26 Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.
27 Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up.
This was a portion of Isaiah’s message of God’s response to King Hezekiah. Isaiah told King Hezekiah what God’s Word against Sennacherib, King of Assyria, was. I’m not going to put all the Scripture up because you can go read it for yourself. These are the two verses I want to focus on.
God is sovereign and He has ordained the affairs of men from long ago. It is beyond our understanding of how or why, but what the Bible says, I believe, period. This is regardless of whether I understand it or not. As Dr. Vance Havner has said, “I don’t understand how a black cow can eat green grass and produce white milk, but I enjoy ice cream nonetheless.” Revel in, and enjoy God’s Word!!
Did Sennacherib have a choice? NO! God worked in him to make him WANT to attack Israel. Sennacherib did what he did because he wanted to do it, just as Joseph’s brothers did what they wanted to do (sold Joseph into slavery) because THEY wanted to do it. But it was God working in them all to MAKE them want to do it. Joseph’s brothers intended his sale for evil, God intended the same action for good (Genesis 50:20). Did God make them sin? Of course not, they did what they wanted to do but God made them want to do it.
God planned (there it is again, God’s plan), God planned to make Sennacherib want to attack all those cities and lay them to waste. Just as it was God’s plan, especially because it involved the Jews, to have Hitler rise to power and murder more than 6,000,000 of them. Just as it is God’s plan in the future to have the Antichrist come into power and persecute the Church and Israel, and execute probably millions of Christians and Jews. God planned it and because He is sovereign, God gets what He wants, period. He works out EVERYTHING in conformity with the purpose of His will (Ephesians 1:11). There are no exceptions. When His Word goes forth, it accomplishes what He wants, every time (Isaiah 55:11).
He has the same “plan” for those He chose in Christ from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). He has OBTAINED salvation (Hebrews 9:12) for each and every one of His Elect. He did NOT obtain salvation for those He has not chosen because this too was His good pleasure. From the beginning they were created as vessels of dishonor (Romans 9:21-22).
What some fail to understand is that it is God’s sovereignty that makes them think that they had a choice (Philippians 2:13) - and it is for His good pleasure to do so (Ephesians 1:5). Me? I don’t rely whatsoever on what I think, I rely on God’s Word and the Holy Spirit to guide me to all Truth (John 16:13) whether it makes sense or not, whether it is logical or not. Everything else in this world is “our choice” so the Arminian is applying that logic to salvation too. Well, the problem is the Arminian THINKS he’s making his choices every day but even in everyday decisions it is STILL God working in him to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). The Arminian just thinks he’s doing it.
It doesn’t make sense to my finite human mind and I don’t understand it but guess what? I believe it!! Because that’s what God’s Word says.
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