Absalom and all the men of Israel said, "The advice of Hushai the Arkite is better than that of Ahithophel." For the LORD had determined to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom.
You may remember the story but when I read this, I was immediately reminded of the situation with Eli, Priest of Israel, when he was very old and how his sons were acting very wicked. He rebuked his sons for their behavior but they didn’t listen because it was God’s will to put them to death. God caused them not to listen to their father’s rebuke - no free will there. I wrote about this in Bible Truth #116.
The point in this and just about every Bible Truth I’ve written is that God is sovereign and He works in men to accomplish what He desires. He orders the steps of men (Proverbs 16:9), He turns the hearts of kings (Proverbs 21:1), He works everything according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11), His Word will NOT return void but will accomplish exactly what He has planned (Isaiah 55:11).
In 2 Samuel 17:14 above it was God’s plan that Absalom not follow the good advice of Ahithophel because it was his intention to bring disaster upon him. The Arminian may claim, “Well of course. He was doing an evil thing by trying to take over the kingdom from the Lord’s annointed.” That is beside the point. The Arminian always claims man has a free will and God will not interfere in that, but here is another situation where God does interfere and causes Absalom NOT to listen to good advice.
Is not God omnipotent, and no matter what Absalom “freely” chooses He can still bring disaster on him? Of course, but that was not God’s plan. One purpose of His plan may be to show the Arminian that there is no free will by intentionally and directly causing Absalom not to listen to the good advice. The Arminian may say, “That is disingenuous and pure speculation. You have no idea the reasons God did things the way He did.” Well of course not, but is that not one of the results? Does it not show us that God interfered with Absalom’s so-called freewill?
Absalom did not have a free will and neither do we. We become children of God NOT by human decision (John 1:13).
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