Featured Knowing God's Perfect Will is as simple as...

Exactly.
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What scripture are you basing that on?

 

God was completely sovereign in the book of Jonah,

God prepared a fish, a gourd vine, and a worm....and completely accomplished His will.....despite jonahs sinful rebellion.

 

Yes but although God accomplished His will, all that happened was not His will.

 

Yes it was.

 

Let me ask you this. Do you believe that sin is the will of God?

 

I believe that God HATES sin. I believe that God never tempts men to sin. I believe that God CANNOT sin.

Yet God has a purpose for allowing sin to exist in his universe. The purpose is GLORIOUS beyond words. He designed the universe knowing that it would come to pass in his universe. He could have designed a universe in which sin would never have come to pass.

I hate working out. But I allow that which I hate because it serves a greater purpose- getting in shape. So I will that to come to pass which I hate.

God hates sin, but he willed that it come to pass to serve a greater purpose.

 

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If you mean by "willed" He permitted for the possibility of sin because we are free will agents (free to choose) then we agree, but if you mean by "willed" he ordained, predestined, brought to pass, ordained, or even gave permission we are not in agreement. Sin is never His will and I can show you that in scripture. I would like you to show me where He willed sin or at least explain what you mean by the word?

 

God built a world in which sin would inevitably come to pass. He intended for such a world to exist. I don't know how anybody could deny that.

He had a purpose for a world riddled with sin.

That purpose was the glorification of his Son. Without sin there is no such thing as grace.

By saving sinners (something that could never have taken place if there was no sin) God can "in the ages to come... shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

 

That man does not truly have free will is clear in the Scriptures:

Prov 21:1 The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He will.

Isa 6:10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed. (Note – this is the 3rd most frequently quoted passage in the NT)

Ezek 36:26-27 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules.

Mark 4:11-12 And He said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

John 6:65 And He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

John 8:43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.

John 10:26 But you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

John 12:39-40 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”

Rom 6:17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,

Rom 8:7-8 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Rom 9:18 So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills.

Rom 11:8 As it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”

Rev 17:17 For God has put it into their hearts to carry out His purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.

 

But He did not build a world so it would be riddled with sin. There is a big difference.

 

He built a world in which sin would come to pass on purpose.

He could have built a world in which sin would not come to pass if he wanted to.

Without sin there is no Lamb of God receiving forever the praises of a multitude which no man can number of redeemed people from every tribe, nation, kindred and tongue on earth.

Jonathan Edwards said it best:
God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet . . . it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all consequences. . . . God doesn't will sin as sin or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that he permitting, sin will come to pass; for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he doesn't hate evil, as evil: and if so, then it is no reason why he may not reasonably forbid evil as evil, and punish it as such.

He also explained why sin is important:


It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .

Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .

So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.

 

That is men's teaching not God's. The bible does not teach any of that. The very fact that creation has angles that did not fall proves all that incorrect. They did not have to sin, then be saved to love God and they had free will as it is clear since some chose not to stay in their abode.

 

There is a song of the redeemed that angels cannot sing.

And the Bible DOES teach this.

The Bible repeatedly shows God INTENDING for men to sin (not tempting them, or forcing them) and using that sin to fulfill his own purposes.

Do I need to show you the verses or are you familiar enough with your Bible that you already know this to be the case?

 

:thumbs::thumbs:

The will of sinful men can be and perhaps even often is used of God.

Just one verse of Scriptures, illustrated in the life of many Bible characters, shows the validity of sinful men being used by God. God turns the heart of a ruler to any purpose He desires. And the heart may be as impure as the pharaoh's.

 

The cross was ordained:
22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:

23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

 

Yes you need to show me where God intended for men to sin.

 

I don't suppose you think a good answer to knowing God's perfect will is watching CNN? That was a joke. Seriously, I think you have a very good point, and we all have a tough time truly letting God do everything. Another thread I just read that reminds me of this is saying one good test of faith in the Lord is to completely run out of money.

 

For all those want there faith tested let me know and I will help them run out of money. :laugh: