95-Disputations on a Sermon on God-determined Faithfulness and Psalm 119:75

Mike Petillo, Doctor of Theology 
"A Whitefield Mission in a Luther Style"

Not unto us, O Lord of heav'n,
But unto thee be glory given;
In love and truth thou dost fulfil
The counsels of thy sovereign will;
Though nations fail thy pow'r to own,
Yet thou dost reign, and thou alone.
Let Israel trust in God alone,
The Lord whose grace and power are known;
To him your full allegiance yield,
And he will be your help and shield;
All those who fear him God will bless,
His saints have proved his faithfulness.
All ye that fear him and adore,
The Lord increase you more and more;
Both great and small who him confess,
You and your children he will bless.
Yea, we will ever bless his Name;
Praise ye the Lord, his praise proclaim.  (TH, 68).
  
Psalm 119:75 NASB

I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

1.)  The thoughts of a holy Triune God are righteous.

2.)  The words of a holy Triune God are just.

3.)  The actions of a holy Triune are good.

4.)  The judgments of God are righteously holy.

5.)  The ways of God are holy in all things.

6.)  There is nothing He does that is ungood or unholy.

7.)  No one has the sovereign impeccability and innocence of God.

8.)  Fallen Lucifer does not make righteous judgments.

9.)  Fallen man is not righteous like a holy Triune God.

10.)  No one is sinlessly faithful like a holy majestic God.

11.)  Satan seems to be faithful to fallen man but he leaves them to darkness much like Hitler where he made a covenant with Satan to begin his scheme of sin as a rebel for darkness but in the end he waited for Satan to come (he never showed up).  

12.)  A holy Triune God never leaves His people forsaken.

13.)  A majestic holy God never leaves His people condemned.

14.)  God is faithful to afflict His people to conform them to His Son, because God determines imitation of His Son for the betterment of the glory of Jesus unto His mercy.

15.)  God was faithful to Job in affliction but gave him twice as much in the end, because God is a God of tenderhearted compassion unlike Satan or fallen man by nature.

16.)  God determines faithfulness to His people to humble them.

17.)  No one is ever apart from the absolute control of God.

18.)  A holy Triune God loves His people unto affliction, but affliction also helps us die to self and live to holiness.

19.)  Affliction by the superintendence of God is like God personally looking after His people for the mortification and crucifixion of the flesh but there are no additions to Christ alone in justification by faith alone that works by love but there is a repentance unto remission in getting right with a holy God.

20.)  Everyone of God's people God will be faithful to see them through, because He keeps them safe in the arms of Jesus Christ.

21.)  No one should take it upon themselves to afflict others in the place of God, but there is a sense where we seek to do right.

22.)  The sovereignty of God belongs to Him alone not anyone else.

23.)  All pain is from the foredetermined handiwork of God, but He is not the author of evil, sinful darkness or wicked sin.

24.)  A holy Triune God authors good, holy and just things in all.

25.)  If God foredetermines suffering as an ultimate cause like the face of Jesus Christ in His second cause He allows men in a God-controlled sense through free-will compatiblism to be authors of sin to cause that suffering or fallen Lucifer.

26.)  There are tears of joy because of divine happiness.

27.)   There is suffering for His Name's Sake that Christians rejoice.

28.)   We should not design suffering for ourselves but leave it to Jesus Christ, because we do not want to suffer for wrongdoing but for righteousness' sake.

29.)  Fallen man is not sovereign nor Satan but both act like they are in that they cause affliction through omission and commission of great sin: namely, even Arminian against Calvinist and Calvinist against Arminian.

30.)  God is the ultimate cause for suffering.  Why?  Suppose God was not the ultimate cause of suffering, what cosmic meaning would it have?  If not it would be meaningless.  If we take God out of the picture as providing meaning we are back to the purposelessness of atheism and man is the centered of the universe with control of his destiny.

31.)  Fallen man is not in control of his eternal destiny.

32.)  Fallen Lucifer is not in control of his eternal outcome.

33.)  The Christian knows that a holy God is righteous.

34.)  The Christian knows that God is good and just.

35.)  The Christian sees all the things God created and it is a completely shattered and depraved good that is good among man but not good in light of God's sinless standard of perfection.

36.)  The Christian sees a fallen universe with a God at work.

37.)  Christians ought to pray "O Lord" because we must worship.

38.)  Christians know God as from everlasting to everlasting.

39.)  Hinduism honors the god of death but a holy God hates death and we throw it into the lake of fire where death is judged.

40.)  The God of Islam is not faithful because he is does not save through a real atonement of Jesus Christ.  

41.)   A holy Triune God is faithful through the sinless life of Jesus.

42.)  God is faithful through the unmatched death of Jesus.

43.)  God is faithful through the unique resurrection of Jesus.

44.)  No one is faithful like a holy God.

45.)  Fallen sinners help the poor but affliction is for the glory of Jesus, but there are also different kinds of suffering.

46.)  The affliction of Jesus and the redemptive suffering of Jesus is distinct but it means we suffer for Jesus and for the later for use His atonement as our divine covering for sin in extra nos.

47.)  Redemptive suffering is not affliction but meritorious suffering at the Cross alone in nine hours in behalf of God's people only through the eternal Son of God.

48.)  The people of God suffer affliction but it is good to be afflicted, because God is working on us.

49.)  Affliction does not mean we should harm ourselves though it is good, because we are not in the place of God.  

50.)  Let God be God in all things.  Let Him decide and work it out.

51.)  I worried about whether I should cause my chastening in light of known sin.  What should a Christian do?  Should he cause harm to himself?  Not at all.  We are not justified by chastening.  But it is not wrong to pray for correction; I did and God answered.  It was a season and it was good I was afflicted.  "...It seemed like a life-age of the earth but it was not the end...."  Rather we ought to pray for God's correction and wait on God.  He is able to cause our chastening that conforms us to Jesus' image.  Do not take the sovereignty of God in your own hands.

52.)  Sometimes pain will cause maturity but we should leave it to God whether or not He will cause us pain.

53.)  Sometimes pain will cause spite and rejection of truth.

54.)  Sometimes the truth causes tears of Esau.

55.)  Sometimes the truth causes tears of St. Peter.

56.)  The difference between the tears of Esau and Peter is that Esau is damned but Peter is elect.  The latter is honoring God but the former is dishonoring God.  It is possible to commit the same action by outward appearance but have a different meaning.  A holy Triune God tests the motives of fallen men.

57.)  No one should think they know God apart from the Word.

58.)  The Scriptures are the way we know about God in a salvational sense that reveals His teaching of faithfulness in affliction, but creation also shows God's creation running down where by supernatural fire the "Sun" (or the Son?) will destroy the world by fire to make all things new.  The concept of fire in the destruction of the world is right but the "object" by which destruction comes is different in the divine Word.  In passing, why is it the secular world believes in a future world destroyed by fire when a concept of catastrophe of the ancient world is explain by a local flood?  Shouldn't we learn from the past?  The secular world has not learned from the past in light of the real history of Noah's account of the world-wide flood recorded by Moses.  Language and thought went together when Adam was created, but also an early establishment of man's ability to write, memorize and flawlessly pass down the tradition or teaching to Moses that God superintended to write for His glory alone.

59.)  God will correct us at His appointed time.

60.)  Sometimes God's correction takes a long time.

61.)  Nobody counsels a holy Triune God.

62.)  Nobody controls a holy Triune God.

63.)  There will always be tribulation for God's people.

64.)  God's people in Christ suffer for righteousness' sake.

65.)  No one is prepared for God's eternal justice in hell.

66.)  No one is prepared to face the holy terror of a holy God.

67.)  Reprobates have  a suffering unto damnation.

68.)  Elect people have a suffering unto election.

69.)  The meaning behind both is justice and mercy.

70.)  There is divine meaning in God's faithfulness.

71.)  There is divine meaning in God's righteousness.

72.)  There is divine meaning in God's knowledge of all.

73.)  There is a divine meaning in God-controlled affliction.

74.)  God's control of death may be His only way for healing for some, but for others it is a time of wellness.

75.)   God loves all His people in Christ equally no matter small or great, but there is a real sense where God loves the great sinner because where there is great darkness God brings great light.

76.)  The Christian knows God is faithful.

77.)  There is no one who can be faithful like a sinless God.

78.)  Everyone is called to imitate a faithful Creator.

79.)  Satan's so-called imitation of God is to rise above Him.

80.)  Fallen man's so-called imitation of God is to control Him.

81.)  True freedom is God's faithfulness unto eternal life.

82.)  Fallen sinners have a need for correction by God.

83.)  God corrects us through the written Word preached.

84.)  God heals through the Scripture exhorted.

85.)   God heals through the partaking of the Eucharist.

86.)  God heals through the melodies of Scripture hymns.

87.)  God restrains sin through the reading of His Word.

88.)  A comforting-love is found in the sacred pages of the Word.

89.)  A peace-exalting way is Christ experientially and positionally.

90.)  A honoring of God is obedience to the unadded Scriptures.

91.)  Nobody should say "here is better wisdom" than the Word.

92.)  Transforming the literal Word preached is a healing conviction that honors Jesus Christ.

93.)  There is a sense where a reprobate knows about the divine works of God but He is either tormented or accepting.

94.)  A faithfulness of a Christian should be like Jesus.

95.)  God afflicts because Jesus Christ is Incarnate Wisdom.

My song for ever shall record
The tender mercies of the Lord;
Thy faithfulness will I proclaim,
And every age shall know thy name.
I sing of mercies that endure,
For ever builded firm and sure,
Of faithfulness that never dies,
Established changeless in the skies.
Behold God's truth and grace displayed,
For he has faithful cov'nant made,
And he has sworn that David's Son
Shall ever sit upon his throne.
For him my mercy shall endure,
My cov'nant made with him is sure;
His throne and race I will maintain
For ever, while the heavens remain.
Blessed be the Lord for evermore,
Whose promise stands from days of yore.
His word is faithful now as then;
Blessed be his Name, Amen, Amen.  (TH, 101).