‘GOD DOES NOT ALWAYS GET WHAT HE WANTS FROM MEN BECAUSE MEN HAVE A FREE WILL
Free moral agent are under the law of liberty. More often than not God says the word and it is not done by men. Men rebel against God’s word and disobey His will. Men do not obey Jesus as the winds and the waves immediately did. While disobedience is a completely foreign and unheard of phenomenon in physical law, rebellion is a common occurrence under moral law.
This truth is known to us from our own consciousness and experience and it is seen abundantly in the scriptures:
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” (Genesis 6:5-6).
“And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:35).
“The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalms 14:2-3).
“Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me; There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god. I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.” Psalms 81:8-16.
“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isaiah 1:2).
“Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” (Isaiah 5:1-4).
“And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them” (Jeremiah 18:9-10).
“And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jeremiah 32:35; See also Jeremiah 19:5).
“But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 7:11-12).
“From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand… And they went out, and preached that men should repent… Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not…” (Matthew 4:17, 6:12, 11:20).
“But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him” (Luke 7:30).
“And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come” (Matt. 22:3).
“And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (Jn. 5:40).
“But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me” (Luke 19:14, 27).
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37).
“And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not” (Revelation 2:21).
And so we can see that in God’s moral government the law of cause and effect does not reign supreme. God’s will is very much resistible in the moral realm or in His moral government because of the free moral agency of His subjects. God does not always get what He wants from free moral agents. Men often disobey the will of God. God does not cause or force men, in the literal sense of the word, to do His will. Influence, as opposed to causation, is the mode of operation within moral government. God deals with men through the means of reasoning, persuading, pleading, striving, beseeching, threatening, promising, urging, commanding, teaching, enlightening, etc. These are means that are suited to govern free moral agents in perfect consistency with the moral nature God created them with.’
primary source: Jesse Morrell (biblicaltruthresources).
secondary source: Christopher Fisher (godisopen).
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