Does God Will Everything that Happens?
God willed that Pharaoh’s heart should be hardened,
though that hardness was sin.
“When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go” (Exodus 4:21). [God speaking to Pharaoh] “But indeed, for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, that my name may be declared in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16). Pharaoh confesses that his hardness was sin. “I have sinned…” (9:27). (Note: God willed that Pharaoh sin, yet God judged him for that sin.)
“Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun’” (2 Samuel 12:11-12). (Note: Though God hates fornication and adultery, He is said to have raised Absalom up to do exactly that.)
“So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires” (Romans 9:18). (Note: Hardness against God is a sin, and yet the scriptures clearly teach that it is God’s will that this sin occur.)
“This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23). “For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur” (4:28). (Note: the crucifixion of Christ was the greatest of all mankind’s sins, for Christ was the only innocent person in all of the world, and yet these verses show us that God willed that the crucifixion take place.)
God is said to directly control even the free actions of men.
“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever he wishes” (Proverbs 21:1). (Note: If God does this with the King, then He can do this with any other human being, as well.)
God is said to determine even the roll of the dice.
“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”
“‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed” (1 Peter 2:8).
What man determines never comes to pass unless God
determines it.
“Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?” (Lamentations 3:37).
God is said to have made Nebuchadnezzar his servant, though Nebuchadnezzar was an enemy of God.
“Command them to go to their masters, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, thus you shall say to your masters. I have made the earth, the men and the beasts which are on the face of the earth by my great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to the one who is pleasing in my sight. Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him” (Jeremiah 27:4-6). (Note: There are many key words in this passage, namely made, “I will give”, “I have given.”)
“But [David] said, “What have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah? If he curses, and if the Lord has told him, ‘Curse David,’ then who shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’ Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, ‘Behold, my son who came out from me seeks my life; how much more now this Benjamite? Let him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has told him. Perhaps the Lord will look on my afflictions and return good to me instead of his cursing this day” (2 Samuel 16:10-12). (Note: The text nowhere says that God told him directly to curse David. Instead, the text implies that David understood that God told him to curse David, by the providential reality of his cursing.)
God is said to determine a man’s life, and also the length of his life.
“Is not man forced to labor on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired man?” (Job 7:1). “Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with you; and his limits You have set so that he cannot pass” (14:5). (Note: “If the limits of men’s lives are determined, men’s free actions must be determined, and even their sins; for their lives depend on such acts.” Jonathan Edwards)
“By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). “So then, it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Romans 9:16).
“But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing for us to pass through the land; for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to deliver him into your hand, as he is today” (Deuteronomy 2:30). (Note: Sihon’s opposition to Israel was a sin, yet it was willed by God.)
God ordered the sin and folly of the kings of Canaan in their opposition to Israel.
“For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them, just as the Lord had commanded Moses” (Joshua 11:20).
God willed Zedekiah’s rebellion against the King of Babylon.
“For through the anger of the Lord this came about in Jerusalem and Judah until He cast them out from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon” (Jeremiah 52:3).
God willed that the Egyptians should hate God’s people.
“He increased His people greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies. He turned their hearts to hate His people, to deal craftily with His servants” (Psalm 105:25). (Note: God willed that they hate His people, and yet God judged them for this great sin.)
God willed that Jacob’s brothers sell him into slavery.
“God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:7-8). “[God] sent a man before them – Joseph – who was sold as a slave” (Psalm 105:17). (Note: Though God hated the sin of Joseph’s brothers, He still willed that Joseph be sold into slavery.)