Lesson 43a

We're in lesson 43. We're working through Romans chapter 9, verses 17 through 21. And last week we talked about, we're primarily talking about two men, Moses and Pharaoh. We talked about did Pharaoh glorify God? The answer, yes he did. Who was responsible for Pharaoh's hardness of heart? We answered that Pharaoh originally several times hardened his own heart, and when it says God hardened his heart, really what happened was that he just let Pharaoh continue on without correcting him at all.

I think one of the things, the big issue that we're talking about here, and probably in the next verses in the next class, has to do more with God's sovereignty and man's will. Those are the two big issues. And I'm finding in my study that most of these theologians have different opinions about that, that even though they may agree like they're dispensational, when it comes to God's sovereignty and man's free will, it's really, really difficult for anybody who's a commenter on the Bible to get away from how free is man's will. He does have the free will, and they want to hang on to that as hard as they can, but not excluding God's sovereignty. So hopefully we can, through the work of the Spirit, track our way through how those two things come together, how the sovereignty of God and His will and man's will exist, which we'll talk about today. Did we do question four, what does the word resistance in verse 19 mean? So we get to the question of does man have free will?

Does he? Okay, I got a yes. Do I have a no? Okay, so I've got a yes and I've got a no. It's interesting. I'm going to read a couple of things to you and then hopefully we can discuss them. Now this is one of the guys that I took some issue with. Here's what he says.

He says, although human nature was seriously affected by the fall, man has not been left in a state of total spiritual helplessness. Okay with that. God graciously enables every sinner to repent, which means to have a change of mind, and believe, but He does not interfere with man's freedom.

Each sinner possesses a free will and his eternal destiny depends on how he uses it. Man's freedom consists of his ability to choose good over evil and spiritual matters. His will is not enslaved to his sinful nature. The sinner has the power to either cooperate with God's Spirit and be regenerated or resist God's grace and perish. The lost sinner needs the Spirit's assistance, but he does not have to be regenerated by the Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man's act and precedes the new birth. Faith is the sinner's gift to God. It is man's, I'm sorry, faith is the sinner's gift to God. It is man's contribution to salvation. What do you think about that? Some good, some bad. It is some good, some bad, yeah. And I got that out of Myles Stanford's writings. If Myles had come in the room and explained what he meant, I'd be better.

So in an effort to get this straight, does man have free will? I guess I would say, what does that mean? What's the definition of free will? Or what's the definition of free? We all have a will, right? What is a will? What does it do? How do you define what will is? The ability to choose?

My dog has will. He can will to eat or not eat. Usually wills to eat. We're dog-sitting a dog now that doesn't want to eat. He can will to listen to me or not listen to me. But that's the negative side. It's to believe, isn't it? That's the positive side. So does a dog have a capacity to exercise faith? No. Well, what makes them respond? Threats and reward. Hunger. Instinct. So, will is the ability, it's not really the ability to choose, it's the ability to believe.

Understand what I'm saying? Because every single one of us, I think, lives our life, whether before you're saved or after you're saved, based on what you believe. Right? If you're lost and you're a sinner, what your understanding of your environment is, is what you choose to let control you.

Now, at the same time, somebody's whispering in your ear that you have free will. Well, you don't. The Bible clearly says you're a slave to sin. And is that a free will slave? No. Still the undergirding is just what you said, the choice of what you believe. That's right. The will is still the choice. Well, put it this way. I can choose to let God save me or not. I can choose to save myself, but good luck with that. So would you say only man has a will? The angels have wills. Had them. But they're fixed, right? Now they are, yeah. Yeah, as far as I can tell, we're not going to have plan B for them. But like you say, animals don't have a will. They have instinct. I think so, yeah.

Could you say that we have a limited will? Is it very, very limited? Yeah, that's... that's kind of a good way to look at it limited to what extent if you accept the covenant reform viewpoint their theology says that man is so depraved that he cannot do anything to be saved unless he's regenerated first and then he's given the gift of faith and then he can believe and be saved The Armenian, on the other hand, says, my will is free and I can decide when I want to be saved and if next week I decide I want to be unsaved, I can do it. Because I'm the one that decides my salvation. I can do it. I think more of the limited, I look at it as very limited, and the only reason you have a will is to make the decision about believing Christ or not.

That's the only thing, otherwise the will is used either all towards sin, or can be used towards Christ. And it's very limited. It's only one choice, and what you will beyond that, it doesn't make any difference. So, in a way, it's very, very limited. It's one question. We still have a limited will to choose to sin, or choose not to sin, to serve God. But it's very limited.

The dividing line, the only question is Christ or not Christ. Beyond that, you're over here, and yes, you're left or right, but you're on this side in life. How about this idea? That we're born in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that's where our choice is before you're saved. The only choices you have is your perception of what is evil and what is good, and you make the choices. The trouble is you're making all the choices in the wrong tree.

Right. Still in the same tree. Right. So the Spirit of God, according to the Word of God, His job is to convict the world of sin. Right? So you have to say, because the Word says so, that every man on the planet at some point has been convicted about sin.

Now I don't know how he does it and there's so much evidence that he's fallen down on the job, but he's God, he's sovereign. So he's doing that and what is he doing? He's convicting, persuading people that they're lost. whatever in their mind they think lost might be.

We grew up in a country that is a Judeo-Christian theology with a whole bunch of different denominations, but basically we understand somebody in our family read the Bible, or went to church, got some information. But what if you live back in the woods in Uganda someplace? Did you have the same? That's why I think the New Tribes people now, when they go into a place, they start with Genesis. They start with creation.

And the reason is that the cultures have a different concept. Although in our study of Genesis on Wednesday night, I'm discovering that all of these cultures, all of them had a story about a flood. They had different characters in it than the Bible has, but the flood was a universal understanding that something tragic happened and everybody died, except for a few. And the fact that the earth is only 7,000 or 8,000 years, you don't have to try to go beyond that to come up with an idea that you can change the course of what man is really built like.

It all starts in the garden, the way God made us. And the biggest issue is, I think the biggest issue is, are we a slave to sin? Is every human being a slave to sin? And I'm by slave meaning that it controls you, you don't control it. Evil is not a tough thing to envision, Goodness is not godliness. Goodness is not holiness. So I can do a bunch of good stuff based on the relativity of this environment and think I'm okay. Trouble is I'm still in the tree. Now there's another tree in the garden. What's the name of it? the tree of life. What's the tree of life? All right, quick question. Who is the tree of life? It's the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

In Christ is good and evil an issue? Evil certainly isn't. How about good? No. Righteousness, holiness, those kinds of elements. Wouldn't you say too in this tree that that is totally subjective? As to what's evil and what's good? Absolutely. And even with the mosaic law system, you know, 400 plus laws of good and evil, really more righteous and unrighteous is really what that's about.

But the Jews made them good and evil. Okay. So we're putting some elements together now. God put a system of salvation together and it's only based on one issue. What's the issue? From man's perspective. Do you believe him or don't you? And that's where your will comes in. That's the whole thing. Why was Abraham accounted righteous? Was Lot accounted righteous? Sure was. He didn't act like it, but he was. on the information God gave him about the promises he made to him, right?

And one of the things you discover in studying the Old Testament is how eager and aggressive God is to bless man and how aggressive and eager man is to tell him, get out of my life. I got this. I'm doing it my way. I don't need you. From simple little things like God tells tells the people that came out of the ark, you know, now go over the whole earth and occupy it and take care of it. They went and built cities. They didn't get dispersed at all. So he had to disperse them. So I would say that as simply as I could say it, man has the ability to either receive and believe what God has revealed to him or he can reject it.

That's as far as it goes. Anybody want to challenge me with that? It's okay if you do. God, not even Courtney has taken up that challenge. That's what I just said. If there's one decision, that's it. Okay, so let's talk about then, the next issue is God's sovereignty. I have another paragraph to read to you.

When God by His Spirit inclines one to receive the Savior, that one in so doing acts only in the consciousness of his own choices. Is that pretty clear? It is obvious that to present a convincing argument to a person which leads that one to make a decision does not partake of the nature of a coercion of the will. God is not twisting your arm. What does he do? He woos you.

In such a case, every function of the will is preserved. In relation to the gospel, it remains true that whosoever will may come, yet in back of this truth is a deeper revelation that no fallen man wills to accept the Savior until enlightened by the Holy Spirit. What do you think about that? Is that a true statement? I think so too. So the will that commanding faculty which was once faithful and ruled with God is now turned traitor and rules with and for the devil.

There is in the unrenewed will an utter inability for and what is truly good and acceptable in the sight of God. The natural man's will is in Satan's shackles, he's got the handcuffs on him, hemmed in with the circle of evil and can't move beyond it Any more than a dead man can rise himself out of the grave. So far as I can tell, nobody rose themselves out of the grave. He can do nothing truly spiritually good, John 15, 5. His very choice and desire for spiritual things is carnal and selfish, and not only refuses to come to the Savior, he can't come.

Now let's talk about you and me, Christians. The question is, does the father allow his children perfect freedom of will? Does he? You're his children. I'm one of his children. Does he allow us perfect freedom of will? You mean complete. Complete. Complete? As opposed to purpose, perfect. No, perfect freedom of will. In other words, As a believer, you have free will? Mike?

I think so, because all things work together for good. Even the bad. God turns it to good. But you're not working all things together for good, he is. No, right. Okay. God works all things together for good. To those who love him. In spite of me. To those who are called according to his purpose. Right? What's his purpose? All men should be saved. To be conformed to the image of the Son. That's his purpose for believers now, to be conformed to the image of the Son. Now listen to this next part. If some of you have been the Lord's children for a long time, you'll cast a glance over your past history and be able to recall occasions when he spoke and you obeyed immediately, right? That's true of Bob, I know.

But you can also recall other occasions when he spoke and you resisted and you failed to respond. Yet strangely after a time you just found yourself in the way of obedience. That ever happen to any of you? It happens to me all the time. So at certain times you may have put up quite a strong resistance to the Father's will and you may have persisted in this resistance.

Then somehow, quite unaccountably, you found that the resistance was gone, such is the work of the Holy Spirit's government in our lives." Isn't that a cool statement? Even if you are totally unable to obey and cannot even exercise faith, a day comes when the resistance has vanished and we are trusting the Lord in the simplicity of heart.

It is a tireless energy of the indwelling Spirit that has accomplished this. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." That paragraph is resisted so much in Christian circles. We just don't want the Spirit of God to get the credit. Yet He's done all the work.

Everybody in this room, I looked at your faces as I read that thing about that we can recall occasions when he spoke and we resisted, but then there came a time when the resistance was gone. What happened to it? Did you just get tired? Or did you wake up one day and say, well, I'm not going to fight anymore. But you're walking in the will of God and you know you are, and you think, gee, how did I get here? Or I got disciplined and realized that my way was wrong. Yeah, but I'm doing it without being coerced. Even though I may have had a trial or two or three or four regarding it, still it was the peaceable fruit of righteousness that wooed me to walk in obedience to God. Right?

That's the work of the Spirit and that's how a sovereign God works in a believer. That's also how he works on an unbeliever too, to lead them to Christ. So does God force salvation on anybody? No. But he still woos and persuades. That's right. And he does it through love.

I found that I've been resistant to his will and disobedient. And I just decided, well, you know, maybe I should start being a little bit obedient, more obedient. And it's funny, when I start being obedient, I feel so much better. I'm thinking, you know, I've got to do this more often. You know, I remember when we were, I think it was Malloy that put that class together on obedience, what does it really mean.

And he defined it as listening under. Which doesn't mean, you know, we, like this dog I'm sitting for, I'm trying to get him to obey me. And I'm not getting him to listen under me. Were you a Marine? No, but he figured out last night that I was a Marine. And I know how to yell, right?

So, but, I mean, with a human being, With the human being, I think that the way God works, He draws us and He woos us, and He persuades us. And it's not that He's selling us. We've got to get this idea out of our mind, well, God is a better salesman than Satan. No, He's not. Satan is the ultimate salesman because he uses mass deception to get you. Or God just woos you to truth and reality and to His Son. And one of the best examples of that was Paul meeting the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. What's the first thing that came out of his mouth?

Who are you? Lord, who are you? Lord, who are you? What does the word Lord mean? You're Lord and I'm not. Who are you? I think for believers that we have to understand... How do I say this? Maybe ask it in the form of a question. If I recognize that I'm resisting God's will about something, is it proper for me to pray and say, Father, boy, I just want to do your will and I'm pushing back here. Can you do something about that? Is that a proper prayer? I think so. What do you think? How about you in the back row? I think it's perfectly fine to do that. I do too. I certainly do.

Going back to the things, the wooing and all that, pretty introspective to remember what we've gone through since we're going slowly through Romans, forgetting some of these things. that it's the Holy Spirit in us, and that God searches the Holy Spirit in us for what we need.

He's always doing that 24-7. The Spirit's in us, convicting us, convincing us of these truths. But also, the other thing is the all things. God is in control of every inanimate, organic everything. He can use all things. I mean, I look back, as I was saying, with me, just before I was a believer, you know, camping and seeing, sensing God in my surroundings before as a believer. He uses all things, and He can create and have anything, anytime, anyplace to woo you. But it still comes down to your decision. He's never going to twist your arm or make you believe, or do something that forces your belief. But He uses everything, and all the time with the Holy Spirit, because in dwelling it's 24-7.

You know, that's one of the great things about studying the Old Testament, when you get to look at the lives of guys like Abram and Moses and Jonah and the Apostle Paul, how God dealt with them. And especially like Abram, he just didn't have the capacity early on to comply with God's will in all respects. And one of the big things with him was not the fact that he was insisting on doing evil.

He was just going off without thinking about what God would have him do. He wasn't checking. And so he would become a victim of the circumstances and the human resolution to the circumstances. He'd go down to Egypt and pawn his wife off on Pharaoh so he wouldn't be killed. And in his mind, he's thinking, well, what's wrong with that? Well, the thing that was wrong with it, he didn't check with God first.

The other thing with the Old Testament versus us, too, is we have the indwelling. Yes, we do. The Spirit would come upon them and leave them, or we have the 24-7 indwelling of the Holy Spirit at all times. So the position we have is incredible. So we have what I would describe as true freedom.

To do what? To believe God? How about this? If in his absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay his hand or say, what are you doing? Man's will is free. The lost sinner needs the Spirit's assistance. Hold on, I jumped a page. I'm going to put this in context. Man's will is free because God is sovereign. You get that?

Our will is free because a God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He couldn't do it. But because He is sovereign, He can do it. He'd be afraid to give If he was less than who he is, he would be afraid to give his creation freedom. Wouldn't he? Mike, that's kind of a period on last class discussion. We're kind of saying how God set this up. He could do it any way he wanted. He could make it so whatever. He could make it so he could erase sin. He could do everything, but he created this. As we talked afterwards in the class, the important part is, He created this, which is what?

The best way. The system that He created is the best. And going back to the speeches to Job, where were you when we created all this? Where were you? So, God created this plan and it's the best one. It's not that He could have done it where He could have done it. Well, I would say it's the only one. Because it was a multiple choice with God. But that's where the Sovereign, He created us to have that free will.

But that's the best way. So, talking to Alan a little bit about it, how you can morph that into something bad, I think, where you can kind of make God and create and do other stuff. So, I wanted to put the exclamation on that, that what happened what God created in this plan of salvation and what He did before we were created and all this, this is still the best plan. We can come up with a million other ways to do things, but this is the best plan, what He created.

Because He is sovereign. Yeah, you know, I think I've whittled that down to that it's the only plan. You know, because there was so much that had to be done at the cross of Christ. It just wasn't the payment of my sins. There was an awful lot more than that. Volumes more of what he had to do. Like a cool thing of a new creation. Had to end the old one and start the new one. He had to put sin and all of it out of this new creation and put it in a place where he was satisfied about the consequences. Not to mention all the however many believers there will be in the body of Christ when we get there.

So, let's look at verse 19-20. Verse 19 says, Who will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who resists his will? As a believer, When I go to confess my sins, can I say, well, why do you still find fault with me? I can't resist your will. You're a sovereign God. Is there an answer to that? Well, better question. Does Paul give an answer to that question? Does he? What is it? Huh? What does he say in the verse? Does he really answer that question? Why did you make me this way? Why did you make me that way? Which is the same question as, why does he still find fault? If you look at verse 18, that's a fatalistic viewpoint, isn't it? So then he goes on to say, why does he still find fault? Who can resist your will? He can't resist him because he's totally stronger than you know. He's decided everything, sin, good, whatever.

Is that why he puts that question in there? Well, it's an interesting question because if you keep going, I submit that he never answers it. I agree. He says right here. He never answers the question. Yeah. You know, keep quiet. I'm sovereign, not you. Interesting. Like with Joe. Yeah. He never answered Joe's question. He said, where were you? Yeah. Maybe that's where Miles got it. Call it Miles asked him a question he would never answer.

I think that's so key what Jim is saying is that you have to arrive at the fact that God is sovereign and that's wonderful. And that's I think that's the key to this whole thing, that the Spirit of God brings us to a point where we insist on the sovereignty of God. We insist on that, and we begin to see things from His sovereignty. And when you see it from His sovereignty, there are no threats to you there as a believer, because God is a God of blessing. And how fortunate are we to have that? When you think about, if you go through the book of Ephesians or Colossians, the first part of both of those books, and get the pencil out and write down how many blessings are stated there that are already true of you.

The verbiage is very simple. These are already true of you. and here's the purpose and here's where I'm headed. They are so overwhelming, you can't take them in. You just can't. And they're not predicated on whether you'll obey or not. That's where faith comes in. That's right.

The point is, do you want to rest in them and live in them or not? You know, it's like Do you want to live in an environment where people really love you and where the Lord loves you and you're part of his body and all of the grace that's there? Or do you, as a believer, do you decide you want to live outside of that? And there are negative circumstances by saying, no, I would rather live over there, when this is still true.

That's where the will is in Romans 6 where we, first knowing then reckoning, and then presenting or yielding. Which is, you get to that point, the will is really to present ourselves to the Lord. Yeah, it was always comforting to me, I think it's in Philippians, the verse that says, God will cause you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Well, you think, well, we're going to have to have a talk about that.

Because there's some things I want to do that maybe aren't on your list. What He does in such a gracious way, like we were talking about before, I find myself agreeing with Him, going along with Him, allowing Him, and I'm seeing more and more of who He is and what His agenda is. Why would I choose anything else? That's the point. I wouldn't.

And, which is even more important, when He recreated me in Christ and you in Christ, you know what He did? He made you capable of doing it with the right attitude. We are, what Colossians calls us, we are the sons of God in white? Or no, how does that verse go? I'll think of it in a minute.

But see, the thing is that God knew before the cross that my and your co-crucifixion with him was absolutely necessary if you and I were going to reap the benefits of the blessing he had in mind for us. He couldn't just pay for your sins. That wasn't enough. Because you still had the sin nature that dominated you.

So what does he do? Positionally he separates you from Adam and all that Adam is and he recreates you in Christ and all that Christ is. So now we've got a man he can work with. He couldn't work with the old man. See that? Because the old man is inherently evil. He just is. I don't care what the Republicans tell you. When Christ was in the garden he said, nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done?"

Doesn't He bring us all to that point? Eventually. Eventually. That's how we reckon. Right there, we learn that maybe at that point, it was bad. I was doing out of His will. And we come to the point where Oh yeah, God's will. What is His will? You know, the biggest problem with Christians is not evil. It's good. Right. Because we all got PhDs in avoiding evil. But we're really good at the good. The problem is good ain't holy.

And it's another tree. Was that the second bell? Okay, well, I'm just going to go from here right into the next lesson. I'll get it out to you in the next day or two. And we'll try to finish it up next week so that Courtney's up the following week. We've got a second week, so you'll finish this and then we'll do the next lesson. If you do the two Sundays, I'll take it. The problem I have with teachers is keeping them in town. You're faithful. So you're going to be gone the 24th or December 1st? No, December 1st. December 1st? Yeah. Okay. Cool. All right. Let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your word. How we thank you. How gracious you are to us. And like you said, It hasn't entered into the mind of man, the things that God has in store for those who love him. Yet you spend every minute of every day persuading us about these things. And we're so thankful. And we're thankful for your son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name. Amen.