D2-8: Has God Given Man The Free Will To Control His Own Destiny?

Let’s talk a little bit about the Biblical perspective of man’s free will.

In the secular world there are many different schools of thought concerning this topic, not the least of which is the burgeoning self-development industry which promotes the idea that…

“…whatever the mind of man conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve”.

…or…

….”you are ultimately 100% responsible for EVERYTHING that happens to you“.

Is this really true?

I would say yes but with a caveat.

Men do have free will over their lives…

…but it is still subject to God’s sovereignty.

Let me give you a perfect example.

Recall the story of Jonah and the wicked nation of Nineveh.

God called Jonah and told him to preach to the Ninevites of their coming destruction.

Well, Jonah didn’t want to.

He was afraid if he preached to them, they might repent and be saved…

…and that was the last thing Jonah wanted.

He hated Nineveh and couldn’t stomach the idea of a nation so worthy of destruction being saved.

So what did Jonah do?

He exercised his free will and fled from God and the mission given him.

However, he soon realized he could not completely flee from God’s presence.

Jonah ultimately found out the hard way He could NOT deny God’s sovereignty.

We may think we are in control of our lives but trust me any freedom we think we have is limited in degree to what God has given us.

Another good example is what the Apostle Paul said when expressing the frustration of being a slave to sin.

“I don’t understand my own behavior — I don’t do what I want to do; instead, I do the very thing I hate!  Now if I am doing what I don’t want to do, I am agreeing that the Torah is good.  But now it is no longer “the real me” doing it, but the sin housed inside me.  For I know that there is nothing good housed inside me — that is, inside my old nature. I can want what is good, but I can’t do it!”-Romans 7:15-18

This is interesting.

Here, Paul is telling us he wants to behave in a certain way but due to some opposing power warring inside of him, he can’t.

His freewill has been handcuffed by the power of sin so to speak.

I think this is kind of what we see with the Pharaoh of the Exodus  and Sihon King of Heshbon.

God hardened the minds of these men to achieve His sovereign purposes.

Pharaoh and King Sihon of Heshbon were not irrational or stupid men.

By the time God got done with Egypt, it was pretty clear to Pharaoh and all of Egypt that the God of the Hebrews was invincible and unstoppable.

Yet Pharaoh persisted in his stubbornness even though it made no sense.

The same went for King Sihon of Heshbon.

He was well aware his army was no match for Israel’s.

In fact, for every one soldier from King Sihon’s army, there were about 100 Israelite soldiers.

With odds like that, it was pretty self-evident King Sihon didn’t stand a chance.

It would have been a suicide mission to defy Israel.

Yet, somehow in some mysterious way, God hardened King Sihon’s prideful heart to achieve His divine purposes.

Even the Greeks recognized some sort of divine mind working behind the scenes of human history.

A common theme in their classic literature was that when events unfolded, everything seemed to be happening by random chance minus any rhyme and reason.

Yet, in hindsight, they intuited that there seemed to be some pre-determined historical destiny playing itself out.

The only thing they couldn’t figure out is WHO was pre-determining human history.

Of course, we students of the Torah know that human history is nothing more than God working out His Purposes through the free will of men.

“…working out His purposes through the free will of men”?!

I know that sounds like a contradiction and a mystery but in some unfathomable way, that is how God works.

So again, what is the answer to the question of do we have control of our fates?

The best way I can think of to answer that question is to say yes, but it is still subject to the the divine will of God.

NEXT TIME WE BEGIN DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER THREE