PT-4 "The Wrong Understanding of God's Will" (Matt. 6:10b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/18/2020 9:13 AM

 

My Worship Time                                  Focus:  PT-4 “The Wrong Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10b

           

            Message of the verse:  “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            We continue with our quotation from “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer” by John MacArthur, and this section is very important to understand and to get right.

 

            “God’s will is that men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, but not all men do.  God’s will is done in heaven, but it is not always done on earth.  You say, well God allows those things.  That’s right.  But do not make the mistake of calling them the expressions of His will.

            “It is not God’s will that people die, otherwise why would He come to destroy death?

           

            “It is not God’s desire that people go to hell, or why would He die and provide the salvation that keeps them from going there?  He made hell for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).

            “I’m confident that God allowed man the choice to do good or evil.  I believe man has a choice; I also believe God is sovereign, and that’s another of those paradoxes I have to accept.  God has allowed sin; He has allowed the cup of iniquity to be full.  But it is not the expression of His will.

            “God is not responsible for sin, and He is not responsible for its consequences.  Matthew 10:28 says, ‘Fear not them which kill the body…but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’  That refers to God.  God will destroy soul and body in hell.  It cannot refer to Satan, because he is one who will himself be destroyed eventually.

            “Yet 2 Peter 3:9 says that God is not willing that any should perish.  God’s holiness, justice, and righteousness must provide for dealing with sin, but death is not God’s will.  He wept over the city of Jerusalem and said, ‘Thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent into thee, how often would I have gathered thy children, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.’ (Matthew 23:37).

            “God so loved the world that he gave His Son.  Why?  That men might be saved from judgment.

            “Why then did God allow sin?

            “That is a question theologians have discussed for a long time.  Lucifer fell.  How did that happen?  Did pride come from inside him?  No, he was perfect.  Did it come from outside him?  No, the environment was perfect.  Where did it come from?  I don’t know.

            “God knows. Lucifer sinned.

            “Then God had two options:  to destroy Lucifer immediately or to allow evil to run its full course.  I believe God chose that latter rather than have the constant possibility of another rebellion.  He let the uprising go full blast, and it will ultimately run itself out, like a comet that fades, forever dead and never to rise again.

            All eternity will be saved from another sinful expression.  God let it run.  He let it gather all the host of angels who wanted it.  He let it gather the hearts of willing men, all the while providing a way of escape for every man who would come to him.  He has allowed evil to run its course, because He sees the bigger picture of all eternity, but during this time when evil is running the gamut, it is not by any stretch of the imagination the will of God.

            “It fits within His tolerance only in order that it may be destroyed.  So you cannot say everything is God’ will.  Such a statement is simplistic.

            “There are also some who pray, ‘Thy will be done,’ with theological reservations.  To them it’s theology, simply God’s doing what He’s doing because He runs everything and it’s all cut and dried.  No pleading, no intensity, no passion.  I can’t honestly say I ever met anybody who really took this hard line who had much of a prayer life.

            “I wonder if that attitude can every bring about a heart like David’s who said, ‘O how I love thy law!’ (Psalm 119:97).

            “When we say, ‘Ty will be done,’ we are not factually affirming theology with indifference.  We have a responsibility to be personally involved.

            “In Luke 18, Jesus was trying to teach that men ought always to pray and not to faint.  In other words, you don’t want to just stop praying—you don’t want to become weary, lose heart, or become indifferent.  And then He tells a story:

            “There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man.  And there was a widow in the city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.’

            “She had been wronged, and she wanted the king to mete out justice.  He would not do it for a while, ‘but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’

            “He was so sick of hearing the woman; he was going to do what she asked just to get rid of her.  If an unjust judge will give justice to a badgering woman, what will a just, loving, righteous, caring Father God give to His children? 

            “The parallel Jesus drew was obviously not between God and the Judge, because there is no parallel at all, but between the widow and the petitioner.  The woman refused to accept an unjust situation, and she persisted with her case.”

 

            Now the following paragraph in this quotation is the answer that I was seeking when I wanted to know how to pray for the ongoing election in our country:

 

            “That is a good word for us.  We have a right to refuse to accept certain situations in the world.  We have a right to refuse to accept the way things are, and to pray persistently that God would do them the way they ought to be done.”  The more I find out about this election the more I am understanding that it was the most crooked election that has ever happened in our countries history and I will pray the way this paragraph has said as I have “a right to refuse to accept the way things are, and to pray persistently that God would do them the way they ought to be done.”

 

            “I believe praying in this way is an act of rebellion against the world in its fallenness.  It is a rebellion against accepting as normal what is pervasively abnormal.  It is rebellion against the usurper and against every agenda and scheme and interpretation and deed and word and movement at odds with the will of God.

            “We literally have to assault the gates of heaven. We will not stand by and let our theology and our passive resignation or our resentment assign it all to God’s will.

            “It is not God’s preference.  We must pray, ‘Thy will be done in earth,’ because it is not being done on earth.

            “Jesus never accepted the status quo.  He didn’t say, ‘Oh, well, the cross, it’s’ Your will.’  He said in effect, ‘Father, does it have to be this way?  I rebel against this sinfulness.  I rebel against the power of sin to take My life.  I rebel against the necessity for bearing sin.  I rebel against these things that violate the sanctity of Your holy universe.’

            “He was in the midst of His rebellion against the fallenness of the world, and the disciples were sleeping.

            “How about your prayer life?  Are you praying, ‘Thy will be done in earth,’ because you feel you have no choice?  Are you indifferent due to your theology?

            “There are better reasons to pray, ‘Thy will be done.’”

 

            In my conclusion I certainly believe it was the will of the Father for Jesus to die on the cross for the world as John 3:16 tells us, however I certainly can see the humanness of Jesus as this was the weakest moment of His life as He prayed in the garden.  After all He was human and He was God, and I can’t explain that either.

 

11/18/2020 10:26 AM