God's Sovereign Will
Though God has created each of us
with a free will, we are to acknowledge
that He is sovereign over all aspects of
His creation, including our personal lives.
Here's Gene:
This Principle of course focuses on
God's sovereignty. And as I was thinking about
that I thought we need a couple of definitions.
What does it mean when we talk about
the fact that God is sovereign?
Well here's a definition from
Dr. Norman Geisler:
"Sovereignty is God's control over His creation,
dealing with His governance over it:
Sovereignty is God's rule over all reality."
Here's a definition by Dr. Charles Ryrie,
"The word means principle, chief, supreme.
It speaks first of His position--
that is of God's position. ...
Ultimately God is in control of all things,
though He may choose to let certain
events happen according to natural laws,
which He has ordained."
And from experience we know that's
true in terms of the natural laws that
govern what happens in our universe.
And on our earth in terms of
earthquakes, and tsunamis, and storms,
and lightning, and all of those things.
But when all is said and done,
God is ultimately in control.
Now at some point in time, Solomon
came to the conclusion that
God is indeed sovereign.
That's one thing he got right.
However, his conclusions once again
have elements of distortion.
So let's take a closer look at his conclusions.
We have first of all what I've called the
mystery of time. Ecclesiastes 3:1 to 3:
There's an occasion for everything, and a time
for every activity under heaven:
a time to give birth [and] a time to die;
a time to plant [and] a time to uproot; a time to kill
[and] time to heal; a time to tear down
[and] a time to build...
And he goes on to list a number,
actually 14 opposites in that list.
But notice how he summarized this.
Notice his conclusions:
"What does the worker gain from his struggles?
I've seen the task that God has given
people to keep them occupied.
He has made everything appropriate in its time.
He has also put eternity in their hearts,
[and those are true things] but man cannot
discover the work God has done
from beginning to end."
And that's a true statement.
But again, we see this inadequate conclusion,
an inappropriate conclusion.
And here's what he concluded,
"Live life now. Since we don't understand
at all, let's just live life now. And so he says
in verses 12 to 13:
I know there is nothing better for them
than to rejoice and enjoy the good life.
It is also the gift of God whenever anyone
eats, drink,s and enjoys all his efforts.
In other words, God has given us all
these things to enjoy and he, Solomon,
put on no restrictions in relationship to
the gifts of God. And he abuses them.
In other words, Solomon seems to be saying:
We cannot understand God's eternal
perspective even though we long to.
So eat, drink, and be merry.
Enjoy as much of life as you can.
Now in view of God's sovereignty,
that's a very inadequate conclusion.
And you see we're fortunate again when
we look at the whole of Scripture,
there's no question that God is sovereign.
That's a biblical truth.
But here are observations that grow out
of Solomon's life and that is that
knowing God is sovereign shouldn't lead
us to pessimism.
And you see pessimism throughout his life.
At least towards the end of his life.
It should not lead to irresponsibility.
There's irresponsibility here for the
decisions that he made.
And he doesn't seem to be taking
responsibility for it. It should not lead to a
deterministic view of life as a Doris Day sang,
"Que Sera Sera."
What will be, will be.
That's pessimism.
That's a mechanistic view of life.
The facts are,
you see, Solomon is responsible for
his bad decisions. And so are we.
The decisions that Solomon made were not--
those bad decisions were not predetermined by God.
He made those decisions out of the will
of God. And so, in this sense, though
he had the idea of truth that God is
sovereign. He still had a distorted view
of God's sovereignty.
And so the Reflection and Response
question for us today is:
What happens when Christians attempt
logically and definitively [and perhaps
experientially] to resolve this divine mystery
regarding God's sovereignty and our free will?
Now Solomon was trying really to define it
experientially to a great extent. And that
led him to these false conclusions.
And if we're not careful, even as
Christians we can come up with the
conclusion that Solomon came up to:
what will be, will be.
And God never intended us to have that
mindset, even though He's sovereign.
The other thing is that we get a wrong view,
a distortion of God's sovereignty
and our free will, we can become disillusioned.
Solomon was disillusioned and
we can become disillusioned.
We can become irresponsible.
Solomon became irresponsible.
Even though he said God is sovereign.
We can blame God for our bad decisions.
I didn't have a choice.
And I think Solomon may actually
have been doing that.
Yes, God is sovereign. No question about that.
But we have a free will.
We have a free will to make decisions
that are in God's will. But we have
freedom to make decisions that are
out of God's will. And Solomon did
that on a regular basis.