Let Sleeping Mountains Lie

A wise man once said, "Let sleeping mountains lie." (Or was it "sleeping dragons"? Either way, it doesn't matter much for the purpose of this story.)

A wise man once said, "Let sleeping mountains lie."

The two generals either had never heard this, or simply ignored the advice. Camping on either side of Mount Ree, which runs north and south, the generals were on the prowl.

General Curiosity, leading a fine, fat army, was clothed in outrageous garments of black and white splotches.

General Runty, head of a trim little army, was dressed entirely in black with just a spot of white at the throat.

The latter general's notion of fighting was a little more stealthy that that of the heftier general. General Curiosity kept leading charge after pouncing charge over the crest of the mountain. Young Runty struck back repeatedly, sending the older general back into camp. When Runty attacked it tended to be around the foot of the mountain rather than over the top.

It cannot be said exactly how long this combat between the two brave generals was waged before the inner depth of Mount Ree began to stir. Slowly, gradually, out of deep, sweet sleep, the mountain began to heave. Near the head of mountain, two muddy pools were uncovered, brown with stirred up silt.

Still, the two generals continued to attack and counter attack. General Curiosity cresting the mountain again and being driven back. General Runty crouched, ready to spring...

Suddenly, the mountain laughed!

Ah, what dreams....what ridiculous dreams I do imagine. For the mountain began to play with the two generals, calling them both affectionally by endearing names like "Curio" and "Runts". The little foot hills wiggled and caused giggles to arise as Runty pounced!

What is this? Mountains laughing and playing? Generals unafraid of rumbling mountains...indeed, generals emboldened by the shaking and twitching of said mountain?

Dreams! Dreams all!

And yet...it is the truth. How can that be?

Why my friends, it is quite simple!

It is thus: I have simply told you a story of how one girl was awaken by the playful antics of her two cats.

[Ever glad to be of service; Nathaniel Nathan Reckrap]

        Racheal

Because He is identified with God, to hear Him is to hear God and to sin against Him is to sin against God. And yet He is distinguished from God in Exodus 32:34. This is sound reason to believe that the Angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate
manifestation of the Son of God, the Second Person in the Trinity. (502)

Furthermore, in the book of Judges, “the Angel of the Lord” does many wonderful things:
     (1) He identifies Himself as Jehovah the Redeemer and Covenant Lord of Israel,       who will use pagan nations to chasten them and to prepare them for the future      He has in store for them (2:1).
    (2) He curses a city because it did not carry out its obligations to the Lord to fight      with His people against their enemies (5:23), in fulfillment of Genesis 12:1–.
    (3) The presence of this Angel with an individual or a nation is the Presence of      Jehovah Himself (6:11–4).
   (4) He announces the birth of Samson, the deliverer of Israel from the Philistines      (13:3, 5). In chapter thirteen we learn that this Angel must reveal His true      identity to a person before He can be recognized (13:16, 21–2).
     (5) He performed miracles (13:19), to attest to His identity and glory.
     (6) He “ascended” into heaven with the flames of the altar (13:20). (503)

In the providence of God, some angels in heaven, deliberately and “irrecoverably,”
fell from their high and holy estate “into sin and damnation.” (504)

These fallen angels are Satan and the demons. Having fallen from their original created condition in God’s presence: “their own domain, their proper abode” (Jude 6), they remain under the sovereign control of God, who limits and orders their fall and all their sinful actions for His own glory (Job 1:12; Matt. 8:31). (504)

God has chosen some angels for eternal happiness to the glory of His grace, and He has passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonor and condemnation for their sins to the glory of His justice. (506)

Those angels whom God chose in eternity, were foreordained not to fall into rebellion against God and to be confirmed in a state of perfect holiness, while the non-elect angels were foreordained to fall from perfection into evil and to be condemned for their rebellion against God. (507)

To say that Jesus, is for “a little while,” i.e., from His conception to His resurrection, “lower than the angels,” is to say that “the humiliation of the Son consisted in his identification of himself with inferior and fallen man— humiliation, however, which, as this present verse asserts, reached its climax and fulfillment in the suffering of the cross, [‘that by the grace of God He might taste death for every one’ (2:9)].” 43. Hughes,  A Commentary on the Epistle of Hebrews, 89–90. (508)

The book of Hebrews makes it clear that Christ’s humiliation and death were for the benefit of human beings, not of angels. (508)

Christ did not come to die to redeem the fallen angels, nor did He assume an angelic nature in His incarnation; rather, “He had to be made like His brethren in all things,” i.e., “the seed of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16–17). (508)

In this sequence of seven quotations from the Old Testament (1:5-14), the author confirms without doubt the superiority of Jesus Christ over all angels, thus attesting to His divine and messianic Sonship and His divine and mediatorial sovereignty. (510)

“For in what manner do you say that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Redeemer of the good angels? He, who raised up fallen man, gave to the standing angel the power of not falling, thus rescuing him from captivity, thus defending him from it, and in this way redemption was equal to both: paying for that man, preserving this angel.”… Indeed we confess that the grace of confirmation came to them through the Word (Logon), so that they might receive their confirmation from the same one from whom they had obtained their being. For the Father works only through the Son (who is the fountain of all life and grace) in the works of nature as well as in those of grace (Jn 5:17)." 47. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 1:338. (511)

...“the Angel of the Lord.” This name is given to Jesus, not because He is in being angelic rather than human, but because, like the angels, He is the divinely commissioned Messenger of God, the Servant of the Lord, to minister to God’s people by dying for them (Mark 10:45). (511-512)

Throughout the earthly life of Jesus, angels tenderly and reverently cared for Him, and were always ready to do His bidding. ....They ministered to Him at His conception (Luke 1:26–38), at His birth (2:9–15), after His temptation in the wilderness: “Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him” (Matt. 4:11) and in His agony on the Mount of Olives: “Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.["] ...There is no mention of angels attending Him on the cross, for He was abandoned and cursed by God, being covered with our sins for which He was being punished. But they attended
His resurrection from the dead. ....Angels also attended Jesus at His ascension.... And they will attend Him at His second coming, when “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire” (2 Thess. 1:7). (512-513)

Satan is not merely the figurative personification of the idea of evil, he is a created, living and personal being; but he is not physical, with skin and bone, being “angelic,” and hence, spiritual, invisible and immaterial. He thinks, speaks, conspires, tempts. (513)

"Of course Satan is more than simply a person, according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:15. He is a worthless and lawless person, the personal representative of darkness and unrighteousness.… He represents nothing constructive, profitable or good… 2 Corinthians 6:15 portrays Satan as in utter opposition to the person of Christ and everything He represents; there is no point at which Satan...can harmonize with Christ. Satan is devoted to the work of hindering and destroying the kingdom of God (whether or not that is a realistic aim)."48. Greg Bahnsen, “The Person, Work and Present Status of Satan,” Symposium on Satanism in The Journal of Christian Reconstruction, ed. Gary North, 1:2 (Vallecito, CA: Chalcedon, 1974), 13–14 (513-514)

Or to put it in other words, the unobtainable goal of Satan and the other fallen angels is to separate the chosen people of God from the love of God in Christ... (514)

Satan seeks to reach his diabolic ends by working: on INDIVIDUALS (Eph. 2:2), both in BODY (Luke 13:16), and in MIND (Luke 22:3); through the NATURAL WORLD (Luke 8:23–24; Mark 9:25); in SOCIAL BEHAVIOR (Luke 8:27), and SOCIAL RELATIONS (2 Cor. 2:5–11); in INTELLECTUAL matters (1 Tim. 4:1); in
POLITICAL affairs (Rev. 12–13); in RELIGIOUS affairs, whether in FALSE sects (2 Cor. 11:14–15) or in the TRUE way—by distorting (Gal. 4:8–9) and competing with (Matt. 13:39), the preaching of the gospel. (514)

However, when we think of Satan, we must think of him as a finite, created being, not as a being equal to God in any sense. He is NOT omniscient, omnipotent nor omnipresent. He is under the control, restraint and direction of the Mighty Sovereign of the universe (Rev. 9:1, 5), Who also has him “bound” in “chains” since
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). (514-515)

In the Bible, Satan is given several names: “Belial, the worthless one” (2 Cor. 6:15), “Apollyon or Abaddon, the destroyer” (Rev. 9), “Beelzebul, the dung-god or lord of the flies” (Luke 11:15), “the prince of this world or the god of this age,” i.e., the leader of a destroyed humanity, of a kingdom of unethical darkness and spiritual
death (John 12:31; 2 Cor. 4:4), the “serpent,” with a crushed head (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 12:11; 20:1–), the shackled “dragon” (20:1). “Satan” means “adversary” (1 Pet. 5:8). (515)

Luke describes Satan as “the Devil,” who is “the ruler of the demons” (Luke 11:15). There are many demons, daimonia, but only one Devil, diabolos, who is king of the demons (Rev. 9:11). ...Just as Christ is the Head of the church, so Satan is the evil leader of the demonic host, who has a large army of wicked, unclean and  vicious demons under his command (Matt. 8:28, 10:1, Mark 5:2f, 9:20, Acts 19:15), (although the devil and all his demons are under the sovereign rule of God). (515)

The Biblical strategy against the destructive work of Satan is threefold:
    (1) Resist the devil with the Word of God, as did Jesus in the wilderness (James       4:7), and the devil will flee from you.
    (2) Use the shield of faith in Christ and in His Word (Eph. 6:11–12, 16), and you      will quench all the fiery missiles that Satan hurls at you.
    (3) Pray (Matt. 6:13), and God will deliver you from the evil one. (515-516)

As we have seen, demons, or fallen angels, are wicked, unclean and vicious (Matt. 8:28; 10:1; Mark 5:2–3; 9:20; Acts 19:15), and their leader is Satan (Matt. 9:34; Eph. 2:2; Rev. 9:11). (517)

When Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2), we can learn several things about demons:
     (1) These demons of darkness over which Satan rules are INCORPOREAL      powers of darkness (Eph. 6:12).
    (2) They fill the air or occupy the atmosphere around the earth, who are spiritual      forces WITHIN REACH of us and with whom we must fight (Eph. 3:10–1; 6:12).
    (3) They create an ethical atmosphere, or PERVADING OUTLOOK IN A      CULTURE (Eph. 2:2; 4:17). (517)

The Bible records at least 55 instances of demonic activity...Demon possession, therefore, according to the Bible is an actual occurrence, and not merely a
metaphorical or mythological description. It is not mental illness. ...“Demon possession could have a profound and dominating influence on one’s body (Mark
9:17–26), will (John 13:27), words (Mark 1:23), and mind (Mark 5:1–18). The demoniac could lose control over himself, and that against his will, (cf. Luke 9:39).”
54. Bahnsen, “The Person, Work and Present Status of Satan,” 16. (518)

[Characteristics of demon possession]:
(1) The person possessed gives evidence of being controlled by a force or personality apart from his own personality, that uses his body.
(2) The possessed person manifests bizarre, anti-social behavior (Matt. 8:28; Mark 5:2; Luke 8:27).
(3) He can manifest superhuman strength beyond his own normal ability (Matt. 8:28; Mark 5:3–4; Luke 8:29).
(4) He experiences intense convulsions, seizures and bodily self-harm in destructive and distorted ways (Matt. 17:15; Mark 1:26; 5:5; 9:18, 20, 22, 26; Luke 4:35; 9:39, 42).
(5) He often cries out with a loud shrieking voice (Mark1:26; 9:26; Luke 9:39).
(6) He speaks either coherently or incoherently, (possibly in an unknown language) through the use of the individual’s voice.
(7) Some demon possessed persons confess names other than that of the individual whom the demons are inhabiting...
(8) There is a recognition of and resistance to the person of Jesus Christ (Matt. 8:28; Mark 1:24; 5:6–; Luke 4:34, 41; 8:28).
(9) The demon must obey Christ (Matt. 8:16, 32; 17:18; Mark 1:27; 5:12–3; 9:25, 26; Luke 4:35; 8:32), or a command given in His name (Acts 16:18). (518-519)

The Word of Christ, written and preached, is the instrument He uses as the exalted Christ, to control and overcome evil in the world....His Word still overcomes evil and the demonic in your life, as you believe it, obey it and bear witness to it. (519)

First, Jesus gave power over the demons to His disciples (Matt. 10:1; Mark 6:7; 9:38; Luke 10:17; Acts 5:16; 8:7; 16:16f; 19:12). (520)

Second, the New Testament is full of indications that Christians have the ASSURANCE OF ETHICAL VICTORY in their encounters with Satan and demons. (520)

Third, even in the face of severe, physical persecution, the believer wins in his war with Satan (1 Peter 4:11; 5:11; Rev. 9:1–2; Luke 10:19; Rom. 8:35–36; Rev. 12:10–11). (520)

Fourth, not only is the Christian’s victory over Satan and the demonic evident with respect to demon possession, temptation to sin, and persecution; it is also clearly evident with respect to the success of evangelism (Matt. 12:28–29). (520-521)

"The fact is that while Satan is alive, he is not well! His power and kingdom have fallen, and presently he frantically thrashes out his short remaining time. Christ has deposed him, crushed him, and shackled him; Christ’s followers continue to spoil his house. The only lordship he retains is over the despicable elements of life symbolized by dung." 61. Bahnsen, “The Person, Work and Present Status of Satan,” 42. (521)

        Racheal

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“The angels were created, for whatever exists is either Creator or creature. Since they are not the Creator, they are creatures.” 2. William a Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 4 vols. (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1992), 1:286. (480)

Angels are invisible, spiritual and incorporeal beings, i.e., they exist without a physical body. ... These angels are neither divine nor human; rather they are “winds,” “a flame of fire” and “ministering spirits.” The word, winds, in Hebrew and Greek, may equally well be translated “spirits.” They are “a flame of fire,” because “they are totally inflamed with the fire of divine love.” 3. Philip E. Hughes,  A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977) 62. (480)

That the angels are invisible is evident, not only from the fact that they are spirits, but because of such passages as Luke 24:39, where Jesus says, after His bodily resurrection from the grave: “a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” (481)

All this is not to say that angels cannot take upon themselves some kind of human form whenever they think it necessary. Not only did they make such appearances in a bodily form in the Old and New Testaments (Gen. 28:12; Acts 27:23–24), but Hebrews 13:2 exhorts us: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (481)

Angels are personal beings, not impersonal forces, lifeless symbols or figments of someone’s imagination. They are real living persons with intelligence, will and power to carry out their desires. (482)

Angels, that is unfallen ones, are holy (Jude 14). (482)

Whereas angels have some qualities that are superior to man (Acts 12:10), nevertheless they are not superior to man as beings, because they are not made in the image of God as is man, thus making him the crown of creation (Isa. 6:1; 1 Cor. 6:3; Heb. 1:13). (483)

First Corinthians 6:2–3 impresses us with the superiority of godly men and women over angels: “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?… Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?”
   (1) The saints judge the world now, whenever we assess the world’s thoughts, actions and creations in the light of the Word of God.
    (2) The saints will rule, manage and judge the world, when both Jews and Gentiles will be truly converted and Christianized globally (Rom. 11; 1 Cor. 15:24–25; Isa. 2, 4, 11).
  (3) In the Final Judgment at the very end of history, the saints shall be Christ’s associate judges in the judging of the world, as a function of their royal rule as crowned kings in Christ (Eph. 2:6, 1 Pet. 2:9). (483)

The intelligence, wisdom and knowledge of angels are far superior to the intelligence, wisdom and knowledge of human beings and yet they are not omniscient. (485)

They know God—His character, glory, plans and will—directly, profoundly and intimately, since they “continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 18:10). They know themselves, eternally communicating with each other (Zech. 2:3; Isa. 6:3; Rev. 7:2; 14:18). And they know human beings, having been intimately involved in their lives since the beginning of time. (485)

(1) They do not know, unless God reveals it to them, what God’s will has planned for the future (Isa. 41:22–3; 42:8–9; 44:7–; Matt. 24:36).
(2) They do not know the human heart and inner life, because God reserves this for Himself.
(3) Their knowledge of man’s salvation is incomplete, for into the display of God’s mercy in Christ for man’s redemption, “angels long to look” (1 Pet. 1:12). (485-486)

Angels also possess power superior to that of human beings. ... Although their power is vastly superior to man’s strength, and although they can do many wonderful things, nevertheless they cannot do everything. ... “This power is undoubtedly always within God’s control, and never truly supernatural, although superhuman.” 14. Dabney,  Systematic Theology, 267–268. (487)

The Bible leads us to believe that a vast number of unfallen angels exist to do God’s bidding. (488)

Why does the Bible repeatedly remind us that good angels constitute an innumerable host? 

FIRST, the myriads of magnificent angels in all their beauty surrounding God’s
glorious throne, praising Him and responding to His every wish, “adorn His majesty and render it conspicuous.”16 SECOND, since God has commissioned myriads of angels to guard, protect and minister to Christians, we should never fear or complain, even when things appear to be going against us, for we are in good and strong hands. 16. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1:165. (489)

Although vast numbers of angels exist and vast numbers of human beings exist, angels “do not form an organism like man-kind, for they are spirits, which do not marry and are not born the one out of the other. Their full number was created in the beginning; there has been no increase in their ranks.” 18. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 146. (489-490)

The older Reformers, such as Brakel of the seventeenth century, believed that the angels were created on the first day of creation week for this reason: since they
were the hosts and inhabitants of heaven, they were created when the heavens were (Ps. 103:21; 148:2). (490)

Heaven is the residence, or home, of the unfallen angels. ... It is the very throne room of God, the immediate presence of God, for in “heaven” the angels continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven.” ...  So then, angels live in heaven with God; and it is from heaven that God sends them forth on various missions. (490-491)

Angels have a variety of closely related functions assigned to them by God in connection with the saving work and reign of Jesus Christ. (491)

(1) They are God’s servants and messengers ordained to carry out His commands...
(2) They are to adorn and to praise God’s incomparable majesty and to render it more conspicuous to man...
(3) “[T]hey keep vigil for our safety, take upon themselves our defense, direct our ways and take care that some harm may not befall us.”21 No Christian in this life will know how many times angels have protected him from harm...
(4) They dispense and administer God’s bountiful generosity to us in a variety of ways....
    (a) They provide us with physical nourishment when we are famished...
   (b) They protect us from contracting serious diseases...
   (c) They assist in the healing of our sicknesses (John 5:4).
   (d) They assist and protect us in our travels (Gen. 24:7, 24, 48; 32:1).
    (e) They keep us from dangers and help us out of them...
    (f) They are connected with and rejoice in the conversion of sinners...
    (g) They comfort us in times of distress (Dan. 9:23; 10:11–12)....
    (h) They assist us in resisting the temptations of Satan (Dan. 10:13, 20; Rev. 12:7;    Eph. 6:12).
    (i) They attend to us when we are dying and gently usher us into the presence of       God at death... 
(5) Angels are used by God throughout history to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ over all of life and all the earth...
(6) Angels are “ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14)...."Observe, 1. The highest honour of the
most glorious spirits in heaven is to minister unto the Lord in the service whereunto He appoints them; 2. Such is the love and care of God towards His saints labouring here below, that He sends the most glorious attendants on His throne to minister unto them in taking care of them." 24 ...
(7) When a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, he comes “to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and  to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood” (Heb. 12:22–4)...
(8) Angels had some role in the giving of the Law of God....

It is important to point out that God uses angels, not for His sake, but for our sakes. God is not dependent on anything He has made (Acts 17:25). He does not need human beings or angels....

21. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1:166
24. John Owen,  Hebrews: The Epistle of Warning (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, [1953] 1968), 14. (491-495)


Angels must not divert us from directing our gaze to God alone nor from ascribing all glory and worship to Him alone (Col. 1:16, 20; Rev. 19:10, 22:8–9). (496)

Apparently some kind of organization exists among the unfallen angels for the Bible identifies different classes and names of angels: cherubim, seraphim, principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, archangel, Gabriel and Michael. (496)

The name “angel” simply means messenger. This name has been given to these glorious beings because God uses them as His servant-messengers to manifest Himself to human beings (Ps. 103:20–1). (496)

        Racheal

Notice these four basic elements... on reprobation: (1) The individuals passed by and reject-God’s eternal condemnation. (2) God passes some individuals by and refuses to choose them to eternal life, leaving them in the state of misery and ruin into which, by their own fault, they have plunged themselves. (3) He dooms those whom He passes by to the eternal punishment their sins deserve; and He does so in perfect justice and holy vengeance. (4) In God’s decree to pass by and reject some,
God acts absolutely. (439-440)

“One hoof of Divine truth,” says the venerable Erskine, “is not to be kept back, though a whole reprobate world should break their necks on it.” 53. Thornwell,  Collected Writings, 2:107. (440-441)

First, the ultimate cause of both decrees is the sovereign will of God and the pure sovereignty of His good pleasure. (441)

Second, reprobation has a factor not occurring in election: our election to life is gracious and undeserved; and the condemnation of the reprobate is just and deserved, because of their sins. (441)

Third, in election, people are chosen by God, and saving faith and holiness of life result from His choice of them, Acts 13:48; but in reprobation, God does not create the rebellion in the heart of the wicked, instead, that rebellion is the cause of divine
condemnation (Rom. 11:20). (442)

Fourth, in election, God predestines sinful people to salvation and guarantees the work of saving grace in their lives; but in reprobation God does absolutely nothing to save the non-elect sinner. (442)

In an attempt to clarify the revealed truth of reprobation, some theologians have identified two components in this decree: preterition and condemnation. Preterition means letting things stand as they are. To pretermit is to omit, to leave, to let alone (Luke 17:34; 2 Chron. 32:31; Ps. 81:12–13). God’s decision to leave some
sinners in their sin, without bestowing on them the gift of life, was an act of sheer sovereignty. (442)

1. [E]ternal reprobation makes no man a sinner. 2. [T]he foreknowledge of God that the reprobate would perish makes no man a sinner. 3. [G]od’s infallible determining upon the damnation of him that perisheth, makes no man a sinner. 4.
God’s patience and long-suffering, and forebearance until the reprobate fits himself for eternal destruction, makes no man a sinner. 56. John Bunyan, “Reprobation  Asserted,” The Works of John Bunyan, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, [1875] 1977) 2:352. (442-443)

God hardened a large number of Canaanites, and refused to show them favor, so they would recklessly wage war with Israel and be destroyed by her military superiority. “[W]hy did not Jehovah command Israel to teach the Canaanites His laws and instruct them concerning sacrifices to the true God? Plainly, because He
had marked them out for destruction, and if so, that from all eternity.”58. Arthur Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1930), 104. (443)

The case of Pharaoh establishes the principle and illustrates the doctrine of Reprobation. If God actually reprobated Pharaoh, we may justly conclude that He reprobates all others whom He did not predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son. This inference the apostle Paul manifestly draws from the fate of Pharaoh, for in Romans 9, after referring to God’s purpose in raising up Pharaoh, he continues, “therefore” [or “So then” in the NASB]. The case of Pharaoh is introduced to prove the doctrine of Reprobation as the counterpart of the doctrine of Election. 61. Pink, The Sovereignty of God, 110–111. (445)

On more than one occasion, Jesus distinguished His disciples, whom He chose to be His own, from the rest of the unbelieving world, which He left in darkness. (445)

Jesus went so far as to say that God had deliberately hidden the truth from some people, so that they cannot be saved from sin. (445)

Romans 9:21–23 assumes two things: (1) God is dealing with mankind as sinners....(2) Mercy can only be sovereign mercy, i.e., bestowed upon whomever God pleases. (449)

No one can escape this unique Stone and its determinative impact. Reactions to this Stone divide the human race into believers (1 Pet. 2:6–7) and unbelievers (1 Pet. 2:7–8). (451)

Verse 8 gives the reason unbelievers stumble in disobedience and unbelief over Christ, breaking themselves upon Him: they were destined by God to this course of stumbling and to this end, doom. (451)

(Jude 4). Notice three things about the deceitful men mentioned in this verse: (1) They were “ordained to this condemnation.” God ordained their blindness, persistent  rebellion and eternal condemnation. (2) They were ordained to  condemnation “before of old,” i.e., in eternity, before the beginning of time. This speaks of the absoluteness and unchangeableness of this foreordination to condemnation. (3) These men are “ungodly men.” The cause of their condemnation was not the pleasure of God, but their own sin against God. (452)

God chose to save an innumerable throng of sinners to be saved to show forth “the praise of His glorious grace,” and chose to pass by and foreordain the rest of the human race to eternal condemnation for their sins “to the praise of the glory of His justice.” (454)

First, the revealed truth of the decree of reprobation does not mean that God planned to take innocent creatures, make them wicked, and then damn them. ... “God has not created sinful creatures in order to destroy them, for God is not to be charged with the sin of His creatures. The responsibility and criminality is man’s.”
76. Pink, The Sovereignty of God, 123. (457)

Second, the revealed truth of reprobation does not mean that God refuses to save those who sincerely seek salvation in Christ. (457)

Third, the decree of reprobation does not in anyway contradict the goodness of God. Although the non-elect are not objects of His saving goodness and His special grace, they are objects of His general goodness and His common grace bestowed by God upon all people without exception in this life. (458)

Fourth, the rule of holiness demands that we not only avoid sin, we also are to work to prevent all the sin in others we can. This same rule applies to God, the critics of reprobation say. ..."They say we represent Him as like a man who, witnessing the
perpetration of a crime, and having both the right and power to prevent it, stands idly by: and they refer us to such Scriptures as Proverbs xxiv.11, 12. And when we remind them, that God permissively ordains those sins, not for the sake of their evil, but for the sake of the excellent and holy ends He will bring about, they retort, that we represent Him as “doing evil that good may come.” These objections derive all their plausibility from forgetting that we are creatures and bondsmen of God, while He is supreme judge." 78. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, 243. (458)

Fifth, the question still remains: Why did not God elect everybody to salvation? The answer is this: It pleased God to display the glory of His grace in the salvation of the elect sinners and to display the glory of His justice in the damnation of the
reprobate, (non-elect), sinners. ...The more obvious question is: Why did God elect anybody to salvation? (459)

Sixth, if God has chosen only His elect for salvation, and rejected the rest of the race, why are we told that God “commands all men everywhere to repent”? (Acts 17:30). By commanding all people everywhere, God is enforcing His sovereign rights and righteous claims as the moral Governor of the world. (459)

First, what are the benefits of believing and teaching this Biblical truth of reprobation? (1) It will increase our admiration and adoration of God for His love and His hatred. ...(2) This glorious truth “strips them [men] of all pretensions to merit, shows them their deep and loathsome unworthiness, and prostrates their souls in the very dust of self-abasement.” 80 Nothing is more humbling to the pride of man than the knowledge that the only reason he is not in the ranks of the non-elect is because God graciously decreed otherwise (Acts 13:48). ...To know that every one of the non-elect is absolutely under the control of God should greatly promote our trust and confidence in God. To view the world situation and to see the wickedness that abounds on every hand, and yet to know that it is all included in God’s decree, is comfort indeed. 80. James H. Thornwell, Election and Reprobation (Jackson, MI: Presbyterian Reformation Society, 1961), 82. (460)

Second, while we as Christians must constantly recognize our responsibility to be witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ to everybody (Acts 1:8), we must also resign ourselves to the fact that God alone decides the consequences. (460)

Third, "those who misrepresent God’s counsel in general, and the decree of reprobation in particular, as if it were merely the divine purpose respecting a person’s eternal destiny, are guilty of a serious error. No one has a right to interpret the decree of reprobation as an iron decree, determining only the final destiny of the lost, who are then viewed as inexorably shut up to this eternal state of perdition, no matter what penitent efforts they may put forth. ...Accordingly, we should not thus conceive of the purpose of reprobation, as if it were a decree all by itself, sustaining no relation to the other decrees in general, nor to the decree of election, in particular. In reality there is not such a dualism between sin and grace,
punishment and blessing, justice and mercy, as if the reprobate were visited only with sin and punishment, and the elect only with grace and blessing." 82. Bavinck, 
The Doctrine of God, 400. (461-462)

All of God’s plans happen in time infallibly, inevitably and unchangeably. This is absolutely certain because of the infinitely perfect character of God: “God is not a man, that He should lie...Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Num. 23:19). (462)

Two things must be kept in mind, when we consider the execution of God’s decrees in time. (1) When God’s eternal decree is actually executed in time, the execution exactly corresponds to the decree in the mind of God, with absolutely no deviations,
“according to His infallible foreknowledge”...(2) The decrees of God cannot ever be
defeated or fail of execution, according to “the free and immutable counsel of His own will”: “For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?” (Isa. 14:27). (463)

God carries out His eternal plans in the works of creation and providence. In creating the universe, He provides Himself with the “raw materials” to accomplish His eternal “blueprints.”...In governing and providing for His creation, i.e., providence, He causes the creation to reach all of His purposes for it: Having made the world, He now upholds, (or “moves along”), “by the Word of His power” (Heb. 1:2–3; see also Ps. 104). He created the universe “out of nothing,” using no means or “second causes” whatsoever (Gen. 1:1); but He executes the work of providence, ordinarily, by means and “second causes.” (463-464)

Emptied as we are by election of all that cannot abide the scrutiny of heaven, we are pointed to inexhaustible treasures at God’s right hand, which are bestowed only upon those who habitually depend upon His grace. Blind, naked and miserable in ourselves, we take the counsel of the Holy Spirit and lean upon the Lord for all that we need. (464)

        Racheal

My boots aren't usually that dark...

(See how dirty my face was?? And I didn't realize that the tag was sticking out of my hat; which I had on backwards because it's fairly dark in the barn and I could see better with it that way.)

Concerning her socks, Katherine pointed out that she wears them over her pants like that to keep them from sliding off in her boots. Heap big sense! (Now, if only I can remember to do that!)

Those are one of her three new pairs of glasses. I really like 'em!

        Racheal

        Racheal