual ordering of one's steps, step by step. faith, by faith, that is faith in what God is doing, faith in who God is, faith in this process even. So that's our reason for introducing it, that's our pattern. After we spend a week saying what is the process, then the very next thing we do is what's God's part, and then the third part, every time, is what's our part, after knowing the first couple of things. And then, There is often a fourth category here that's related to it is where scripture has other connections about being conformed.

For example, don't be conformed, same word, don't be conformed to this world. And by the way, that's the same word also in the same book. Romans 8 is being conformed, that's what we're going to be looking at here. Romans 12 is, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed.

Ah, so then transformed, we spend a whole month on that. So that's the pattern, and that's why we follow that pattern. We want to get a full understanding of what God is doing. Our inclination at Holly Hills is to keep talking about your position, and that is very important, exceedingly important. but also to understand there are possessions we have as a part of our position, and thirdly, there are God-intended, designed processes that are not insignificant, but instead are so important that God would do things like foreknow and predestined, based on what this is. So this is big. This has to do with forever, not just about what's going on right now.

So what we're going to do is look at the bottom of the page there. Being conformed, what is that process? We will certainly make reference to other verses and passages. This central passage provides insight into this spiritual process of being conformed, Romans 8, 28-30, and particularly verses 28-29, which, by the way, we're also going to be looking at in the main service here this morning, as part of our study of the Book of Acts. Alright, so, page 2, flip side there.

So Romans 8.28-30, this is the New American Standard. All scripted references are New American Standard unless stated otherwise.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined he also called, and these whom he called he also justified, and these whom he justified he also glorified.

By the way, one of the things that was mentioned briefly, I will bring it up, it's not part of the text here. Many of us have people that we know either as relatives, they may be siblings, it may be friends, some other relationship, who have in the past expressed faith in the Lord and then in one way or another wandered away. And for people who are in that situation, I think there are many of us, Nancy and I are both in that role, I think it is important to look, to have this perspective, that one, that their wandering away from the faith does not cause them to lose their salvation. That's part one.

Part two is that unlike what Calvinists teach, ever heard of the tulip, the P in tulip, the perseverance of the saints? They have essentially backdoor laws of salvation. What that means to the Calvinist is that the true believer must persevere, otherwise it's evidence they never were saved. And I think 1 Corinthians is not the only, but it is primary evidence that that's a false statement.

So here is the Apostle Paul. He starts off writing the Corinthians. Do the Corinthians have problems? Really, really big problems. Lots of problems. And the problems are severe, severe enough so that some of them are actually going through a sin unto death. This is chapter 11. Remember, they took the Lord's table and some of them were so sinful in the way that they took it that some were sick and some were dying.

As a result of their being off course, does that mean that they lost their salvation? No. He said in the beginning, in verse 2 of the first part of his letter, you've been sanctified in the perfect tense. In chapter 15, there are those in the church who believed at the outset. that Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again, and so you believed and were saved." 1 Corinthians 15 verses 1-4.

Later in that chapter, he talks about some of them now going back to lack of belief in the resurrection. He did not tell them that they had lost their salvation because they didn't believe in the resurrection. How about that? So even moving to a place of disbelief did not unsave them.

And there is not the slightest evidence, he wrote them in 1 Corinthians 1.30, by God's doing you're in Christ Jesus. He didn't say, except for you who don't believe in the resurrection anymore, you've been unseated with Christ. or those of you who don't believe in the resurrection, you never were saved. There is not that message. It does not confirm either Calvinism or Arminianism. Both are unbiblical. All right, yes?

To clarify, the P and 2 in Calvinism says the saints will persevere. Not that they must persevere, but they will persevere. But there is no qualification on if they don't persevere, how long does it take for somebody who doesn't persevere to have never been there?

Well, and yeah, and if I can point out that some of these Corinthians have been sinning a while, if I can point out that it's gotten so far that some of them don't believe in the resurrection, he doesn't say, you guys are at risk of losing your salvation, or that tells me you never were saved.

And so you start stacking up, here's the guy in chapter 5 who's sleeping with his stepmother. So does Paul say, well you guys have sinned so bad, or this guy has sinned so bad, that you know, he's lost his salvation, or it proves he never was saved. That's not what Paul says. And in 2 Corinthians, Paul says, welcome him back.

Right? So I look at it and I say, well, there's absolutely no support for this. And I say that not to be theological, and frankly not all impressed with a lot of theology. But in order to offer hope, And also make, I think, a correct assessment for those of us who have friends and or family, and Nancy and I have both, who have since walked away from the Lord, that in fact they still are saved, and in fact they may be surprised, but they're going to see the Lord face to face. And I think that's very comforting. I also think it's very biblical.

So anyway, going on here, at the top of page 2 it says, we know. And by the way, this answers another question, because there are multiple instances in Paul's writings and in the writings, for example, of the Apostle John, especially in 1 John. But there are things that we know, we know, we know. And that means to know with a certainty. It's not, hey, here's our best guess. It's not, we sure would like to hope that this is how, but we know. We know with certainty. Paul even writes to the Romans, where so far as we know he had never been, he knew that they had been taught the identification truths at least the first three.

So Romans 6.3. is do you not know, and the implication of that proven from chapter 7 is of course you do, and start of verse 6, start of verse 9, those are technically called causative participles, and what that means is because you know or since you know. So he knew that they knew these identification truths. And so that's what that means.

So knowing, I mean there are Christians even, I've run into them, who say we can't know. There was a professor at Colorado Christian University who was telling some of his students, if somebody says that they know what the Bible means, that they're heretical. And I would say, absolutely not, that person is heretical.

The Bible very clearly, and the Apostle Paul says it, John says it, we know, and we know with a certainty. Emphatically and repeatedly, we know. And so, there are things we can know, and as a matter of fact, if people are uncertain about things, the question is, are they uncertain because of the Bible or because of something else? So anyway, let's look at the bullets.

Knowing as common knowledge among believers implies that it is not only possible to know spiritual truth with certainty and clarity, but that believers ought to be taught so as to know these things in common and with uniformity among believers. There ought to be certainty, there ought to be an understanding that knowing is exactly what God intended. That's why he had these guys write as inspired writings, is to know with certainty what God intended.

And if you've got four or six different views on a passage or something, those are not all intended. If there are six different views, at least five of them are wrong. Once in a while I'll come across a passage and say, okay, because every passage I always look at what are the different views out there. I look at them all. Every passage. So I'll look at that and I'll say which one's right and sometimes I find a combination is correct and sometimes I'll find that none of the answers out there is correct or sufficient, inadequate.

Okay, another one. At times the New Testament author would write, we know, and at other times he would write, knowing this or knowing that. That's the context of Romans 6.6 and 6.9. Is since you know or because you know, where the Apostle Paul not only knows that these things are true, but he knows that they know that these things are true. He knows what they've been taught. in addition to knowing these truths. Next, it says, At times this same truth was stated in the New Testament, Romans four times, 1 Corinthians ten times, and James once, with a question having an implied answer, do you, plural, not know, as common knowledge, was used not to imply doubt, but to underscore the truth known in common, and to have the believers respond in their thought process with a resounding, yes, we know. Do you not know? And of course you do. So it's rhetoric intended to say, don't you know? Of course you know this. The answer is yes, you do. It's rhetoric. It is not intended to cause them to doubt or call into question what's being stated.

So what he was doing is often using it to draw logical spiritual conclusions as part of an exhortation. A similar thing, if you see in the Bible, if, one of the questions to ask, and frankly the Greek implies something different in different contexts, if, that is not universally sense. It depends on the Greek structure, and sometimes even the Greek structure, you've got to look at context, always. Sometimes the Greek structure, you look at it, and it can mean if, and it's not the case. And if, and it may or may not be.

As in Colossians 3.1?

Yes, and you have so so yeah and and You know Paul writes of Timothy if we deny him and he guess what? It's assumed to be true Right so so it's because people look at it. Well if you do this, then you're gonna lose your salvation That's what and then he'll deny us and like that. No if and it's assumed to be true. I we deny him, he will steal.

So that understanding is very important. We need to be careful about just jumping to conclusions about what if means. He is, as he's doing with the question, do you not know, he is inviting them to think through the logic. And that's the meaning culturally, that's the meaning of including if. And we've got to look in each case, what does if mean? to understand it.

And that, by the way, is one of the things that causes people to interpret passages differently, because they don't understand what the Greeks say. They don't understand the use of the question, and do you not know, in the culture. So it's always elements of language, history, and culture we use to properly interpret and understand a passage. Jesus did not tell the disciples that they need to hate their parents. You have to understand in the culture what that meant.

Knowing these spiritual basics allows us to build upon these truths, and this is how Paul and James use the statement form, we know, or question form, do you not know, of Christian common knowledge to draw further spiritual and moral and ethical conclusions. In Romans 6, for example, Paul used do not know in verse 3 and because you know form in verses 6 and 9. That is why in verse 11 he says that they must draw a conclusion from the things they most certainly know in common. So Romans 6, 11 and 12a Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God and Christ Jesus.

So the Apostle Paul often uses logic and invites them to think through things logically. A lot. It's one of the reasons I first came to Holly Hills and I talked about a logical imperative and people thought that was some kind of a Greek form. No, it's not a Greek form of verbs or something of that sort, it is context. It is logic, because Paul uses logical terms. He was a highly intelligent Pharisee, so of course he used logic. And he was a highly intelligent Pharisee, especially having been raised in Gentile surroundings. was very good at understanding the Gentile way of thinking and even Greek logic.

He quoted from Greek philosophers and very well trained in order to be able to draw from their way of thinking and explain things to them. Here the Apostle Paul goes, like in Ephesians as an example, Romans is another, spends chapters talking about position and what's true before he even gives any commands.

Romans 6.11 is the first command in Romans.

Why? It's because he goes five and a half chapters before he even gives any command, because he says the command has to come with understanding. It has to come with understanding. Ephesians, six chapters long, he goes four and a half chapters before he starts talking about, now let's talk about don't do this and do that. And why? Because you have to have a clear understanding first of who you are. James writes this book that just slaps people in the face, and it's because he's writing to Jews who already have position figured out. The Gentiles do not. So that's the difference. People not recognizing the difference will draw false conclusions. So when God chose Paul to go to the Gentiles, it was a perfect choice, since he already understood the great mind. It was a perfect choice, except from a human standpoint.

Okay, I think I'll pick a guy who's going out killing Christians. And a guy who's adamantly opposed to Christianity to the point where Paul said later on in Acts, and we'll see that, every chance I had I voted for death. You know, kill him. It's kind of like a judge that always gives the maximum sentence. So here's the Apostle Paul, maximum sentence, it's not jail time, it's kill him. Thumbs down. Okay, so let's take a look at page 3.

So here's Romans 8.28-30, it starts with, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good. We've addressed the and we know part of the verse, and the part that we know with certainty and common with all other believers is the truth that God causes. This is really big, and it's really important. God is certainly the originator and creator of all things in the physical and spiritual universe. That's clear from scripture.

He didn't stop there and leave things to work out in whatever way they happen to work out. So this is not deism. where God created and just kind of stood back or even walked away and said, well, it'll work out however it works out. This is not open theism. God has not the slightest idea how this is going to turn out. It's neither one of those. And by the way, it's not Calvinism or Arminianism either. It's none of those.

So what's happened is our theologies, our philosophies, can lead us vastly astray. And in the end, we don't need any isms. We need God's word interpreted literally and correctly. The tendency is for people to gravitate towards an ism and then interpret from the ism everything else, even if it means overriding scripture or adding to the meaning of scripture.

Okay, in that passage, 44 new, isn't that also a word that means elected? So how does that fit in with, I mean it almost sounds like, it almost sounds Calvinistic in the fact that certain people were elected. Yes, and here is what I think is the the right way to resolve this thing. The Calvinists, the Arminians, I'm going to be going over this with the women's study on Tuesday.

The Calvinists, the Arminians, and the Opentheists, all three, and this may seem amazing because they've been at each other's throats for decades if not centuries, all three agree that they're saying, I can understand how God does salvation from beginning to end. Instead of my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts, right? So what I see is on the one hand Here is God's predestination. Here's God's election Here is God's choosing He chose us in him before the foundation of the world so you see that the Calvinist is yeah, right Wait a minute So here's the Apostle Paul the Philippian jailer is Asking Paul.

He's ready to do himself in with the sword. It says so, right there in the text. And the culture would also reinforce that. He's ready to do himself in. What must I do to be saved? You guys give me a good answer or I'm ending it right now. So Paul's answer. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. By the way, that's in 1 Thessalonians 10. It's belief. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. He doesn't say you've got to super believe. He doesn't say, you know, I don't know whether God's elected you or chosen you, in which case you can't believe even if you try. So you don't find evangelism carried out according to Calvinism. You don't find that the perseverance of the saint's teaching of the tulip works out in scripture at all.

Here are the people reading the book of Hebrews for the first time. The author of Hebrews has written them and said, you guys, by now you ought to be teachers, but you've become dull of hearing. There is spiritual retrogression on your part. He does not write to them, however, as if they had lost their salvation or as if they had never been saved. Here's the Galatians. Who has bewitched you? You have fallen from grace. That sounds terrible, right?

But he does not write anything to them about you've lost your salvation or you've proven that you never were saved. If God foreknows, that doesn't sound like open theism, or God doesn't know what's happening. Is Romans 8.28-2.30 God's best guess? That's what open theism would say. This is what God thinks is going to happen, but not sure. No. So all three of those views are wrong. and the fundamental assumption in which they agree perfectly, is I as a human being can understand exactly what God's doing regarding salvation from beginning to end, regardless of the multiple passages, including in Romans 8, that says His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, His ways higher than our ways. So here we have, that's a quick answer to your question, but we can certainly address that more.

Yeah, and this is one thing, the Aorist tense is one of the most confused things ever presented among people studying the Bible. The Aorist means this, the Aorist, well, usually that's wrong. In the past tense, the only thing that absolutely means past is Aorist indicative and Aorist participle. All other forms do not necessarily mean that it happened in the past or that it's already done.

I'll stick with it. Here's Paul believe and it's Aorist. Does that mean, I'm sorry Mr. Jaylor, you have to have already believed. How must that be saved? I'm sorry, you have to have already believed. Is that what the Aorist means? No, I would say not. Yes, that's right, and you have to have already believed, and it's too late for me to present that because you're already elect, etc. Right?

It doesn't mean that. So it's a misapplication of the Greek. Okay, so let's go farther down here. The Bible does not teach that God's sovereignty means that he controls every finite detail such that our choices are merely our subjective perception. And by the way, there's a different word for believe that could mean that. with a prefix epi, epipistuo, to super-believe. That's not what you find. It isn't what he tells the Philippian jailer. He doesn't say, you'd better super-believe, you'd better believe once for all. It's not lordship salvation, that's not what he teaches. Believe. It's not intellectual assent either. It's believe it.

So whether things happen by natural law, by natural principles and processes in the physical universe and spiritual universe. By the way, principles is either the way things work, a fundamental truth, or both. So let's be clear what those are. Again, the Bible is clear. So in processes in the physical universe and the spiritual universe, whether God works in ways that are miraculous or by his deliberate intervention.

So can God let natural processes take their course. God can do that. So not everything that happens is God's intervention and miracle. He often will let natural consequences take their course, and that is still a part of God works all things. Can God also do miraculous things? God can do miraculous things and intervene. And let's also ask one other thing, and that is, can God do things in the physical realm? Can God work all things in the spiritual realm?

Yes. So it means that God lets natural things happen on both sides and He can intervene physically and spiritually. Did He intervene with the Apostle Paul? Very much so. So God is very capable of intervening when that's a part of He works all things together for good. Very important for us to understand. It's both physical, it's spiritual. He works by the natural laws on both sides, physical and spiritual, as well as intervening miraculously on both sides. But he's still in control of everything that happens. Everything that happens. So this is one thing.

There is no time in which God is pacing the floor of heaven And thinking something like, oh, Vern did this, and I had no idea that was going to happen. And I just had the foggiest idea, and Vern blew it so bad, I don't know if I can fix it. No. And it's not encouraging me to blow it, but what it says is ultimately I can take comfort that no matter what happens, and I can blow it, no matter what happens, this conforming process is going to take place. Because that's what predestined means. Notice in this passage that predestined is not pointing at God makes every breath that you take and every move you make happen sovereignly, but what it means is that God has predestined the outcome.

Here's an example. There's a lady who listens to Holly Hills who lives over on the East Coast. And she actually emails with me sometimes, like yesterday, several times, back and forth. So she's listening to this class. But I told her the story. Here was a pastor at the church where I grew up. And there was a guy who was beginning to teach As we have kind of co-teachers here at Holly Hills, there's a guy who's beginning to teach at Peninsula Bible Church where I grew up. And so this pastor, his name is Dave, this pastor was trying to work with this guy because he had begun to teach but had turned skeptical and was beginning to talk about his skepticism with other believers, which was undermining the faith of some, right?

And so one day they're going along El Camino Real, and Nancy and I went multiple times up and down El Camino Real, a great number of times. So he was going down El Camino Real on the inside lane at a time when things between oncoming traffic and the traffic going ahead, there was no blockage or divider or anything of that sort.

A truck came across the lane. Pastor Dave was sitting in the driver's seat. This fellow, the skeptic, the teacher turned skeptic, was sitting in the passenger seat. Truck came across, hit the passenger side head on, and killed the guy instantly. David, Dave, the pastor, had a few bumps and scratches. The other guy was killed instantly.

The Lord took him home. Better to have this guy, who had turned skeptic, but once was a believer. Better to have this guy do just like Ananias and Sapphira. God makes the choice, because the other thing that God knows that we don't, is if this guy had stuck around, what would have been the outcome? What would have been the impact upon the church body? Would he have ever turned around? Doesn't mean he wasn't saved, but what would be the impact on the body?

So in his case it was a matter of gotta take this guy home. Could divide the church, have a number of people be negatively impacted? And the Lord said, no, this guy's coming home. And even the pastor was well intended to try to work with him and all that, and the Lord says, I'm taking this out of your hands. Right? So. He took care of the skepticism too, didn't he? Yes. Yeah. This guy was skeptic, was face to face with the Lord that day. Right?

OK, so we have this diagram here, which we've shown previously. So God causes the all things. All things refer to both things that are physical, as well as things that are spiritual. And God, by the way, can God work both things together? Right. Isn't that what happened with the Apostle Paul? Right? And we say that as a full instance, but in fact, God can do it in all sorts of circumstances. Yeah?

Could you say whenever God intervenes It's mainly for His glory. Yeah, and ultimately, look at it, what is God doing? God works all things, physical and spiritual, by natural law in both sides, because are there the way things work spiritually, principles, in the spiritual realm? Yes, and He can simply let those principles carry themselves out, or He can intervene. in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm. He can intervene both ways, and sometimes both, and He can work those together. God works all things together for good in ways that we can't even begin to imagine how that gets orchestrated.

So this is fantastic stuff. This is marvelous, amazing stuff. Okay, so what this is saying, we have this diagram, which is a helpful diagram in lots of respects. It's helpful in terms of, sometimes people will have a physical disease process affecting the brain, an injury affecting the brain. That does not instantly change anything in the spiritual realm. That's cool, that's cool. Alright, so let's take a look at the last part, page 4.

So what this passage also makes clear is that God is working in a specific direction as he works all things together for good. What's the specific direction that God's working all things together for good? Where is it headed? Yes! Conformity to the image of Christ. So what's the good? The good is we're being conformed to the image of Christ. That's the good. And it means that we are free to say that certain things that happen are not good. Only to the end that we're being conformed. Was it good, I mean I could pick up some horrible examples, was it good that this man molested that girl? Not at all. Horrible, horrible thing to happen. Is God going to make eternal good of it even though it's a horrible thing that happened?

Yes. And so we are free, we don't need to go around with this crazy mindset, oh everything's good. No it isn't. Some things are really, really, really awful. And that's just fine. And we can say that, honestly. And we can say it consistent with Scripture. Some horrible, awful things happen in this world. And we're free to say that. And it's proper and biblical for us to say that, at the same time to believe that God is working all things for good. That there are things that happen in my life, I look back and I say, boy, I sure wish that hadn't happened, right? But I can still take this to heart. And I can speak honestly about things that are happening both in my life and the life of others.

This was a horrible thing to have taken place, but I know God's working it for good. Because in fact there are some horrible, awful things that happen in this world. And justice is frequently not served. If something bad happens or horrible happens, if God sees that nothing good will come out of that, He will intervene and change the situation to where it is. So, yeah, in other words, this is a very important point. Is it God's job to make sure nothing bad ever happens? It is not God's job to make sure nothing bad ever happens.

If that's His job, He's doing terrible at it. Right? If that's God's job, He's doing horribly at that, okay? But, what's He up to? Ultimately, it is good, and it's eternally good, okay? And so we have a process that's going on that leaves us free to say, that is not good, and we can call it, this is horrible, this is terrible, that was an awful thing to have happened.

Let me give you the four things that people get cranked about. What was done to me. What wasn't done to me. What I did. What I didn't do. Those are the four things that people get cranked about. And about those people we care about, we get cranked about those things with regards to them. What I did. What I didn't do. What happened to me, what didn't happen to me. Those are the four things.

And we are free to judge things scripturally and to say, this was terrible. Yes. a good part of what that incident was. No, no, and I think something I mentioned last Sunday, and that is for believers to come to a recognition that everything will be dealt with justly from an eternal perspective. See, because I used to get absolutely outraged, I mean dangerously so, I used to get absolutely outraged at the injustices that I saw being carried out. And this is before, actually before Nancy and I got married, because it was actually before we got engaged, I needed to deal with this.

And dealing with it was a matter of recognizing that in spite of the outrageous, horrible things that happened, and just the reality that justice is rarely served, here on planet earth. There are all sorts of injustices that continue on, and it happens in the courtroom, it happens outside the courtroom, it happens in all sorts of circumstances, but in eternity, in the eternal perspective, God will deal with everything. Doesn't it say someplace that this is being observed by the angel?

Yes, Ephesians 3.10.

Romans 8.28-30 is another way of saying that, because this is God's administration, and this is how it's being carried out. Yes.

Ephesians 3.10 would say that we, the body of Christ, are angel college. The angels are being shown God's wisdom and God's insight and understanding by means that God says, look at them. Look at them. Yes. Good angels and bad angels? I'm not sure about the bad angels part, but definitely the good angels part. Essentially, the bad angels don't care about learning anything. Not particularly.

Well, it's just evidence against them? Yes, and I think there is that sense of things, in that sense, yes. I'm inclined to look at Ephesians 3.10 as more something God uses to teach and to train and to provide insight for those angels who are obedient to him. It kind of looks like that was his judgment, and now we're learning about his grace. Let me shift gears while I have just a couple of minutes here since the second buzzer has gone off.

This is the standard, what's called tortoise formation of the Roman soldiers. Often times we will picture Roman soldiers as individuals and even go through Ephesians chapter 6. you know, about spiritual warfare, thinking of their own soldiers individually. That's not actually correct, because what they were trained again and again and again is the tortoise formation or variations on it.

Tortoise formation where the soldiers in the middle would put their shields up top, just like you see. Tortoise formation where the soldiers in front and on the sides would put their shields on the front and the sides. And the centurion would make a call, and bang, they would go to that formation. They would use something similar, moving the soldiers up against a wall when they're attacking a walled city or a fortress. They'd have the shields on a slope, and the guys up top would be holding the shields up high, and the shields would be such that the arrows would come and bounce off instead of having a direct hit.

So there would be lots of different things. Now suppose, okay, now we've got a tortoise formation and we're going to use it to go over a wall. And over it, not up against it. And so we're going to handle that differently. So they have different tortoise formations and that would be the way they would operate.

Notice on their shields, in the middle where the handhold is, they've got a curved convex structure there in the middle of the shield. How did they make those? You can see it in here. See that curved convex area? And even on the helmet you see some areas where things are not just a flat piece of sheet metal, right? So how would they make those shapes? This is how they would do it. They would have the end of a piece of wood, a section of wood.

Oh boy! A section of a piece of wood that would be hollowed out in the shape and size that you're trying to reproduce. Right? Oh boy. So, at any rate, they would hollow that out and then they would use, they would put a flat piece of sheet metal in that and then use a ball-peen type hammer to go tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, until the sheet metal was conformed to the image of the end of the piece of wood.

And so what they would do is then have, and you notice that there are different sizes of this that would be done. Smaller ones might be done in metal, but the larger ones typically done in wood. And so, somebody would be assigned, for example, to make 50 of these Roman shields. And so, guess what they'd do?

They'd take this particular wooden piece with a, you know, cave shape, and they would go to the piece of metal and go, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Why wouldn't they just take the thing and go, bang, and hit it in the middle? They ended up breaking it, and they ended up making a big distorted mess. Instead, it was slow taps.

So guess what the Lord's doing in our lives? It's tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. The process. For what end? To the end that you're being conformed to the image of Christ. That's conformed. And eventually the metal would be conformed to the image of the concave kind of mold that it was being shaped to. only in our case God's working all things physical and spiritual by both natural law and by the principles that things are set in place as well as intervention in the physical and spiritual realms to cause all things together for the good that you by tap, tap, tap, tap, tap are going to be conformed. Now, the end result, if I don't tap out too well, The end result is still guaranteed. Why? It's predestined. God's going to work it out in the end. And so guess what?

This skeptical brother that the Lord took home early, what happened to him? He was predestined to be conformed. In Ananias and Sapphira, it's not massively clear, but I think it leans toward that they were actually believers. And guess what happened to them? They were predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. And you'll get to meet them, I think. And you'll get to witness their conformity to the image of Christ.

As badly as they blew it. That's cool. And that gives me comfort, too. And it gives me comfort not just regarding myself, but others that I know. Even those who are going out sinning. Rampantly, even those who claim unbelief. They are predestined to be conformed. They may be surprised when they get home. But it's going to happen. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for what you've laid out here. Thank you for this immensely hopeful, this immensely encouraging passage and what that tells us. And we just thank you for what's revealed here, because you really do love us. You really do care for us. And you want us to understand these things clearly. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.