DECEMBER 14 "DOES MAN HAVE A FREE WILL?"

THE problem with the story of Jonah is it causes many lazy Christians to form a wrong Theology. And that theology is, that God will bring to fruition his purposes for my, irregardless of moi. Irregardless of my stubbornness, irregardless of my rebelliousness, irregardless of my uncleanness, irregardless of my undisciplined spiritual life, in essence, irregardless of me. "Look at Jonah, he didn't want to do God's will, he was heading in a completely different direction and in the end, God got him to do what he wanted". And what do we say to that? We cannot deny it is true, we just read it! We cannot deny that God is Sovereign and that his will will always prevail, otherwise He cannot be Sovereign. We cannot deny that God, in being sovereign, reserves the right to "override" our free will when necessary; otherwise he cannot be sovereign. My son, no doubt has a free will and he functions day to day exercising his free will, but I, as his Father, reserve the right when necessary to override his free will for the greater good and purpose of things he does not see. While we cannot deny that God made the decision, "for Nineveh" to "override" Jonah's freewill (to rebel and not to go Nineveh) we cannot apply this to are lives and to everything in life. I am sure God has many times, without me knowing, "overrode" my free will and led me to make decisions that I was not even aware I was making, that were going to lead me to a certain place, a certain person or a certain situation, He wanted me to be in. That being said, we must understand that God does gives us the freedom to exercise our "freewill" even if it goes against what his permissive will would have for us. God allowed David to exercise his "freewill" to commit adultery with Bathsheba. God allowed David to exercise his freewill to murder Uriah. God allowed David to exercise his "freewill" to do these things that God knew would alter David's destiny and future. God allowed Moses to exercise his freewill to strike the rock twice, knowing full well in doing this, Moses would disqualify himself from entering the Promised Land, the very purpose God had was to bring Moses into the promised land, however, in God allowing Moses to exercise his freewill, Moses disqualified himself.  10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? 11  And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.  12  And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them."  God, from the womb had called Samson to be a Nazarite, set apart from birth for himself, but God also allowed Samson the right to exercise his freewill to ruin his destiny and ultimately commit suicide in the end. I have a problem with lazy Christians today who use the story of Jonah to excuse their lazy and undisciplined, spiritual lives; believing that in the end, it will all work out because God is good, He is Sovereign, we are not and He will bring his purposes to pass, irregardless of me. I agree, God will bring about his purposes to pass, irregardless of me. God sidestepped Moses and used Joshua to bring about his purposes. So yes, God's purposes will prevail, but God is not obligated to bring them to pass "thru us" irregardless of our attitudes and behavior. Did He do so with Jonah, yes He did and that was God's choice, He is free to do so. Did God do it with every servant He called in the bible, no He did not. This Theology that God "will force you to do his will" is False. Read Matthew 7:21 and the account of all those Christians who think they're making Heaven their home when to their shock and amazement they are not. And why are they not, the text says, "because they never did the will of the Father". Why didn't God force them to do his will, especially when the stakes were so high? We have to make sure that we do not use stories in the bible to form Theologies that are fitting for us. No theology should be formed by a story in the bible. We form our Theology by knowing the bible as a whole, by knowing God as a whole. People to this very day, are still trying to walk on water and handle deadly serpents and drink poison because of stories in the bible. God never meant for us to take stories from the bible and form doctrines and theologies of them, He called us to know his Word, from cover to cover and to know him and form our Theology from that.