Leah from Monroe, Louisiana, writes in with a heavy question.

Pastor John, if the triune God was perfectly joyful and glorious in union and fellowship

with himself, before the creation of the world, why, knowing that some of his creation would

reject him and suffer eternal punishment, why would he create the world for his own glory?

Why was his glory in creating the world worth the eternal damnation of the non-elect?

Well, that's about as heavy as they get, but let me make sure that we lay the foundations

for the question and the answer.

She's laid them.

She's assuming them rightly, I think, but not everybody listening might see those foundations.

So first, God knows everything that will come to pass in the future.

Both Isaiah and Jesus and others say this, Isaiah 46, I am God, and there is no other.

I am God, and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient

times things not yet done.

In other words, in Isaiah's mind, the godness of God includes foreknowledge of everything

that comes to pass.

Jesus says the same thing about himself.

He says when he's predicting the betrayal by Judas, he says, I am telling you this now,

before it takes place, this is John 13, 19, I am telling you this now, before it takes

place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am.

Now most translations say that I am He, but it's just that I am, and the echo is I am who

I am, Jesus claiming to be divine here, and the evidences of His divinity is that He knows

the future acts of responsible human agents like Judas.

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