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Ah, my reader, it is foolish and wrong to assume anything where the Word of God is concerned.
The word
“foreknowledge” is not found in the Old Testament.
it often signifies to regard with favor, denoting not mere cognition but an affectio...
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In these passages “knew” signifies either loved or appointed.
The fact is that “foreknowledge” is never used in Scripture in connection with
events or actions; instead, it always has reference to persons. It is persons God is said to “foreknow,” not the actions of those persons.
God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be.
The truth is, He foreknows because He has elected.
God did not elect any sinner because He foresaw that he would believe, for the simple but sufficient reason that no sinner ever does believe until God gives him faith; just as no man sees until God gives him sight. Sight is God’s gift, seeing is the consequence of my using His gift. So faith is God’s gift (Eph 2:8,9), believing is the consequence of my using His gift. If it were true that God had elected certain ones to be saved because in due time they would believe, then that would make believing a meritorious act, and in that event the saved sinner would have ground for “boasting,” which
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They think that if He has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change.
The “god” of this twentieth century no more resembles the Supreme Sovereign of Holy Writ than does the dim flickering of a candle the glory of the midday sun.
The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form “gods” out of wood and stone, while the millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a “god” out of their own carnal mind.
In reality, they are but atheists, for there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God, and no God at all.
A “god” whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated, possesses no title to Deity, and so far from being a fit obje...
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Before Him presidents and popes, kings and emperors, are less than grasshoppers.
At the beginning He pronounced all that He made “very good” (Gen 1:31), which He could not have done had there been anything imperfect or unholy in them.
God’s holiness is manifested in His law. That law forbids sin in all of its modifications: in its most refined as well as its grossest forms, the intent of the mind as well as the pollution of the body, the secret desire as well as the overt act.
How hateful sin must be to God for Him to punish it to its utmost deserts when it was imputed to His Son!
He loves everything which is in conformity to His laws, and loathes everything which is contrary to it.
Sin can no more exist without demanding His punishment than without requiring His hatred of it. God has often forgiven sinners, but He never forgives sin; and the sinner is only forgiven on the ground of Another having borne his punishment: for “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22).
For one sin God banished our first parents from Eden. For one sin all the posterity of Canaan, a son of Ham, fell under a curse which remains over them to this day (Gen 9:21). For one sin Moses was excluded from Canaan, Elisha’s servant smitten with leprosy, Ananias and Sapphira cut off out of the land of the living.
The character attributed to the “gods” of the ancients and of modern heathendom is the very reverse of that immaculate purity which pertains to the true God. An ineffably holy God, who has the utmost abhorrence of all sin, was never invented by any of Adam’s fallen descendants!
The “god” which the vast majority of professing Christians “love” is looked upon very much like an indulgent old man, who himself has no relish for folly, but leniently winks at the “indiscretions” of youth. But the Word says, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Psa 5:5). And again, “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psa 7:11).
No, sinful man was no more likely to devise a holy God than to create the Lake of Fire in which he will be tormented forever and ever.
A fallen creature could sooner create a world than produce that which would meet the approval of infinite Purity.
God would deny Himself, vilify His perfections, were He to account as righteous and holy that which is not so in itself; and nothing is so which has the least stain upon it contrary to the nature of God.
But blessed be His name, that which His holiness demanded, His grace has provided in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amazing to relate, they were produced without materials. They sprung from emptiness itself.
Both man and beast would perish if there were not herbs for food; herbs would wither and die if the earth were not refreshed with fruitful showers. Therefore is God called the Preserver of “man and beast” (Psa 36:6), “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Heb 1:3). What a marvel of divine power is the prenatal life of every human being! That an infant can live at all, and for so many months, in such cramped and filthy quarters, and that without breathing, is unaccountable without the power of God. Truly He “holdeth our soul in life” (Psa 66:9).
The preservation of the earth from the violence of the sea is another plain instance of God’s might. How is that raging element kept pent up within those limits wherein He first lodged it, continuing its channel, without overflowing the earth and dashing in pieces the lower part of the creation?
But, little as men may realize it, God bridles him to a large extent, prevents him from carrying out his evil designs, and confines him within His ordinations.
God is going to display His mighty power upon the reprobate not merely by incarcerating them in Gehenna, but by supernaturally preserving their bodies as well as souls amid the eternal burnings of the Lake of Fire.
Well may all tremble before such a God! To treat with impudence One who can crush us more easily than we can a moth, is a suicidal policy. To openly defy Him who is clothed with omnipotence, who can send us in pieces or cast us into Hell any moment He pleases, is the very height of insanity. To put it on its lowest ground, it is but the part of wisdom to heed His command, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little” (Psa 2:12).
Well may the saint trust such a God! He is worthy of implicit confidence. Nothing is too hard for Him. If God were stinted in might and had a limit to His strength we might well despair. But seeing that He is clothed with omnipotence, no prayer is too hard for Him to answer, no need too great for Him to supply, no passion too strong for Him to subdue; no temptation too powerful for Him to deliver from, no misery too deep for Him to relieve. “The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
How refreshing, then, how unspeakably blessed, to lift our eyes above this scene of ruin, and behold One who is faithful—faithful in all things, faithful at all times.
There is such an absolute perfection in God’s nature and being that nothing is wanting to it or defective in it, and nothing can be added to it to make it better.
He is essentially good; not only good, but goodness itself: the creature’s good is a super-added quality, in God it is His essence.
He is infinitely good; the creature’s good is but a drop, but in God there in an infinite ocean or gathering together of good.
The original Saxon meaning of our English word God is “The Good.” God is not only the greatest of all beings, but the best. All the goodness there is in any creature has been imparted from the Creator, but God’s goodness in underived, for it is the essence of His eternal nature. As God is infinite in power from all eternity, before there was any display thereof, or any act of omnipotency put forth, so He was eternally good before there was any communication of His bounty, or any creature to whom it might be imparted.
All that emanates from God—His decrees, His creation, His laws, His providences—cannot be otherwise than good: as it is written, “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Thus, the goodness of God is seen, first, in creation. The more closely the creature is studied, the more the beneficence of its Creator becomes apparent.
Everything about the structure of our bodies attest to the goodness of their Maker. How suited the hands to perform their allotted work! How good of the Lord to appoint sleep to refresh the wearied body! How benevolent His provision to give to the eyes lids and brows for their protection! And so we might continue indefinitely.
Whole volumes might be written, yea have been, to amplify this fact. Whether it be the birds of the air, the beasts of the forest, or the fish in the sea, abundant provision has been made to supply their every need.
God might have been pleased to satisfy our hunger without the food being pleasing to our palates—how His benevolence appears in the varied flavors which He has given to meats, vegetables, and fruits! God has not only given us senses, but also that which gratifies them; and this too reveals His goodness.
Our physical lives could have been sustained without beautiful flowers to regale our eyes with their colors, and our nostrils with their sweet perfumes.
With comparatively rare exceptions, men and women experience a far greater number of days of health than they do of sickness and pain. There is much more creature-happiness than creature-misery in the world.
It will be no reflection upon God’s goodness, but rather the brightest exemplification of it, when He shall rid the earth of those who have broken His laws, defied His authority, mocked His messengers, scorned His Son, and persecuted those for whom He died.
Gratitude is the return justly required from the objects of His beneficence; yet is it often withheld from our great Benefactor simply because His goodness is so constant and so abundant. It is lightly esteemed because it is exercised toward us in the common course of events. It is not felt because we daily experience it.
We fail to adequately express our gratitude simply because of the sheer abundance of God's goodness there is to be grateful for
The goodness of God is the life of the believer’s trust.
That the patience of God is really a display of His mercy, that it is indeed one way in which it is frequently manifested, cannot be denied. But that patience and mercy are one and the same excellency, and are not to be separated, we cannot concede.
