God made us for Himself. He made our minds for gaining knowledge and
understanding that we might avoid ignorance. Faith is a powerful force in the
life of the believer. It is an experienced and mysterious inclination of the mind.
Where faith touches the behavior of the adherent, though the effects are
profound, it is difficult to articulate. Now know this by reasoning faith. All
things that are possible and all things that are impossible have been
determined by counsel. And in that truth, nothing of God can change. Every
change that occurs is determined and the change is for our reasoning that
our faith may be that of Christ Jesus. This is the priceless truth of the
sovereignty of God. From the beginning we not import something that does
not come from the word of God. This matter is far too serious, and touches
on so many painful realities, that we dare not trust ourselves here to come
up with truth without being told by God Himself. God says “I am God, and
there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.” So the issue in this
writing is the uniqueness of God among all the beings of the ever creation.
He is the highest all by Himself. No one is like Him. The issue is what it
means to be God. When something is happening, or something is being said
or thought, and God responds, “I am God!”, the point He is making is this:
you’re acting like you don’t know what it means for me to be God. Reasoning
faith is that of God. It’s at the heart of His God-ness. It is He who says,
“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my
pleasure”.
God knows what these doings will be, long before they are done.
All of our reasoning faith must be in His foreknowledge. And the way He
declares His foreknowledge is by declaring His fore-counsel and His fore-
purposing. Which means that the reason God knows there will be a change
in anything is because He plans the change and accomplishes it. He
purposes them and He performs them and He takes responsibility. By the
sovereignty of God: God has the rightful authority, the freedom, the wisdom,
and the power to bring about everything that He intends to happen. And
therefore, everything He intends to come about, does come about. Which
means, God plans and governs all things. When God says “I change not”,
that which is a change is His determined purpose already known. Even a
repenting of what He thought to do is not a change to Him. But it is the
change purposed for us to know Him better by faith as we reason with His
purpose for doing it. Now, if that seems too complicated, so that you don’t
think I am expressing a private opinion of my own, search and reason with
other scripture purporting change to see if they were determined in counsel.
You ready?…faith in a God who says He changes not where the word says
He is a Spirit and yet a body of flesh was prepared Him. Now you have to
have a consecrated attitude, divine giftedness, a humble mindset, to accept
this strongly transformative miracle.
It is by reasoning that God affirms my faith. I believe that God, from all
eternity, in order to display the full extent of His glory for the eternal and ever-
increasing satisfaction of all who love Him, did, by the most wise and holy
counsel of His will, freely and unchangeably ordain and foreknow whatever
comes to pass. I believe that God upholds and governs all things — from
galaxies to subatomic particles, from the forces of nature to the movements
of nations, and from the public plans of politicians to the secret acts of solitary
persons — all in accord with His eternal, all-wise purposes to glorify Himself,
yet in such a way that He never compromises truth, nor ever condemns a
person unjustly; but that His ordaining and governing all things is compatible
with the moral accountability of all persons created in His image. I believe
that God’s election is an unconditional act of free grace which was given
through His Son Christ Jesus before the world began. By this act God chose,
before the foundation of the world, those who would be delivered from
bondage to sin and brought to repentance and saving faith in His Son Christ
Jesus. These are His called to election by and for His purpose.
As we reason, we may be overwhelmed at the extent of God’s sovereignty
because it is higher than our understanding. But by faith we will praise His
power and grace, and bow with glad submission to the absolute will of
God. We will see in the sovereignty of God our only hope for life in our
deadness, our only hope for answers to our prayers, our only hope for
success in our personal witness, our only hope for meaning in our suffering.
And we will know insistantly that there is a better hope. God has given us a
will. How we use it makes our eternal difference. The divine providence
orders and directs those things which to us are perfectly casual and
unexpected. Nothing comes to pass by chance, nor is an event determined
by a blind fortune, but every thing by the will and counsel of God. What we
have, neither eye nor hand in God is intimately concerned in and with. Think
about when we make solemn appeals to God for the deciding of a matter of
the moment which could not otherwise be at all, or not so well decided, God
must be eyed in it, by prayer, that it may be disposed rightly and by
consenting, and accepting in it when it is arranged, being satisfied that the
hand of God is in it, and that hand directed by His infinite wisdom. All the
disposals of providence concerning our affairs we must look upon to be the
directing of our lot, the determining of what we referred to God, and we must
be reconciled to them accordingly. There are no events so small that God
does not rule for His purposes. Let there be no man-exalting illusion as though
we are the decisive cause for a purpose.
God alone will have that supreme role. He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He changes events as they were determined to be changed for
purpose. And for our understanding of His purposes He calls us to come to
reason with Him, and for this reason, God gifted us with the measure of faith.
I pray that we know this: we will never be sovereign, but we will be governed.
When the nations came to do their absolute worst, namely the murder of the
Son of God, Jesus Christ, they had not slipped out of God’s control, but were
doing His sweetest bidding at their worst moment. The worst sin that ever
happened was in God’s determined purposed plan, and by that sin, sin died.
There may have been a thousand horrible things in our life. But if today we
are moved to treasure Christ as our Lord and Savior, we can write over every
one of those horrors the words “what was thought evil against me; God
meant it unto good”. Our reasoning faith is real. We stand in awe of the
sovereign authority and freedom and wisdom and power of God. We never
trifle with life as though it were a small or light affair. We know we are not our
own. We are calm in these days of great upheaval because faith belongs to
God, and by reason of His love He has given us of this faith.
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