Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Sole Consideration, That God Is God, Sufficient to Still All Objections to His Sovereignty (Psalm 46:10) | Jonathan Edwards

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The Sole Consideration, That God Is God, Sufficient to Still All Objections to His Sovereignty (Psalm 46:10) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm so glad you're here with us again.
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  It is good to be here. So for anyone who might be new,
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  we're two friends who like to sit down and and really get into
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  the weeds of the Christian faith.
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  We look at it specifically through the lens of, you know,
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  Reformed theology, the Westminster Confession.
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  We take these older, sometimes heavy theological works and try
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  to crack them open. Yeah, we want to see how they
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  tick, why they were written and what they have to say to us, you
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  know, right now. And we really believe that this
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  isn't just an academic exercise. Exercise theology is.
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  It's vital for the soul. It is it.
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  Shapes how you see everything, how you handle your own
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  suffering, how you view the world, how you relate to the
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  being who created you. And today we are tackling a
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  giant, I mean, a real heavyweight.
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  We're going to be looking at a sermon by Jonathan Edwards and.
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  When people hear that name, they almost always go to one place.
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  Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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  Right Fire, brimstone, the spider dangling over the flame.
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  That's the image. And that sermon is, of course, a
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  part of his work. But he was so much more than
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  that. I mean, you could argue he's the
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  finest philosophical mind America has ever produced.
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  I would absolutely agree with that.
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  His intellect was, well, staggering, and the sermon we're
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  looking at today really puts that brilliance on display.
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  What's the title? It's called the sole
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  consideration that God is God sufficient to steal all
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  objections to His sovereignty. He delivered this in June of
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  1735. The sole consideration that God
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  is God. That's a title that doesn't mess
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  around. It gets straight to the point.
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  It does, and he's working from a very famous scripture text,
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  Psalm 46, verse 10. Be still and know that I am God.
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  But verse we see absolutely everywhere.
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  Oh, everywhere. It's on coffee mugs.
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  It's on wall art. It's on greeting cards.
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  We've sort of domesticated it. We've made it tame.
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  We think it means, you know, take a spa day, relax, find a
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  quiet corner and decompress. Unplug for a bit.
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  Exactly. But Edwards is going to take us
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  somewhere completely different. For him, this isn't about
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  relaxation. It's about the crushing,
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  stabilizing weight of absolute reality.
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  OK, so before we dive into his actual arguments, let's set the
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  scene a bit. Edwards, in his introduction, he
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  describes the context of this Psalm.
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  He talks about a time of great revolutions and desolations in
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  the world. Right.
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  And if you just read Psalm 46, you see it immediately.
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  This is not a peaceful pastoral scene.
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  Run it all. The Psalm says the earth is
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  removing that mountains are being carried into the midst of
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  the sea. The waters are roaring and
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  troubled. Yes, and and this is the heathen
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  are raging, the kingdoms are being moved.
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  I mean, this is a picture of total chaos, both geopolitical
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  and no cosmic. It's an earthquake.
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  So the command be still isn't given in a quiet library.
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  No, it's given in the middle of a disaster zone.
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  Precisely. And that's really the mission
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  for this deep dive. Yeah.
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  We won't understand how Edwards makes his case that the simple
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  fact of God's divinity, just the statement that God is God, is
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  the only anchor strong enough, heavy enough to hold you fast
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  when the world feels like it's completely falling apart.
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  So his whole idea is that if we truly understood the definition
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  of the word God, it would just silence every objection, every
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  fear. That's his entire thesis.
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  OK, so let's start where Edward starts.
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  He begins by defining the duty itself.
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  The command is be still. So if it doesn't mean just
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  sitting quietly in a chair, what does it mean?
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  Well, Edwards is, as usual, incredibly precise.
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  Here. He doesn't just leave it as a
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  feeling, he breaks the idea of stillness down into 3 distinct
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  layers. It's a comprehensive command.
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  The first layer is about your words.
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  A silence of the words, he says. We must not speak against God's
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  Providence. That's that's hard.
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  I mean, when things go wrong, our first, our gut instinct is
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  to talk about it, to complain. It is we want to vent.
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  But Edwards uses a phrase from the book of Job.
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  He says we are darkening counsel by words without knowledge.
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  So when we complain that something isn't fair or we just
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  rail against our circumstances. We're speaking from a place of
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  ignorance. We don't have the whole picture.
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  We think we're shedding light, but we're actually making things
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  darker, more confused. So for him, the first step is to
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  restrain your tongue. Just stop voicing the complaint.
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  But it goes deeper than just not speaking.
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  Much deeper, the second layer is your actions, he says.
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  We must be still in our outward behavior.
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  What does that look like? It means you're not actively
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  opposing what God is doing. You're not trying to force your
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  way out of the same nation he's placed you in, at least not
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  through sinful or rebellious means.
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  It's kind of outward submission. You're not, you know, fighting
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  against the bitten bridle. An acceptance in your posture,
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  in your behavior. Yes.
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  And then there's the third layer, which is, of course the
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  hardest, the heart, the inward frame of the heart.
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  It's not enough to just, you know, grit your teeth and stop
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  talking or to stop fighting physically, he says.
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  You have to actually cultivate a calm, a quiet submission of your
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  soul to the sovereign pleasure of God.
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  So it's a complete package, silence of the mouth, submission
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  of the body and quietness of the soul.
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  Now, the question that just immediately jumps into my mind
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  is why? I mean, this can sound like a
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  tyrant just demanding that we shut up and take whatever comes.
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  Is Edwards just calling for a kind of blind, unthinking
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  obedience? And that is the crucial
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  distinction he makes. The answer is no.
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  He insists, absolutely insists, that this is a rational
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  submission. Rational.
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  Yes, he says. God doesn't require us to submit
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  contrary to reason. He requires us to submit because
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  we see the reason, and the reason is the very nature of God
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  Himself. So it's not close your eyes and
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  obey, it's open your eyes and see who you're dealing with and
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  then obedience will be the only logical option.
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  It's eyes wide open submission. It's the most logical rational
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  reaction possible to the facts on the ground.
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  I mean, if you are a finite created being and you are
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  standing in the presence of an infinite uncreated creator, what
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  is the rational response? Stillness.
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  Arguing with a hurricane isn't brave, it's just irrational.
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  And Edwards is basically saying, look at the hurricane, look at
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  the creator, do the math. OK, so let's do the math.
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  Edwards builds his case with a series of arguments.
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  His first one focuses on what he calls the infinite perfection of
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  God. He makes this bold statement
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  that God cannot do a miss he. Does, and he starts with the
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  very nature of God's existence. God is eternal.
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  He wasn't created. He receives his existence from
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  no one and nothing else. He just is.
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  He just is, and this leads Edwards to a really fascinating
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  philosophical point about the logic of limits.
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  Walk us through that. What does he mean by that?
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  OK, so think about everything in our experience, everything you
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  can see, touch or think of. It all has limits, right?
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  Right. A river is limited by its banks.
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  A person is limited by their height, their strength.
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  Exactly. I am limited by my intelligence,
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  by lifespan. Everything has boundaries, OK?
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  Edwards then argues that wherever you find a limit, there
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  must be a 'cause that fixed that limit.
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  Something define the banks, the river, your DNA defines your
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  height. Something external to the thing
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  itself set its boundaries. Right, something had to draw the
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  lines. Yes, but God has no 'cause He is
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  uncaused. So there was nothing outside of
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  Him to set a boundary on Him. There was nothing to say to Him.
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  You can only be this powerful, or you can only know this much.
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  So because he has no 'cause he can have no limits.
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  Precisely. His attributes must therefore be
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  infinite. If he created the entire
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  universe out of nothing, his power must be infinite.
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  If he knows and governs every single atom at every single
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  moment, his knowledge must be infinite.
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  And then Edwards connects this directly to the idea of
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  holiness. And I found this part so
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  compelling. His argument that unholiness, or
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  what we call evil, always comes from some kind of defect.
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  It comes from a lack or a weakness.
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  Yes, I mean, think about it. Why do human beings do evil
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  things? It's usually because we are
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  needy or weak or blind to the truth.
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  We lie because we're afraid of the consequences of the truth.
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  We steal because we want something we don't have.
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  We cheat because we feel insufficient on our own.
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  It's all driven by some kind of defect or need.
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  It's fundamentally A scarcity mindset.
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  It is, but God is by definition all sufficient.
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  He wants for nothing. He has no unfulfilled needs.
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  He can't be bribed because he already owns everything.
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  You can't threaten him because he's omnipotent.
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  You can't entice him with something better because he is
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  the source of all that is good and he is fully satisfied in
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  himself. Therefore, Edwards argues, God
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  has 0 temptation to do evil. That really turns the common
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  idea of a capricious God on its head.
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  I think we often have this lingering fear that God might be
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  petty or vindictive, you know, like the gods of ancient Greece.
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  But Edwards is saying that pettiness and vindictiveness are
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  products of weakness and insecurity, and since God has no
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  weakness, he cannot be petty. It is for Edwards, an impossible
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  contradiction for God to do anything wrong.
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  His very nature, his limitlessness, precludes it.
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  So that's argument 1. You can be still because the one
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  in charge is infinitely perfect and literally cannot make a
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  mistake. But even if we accept that he
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  can't make a mistake, we often still feel like he has, simply
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  because we don't understand what he's doing.
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  And this leads right into his second argument, the
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  incomprehensibility of God. This is where Edwards really
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  comes after our intellectual pride, and he uses this
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  wonderful analogy of a nutshell. He says it is completely
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  unreasonable to expect a nutshell to contain the ocean.
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  Right. Physically, that's obvious.
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  So he just applies that same logic intellectually, right?
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  He says. It is just as unreasonable, just
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  as absurd, to expect the finite human mind to contain the
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  infinite reasons and logic of God.
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  Even quotes from Job Chapter 11 can't style by searching find
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  out God. He gets pretty pointed with the
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  imagery here. I mean, he compares us to little
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  children trying to critique the supreme legislature of a nation.
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  It's a very strong analogy and it's meant to be imagined.
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  A2 year old wandering onto the floor of Parliament or Congress
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  during a complex debate on fiscal policy, right?
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  And the toddler just starts crying and throwing a tantrum
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  because the proceedings aren't making any sense to him.
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  Or maybe because nobody's giving him his neck.
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  The toddler just lacks the entire cognitive framework to
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  grasp what's even being discussed.
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  The vocabulary, the concepts, they're all beyond him.
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  Exactly, and the gap in understanding between that
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  toddler and a seasoned legislator is a finite gap.
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  They're both human beings. The gap between you and God is
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  infinite. That's why Edwards uses language
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  like babes or, even more famously, worms of the dust.
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  That's a classic Edwards phrase, isn't it?
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  Worms of the dust. It sounds so derogatory to our
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  modern ears. But he's not trying to be
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  insulting. He's trying to establish scale.
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  He's trying to get us to see reality.
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  We are finite. God is infinite.
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  And because of that massive, unbridgeable gap in intellect,
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  Edwards makes another vital point.
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  God is under no obligation whatsoever to explain His
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  reasons to us. And he brings up the story of
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  Job again here, which is so fitting.
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  Job suffers horribly. He loses his children, his
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  wealth, his health, and his one demand, his one plea is to know
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  why he wants an explanation from God.
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  And he never gets one. No, God never sits down with Job
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  and gives him a philosophical treatise on the problem of evil.
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  He doesn't explain the heavenly wager with Satan.
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  Instead, God just shows Job his greatness.
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  For chapters and chapters. Yes, in Job 38 through 41, God
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  essentially takes Job on a tour of the cosmos and just unloads
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  on him with questions. Where were you when I laid the
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  foundations of the earth? Can you bind the chains of the
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  Pleiades or loose the chords of Orion?
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  The lesson being, I am God and you are not.
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  That's it, Edward says. It fits God's majesty to dwell
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  in thick darkness. If we could understand him
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  fully, if we could trace out every line of his logic and
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  approve of it, he wouldn't be God.
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  He'd just be a bigger version of us.
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  So real stillness then, comes from accepting that there are
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  things we are just not capable of grasping.
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  And being at peace with that. OK, so we have his infinite
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  perfection and we have his infinite incomprehensibility.
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  Now Edwards moves to a very, very legal kind of argument.
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  Argument 3 is absolute ownership.
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  This one really cuts through our modern sense of entitlement and
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  autonomy. Edward states it very simply.
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  All things are his, and he uses the illustration of a man
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  building a house. When a man builds a house, we
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  say it's his house, he owns it. But Edwards points out a flaw in
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  that concept of ownership. The builder didn't create the
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  raw materials. He didn't make the wood or the
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  stone or the iron. Precisely.
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  The builder just found and rearranged materials that
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  already existed. His claim to ownership is in a
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  way partial, but with God it's different, Edward says.
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  Creatures are wholly and entirely the fruits of God's
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  power. He didn't just arrange
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  pre-existing material, he created the material itself out
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  of nothing. So his claim on us is total.
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  It's absolute because we originate 100% from him.
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  Yes, but then Edwards adds another layer to this idea of
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  ownership, and it's the concept of sustaining power.
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  We tend to think of creation as this, this one time event.
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  In the distant past. God made us and now we kind of
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  run on our own steam. Like a watchmaker who winds up a
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  clock and then just walks away. The deist idea.
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  And Edwards completely rejects that.
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  He quotes from Acts 17 In him. We live and move and have our
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  being. He argues that if God were to
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  stop actively upholding you for a single moment, you wouldn't
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  just die. You would sink back into the
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  nothingness from which you came. You would simply vanish.
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  So my existence right now, in this very second is being
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  actively and constantly willed by God.
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  You are being held in existence moment by moment by his power.
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  And if that is true, Edwards concludes, then he has the
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  absolute, undeniable right to dispose of you however he
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  pleases. You are His property in the most
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  total and complete sense imaginable.
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  Wow, that is a hard concept for us.
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  I mean, we prize our autonomy, our self determination and
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  Edwards is just stripping that all away.
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  He is, and he knows that the idea of absolute ownership can
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  sound cold, even cruel, which is why his fourth argument pivots
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  directly from the rights of the owner to the character of the
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  owner. This is the argument for God's
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  worthiness to rule. He starts by acknowledging that
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  in our world, human owners are often not worthy of what they
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  own. You can have a foolish person
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  inheriting a fortune or a cruel tyrant ruling a Kingdom.
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  Yes, ownership doesn't equal worthiness, but with God it's
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  different. Edwards argues that God's nature
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  is so excellent, so good, so dignified that he is
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  intrinsically worthy of that absolute sovereignty.
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  He says all angels and men are like the drop of the bucket or
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  the light dust of the balance compared to him.
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  But then he asked us to do the thought experiment.
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  Consider the alternative. If God isn't ruling the
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  universe, what is? The only other options are what
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  he calls blind causes or just pure confusion, essentially
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  random chance chaos. So Edwards poses the question,
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  is it not better, more desirable for perfect, unerring wisdom to
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  guide the events of the universe than for everything to be left
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  to the chaos of chance? He makes a point about moral
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  government here that I think is really key.
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  He says it's absurd to think God is somehow obliged to keep all
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  creatures from sinning. Right.
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  Think that through for a second. If God were obligated to force
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  everyone to be good all the time, to put us on rail so we
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  could never, ever disobey, what would that world look like?
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  There'd be no real choices, no morality.
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  No moral government at all. No laws because they couldn't be
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  broken, no rewards, no punishments because everything
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  is predetermined. We would just be robots puppets
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  on a string. So the very fact that God
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  permits sin and allows for punishment means that there is a
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  real moral system in place. And since that moral system
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  exists with its real consequences, Edwards argues, it
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  is far better that infinite wisdom decides who falls and who
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  stands, rather than it all happening by some cosmic
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  accident. It's a profound trust in the
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  competence of the sovereign. OK, so just to recap, we have a
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  God who is perfect and can't do wrong.
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  He's incomprehensible so we can't judge him.
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  He's the absolute owner, so he has the right and he's worth it
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  a rule, so it's good that he does.
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  It's a pretty solid case so far. But Edwards knows human nature.
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  He knows how stubborn we are. So his next two arguments, 5 and
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  6, they deal with inevitability and might.
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  Argument 5 is just stark in its simplicity.
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  He will be sovereign whether you like it or not.
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  God declares in the Scriptures, I will be exalted.
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  Edwards points out the complete illusion of human strength and
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  control. We look at great men, rich men,
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  wise men, the people who seem to run the world.
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  And Edwards says not one of them, nor all of them combined,
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  can hinder God's plan for a single second.
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  He quotes Job again. He leadeth counselors away,
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  spoiled. He says God is the one who
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  creates light and darkness, peace and evil, and by evil he
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  means calamity or disaster. The point being that it is
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  utterly foolish to oppose him. It's a complete waste of energy,
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  he says. It is profoundly unwise to set
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  yourself against a will that cannot possibly be changed.
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  It's so much wiser, so much more rational to quietly and sweetly
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  submit. And if the argument from wisdom
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  isn't enough, that leads directly to the 6th argument,
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  the power to avenge. And this is where we get that
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  really vivid imagery of the briars and thorns.
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  It's a terrifying image, and it's meant to be.
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  He asks who would set the briars and thorns against him in
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  battle. Imagine a huge pile of dry, dead
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  tumbleweeds deciding to declare war on a raging forest fire.
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  It's not a fight, it's not even a contest.
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  No, Edwards says. God would simply go through
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  them. He would burn them together.
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  His point is that fighting against God is not some noble
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  rebellion. You are not a hero standing up
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  to a cosmic villain. You are dry grass standing in
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  the path of a consuming fire. It is immediate and total
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  destruction. So after laying this massive 6
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  part theological foundation for the statement God is God,
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  Edwards then shifts gears. He moves from Doctrine to direct
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  application and he specifically calls the section the use of
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  reproof. Yes, he's taking aim now.
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  He is targeting a specific group of people in his congregation.
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  He's speaking to the struggling souls.
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  Who are they? These are the people who are
• 18:11
  maybe under conviction of their sin, or they're terrified of
• 18:13
  hell, or they're going through some deep suffering and they are
• 18:15
  not still, they're arguing with God, they're quarreling with
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  him. And Edwards provides A diagnosis
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  for the root cause of all this quarreling.
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  He uses a very particular phrase.
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  Mean thoughts of God. And by mean he's not saying
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  malicious, he means. Low, small, insignificant,
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  petty. He's saying we argue with God
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  because our concept of him is far too small.
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  We don't realize who we are dealing with, Edward says.
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  If we truly for one second saw that he was God, we wouldn't be
• 18:47
  arguing. We'd be flat on our faces in the
• 18:49
  dust. He then gets incredibly
• 18:50
  practical and addresses 4 specific objections that these
• 18:54
  struggling souls raise. And what's fascinating is that
• 18:57
  they are the exact same objections people still have
• 19:00
  today, hundreds of years later. They haven't changed at all.
• 19:02
  The first one is about deserving punishment.
• 19:05
  This is the objection where people feel God is being harsh
• 19:07
  or unfair for threatening eternal wrath for their sin.
• 19:11
  We look at our own lives and we think, you know, I'm not that
• 19:14
  bad. I'm a decent person.
• 19:15
  Surely I don't deserve hell. How does Edwards answer that?
• 19:17
  He pivots right back to the infinite dignity of God.
• 19:20
  He argues that the severity of any crime is determined by the
• 19:23
  dignity of the person you offend.
• 19:25
  OK, an example. If you insult a rock, it means
• 19:28
  nothing. If you insult a stranger on the
• 19:30
  street, it's rude. If you insult a judge in their
• 19:33
  courtroom, it's contempt and you're in real trouble.
• 19:36
  But if you insult the king, the sovereign of the nation, it's.
• 19:38
  Treason. The penalty is death.
• 19:40
  Exactly the action, the insult might be the same, but the
• 19:44
  status of the one being offended dramatically changes the weight
• 19:47
  of the crime. So since God is an infinitely
• 19:50
  glorious and majestic being. The offense against him is an
• 19:53
  infinite offense, Edwards says. We think we're clean only
• 19:56
  because we're blind to the blinding reality of God's
• 19:59
  holiness. He says we shouldn't wonder that
• 20:01
  God threatens to destroy us. The real wonder is that he
• 20:05
  hasn't done it already. That is a very sobering thought.
• 20:08
  OK, so objection to he calls unrequited seeking.
• 20:11
  This is the person who says, look, I sought God, I prayed, I
• 20:15
  tried, but he didn't answer me. It's not fair.
• 20:17
  Oh I hear this all the time. I tried Christianity and it just
• 20:20
  didn't work for me. It was again, he just flips the
• 20:23
  script completely. He asks, why should God seek
• 20:26
  your interest now, when for your whole life you never once sought
• 20:28
  His glory? It really highlights the
• 20:31
  hypocrisy in that position. It does.
• 20:33
  We spend years, decades, even disregarding God's commands,
• 20:37
  living for ourselves, paying Him no mind at all.
• 20:40
  Then when we get into some kind of trouble, we finally decide to
• 20:43
  call on Him. And if He doesn't answer
• 20:46
  immediately and give us what we want, we have the audacity to
• 20:49
  claim injustice. He says it's based on those low
• 20:52
  thoughts of God to think he is somehow obliged to come running
• 20:55
  the moment we finally decide to call.
• 20:57
  Right, we are treating the sovereign of the universe like a
• 21:00
  cosmic Butler. Edward's point is essentially
• 21:03
  you ignored him for 20 years. Why are you so shocked and
• 21:06
  offended that he might let you wait for 20 minutes?
• 21:08
  It just exposes our deep seated self centeredness.
• 21:11
  OK, the third objection is a big one, a real theological heavy
• 21:15
  lifter Original sin. People have always struggled
• 21:18
  with the idea of being condemned for Adam's sin.
• 21:20
  You know, I didn't do it. I didn't ask to be Born This
• 21:23
  Way. It's a huge stumbling block for
• 21:25
  many, and Edwards argues that this objection arises from pure
• 21:28
  arrogance. We actually think we are fit to
• 21:31
  sit in judgement over God's administration of the universe.
• 21:34
  We think we know better how things should have been set up.
• 21:37
  We do, he says. We are far too short sighted,
• 21:40
  too ignorant to see the justice or wisdom and how God ordained
• 21:43
  the human race, having one common father stand or fall for
• 21:47
  everyone. He uses that phrase, We must
• 21:49
  trust God out of sight. That's the key.
• 21:52
  Just because I cannot personally see or understand the mechanism
• 21:56
  of justice in it does not give me the right to declare that it
• 21:59
  is unjust. He says we are like worms trying
• 22:03
  to audit the financial records of the Almighty, and he calls it
• 22:06
  horrid arrogance to think we have the wisdom to second guess
• 22:09
  God's entire constitution for humanity.
• 22:11
  It's a strong rebuke. OK.
• 22:13
  The 4th objection is about trusting in our own
• 22:15
  righteousness. This is the person who thinks
• 22:17
  God ought to respect their good works.
• 22:20
  I'm a good person. I volunteer.
• 22:21
  I give to charity. I haven't killed anyone.
• 22:24
  And Edwards just ruthlessly dismantles this line of
• 22:27
  thinking. He calls our best services, our
• 22:30
  good works, a miserable present to offer to such a great and
• 22:34
  holy being. A miserable present.
• 22:36
  That's a potent phrase. Think about it.
• 22:38
  Imagine you're invited to a royal wedding, a grand state
• 22:42
  affair, and as your gift for the king, you bring a broken, muddy
• 22:46
  toy that you found in a ditch on the side of the road, and you
• 22:49
  walk up and you present it to him, fully expecting him to be
• 22:53
  impressed and grateful. It's an insult.
• 22:55
  It's a profound insult, and that's how our good works look
• 22:58
  when placed next to the infinite perfection of God.
• 23:00
  Edwards asks us to honestly examine our prayers.
• 23:04
  How often are they broken, distracted.
• 23:06
  Hypocritical. Selfish.
• 23:08
  To offer these flawed, stained works to God and expect them to
• 23:12
  purchase His savour is to suggest that God's favor is
• 23:15
  cheap. That it can be bought with such
• 23:17
  shoddy currency. Exactly, it's an insult to him.
• 23:20
  And that's when he quotes Job again after Job finally sees
• 23:22
  God. Now mine I see at the Wherefore
• 23:25
  I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
• 23:28
  When we really see God for who He is, we don't present our
• 23:30
  resume of good deeds. Well, you realize how utterly
• 23:33
  bankrupt we are. And so finally, Edwards gets to
• 23:36
  the objection that, for many, is the hardest of all.
• 23:38
  He addresses the doctrine of election.
• 23:40
  This is the person who contends with God because he chooses to
• 23:45
  bestow His saving grace on some people and not on others.
• 23:48
  The Jacob and Esau example from Romans 9.
• 23:51
  Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.
• 23:54
  People react so viscerally to this.
• 23:56
  They feel it's the definition of unfair.
• 23:58
  They believe God should treat everyone exactly the same.
• 24:01
  How does Edwards approach this? He uses what he calls the debt
• 24:04
  versus gift argument. It's a very simple but very
• 24:07
  powerful logic argument, he says.
• 24:09
  Look, there are only two possibilities.
• 24:12
  Either God is bound to save everyone or he's not OK.
• 24:15
  If God is bound to save everyone, if he's obligated to
• 24:18
  do it, then grace is no longer grace.
• 24:20
  It's a debt. It's something God owes us.
• 24:22
  Salvation becomes a wage he has to pay.
• 24:24
  But the scripture says the wages of sin is death.
• 24:28
  Right. So if we are all guilty and God
• 24:30
  is bound to no one, if He owes salvation to nobody, then he is
• 24:33
  perfectly free to give it as a gift to whomever he chooses.
• 24:36
  And he brings back the property argument here and quoting Jesus,
• 24:40
  Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?
• 24:42
  Yes. It's a powerful question.
• 24:45
  If I have $100 and I want to give it as a free gift to one
• 24:49
  person on the street, not to another, that is my right.
• 24:52
  It's my property. If you come along and tell me I
• 24:55
  must give it to everyone equally, you are denying my
• 24:58
  right to my own property. So Edwards argues that if God
• 25:00
  cannot choose whom he will bless with his own grace.
• 25:03
  Then he has less right, less freedom than a human being has
• 25:07
  with their own money. It's an absurd position to take.
• 25:09
  So to deny the doctrine of election is, in the end to deny
• 25:13
  that God is God. It brings us right back to the
• 25:15
  beginning. To deny His sovereign right to
• 25:18
  choose is to try to make him smaller, to make him something
• 25:21
  that has to follow our rules of fairness.
• 25:23
  But the point is, he is God. He makes the rules.
• 25:26
  The sole consideration that God is God.
• 25:29
  It really does answer everything in his framework.
• 25:31
  When you finally hit that bedrock of God is God, the
• 25:34
  argument is over. There's nowhere else to go.
• 25:37
  So let's just zoom out for a second.
• 25:38
  We've walked through this duty of stillness, what it means.
• 25:42
  We've seen his arguments for God's infinite perfection, his
• 25:45
  incomprehensibility, his absolute ownership, his
• 25:48
  worthiness, his inevitability, and His might.
• 25:51
  And we've seen how our most common objections just seem to
• 25:54
  fall apart under that weight. The divinity of God is the great
• 25:58
  silencer. That really is the central take
• 26:00
  away. When you truly begin to grasp
• 26:03
  that He is God in all the infinite, terrifying, beautiful
• 26:07
  weight of that three letter word, your complaints just stop.
• 26:10
  But for the believer, for the person who trusts in Christ,
• 26:13
  this isn't supposed to be a terrifying, crushing silence.
• 26:16
  No, not at all. It's the opposite.
• 26:18
  Remember how Psalm 46 begins. God is our refuge and strength,
• 26:22
  a very present help in trouble. If this great, incomprehensible
• 26:25
  sovereign God is for you, then His sovereignty is the greatest
• 26:29
  comfort in the universe. It means the one who loves you
• 26:31
  is the same one who controls every atom and every Galaxy.
• 26:35
  It means you are ultimately safe.
• 26:37
  That's a good way to put it. You know, if God was small
• 26:39
  enough for you to understand completely, he would not be big
• 26:43
  enough to save you from your sins or to hold the world
• 26:45
  together. But precisely because he is this
• 26:48
  big, this incomprehensible, this sovereign, you can be still.
• 26:53
  It completely shifts the focus from asking why is this terrible
• 26:57
  thing happening to who is the one holding me through.
• 27:00
  It that's the shift right there. I want to leave our listeners
• 27:03
  with a final thought to Mull over based on all this, if you
• 27:07
  find yourself struggling right now with anxiety or with anger
• 27:10
  at the state of the world, or just deep frustration with your
• 27:13
  own life. Could it be, as Edward suggests,
• 27:16
  that your God is too small? What would happen to your peace,
• 27:19
  to your internal stillness, if you stop trying to judge the
• 27:22
  judge of all the earth and simply started worshipping the
• 27:25
  sovereign? That is the question to ask.
• 27:27
  Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive with Reformed
• 27:30
  Thinking. We really hope this look at
• 27:32
  Edwards has been both challenging and in the end,
• 27:35
  encouraging for you. Until next time.
• 27:37
  Goodbye everyone.