Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple, Spotify, and those of you enjoying this on our video podcast format here on YouTube. On today's episode, we're continuing our study on God's will. Last time we came to understand and appreciate the truth that God does what he wants. But there's so much more to learn, so much more to understand, and a lot to embrace on this topic. So don't forget humility is required. That's what we looked at last time, as one of the most important characteristics when we come to such a Mount Everest topic like God's will. This episode is titled God's Decretive Will. Some will say decorative. I am with theologians who call it his decretive will. The reason for that, the root idea here is decree. It's one of the first two types of wills, if you will, that we're going to dig into over the next two episodes. And I want to unpack these from scripture. You've got some other different aspects of God's will or different angles. But overall, if you understand God's decretive will or his will of decree in this episode, and then God's revealed will, which we'll get to in another episode, you are going to have a great handle on the will of God. To get us heading in the right direction and even give you some insight into where we're going, I want you to watch or listen, if you're on Spotify or Apple, to this three-minute clip from R. C. Sproul as he helps us stay in biblical balance when it comes to God's will. Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01And it would be nice to say that if you wanted to know which the text was, which kind of the will of God the text was speaking of in a given situation, we look in the Greek and we say, well, if it's one word, it's that meaning. If it's the other word, it's the other meaning. Unfortunately, those two words are often used interchangeably, so that doesn't help. But from the context of Scripture, we do distinguish among several different uh words with respect to the will of God. For example, we speak of his sovereign efficacious will, and we define that as that will which comes to pass by necessity from the very force of God's exercising that will. Sometimes we refer to that as the decretive will, for whatever God decrees necessarily by the force of his sovereignty comes to pass. But then we distinguish also the preceptive will of God. This is where God reveals to us the commandments that he gives that he wants us to obey. But the very fact that God commands us to love him with all of our heart is not a sovereign, efficacious act of his will, where we would automatically love him with all of our hearts. That is to say, we can resist and disobey. In fact, we do disobey the precept of will all the time. And then we talk about the will of desire or his effective will, what it has to do with God's disposition, that it doesn't please him to send the uh wicked to hell. He takes no delight in the death of the wicked in the sense of a gleeful enjoyment of their uh uh negative uh outcome. Nevertheless, he still decrees or commands these people to be punished. And so, and there are other nuances of the will of God that we can find in the New Testament, but those are the three most uh significant and most frequently used. A passage you hear all the time in discussion is that one that uh Peter uses when he says, God is not willing that any should perish. What does that mean? Well, if it's a sovereign efficacious will, then what? No one would perish, or at least no one in the category of any, of which he's described. I hear that passage. God is not willing that any should perish. I first ask, any what? Any grasshoppers, any orangutans, any human beings? Well, if you want to find uh the answer to that, you look for the antecedent of the word, and it's the word us. God is not willing that any of us should perish. So if that's the case, then I would assume that's the sovereign will of God. If it means not any person, then the text proves too much. It would mean that God is sovereignly decreeing that nobody perishes, and if that's the case, no one would perish. And so it gets very complicated when you get to the individual text. But the individual text has to be interpreted by the immediate context of the text and the context of the rest of Scripture before we land definitively on which particular view of the will of God is is uh is being used.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's such helpful truth from Sprohl. Really good definitions there, and you can really catch the balance as he walks you through the differences, even some of the tensions that we are supposed to remain in as humans. We can know a great amount of God's will, but there's still some things that are gonna be too lofty for our finite minds. But here and now, let's get into God's decreative will. First, what is God's decreed of will? Maybe you've heard of it before, maybe not. Theologians also call this God's secret will. His decreed will or his sovereign will is that which he has decreed will happen. This is from eternity past all the way to eternity future. God has decreed that things will happen. Some people will call it his secret will because, well, it's for God to know. It's linked to his omniscience, that is that he's all knowing, his omnipotence, that is that he's all powerful, his eternality, which is that God was not created. He was even before time began. He is and has been the I am. This is also linked to his immutability in that he does not change. What he has decreed, he will do. You can take that to the bank and trust it. So that's sort of some foundational information on God's decree of will. We don't know all of this will. We don't know every event that it's linked to. Scripture speaks very obviously about this will, and so let me walk you through several truths. The first, number one, nobody can stop it. Nobody can stop God's will of decree. It involves events that are ordained and destined. Of course, salvation falls under this category. If you believe John 10, 16, when Jesus says, I have more sheep who are not of this fold, I must bring them. Meaning, his work on the cross is going to buy his people, bring in the Gentiles. They're going to be saved. Nothing could stop the cross. Nothing could stop what God had decreed through the cross and what Christ would accomplish. His decreed of will is seen in world events that are unfolding according to his plans. I love Daniel chapter 4, verse 35. It declares, All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does, meaning God, according to his will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, What have you done? What is Daniel saying? Well, he's declaring, no one can stop what God has decreed. God's decreed of will is also linked to your appointed time of death, as he knows the number of our days. Job 14, verse 5 says, Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and his limits you have set so that he cannot pass. The Bible teaches that no one dies before their time, as well-intentioned people may say, Oh, they died before their time. No, there may be accidents with us, but there are no accidents with God. He's not in heaven surprised or overwhelmed. He's not caught off guard by any event, whether good or bad, even if we're caught off guard by it. He has numbered our days. He knows the hairs on our head. He even knows in the midst of tragedy what is going to happen because of these events. He could have stopped it. He is still near. He is caring. He is loving, and yet he's working all things according to his definition of good, even if that's not how we define good all the time. We can trust his will. His ways are above our own. He knows what he's doing. God's decree of will is what we know to be as divine appointments, as some people like to call them. They'll say it just feels like God made that thing happen. Yeah. Events, people, trials, successes, opportunities, open doors, closed doors, changes, and more. All of it. All from God's will of decree. He is ordaining every step. To be blunt, God's decree of will is something you should know about, but not worry about. You can't control these things. So just trust and obey him. Do as he commands, stay close to him, and trust him. He is in control. The second truth about God's decreed of will is not just that it's unstoppable, but nobody can resist it. What do I mean by that? Well, God's decreed of will overrules any attempt to stop it by man or the devil himself. Listen to Romans 9 19 here, where Paul unpacks these truths. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Well, what is molded? Say to its molder, Why have you made me this way? No. Paul's simple point is no one can resist what God has decreed. He will do exactly what he has set out to accomplish and decreed will be done. Now, we're going to get into this more in a future episode, but people might say, Well, I disobey God sometimes. Am I not resisting his will when I disobey him? I'll say two things to that. One, we're going to dig deep into that in a future episode. But two, did you catch what Sprohl said in the opening clip? That God's will can be resisted in the sense that he's made his ways or his will through the commands of scripture known. And you can disobey scripture. So in that, you're resisting the revealed will of God. But no one can resist his will of decree. And so that's why theologians will delineate between God's decretive will and God's revealed will in the scriptures. Yes, his will is laid out. Yes, in rebellion we certainly disobey him. But again, we'll dig deeper into that. I want to keep understanding first his decreed of will. The third truth I want you to understand is it can be a secret. There are things that are revealed, and we say, wow, okay, that's what God was doing there. Okay, his will of decree is seen in that that thing has come to pass. But also, well, there's things that you just don't know that he's doing, but he is. There's things that he has said are going to happen or unfold, or he has decreed them and ordained them, and you are the recipient of those moments. You're just not sure it was going to happen. Theologians sometimes call this his secret will because while some things are revealed, many are not. Here's some examples. When will Christ return? Why did that particular political leader get elected into power? Like, didn't God have any say? Couldn't he not have allowed that? We might say, why did God allow this or that? Why did he allow Adam and Eve to sin? What's he going to do in your life next week? How old will you be when you die? And on and on and on we go with questions that only God knows. Yet remember, he's not detached from controlling any of these events. The full extent of God's secret will cannot be fully known. You say, well, what do I do with that? Come on, Costi. I mean more than that. That doesn't seem fair. Well, remember, he's God, you're not. Humility. Slow down and be thankful. In fact, instead of being frustrated and letting your pride creep up when you realize you can't know the full extent of his secret will, fall back into humility and just praise him. Thank God that he's God, right? Thank God he's incomprehensible. Thank God he knows more than you or I do, because he is perfect and righteous, and his plan is always better than your plan or my plan. Point number four, it does not mean he is the author of sin. God's decreed of will does not mean he's the author of sin. Many people are gonna jump to the conclusion that just because he's sovereign and decrees things means that he's the origin and author of evil, that he decrees sin in a way that makes him sinful. That couldn't be further from the truth. We got to slow down and think about this. While God has a decreed of will, he's holy and without sin. So even in his allowance of something sinful to unfold, he's not the one who does the sinning, nor is he where the sin came from. Man is always responsible for his own sin and sinful actions. James 1, verses 13 to 15 says this Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. So where does that come from? Our own sinful hearts. James continues, then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it's fully grown, brings forth death. First John chapter one, verse five, says it this way. You cannot say that God is the author or origin of sin. People say, well, that just blows my mind. I can't understand why. But isn't he, and and you just have to rest in the truth that Scripture is telling you what it is. How do you reconcile that? Well, again, he's God. He's incomprehensible. How does he allow sin and yet he's not the origin of it? How is it that Adam and Eve sinned and yet God is sinless and that he allowed that? Did he do it? Did he not? What has he decreed? What is he up to? You have to trust he is God. That's where faith comes in, resting fully on him, trusting he is faithful. Some people will point to Isaiah 45, verse 7 to accuse God of being the author of sin. It says this in the King James Version I form the light and I create darkness. This is Yahweh talking. I make peace and I create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. So here's the thing. While the King James Version can be very helpful as a translation, sometimes English translators select a word that leaves the door open for a misinterpretation on our end. For the KJV's word evil, it's from the original Hebrew word ra. It's better translated as calamity. Calamity. So if you were to reread that, you would say, I the Lord, create or I cause calamity. It's different than saying I'm the origin of evil or I created sin. The context of this passage concerns God's sovereignty over natural disasters. So we would say this more accurately. God is sovereign over natural disasters, and he can absolutely send judgments upon nations through such events, and he's not sinful in doing so. Why? Because he's the very definition of perfect justice. If he decrees something, it means it's right. And all of his decrees are right. Leading to our next key truth, fifth, God's decree of will is 100% just and right. I love the Psalms for so many reasons. And we'll dig into one of them in a bit in this series, and we're going to get into the revealed will of God. But I just want to push this point here. The Bible is clear. Psalm 19, verse 9. The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous altogether. You say, Well, how is it right and just that people go to hell? Because God decreed that those who believe in Christ alone by faith alone, and all that is by grace alone, will spend eternity in heaven. And those who reject Christ, or they seek to achieve God's grace by works, do not have a grace that saves, and they do not have a faith that saves. That's a unbiblical version of grace and an unbiblical version of faith. They go to hell. We may not like the results. We may wince in agony over souls that are in hell, but our feelings must never lead us to indict God. What he decrees is right. If our Father decrees it, then we can say this is right. Number six, God's decree of will controls opportunities. We often want to control our own destiny. We want to make things happen. And some of that is reasonable since God gives us gifts to use, wisdom to apply, and a purpose to live out each day. You ought to get after it. I ought to get after it with what he's put in front of us. Ecclesiastes 9 10 says this whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might. If I've got a microphone here and I've got the word of God in my heart, and I've got people like you that I love and I care about, and I want to put out sound doctrine for everyday people, I'm gonna do that. I can. Now, whether it reaches two people or two million people, God determines that. I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna trust the Lord. I'm gonna just walk obediently, but ultimately he determines the opportunities. He controls that. And so we rest in that. You could apply that to your work situation. You're gonna go to work. You're not gonna say, well, God's sovereign, it's his will, not mine, so I'll just do nothing and he'll pay my bills. No, he's put things in front of you to do. But he'll control the distance, if you will, or the depth of how, uh, or the breadth, rather, you control the depth. He controls the breadth of how wide it will get. You just do what you are responsible for. Trust God with the rest. He'll open doors and close them as he sees fit. We see this example in a descriptive way in the book of Acts, with how missions work was happening. Acts 16, 6 says, and they went through the region of Fergia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. There's an example of how the Spirit of God limits or stops or forbids them from going into different places. He's controlling the opportunities. Even if they wanted to, it wouldn't matter. God is controlling that opportunity. Another passage, Paul is wanting to go see Timothy in Ephesus. He realizes that God may have some other plans at times. He opens doors and closes as he desires. And so Paul says in 1 Timothy 3 14, in case I'm delayed, I write so you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. He's saying, Look, I want to come to you. I really do. But if I'm delayed, if God has other plans, he's in control of opening doors and closing them. I want to let this get to you instead via writing. Romans 1, uh, verses 8 to 15, one of my favorite examples of how God controls opportunities. When Paul writes these words in his opening address to the Romans, he says, First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. For God, whom I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel as his son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers. He's saying, I pray for you guys all the time. If perhaps now, at last, don't miss this, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you, for I long to see you, so I may impart some spiritual gift to you, so that you may be established, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I don't want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I've planned to come to you, and I've been prevented so far, so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. Paul goes on to uh share that he's eager. In verse 15, for my part, I'm eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome. What are all these examples helping us see? God controls opportunities, his decreed of will. So don't be upset over closed doors. Trust him. Don't be overly impressed with all that you did when there's open doors. Praise him. He did it. His decreed will is working on your behalf. Sometimes that's going to mean slowing you down. Sometimes it's gonna mean he speeds things up. You go, wow, it just feels like there's wind in the sails. Praise God. And other times you think, oh, this feels like the Lord is keeping us where we're at, and we just need to be faithful. Amen. Seventh, God's decreed of will must be respected. Maybe you've thought of this already, maybe you've never heard this passage, but can we please have a James 4 verses 13 to 16 mentality when it comes to God's decreed will? James says, Come now, you. So let's just say all of us do this. You who say, Today or tomorrow, we'll go into such and such a town and we'll spend a year there. We're gonna trade and make profit, you know, we're gonna make some money, we're gonna do this and that and the other. James says, Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you're a mist that appears for a little while and then you vanish. You're a vapor, he's saying. Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. He says, as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Ah I think we once again come back to the foundational principle of humility. I've got to respect what God has reserved for his own knowledge, his own will, and that's his decrees. It's all for his own glory. If he wills, then we will. If he wills, then we will. That's that James mentality. And I hope and pray that through this episode and understanding more of God's decreed of will, you and I can adjust our language a little bit, or maybe it's just adjusting our attitude when what we want doesn't come to pass. If he wills, then we will. Amen. In the next episode, we'll dig into the second aspect of God's will. We're gonna look at his revealed will. As always, thanks for listening. Thanks for watching, thanks for supporting what we do here. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking that subscribe button below, or if you'd be willing to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify, or drop in the comments how for the gospel has been supporting your life and strengthening you. 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