Latest / Sovereignty of God / 022 - Appendix 1 The Will of God

Transcript

022 - Appendix 1 The Will of God · Sovereignty of God

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Appendix one of Sovereignty of God. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot Org. Recording
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: by Greg Giardano. Sovereignty of God by Arthur Pink Appendix one,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: The Will of God. In treating of the will of God,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: some theologians have differentiated between his decreative will and his
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: permissive will, insisting that there are certain things which God
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: has positively fore ordained, but other things which He merely
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: suffers to exist or happen. But such a distinction is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: really no distinction at all, inasmuch as God only permits
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: that which is according to his will will. No such
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: distinction would have been invented had these theologians discerned that
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: God could have decreed the existence and activities of sin
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: without himself being the author of sin personally. We much
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: prefer to adopt the distinction made by the older Calvinists
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: between God's secret and revealed will, or to state it
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: in another way, his disposing and his perceptive will. God's
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: revealed will is made known in his word, but his
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: secret will is his own hidden counsels. God's revealed will
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is the definer of our duty and the standard of
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: our responsibility. The primary and basic reason why I should
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: follow a certain course or do a certain thing is
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: because it is God's will that I should, his will
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: being clearly defined for me in his word. That I
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: should not follow a certain course, that I must refrain
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: from doing sucha things is because they are contrary to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: God's revealed will. But suppose I disobey God's word, then
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: do I not cross his will? And if so, how
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: can it still be true that God's will is always
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: done and his counsel accomplished at all times. Such questions
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: should make evident the necessity for the distinction here advocated.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: God's revealed will is frequently crossed, but his secret will
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: is never thwarted. That it is legitimate for us to
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: make such a distinction concerning God's will is clear from scripture.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Take these two passages, for this is the will of God,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: even your sanctification. First, Thessalonians four three, For who hath
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: resisted His will? Romans nine nineteen. Would any thoughtful reader
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: declare that God's will has precisely the same meaning In
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: both of these passages we surely hope not. The first
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: passage refers to God's revealed will, the latter to his
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: secret will. The first passage concerns our duty. The latter
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: declares that God's secret purpose is immutable and must come
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: to pass notwithstanding the creature's insubordination. God's revealed will is
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: never done perfectly or fully by any of us, but
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: his secret will never fails of accomplishment, even in the
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: minutest particular. His secret will mainly concerns future events, his
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: revealed will our present duty. The one has to do
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: with his irresistible purpose, the other with his manifested pleasure.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: The one is wrought upon us and accomplished through us.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: The other is to be done by us. The secret
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: will of God is his eternal, unchanging purpose concerning all
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: things which He hath made to be brought about by
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: certain means to their appointed ends. Of this, God expressly declares,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: pleasure Isaiah forty six ten. This is the absolute, efficacious
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: will of God, always effected, always fulfilled. The revealed will
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: of God contains not his purpose and decree, but our duty,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: not what he will do according to his eternal counsel,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: but what we should do if we would please him,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And this is expressed in the precepts and promises of
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: his word. Whatever God has determined within himself, whether to
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: do himself, or to do by others, or to suffer
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to be done, whilst it is in his own breast,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: and is not made known by any event in providence,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: or by precepts or by prophecy, is his secret will.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Such are the deep things of God, the thoughts of
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: his heart, the counsels of his mind, which are impenetrable
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: to all creatures. But when these things are made known,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: they become His revealed will. Such is almost the whole
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: of the Book of Revelation, wherein God has made known
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to us things which must shortly come to pass revelation
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: one one must, because He has eternally purposed that they should.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: It has been objected by Arminian theologians that the division
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of God's will into secret and revealed is untenable, because
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: it makes God to have two different wills, the one
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: opposed to the other. But this is a mistake due
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to their failure to see that the secret and revealed
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: will of God respect entirely different objects. If God should
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: require and forbid the same thing, or if he should
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: decree the same thing should and should not exist, then
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: would his secret and revealed will be contradictory and purposeless.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: If those who object to this secret and revealed will
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: of God being inconsistent, but only make the same distinction
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: in this case that they do in many other cases,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the seeming inconsistency would at once disappear. How often do
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: men draw a sharp distinction between what is desirable in
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: its own nature and what is not desirable all things considered.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: For example, the fond parent does not desire, simply considered,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to punish his offending child, but all things considered, he
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: knows it is his bound in duty, and so corrects
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: his child. And though he tells his child he does
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: not desire to punish him, but that he is satisfied
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: is for the best all things considered, to do so
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: that an intelligent child would see no inconsistency in what
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: his father says and does. Just so, the all wise
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: creator may consistently decree to bring to past things which
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: he hates, forbids and condemns. God chooses that some things
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: shall exist which he thoroughly hates in their intrince nature,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and he also chooses that some things shall not yet exist,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: which he perfectly loves in their intrinsic nature. For example,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: he commanded that Pharaoh should let his people go because
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that was right in the nature of things. Yet he
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: had secretly declared that Pharaoh should not let his people go,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: not because it was right in Pharaoh to refuse, but
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: because it was best all things considered that he should
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: not let them go. I e. Best because it subserved
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: God's larger purpose. Again, God commands us to be perfectly
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: holy in this life Matthew five forty eight, because this
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: is right in the nature of things. But he has
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: decreed that no man shall be perfectly holy in this life,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: because this is best all things considered, that none shall
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: be perfectly holy experimentally before they leave this world. Holiness
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: is one thing, the taking place of holiness is another.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So sin is one thing, that taking place of sin
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: is another. When God requires holiness, his perceptive or revealed
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: will respects the nature or moral excellence of holiness. But
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: when He decrees that holiness shall not take place fully
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and perfectly, his secret or decreative will respects only the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: event of it not taking place. So again, when he
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: forbids sin, his perceptive or revealed will respects only the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: nature or moral evil of sin. But when he decrees
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that sin shall take place, his secret will respects only
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: its actual occurrence to serve his good purpose. Thus the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: secret and revealed will of God respect entirely different objects.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: God's will of decree is not his will in the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: same sense as his will of command is. Therefore there
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: is no difficult culty in supposing that one may be
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: contrary to the other. His will, in both senses is
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: his inclination. Everything that concerns his revealed will is perfectly
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: agreeable to his nature, as when he commands love, obedience,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and service from his creatures. But that which concerns his
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: secret will has in view his ultimate end, that to
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: which all things are now working. Thus he decreed the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: entrance of sin into his universe, though his own holy
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: nature hates all sin with infinite abhorrence. Yet because it
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: is one of the means by which his appointed end
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: is to be reached, he suffered it to enter. God's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: revealed will is the measure of our responsibility and the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: determiner of our duty. With God's secret will. We have
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: nothing to do, that is his concern. But God, knowing
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that we should fail to perfectly do his revealed will,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: ordered his etern conal counsels accordingly. And these eternal counsels
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: which make up His secret will, though unknown to us,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: are though unconsciously fulfilled in and through us. Whether the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: reader is prepared to accept the above distinction in the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: will of God or not, he must acknowledge that commands
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of Scripture declare God's revealed will. And he must also
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: allow that sometimes God wills not to hinder a breach
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of those commands, because he does not, as a fact,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: so hinder it. God wills to permit sin, as is evident,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: for he does permit it. Surely none will say that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: God himself does what he does not will to do. Finally,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: let it be said again that my responsibility with regard
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to the will of God is measured by what He
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: has made known in his word. There I learn that
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: it is my duty to use the means of His
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: providing into humblely pray that He may be pleased to
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: bless them to me. To refuse so to do on
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the ground that I am ignorant of what may or
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: may not be his secret counsel's concerning me is not
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: only absurd, but the height of presumption. We repeat, the
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: secret will of God is none of our business. It
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: is his revealed will which measures our accountability. That there
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: is no conflict whatever between the secret and the revealed
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: will of God is made clear from the fact that
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the former is accomplished by my use of the means
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: laid down in the latter end of Appendix one. Recording
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: by Greg Giardano, Newport, Ritchey, Florida,