Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
God permits the worst so that the best can come from it.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
God used Pharaoh’s negative volition and his arrogant resistance to demonstrate His omnipotence.
A break comes after the first six confrontations (plagues). When you get to plague #7 we read that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, which simply means He permitted him to continue to live and to continue to say no.
1. The demonstration of divine power became the means of releasing the Jews from slavery. This was the birth of the first priest/client nation in history. The evangelisation of Egypt was another result, plus the evangelisation of the entire world.
2. If God had not permitted him to live he could not have said no in those final four confrontations.
3. It was not until the 6th plague, however, that we read the phrase “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” The mechanics, again, of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was the removal of all restraints on his negative volition plus keeping him alive.
4. Pharaoh’s free will moved him, without any restraint from God, on a collision course with historical disaster.
5. Just as God turned the heathen over to their vile lusts, affections, and reprobate minds in Romans 1:24-28, so God turned Pharaoh over to his negative volition, his arrogance, his jealousy, his pettiness.
JOH 5:23 in order that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
JOH 1:5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
6. The impact of all of this is obvious. Paul is comparing the Jews of his day, the contemporary Jews, with Pharaoh. This was the greatest insult of all.
7. As Pharaoh hardened his heart through maximum negative volition at the time of the Exodus, so the legalistic Jews of Paul’s day had hardened their hearts through maximum negative volition toward doctrine.
The function of God does not rob man of his free will; he is still a creature of self-determination.
The opposition of mankind to God becomes a monument to the power of God.
God permitted Adam’s sin in order that He might present to the world the redeemer of mankind in the person of Christ - His work on the cross in receiving the imputation of our sins.
God permits the worst so that the best can come from it - which means the plan of God continues whether it is a negative period of history or a positive period of history.
“All good originates from God; all evil originates from the creature … election originates in the free grace of God; reprobation originates in the free will of man. To God belongs the whole glory of salvation of the elect; to God belongs the whole responsibility of the ruin of the reprobate.”
The highest freedom of man is the utilisation of the grace of God to completely triumph over evil.
Election demands adoption, therefore Paul’s great burden for Israel. The Jews do not inherit from God through natural birth even though they are the legitimate sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.