-Transcript-
00:25 Welcome to the program. My name is Pastor Clark Covington here at KJV Cafe. Thank you for joining me.
00:32 Hopefully you’re having a great day and a great week. Amen. We’re diving into God’s Word here.
00:38 I’m so excited to have the opportunity to share with you great truths from God’s Holy Word. And you’re thinking, well, that sounds like a slogan. I think that is our slogan, but I don’t know if that’s our, I don’t know if we have an official slogan.
00:53 I’ll have to call the trademark agency. Just kidding. We’re not trademarking anything.
00:57 But it is true that, you know, there is just great truths in God’s Holy Word. And I’m blessed as a pastor to study God’s Word so that I could properly preach it to the congregation and to you.
01:11 And there’s times that I just stand back and I’m in awe of it because I’m like, man, wow, God really is sovereign.
01:20 God really is holy. God really is all of these things he says he is. And that’s all he desires of us is to have faith.
01:26 You know, that’s it. Just believe. Amen.
01:32 And we are in the final part, this fourth part of a four-part series looking at God’s sovereignty, his powerful preference. Oh, it bothers some people that God has a preference, but then they’re not looking at him as a sovereign God, as creator God, as one that has all knowledge and wisdom.
01:48 Can you imagine you were riding a bus and you were going up a mountain to a town at the top of a mountain, and there were four roads that will take you to that town.
02:03 Now your bus driver is brand new and is literally just trying to figure out what road to take. And one passenger says, all roads are the same. It doesn’t matter.
02:14 We like all roads here. But another passenger says, why don’t you call that bus driver down the street that has been doing this for 50 years? I think they know which road to take.
02:25 Now I don’t know about you, but I’d say, yeah, call that bus driver and have a long conversation before we go up this mountain with all the things that can happen on a mountain to figure it out.
02:37 And that’s a simple example. But God in all his wisdom knows the best route to take in life. And he knows the crooked road.
02:48 He knows the straight road. He knows the narrow path. He knows the wide path.
02:54 He knows it all. He created it all. Because again, this example, that was an example where I was saying someone knew the road, but it’s so much deeper than that.
03:02 God created the road. He is the engineer of the road. He’s the architect of the road.
03:07 Recently, we spoke about in church about don’t worry. And how God created everything. John 1 tells us that God created everything.
03:15 Jesus Christ himself created everything. Without him, nothing is created. And we talked about this idea that God had to have created worrying because who else created it?
03:22 God created the emotions and one of them being worrying.
03:27 Well, why would God create worrying? Because worrying then leads to what? Our realization that we need him. You know, him. Amen.
03:35 Look, you take a child and you give them every little thing they need. And the more you give them, sometimes the less they’ll be turning to you. And the more they think they haven’t figured out.
03:46 I grew up in a town. I grew up in my grandma’s house. Okay.
03:51 So what I’m trying to say is I grew up in an affluent town, but I wasn’t affluent. Okay. I wish I was affluent.
03:57 Yes, I had it better than some. I know that. Amen.
04:04 But I wasn’t affluent, but I grew up in affluent town and there were kids that had everything. And they turned, not all of them, I know not all of them, but some turned to drugs, turned to alcohol, turned to all kinds of things.
04:16 And sadly, this was a very small school and sadly several of them have died.
04:21 I can think of two or three, three right off the top of my head, either my grade or the grade above that passed away from addiction, from alcohol and drugs.
04:29 And they had all the resources, they had everything. So why would they go astray? And why would me being in a broken home, getting into every kind of trouble you can imagine, having all kinds of problems, every problem I could think of.
04:47 Okay. How am I here today? Oh, that’s God’s sovereign will. But beyond that, that’s the idea of me at an early age, somewhat early age, late twenties, realizing my need for God, that God is everything, that nothing will just happen without God, that he is who he says he is, and he’s a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
05:05 And Romans nine is telling this story of a sovereign God. And he’s telling the story really of these children, one that had nothing and the other that had everything.
05:14 Paul starts Romans nine saying, look, I’m going to be truthful.
05:22 And here’s a sorrowful truth. You have the pedigree, you’ve got the law, you got the promises, you have the adoption. You are God’s chosen people, Israelites.
05:32 And I’m so sad that you won’t have faith in him, that you were involved in his crucifixion, that you won’t believe you’re the chosen people. He would have been your king and you crucified him. Right.
05:45 And that’s a tough truth. Stephen told that truth there. And what did they do to him? They stoned him and killed him.
05:52 And Jesus mentions that, you know, oh, Israel, how you stone the prophets. And if you would just listen, I would have been like a mother hen and taking you under my wings. Jesus says that, I think, and I believe it’s Matthew, amen.
06:02 And so what do we have? We have God’s chosen people rejecting him at large. And we have the Gentiles who are looked at as not the chosen people. Even if you were partly Gentile, you were looked at as polluted.
06:17 Look at the Samaritans. You look at the Gentiles as unclean, right? Isn’t that how they’re referred to? They’re eating unclean things and so on. Amen.
06:25 And God says, those people, that foreign people group, they’ll believe. Look at Hosea 2:23, and I will sow her unto me in the earth and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy.
06:41 And I will say to them, which were not my people, thou art my people and they shall say thou art my God.
06:49 Oh, it’s beautiful. Paul writes about another place about how we’re grafted in, like a branch that’s a foreign branch, but we’re grafted in to God’s kingdom. Amen.
06:50 It’s so beautiful. And in a way we’re fortunate. You know, I’ve heard this preached and we’re fortunate that the Jews rejected Christ in the sense that if they hadn’t, we don’t know what would have happened.
07:08 I’ve heard great theories that, okay, the Jews would have become the world evangelists. And if I know my God, God would have found a way, amen, for the Gentiles to be saved. I believe that.
07:16 But either way, we became the beneficiaries as they rejected the Lord. And we see here in Romans 9:18, verse Romans 9:18, therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will, he hardeneth.
07:34 We see this, this, this idea that Paul puts forth that God is going to have a preference and he has power.
07:43 He is sovereign. He’s going to do what he wants to do. And a lot of people will say that’s unfair.
07:49 That’s offensive to a lot of people. I have witnessed a lost family with not that exact verse, but it just described, you know, think about a lost person and say, you’re meaning to tell me that if I don’t believe on your Jesus, on the one from the Bible, that I’m going to hell, that everyone in this world is going to hell that doesn’t believe that Jesus died for them.
08:10 Well, isn’t that a little offensive, right? Haven’t you heard that? If you, if you’ve been witnessing long enough, you’ve heard that, that it would be unfair of God to do that.
08:18 But truly it was the fairest and most just way for God to send himself. Jesus Christ is only begotten to die on the cross for the sins of all the world and to provide that free gift. God is not excluding anyone.
08:28 The Bible says he desires all to come to repentance. Amen. All to come to repentance.
08:33 Let’s look here.2 Peter 3: 9, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. As some men count slackness, but his long suffering to us word, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
08:51 Oh, that is such a beautiful verse from second Peter. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise. It’s long suffering.
09:00 He’s so patient to us, to us, to us. He doesn’t want any to perish, but that all should come to repentance. I know lost people, dear, dearly loved lost people.
09:13 The Lord has sent at least 10 witnesses to, you know, you look at it as a preacher. You understand his word. You understand what a witness looks like.
09:21 You understand what evangelism, you understand what soul winning looks like. He said, God is long suffering.
09:27 These people are serving some foreign pagan statue and he keeps showing up time and again.
09:33 Praise God. Praise him for his love. Praise him.
09:37 And not in anger, not enforcing, saying you have free will, you have autonomy. I’m just going to continue to present this gospel to you over and over and over. He is so merciful.
09:51 Brother Ronnie Dale, who helped when I was thinking about Lord had kind of been convicted me to preach and I hadn’t surrendered yet.
10:00 Brother Ronnie Dale said he had had three heart attack or three strokes and a heart attack when he was running from the Lord. The Lord wanted him to preach.
10:10 I said, brother, I’m going to start preaching today. I don’t need that. I don’t need those medical bills.
10:11 I don’t want to die. So he had him and I just heard him and I said, the UK, I hear you. I hear what you went through and he’s, he’s been blessed there at Holland Memorial Baptist Church are doing a great job and he’s winning souls for the Lord and he’s on fire for God.
10:24 And I love brother Ronnie Dale and, and, and you know what? That’s God’s long suffering nature with brother Ronnie and with me, his long suffering nature with me. Amen. I didn’t in earnest start serving the Lord until really I was about 30.
10:38 Amen. You know, I see these kids that are 12, 13, 14 years old being bus captains, soul winning. Amen.
10:47 Youth preachers. How great is that? Amen. That is awesome.
10:52 All right. So we see God’s sovereignty and we see his desire for all to be saved. And Paul says, look, you’re sketchy.
11:00 You’ve got this here. You know, you’ve got God’s sovereignty. You’ve got his will.
11:05 You guys won’t have the faith. You won’t believe no matter all that you’ve been benefited with. You’ve had direct communication with God through Moses.
11:11 You’ve got the old Testament. You’re the chosen people. You got all these things.
11:15 You won’t believe. All right. Well, then, you know, you want to talk back to God.
11:22 Romans 9:20, shall the thing formed to him that formed it say, why has thou made? Okay. Well, let me read this again. I threw a word in there.
11:31 Romans 9: 20, shall the thing formed to say to him that formed it, why has thou made me thus? Why has thou made me thus? I got it. Okay. Tripping over the words a little bit here.
11:47 Shall the thing formed to say to him that formed it, why has thou made me thus?The idea that should the creation tell the creator what to do? Amen. I hope not. I hope not.
11:52 But yet oftentimes we do, don’t we? You know, Oh God, why would you allow this bad person to live?
11:58 Could it be that God allows or even perseveres a wicked person for a season to eventually show his power? It all comes down to faith. And Romans nine tells us the Gentiles would believe in Israel would not.
12:14 And through these two people groups, we see God’s sovereign plan, power, and preference.
12:21 We’ve talked about his plan to show his power, to show our need for him, our lack of power, to save those that would believe. And by the way, he’s not done dealing with Israel.
12:24 He’s still dealing with Israel and he’ll return to them at large after the rapture.
12:30 We get raptured out. The church is raptured out. I believe any day, any moment.
12:36 And God returns his attention to the Jews. We know he has the 144,000 male virgin Jews, amen, that are preaching from, this is from Revelation 14, amen, that are preaching the gospel and that those chosen people are returning to him fully repentant, fully repentant.
12:53 And so I never want to make it sound like he’s done with the Jews.
12:57 He’s not. Amen. And even today, I believe Jewish people can be saved.
13:02 I really do. There’s a great ministry on YouTube. I forget the name of it, top of my head, but they are doing messages both in Hebrew or whatever the native tongue is, as well as English.
13:13 And they’re very stylized videos and testimonies and they’re incredible. And I see it bubbling up more and more. And I say to myself, you know, I know that this is part of the tribulation period and here we are and the rapture is not yet here.
13:28 It just, I’m like, okay, you know, I don’t know. No man knows the day or the time, but when I start seeing the great evangelism starting to turn towards the Jewish people, I start thinking, yeah, we’re about out. Okay.
13:39 But this isn’t a prophecy program right now. We are dealing with God’s sovereignty. We’ve talked about his plan.
13:45 We’ve talked about his power in past episodes. He’s got creating power, freeing power and saving power. We see that through Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
13:54 So what should we do with all this? We understand that he has all power. We simply need to believe and have faith, have faith in God, trust that he is in full control even when it looks like he’s not.
14:05 Remember Abraham didn’t know what was going on for many years.
14:12 He kept looking for that child and didn’t have it until he was way up there in age. And Moses was terrified of leading the Israelites out of Egypt on and on.
14:20 I go on and on, but just trust God, give him your whole heart, mind and soul, and he’ll give you peace that surpasses all understanding.
14:27 Thank you for listening. Take care. God bless. And amen.