THE WILL OF GOD BY LIGONIER MINISTRIES [DEVOTION OF THE WEEK ~ SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 28, 2014 TO SATURDAY OCTOBER 4, 2014]

INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/will-god/

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”- Deuteronomy 29:29

Martin Luther, the driving personality of the Protestant Reformation, made several distinctions that we continue to follow today. One of these is the distinction between God hidden and God revealed. Luther’s desire was to convey a specific truth with this distinction, namely, that if we are to know the Lord, the Lord must reveal Himself to us. But in revealing Himself, God does not reveal everything there is to know about Him. He keeps part of Himself hidden, whether because we could not comprehend what He keeps hidden or because He simply chooses to exercise His sovereign freedom and not tell us certain things.

Deuteronomy 29:29 provides the essential biblical teaching that underlies this distinction. In this passage, Moses tells the Israelites that there are some things that are secret and belong only to “the Lord our God.” Certain realities are for our Creator—and only our Creator—to know. At the same time, God has condescended to mankind in order to reveal to us certain truths about His character and plan. These truths are for us to know forever.

This passage indicates that the Lord has two wills—one hidden and one revealed. God’s hidden will (also known as His decretive will, will of decree, or absolute will) includes all that He has ordained. His will of decree establishes every event in history, every thought and intention of every person, everything that ever happens. This will extends even to the ordination of evil, for the Lord works out everything according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). Importantly, not everything that God ordains in His hidden will is in itself pleasing to Him. Considered in themselves, He hates the evils He ordains, but He ordains them in order to overcome evil and achieve a greater good that does please Him (Rom. 8:28).

God’s revealed will is also known as His will of precept or preceptive will. This will tells us what the Lord finds pleasing. Chiefly, the revealed will of God is His moral law. When Scripture calls us to do the will of the Lord, it is this will that is in view. We cannot know His hidden will except in retrospect. We can look back in history and know what was part of the Lord’s hidden, or decretive, will up until this point because God’s decretive will always comes to pass. Whatever happens in history manifests what He ordained in His sovereign but hidden will. Yet we are not called to seek out this hidden will, which we cannot know in advance anyway because God hides it from us. Instead, we are to live by what the Lord has revealed in His preceptive will. As we obey His commandments, we please our Creator.Š

Coram Deo

The distinction between God’s hidden will and His revealed will gives us a great deal of freedom. We do not have to worry about His hidden will, because we cannot know it anyway. But as long as we seek to obey His revealed will, we may freely do whatever is in accordance with this will. If, for example, we are presented with two choices for work and both of them do not entail sin, we can choose whichever job we like better without worrying that we are displeasing the Lord.

Passages for Further Study

Job 12
Psalm 119:17-24
Isaiah 40:12-14
1 John 2:17

PSALM 51 [BIBLE VERSE OF THE WEEK ~ SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 TO SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2014]

 

Psalm 51:10 [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.smileforsophie.com/a-clean-heart-northwest-ar-photographer/]

Psalm 51 New King James Version (NKJV)

A Prayer of Repentance

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

51 Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.

² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me.

⁴ Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight—
That You may be found just when You speak,^[a]
And blameless when You judge.

⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.

⁶ Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

⁸ Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.

⁹ Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

¹¹ Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

¹³ Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners shall be converted to You.

¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
The God of my salvation,
And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.

¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.

¹⁶ For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.

¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.

¹⁸ Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion;
Build the walls of Jerusalem.

¹⁹ Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
With burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD [QUOTE]

 

Men are tending to materialism. Houses, lands, and worldly goods attract their attention, and as a mirage lure them on to death. Christianity, on the other hand leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens... Let me urge you to follow Him, not as the Nazarene, the Man of Galilee, the carpenter's son, but as the ever living spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity. - James A. Garfield

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1336415]

 

Official White House portrait of James Garfield

QUOTE: "Men are tending to materialism. Houses, lands, and worldly goods attract their attention, and as a mirage lure them on to death. Christianity, on the other hand leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens. Christianity teaches that the converted are to receive the Holy Spirit. That they are sealed by it and changed by it into the image of God. To assist men in understanding the spiritual, a few material ordinances are still needed. Baptism, as an ordinance derives its efficacy from God. Jesus commanded it. It brings the trusting soul into the death of Christ. Its ends are spiritual good, and it shows to men and angels that the man's spirit is obedient to the will of Christ. The Lord's supper is an ordinance through which our weak conceptions can be raised up to the spiritual Christ. In this simple 'in memoriam' we not only declare our faith in the Christ of the past but in the present, who is alive forever more. Let me urge you to follow Him, not as the Nazarene, the Man of Galilee, the carpenter's son, but as the ever living spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity." (John 16:7)

AUTHOR: James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) served as the 20th President of the United States (1881), after completing nine consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1863–81). Garfield's accomplishments as President included a controversial resurgence of Presidential authority above Senatorial courtesy in executive appointments; energizing U.S. naval power; and purging corruption in the Post Office Department. Garfield made notable diplomatic and judiciary appointments, including a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Garfield appointed several African-Americans to prominent federal positions.

Garfield was raised in humble circumstances on an Ohio farm by his widowed mother and elder brother, next door to their cousins, the Boyntons, with whom he remained very close. He worked at many jobs to finance his higher education at Williams College, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1856.

A year later, Garfield entered politics as a Republican, after campaigning for the party's antislavery platform in Ohio. He married Lucretia Rudolph in 1858 and, in 1860, was admitted to practice law while serving as an Ohio State Senator (1859–1861). Garfield opposed Confederate secession, served as a Major General in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh and Chickamauga. He was first elected to Congress in 1862 as Representative of the 19th District of Ohio.

Throughout Garfield's extended Congressional service after the Civil War, he fervently opposed the Greenback, and gained a reputation as a skilled orator. He was Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee and the Appropriations Committee and a member of the Ways and Means Committee. Garfield initially agreed with Radical Republican views regarding Reconstruction, then favored a moderate approach for civil rights enforcement for Freedmen. In 1880, the Ohio legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate; in that same year, the leading Republican presidential contenders – Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine and John Sherman – failed to garner the requisite support at their convention. Garfield became the party's compromise nominee for the 1880 Presidential Election and successfully campaigned to defeat Democrat Winfield Hancock in the election. He is thus far the only sitting Representative to have been elected to the presidency.

Garfield's presidency lasted just 200 days—from March 4, 1881, until his death on September 19, 1881, as a result of being shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881. Only William Henry Harrison's presidency, of 31 days, was shorter. Garfield was the second of four United States Presidents who were assassinated. President Garfield advocated a bi-metal monetary system, agricultural technology, an educated electorate, and civil rights for African-Americans. He proposed substantial civil service reform, eventually passed by Congress in 1883 and signed into law by his successor, Chester A. Arthur, as the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.