The Second Resurrection

I forgot one announcement of sorts when I was up here. This is a case of putting my library where my mouth is. During the Northwest weekend, we had seminars, and I was talking about using e-sort electronic Bible program and made the comment that there are some of the books that I have in my library that are also on e-sort, and I use e-sort so frequently that I don't use the books anymore. So if there are any of you who are familiar with Thayer's Greek lexicon and you'd like a hard copy, just come up to me after services and I'll give you the one on the chair since I'm doing some library cleaning to remove books that I don't use. I told my wife, I said, I've got a couple in there that I look at them and I say I never use them because I always use them electronically, but I am so connected to them I won't let loose of them. So maybe later on, there'll be some more, but that one I haven't used in 10 years or better. So those of you that do hard copy study, if you're into Greek and you don't mind weightlifting, you can have a copy of Thayer's. I always enjoy efficiency, and so I'm going to try to practice some today. There's the old saying of killing two birds with one stone. I would like to attempt to kill two birds with one stone this afternoon. I'm going to do it in the spirit of a scripture that we're all very familiar with back in the book of Hebrews, where it talks about the difference between being unskilled and using the milk of the word and being skilled and thereby able to use the meat of the word. As a teacher, one of my objectives, ministerially, is to always see what I can do to move my congregation further along in their skill set. We're all destined one day to be teachers. We're destined to be governors and even to adjudicate. So in those positions, learning those skills is an important part of our time and the use of our time. So today, in the spirit of trying to help you move a little further up the ladder from the milk end of the scale to the meat end of the scale, we're going to look at a doctrine and we're going to look at something even more fundamental than that doctrine at the same time. I realize at this point it sounds a little cryptic, but it won't take too very long before you realize what I mean by we're going to look at a doctrine and then we're going to look at something even more fundamental than that doctrine. A couple of years ago, I think it's a couple of years ago now, an enthusiastic couple attended the Vancouver congregation for a few weeks, and they seemed very happy to be with us. And in the course of going through our regular meat-and-do season sermons, we hit a place where, in one sermon, we talked about the subject of the second resurrection. The next weekend, the couple was not there, and upon inquiring, found out that we had introduced something that was completely contrary to how they had been taught and believed. And when we came to the place of a head-on collision with what they already were satisfied was true, they simply walked out the door and did not return. Their choice, I think, can serve as an illustration because it speaks to an irony in Christianity. Christianity is a religion that is based on and centered on the love of God. It simply lives and revolves around the mercy, the long-suffering, the kindness, and the love of God. But when billions who have never had a legitimate chance for salvation are offered one under the heading of the second resurrection, they are offended.

I scratch my head when I think, okay, what's the option? And having read many, many, many religious books, commentaries, it is a—to use a term from the movie The King and I—it is a puzzlement to me—that they can accept people never hearing the gospel, going from this life into an ever-burning hell for all eternity, and they can reconcile that with the love of God. But not a resurrection to what they perceive to be a second chance.

I can only find that bizarre. Now, I've read the justifications of how you can burn a person forever in hell, and that's an act of a loving God. I'm talking to an audience who understands, and you'll pardon the, in one sense, the crudeness of the analogy, because humans are humans and animals are animals. But I think you can get the general sense of it.

You can love with all your heart and all your passion a pet, a cat, a dog, or a horse. But when they reach a place where you realize that this—and I use the term as its use—this dumb animal. In other words, they can't talk to you. They can't communicate audibly. You can read them as an owner. When you realize that they are in absolute misery and there's no future for them to ever go anywhere from there, that you put them out of their misery as an act of love.

God takes people who have reached the place of incorrigibility and will do the same. But He's not a God of retribution. He's not a God who simply says, you've insulted and offended me. Therefore, spend eternity in agony. It's unimaginable of a God of mercy. There's a different category from this one that I do understand fully.

And that is the category of those who are willing to believe that these people can be given a legitimate chance for salvation but struggle to find scriptures to support such a teaching. In other words, if you're going to give me a choice between what I, by my past training, may think is I get to double dip or to burn forever, I'm willing to at least lean that direction and listen.

But I can't find any scriptures to support the teaching. And that brings me to the two-for-one nature of the sermon today. I will give you a heads up. It's going to take more than one week to give all of this sermon, but one piece of it can be given today. Today we should come away from services with a better understanding of two things rather than just one. We will come away with just a tiny bit more understanding of the second resurrection.

But we should come away with a whole lot more understanding of the philosophy underlying it. And not only it, but the underlying philosophy principle that underlies many doctrines. Let's stay focused today on the second resurrection. The problems with the second resurrection and other doctrines like it, and that is doctrines with little explicit teaching in Scripture. By explicit, I mean somebody says to you, well, will you show me the place in the Bible where it says what you are telling me?

To the very young, to the very new, to have you say to them, I can't take you to an explicit Scripture. That's not going to appear to be anything but a dodge. You're tap dancing. You want to believe something, but you can't find any place that supports it.

And so you're hemming and hawing. As you move from someone that works with the elementary and the fundamental, the milk of the word, and you move up the ladder to understanding those things that are more substantial and meaty, you have to understand that the supportability of a doctrine does not rest totally on whether or not there are explicit places that say in simple terms, thus saith the Lord, there shall be a second resurrection. To the babe, what I've just done is waffle. To the grounded, it's something very different, which by the end of the sermon, I hope you will understand even more than you do currently.

Let me illustrate with an example. Several years ago, the United Church of God contracted with a skilled facilitator and said, we want you to help us develop better skills in strategic planning. We want you to help us develop the skills to the place that we can put before our entire governing body a corporate strategic plan at our annual meeting that will demonstrate all of the professional qualities that ought to be there when people plan strategically. The facilitator accepted the assignment, and we began to go to work. How many of you work for a company that wants you as an employee to either A, be aware of, or to actually verbally know their mission statement?

That's a good representation. A good representation in the congregation of people who work for companies that say, you need to know our mission statement.

So we said, okay, we need to have a mission statement that all of our members and all of our elders can understand. Now, creating a mission statement is an art, because it has to be concise. It should have an economy of words. If it's a paragraph, it's not a mission statement. It should be a single sentence at the worst, two sentences. And the shorter, the better, the easier to remember, the more concisely it says, what you have as your mission, the more successful it is. So when you're in a brainstorming group, they're going all over the place, and they're throwing things out. Somebody else throws another thing out. Somebody's facilitating it a chalkboard or whiteboard, and they're writing down what's being said. The group is looking. They're working. They're massaging. Editing here and adding there. But as you work through that process, somewhere early in the process, somebody brings up—facilitator, in this case—brings up a timeout. Done a lot of work, a lot of brainstorming. But you have to ask something. What is your vision of what this organization should aim for? What is your vision of what it needs to see so that it can march toward it? Can you stop for a minute? The facilitator says, look, your mission statement is a statement that is based upon your vision. And it has to be consistent. If you have a vision of where you want to go and your mission statement gives you a mission that's going this direction, but your vision is you're going that direction, do you realize that the farther you go in practicing your mission statement, the farther you get from your vision of where you want to go? So you have to move a layer below your mission statement and say, hmm, what's our vision? Our mission statement is one sentence long. It's a long sentence, but it's one sentence. The mission of the Church of God is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God in all the world, make disciples in all nations, and care for those disciples. That is the one sentence mission statement of the United Church of God. So the mission of the Church is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God in all the world, make disciples in all nations, and care for those disciples. But that mission springs from a vision. Now, the vision is a little bit longer. The vision of the Church — this is the vision statement — the vision of the Church derives its inspiration, motivation, and sense of urgency from God's purpose for humanity, bringing many sons to glory. God's desire is that all be saved and live eternally in His kingdom and in His family. Assisting in the fulfillment of that vision is the mission of the Church.

So as you're working on a mission statement before you know it, you're not just working on a mission statement, you're also working on a vision statement. And as you continue crafting and brainstorming, and you begin synthesizing a mission statement, looking at your vision statement, saying, does the mission statement move us along the route of our vision? The facilitator then pulls another one on you, and he says, whoa, whoa, time out again. There's another layer underneath all of this that we haven't talked about yet. You told me what your vision is. Now you're trying to craft a mission that will achieve your vision, but there's something down there underneath the surface that you haven't addressed.

You know, I never, I don't spend a lot of time in the crawl space of my house looking at what holds it up. I've walked in and out of the front door thousands of times. But I don't pull the hatchback too often and say, well, let's go down in the crawl space and look at the peering beams. Let's just lay down on the visqueen, stare at the studs in the bottom of the floor, and look at this place from the bottom. Now we know if it's not there, the house is going to fall in, but we don't spend a lot of time there. And how much time do you spend thinking about your crawl space? I don't think a lot of you go to bed at night and say, I've got to think about that crawl space before I go to sleep. So the facilitator says, you know what? You've got to have a mission statement, and it has to be consistent with your vision. But he said, do you realize that both of those rest upon principles that guide your entire organization? Do you know what those principles are? Can you name the principles upon which your entire church rests? Whoa! Boy, you get there, and that's a little bit bigger. In fact, that took almost a whole page. Mission statement took two lines. Vision statement took three lines and another inch. The guiding principles took nine inches. We believe that our Father has given us the opportunity to build a relationship with Him, with Jesus Christ, with one another, with all of His creation. And we believe in the immutable word of God. Excuse me. We believe the immutable word of God shows us how to build those loving relationships. Therefore—and it's the therefore's that are your guides—therefore we will strive to live by the word of God and develop processes and programs based upon His word that will enable these relationships to grow and flourish. We believe God has a plan of salvation for the calling and perfecting of every individual who will yield to Him and His Son Jesus Christ. We believe that plan includes those who are being converted now, as well as those to be converted in the ages to come. We believe God is working with two distinct groups of people—those called the firstfruits, which consist of members of Christ's body, the church, and those yet to be called by God now or in the age to come. Now, I'm only halfway through the guiding principles, but you get the gist, don't you? Way down at the foundation level, for everything you do and everything you believe are fundamental philosophies. And these you don't address very often. In fact, like the crawl space in my house, you don't spend a lot of time down there and you don't spend a lot of time thinking about what's down there. But every step you take inside that house, every floorboard that doesn't creek, every step that doesn't feel like a trampoline, is the way it is because of how solid what you don't look at happens to be.

The Word of God rests upon underlying philosophies. In our strategic plan, we call them guiding principles.

Why have I gone through all of this seemingly bureaucratic explanation of mission and vision and guiding principles? Why is that so important for us to understand as church members? Let me help you further understand that by having you turn to Matthew 22.

Matthew 22, verse 34. But when the Pharisees heard that he, Jesus Christ, had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him, saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets. What just happened? You can read some of the other gospel accounts, and they said at that point in time, they said, Well, you gave a good answer. Boy, the day is going to come when the person that said to him, you gave a good answer is going to find out who they were talking to, and they're going to feel about Yaytaw. But nonetheless, they said, Attaboy, you gave a good answer. Well, he gave a good answer because he wrote it all. He created it all. He designed it all. But what's going on here? What just happened? The ten commandments given from Sinai were the heart of the covenant with Israel. We know that. What Christ just said wasn't one of those commandments. He said, Which is the great commandment in the law? He didn't give one of the commandments in the law. He gave the philosophy underlying all of the commandments in the law. There's not a one of the ten commandments that is built upon or based on anything other than a foundation. And Christ didn't bother with the structural members. He gave the foundation. He gave the underlying philosophy upon which all of the commandments rest. It rests upon you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your might and all your soul and loving your neighbor as yourself. The ten commandments are concrete. Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not steal. They give ten specific things we must do. But an underlying philosophy is far broader than can be expressed by ten or twelve or fifteen or twenty or twenty-five specifics. And as a result, the underlying philosophy trumps any individual expression of the principle.

Let me take this a step further. Luke 17.

I'm going to read you a scripture that people read and they don't understand. They don't understand how it applies in their life. They don't understand why it should apply in their life. In fact, most people when they read it say, wow, if I could get to where the scripture is, I would be a success in life. The verse is verse 10 of Luke 17. So likewise you, when you have done all these things which are commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. You know, most of us as we walk through life were saying, if I could ever get to the place where I could do the Ten Commandments all the time right, I'd have it made. And now Christ comes up and He puts the pin in the balloon and it splatters all over because He says, when you get to that place, then you can come to Me and say to Me, I am an unprofitable servant. Do you understand why? No.

Are there any obligations or duties morally, spiritually, that you feel you have toward God or fellow man that are beyond the Ten Commandments? I see widows in need in our congregation, and I see men and women who roll up their sleeves and go out to help them with chores that are beyond their physical ability or, even if it's within their physical ability, helps them get their lives going more speedily in the right direction. Where was that in the Ten Commandments? Not there. Now, I could continue this for the next 10, 15, 20 minutes doing the This is what people do because they are morally, slash, spiritually convicted that this is how I ought to live. And I can ask you, where is the commandment? This is your obligation, and your answer is, there isn't one. There isn't one. There isn't one. There isn't one. This is looking at the issue from the back side of the issue. The point that I'm making, brethren, here in Luke 17 and in Matthew 22 is that the underlying philosophy is far broader than the explicit statements. And so Christ, having written it and philosophically saying these things are nothing more than an expression of my spirit of who I am, I can tell you that there isn't one of the Ten Commandments that's the Great Commandment. Because the Great Commandment is the one that they rest on. That you express your love to God with all your heart, all your might, and all your soul, and that you express your love to your fellow man by treating him as well as you treat yourself. And so later on in Luke 17, he says, when you've done everything commanded of you, then you can come to me and say, I'm an unprofitable servant. Because there are all sorts of Christian obligations that are not directly explicitly commanded. They're urged. They're envisioned. But they're not thou shalt, or thou shalt not. Why take all this time on this point? The reason is to set the stage and to give an understanding. That understanding is this. The answer to numerous questions in the Bible, including doctrinal questions, is found in the underlying philosophy, even when the Bible is not the same. It isn't spoken to directly by book, chapter, verse. As I said to you, our model is the second resurrection, because, as I said, there is not a—to the hard-nosed, there is not a single explicit Scripture in the Bible. There are simply Scriptures that are more strongly implicit than others. So let me say again why I've taken the time to introduce you to the principle of underlying philosophy. It is because the answer to numerous questions in the Word of God, including doctrinal questions, is found in the underlying philosophy, even when there is not an explicit Scripture that says it precisely.

As a sidebar, I would simply say I believe God wrote it that way, because, as He said, I have written it here a little, there a little, line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, so that they may go and stumble and fall and be snared.

Which leads us down the road a little further.

As I said, there is no simple direct statement about the second resurrection. The question is, does there need to be for it to be a doctrine? Is an explicit Scripture required in order for something to be a doctrine? Go back with me to Acts chapter 3 and Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost when the church of God was established. At the end of the sermon, He had convicted deeply a tremendous number of people. Evidentiary is the fact that 3,000 were baptized on that day, and as time went along, many, many more were baptized. But they ask of Him a question. Verse 18, But these things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that ye may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before. Notice verse 21, Whom heaven must receive, until the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. I challenge you to find me written evidence that every one of God's holy prophets has spoken of the times of restitution of all things. Explicitly. You're not going to find it. I, or any other minister in the Church of God, will never need to use the term the times of the restitution of all things to have preached it hundreds of times over. Because every feast of tabernacles, when we talk about the return of Christ and the establishment of the kingdom, every time we talk about segmented pieces of it, the return of peace where swords and spears are beat into pruning hooks and plowshares. When animals no longer hurt any more in God's holy mountain, we are talking about pieces of the restitution of all things. Peter was giving them the underlying principle. He said the underlying principle of the message of every single prophet that God has ever sent was a time that we can envision where everything is restored. Some spoke to some pieces of it. Some spoke to other pieces of it. Some, in the books that are written under their names, spoke not a word about it. Explicitly.

All these are illustrations. Are there any scriptures that speak directly and clearly to the Second Resurrection? As I said to you, no. The best that there is are the collection of Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones, the statements of Paul in the latter portion of the book of Romans in chapters 9, 10, and 11, and the message inferred by Christ's condemnation of such places as Besseta and Corazin, and comparing them response-wise to Sodom. The Queen of the South, the men of Nineveh, and others.

When you study the underlying philosophy of the subject, it is the issue that you have to focus on. Acts 3.21 provides us, as we just saw, an example of the fact that it is the issue that is central.

All the prophets speak to. They all look toward a time when everything is restored. If you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and all the way through, you'll see a broad range, Isaiah covering it in many, many different ways, some of the others just barely touching it. As we've been going through the minor prophets in the Vancouver Bible study, there have been minor prophets that didn't even so much as utter a peep about the times of restitution until the last verse or two of the whole book. And then, almost as an, oh, by the way, it's going to end up all right. And here's a couple of for instances.

With this in mind, let's begin addressing the issues that are at the core of the second resurrection. But before we start, let's confirm what we're talking about. This is what we're talking about. No one argues in the Christian world in general. No one argues with a resurrection of the just. Even when they believe in heaven and hell, they don't contend with the scriptures that talk about a resurrection of the just. Most don't contend or argue with a resurrection of the unjust. Some may say, well, I don't see why it would be necessary, but it's not something you'll get a heavy pushback. Because they see it as, okay, we won't quibble over details. I may not think they get resurrected. You do, but we both believe that the wicked are not going to go to the good place. Your good place or my good place.

So, in both of those areas, you don't get a lot of pushback. The pushback comes when you say billions will be resurrected to a chance.

We live in a world, Christian world, that predominantly operates with its own underlying philosophy. That underlying philosophy is, today is the only day of salvation. Whenever today is, your today is now. The people that lived in the 1800s, their today was the 1800s. Those that lived in the 1700s, their today was the 1700s. So, you understand what I mean by today. The underlying philosophy that their theology rests upon is, your day is today. Make it. Break it. When you stop breathing, it's all over.

Because of that, there is tremendous pushback. When you say, and they can hear the message between the lines, that only day of salvation did not apply. Not just to thousands or millions, but billions.

Now we get into the core of the argument over the existence of the Second Resurrection. The whole argument rests upon philosophical issues. The pushback is because philosophically they say, now it's now or never. We say philosophically, it isn't now or never. I want you to turn back to the book of Titus.

If you heard some of the things that I read in the vision statement and in the guiding principles, you heard that we are in lockstep with the Christian world on God's fundamental intent. It is expressed most clearly by two scriptures we need to look at. Titus 2 I'm sitting here looking for it.

Let me take you to 2 Peter 3.9.

I can see my problem is one of reading in the New King James and having studied in the Old King James. So let's go to 2 Peter chapter 3.

2 Peter chapter 3. Peter makes this statement.

Beginning in verse 8, he said, The Old King James says, Willeth If you ask me in a perfect situation what I desire more than anything else, in other words, it doesn't speak to naivete, it doesn't speak to this is actually going to happen, but there are times in life where people ask you if you could have it your way, and that's the way we say it among ourselves, if you could have it your way, what would you ask for? In 2 Peter chapter 3, Peter is saying, from God's perspective, if he could have everything exactly as he would want it, there would not be one single solitary person who would perish.

The scripture that I can't for the moment have my eyes fall on in Titus says exactly the same thing, so you just have to take my word for it for right now. These two were talking about the simple fact that it is the desire of God, it is the wish of God in a perfect situation, that every last single solitary human being who has ever lived would one day be in his kingdom. You know, churches have committed over the centuries billions of dollars to the saving of the world, missionaries to every corner of the world, with passion, giving their very lives for the people that they are trying to convert. Domestically, in many countries, ours being the flagship country, countless millions upon millions are spent on every form of evangelism, from campaign meetings like the great Billy Graham Crusades that went for years and years and years to major arenas in every major city in the United States, to endless television and print, proclaiming the Word of God and seeking to bring people to the place where they would make a commitment. We and they both have the same and vision, a desire to see every single solitary human being who will allow be saved. They believe that the now or never is an expression of God's will, and it's why they commit themselves with the passion they do to trying to reach every obscure place in the world. And then we come like a head-on collision at 60 miles an hour with a whole group of scriptures that they say hold up the parade. We have a problem. Houston, we have a problem. The problem begins in Matthew 13.

We arrive at Matthew 13. And we begin to look at just the first piece of evidence, of a mountain of evidence, that says God stands in the way of men coming to Him to be saved.

So here we are, the whole Christian world, saying, I believe. And when I talk to a minister of another faith and he says, I believe that God wants to save every single solitary human being that He can, I can look Him in the face and say, I agree with you 100 percent. So do we. So do we. God is not willing that any be lost, but that all come to salvation. In terms of His will, as I said earlier, in terms of His will and His wish, His wish that every single solitary human being would someday have that epiphany, they would turn their life around to realize that there is no more awesome direction to go and no greater thing to pursue than the kingdom of God and to love their God with all their heart and their neighbor as themselves. You and I believe that with an asterisk which we are entering. The asterisk that we are entering in discussion right now is one that just simply cannot fit into Christianity's underlying model.

As you read through them, you eventually have to come to the place of saying, well, don't confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up because the facts are overwhelming. While we serve a God who says, I want every single solitary human being to come to salvation, we serve a God who says, I stand in the way so they can't get there.

How do you do that? How do you will that all of them arrive at salvation and at the same time say, I'm standing in the doorway, I've got my hands on both door jams, and there's no one big enough to push me out of the way? We read not too many weeks ago Matthew 13, verse 10. The disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables? And he said, Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has to him more will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. And therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing, they don't see. In hearing, they don't hear, and they don't understand. And in what is taking place, this, I see but I don't see, and I hear but I don't hear, and I don't get it, in all of that a prophecy from Isaiah is actually being fulfilled live. Because it was Isaiah who said, Hearing you will not hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts, and turn so that I should heal them. Those of us that are reading the New King James are sorely disadvantaged, because in the Old King James it says, lest they should understand with their heart, and be converted, so that I should heal them. Multiple other translations also leave the Old King James rendering converted as a part of this. He says, I don't intend to convert them. I have no intentions of converting them. I don't have any intention that they should see, that they should hear, or they should understand.

I believe both 2 Peter 3 and verse 9, and I believe Matthew 13. And because I understand the underlying principle, there is no contradiction. If you read the words of what Christ had to say here, this is what He said. He said in verse 11, it has not been given to them to understand.

Would you be in this room if it had not been given to you to understand? No, you wouldn't. Are you here because you have a superior IQ to all the people who are not in this room today, in this community? No, you don't. Are you here because you are morally superior to all those who are not here? No. There is no compelling humanly logical reason why you are here and somebody else isn't.

You don't have a superior intellect, a superior morality. You are here, you are here, quote, because it has been given to you to understand. That's why you are here. That's why I'm here. I've shared with you, I don't know how many times over the years, my sincere, absolutely sincere sympathy for the poor, misguided people in College Place, Oregon, who, as a child, as we drove from Boise to Walla Walla to visit my grandparents and passed their church on Saturday morning, were coming in or going out of church all dressed up. And when I asked my mom, why are they doing that? It's Saturday. And she said, Bobby, they don't know any better. And I pitied them. I felt very sorry for them.

Why don't I pitied them anymore? Why do I live by, agree with, and passionately defend what they were doing, which at that time I felt sorry for their ignorance? Because somewhere along the line, God gave members of my family the ability to understand. Otherwise, I would still be driving down the road with exactly the same view. Verse 15 summed it up. He said, All of this comes down to one thing. It is not my intent to convert them, lest they be converted. All of this is the way it is because at the end of the road, it's not my intention that they be converted. Matthew 13 is sobering. You look at it, it says, I, God, have blinded them, and I, God, don't want them to be converted. You know, the question should be at that point in time, God, do you mean ever? When your underlying philosophy is, today is the only day of salvation, there is no ever. But because you and I don't live in a world of today is the only day of salvation, you and I can ask, God, do you mean ever? Matthew 13 is built upon earlier scriptures, just as Christ pointed out. He said, and he referenced Isaiah. Go back to Isaiah, the place that he was quoting. Isaiah 6.

At the very beginning, God is saying, who shall I send to the children of Israel? And Isaiah says, I'm a man of unclean lips. And so he sends an angel down to cleanse his lips, and then says, who shall I send? And Isaiah says, you can send me. And so God says in verse 9 to Isaiah, now that he is willing to go, he says, go and tell this people, keep on hearing, but you're not going to understand. Keep on looking, but you're not going to get it. Make the heart of this people dull, and their eyes heavy, or excuse me, their ears heavy, and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts, and return and be healed. Look at some definitive terms. Verse 10 begins with an action word. Make their hearts dull. Make their ears heavy. It says, shut their eyes. This literally means to plaster over the eye socket.

Fill the whole thing in with wax, so that eye is not going to open. And even if it did open, it was not going to see. It was simply putty over. It's what that word, shut their eyes, meant. It wasn't just close the eyelids. It was fill in the socket.

Later in that verse, it says, lest. Lest, old English word. It simply means, I do this so they won't have whatever it is that follows. I putty over their eyes. I close their ears. I completely blind their understanding, so that they will not have an understanding heart. They will not return to me, and they will not be healed. This is what Christ was referencing to His disciples when His disciples—you know, His disciples were smart enough to say, hey, I can tell by the way that He has chosen to communicate that this isn't for clarity's sake. They understood a contradiction in the normal. If I talk to you, I want to be understood. And when you talk back to me, I want to hear, coming out of your mouth, words that tell me that you did understand. The disciples, they understood what was going on. They said, what's going on here? Why do you talk that way? He says, because I don't want them understanding. I want you to understand. I don't want them to understand. And I don't want them to understand, because I don't intend to convert them. As I said, the question is, now or ever? Putty over their eyes. So they don't come back to me, and I don't restore them. Isaiah 44.

I'm walking you through these so that you understand that when Christ said in Matthew 13, as Isaiah said, that this wasn't simply Christ in a position where he had a scripture back in the Old Testament that he could pull upon, I'm giving you enough of a broad sample that you realize that this was an underlying philosophy in the understanding of the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New. They understood as a principle, we are doing a work in a world that God intends to be and to stay blind. That's why the number of references. And I'm giving you a good sample. I'm not giving you all of them. Isaiah 44 and verse 18.

They do not know nor understand, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see in their hearts so that they cannot understand. That's the bottom line. The context is this, and it's an interesting context because we can sit at arm's length. You know, it's always easier to sit at arm's length when you're not being indicted, so this is one of those we can sit at arm's length. The thought begins in verse 15. Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he shall burn, for he shall not be buried. Then it shall be for a man to be burned, for he shall not be Out of wood. Chopping down the tree. A craftsman who can get out his chainsaw and do some chainsaw art. And you end up with your wooden figure. So now you have your wooden figure. So we break into the flow. Verse 15. Then it shall be for a man to burn. For he will take some of it. You know, when you look at a piece of chainsaw art, there's a lot of leftover wood. So you look at the leftover wood. What do you do? Well, he takes some of it to warm himself. Yes, he kindles it and he breaks bread. Indeed, he makes a god and worships it. And he makes it a carved image and falls down to it. So here he is. He's got a tree trunk. And he whittles out of that tree trunk an idol with a remainder. It's a chilly day. I put some of the wood that remained on the fire and I warm my hands. It's supper time, so I put some in. I bake some bread and I have dinner. And after that, I go look at the remainder of it and I bow down. I worship it. So verse 16. He burns half of it on the fire. With this half he eats meat. He roasts a roast and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, Ah, I'm warm. I have seen the fire. And the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it. Praise to it and says, Deliver me, for you are my god.

Now you sit here and say, Dumb. Stupid. Isaiah says they don't get it. And they don't get it because, verse 18, he shut their eyes so they couldn't get it, and their hearts so they couldn't wrap their mind around it.

So Isaiah was inspired by God not to be as condescending to these people as you would be on the surface because he said, They don't get it because I don't intend for them to get it.

John 12.

We've already in the book of Isaiah seen a very great contradiction, but we still have a ways to go. In John 12, we're on the doorstep of the final Passover and Christ's evening with His disciples. So it's just almost there. He can see the end is in sight, and he's beginning mentally to start talking and thinking and prepping His disciples that direction. And beginning in verse 37, it says regarding Christ that although He had done, John 12.37, although He had done many signs before them, they didn't believe in Him. So He'd done all sorts of signs. I mean, you resurrect a man who's already stinking. He's back in the cave. He is starting to decay, and he stinks, and you bring him out of the cave whole. How much more spectacular a miracle can you do? So it says, although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him. That the Word—and why didn't they believe in Him? What is wrong when a centurion comes and says, I've got somebody dying? He says, go home and they'll be okay. What happens when you've got a herd of blind men? And He says, go and be healed, and lepers, and on and on and on it goes. Well, the reason it doesn't sink in is because, verse 38, that the Word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore, they could not believe, because Isaiah said again, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes and understand with their heart, lest they should turn, so that I should heal them. It's not just Old Testament. It's not just Christ. We're now moving into John, assessing the miracles of Christ, and it's the same proposition. Ultimately, people's ability to see or not to see belongs to God. He can close eyes. He can open eyes.

Acts 28 The very end of the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul is in Rome. He's under house arrest. He calls together the leaders of the Jewish community in the capital city, Rome, to talk to them. And these are the intelligent men. These are the cream of the educated of the Jewish faith in the city of Rome. These would be men, based upon their stature, who should be able to deal with meat. Acts 28, 16 He was the prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, so he told them why he was there. Verse 22 We'd like to hear from you. We'd like to understand better why you're here. What happened? Verse 22 See, they understood that Paul had left Judaism and had become a part of this sect, that followed an individual named Jesus of Nazareth. We desire to hear from you what you think. For concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere. So in other words, oh, we've heard bad about it, but we don't really know that much about it. So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and from the prophets from morning till evening. They sat there from breakfast till dinner. And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word. And this is what Paul said, The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, Go to this people, and say, Hearing, you will hear, and shall not understand, And seeing you will see, and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull, Their ears, heart of hearing, their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their heart, and turn, so that I should heal them.

You see, the situation has changed, the circumstances have changed. It's interesting that Paul is saying this here at the end of the book of Acts to a body of people who represent the same body of people in our last illustration, which is Romans 11.

I'm sure the Jewish leaders didn't appreciate Paul saying, You know what? We've spent an entire day together, and I have been explaining to you the message of God, the principles of God, and the destiny of God, and the majority of you don't get it. And he said, You have spent a day with me as I've explained these things, and you are the living testimony to the words of Isaiah that God has not given you a mind to understand. Romans 11 And verse 1, It is here we come to the apex of the argument. I say then, Has God cast away his people? Now, if I stopped right there on the basis of the evidence that we have before us, you would have no reason but to answer, Yes, he has. I have given you evidence from Matthew 13, from Isaiah 6, from Isaiah 44, from John 12, from Acts 28. And every single one of them said the same thing, I don't intend you understand. So Paul asks the question that's logical at this point in time. Has God cast away his people? On the basis of the evidence at hand, you would have no honest answer to give except, Yes. And Paul says, No. And so you get that whiplash. Wait, wait, wait. You've been giving me evidence from square one that it was God who blinded them, doesn't want them to understand, and does not intend to convert them. And now you ask me, Has he cast them away? And I say to you, Well, sure, you read all the evidence. And he says, No. No, he hasn't.

Can you talk any more out of both sides of the mouth simultaneously in terms of how it reads, how it feels? And his answer wasn't just a casual. There's an exclamation point that says, Absolutely not. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people, whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the scriptures say of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, Lord, they've killed your prophets and torn down your altars? And I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what does the divine response say to him? I've reserved for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Even so, then, at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. If by grace, then it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, then it is no longer grace. Otherwise, work is no longer work. What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it. And the rest were hardened. Just as it is written, God has given them a spirit of stupor. Eyes that they should not see, ears that they should not hear to this very day. And David says, let their table become a snare and trap a stumbling block and a recompense to them, that their eyes be darkened that they may not see and bow down their backs away. I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? He says, absolutely not.

You know, there are times where the things on the surface are so patently and obviously contradictory that you get whiplash and you need to go to the chiropractor after reading the scriptures. What in the world have I been reading? You have just been introduced to the front end of the underlying philosophies that demonstrate the need, the compelling need, for the Second Resurrection. We've left you hanging in limbo, intentionally, but we wanted to introduce you to the realities, the realities of a God that all of the Christian world nods in agreement once to see and would like if he had his greatest desire, the salvation and the conversion of every human being who has ever lived. And we've spent half of the sermon going through the words of multiple prophets and apostles telling you he has intentionally blinded them, he has intentionally closed their eyes, he has intentionally made it impossible for them to understand, he has intentionally hardened their hearts, he has intentionally kept them from being converted. And then to add intellectual insult to injury, the apostle who finishes it then turns around and chastises us for thinking they're lost. He sets us up twice and he says, well, they're all gone, aren't they? Yep, they are. Absolutely not! Well, they've fallen and they can never get up. Yeah, that's right. No, it's not right. And so you walk away saying, man, I'm not going to get sucker-punched again. You asked me another question. I'm just going to sit here and keep my mouth shut. Because everything you said says I should say this and then you tell me I'm wrong.

And I'm wrong because the underlying philosophy has more to say. And when that is understood, there is no option but to have what we refer to as a second resurrection. We have used the term consistently as a representation of one thing, the opportunity for the salvation of every single solitary person whom God describes as having been deliberately blinded so that at that time they could not be converted. We say, as Paul said, are they lost? We say, no way. We say, when Paul says, have they stumbled so they can never get up? We say, absolutely not. So in that sense, you and I don't get sucker-punched by Paul because we're over on Paul's side saying the same thing. But there's more to the underlying philosophy that you and I have to understand. Before explicit Scripture or no explicit Scripture, there is no other option but a resurrection to salvation or the opportunity for salvation for all these people who are described by one umbrella term, hardened or blinded. We'll continue into the philosophy next week.