1 John 2:24-25 – 24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.
As previously reviewed, we all have a free will. We have it before we come to the Lord and there is nothing in scripture that indicates we lose it after coming to the Lord. This is within the fact that God is sovereign. God will do what God will do and He has no need to explain it to man. God is both sovereign and He has a free will. Man often challenges the free will of man because he cannot understand how God could carry out His will if man has free will. To us, in our limited ability, we think that man having a free will is a challenge to God like herding cats is a challenge to man. Sometimes men, not understanding how God could do something, imagine then it must not be. Family, God’s will in no way denies His sovereignty. In fact, it glorifies it. Whatever God wills shall be done. If God, in His free will, decides that something will be a certain way, then it will be as the sovereign God wills. God has no need or reason to fully explain, or explain at all, the reasoning of what He wills or the how He will bring it about. It is not the duty of man to know why or how God will bring about His will. It is enough for man to know what His will is and to believe that it will happen because God is never wrong and God never lies. If God wills it, it is as good as done. Man believes what God reveals it because He personally knows God, and His attributes, and thus is convinced that all that God says is what God will do. Man’s duty is to walk within the will of God, not to understand it or be able to explain it. Now, graciously, God allows us to understand many things about His will. This is part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us. But we must always remember that God has no duty to explain anything to us. Neither do we need Him to. We are satisfied to, and in joy do, walk in faith as He wills. As we do, faith takes up substance (Hebrews 11:1). As faith matures we no longer desire to one day see Jesus, we, with spiritual eyes, see Him now. As we walk in faith with God, as we see His footsteps before us and the manifestations of His blessings behind us, what once was a wonderful hope takes on form and substance and the reality of Him moves from a wondering, to a conviction, to the one thing that we are most sure of in all that we believe and know. The reality of God moves from concept to sure knowledge as dry concrete moves from a dusty material to a solid foundation when water is added to it. Fly ash is also added to concrete to improve the workability of concrete and to add to the strength and durability of it. Fly ash also has the purpose of helping the concrete settle more fully into all the tight crevices and small spaces. God the Holy Spirit (water) touches the Word of God (concrete), and brings it to alive to us, He brings it all together for us. The Holy Spirit uses the fly ash of experience to make the Word of God come alive as we walk with Him. The Holy Spirit first opens our understanding, then teaches us to apply it our lives. Thus the power, beauty and wonder of God fully fills our souls with the Word of God and then teaches us how to apply the Word of God to our life. Family, those who are not in the Family of God, who do not have Jesus and thus do not have the Holy Spirit, gain little or nothing from the Word of God. Because they shut out the Word of God the life of it cannot bring life and knowledge within them. But we, having the Holy Spirit within, have the Word of God quickened, brought together, applied to our lives and cured to a solid foundation. Praise our God who truly has thought it all out. He truly is The Answer! Oh glory to God! Let us fall on our faces and acknowledge that He is the only One who is truly Good and who is the originator of true love. Oh the wonders of God! Even His trinity, in and of itself is a wonder and perfect unity that in oneness and in uniqueness, perfectly saves and keeps us. Praise God!
Family, one of the mysteries, and sure knowledge, of our salvation is the mixture God has of our free will and His sovereign will for our salvation. Men struggle to know the chemistry and physics of it. We know it to be true, but men have found it difficult and elusive to fully grasp. Yet we know it to be true. Even many who would say man has no free will (indefensible) are likely to grasp that not accepting the leading and testimony of the Holy Spirit, that rejecting the calling of the Holy Spirit, is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They would agree that one who rejects the calling from the Holy Spirit, is one who does not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Therefore they remain in their sins and are lost. Herein the part of our free will is revealed. So it is at this point, in the effort of some men, lacking the explanation of the mechanics of how God can do such things, they attempt to bring in their explanation, contrary to the Word of God, that God, by His sovereign will, condemns some men to go to hell and assigns some to go to heaven. They say, in order to explain what they cannot, that God creates some of mankind, most of mankind, to not be able to do what they must do to be saved. Then, though God created them unable to do what they must, God having made them that way, He curses and punishes them for not doing what they cannot do because He made them unable. Family, is that the kind, loving merciful God you know? Why not simply believe God’s word that clearly states that He died for the whole world (John 3:16, 1 John 2:2). Again, it is not for us to fully understand how God does what He does, what we are called to is to believe what He reveals as His Word. Family, we were born with a free will, had it before the day of coming to Christ, and have it still. It is not God’s will that we sin, yet we still do. So we, who are saved by Jesus, who belong to God, still sin contrary to the Word of God. So by whose will do we sin? By our own, of course. Not by God’s will who never tempts us to sin (James 1:13). Therefore we must simply never reject the work of the Holy Spirit and that what we have believed will remain. In that, our free will is at play. How God works that out, well, I just trust, and know that He does.
What is it that we have known, that we have believed. It is the Gospel. If we continue in the Gospel, then we have what God has promised, eternal life through Jesus our Savior and Lord. Praise God! Family, the Holy Spirit, not ourselves, redeems us. Our great duty is to hold fast to the Gospel and give the Holy Spirit free reign to work through our lives that Jesus may be glorified. The Holy Spirit leads us to Jesus. Jesus leads us to the Father. The Father has glorified the Son. Our God, three in one in complete unity, working in unison and individually (though they are united in all) saves and leads us home. God does that for all who are His. Now that is eternal security! Who is the fool but he who has “been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age”(Hebrews 6:4-5) and then rejects God? I have that answer, it is not us! We who know, love and cherish He who first loved us He will keep. Praise our God! Praise Him for who He is! Praise Him who has revealed Himself to us. Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.