Do People Have Free Will?

The Sovereignty of God and the Question of Free Will

Welcome, everyone. This last week, I preached a sermon entitled, What is the Sovereignty of God? Well, this week, I'm going to preach the second part of that sermon. And that is, how do we rectify the sovereignty of God with what most people understand as man's free will?

We've already looked at the fact that the sovereignty of God, as it is explained in Scripture, is the truth that God is in control of everything. That nothing happens which is outside of His sovereign decree.

In essence, as we said last week, to say that God is sovereign is simply to say that God is God. But again, when you say that, you often are met with an immediate and very quick question. Well, if God is sovereign and His decree is in control of everything, then how do we rectify that with man's free will?

And the nature of the question is built on two important truths. Man is not a robot. Man is not a puppet. Man makes choices according to his own desires. Yet God is sovereign, which means that He is ultimately and absolutely in control of all things that take place in the world.

So how do we rectify that? How do we rectify a creature that is free with a God who is sovereign over all? Well, it is an important question. In fact, it is a question which is actually steeped in historical significance.

During the height of the Protestant Reformation, a man by the name of Martin Luther, who you all know who Martin Luther is, one of my heroes. This is not Martin Luther King, by the way. Some people get that confused.

Martin Luther King was a civil rights leader. Martin Luther, during the 1500s, was a leader in the Protestant Reformation. He was a German, and he taught on the reality of the sovereignty of God. In fact, a lot of people challenge, anytime you hear them talk about sovereignty of God, they challenge Calvin.

Oh, Calvin taught this or Calvin taught that. Luther was so much more adamant. I don't want to say more adamant because they were both pretty adamant. Luther spoke so much about the sovereignty of God and election, predestination, all these things.

And people just say Luther somehow gets a pass and Calvin gets tied with all of it. But the reality is Luther was very firm in his commitment to the teaching of the sovereignty of God. So much so that he actually had a written formal debate on the subject of man's freedom of the will with a man by the name of Desiderius Erasmus.

And you can actually get that now as a book. If you look up a book by Martin Luther entitled The Bondage of the Will, it is Luther's responses to Erasmus' claims about the freedom of the will. And, of course, Luther gives the Protestant or the Reformed perspective of how we understand the will of man in regard to the sovereignty of God.

So if you want a follow-up to today's sermon, if you want to go home and put your nose in a book and invest some time, that would be a good book to look at because Luther does a masterful job of explaining the biblical position, the Reformed position of what the will of man actually is.

So this morning I am going to attempt to tackle this important truth. I'm going to attempt to tackle the issue of God's sovereignty and free will. We are going to be looking in the Old Testament because this whole series I've been trying to find, looking in the Old Testament for passages for us to study.

That's been part and parcel of what we're doing. And hopefully through this study, this message will clear up some of the issues which are surrounding these truths. Now, I do want to tell you something, and it's in your worship folder.

We do not have one text we're going to be looking at this morning. Normally we have one text to exegete, but I put various texts because we're actually going to be looking at various texts. But we are going to be beginning in the Old Testament.

But before we do, I would like for us to bow our heads and ask the Lord to bless our time of worship and study. Father God, as we come to you in Jesus' name, we ask, Lord, that you anoint this time of study, that you bless it.

First and foremost, that you would keep me from error. That you would open up the hearts of the people to the truth. And through this truth, we would understand that, Lord God, freedom is not something inherent.

Freedom is something which comes in knowing Christ. For as your word says, that we who are in Christ, if Christ makes us free, we are actually free indeed. And that is the freedom that we should long for.

Not some type of autonomy from you, but freedom in Christ to do what you will. We thank you for your word. We thank you for this opportunity to study it. Again, we ask your blessings on it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Human Sinfulness and the Limits of Autonomy

Alright, so we understand the topic this morning and we understand we are going to be looking at a few verses. If you want to go ahead and open your Bibles, we are actually going to start in Psalm 51.

You can go there. However, I want to give you a brief outline. I want to start your outline, if you are taking notes, with our first major point in today's message. If you are writing this down, I will say it twice just to give you the opportunity.

The first major point of today's message is this. Though people are able to make choices, we are not completely autonomous. Please put that in your mind. That is the first truth that I want you to understand.

I am going to explain it. I am going to prove it from Scripture, but I am giving you the objective truth that I am stating. Though people are able to make choices, and we are able to make choices, we are not completely autonomous.

I will explain what that means. So, I guess the first thing to do is define autonomous. Make sure everybody knows what that means because that is not a word that is in most people's everyday lexicon. We don't normally say that word.

So let's define what does autonomous mean. Autonomous means self-governing. Self-governing. It means a being who has the freedom to do what it wants, how it wants, when it wants, and in the way that it wants.

That is what autonomy is. And there is a sense in which man has a degree of autonomy. There is a sense in which a man has a degree of freedom, but it is not complete autonomy. The Bible makes this very clear.

The Bible makes it clear that one, mankind is sinful by nature. We are in Psalm 51, right? Everyone turn there, Psalm 51. This is where one of those verses which talks about the inherent sinful nature which we receive from our parents.

Psalm 51 and verse 5 says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Right there, David, who is writing this, he is writing this in regard to his own sin. He is writing this in regard to talk about where his sin came from.

And he says very clearly, in sin was I conceived. In sin was I brought forth. A lot of people don't like to think that today. In fact, a lot of people don't like to think about the subject of what we would call original sin at all.

If you guys want, we can just mute it. I don't really need it anyway. So if we just want to mute the sound system because I hear the buzzing. Yeah. Do you really need? Do I need a mic? I mean, it would just be easier.

Okay. Thank you. So, David is saying, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. I was born in sin. People don't like to think about the fact that we are born in sin. People don't like to think that we actually have a sin nature.

They don't want to deal with that. They don't want to deal with the fact that we actually have vestiges left over from the sin of Adam. That we actually, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2, That we are dead in trespasses and sins.

Not that we're sick. Not that we're somehow, you know, I've heard the thing, well, somebody's drowning and we throw them a life raft. No, we're not drowning. We're drowned. We're dead. It's not laying on a death bed waiting for somebody to bring us medicine.

It is dead in the ground, in the grave, like Lazarus was dead in the tomb. That's where we are prior to coming to Christ. Prior to having our hearts regenerated. It says,. And we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

By nature. There's something naturally wrong with us. There is something by nature which is limited in us. And by the way, this did not begin just with us. It goes all the way back, as I said, to our first parent, Adam.

When Adam sinned, the curse of sin went through all of his posterity. Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 says this. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin.

It says right there, sin came into the world through one man. And that it spread to all men. And in that same chapter later in verse 18, it says,. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. It says here, by one man's disobedience, we were made sinners. These verses tell us that we are sinners by nature.

We're also sinners by choice. Don't ever forget that. We are sinners by nature and by choice because it is our nature to choose sin. It's within us to choose it. We want to have it. We want to sin. You say, well, Pastor, you said you're going to be talking about free will.

All you're talking about is sin. You tricked us. That's the bait and switch. You baited us with the free will and now you're talking about sin. Beloved, why am I talking about sin? I'm talking about sin because the Bible says that we are slaves to sin.

And beloved, I don't know about you, but the word slave to me means not free. Oh, there we're getting back to the free will issue because the Bible says in John 8 in verse 34,. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

So if you want to talk about how free you are, I will tell about how much bondage you are under. If you want to talk about how free men are, I will tell you how much bondage they are in because of sin.

This is why Luther entitled his work The Bondage of the Will. You can't talk about freedom when you're a slave. You can't proclaim freedom when you are a slave. And the Bible says that our sinful nature is one of the ways in which we are not autonomous.

We are not free because if we were totally free, we could be without sin. But guess what? We aren't. Everybody understand that? If we were totally free, we could choose to live without sin. Has anybody ever done that other than Christ?

Has anybody ever lived apart from sin other than Christ? No, that's what made him unique. That was the big deal about the fact that he made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

The whole point was he was without sin. That was a big deal. Once had a person tell me, Well, I believe a person could be born and live their life and live totally without sin. I don't believe anybody ever has, but I believe there could.

That person was a pastor and he hurt my brain to say such a thing. It hurt my brain because that's foolishness. Again, we are able to make choices, but we are not autonomous. We are able to make choices, but we are not autonomous because we are sinful by nature.

And by being sinful, we are slaves to sin. Prior to coming to Christ, we are all slaves to sin. Now, number two, that was my first proclamation is that mankind is sinful by nature. Proof positive. We are not totally free because we are slaves to sin.

God’s Restraining Grace in Human Affairs

Number two, proclamation, truth. God, by his grace, restrains the sinful nature of men. God, by his grace, restrains the sinful nature of men. And hallelujah that he does, because if you think the world is bad now, and it is, but if you think it's bad now, imagine a world that was unfettered and free to do what it really wanted to do.

Imagine a world for one day, apart from the restraining grace of God. And you know, God uses all kinds of stuff to restrain us. He uses our conscience to restrain us. He uses government to restrain us.

Now, I know we have a lot of bad stuff about government. We can talk bad about government, but you know what? It's bad to have a bad government. It's worse to have no government. Because when men are left to live without restraint, they will do what is right in their own eyes, and they will do only evil continually, as was in the days of Noah.

So yeah, it's bad to have a bad government. It's worse to have none. And sin in the world is rampant, but it is nothing compared to what it would be if God lifted his hand of restraint. And you say, well, where does the Bible say God restrained sin?

I have a story I want to share with you. Go to Genesis chapter 20. Do you remember Abraham and Sarah? Abraham had a proclivity that he would tell people that Sarah was his sister. Because he believed that her beauty was so powerful that if anyone thought that she was his wife, that they would kill him just so they could have her.

I mean, he really thought a lot of her beauty. And from history, we are told she was very beautiful. And his fear was that if he went into a city and somebody knew he was her husband, they would just take his life.

So he would say, tell people you're my sister. Well, in Genesis chapter 20, in verse 1, it says,. From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. And he sojourned in Gerar.

And Abraham said of his wife, she is my sister. And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. See, Abraham made it worse. Because he said, she is my sister. Well, I can have her then. She is not married.

So the king sent and took her. Verse 3,. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife. Now Abimelech had not approached her.

So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister? And she herself said, he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I have done this.

Then God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart. And it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Then it goes on to say, now return her to her husband.

But that last sentence is the most important part. Because God tells a sinful king of a pagan nation, That I restrained your heart to keep you from doing what your lustful intent wanted to do. Why did he sin for Sarah?

Because he had a lust for her. He desired her. He wanted her to be his. He sent for her. He took her. But God restrained him from touching her. When that was his want. People always say, God does not interfere with free will.

Really? He kept Abimelech from touching Sarah. That sounds to me like an interference with his desires. With an interference with his freedom. Turn to Exodus chapter 34. I will show you another good example.

This is one of my favorites. Exodus 34. Verse 21. Go to verse 21. This is discussing the commandments. It says in verse 21. Chapter 34 verse 21. Six days shall you work. But on the seventh day you shall rest.

In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. You shall observe the feast of weeks. The first fruit of wheat harvest. And the feast of end gathering at the year's end. Three times in the year, shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.

Now, just before we go to verse 24. What does he say? Three times a year, all of the males are going to leave and go worship. As a group. When males leave, what's left? Women and children. Right? Right.

During those times when the men would leave to worship, the camp was at that moment its most vulnerable. Because all of the fighting men have gone away to worship. This would have been the time, because Israel was always surrounded by enemies.

They always had people who wanted to take what they had. They were always having to fight. They were always engaged in warring with the pagan peoples. This would have been the time for a complete slaughter.

If all the men leave, and it's nothing but women and children left behind, that would have been the time when the hordes would have come in and taken the land or taken the property or taken whatever, taken the lives.

Look what it says in verse 24. For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders. No one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. God said during those three times, no one will covet your land.

Tell me about free will. And I will tell you about a God who can keep people from coveting if He chooses to. Because that's what it says. Tell me about how free you are, and I will tell you God is more free than you.

And God is more powerful than you. And God can take a people who all year long covet a land and say during these times when you are most vulnerable, they will not covet your land. That's powerful stuff.

That's heavy stuff that people read right over. And don't even think about the implications of the will of man and the sovereignty of God in that verse. And there are many others that speak of God's active restraint over the sinful hearts of men.

If God restrains the sinful hearts of men, then that would mean that they are not absolutely free. Recently, people might say, why are you talking about free will? Recently I heard this guy just chomping away at Reformed theology.

He was setting up straw men and lighting them on fire, because he didn't have any good arguments, but that's what he did have, was straw man arguments. And he was setting them up, lighting them up, and burning them.

And everything he kept saying, free will, free will, free will. Just spitting it out like he knew what it meant. Beloved, we have to understand that the Bible on this subject is not unclear. The Bible tells us something about our freedom.

It ain't absolutely free. God is sovereign. Do we make choices? Yes. But are we absolutely free? I'm sorry to tell you, we are not absolutely free. We're slaves to sin, and God is restraining our sin.

And if God's restraining us, and we're slaves, then guess what? Both of those are the antithesis of freedom. But I'll tell you a third thing. Not only are men slaves to sin, not only is God actively restraining the sin of some men, God is actively hardening the hearts of some men.

Oh! It's 2013, isn't it? I always forget. I'm getting old. But it's 2013. I can't believe he just said that. That's such an antiquated thought that God actually hardens some men. Beloved, I don't know how people...

I don't believe that. Well then, what do you use this for? A coffee holder? A mug? What do you use this for? Toaster. That's what I was trying to think. Toaster. The Bible is clear. Joshua 11 .20. Go there.

Just turn over Joshua 11 .20. We're doing it through the Bible today with Pastor Keith. Joshua 11 .20. Joshua 11. This is actually a very powerful verse. Because it said, For it was the Lord's doing... which people say, well, the Lord don't harden hearts.

Read. For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts. That's fairly clear. It was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed just as the Lord commanded Moses.

So not only was it the Lord's doing to harden their hearts, God hardened their hearts so that they would war against Israel and that in warring against Israel, God's judgment would be upon them. Well, Pastor Keith, that sure does sound mean.

That's that Old Testament God. He's mean. I talked about that before. I'll leave that be. That's silly talk. Does it not say clearly that God has hardened hearts? I've heard people say, I just don't believe God would do that.

Well, then you're believing in the wrong God. You have an idol. You have created a God in your mind that you want to be a certain way rather than believing in the God who is. You are an idolater and you need to repent.

As simple as that. If you have created a God that's different than the God of the Bible, you are an idolater and you need to repent. It's as simple as that. Isaiah 63, 17, O Lord, why do You make us wander from Your ways and harden our hearts so that we fear You not?

And of course, Romans 9. Ah, the Reformed theologian's best friend. Romans 9. Verse 14. Honestly, the guys who spit and revolt against Reformed... They have to totally misread this or they never preach it.

And that's normally what happens. A friend of mine was a Sunday school teacher in church and they were told what to teach and they had to go through the Bible. They had to do Romans 9, 10, and 11 in one Sunday.

9, 10, and 11 had to be taught in one 45 minute Sunday school class. Because you had to get on past this. That's silly. Romans 9, 14. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By the way, that's the response that people have.

Well, if this is true, if God hardens people's hearts, then He's not fair. Well, this is Paul's response. If that's what you're thinking, here's Paul's answer. What shall we say then? Is God unfair? That's what it means.

Is there injustice on God? Is God unfair? By no means. For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So right there, God makes a claim about His own freedom.

He talks about His freedom versus our freedom. I will do what I want to do. If I want to have mercy on Moses and condemn Pharaoh, I will do that. Because guess what? God didn't appear to Pharaoh in front of a burning bush.

Don't you think if He had, that would have changed his life? Don't you think if Pharaoh had been confronted by a burning bush, that that would have changed his life? Do you tell me God's not free in whom He chooses and whom He does not?

Oh, well, I never thought about it that way. Well, maybe we ought to. People say, I think God gives everybody absolutely the same amount of chance because He has to to be fair. Hogwash! It's hogwash because of this.

Any cursory reading of the Old Testament will tell you that God had a specific people at a specific time whom He gave a specific amount of grace and mercy that He did not extend to the rest of the world.

In fact, when that Ammonite high priest was standing up and sacrificing to a false god, he did not receive the same amount of revelation as did Moses. And it was God's choice to have mercy on Moses and not on the Ammonite high priest.

So you tell me who's free. I'm just making you think. I hope nobody leaves all mad today. I can't take another email. I'm just kidding. Everybody's so sweet. I don't get ugly emails, but it sounds funny.

Alright. But I do want to go back to Romans 9 real quick. Because Romans 9 says, I have mercy on whom I have mercy, I have compassion on whom I have compassion. And then he says in verse 16, so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. The whole reason God raised up Pharaoh to the position of power that he was in was so that God could demonstrate judgment on the false gods of Egypt.

This is why Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Because every time he hardened his heart, God brought another plague and every one of those plagues was a different shot against one of the false gods of Egypt.

And he hardened him every time so that he would rebuke or that he would refuse to let the people go and God could bring another plague demonstrating His power over the gods of Egypt. And that's why he says in verse 18, so then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.

Now, I want to mention something about hardening because to be fair, I have to make a point. When I talk about God hardening a heart, that does not mean, and please, just taking notes, it's a good thing to write down.

Hardening the heart does not mean creating more evil in a heart. Hardening the heart does not mean creating more evil in the heart because it's unnecessary. The heart's already evil. Hardening the heart means God is removing His restraint and allowing that person to do just what they want to do.

They want to sin. God lifts the restraint and they get unfettered sin. That's what hardening is. It's sort of like this. You know, you can accelerate something. God is not accelerating their sin. God's simply lifting all of the weight off so that they accelerate themselves.

He's lifting all the restraint. My only reason for making that point is this. By saying God hardens a heart, it does not mean God is causing somebody to be sinful. It means God's removing the restraint because God does not cause evil.

God does not cause people to be evil, but He does remove the restraint and we do what we want to do, which is evil continually. Alright. So we've already said a few things. We've made our point from Scripture.

We have said so far in our lesson that people are not autonomous. We've proved that by saying man is sinful by nature. He's a slave to sin, so he's not autonomous. We've said that God restrains some men.

If God restrains us, I'm sorry, God restrains all men. If God restrains us, we're not completely free. God hardens the hearts of some men. If that's true, we're not all completely free. But the last thing is very clear.

God Opening Hearts to the Gospel and the Difference Between Prescribed and Decreed Will

God opens the hearts of some men to hear the Gospel. God opens the hearts of some men to hear the Gospel. Because apart from that opening, and thank God that He does, by the way, because if God didn't open our heart, we would stay in constant rebellion.

We would stay in constant rejection. The Bible tells us that apart from God's grace, we would not desire to come to Him at all. Acts 16. You all know a woman by the name of Lydia. Very prominent in the book of Acts.

The story of Lydia. It says in Acts 16. One who heard was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

You know, the vast majority of people who heard Paul left. The vast majority of people who heard Paul mocked what he said. They did not listen. Who was it that heard what Paul had to say? The ones whom God had opened their heart.

This is why the Bible says in John 6 and 44 that no one can come to Me unless the Father in Heaven draws him. The Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. No one can come unless God draws them.

The drawing that Jesus is picking up here is the Holy Spirit opening up the heart. That's the synonym. So, let me just overview very quickly. Today is more like a Bible study, but I'm getting to the sermon part now.

I promise. Let me just overview very quickly. Number one, if the Bible says that man is sinful by nature, and number two, the Bible says that God restrains the sin of all people, and number three, that the Bible says that God hardens some hearts and opens others, then we cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, call ourselves completely autonomous.

We cannot proclaim an absolutely free will. That is not to say that we don't make choices because we do. That is not to say that those choices are not real choices according to our own desires because they are.

But it is to say this, we are free. God is more free than us. And when our freedom runs into God's freedom, God wins every time. Man has the ability to do as he chooses. But if those choices... Let me say that again because that sounded funny.

But if those choices would thwart the purpose of God, then God will not allow them. The end. End of story. Very easy enough. And that takes us to the issue of the will of God. Because people say, now wait a minute, we're thwarting the will of God all the time.

God says, thou shalt not commit murder, and people are committing murder all the time. People are always thwarting the will of God. Well, it does take a little bit more of an understanding. And I'll make this brief.

But we have to understand the difference between what God has prescribed and what God has decreed. God has prescribed His Word as our textbook for life. He has prescribed His law to be the standard that all men should live by.

Thou shalt not commit murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not... And of course, the thou shalt's. Have no other gods before the Lord. Do not make any idols. He has commanded a specific standard.

That is the prescription that He has given. And that we call His prescribed will. But God has also decreed the end from the beginning. And He has decreed for the glory of His name to allow men to sin.

He has allowed men to rebel against Him. And He has chosen to send a Savior as the only way to solve that rebellious problem. You see, it was God's choice. We talk about freedom of man. It was God's freedom to send a Savior.

Because guess what? He didn't have to. I like to remind you of this. You've probably heard me say this 50 or 70 or 3 ,000 times, but I'm going to say it again. God did not have to send a Savior. He made a free choice.

You don't want to talk about free will. Why don't we talk about God's free will? People always try to limit God. Well, God has to do this if He's going to be good. God has to do that if He's going to be God.

God has to do this. He's got to be fair. He's got to do this. He's got to do that. God is free and He's more free than you. And He had a choice. When He created the world and He decreed that He would allow that men would sin against His holy Word, He could have chosen at that moment to say, you know what?

That's it. Everybody goes to hell. And He would have been just in doing so because that's what sin deserves. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. And God could have made that free choice to say everybody goes to hell.

And you know what we would have done if that had been the case? Well, the world would have spun out of control a long time ago, I think, but what would have been would have been a world full of people who lived in hell here and lived in hell after here.

We would have lived in nothing but unfettered sin. But God didn't make that choice. Thank heavens He didn't. He did not make the choice that all men would go to hell. He could have made the choice that all men go to heaven.

Did you know that? And there are some people that believe He did. Some people believe that all people go to heaven. They're called universalists. And they believe that everybody in the end will have an opportunity to be saved.

After death, if you didn't receive Christ in this life, that you will have an opportunity after you die to bow the knee to Christ. Because at that moment, you'll actually be looking at Him face to face that there's nobody who will reject Him then.

So at that moment, everybody gets to go to heaven. And you know what? They are getting followers by the droves because that sounds great. People like that idea. I had Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door trying to sell me that.

Just a few years ago, they came to my door trying to sell me on... Well, didn't you know that after you die, you get a second chance? Sell me! I'll get you any translation you want and you will not find that mess.