THE WILL OF MAN AND THE WILL OF GOD: Eph.1:1-5 2-21-09
Today I want to talk for a little while to do with “the will of man, and the will of God” so I want you to pay close attention.
Listen as I read today’s text found in;
Ephesians 1:1-5 1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, --
Some might be saying that this sounds like God is only going to save certain people, that there are some that can be saved and others that cannot be saved.
God is not saying that He elects some to heaven and consigns all others to hell. There is no scriptural doctrine of election to damnation any where in the Bible.
God’s infallible Word plainly states, Rom 10:13 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”
God had predestinated [predetermined] before there was ever any thing ever created that there would be a called out body of people that would make up “the Church” for His Son Jesus Christ. And God knows the exact number of believers to make up His Church.
He has determined it. This refers to the saved—remember that God never predestinated anybody to be lost. He predestinated us that are {IN CHRIST JESUS} vs 1- to receive an inheritance in verse 11.
If He had not predestinated us to receive an inheritance, because we’re in His Son, we wouldn’t receive it, God willed it to be that way, and we had nothing to do with Him “willing it to be”
Of our own accord we don’t deserve this inheritance. It is a reward out of His grace and not out of our merit. This is God’s will, and that is the only basis on which it is done. God has purposed it to be so, He willed it.
I’m afraid that a lot of people think that “man has a free will”. –Listen--
Man does not have "free-will," because within himself man does not have the power to choose between good and evil. –Listen, hear me out--That ability is instilled in man from God, God has willed for man to see the difference.
This is evident from the very fact that not a single person in all of the world’s history has ever been saved apart from divine grace.
God has always had to initiate and complete salvation for man. Not only is man unable to be saved apart from divine grace, but also even after he is saved, it takes divine grace to keep him in that state of salvation; if it wasn’t for the grace of God, every saved person would be lost again before he had been a believer for one whole day.
Man can not just “will” something and it come to pass.
For a lost sinner to say, “I will not go to hell” won’t keep him from going.
But let me say that just because man does not have free will, does not mean that man is not responsible for his sin, man is responsible, for he is a sinner not only by nature, but also by choice.
By Adams fall in Eden, man became a sinner; he committed moral and spiritual suicide.
Let me give you this little illustration; and remember we’re talking about “mans will & Gods will today”
~When I was in the Marine Corp many times we would get on helicopters and be transported to other places, and the side doors were kept open on both sides so we could exit fast, often the helicopter would make a sharp turn and as we looked out the door the ground would be strait down.
It was our “will” to get on the helicopter, and if any of us had suddenly decided to jump out while it was still away up in the air, there was nothing to keep any body from doing so if we so willed it.
But if some one had jumped out, he would have put himself in a situation that if he then has a change of mind, “or will” it would be too late, because he willingly jumps out can not change the fact that he made a bad mistake. ~
And so it was with man by his rebellion in Eden, Adam committed moral and spiritual suicide for himself and for all his descendant; and only an outside force can rescue any one of Adam’s fallen race from destruction. If man should say, “I will not inherit Adams sin nature, will not stop us from having it, all men now have this terrible blood disease called sin.
Satan tempts man, but it is always the man himself that yields to that temptation and sins. Therefore he willfully sins when he sins, because it’s within mans nature to do so.
Man cannot do otherwise than continue in sin so long as he is in his natural state.
Jer.17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jer. 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
John 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Rom. 8:7-8 7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
1 Cor. 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Man is not a sinner because of some out side force, but its because of mans own character which causes him to choose darkness rather than light.
He continues in sin for the same reason that a hog wallows in the mire. It’s his nature.
He continues in sin for the same reason that God continues in holiness. It’s His nature.
Just because a man might say, ”I will do so & so” don’t mean that it’s a done deal.
James 4:13-15 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 14Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
Man’s will or wants really are not a sure thing.
In Luke 5: we read this:
Luke 5:12-13 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 13And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him-
I’m sure that this leper wouldn’t have been in the shape he was in if he could have “willed” not to be.
-- Man’s will is not free as regards to his health, because no one would ever choose to be sick, and if we had the choice of the disease that we had to take, there would soon be none.
-- Man’s will is not free in his birth, for no one chooses to be born, nor does anyone have the free will to choose which home, nation, social status, or other circumstances into which he will be born. God sovereignly determines in advance, when, where and under what circumstances each one of us will be born.
-- Man’s will is not free as regarding accidents, for many accidents—sometimes even fatal accidents—happen to even the most careful people.
-- Man’s will is not free concerning the circumstances of life, we could understand how that God might change the plans of evil men like Adolf Hitler, but often God changes the plans of godly people when their plans are right and good, but he does so that His own purposes may come to pass.
-- Man’s will is not free concerning his intellectual ability, for all men would like to be intellectual giants, yet no man can go beyond the mental ability that God has given him at his birth. A natural limitation of the will of man is as much a limitation as any other.
-- Man’s will is not the deciding factor in the accumulation of material possessions either, because not many people is poor by choice.
The world is full of would-be millionaires who are withheld from being rich because God has not granted them the power to get riches. Often the most carefully planned business ventures become financial disasters.
-- Man’s will is not even free as a Christian, for of all people, the believer’s will is always subject to God’s will.
According to Romans 7: the fleshly nature still has such a force upon the believer that he often "cannot do the things that ye would."
--And Man’s will is not free concerning death, for few are permitted to choose the hour of their death, and also many would-be suicides are interrupted in their attempts to take their own lives, and they live on to be glad that they were withheld from their own attempted self-destruction. "There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death" (Eccl. 8:8).
And lets realize that man is not able to freely repent and trust in Christ of his own self, because it is not within our nature to do so; he is able to do these things only by the grace of God.
So for us to think that a man is freely able, just any time he takes a notion, in and of himself, to repent and turn to God in faith is not what the Bible says. That to is by the grace of God.
Jesus said in:
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day
Ø Man would never oppose himself if his will was always right.
2 Timothy 2:25-26 "In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will."
Ø What do we find in these two verses? Listen:
(1st ) The natural** man is taken captive at the devil’s will, and so man is only as free as the devil chooses to allow him to be, and the devil certainly would never allow any person to will to be saved if he could prevent it.
(2ndly) The natural man is unconscious of this bondage to the devil, yet this unconsciousness is self-chosen, because the word "recover" means to awaken as from a drunken stupor.
And so, man acts freely in sin, though he is unconsciously in bondage to the devil.
(3rdly) The only hope of escape is not in man willing to free himself from the devil’s power, but in God giving him repentance, and this He does, using the Word as the instrument of instruction and conversion.
God is always the reason for man’s salvation, not the “will of man”.
Ø God does for man what man cannot do for himself.
(1) The new birth: James 1:18 "Of His own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures"
(2) The sanctification of the born again: Heb. 10:10 "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all"
(3) Predestination: Eph. 1:5,&11 "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will...In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will" .
(4) Revelation: Eph. 1:9 "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he bath purposed in himself"
(5) Faith: John 6:29 "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent"
(6) The security of the saved: Matthew 18:14 "Even so it is not the will of our Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish"
John 6:39 "And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he bath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day"
(7) Deliverance from this present evil world: Gal. 1:4 "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father"
So from these scriptures and many more we can plainly see and understand that from a totally depraved heart such as man has, pure affections and actions cannot proceed.
Therefore whatever holiness there is to be found in any human being must come from the Holy Spirit of God.
The will of man don’t amount to very much does it dear heart?
