Broadlands Bible Church
September 27, 2023
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Introduction: In our initial study, we considered a definition of "the will" as an inherent attribute of God as well as created persons: our "definition" is, "the ability to make decisions that, when acted upon, determine a 'new' future reality". Because we live in a cause-and-effect universe that has, at its roots, the declared fact that if we sow, we shall reap what we have sown (
Galatians 6:7), the exercise of the "will" as the making of a decision that is typically followed by the actions taken by the choice made brings the cause-and-effect reality into play. Because of the omniscience of God and His infinite wisdom, He permits all persons to exercise our volitions within certain boundaries.
Then, in our subsequent study, we considered the "always attending characteristic of the exercise of the will": the presence of options. In that study we began with the observable fact that created persons make choices and act upon them throughout all of their days. No action is taken without the exercise of the will, but a great host of the actions we take are already pre-programmed by previous exercises of the will. The point of this is to allow us to understand how we function in respect to the "will" in harmony with the reality of "progress into our experiences of life". If this pre-programming never occurred, we could never learn from a given "option/choice/action", and we would be immediately stymied by the myriad of situations that require that we "choose among options" and "take actions according to our choices". Jesus' declaration in Matthew 12:36 indicates that, no matter how the entire process works, men are responsible for every word they speak and will be given the opportunity to explain why they chose the words they chose when called to account.
Then we considered that the "will" is revealed by Scripture to be rooted, first, in the "love" of the person exercising the will, and second, in the actual "power" available to the person to take the actions that appear to be suitable to the "love". This means that the "will" is subject to the constraints of the "love", the "faith" of the person making the choice, and the "power" of the person seeking to accomplish what is "willed".
This evening we are going to pursue this issue of "constrained choices". If we are not given a choice, we simply enter into the progression of events in time as those events unfold upon us as the choices by "others" generate circumstances that sweep us along. But, if we are given a choice, the choice we make will invariably be in harmony with our "Love System" and our "Faith System".
- I. With A Vast Multitude Making Choices And Acting Upon Them There Will Be A Vast Host Of Unfolding Events That Leave Us With No Choices.
- A. It is indisputable that we live in a cause-and-effect universe.
- B. It is therefore also indisputable that what "others" choose and do will sometimes sweep us along so that we have no "choice-control" over what we are going to experience.
- 1. Critical to this reality is the fact that the processes of "choice" are often subjected to a "time" factor that leaves us without the ability to make any choice at all.
- a. Illustration: A person makes a choice to drink to drunkenness and compounds that choice with the choice to drive his/her vehicle on the same highway that we are on by reason of our own choices and actions; then, just as we are about to pass the drunk's vehicle from an opposite direction, the drunk swerves into our path and we do not have time to react. We are subjected to the head-on collision without the opportunity to react. The pertinent issue here is "the timing factor": if it is long enough, we may avoid an impending event by reason of our taking evasive action, but if it is too "sudden", we are subjected to the event without any "choice".
- b. When Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3, he was writing of this "no choice by reason of timing".
- 2. Critical also to this reality is the fact that often the processes of "choice" are subjected to an "ignorance" factor that sets certain events into play that leaves us beyond "choice" possibilities.
- a. Illustration: More times than not, because we do not "know" what is going to happen if we make a given choice, we have no "choice" when the impending event suddenly catches us by surprise and we cannot avoid it: we have no "choice".
- b. When God told Satan that a seed of the woman would end up destroying all of Satan's aspirations and plans, God revealed a detail of His "Love/Truth" Plan that was going to pre-determine a vast number of eventualities which would bring His words to pass and the ignorance of Satan would keep him from averting what God had declared: in Revelation 12:12 declares that Satan will not "know" he is going to lose until he has too little time to come up with some way to escape (there are a host of examples in the Scripture that illustrate the fact that a person's ignorance of what God has declared will be causes him/her to make choices that God is going to overrule).
- 3. A third critical factor is the one that puts what one "chooses" into direct opposition to what another "chooses" and that outcome will be determined by which one has the ability to stymie the other's choices.
- a. This boils down to the question of who has the "power" to overrule another.
- b. This is critical because the word, "God", identifies the Ultimate Executor of Power and this "God" has made a great host of declarations of what He is going to do and will do them in spite of any/all opposition (there exists a vast host of divine declarations and each is underwritten by "God's" integrity and power -- no matter what): when the Will of God is opposed by the Will of Man, Man will inevitably lose.
- 4. And a fourth critical factor is the level of "deceit" that is present by reason of appearances that sway a person to choose one option over another (this is the false prophet/teacher component).
- C. It is this vastness of choices, followed by pursuit-to-accomplish that makes the "will of man" an extremely tenuous factor.
- ll. The "Constraints" Upon The Will Of Man, When He Has A Choice, Exist.
- A. There are a host of "choices" that will never be made simply because the man who might make them has "time to consider" which choice to make (What is Valuable?), "sufficient understanding" to direct the choice process (What is Believed?), and a "cooperating set of circumstances" to make the choice appealing (the Appearance indicates the possibility of success).
- B. Thus, man's "choices" are never "free of elements that sway a person's thought processes" in his/her making of choices.
