Saturday, August 13, 2011

Bible Truth #194 - Acts 4:27-28

Acts 4:27-28
27  Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.
28  They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

The more I read the Bible the more I see the sovereignty of God in the affairs of men, both saved and lost.

King Herod and Pontius Pilate did what God had decided beforehand. The KJV uses the word “determined.” Did Herod and Pontius Pilate do what they wanted to do? YES. Did they have free will? NO. They thought they did but as Luke writes in this passage, God simply made them think they had free will to do whatever they wanted (exactly like Arminians today). But God worked in them so that the perfect Lamb of God would be crucified. Jesus even told Pilate that the only power he possessed was what God GAVE him (John 19:11). Do you think God haphazardly doles out power to people? No! He has a plan.

Just as He had a plan and a purpose for Pilate and Herod, He has a plan and a purpose for my life and your life. God, and God alone, WILL fulfill that purpose in our lives (Psalm 57:2, Psalm 138:8, Philippians 2:13, Revelation 17:17). We can’t help Him nor can we thwart Him.

On August 15, 2010 I heard a man say while standing in a pulpit preaching God’s Word that some people go through their entire lives never fulfilling the purpose God had for them... THAT is false, whether he was referring to God’s Elect or the lost. God is Sovereign and His plan and purpose WILL be accomplished in EVERY life.

Getting back to the Bible Truth above - Herod and Pilate were doing exactly what God had decided beforehand should happen. Although Arminians will claim it, nowhere in this Scripture does it even remotely suggest that God had foreknowledge of what these men would do EXCEPT in the fact that He had foreknowledge simply because He had ordained the events to take place (Proverbs 21:1). Luke writes that God had decided beforehand what would happen. He ordained it to occur, He DETERMINED that it would take place. He had to - Jesus was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).

If a man wasn't chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), he has no hope of being saved. (Ephesians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 4:13)

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