Last Sunday Sinclair preached on Hebrews 13:8 ‘Jesus Christ, the Same, Yesterday, Today and Forever”. You can hear the sermon alone by going to the St Peters website. Here is the whole service.
The song we sang (although only the chorus!) was an old one – Yesterday, Today, Forever…I suspect when you hear the tune you will recognise it..
In the evening I preached on what is for me the most difficult passage in the Bible and one that is open to enormous misunderstanding. It is one of those passages about which Peter writes He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:16) .
The sermon was on Romans 9:14-23 – “God’s Sovereign Choice” . The audio above is the whole service – the one below just the sermon.
I love Calvin’s comment on this:
What then shall we say? etc. The flesh cannot hear of this wisdom of God without being instantly disturbed by numberless questions, and without attempting in a manner to call God to an account. We hence find that the Apostle, whenever he treats of some high mystery, obviates the many absurdities by which he knew the minds of men would be otherwise possessed; for when men hear anything of what Scripture teaches respecting predestination, they are especially entangled with very many impediments.
The predestination of God is indeed in reality a labyrinth, from which the mind of man can by no means extricate itself: but so unreasonable is the curiosity of man, that the more perilous the examination of a subject is, the more boldly he proceeds; so that when predestination is discussed, as he cannot restrain himself within due limits, he immediately, through his rashness, plunges himself, as it were, into the depth of the sea. What remedy then is there for the godly? Must they avoid every thought of predestination? By no means: for as the Holy Spirit has taught us nothing but what it behoves us to know, the knowledge of this would no doubt be useful, provided it be confined to the word of God. Let this then be our sacred rule, to seek to know nothing concerning it, except what Scripture teaches us: when the Lord closes his holy mouth, let us also stop the way, that we may not go farther. But as we are men, to whom foolish questions naturally occur, let us hear from Paul how they are to be met.
Thank you for including Calvin’s commentary. Mankind, oops, humankind, cannot seem to accept that uncertainty is a fixture of life apart from the promises of the Bible. The human ego refuses to accept that we can contribute nothing towards God’s sovereignty.