God's Will, Part Four
Notes
Transcript
Handout
God’s will is identical with his being, his wisdom, his goodness, and with all his attributes. And it is for this reason that man’s heart and mind can rest in that will, for it is the will not of blind fate, incalculable fortune, or dark energy of nature, but of an omnipotent God and merciful Father” (Doctrine of God, 235).
Let’s recap what we have observed so far.
First, God is Creator and therefore does what he wills.
Second, God sometimes uses pagans to accomplish his will.
Third, God calls humanity to do his will, expressed through belief and obedience.
Fourth, God’s choice demonstrates his favour.
Fifth, God is in favour of salvation.
Sixth, God shows favour to those who demonstrate obedience.
Seventh, God decides who he shows favour to.
Eighth, God removes favour from the unrepentant.
Ninth, he is unwilling to destroy because of his covenantal love.
Tenth, he is guided by his convenantal love.
Eleventh, he is unwilling to forgive those who forsake his covenant.
Twelfth , he hardens rulers’ hearts / wills to accomplish his purpose.
As I said in the last three studies, there is no one-to-one equivalent for the word “will” in the Hebrew language. There are nine Hebrew words that express the idea of “will”. The nouns are “ḥēp̱eṣ” - “delight” or “pleasure”, “rāṣôn” - “favor”. The verbs are “ʾḥāp̱ēṣ”- “desire” or “take pleasure in”, “rāṣâ” - “be pleased with”, “āḇâ” - “consent”, or “be willing”, the hiphil of “yā’al” - “begin”, “intend”, “bāḥar” - “choose”, “ʾāhaḇ”- “love”, “”ḥāšq” - “love”, or “desire”.
Let’s take a look at the occurrences for the hiphil of “ya’al” which means “intend” or “determine.”
The first and second, occurences have God as the object and the Israelites as the subject in Leviticus 26:21 and Deuteronomy 1:26.
14 “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments,
15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,
16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
17 I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.
18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins,
19 and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.
20 And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
21 “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins.
22 And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.
19 “Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh-barnea.
20 And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.
21 See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’
22 Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’
23 The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe.
24 And they turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out.
25 And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word again and said, ‘It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.’
26 “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.
27 And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.
28 Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’
29 Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them.
30 The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
31 and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
32 Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God,
33 who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.
Whose will is being spoken of here?
Why is the Israelites’ will in conflict with God’s will?
In Leviticus, Yaweh is laying out the consequences of the Israelites being determined not to listen to and obey God’s law.
In Deuteronomy we see that that they struggle with the pattern of unbelief which led to that generation not inheriting the Promised Land (Numbers 13-14). Here, they did not believe Joshua and Caleb.
It is interesting that these judgments have many similarities with the judgments of Revelation.
What should we do with our own will?
We need to submit it to God’s will.
How do we align our will with God’s?
We do this by believing God and then making the the choice to act on that belief.
The third and fourth occurences we are going to look at of hiphil of “ya’al” have God as the subject and the Israelites as the object in 1 Samuel 12:22 and 1 Chronicles 17:27.
16 Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes.
17 Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.”
18 So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.
19 And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.”
20 And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.
21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.
22 For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.
23 Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way.
24 Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.
25 But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”
26 And now, O Lord, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.
27 Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you, for it is you, O Lord, who have blessed, and it is blessed forever.”
In these two passages it is translated as “pleased”. The Lord is pleased with his decision to work through Israel as his chosen nation.
How would this apply to us as individuals?
I think of Ephesians 1:3-6.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Do you think the Lord is pleased in choosing you?
Do you think the Lord is pleased in blessing you?
Next week we will take a look at the verb “bahar,” where Yaweh is the subject. This occurs 129 times in 61 verses in the Old Testament. It will be fun, for “Bahar” expresses God’s will through his choice. We will ask the text, “What has God chosen?”
We have two things to recap tonight:
First, there are dire consequences to having a will in rebellion against God’s will.
Second, it pleased God to choose people for his own possession to bless and bring him glory.