Feb 12
7
This week at youth we are going to examine the sovereignty of God. Many people will say they believe that God is sovereign over everything but often their lives do not reflect this reality. Christians will say that God is sovereign but when dealing with specific issues like salvation, evangelism, prayer, or their own future, they will hold a very different belief. Correctly understanding the sovereignty of God will forever change the way you think and live your life. In other words, when you truly understand that God is God and you are not, your life begins to have stability, enjoyment, and confidence like no other.
As we exam and learn what the Bible teaches about the sovereignty of God, we will also discuss the popular questions if God is sovereign: why pray? why evangelize? (share the gospel), why do anything?, why is there evil?, and any other why questions you may have.
Come ready to interact and discuss these great issues and don’t forget to bring a friend.
Couldn’t be a much more important subject, Now more than ever, I am so thankful for my reform thinking brothers. God has put some awesome men in my life and showing, seemingly “out of the blue” that reformed theology is racing to the end zone to prove Gods Sovereignty. I think this brings such Glory to God, that there is a reform movement among the youth today. It doesn’t really make sense in worldly terms, because of the need to remove so much of the fleshes’ influence to really grasp, which is not possible for “natural man” I know how self centered I was at that age, and self centeredness and God’s sovereignty don’t mix. That’s why I see this as one of the most obvious movements of our Lord and Savoir in our time.
Sorry Phil/Emmaus readers. I totally understand if you want to ignore this lenghthy posting, but I was so excited about this conversation I had on FaceBook just yesterday with Jeremiah Iberria, He’s the son of the pastor of Hosanna Christian Fellowship, where we WVBC lease and meet.Yesterday was his 20th birthday. Be Blessed brothers and sisters.
Scot Mulholland So, think about this my bored reformed brother. I have seen reformed theology spreading like wildfire. Talked to a youth pastor a couple of weeks ago and he said their youth are going after reformed theology like nothing he has ever seen in church before. Do you think this is a refining of the saints to hasten the separation of the wheat from the chaff or making the gospel more different than the world than it was. It surely isn’t the promotion of the self as the word says will happen in the last days. While I have been recouping form my illness, mainly yesterday, I saw tons of self promotion on the “religious” shows of Sunday morning. Wouldn’t it nice to see a reform channel. A place where people could take time to see the truest beauty of the gospel, of Gods grace, and the Gloriousness of Gods true Sovereign nature? So sad that so many are threatened by this genuine sovereignty issue. What do you think?
22 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Jeremiah Ibarra i` think reformed theology at its heart is one of the most correct ways to define soteriology. and in terms of genuine sovereignty i dont understand lol
22 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Scot Mulholland I get that comment for sure. However in the area’s where we sin God is still sovoriegn. I think one of the most telling things I have ever learned is that, God in his perfect will gives us so many truths that we tend to Ignore for ferar of our defensive flesh, My favorite (probably the most simple way of defining the issue for anyway is what many people see as a deficiency in the word, represented by a “contradiction” which we know that there are none. That is the pairing of the verses None seek after God and seek and you will find. my favorite way to explane that issue is straight from the reformed way of thought, at least to me. God is saying planly that it isn’t Him that is keeping you from Him it is the fact that without him we can’t do anything “good”. By pairing those two verses I think It explains reform theology pretty well. Said this way. Seek and you shall find YET none seek after God. It obviously isn’t Him that causes us to sin , but Him being glorified by showing our weakness covered by His Grace.
21 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Scot Mulholland Still in maters of Sin I don’t think that we are suposed to know when he has allowed to let something happen for our learning or for his correction because they ultimately bring Glory to him. I was once asked in a bible study if God would ever give us something we asked for even though He said that it wouldn’t be good for us. I thought of when the Isrealites asked for a king and he told them that it wouldn’t be a good thing for them. In that way he did. I talked to all in the study about that and everyone said that was true, He did give them something that was not good for them just because they asked for it. I talked to a very wise friend of mine about that and he said we were all wrong and he explained that because it worked out just as God said it would that the basis for the question was what was wrong. God warned them, it happened exactly as He said it would, they learned the lesson (somewhat) and God again was Glorified, ultimately Good for them, not bad at all.
20 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Jeremiah Ibarra yea i see what you mean now…God is sovereign over evil not in being responsible but he allows it and has a purpose for it….by the way whats your eschatological view….?
19 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Scot Mulholland That is one area I have had a long existing desire to learn from. I have been a bit lazy about it, truly a weakness of mine. I get a little pre-intimidated when it come to the heaviest of subjects. When I first came to WVBC they had just finished about a year long study of Revelations. I was a little bummed about that until I learned about the deeper understanding of sovereign grace. If you have a favorite reformers study or teaching of some kind I would love to check it out.
19 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Jeremiah Ibarra i would defenately look into rc sprouls eschatological perspective
19 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Jeremiah Ibarra http://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/Teaching Series by R.C. Sproul | Watch and Listen to Reformed Theology Teaching Series at Ligonier.
http://www.ligonier.org..19 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Scot Mulholland I so… love R.C. I just listened to the audio series The Holiness of God again. Man what a gift to us, that mind of his. One of Pastor Bobs favorite teachers. Perhaps the greatest expositor of our time. I just spoke to my oldest and best friend Mark Cunningham. He has an incredible gift for study and his pastor is even perhaps more amazing, He is that wise man I mentioned a little bit ago. Mark suggested that I check out John MacArthur’s A Jet Tour Thru Revelations. He also said that he felt that eschatology was the least of the studies for many reasons. One is that because of it’s relative cryptic nature that can’t be time tested by the history of what we have seen to be true and that it is somewhat dangerous because of our innate nature and desire to be all knowing (Remembering that tree of knowledge) causing us to be “fortune tellers” and pleasing our desire to be seen as smarter than most with something that can’t be proven true but only witnessed and then understood with certain clearity when it all happens. It is also surly true that it can cause us to focus on or “worry about tomorrow” too much and Jesus warned us about that kind of obsessive desire. Let tomorrow worry about itself. I have known a few pastors that won’t even teach on that subject for those very reasons. On the other hand. I do believe all scripture is good and adequate for teaching and God has not kept it from us, so I guess it is much a matter of objective consideration and kept in proper perspective something to at least know some opinions about even if I can’t figure anything concretely out about it I have just learned allot about it today as far as the over view and purpose of it, as well as it’s dangers to my weak flesh. Mark said that Macarthur’s one lesson study is thorough and complete, as far as covering it from one end to the other but one of his shortest studies for the above reasons. He just doesn’t think it wise for us to attempt to understand that for now but see it glorify God as it happens. Then the gift of understanding will be realized.
18 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Jeremiah Ibarra im a amillennialist so that pretty much makes me a post-tribulationist but thats what i believe because its what i see more consistent in scripture as far as eschatology is concerned….but i have come to understand also that our position as christians really doesnt matter in the fact that no matter how it happens the thing that unites us and that all types of eschatological understandings acknowledge in that Christ is coming for his church and thats where i stand…but a lively talk about the matter and going through scripture is always fun on this subject in my opinion
18 hours
Thanks for sharing Scot. Some good stuff! RC Sproul has a good lecture on the providence / sovereignty of God and prayer. It can be found here http://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/providence_of_god/if-god-knows-our-needs-why-pray/ or you can type “why pray” in the website search box and get a printed version.