God Knows All Things

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. God always knew that when that opportunity would come by his grace that I would say yes to Christ, he didn't bend my arm, he didn't make me say yes and oh by the way he didn't bend your arm and make you say no. God is giving you the ability, the gospel is presented and you choose. Well I'm in the choice. Well get actually so is God. Choose. Use your choice to go to heaven. Abort your opportunity, bad choice, wind up in hell. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. What if God? I love that. Those three words. What if God? Because mostly it's well if I were God. Well you're not. So Hall is saying what if God? Of course he makes his argument. Wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. See first of all what is it saying? It's saying two things number one. Hall is announcing to the believers. All right listen. God's play is this. What if he wants to show his wrath two things, his wrath and to make known his power. There's the wrath of God and there's the power of God. Church family write this down if you must. Both are equally part of God's nature. Both are equally pure. Both are equally perfect. God's wrath and God's power. That being God's direction, it says that he endures with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. God knows all things remember it before you and I were ever born. God knew not only the day that you were born, he knew all about your life for all eternity. You have always been somebody that God has known in eternity. He didn't get to know you one day. God knew you. And the great argument of Romans nine is when the gospel is presented to you, what will you do with it? Today we're living in the 21st century. Today you're here in the gospel. Christ died on the cross for you because you couldn't pay your own debt. Jesus paid the price for you and you run to him and say Lord please forgive me. I see that you paid the debt for me. Well I not only did that. He would say I rose again from the dead to not only guarantee your sins are forgiven but I'm the one that will make sure that you are forever saved. I justify you in my resurrection. It's all of Christ and you go yes Lord. I'll accept that. Thank you for forgiving me and I give you my life. And God would say something like fantastic. That's exactly why I made you and I want to use you now. God, listen God doesn't learn that on the day that you accept Christ. I accepted Christ on June 20th, 1977. I had no idea that on June 19th it was my last day to be a pagan worshiping godless. Well I mean they're all telling me what I easy now. No it's all true. Everything you guys said is true. And more. I didn't know that was my last day to live my life for me. On the very next Monday night I would hear the gospel and I learned about God that night and I made a decision that night. God, listen God always knew that when that opportunity would come by his grace that I would say yes to Christ. He didn't bend my arm. He didn't make me say yes and oh by the way he didn't bend your arm and make you say no. God is giving you the ability. The gospel is presented and you choose. Well I'm in the choice. Well get actually so as God. Choose. Do you want eternal life or do you want to abort yourself and wind up in heaven or hell I should say. Choice. Use your choice to go to heaven. Abort your opportunity. Bad choice. Wind up in hell. God wants you to have life. He wants you to have eternal life. This entire Bible is all about the glory and the awesome glory that it is this way. His wrath is even glorious. We don't think of this correctly often. It says that his wrath to show his wrath, his wrath is pure. His wrath is not God losing his temper. His wrath is just as righteous and just as holy. The word wrath here is his divine anger. The word means pure vengeance. It's wrath in his holiness. It's remarkable. There's no sin. There's no fault with God. And that's one of Paul's great arguments. The Bible says in Isaiah 45 verse 9, woe unto him who strives with his maker. It's unnatural. You want to fight with God. Don't do that. Surrender to God. Give up and let him lead you. That word strives. Look at it close with me. The Hebrew word. It's interesting. You don't say it this way but I'll say it the way we say it if it was an English word. Rub. Well, have you been rubbed the wrong way? Well, when you strive with your maker, can I put it this way? You're rubbing him the wrong way. And that is you contend with him. You argue with him. You complain. You find fault with him. You quarrel with him. You disagree with him. You oppose and you blame him. That comes from a heart and from a mind that is lost. God is an ogre. He's mean. He's rude. He's rude. He's not fair. And the Bible says, don't strive with your maker. It's not good for you. Why does the Bible say that? Because the Bible wants you to come to the one who loves you, the real one who loves you. He loves you without condition. Think of that. Everybody you know in life loves you with conditions. See, not, not, not my husband, not my wife, not my boyfriend, not my girlfriend. I understand where you're coming from. Just know this. God loved you without condition before you ever knew who he was. And he wants you to be with him, but it's your choice. Romans, chapter 2, verse 4. These are all things that we need to know about this glorious wrath of Almighty God. Romans 2, verse 4 starts by saying, or do you despise number one watch? Watch this. Do you despise? Well, number one, the riches of his goodness, the riches of his goodness. Do you despise as the riches of his goodness that he shows in your life? This last week I had an opportunity to see a yacht with gold, sprinkle, wash basin, you know, what do you think? This is made there in this part. And this is made in this all handmade. There's no other thing like it in the world. And it's all this. And it's like, and I was with some other fellow believers. And we're walking around this thing. I got to be honest with you. And I'm speaking for the fellow believers that were with me. As far as I know, this person doesn't know Jesus that owns this boat, ship boat, yacht thing. And I get it. This is that. And this is this. And this is here. And this is that. And I'm thinking, in fact, I leaned over to one of my friends. And I said, you know, for some people, this is as close to heaven as they'll ever get. Think about that for a moment. And what shall it profit, Jesus said, what shall it profit you if you gain the entire world and lose your own soul? Bill Gates, what will it profit you if you gain the entire world? You've already bought half of America. What will it profit you if you lose your own soul? You understand how poor Bill Gates is? You understand how poor Elon Musk is without Jesus? You can have the biggest boat in the harbor, but without Christ, your sunk. But God gives us good things, does he not? Have you, look, we've all said this. We've looked at people who are even wicked and their lives are prospering. And we say, what's up? What's with that? I work way harder than they do. Look what they have. God says calm down. This is, I'm trying to get them to the place of salvation with my goodness. This is the awesome, incredible workings of God. He goes on there in Romans chapter 2. The second thing is this forbearance. God, God's forbearance. Don't think if you're doing something wrong, if you're doing something illegal, if you're doing something vindictive and dangerous to other people. Don't think you're getting away with it. God is putting up with you. He wants you to give his life, your life to him. Thirdly, long suffering. This is amazing, long suffering. And then he says, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance, verse 5, in accordance with your hardness of your impotent heart, you are treasuren up for yourselves. Wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Wow. He wants you in heaven. The problem is, without Christ, the wrath that you have been treasureing up is still sitting in your account. It's rising. Every day that you and I live without Jesus, that account is getting filled up. And that's not a good thing. We talk about his glory. This is a very, very often overlooked verse. Look at Isaiah 63, verse 10. Isaiah 63, verse 10. Do you know what? You want to know why there's the belief in Christianity from Genesis to Revelation about the Trinity. People will say, well, I don't believe in the Trinity, because I can't find the word Trinity in the Bible. Well, you can't find the word Bible in the Bible either. And there's a lot of words that God is or there is that reality and it's not mentioned by word. Here's one of those things where when you read the entirety of the scripture, you find out in this case a very terrifying, yet glorious, description of God's wrath. Regarding the children of Israel and the wilderness, it says, but they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit. There's God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. If there's two sides to a coin, think of this. There's three sides to God. One God. And he turned himself against him as an enemy and he fought against him. Can you imagine God, the Holy Spirit fighting against you? I can't. I don't ever want to know. But they are those who strive with their maker and you don't want to do that. Why? Why? Because listen to this message. This is God's heart reaching out in His great sovereignty. He wants you to experience salvation and forgiveness and that that wrath never come upon you. You see somebody had to take that wrath and that was Jesus. So why would you dig your heels in and say no to that wonderful offer? Listen, in Ephesians 2, beginning in verse 5, it says, even when we were dead and trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Let me explain this for a second, everybody. This is the 21st century. This was written 2,000 years ago. But the doctrines of God have never changed because they are one with this person, their eternal. This is an eternal truth. We're reading it. It's in a Bible. It was written down 2,000 years ago. But this is the forever nature of God. So watch this. Let me exaggerate it. Even when we were dead and trespasses we were condemned sinners. God knew this in all eternity before you and I were ever born. Here's his, here's him going to work. Made us alive together with Christ. How does that work? By grace, by gift you have been saved and raised us up together that is a newness of life and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It means that those of you who raised your hands a moment ago, according to this scripture, you have your name written down in an address book so to speak in heaven. And listen, heaven is waiting for you to arrive. Heaven is waiting for you to arrive. Well, I'm just now learning about this. I know. The cool part is God has always known this. That's exciting. Verse 7 says that, oh, this is fun. Verse 7, listen to this. That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Verse 7. How about this? Verse 7, lived out looks like this. When Adam and Eve sinned, God could have just, okay, that's it. Adam and Eve, excuse me, come over here. Here's Stan right about here. He could have pressed the button and the ground would have opened up and they're gone. And then he would have walked over and just formed a new Adam, a second one. Could he not have done it? Why didn't he do it? I would have done it. Too much baggage. I would have just, if I were God, it would be just the sucking drain sound and Adam and Eve are just going down the hole. And I just reshaped somebody else. And started over. Did you know that this verse 7 is a verse that guarantees the fact that God is a redemptive God to the extreme. Meaning what? Meaning this. That what God has created. Listen, he's going to redeem and he redeems all things that he has created. For example, watch how deep this goes from Genesis to Revelation. Do you remember God telling Moses or excuse me, Noah, I'm going to destroy the earth. Get in that boat and I'll let you know when you can get out. I'm going to destroy the earth. Listen, did he destroy the earth? Yes and no. Yes, he did. But how did he destroy it? Is the other part of the question and the answer? He destroyed it by how? Water. He flooded. He washed the entire earth. He washed it and started over. But he started over with that which was redeemed, right? Think about it. The earth was scrubbed. What does Peter tell us? He's not going to use water next time. He's going to use fire. This earth is going to get scrubbed by fire next time. He's going to destroy it but it's still going to be the redeemed earth. Isn't that amazing? The moon, Jupiter, Mars, it's all going to be redeemed. He's not going to make a new Jupiter. He's going to scrub the one that is, the universe, when it says that he's going to destroy all things. He's going to destroy the surface of all things that are corrupt. He's going to take what is lost and redeem it. Why? That's the nature of our God. Some of you guys and gals are into restoring things. It's junk. I see it. It's junk here. You want it? You can take it. It's junk. And then they turn it around and they sell it for 500 bucks. How do they do that? They restored it back to some of its glory. God does that. He makes new. He takes what is dead and brings back to life. He's absolutely awesome in all of this. That verse goes on to say in that passage in verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. How wonderful is that? Also this, his glory is all consuming. All consuming. Verse 23, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory. Notice the two differences. And what does that place you? What do you want? God in all eternity knows. Yes, it's true. And you're going to say this today, well, I guess I have no choice in the matter. He already knows. So I guess I could just be a vessel of destruction. Could be that you want to be a vessel of his mercy, to display his mercy. Somebody in this room, somebody watching right now, they're going to say, nope, care less. Wow. If you stay in that condition, then you proved God right all along. He knew from eternity that when you were given the chance to get a whole new life, you threw it back in his face. Versus the person right now that is saying, wait a minute, are you saying that I can start my life over again? Oh yeah. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.