All language subtitles for Knowing the Will of God by R.C. Sproul - Dealing with Difficult Problems

Today we're going to begin a remake of an old indeed classic Ligonler series that was

first taped almost twenty years ago called "Dealing with Difficult Problems "

Before we get started, let me make mention of a friend I had in seminary who was one

was engaged on the side with an educational television studio there in Pittsburgh experimenting

with a new format of video specifically designed for children

This man's name was Fred Fred Rogers

In terms of my wardrobe for this series I'm taking a cue from my seminary classmate Fred

Rogers who always found it to be a wonderful day in the neighborhood

Well, we're going to start this series by looking at the first question or problem that

of spiritual things but I am convinced that the question I hear more frequently than any

other question from earnest Christians is
exactly that question

How can I know what God's will is for my life?

It's a question that is not born I don't think of idle curiosity but out of an earnest

desire of people to make sure that what they're doing with their lives, with their vocations

their careers their marriages and all the rest, that they be in accordance with the

will of God

Whenever I do get that question, "How do I know the will of God for my life?”, I always

answer it by saying "You know that's really not an easy question, because the whole matter

of God's will from a Biblical perspective is a complicated thing "

The reason for the complication is this that the Bible speaks about the will of God in

more than one way

In fact, it speaks about the will of God in several different ways

For example, in the New Testament we have two different Greek words, both of which may

be translated by the English word "will"

It would be nice to say that when you have the one Greek word it means one kind of God's

will and when you have the other Greek word it means the other kind of God's will but

even that doesn't work out because both of these distinct terms are capable of many nuances

of meaning

Sometimes when we hear about the word "will of God" it refers to the counsel of God,

or to the plan of God or to the desire of God, just to mention a few

When we look at it from a theological perspective then we get involved in the whole business

of making the fine distinctions of which every theologian has a license to make

One of the first distinctions we make with respect to the will of God is the distinction

In technical terms we talk about the Deus Revelatus and the Deus Absconditus

Now those are just_fancy words for these different concepts here

Let's begin at the end the Deus Absconditus refers to the hiddenness of God

We speak of the English term abscond when somebody embezzles the funds from the banks

The Deus Revelatus of course simply refers to that which God has revealed

In the Old Testament we hear the scriptures say "the secret things belong to the Lord

our God but that which He has revealed belongs to us and to our seed forever"

That is we understand that God has revealed many things to us through the pages of sacred

scripture as well as in nature but He hasn't revealed everything that He knows

government of the things of men that He has not chosen to unveil to us and they remain

hidden

Now so often when people come to me and say "How can I know the will of God for my life?".

I'm suspicious there and I stop them and say, 'Now are you asking me about knowing the hidden

will of God?

If you are I have to kind of bring you up short here for a second and say the simple

answer to the question of knowing the hidden will of God is A, you can't know the hidden

will of God because it's hidden

Second of all it's none of your business "

If God wanted to make it our business He would then of course reveal His hidden will

That's where Calvin once made the observation "Where God closes His holy mouth. I will desist

from inquiry ”

which in many cases was driven by people's desire to know the future before it unfolds

In fact this was an attitude of unbelief in the sense of the people were not willing

to trust God for the unknown future

Apart from what God did promise with respect to the future they wanted to be more specific

They wanted to know their horoscopes

They wanted to know what their destiny or fate was going to be tomorrow

We remember the popular song made famous by Doris Day "Que Sera, Sera"

In that song she says "you know when I was a little girl I asked my mother", what, "what

will I be?

Will I be pretty?

Will I be rich?

What will happen to me?"

Then her mother said, "Hey, que sera, sera

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Que sera sera

I'm no threat to Doris Day I realize that

(he line into dabbling with things that God has prohibited us from being engaged with

We are not to play around with fortune tellers and magic and occult practices

Second distinction that we find in theology that is often confused is the distinction

between what we call the active will of God and the passive will of God

Now sometimes these categories are stated in another way in fact a little bit more

technically in terms of what we call the decretive will or the permissive will

It's im ortant to jet a grasp of the difference between these two

of that will of God by which God sovereignly and absolutely by the strength of his own

power brings to pass whatsoever He will

When God creates the universe by the sheer power of his command through a divine imperative

He says "Let there be light" and the lights come on

Nothing can resist the decretive will of God

It is that sovereign will of God which by the sheer force of necessity, because it is

his decree that it indeed must come to pass

Now all that we need to know about the decretive will of God is unfolded for us in the pages

of sacred scripture

We know that it was by the determinant counsel of God, by his sovereign plan from the beginning

of time that Christ should come in the fullness of time and should give his life as a sacrifice

for us

That was not a cosmic accident nor was that an afterthought in the mind of God, but it

was part of his divine decree

He decreed it, and He brought it to pass

Now when we get to the passive will of God which is sometimes called the permissive will

of God, then we sometimes run into some serious problems of confusion

things that God does where He actively involves Himself directly in the affairs of men and

in the course of human history

Yet there are other times when God remains passive and allows as it were certain things

to come to pass

For example when He gives his law to us, which we'll talk about a little bit more in

a few moments when He says "thou shalt not steal" this is not an expression of his decretive

will that must come to pass because in fact people can and do steal

We have the ability to resist the commandments of God

Now, when we do disobey God and resist his will at that point, we can only do that if

He indeed lets it happen

Now the danger of the term "permissive" is really two fold

If we say that I sin only by the permissive will of God. it may be misconstrued to mean

Well He never grants permission for us to sin in that sense

hen we go to our parents or we go to our boss and we ask permission to do this and

o do that we're also asking for their blessing for their sanctioning of whatever it is that

we're trying to do

hat He sanctions those things or that He places His blessing upon those things

All we mean when we speak of the permissive will of God is that He does not intervene

to stop us from doing things that are contrary
to His law

sometimes think that because God is passive that He's utterly uninvolved as if there

are things that go on in our lives and in this world totally outside the scope of God's

government and providence that He remains passive he's a celestial spectator maybe

he's rooting that things will go well on this planet but he's helpless to intervene, to

stop things that are happening and he’s up in heaven wringing his hands as he's watching

the drama unfold

No

Remember that when we speak about the passive will of God or the permissive will of God

we're still talking about the will of God

It is the permissive will of God or the passive will of God

Now what do I mean by that?

Well let’s take a concrete illustration

Suppose you're walking down the street and you're contemplating robbing a bank

It is your plan, it is your will it is your intent to carry out this pernicious activity

You go in absolute defiance to the sovereign commandments of God

You're in direct disobedience to Him, and you're not afraid of Him at all but at the

same time we realize that if God so chooses He has both the power and the right. He has

the authority and the means, to stop you in your tracks

He can vaporize you at any second because in Him we live and move and have our being,

and we can't draw a breath of air in this world apart from the will of God

He raises people up He brings people down

Now if God is pleased to suffer long with our obstinance and our disobedience, He still

is exercising His will in a certain sense

Whenever God is passive or permissive He ; passive and permissive because He chooses

to be passive and permissive

In one sense I can't do anything apart from the will of God

from doing anything that I decide to do, if He lets me do it He lets me do it because

it seems good to Him to let me do it

He chooses to stay out of the picture

When God chooses to stay out of the picture in fact He's in the picture by the very virtue

of his making that decision

Now I've mentioned already the decretive will of God, and I want to speak of another

distinction that we make that's a very important
one

For those who are earnestly concerned about the practical application of the question

how do I know the will of God for my life this is the one we really need to focus on

because this is called the preceptive will of God

The preceptive will of God refers specifically to the commands of God. the precepts His

aw

This is the will of God for your life that

This is the will of God for your life that you not make unto Him any graven images

In other words when God expresses his law to us his law is an expression of his will

for his people

He is legislating His commands by which He binds our consciences and imposes absolute

obligations upon us

Now usually when people come to me and they say "How can I know the will of God for my

life'?" they're struggling with questions like "Should I be a butcher, a baker, or a

candlestick maker?”

They want to know, "Should I live in Boston or should I live in Chicago?"

These are the kinds of decisions that we wrestle with in this world and in this life

these things, and it's perfectly fine to be concerned about these things but if you really

really want to know whether you should marry Sally or Marge or should live in Boston or

is by searching the scriptures and by focusing your attention on the preceptive will of God "

Why?

When we look in the Old Testament and we see how the saints of the Old Testament also struggled

with these same questions where did they turn?

Where did they look for personal guidance?

What was the light for their feet and the lamp for their path except the law of God?

That's why the psalmists would declare "Oh how I love thy law" because the saint in

the Old Testament realized that the law of God flowed from His character out of His goodness

that defines not only the goodness of God, but also defines what is pleasing to God

If you're concerned about pleasing God where do you look?

You look at His precepts that tell us what things are pleasing to us

Well how can I tell by looking at the law of God or the word of God or the commandments

of God whether I should be a butcher a baker or a candlestick maker?

I can't flip over the Bible to II Timothy and point my finger down at the text and it

says, "And thou R C

Sproul should be a butcher"

No, but the scripture gives us wisdom and principles by which we are called upon, for

example to make a sober evaluation of our gifts and talents

We are not to think more highly of ourselves the apostle says, than we ought, but to judge

soberly

and in seeking and understanding of our gifts and talents and recognizing that all of our

That is, this is not something that is sown on the back of a silver lining in the clouds,

principles that God gives to us and the application
of those principles to our lives and to our

life situations

I knew a venerable bishop from Australia who told me the story of a young curate that came

to work for him at the Cathedral

One morning he came to work and he hadn't shaved

The bishop looked at the young man and said "You didn't stand very close to your razor

this morning

What was the problem'?

Were you in a hurry or what?"

He said "No

The Spirit didn't lead me to shave this morning

Every morning I get up and I do what the Spirit leads me to do ”

of troubling the Holy Spirit with all these mundane decisions that you're making every

day is the start living by principles, and live by the principles that the Spirit of

God has set forth clearly in his word

Why don't you just make it a matter of principle to be clean shaven and practice cleanliness

in your daily lives

Then you won't have to go through all of this worry and anxiety about what the will of God

is for you on that day"

You see it's a whole lot easier to try to fly through hunches and mystical apprehensions

than it is to apply ourselves diligently to the study of the word of God to learn the

principles by which we are supposed to live

Now what else does that do for us?

Suppose I want to marry Sally or Marge and I don't know which one I should marry

'm trying desperately to find out what the
will of God is

We have this thing in our culture in the Christian sub-community that says that God has picked

out just exactly the right person for us and that it's our task to find them

Well, maybe according to the secret counsel of God He has from all eternity, in fact

I won't say maybe I'll say certainly from all eternity that God has picked out the person

that He has intended for you to marry but you don't need to worry about that if that's

the decretive will of God

If that's the sovereign plan of God, you're going to marry that one

The only way that you could know that you're in the will of God is by looking backwards

anyway

Here you are in the midst of this moral dilemma trying to decide who to marry

Well, you make the decision on the basis of principle

If I have the option to marry a woman who is a believer or a woman who is not a believer,

the Bible makes it clear to me

I'm not to be unequally yoked and that very principle of not marrying an unbeliever eliminates

a whole lot of options

It may eliminate a lot of options of women to whom I'm personally attracted

to a non-Christian and that Christian will come to me with all kinds of anxiety and frustration

saying. "I don't know what to do in this case

I love him so much, but he's not a believer

I think maybe if we get married I can lead him to the Lord and so on

What should I do?"

I say "Are you really asking me for my opinion here or are you looking for a minister to

give you permission because you know very well what you're allowed to do and what you're

not allowed to do and you're not allowed to marry him "

It's as simple as that

God has given you his word here

He has given you His law

This person is looking for not the will of God but an escape hatch from the will of

God

He's looking to be a special exemption

I don't know how many times I've seen that in the Christian lives where people are really

trying to find a way to twist and shape the will of God to fit their own will

In a case like this it's simple

I saw a man on television once who was interviewed on a national program, who started a house

of prostitution out in the desert in the western part of the United States

He gave his story

He said that when he engaged in this business that he made an agreement with God

He asked God to bless his business and he said, if the business prospered then he would

return to God a certain percentage of the profits

He went on to say how gracious God had been to him by giving him a booming business and

now he was able to return some of these finances to God

in sacred scripture he would know very well that the law of God would prohibit him from

being engaged in this kind of enterprise

Often what we mean when we're saying "What is the will of God for me?", is how can I

get the will of God to fit what I want to
do

Well here's the good news the other side

If you make a diligent study of the law of God and you get the principles and you look

at your options and you say "Well, you know according to the principles of scripture I

can marry Sally or Marge because both of which are in agreement with the biblical principles

that God has set before on marriage " and somebody comes to me, "Which one should I

marry?". I say, "Which one do you want to
marry?

You're perfectly free
M

That's the liberating dimension of the law of God

That's why the Old Testament saint rejoiced in the freedom that he experienced that the

law gave him. because the law gave the parameters said you don't trespass over this line

You don't trespass over this line

In the meantime you do what you want

Just make sure that you're doing it unto the Lord and that you're doing it in a sense of

responsible judgment

Now we read in the scriptures something that is difficult, not difficult to understand

but difficult to apply when we're struggling with the question—what is the will of God

for my life?

The Bible answers that question in an ultimate sense directly and simply

This is the will of God, even your sanctification "

Let me say that again

"This is the will of God, even your sanctification "

If you know what God wants from your life He wants a life of obedience

He wants a life of sanctity

He wants a life of consecration to Him

That is the overarching principle by which eveiything else is to be measured

Jesus Himself put it in exactly those terms when He said "Seek ye first" and the word

that our Lord used there is the Greek word
"protos"

Here the force of that word "first" is not simply first in sequential order but rather

first in order of priority, first in order of importance

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness", and then what?

"Then all these things will be added unto you "

the kingdom of God and of his righteousness should be the main and central business of

our lives

If we fix our faces as flints towards that goal of seeking the righteousness of the kingdom

of God we’ll never have to worry about the will of God for our lives because this is

the will of God our sanctification our conformity to the image of Christ

What God wants what his will is for you what pleases God is your obedience

Let's put our attention there and let the rest up to the providence of God