Admittingly, this will be an interesting but challenging chapter to write. We will look at some ways God exercises his sovereignty to accomplish His purposes. But this can also be a dangerous chapter as well. When we start to think about how God accomplishes something, we are bound by our limitations to think about things we know from experience or what we read in the Bible that shows how He exercised his sovereignty to accomplish His purposes. But the danger is when we try to figure out things we may not be able to figure out. Sometimes God tells us how He does things in one instance, but that doesn’t mean we can conclude He will always accomplish His purposes that way.
Here is a simple example. We see that God brought judgment upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by raining down fire and brimstone. Does that mean God will always bring judgments upon cities this way? Of course not. We see He has also brought His judgment upon a city by bringing in another nation as He did with Jerusalem by the hand of Babylon. We also see God sent famine or pestilence upon a city as He did when He judged Israel for the sin David committed when he counted the people. When God decided to bring judgment for that sin, He offered David three choices:
“Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the LORD, Three things I offer you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” (2 Samuel 24:12-13 ESV).
Famine, sword, or pestilence? Not much of a choice for David, was it? Yet this gives us insight into how God accomplishes His purposes, at least in this case. But the purposes of God are not always judgments or punishments. Sometimes He accomplishes His purposes for good. The reading of the blessings and curses on Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim delineated how God would accomplish His purposes when Israel sinned or remained faithful to Him. But I want this chapter to focus on how God accomplishes His purposes; what are the avenues He uses to do this? After all, this is a trait of sovereignty. God has inherent authority, power, and ability to do whatever He wants. And God says in Isaiah 46:10, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.
This chapter will not strive to present a definitive list of how God accomplishes His purposes as though we can create a reference to index and consult to figure out how God will act in specific circumstances. I do not believe a reference like that is remotely possible to create. But I hope we get a sense that God is not bound to act in any specific way when He accomplishes His purposes. This is where we see God’s majesty, power, and awe shine through. He can act in ways we could never fathom.
Another thing I hope we get in this chapter is realizing the danger of thinking we can know what His purpose is apart from Him revealing it to us. Isn’t that what Job’s friends were guilty of doing? They told Job it was God’s purpose to punish him for his sins. And since they believed they knew God’s purpose, it led them down a false road that ended with God telling them how angry He was with them for not speaking what was right about Him and instructing them to have Job pray on their behalf.
Think about this for a moment. Is it God’s purpose for all men to be saved? We can read a few verses and easily come to this conclusion:
“This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:3-4 ESV).
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 ESV).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 ESV).
“Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV).
Reading these verses helps us conclude that it is God’s purpose that no one is lost. So, if God always accomplishes His purposes, is it correct to assume that He will ensure that all are saved through His sovereignty? After all, if someone is lost, and it isn’t God’s will that he be lost, does that mean that God isn’t fully sovereign to accomplish His purposes? This is along the track the Calvinistic doctrine takes, and it makes a fatal flaw in assuming that they understand God’s purposes. In a nutshell, they say some people will be saved and others will be lost. Since God always accomplishes His purposes, then it must be His sovereign purpose for the people who are saved to be saved and the people who are lost to be lost. Things don’t happen outside of His purposes.
But is that really God’s purpose? If we are wrong about that, it can lead us down a path of false doctrine that contradicts God’s revealed word. This was the error of the Sadducees that led them to the false doctrine of there being no resurrection. Of course, God does not want any to perish. This is His genuine desire. But as we studied in our chapter on God’s sovereignty and man’s free will, I would contend that it is God’s purpose that man freely chooses to accept Him and follow Him willingly. This is His purpose. And God accomplishes His purpose of giving man free will to choose or not to choose. If this is God’s purpose, then He has accomplished it. But this brings us to a crucial observation that many will never accept in their understanding of God’s sovereignty:
God can still be sovereign and not always get what He wants.
This is fundamental to understanding correctly how God presents His sovereignty to us. The issue at the heart of sovereignty is why God does not always get what He wants. It is not because it is beyond God’s power to get what He wants. If He wanted to save all men, regardless of their free will acceptance of Him, He could have done that. If God had desired men to accept Him instead of giving man a choice, He could have programmed us to accept Him, and we would have no choice but to comply. That was within God’s power to accomplish. A truly sovereign God has those choices before Him. To limit Him from being able to make any of these choices if He desired would be a sign that He isn’t supremely sovereign. So, when we say that God can be sovereign and not always get what He wants, it is not a lack of power or authority that keeps Him from getting what He wants; it stems from His purposes. When God gives man true free will to accept or reject Him, He opens Himself up to be rejected and not getting what He truly wants.
So, where some say that it is God’s purpose for those who are lost to be lost and those who are saved to be saved, I would say that it depends on what you mean. If you mean that God’s purpose is to give man free will to choose or reject Him, thus it is His purpose that some will be saved and some will be lost because He is giving them that choice to make, I would agree this aligns with what Scripture teaches. But if you say that God chooses who will be saved and who will be lost separate from the free will choice that He has endowed man with, then I would say this violates the fundamental tenets of faith going back to the time God presented man with the choice of eating or not eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
But another aspect of sovereignty is that when God decides something will come to pass, that determination is as good as written in stone. No power can alter that determination. It is not dependent on God being strong enough or smart enough to bring it to pass. God doesn’t have to wait until circumstances line up to carry out His will; He has the power to dictate the circumstances needed to carry out His purpose. God is not like a man who makes plans and then overestimates His ability or resolve to carry out those plans. Only one force exists that the Bible tells us can alter God’s plans once they have been determined: God. Only God can repent, relent or choose to alter His plans once they are set in motion. Often, this happens through our petitions or repentance. God purposed to destroy the Israelites and make a nation through Moses, but Moses’ intercession for the people altered God’s purpose. God’s purpose to destroy Nineveh was altered when they repented. But this act of being able to change is based on His sovereignty. No one can force God to alter His plans. He chooses to change or not to change according to His will. When He alters His will for us, it is often seen as a show of grace. We deserve His wrath, but our repentance changes God’s plans for us. God relents. That is His sovereign right. And God has the sovereign right to determine when He will relent and when He will not relent. We learn this through His Word and how our sovereign God chose to offer His grace through the sacrifice His Son made on the cross.
Wait a minute, you may be asking. What about the verses that say that God doesn’t change? What about our proof text that says that God accomplishes all His purposes? Here are just three of them that we can consider:
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8 ESV).
“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19 ESV).
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17 ESV).
At the heart of these verses, we learn there is a difference between God and man. But do these verses teach that God can’t change His mind once He sets His purposes? Does a changed mind mean that God doesn’t accomplish what He purposed? Not at all. I believe these verses do not teach that God can never change His mind; instead, they say He isn’t subject to man’s failings and shortcomings. Man may fail to accomplish his purpose because he is not powerful, smart, or talented enough to do what he set out to do. Not God. Man may forget to accomplish a plan that he has made. Not God. Man may be forced to abandon his plans by a stronger man or by an act of nature. Not God. At every step of the way, God is always in control of what will or will not happen. And once His purpose is set, nothing but He Himself can alter that purpose from happening. There is where we see the sovereignty of God and man’s free will make their cosmic dance together. If God’s purpose is not carried out in one instance, it may be because man’s free will may have influenced Him to have a new purpose. But, in the end, we see God’s purposes always being carried out. And this is what I mean when I caution that we need to be very careful we do not assume we always know what His true purposes are because if we are wrong, it can lead us down some dangerous paths that end up challenging the very sovereignty that we claim He possesses.
So, what does all this have to do with our chapter? As we look at ways that God accomplishes His purposes, as we just stated, we should not assume we always know what His specific purpose is in every situation. If His purpose is to bring judgment, He will bring judgment. If His purpose is to show His longsuffering, He will be longsuffering. But once the sovereign God decides to take action, no power can thwart His purposes. And when He takes actions to accomplish His purposes, I see Him doing this in various ways, many I admit that I have no idea how He does it. But here are some broad categories of how God has demonstrated that He has accomplished His purposes in Scripture. Something tells me this will not be a complete list because I believe God still works in ways we can never fathom.
Through Natural Intervention
Through The Heart Of Man
Through Prewriting The Future
Through Circumstances
Through Unknown Ways That We May Never Understand
As we look at each of these ways that God has at His disposal in accomplishing His purposes, there are a few things that I caution against. First, we never read of God superseding man’s free will when accepting or rejecting Him. He may cause man to do things he may not normally do (see chapter on God’s Sovereignty And Man’s Free Will). Still, the Scriptures show repeatedly that the free will to choose to accept or reject Him is something special that He has endowed man with for a specific purpose, and God has never interfered with that, despite what the Calvinist doctrine may teach.
I would also caution against blanket applications of how and when God will choose to accomplish His purposes in ways we will discuss. The gist of this chapter is to give us an appreciation of how the sovereign God has demonstrated the diverse methods He has used to accomplish His purposes in the past. Be it moving the sun backward, causing a donkey to speak, or sending hornets upon a fleeing enemy; we can appreciate the absolute sovereignty it takes to accomplish these things. Still, it does not mean God will always use these methods in every circumstance. Being sovereign and unlimited in power means that He has ways to accomplish His purposes that we may never be able to understand, even if He were to tell us what He was doing. So, as we go through some of the ways God uses to accomplish His purposes, let’s focus on His immense power, wisdom, and sovereignty rather than get caught up in trying to figure Him out.
Through Natural Intervention
I guess this will be the one way God uses to accomplish His purposes on which we all might find the most agreement. It is simple, and unless we are coming out of atheism, it is one most of us will heartedly agree with because we don’t have to wrestle with principles of free will, determinism, natural laws, or faith as we will with the others. When we talk about God naturally intervening to accomplish His purposes, we are talking about God taking control of His creation to work His will. Here are ways that God intervened with His creation to accomplish a specific purpose He intended to bring about.
The Flood: In Genesis chapters 6 through 8, we read that God had enough of man’s sinfulness. He determined to bring judgment against all men and start over with the one righteous man, Noah, and his family. God would bring this judgment about through a flood. God could have chosen to use any means to bring about His specific purpose to judge all men, but He chose to use water. God caused the waters above the heavens to fall, the waters below the earth to erupt, and it rained for forty days and nights. God caused that. This would never have happened had it not been for the specific intervention of God. He did all this for a purpose. To put a point on it, He gave us the rainbow as a promise that He will never again accomplish His purpose to destroy mankind with water. Peter tells us in his second epistle (3:7) that God will use fire the next time He destroys the earth instead of water. The first intervention was for cleansing the earth; the second will be for destruction. But the point for our purposes is that God used natural means to accomplish His purpose.
Earth Splitting: In Numbers 16, we read about the rebellion of Korah against Moses. Again, God had a purpose of judgment to accomplish. This time, He chose to have the earth open up and swallow the ones who rebelled against the man He chose as the leader. God could have chosen many ways to accomplish His purposes, even by being longsuffering and giving them time to repent. But, in His time, according to His sovereign purpose, God split the earth and swallowed up the rebels, and then He caused the earth to close back up over them. Purpose accomplished. Remember, it is never left to us to question God as to why He chooses His actions (right, Job?). Here is how this purpose played out:
“And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.” (Numbers 16:31-33 ESV).
Hornets: We referenced this earlier, but when God wanted to deliver a military victory to the Israelites over their enemies, God had many ways He could accomplish that purpose. We will read in Scripture that He, indeed, used a variety of means to accomplish His purpose. In this instance, as the enemies fled, God sent hornets to pursue them and finish them off.
“And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow.” (Joshua 24:12 ESV).
Again, this illustrates that when God has a purpose, He can choose how to intervene in accomplishing His purposes. Does this mean God will always send hornets to dispatch His enemies? No; in fact, we see He is fully capable of accomplishing His purposes in various ways. Hornets were just one of many ways He had at His disposal. Sovereignty means He has the whole creation at His disposal to use in any way He wishes to accomplish His purposes.
A Donkey: In Numbers 22, we read an interesting account where God caused a donkey to speak to his master, Balaam. Balaam was a prophet of God who was instructed to bless Israel even though the king of Moab asked the prophet to curse Israel. Balaam insisted that he could not speak anything but the words God had put in his mouth. Still, he was a man who seemed to be willing to find a loophole for the king’s benefit if it existed. Later, he told the king of Moab that he couldn’t curse Israel, but he gave the king advice on how he could get God to curse Israel Himself. Listen to what the Lord Jesus Himself says about this in the letter to the church at Pergamum:
“But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.” (Revelation 2:14 ESV).
And yet, God taught Balaam against straying from His purpose by accepting the riches of the King of Moab and cursing Israel. He did this by causing his donkey to speak to Him. God had placed an angel with a drawn sword in Balaam’s path, which the donkey could see, but Balaam could not. Of course, the donkey would not pass by the angel. This made Balaam furious, so he began beating the donkey. This is when we see God doing something unique that represents His utter sovereignty in accomplishing His purpose in this instance:
“Then the angel of the LORD went ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam. And Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. Then the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” (Numbers 22:26-28 ESV).
So, God had told Balaam to go with the princes of Moab but only speak the words He would put into his mouth. Apparently, Balaam was angling for a way to obey God while still trying to figure out how to get a huge payday from the king of Moab, so God sent an angel to ensure that Balaam learned to stay true to his mission. He gets the point by learning this lesson from the mouth of a talking donkey. God could have chosen any number of ways to accomplish His purpose, but He showed His control over His creation in this unique way. Balaam learned the lesson and spoke only what God put in his mouth. God’s purpose was accomplished. When the blessing of Israel was over, He told the King of Moab that even though he couldn’t curse God’s people, if the king could get Israel to worship their gods and enter into sexual unions with his people, God would curse them Himself. And that’s precisely what we see happening in Numbers 25, the occasion Jesus referred to in Revelation 2.
Johan and the Fish: God gave the prophet Jonah a message- Speak against the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was a pretty evil city, and Jonah was not a fan. You might think he would relish this opportunity. But Jonah was well aware of God’s propensity to forgive if people repented, and he did not want these people to experience even the slightest bit of God’s mercy (see Jonah 4:2). So, he fled from the presence of the Lord… well, as we often do, he attempted to flee. But God had a purpose that involved Jonah delivering this message. God was not about to let Jonah off the hook, so He created a big fish to accomplish His purpose. The fish swallowed Jonah, and for three days, he prayed in the belly of the fish. After three days, God caused the fish to vomit up Jonah, and the same word of the Lord was before him. After an experience like that, Jonah got the message that he had to do what the Lord said.
This is an interesting study as it relates to God’s sovereignty on many levels. God had two purposes. The first was that Nineveh was preached to. The second was that Jonah did the preaching. It was Jonah’s will not to preach against Nineveh. He ran from God when given the charge, and even after he did what God said, he complained about having to do it. Yet God overrode Jonah’s will in this instance. Remember, God does not give man unlimited free will. Only God has unlimited restrictions and the ability to do anything He wants to do. Man’s free will is always limited by what God defines for man. In this case, God wanted Jonah to preach, and in the end, Jonah preached.
This doesn’t mean God will never allow a man to refuse His will. We see that, more often than not, man is free to obey or not obey. But what it does mean is that if God purposes in His heart for man to do something, God is powerful enough in His sovereignty to ensure His purposes are accomplished, regardless of what we may or may not want. As we have shown over and over, God never has demonstrated the inclination to override man’s ability to accept or reject Him. God never forces someone to accept or reject Him, though He has forced people on many occasions to accomplish His purposes through them. We don’t have to like it, but He can work His will through people even if people do not want Him to. This is a hard concept to come to grips with because many of us often feel free will is an all-or-none proposition. The Calvinists certainly do. And if we are not careful, we can swing to the other end of the spectrum by elevating man’s ability to do anything we want, despite what God has in store. By doing this, we make ourselves the instrument by which we neuter God’s power and His sovereignty. That is a dangerous place for us to be.
The Ten Plagues: We are familiar with the ten plagues that God rained down upon Egypt. Each of these plagues showed God’s sovereignty over an aspect of His creation, especially how it related to the power that the Egyptians ascribed to their gods. God sent each plague to accomplish His purpose which He states are more than just to free His people from the yoke of bondage. It was to bring glory to His name, as we will see in a moment. And by doing so, God also ordained that the Egyptians would act a certain way. First, God tells Moses on the mountain, speaking from a burning bush, that He would have to compel Pharaoh to release His people because Pharaoh would not do it any other way. And the way He accomplished His purpose through the plagues would cause the men and women of Egypt to find favor with the Israelites and give them riches and provisions as they left. God said it was a way His people would plunder the wealthiest nation on earth through no act of their own. Listen to the words of God about this:
“But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.” (Exodus 3:19-22 ESV).
The ten plagues were more than God peering into the future to see how the Egyptians would react to them; it was God accomplishing the purpose of plundering the people through the plagues He would bring upon the nation. And to put a fine point on this, God had told Abram about all of this over four hundred years earlier:
“Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.” (Genesis 15:13-14 ESV).
We see one more aspect of the plagues that confirm God’s sovereignty to accomplish His purpose when He is about to bring hail upon the land. Six plagues have been sent to Egypt, yet Pharaoh’s heart is still hard, and he refuses to let the people go. This isn’t because Pharoah is winning or holding out against God and God has to “up His game.” These plagues have been given at the right time for the right purpose. God knew Pharaoh would not capitulate after the six plagues, but He chose those plagues for a particular reason. Listen to how God puts it as He prepares to send the plague of hail:
“For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” (Exodus 9:15-16 ESV).
God is simply saying what we would expect an all-powerful, supremely sovereign being to say. Paraphrasing His words, God said He could have chosen to wipe Egypt off the face of the map in a moment, but instead, He raised up Pharaoh for this time and purpose to bring glory to His name. And we see repeatedly for over a hundred years afterward that the people of the world heard about what God did to the Egyptians with the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea, and they feared God because of it. Just listen to Rahab’s words when she encountered the spies Joshua sent into Jericho:
“and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” (Joshua 2:9-11 ESV).
God knew what He was doing when choosing which plagues to use and when He chose to send them. It was to fulfill a much more diverse purpose than simply to affect the exodus of His people from slavery. He could have done that in a single act if He wanted. And the way He chose to unfold these plagues had a way of hardening Pharaoh’s heart until it was time for Him to bring the one plague that would demonstrate His preeminence over Egypt, its gods, and all of creation. With the death of the firstborn of all Egyptians and their animals, God dealt a crippling blow that broke the nation’s spirit, including Pharaoh himself. And it would ensure that people for generations would remember what the God of the Israelites was capable of doing. God did all in a way that brought Himself glory, just as He said He would. God accomplished His purpose with the ten plagues.
Through The Heart Of Man
Now, this is the one I am sure some will raise an eyebrow at. You may ask, “What do you mean God will accomplish His purposes through the heart of man?” Fair question, but I would ask we all keep an open mind as we discuss this. First, if the scriptures teach that God does this, let’s fight the urge to explain it away as though it really doesn’t say what it says and instead strive to understand what it means that God accomplishes His purposes through interacting with the heart of man. And as we do, let’s remember the principle we have looked at which shows God doesn’t give man unlimited free will, but free will within constraints that He defines. And from everything the Bible teaches, we see God has given man unfettered free will to choose to accept Him or reject Him. In this, God has never interfered.
But God often has forced man into specific actions to accomplish His will, regardless of what man may have wanted to do. We saw that even though Jonah did not want to preach to Nineveh, God purposed that He would. In the end, Jonah preached. We see a similar thing with Jeremiah, in my opinion. After being beaten and put into stocks, Jeremiah said he could try his best to stop speaking the word of God because of the misery it brought him when he did. But God purposed that Jeremiah continue to preach a message of judgment to a people who were loathed to hear it. Here is how it seemed to him:
“For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (Jeremiah 20:8-9 ESV).
So, how did God cause the word to burn like a fire in his bones? I don’t know. But from this work, God would not let Jeremiah walk away, even though, like Jonah, he tried to avoid it. But in the cases of both Jeremiah and Jonah, God did not force them to accept or reject Him; He just forced them to act in the way He purposed. God can limit our free will when He has a specific purpose He wants to come to pass. This is why we shouldn’t have a problem understanding how Isaiah could prophesy about Cyrus, King of Persia (Isaiah 44:28-5:1), some 150 years before Cyrus was born. There are several ways that God could bring about Cyrus being the shepherd for God who brought the Israelites home. But the fact God said it and it happened shows God can affect His purposes through the hearts of men. I believe God is much more than a glorified fortune teller Who can peer into the future to see what will happen. God establishes what will happen in His sovereignty and then makes it come about. And His purpose can never be undone by someone whose heart chooses not to fulfill the purpose He has ordained.
When God wants people to fear, they will fear. When God wants someone to be strengthened, they will be strengthened. When God wants someone to be bold, then they will be bold. In the blessings and curses on Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim, God not only talks about what He will do for the Israelites, but He also talks about the hearts of the enemies. They would fear and tremble before the Israelites if the Israelites followed God. But if the Israelites didn’t keep the Law of the Lord, it would be their hearts that would tremble and fear. Notice:
“And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you.” (Deuteronomy 28:10 ESV).
This is the effect God would have on the enemies of God’s people when the Israelites obeyed. God would put the fear and dread of the people of God in their hearts. But listen to what He said would happen to the Israelites if they did not keep the Law:
“Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see.” (Deuteronomy 28:66-67 ESV).
What was God saying in these instances? He was saying He would bring about His purposes by putting fear in people’s hearts. How does He do this? I suppose through several means we can debate, and a few ways that might be beyond our understanding. God can keep enemies at bay so that there is no fear of them, or He can allow the military to have easy victories to put peace in their hearts. He could raise up a strong protector or give a nation a technological breakthrough that sets them far beyond the other nations. The point isn’t to get bogged down in how God can affect the hearts of men but that He can, and does. He has a quiver full of diverse arrows to accomplish this in any way He chooses.
That God can affect the hearts of men to accomplish His purpose shouldn’t be something that surprises us. Don’t we pray for boldness or courage when we are afraid? Don’t we pray for wisdom and discernment when we don’t know what to do? The danger we must avoid is thinking God will only answer our prayers in specific ways. Ours is to ask and let God determine how He will answer, not to limit God in answering only in ways we feel He must answer. Listen to the prayer for boldness that the disciples prayed for when being threatened by the government:
“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:29-31 ESV).
They didn’t tell God how He must answer their prayers. They just prayed for what they needed, and God answered. The passage is clear that it was God who gave them boldness. With Gideon, God gave him boldness by sending him into the enemy’s camp by stealth so he could hear them talk about their dreams about Gideon conquering them (Judges 7:13-15). In both cases, God accomplished His purpose by giving boldness to people in the way He determined. This boldness enabled these men to do what God wanted them to do.
Let’s look at another example where God affected the hearts of an army to accomplish His purpose. We are in 2 Kings 7. The Syrians had surrounded Samaria, and famine had set in. The Israelites were so hungry that people resorted to the gruesome act of cannibalism. But Elisha told the King that this time tomorrow, food would be plentiful and cheap. Of course, no one believed the prophet. But God brought about His purpose by affecting the enemy’s hearts with a spirit of fear. Even though the enemy was poised to conquer Israel, look at how God delivered them:
“For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.” (2 Kings 7:6-7 ESV).
In their haste to leave because of the fear that God put into their hearts, God not only delivered Israel, but the fleeing army left all their food in abundance. The only way this could have happened is if God had intervened. He accomplished His purpose by making the enemies believe something untrue. He put fear into their hearts. He affected the hearts of men to accomplish His purposes.
What should cause us to revere God in His sovereignty is that He can change our hearts to accomplish His purpose. Are you a faithful child of God who wonders if you have what it takes to remain faithful if someone placed a gun to your head? You may not have that courage, but God can give you that courage if you remain faithful to Him. He can provide us with all we need in our time of need. David knew our sovereign God could do things we could not do on our own. God strengthened him, gave him favor in the eyes of the people, and most wonderful of all, God created a new heart in David when he struggled after his sin with Bathsheba.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10 ESV).
Through Prewriting The Future
A critical aspect of God’s sovereignty are prophecies that He creates. I refer to it as the prewriting of the future. Sometimes, it’s easy to think that God is just an amazing fortune teller, able to peer into the future and amaze us with the unique ability to tell us accurately what will happen. But viewing God as a glorified fortune teller only limits God’s sovereignty. He does far more than see what will happen in the future; He creates the future according to His good pleasure. In our chapter, Foreknowledge and God’s Sovereignty, we will dive into this in more detail. But for our purpose now, we can understand that a being who can dictate what will happen in every detail is much more powerful and sovereign than a being who can foresee future events but cannot change what is written in time. Such a being is subject to time, and time becomes supremely sovereign.
No, our God is sovereign, even over the events of things to come. When God said,
“declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’” (Isaiah 46:10 ESV),
it is because He is doing the declaring. He is causing things to happen. When He said the Savior would be born in Bethlehem, He set it in motion for time to obey His decree, and nothing could alter His declaration. When God declares something to happen, then it will happen. That is the ultimate sovereignty. As we dive into this aspect of God’s sovereignty in more detail in the next chapter, we will see that this does not mean the doctrine of determinism is true because it counteracts the free will God has granted to men. God prewriting history by prophesying things to come does not mean that everything happens only by God’s direct will being imposed upon it. When God does speak about the future, it is as if God speaks something into existence from nothing. Ex nihilo. The future happens because God has decreed it to happen. That is the essence of prophecy, which is why the Bible’s prophecies are always 100% accurate. God never gets it wrong, makes an error, or misreads the tea leaves. It is not because God is perfectly in tune with what will happen but because what will happen is fulfilled by His very decree.
This is not just about prophecies as we think about them, but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth. Once God says it, it happens unless God Himself relents. God is the only power sovereign enough to countermand what God has said. No other power can do that. So, when God brought the people onto the mountains to hear the blessing and the curses read to them, and He said what would and would not happen if they obeyed or disobeyed Him, those things were set in stone. They were set in stone because God Himself would bring about every detail of His promises regarding the blessings and the curses.
When God makes promises to us, we rely on His supreme sovereignty to fulfill those promises. God prewrote history when He said He would give us a home in heaven with Him if we walk with Him. That promise is absolute in its fulfillment, and nothing can alter that. The promise is not dependent on conditions working out perfectly for God to be able to keep His promise to us; there is no possibility that Satan can thwart God’s ability to keep that promise, and there is no chance that God will change His mind once He has committed something to us.
Every promise that God makes to us is a prewriting of history. It is etched in stone. It will come to pass. Since it is impossible for God to lie, we can rest in His sovereignty and know He is reliable, dependable, and predictable. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never forgets, never overestimates His abilities, and never promises more than He can deliver. The messianic prophecies are more than a guidepost to identify Jesus; they testify to a sovereign God. If even one failed, then God could not be supremely sovereign. If any detail of His prophecies were wrong, even in the slightest, then God could not be supremely sovereign. Only a sovereign God knows “the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.”
And this is where our faith comes in. If God has said it, then we know it will happen. Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). When God told him to sacrifice Isaac, He believed God would raise him from the dead because God promised (prewrote history) that Isaac would be the one in whom the promises of God would be fulfilled (Hebrews 11:17-19). We never have to wonder about anything God has promised because His promises are a prewriting of history. And that’s what makes God different from everyone else. No other being, including any man, is that dependable, that accurate, that reliable. Even the best among us may have things out of their control that keeps their words from coming to pass. But with God, nothing is out of His control. He is in control. Everything bows to Him and His will. When He says it, time and creation bend to His will, which will always come to pass. Can there be a better manifestation of absolute sovereignty than prewriting the future?
Through Circumstances
God also works His sovereign purposes through the way He arranges circumstances. We have seen this theme through our study woven into the fabric of the lessons we learn. When we talk about God accomplishing His purposes this way, we mean that God can spend whatever time is needed to set up things so His purpose is done, or equally as powerful, God can use whatever current circumstances exist and accomplish His purposes through it. Let’s look at an example.
In Judges 13, we read about the birth of Samson. He was the man whom the Spirit of God gave superhuman strength. But Samson was not the most moral man or a man who exhibited the best wisdom and judgment. He was a womanizer and ignored God’s law not to intermarry with the people of the land (Deuteronomy 7:3). Some would have you believe that God caused Samson to sin so He could accomplish His purpose of delivering Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. But we know that cannot be true because James says,
“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13 ESV).
To make God responsible for our sins to accomplish His purposes is a violation of the very character of God and makes us guilty of the worst kind of bearing false witness. It was the sin that Job’s friends were guilty of- saying things about God that are not right (Job 42:7). But when you read Judges, it may be tempting to think just that. In the context of the next passage we read, Samson found a woman among the Philistines he found attractive, and he told his parents he wanted to marry her. They tried to talk him out of it and encouraged him to find a nice Jewish girl to settle down with, but Samson was set on getting what he wanted. And then we read this:
“His father and mother did not know that it was from the LORD, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.” (Judges 14:4 ESV).
The question becomes, “Did God cause Samson to sin so He could find an opportunity to bring judgment through Samson?” A cursory reading of the verse may seem that way, but it ignores many things we already know about God, His sovereignty, and His character. We already read through James that God does not tempt anyone to sin, so that alone tells us that this verse is not teaching that God caused Samson to love a woman and engage in an illicit relationship to get His way. Is not God powerful enough to choose a righteous way to accomplish His purpose? Would a righteous God engage in unrighteousness to accomplish His purposes? No, laying the responsibility for Samson’s sins at God’s feet is not in harmony with Scripture. Then, what does God mean when He said this was from the Lord?
I submit that God was using the circumstance of Samson’s sin as a way to bring about His judgment upon the Philistines. God, in His sovereignty, could have arranged it for Samson not to sin in this way by also creating circumstances for Him to avoid sin. For example, God could have created a circumstance where a beautiful Jewish girl found her way into Samson’s heart, or He could have made Samson so undesirable that no Philistine girl would have anything to do with him; or He could have put Samson in an isolated place where he didn’t have much contact with the enemies of God’s people until God was about to use him. My point is that there are several ways God could have arranged circumstances and still accomplished His purpose through Samson without resorting to causing him to sin.
Yet Samson had a wandering eye and cared very little about anything but pleasing himself and his sexual appetites, so God used this circumstance that existed as an opportunity to bring judgment upon the Philistines. God wasn’t going to create circumstances to help Samson avoid this sin because Samson wasn’t looking for a way to avoid the sin.
It's not unusual that God used circumstances He did not create to accomplish His will. That God can take a bad situation and use it to accomplish His purposes is another testament to His sovereignty. God does not have to wait until everything is just right to accomplish His purposes. He can take a very evil circumstance and do His mighty work through that situation. Now that’s sovereignty!
This happened in perhaps one of the most famous stories demonstrating God’s sovereignty. In Genesis, we read the story about Joseph. He was the favored son of Jacob, who treated him with such favoritism it would make his brothers jealous. They despised Joseph so much that they entertained the idea of killing him. Did God intervene to keep Joseph alive so He could accomplish His purpose? Perhaps; I would say probably. But the brothers did sell Joseph into slavery. Over the years, they had come to regret their actions. But during those years, God used the circumstances to put Joseph in a position to save the world from famine.
Did God cause the brothers to sin in order to bring about His purpose He would work through Joseph? I don’t believe we can come to that conclusion without impugning the integrity of God. It also skirts the question, “Could God have accomplished His purpose in a way that did not cause a man to be tempted by evil?” Yet God allowed these brothers to do the evil deeds of their own volition while deciding to use it as a conduit for accomplishing His purposes. God could have arranged consequences to keep Joseph from being sold into slavery and still use Him to accomplish His purposes, but He didn’t. God chose, in His sovereignty, to use his brothers’ sins to do His work in Joseph’s life. That’s why, when they all were finally reunited, and Joseph was the most powerful man second only to Pharaoh, he could say this:
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Genesis 50:20 ESV).
This is not proof that God caused the brothers to sin to accomplish His purposes; rather, it’s an acknowledgment that God, in His sovereignty, can choose even the worst circumstances and use those to accomplish His purposes. This is precisely why Paul can say,
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28 ESV).
Now, let’s turn our attention to Judas. Did God make Judas sin when he betrayed Jesus? We see that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was prophesied in Scripture (Zechariah 11:12-13; Psalm 41:9). I will go into more detail about God’s foreknowledge in the next chapter, Foreknowledge and God’s Sovereignty, but here is something I want to propose to you about Judas. Did he have to sin because he was prophesied to sin? Is our only conclusion that of determinism, the doctrine says that events must happen as ordained external to man’s free will? Was Judas destined to sin because God prophesied it to be so? Or did God use circumstances with Judas to accomplish His purpose? The truth is, we don’t understand all the “how’s” when people are prophesied that they will sin. But we need to be careful not to rush to provide explanations we do not truly have. And when we do offer possible explanations, we must do so in harmony with the Scriptures. That is why sometimes we walk away saying, “I believe scripture; I believe prophecy; I believe man has free will, and I believe God accomplishes His purpose.” Those are the bedrocks we build our faith on. There is never an expectation that we understand or figure out everything God does. Sometimes God withholds answers, so nothing is left but faith.
With that in mind, let me propose a way of looking at the sin of Judas I believe harmonizes with scripture. You should not walk away with the idea that I am teaching this is the way I think it did happen because I simply do not know. I am just asking us to think in ways we may have never thought before to help us understand so we don’t have to fret when we come to situations involving the sovereignty of God that we can’t explain.
Perhaps, God exercised His sovereignty with Judas through circumstances. I reject the determinism of Calvinism (wow, too many ‘isms will get you in trouble, won’t they) because determinism violates the principle of man’s free will choice to accept or reject God. But when Jesus chose His apostles, He was the Creator who knew the hearts of all men. Could it be that when He chose Judas, He chose a man who would love money so much that he would do anything to get it? Could Jesus have chosen a man whose character was such that He would not accept the Messiah? Judas was a grown Jewish man who had formed his character and beliefs. John calls him a thief from the beginning, often stealing from the disciple’s moneybag he oversaw as treasurer (John 12:4-6).
Isn’t it interesting that Judas was the treasurer and not Matthew, whom I presume would be more qualified in that position as a tax collector? Thieves have a way of positioning themselves to be close to the money. The circumstance presented itself when the group had a common purse, and Jesus allowed the thief to be in that position, knowing Judas would steal from Him. My point is that Jesus didn’t have to force Judas to do anything wrong. Judas was capable of choosing to do wrong himself. However, Jesus could have chosen a man He knew would act the way he acted; a man with a heart wholly devoted to riches. This could have been the circumstances that Jesus placed Judas in, not as a way to make him stumble but to use Judas’ nature to fulfill God’s plan. God governed the circumstances, but the choices were still Judas’ to make.
“Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.” (John 6:70-71 ESV).
It seems Jesus knew what He was doing when He chose Judas. He knew Judas and his character. Jesus didn’t have to make Judas do anything. He didn’t make Judas a thief. In light of James’ words, it is important to understand that God will not tempt any man to do evil. Judas would have been a thief whether Jesus chose him to be the treasurer or not. Jesus knew Judas’ character. I have no problem believing that God could have created the circumstances that the price of betrayal was thirty pieces of silver, as prophesied. Details like this can be in God’s hands without violating man’s free will. God arranging details of prophetic words coming to fruition in no way suggests that God forces man to sin to fulfill His purpose, even with Judas. God’s sovereignty over all things means that He can accomplish His purposes without resorting to making man a sinner.
Wrapping up with Judas, we need to be cautious before we jump in with a definitive explanation where God gives no explanation. By faith, we can believe God prophesied it, man has free will, and God accomplished His purpose. That is what we must believe. How all that happens is speculation on our part. What I went through was simply an exercise to help us understand that we never have to force Scripture to say something to make our speculations plausible. Whether it’s our speculations of determinism (Calvinism) or our speculation that the free will God grants to man must be absolute in all ways. By understanding that we can look at things through another lens, we can walk away secure in our belief in what Scripture teaches, and we can find comfort living in the secret things God has not revealed to us.
We talked at length about Samson’s circumstances, but the same can be said of Daniel’s circumstances as well. God either arranged Daniel’s circumstance specifically for him or used the circumstance that Daniel found himself in to accomplish His purpose. Do we have enough information to know definitively which scenario played out? I would say “no,” but you may feel strongly one way or the other- God created Daniel’s circumstances for him or worked in the circumstance that Daniel found himself in. Either way, we see God working through Daniels’s circumstances of being a captured slave who was deported to Babylon. From there, it becomes apparent that God maneuvered Daniel into a position of authority.
But here’s an interesting question to consider as we look at God’s sovereignty as shown in working through man’s circumstances. Compare Daniel with Samson. Both were in circumstances that God used to accomplish His purpose. One man was righteous and obeyed God in all ways; the other was a man whom God used despite being a selfish womanizer who despised his vows to God. But let me ask you this… could God have accomplished His purposes if Samson had Daniel’s character and Daniel had Samson’s character? If Samson was a righteous man who lived fully devoted to God, never looked after foreign women, and refused to violate his vow, could God have still used him to accomplish His purpose of freeing the Israelites from the hand of the Philistines? Most certainly!
And if Daniel was a man who ate the king’s delicacies, didn’t have the habit of praying publicly three times daily, and spent time with the Babylonian people and visiting their prostitutes, could God have still used him to accomplish His purposes? Again, most certainly. If this is true, we can easily see that God is sovereign and can accomplish His purpose, whatever the circumstance. God didn’t have to make Samson sin to accomplish His purpose and didn’t have to make Daniel righteous to accomplish His purpose. This is the underlying fallacy of the determinism/Calvinism proposition that God imposes His will to make man good or evil to accomplish His purposes, thus overriding man’s free will when choosing or rejecting to do good or evil.
This is also why God can raise up the Babylonians to be the instrument of judgment upon the Israelites, yet turn around and punish them for the atrocities they committed in how they carried out the judgment. God could use them to accomplish His purpose, allowing them to perform the horrors they performed on His people and then justly judge them for the evil they committed. God working through their circumstances did not mean that God forced them to make evil decisions.
As a parent, I often teach valuable life lessons to my kids by letting them experience the consequences of their actions. That doesn’t mean I created the circumstance for them, nor does it mean that I approve of the choices they made. For example, if my son wants to go on a weekend outing with his friends to a pro football game and we agreed that he could go, provided he kept his grades up, I may use the circumstance of him missing assignments and not studying to teach him a valuable lesson, knowing He will have to watch his friends drive off without him when the time comes to go to the game. Does that mean that I approve of his behavior of not studying? No. Does that mean that I wanted him to fail in his studies? Absolutely not. But I can use the circumstance to teach him a valuable life lesson, which is my purpose. At the same time, I can inflict punishment upon him for not keeping his grades up because he did not do what he needed. I may decide to take away his phone, computer, and other privileges until his grades come back up. My point is we often use circumstances to teach life lessons, don’t we? We call it the School of Hard Knocks. We don’t have to like the circumstances to use them to accomplish our purposes, right? The same can be said of God. He can use bad circumstances to accomplish His purposes or good circumstances to accomplish His purposes. But as a sovereign, all-powerful God, He most certainly can arrange circumstances or use them as they present themselves. In whatever manner circumstances arise, He will never have to force man to sin in those circumstances to accomplish His purpose.
Esther, Ruth, and Rahab were three women in wildly different circumstances that God used to accomplish His purpose. Esther was a Jew in exile who was lifted to the position of Queen of Persia to deliver God’s people from the hand of wicked Haman. Ruth was a gentile woman who gave up everything to follow her Jewish mother-in-law back to Israel and become a proselyte and follower of God. God accomplished His purpose through her lineage by bringing Jesus into the world. And Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute who hid the Israeli spies. God accomplished His purpose by using Rahab’s circumstances to keep the spies safe. Over 1500 years later, the Hebrews writer memorialized her faith (Hebrews 11:31). In these cases, God could have arranged these circumstances Himself in His sovereignty, or He could have used them as they came about. We are not told how the circumstance came about, and we must fight the urge to be dogmatic with our beliefs, no matter how strongly we feel about them. In the end, does it take away from God’s sovereignty if He worked His purposes through circumstances He brought about versus circumstances that presented themselves to Him? I would say that it’s a stronger case of His sovereignty that it doesn’t matter how circumstances arise for Him to be able to accomplish His purposes. He has the power to create or use existing circumstances to accomplish His purposes.
This thinking will help us to avoid questions like, “God, why did you allow this bad thing to happen to me?” God may use a tragedy in our lives to accomplish a purpose for us without having to create the circumstance itself. That said, and many may not like what I am about to say, but it can be possible that God does bring about a tragedy in our lives to accomplish His purpose. He may create a circumstance we do not like to accomplish a purpose for us. God’s purposes are not dependent upon Him having to wait for the perfect circumstance to arise before He can do what He wants. We must be careful not to ascribe circumstances to God without a specific revelation that He brought about a circumstance. This was the sin of Job’s three friends that got them in hot water with God.
What are our takeaways when we think about God working His purposes through our circumstances? I submit these for your consideration. First, God can choose to create circumstances or use circumstances that present themselves to accomplish His purpose. In the absence of His revelation about how the circumstance arose, we should be careful when ascribing all circumstances to Him lest it takes us down the road of determinism or causes us to adopt a fatalistic worldview. Second, God is not dependent upon having circumstances to align before He can accomplish His purpose. He can use any circumstance or create any circumstance in His sovereignty to accomplish whatever purpose He has. Third, in whatever way the circumstance arises, man will always be able to exercise his free will to accept or reject God. God will never force man to do evil to accomplish His purposes. James tells us as much, and God is powerful enough and wise enough not to be forced to make man sin to accomplish what He wants to accomplish. To say otherwise is an indictment of God in the worst, most evil manner. It is the ultimate in bearing false witness against the most sovereign God. We need to approach Him in His holiness and awesome power, understanding that His ways are not our ways; they are higher than anything we can imagine. We don’t always have to understand how these things work in every detail, but we must always have faith that God will always do what is right and He is capable and competent enough to accomplish all His purposes without forcing man to do evil.
Sometimes our circumstances can be brought about by God to accomplish His purposes, but other times they are brought about by the laws of nature and by time and chance. That is one of the main points of Ecclesiastes. Just because God can work through circumstances doesn’t mean He always does. Sometimes we lose our job because the economy is bad, and the consequence of a bad economy is the reason we are unemployed. Sometimes our loved ones get sick because they develop a disease or get injured. But sometimes, we lose our jobs or get sick because God has a specific purpose for us that is greater than we can imagine. Lazarus got sick and died so God would be glorified (John 11:4). But we know that God brought about Lazarus’ circumstances because the Holy Spirit told us this is why he died. Unless God tells us why we are sick or why we lose our job, it is dangerous to ascribe those circumstances as being caused by God. But whatever the case, God can still work good in any circumstance. If He brought them about for a purpose, that purpose will be accomplished. We don’t need to know the “whys” of what is happening; rather, we need to know that no circumstance can overtake us that God cannot work for His good. So, we pray because we know He is sovereign and can effect change in our circumstances if it is His will to do so. He can also equip us to endure any circumstance we find ourselves in. For a supremely sovereign God, nothing is impossible.
Through Unknown Ways That We May Never Understand
This book is about understanding a sovereign God, but we know there are limits mortal man has when trying to understand the limitless God. So, we can talk about God accomplishing His purposes through natural intervention, the heart of man, prewriting the future, or through circumstances, but we must conclude that we can only know what we know. Even in these areas, there is only so far that our understanding can take us. That’s ok. That only magnifies the greatness of our God. But beyond these areas, God can work in ways that we may never be able to imagine. Do you believe that? Do you feel uneasiness with the fact that God can work in ways we don’t understand? Is it important that you understand how God works His purposes for you to feel peace? I get it… I really do. That’s human nature. But God has called us to move beyond what eyes can see and what human reason can deduce. I’m not discounting what we see or using the human reasoning God gave us, but I am suggesting that beyond those things lies faith. These are the things we believe that we do not see or things we do not understand. We believe them because God said them, and that is it. This is true when we apply faith to God working His purposes. Let us bask in the glory of God because He can “do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20 ESV).
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV).
Faith entails the things we hope for and evidence of things not seen. We must be willing to take that step beyond sight with God into the areas that we may not even understand, knowing that because God said it, there is solid ground to step on, even if we do not understand or see where or how the word of God will take us in our lives.
“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV).
Believing in God’s sovereignty and that He can accomplish all His purposes is our part. We don’t have to figure out all the “how’s” or “why’s.” We can leave that to God. And we certainly don’t have to force God into acting a certain way to accomplish His purposes. Sometimes we need to give ourselves the grace to let it go and trust that God can accomplish His purposes, even when we can’t understand what is going on. This is the amazing thing about our sovereign God.