This is the Mount Everest of biblical teaching, the towering truth that transcends all theology. The inteded audience was parochial or church goers. There are dangers, aren’t there with this doctrine? All rights reserved. Dr. Sproul considers these questions in this message as he teaches us about the relationship between human freedom and "God's Sovereignty." But this is also true of evil powers and corrupt regimes that violate the very principles of government itself; these are also under the sovereign government of Almighty God. JOHN: Yeah, and another way to express sovereignty in that sense is to say that Jesus is Lord. Second, there is the question of ethics. They were attributes of God before anything was ever created. So it’s clear that God is sovereign, but how does that not make God then somehow responsible for what happened, JOHN: I like what somebody said, “The devil is God’s devil.”. A great many Christians can bear testimony to the earthshaking effects of realizing the sovereignty of God. Yeah, there –there have been all kinds of wrong responses to this doctrine. Everyone ends up with the question of God’s sovereignty and the question of evil; denying calvinism does not get you out of the dilemma. So to say that Jesus is Lord is to then confess that I am a slave and that is an affirmation that He’s the sovereign over me. All He says to him is, “I don’t owe you anything, this is not information you need, I don’t answer to you.”. Yeah, I think that is exactly what the Bible teaches. But at that point, I exercise my faith. And, in fact, it’s impossible to reconcile that view with this text from Isaiah 46. JOHN: By the Roman government and basically tried on trumped-up charges, lies. Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource. And while that may be a concept that has, you know, is a little too profound for us to understand the fine line of distinction, the Bible makes that clear distinction. John, we’ve done a number of these studio interviews over the years, going back, I think – I think the first one we ever did was on September 11, 2001. .He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1). Reformed thought on this issue is summarized by the Westminster Confession of Faith: God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain what-soever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the crea-tures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. JOHN: Why – why did He save me? Here’s the answer I got. That God does not prevent evil from existing seems to call into question His omnipotence or His benevolence. Now you can understand why people living in that kind of environment would be just under horrendous fear. Registered User He could have said “mountain,” and there would have been a mountain. As King of all creation, God exercises His sovereignty throughout the world. That’s illegitimate because, you know, we’re wasting our time. Characteristics such as truthfulness, goodness, faithfulness, righteousness, and love define God’s every action. Sovereignty is the absolute, unfettered right to decide when and how—and if—to use that power. Guest. Her confident faith was God has a purpose in this and I rejoice in His purpose. God says, “Why will you die?” You know, Jesus says, “Search the scriptures, they are they that speak of Me.”. That’s back to Romans 8:28. PHIL: But there’s a problem there, too, because – and you’ll often get this question. The Question and Answer section for The Sovereignty and Goodness of God is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. If God is all powerful and if nothing happens apart from His purpose, why is there evil? Under the sovereignty of God’s authority, no man or thing is exempt from the exertion of His authority, nor can they alter the principles by which His authority is exerted. They had the responsibility to proclaim the gospel as the first wave of gospel preachers after the Lord Himself. When we say “Lord” we’re meaning He’s in full control. Sometimes it is direct, sometimes it is. . And, by knowing Him, we can choose to trust Him with our lives. Evil is a matter of ontology (being). That’s very different than the sovereignty of God because God is purposefully taking all contingencies, all actions, all events and working them together to a pre-determined end. Clearly, if there’s nothing in existence and He makes the world and the universe and plans for this redemption to take place, then He had to plan sin into it while not being responsible for sin itself. Did He weep over the grave of Lazarus? PHIL: Now see, immediately we run headlong into the problem of evil. And then, how are they going to call on Him whom they have not heard? You’re bound to sin, you can do nothing but sin. Traditional theism insists that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent—all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present. If God is sovereign in all matters of providence, what is the point of exerting human effort in evangelism and missions? Both are true. PHIL: Yeah, I would say the answer to it is the cross. First, there is the question of evangelism. JOHN: No, and that’s right. He then said, “Everyone who raised his hand to the first question should also have raised his hand to the second question.” He went on to argue that if there is a single molecule in the universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled. So the question really is, why did God allow evil? But and he – he lost his head because he confronted the ruler. PHIL: Alright, the issue of salvation is where you usually hear that question. Proverbs 16:9 says the very same truth really applies to all of us. . JOHN: Never gives him any answer. PHIL: Probably the most blessed and favorite promise in all of Scripture and you can’t really claim that promise, you can’t really believe that promise without acknowledging the sovereignty of God. It all fits in to His purpose. So I – I just think it’s so important to understand that there’s no competition with God. We’re offering something to people that they can’t accept, so it’s a false offer, it’s presumptive. He’s – He determines these things. Biology says this should not have happened. Donate Now. Well if – if you’re – if there’s no evil in the world then there’s no way to display your wrath, your vengeance, your justice, your judgment. Does God have the ability to save everyone? You know, I would go so far as to say chance doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist. The Next 500 Years: 2017 National Conference, Show Me Your Glory: Understanding the Majestic Splendor of God, La Biblia de Estudio de La Reforma, Spanish Edition, Naming Ligonier the Beneficiary of a Bank or Investment Account, Gifts That Provide Income and Tax Benefits. If not everybody is going to be saved, then you could say, “Well who – who decided not everybody was going to be saved?” Well you could say, “Well sinners decide that.” Well then God decided that sinners could decide that knowing that sinners wouldn’t decide that. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God Questions and Answers. Fatalism would be the assumption that things are going to be whatever they’re going to be, just because they’re going to be that way. JOHN: Yeah, He works all things together for good. You know, He looked on the masses with compassion. JOHN: A God of grace. You know, this idea that God is fighting Satan all the time and sometimes Satan wins and sometimes God wins and sometimes Satan comes in and kills your kids and gives you cancer and God is scrambling to try to counter Satan, that is just a horrendous misrepresentation of the reality. JOHN: Trying to get a handle on it, yeah. 6) There is no greater authority than God. JOHN: Because there is a hell, and, in fact, most people aren’t going to be saved. GDPR is the new European privacy regulation, which will replace the Data Protection Act 1998 in the UK and the equivalent legislation across the EU Member States. I think, one, God has a right – and Paul makes this clear in Romans 9 – God has a right to put His power on display against evil. PHIL: Hi, I’m Phil Johnson and I’m here in the studio today with John MacArthur and we’re going to talk about the sovereignty of God. But there are variations on that question that you occasionally hear in other realms. Look, sinners are responsible. Evil is allowed by God, but He distances Himself from that. Fourth, in the question of both the origin and continued existence of evil, the sovereignty of God meets its most acute problem. Illustration, just a few days ago we had a little three-year-old boy in our church die, cycled through Leukemia three different times in three years, and he went to heaven. JOHN: Well the answer to that, of course, is well because we don’t know who they are. And again, we go back to what I said, He allowed it for His own glory. Jun 26, 2020 Enter your email address and we will send you instructions on how to reset your password. That – that is as confusing to me as why He didn’t save somebody else. And there was a time not long ago when we had a huge influx of people coming from that church, coming into our church. It needs to be said at that point that doesn’t mean that God motivates everything that happens, He doesn’t – doesn’t motivate evil, He doesn’t cause evil, He doesn’t do evil. PHIL: That still doesn’t change the sovereignty of God, right? owner and possessor of heaven and earth." JOHN: It means absolute rule. In other words, God created the world in full awareness that He was going to redeem the world. God's sovereignty is a stumbling block for atheists and unbelievers who demand that if God is in total control, that he eliminate all evil and suffering from the world. – Dr. Norman Geisler 1 "The word means principal, chief, supreme. And yet –. He’s not the efficient cause of it.”. How do we answer these questions? It deals with future things from our day even. PHIL: Well, I’ve got to say from my own testimony, it’s hard to appreciate how mind blowing this concept is to someone who’s never really thought of it. He – and I always say He banished illness from Israel for the duration of His ministry, and He delivered people from demon possession. You sin under the freedom of your will or for, if you want to call it, under the bondage of your will to sin. God’s sovereignty casts no shadow over the prayer of adoration. We desire to be led of the Lord, and teaching that nothing happens but what God wills fits that nicely. Apart from God, there was nothing. God has raised up civil governments to be systems of equity and good and peace, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them who do well (Rom. God’s foreknowledge or determinate counsel … And then forever and ever throughout all the eons of eternity, He will be glorified and honored and praised for the full display of His glory. II. God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases. There was no metaphysical “necessity” to create; it was a free action of God. I realized this demonstrates a lack of trust in His wisdom and sovereignty. And it’s in that context that – that we’re told that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. PHIL: Yeah. It speaks first of position (God is the chief Being in the universe), then of power (God is supreme in power in the universe). And I think – you know, I think that’s the thing that we should seek as the very compassion and tenderness of Christ toward those who are hurting. I determined the end at the beginning, which is to say that whatever God purposes is what will happen. And we chose those subjects because they’re the ones people ask questions about. . God exercises His absolute sovereignty in ways consistent with all His attributes. Whether or not God is actually sovereign is usually not a topic of debate; all mainstream Christian sects agree that God is preeminent in power and authority. All of us have encountered the disastrous results of doing our own thing. PHIL: Not to mention John the Baptist, lost his head over it. So the elect have to hear to believe. April 11, 2019 at 11:42 am Reply. JOHN: Go back and look at the story of Joseph and the wrath of men and selling Joseph off like a slave and how they could never, ever, ever have imagined or predicted how God would use that event. Sproul, along with Richard Phillips and Steven Lawson, unfolds the riches of God's rule over creation. You know, how could the evil things that somebody does to me with evil intention, how can God have a plan in that that’s good? JOHN: Yeah, then you’ve got to explain why things are the way they are. Yes, He did. PHIL: So it is my responsibility, and that’s why it’s a command, to evangelize, to proclaim the gospel. And I think that’s – I think that’s borrowed, the language is borrowed from the Westminster Catechism, but that was the first I had heard it and – and it just blew me away. Because that’s not the agenda, that’s not the purpose, that’s not the plan. I – I love the end of the book of Job, Job 42:6, where Job says, “I had heard of You but now my eye sees You. He could have flown. I repent for the sin of not trusting You and Your sovereignty.” And I think that’s where I want – I’m happy to live in the sovereignty of God with the suffering that is there. You have to ask the question; how does it affect God? When I – when you say it’s a heresy, I would say it borders on such a severe heresy as to perhaps have a God other than the true God. JOHN: Well first of all, Phil, let me say this. PHIL: That’s a good note on which to end this conversation. These are the questions that find their answer in Scripture. Few passages of Scripture reflect the sovereignty of God in election and reprobation with greater force than Romans 9:21: “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” On the face of it, this might appear unfair and arbitrary—as though God were playing some vindictive child’s game with the petals of a flower: “He loves me; He loves me not. The question is whether we believe it or not because it is definitely in the Bible and a lot of people know it and it frightens them when they read it. Third, in relation to civic power and authority, there is the question of God’s sovereignty in the determination of rulers and government. Then, you can test those general statements about God’s sovereignty with lots and lots of examples. If the power to save lies in man’s free will, if it truly lies in their unaided ability to save themselves, why would we implore God to “quicken,” “save,” or “regenerate” them? PHIL: Yeah. And at the time that the prophet was speaking, he fell over. Or as Habakkuk puts it, “He can’t look upon iniquity, can’t look upon evil.” As if to say, He can’t come near to it. Answer: The sovereignty of God refers to the fact that God is in complete control of the universe. Augustine and many medieval thinkers believed part of the mystery could be solved by identifying evil as a privation of the good, suggesting that evil is something without existence in and of itself. The Sovereignty of God, Freedom, Faith and Human Responsibility (Zondervan, 2018) by John C. Lennox (@ProfJohnLennox). PHIL: Yeah, and I want to get to that. Sovereignty of God – How is it seen? JOHN: Right. In other words, God’s sovereignty allows Him to not act—to allow—just as much as it allows Him to act. JOHN: It’s an impossible thing to say that God works all things together for your good if you don’t believe God is sovereign. I grew up in an Arminian church, actually –. JOHN: Well, it’s according to your definition of “fair.” I would have to say that fallen people probably have a fallen view of fair, and it would be a – it would be a view that assumes what is fair. In the year since then, we’ve done close to a dozen other Q&A sessions and we’ve dealt with issues like The Gospel, the seeker-friendly church movement, the issue of how far the church should go in adapting methodology in our message to the culture we’re trying to reach. We are held responsible for our actions and behavior. 3) When my kids got older, they would sometimes question me persistently about a decision that I have made. In God’s design, human responsibility is clearly not eliminated by God’s sovereign control over His creation. He had resigned himself to the “sovereignty of God.” ... Deuteronomy, chapter 28, should forever settle this question for all who believe the Word of God. The sovereignty of God can bring with it a lot of questions and/or baggage depending upon your religious context. So, God can “allow” certain things to occur and not be a deterministic cause of those events. Clearly, they are attributes of God. PHIL: Yeah, now it still raises questions that are very difficult. The devil is God’s devil. People can take one of two extremes in regard to this question. Was Caesar in power at the time of Jesus? Many are ready to concede that God is sovereign over the … What is God’s will for our lives? PHIL: Hmm. God meticulously planned each day of Kaleb’s life in such a way that He received maximum glory. These are common questions and they all share the same fallacy, right? Subject to none, influenced by none, He is absolutely independent. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”. Then the whole universe is a threat.”. There is a scene in the Civil War motion picture Gods and Generals that is telling. The question of our heavenly Father’s sovereignty is actually the question of whether he’s God or not. That’s pretty well laid out as part of New Testament ministry, New Testament life. You know, we can’t – you know, it’s a mature thing, I think, for people to get to the point where they realize that. The mission, passion and purpose of Ligonier Ministries is to proclaim the holiness of God The assertion of divine sovereignty is not without further questions that should be addressed. As the glimmers of dawn break forth, Jackson calls out to God, asking for His will be done. Sovereignty of God – How is it seen? Was Herod in power at the time of Jesus? And He allowed it so He could put His grace, mercy, kindness, forgiveness and redemption on display. He is never arbitrary in what He does or decrees. (Acts 2:23–24, italics added) God the Father sent His Son into the world to die on a cross. The first thing out of her mouth – she’s got tubes and wires and it’s horrendous – she says, “Oh, John, how’s your knee?” She’s asking me how my knee – and we began to talk, and there’s literally joy in her heart because as horrible as it is, young wife, young mother, four children about to be motherless and she’s going through the ravages of this cancer. Question: "What is the difference between God’s sovereign will and God’s revealed will?" The best one, though, really, was when the fellow who was to present me didn’t appear and I introduced myself. The – the assumption is the fatalism takes over and what is going to be is going to be and you forget that within the purpose of God to accomplish His saving end, there are freedoms, right? Like – like other things, we can know that that’s what the Bible says but not fully comprehend how that works out or – or why things are the way they are, if that is in fact true. You know, I don’t need to live a certain kind of holy life. And doulos means slave and kurios means Lord. But as to the truthfulness of it, it is crystal clear in Scripture. I mean, he’s not – he’s not driven by God toward some sin. The sovereignty of God has been taught and preached, largely in an abstract way—but little has been done to explore the applications of this doctrine for life, and (therefore) for counseling. Wow, God put him in. That’s a fine line of distinction. You know, I don’t need to witness to people. PHIL: Hmm. PHIL: Now let me go back to something you said earlier, which is – has to do with the dangers of maybe an overemphasis on the sovereignty of God or a skewed view of the sovereignty of God. But at its heart, it is saying nothing different from the assertion of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” To say that God is sovereign is to express His almightiness in every area. PHIL: Now you grew up in a Christian family, so you probably grew up hearing these things all your life. That’s what sovereignty is. We’ve talked about the doctrine of election, and most recently the problem of apostasy. Sovereign was a designation of the person who reigned, the – the single ruler, the king, the monolithic power, the unilateral authority and that is essentially what to say God is sovereign means, that He is the sole ruler, He is the sole authority. Answer: God’s sovereignty is one of the most important principles in Christian theology, as well as one of its most hotly debated. So everything that was going to be falling into the category of sin was within the framework of His purpose. When chance doesn’t exist – chance is not a power. But how sovereign is sovereign? — that always comes up with the sovereignty of God t think I ever heard the answer to.. Does everything the Bondage of the will as exercised, man has freedom in which He can pick poison! 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