Below is an excerpt from my book, “The Sovereignty of God.” In this post, I hit a question head-on that many in Christendom struggle with: How can God be sovereign if He doesn’t always get what He wants? This is such an important concept for us to prayerfully struggle with, because if we get it wrong, we will have an incomplete understanding of God’s sovereignty and it may lead us to some nonbiblical understandings.
This excerpt dives into this question and the rest of the chapter in the book dives even deeper. I hope this encourages us all to think deeper on this subject.
Excerpt:
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.
End of Excerpt
God is, indeed, sovereign over all things. When we understand this, it helps us align our allegiance to King Jesus in a biblical way that causes us to take responsibility for our free-will choices and appreciate His grace toward us even more.
King Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings.
I am in the book of James in my daily Bible reading. There is so much in here that we could meditate on. Some have called James the Proverbs of the New Testament because it’s a very practical book.
Today, James’s words on the tongue struck me. We know his teachings, don’t we?
In chapter 3, James talks about how small the tongue is, but how much damage it can kindle among brothers. He also says that unlike animals, we can never tame the tongue.
That’s something for us to consider today. The tongue is always hiding just below the surface to do either good or bad. We cannot work to tame the tongue so that we get to a place where the tongue is tamed by us.
Because we cannot tame it, we must always be vigilant. The moment we drop our guard, the tongue can do tremendous damage.
Let us pray daily to guard our tongue. Let us think before we speak. Let us first say good things, full of uplifting words before we give our tongues the opportunity to wipe out years of building relationships in a single, unguarded moment.
We cannot tame the tongue, but we can keep watch over it in prayer and in deed.
I am in the book of Genesis in my daily Bible reading. I always learn something each time I read the account of creation. Some things are not the easiest lessons to learn.
When reading about Adam and Eve’s relationship with God, there was no misunderstanding about the natural order. God was the Creator and able to give commandments. Adam and Eve never questioned God’s right to be the Lawgiver, as we often do.
When God approached man about his sins, the first instinct of Adam and Cain was to lie. “I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself from you.” Yes, Adam was naked, a fact he knew by having the knowledge of good and evil revealed to him, but I believe he was afraid and hid himself because he had disobeyed God and was afraid of being caught by God.
When God asked Cain where Abel was, he lied. “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Things haven’t changed. We don’t like to admit when we’ve done wrong and we often lie to keep from admitting our wrong. Sometime, like with Cain, it’s overt. Sometimes, like with Adam, it is more indirect.
What we learn from Jesus is that there is healing and freedom found in confession and being honest about our sins. Until we can admit to God our sins and our need for cleansing, we will always be lying, in one way or another, to God about our sins. We need to first own our sins before He will take them away.
Is there any sin we are refusing to acknowledge? This will only lead to bitterness and animosity toward God. Healing and forgiveness are found in acknowledgement and confession. Let us release our burdens to God today by confessing our sins and letting Him cleanse our hearts from its stain.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 ESV).
I am reading the book of Genesis in my daily Bible reading. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom,
“Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD.” (Genesis 13:13 ESV).
In fact, Abraham is in the midst of a land of wicked men who did not fear God.
What makes this so astounding to me? Abraham’s oldest living ancestor is Shem. As the earth descends into evil against God, a man who was on the ark is still alive.
If you follow the genealogical record, Shem died when Abraham was 150 years old.
If this is accurate, then you have people ignoring the lesson of the flood, even though an eyewitness of the flood is still alive.
When we bear witness about Jesus and people laugh, ignore, mock, and scoff, remember, this is not an unusual response from people who set their mind to do what they want with no regard to God.
These people were made in their Creator’s image to serve and rule next to Him for eternity, yet they trade it all away for a mess of pottage.
The real tragedy is not the way people may treat us, but that they are walking away from the great purpose for which God created them.
Instead of embracing the noble and royal life that is theirs, they choose to turn their face from God, which will be the tragedy when the Lord will one day give them for an eternity what they want…
Separation from their Creator.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard something amazing or uplifting that I just couldn’t wait to share with you,
only to get home and forget what it was.
I heard something like that today.
You would have really loved it.
I am in Genesis in my daily Bible reading. In chapter 24, Abraham is old and Sarah has died. Isaac is alive, but needs a wife.
Abraham is in Canaan, the land God promised to him and his descendants, but he is adamant that his son not take a wife from among the people of the land.
He sends a servant back to his relatives to find a wife for his son. Listen to these adamant words he lays upon his servant:
“Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there. …
But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.” (Genesis 24:6, 8 ESV).
In Abraham’s heart, it was vital that Isaac not go back to his relative’s land. He wanted no avenue for Isaac to find a tie to their former life. God had given them a new home and a new future.
Oh, that we were so adamant with our children that we sternly speak in wisdom that we not bring our children back to our former ways…
That we not introduce them to our former sinful ways,
That we not bring them into old circle of friends who do not know God, or those who have no regard for the will of God,
That we not forget the promised land we are sojourning to by faith in this world we experience by sight.
Abraham knew that if Isaac had gone back to the past, the lure might be too strong for him to return home, so he insisted that his son not be placed in that situation.
How many of us send our sons and daughters back to our former land with the assumption that they will see the value of our decisions and devotion to King Jesus and return on their own?
May we be just as strong in intent and adamant in our resolve with our children that we say, “only you must not take my son back there.”