God's Sovereignty Over People

Trusting God  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Does God have control over people's actions?

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Introduction

You are in a job where you have been treated just above the position of slave
You have a very low salary, just enough to get by
Very little vacation time or sick leave
Boss doesn’t appreciate what you do and never recognizes you.
You have an opportunity to go somewhere else where you will make good money, but you don’t have the money to go.
You ask your boss.
He gives you the money.
He sets up transportation for you.
He gives you a bonus before you leave
He gives you so much, that he is actually left with very little.
Sounds make believe and to good to be true, but isn’t this what happened to the Jewish people when they left Egypt?
Read

21 And I will give these people such favor in the sight of the Egyptians that when you go, you will not go empty-handed. 22 Each woman will ask her neighbor and any woman staying in her house for silver and gold jewelry, and clothing, and you will put them on your sons and daughters. So you will plunder the Egyptians.”

And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians;

b Background-Departure (c) and when you go,

c Denial you shall not go empty,

22 a Prediction but each woman shall ask

b Source of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house,

c List-Item for silver

d List-Item and gold

c List-Item jewelry,

e List-Item and for clothing.

f Prediction You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters.

g Prediction So you shall plunder the Egyptians.”

b. And what God promised actually happened.
Read

35 The Israelites acted on Moses’ word and asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. 36 And the LORD gave the people such favor in the Egyptians’ sight that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.

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c. The Israelites did as they were told, and they took so much stuff that the Egyptians gave to them, it would have appeared that they had been robbed.
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4. God Prompts People
God had the Egyptians look upon the Israelites and give them everything they asked for. The Egyptians basically plundered themselves. The Israelites didn’t have to steal anything, it was given to them.
How did this happen?
We really don’t know
Scripture says , “the Lord had made them favorably disposed toward the Isrealites.”
The Egyptians did all of this out of free will which was exactly what God wanted them to do.
The Israelites future was in the hands of other people, but God was able to control those hands.
We’ve all found ourselves in situations where our future depended on other people and their actions towards us.
a grade on a test
a promotion or raise that is dependent on someone over us
performance reviews
We all have our own responsibilities in these areas, but what we do also relies on what other people do for us or to us.
Suppose we have someone who wants to harm us or our reputation. Can we trust God to intervene in the heart of that person?
Can God change the minds and attitudes of people towards us?
The answer has to be yes.
People will argue that this goes against free will.
If we can’t answer this yes, then there is a huge area of our lives where we shouldn’t be able to trust God to take care of us.
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A king’s heart is like streams of water in the LORD’s hand:

He directs it wherever He chooses.

This statement is clear about the way God can control our thoughts and our actions towards others.
We saw how God moved Pharoah and the Egyptians, but He also did the same to Cyrus for the rebuilding of the temple.
Read Ezra 1:1

1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah was fulfilled. The LORD put it into the mind of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and to put it in writing:

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This passage directly tells us of God working in the heart of Cyrus to make this proclamation regarding Israel.
Their fate was in the hands of the most powerful of this time.
Isaiah also gives us more insight to God’s working in Cyrus’ heart.
Isaiah 45:4-5

4 I call you by your name,

because of Jacob My servant

and Israel My chosen one.

I give a name to you,

though you do not know Me.

5 I am Yahweh, and there is no other;

there is no God but Me.

I will strengthen you,

though you do not know Me,

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4. Neither Cyrus nor the Egyptians believed in God. Nor did they want to follow His revealed will. But they did follow the direction of their hearts which were directed by God.
God also had to move in the hearts of the Israelites as well for the project of rebuilding the temple.
Ezra 1:5
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5 So the family leaders of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites—everyone God had motivated i—prepared to go up and rebuild the LORD’s house in Jerusalem.

He also moved in the heart of another king to see the project through to the end.
Ezra 6:22
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22 They observed the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days with joy, because the LORD had made them joyful, having changed the Assyrian king’s attitude toward them, so that he supported them in the work on the house of the God of Israel.

Another instance of God working in the hearts of people is found in the life of Daniel. When Daniel isn’t wanting to defile his body by eating the food offered to him, the official could’ve reported this to the king and caused great trouble. But scripture says the official showed favor towards Daniel and his friends. This wasn’t normal. The Bible talks about how God caused the official to show Daniel favor in this request he had.
One final instance is from Titus
2 Cor 8:16-17

16 Thanks be to God who put the same concern for you into the heart of Titus. 17 For he accepted our urging and, being very diligent, went out to you by his own choice.

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Notice that Paul gives both thanks to God and Titus. To God for putting the concern in Titus’ heart and to Titus for acting on it.
God Restrains People
We’ve taken a look at how God works in the hearts of people to have them do certain things, but God also will work in the hearts of people as well to restrain them from causing harm to His people as well.
Abraham
He lies about who his wife is for fear that Abimelech may kill him to have Sarah.
He says she is his sister.
Abimelech intends to make Sarah his wife.
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience. I have also kept you from sinning against Me. Therefore I have not let you touch her.
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The Holy Bible: Holman Christian standard version. (2009). (). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.
Was Abimelech aware that God was keeping him from doing this at the time? No. It was only when God revealed all this to him in a dream that he realized that God was preventing him from doing something that could have doomed him and ruined the plans He had for Abraham and Sarah
Another point in this story is that it was Abraham’s lack of faith that point Sarah in the position to begin with. While God didn’t excuse Abraham’s sin, He did keep it from interfering with the plans He had for them.
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Jacob’s two sons
Jacob’s sons have committed a horrible crime in the area they are in. The Canaanites by all rights should’ve joined forces and made Jacob and his family pay for the actions of his sons. Instead, scripture say that “the terror of God fell upon them,” and not one of the people came after them for the revenge they should’ve gotten.
Was there another outside source for this fear?
There is none indicated. The only thing stated is what was previously mentioned.
The temple builders
Another place where God prevented actions by a group was when the authorities over the land when the Israelites were rebuilding the temple, their authorization to do this was questioned. Instead of stopping the building, they allowed them to continue. They had every right to tell them to stop, but they didn’t and allowed the work to continue.
Exodus 34:23-24
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23 Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. 24 For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory. No one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God.

One of the strongest stories of God holding back the actions of others is in this passage. Everything is shut down. Nothing is going, but God held others from attacking His people during this time when they would come three times a year to appear before God.
All of these stories show how God influenced the heart of believers and non-believers to have them move or that He restrained them from doing harm to His people. He uses these things to ultimately fulfill His will for our lives.
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Does God Permit Evil?
There are times when God doesn’t restrain wicked and harmful things to happen to us.
The temple was delayed being built for ten years due to enemies attacking those who were trying to build it.
God will restrain the actions of others when it is against His sovereign will.
We go back to Joseph and the actions of his brothers and Potiphar’s wife. These events, which were very evil and harsh, placed Joseph at the right place, at the right time, to save the Jewish people from starvation.
Professor Bekouwer said, “Joseph’s brothers devise and execute their plans’ aroused by jealousy they gradually commit themselves irrevocably to their chosen course....Their evil plan achieves historical realization, but the historical events are products of the Divine activity. God’s good intents follow the mischievous path of the brothers or, rather, the brothers unwittingly follow the path that God had blazed. They wok in His service. The purpose of God lights up the horizon of evil, jealous, malicious activity.”
Alexander Carson speaks about the same event. “From the history of Joseph we may see that the same thing may be from man, in one point of view, and from God, in another; and that what man may do sinfully to the injury of the people of God, God may effect through them for the good of his people. It is man’s work, yet it is, in another view, God’s work.”
God can also can move people to be stubborn
Deuteronomy 2:30
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30 But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us travel through his land, for the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to hand him over to you, as has now taken place.

20 For it was the LORD’s intention to harden their hearts, so that they would engage Israel in battle, be completely destroyed without mercy, and be annihilated, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

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Joshua 11:20
5. Though these people in these passages were acting from what they believed was their heart, God was able to use their action or inaction to His glory and for His purposes.
God can use whomever He pleases to accomplish His divine will and accomplish His purposes.
Psalm 75:6-7
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6 Exaltation does not come

from the east, the west, or the desert,

7 for God is the Judge:

He brings down one and exalts another.

The Problem of God’s Sovereignty
When we take a look at God’s sovereignty and the way He uses people to accomplish it, we often feel that this conflicts with people having free will. Biblical writers hardly ever see this as a problem and never really refer to it. As we sort of wrestle with this, we are going to take a look at three truths.
God is infinite in His ways as well as His being.
A finite mind cannot comprehend an infinite being other than what has been revealed to him.
There are some things about God that are going to remain a mystery to us because we simply can’t grasp it with our finite, human minds.
Basil Manly, one of the founding fathers of the SBC said, “The Scriptures do not undertake to explain mysteries. They leave them unexplained. There is a difference between difficulties, and mysteries: - difficulties may be remove;-mysteries cannot, without a new revelation, or the bestowment of a higher intellect.
One of the issues we have is we try to view our interaction with God the same way we view our interaction with others. We tend to think that God influences man the same way we would. I don’t think we can fully grasp what and how God influences us. It is one of those things that’s beyond our comprehension.
God is never the author of sin.
Even though God is able to use the sins of man to accomplish His purposes, He is not the one who initiated the sin.
He still holds the people responsible for their sin even though He was able to use it.
God isn’t the one tempting us. It is the deceiver who is responsible for that, but our God is more powerful than him and can even use the things he devises to trip us up for His purposes.
The Bible consistently portrays people as making real choices of their own will.
No where in the Bible does the stories that it shares shows people being controlled as puppets. It shows them making right or wrong decisions of their own making. The choices Judas, Herod, and Pilate made were wicked acts which they would be held accountable for, but God was able to use all for His glory.
Richard Fuller, the third president of the SBC said, “It is impossible for us to reject either of these great truths, and it is equally impossible for our minds to reconcile them.”
Just as we can’t make God’s sovereignty into making us puppets, we also can’t press man’s freedom to the point that it limits His sovereignty as well.
Another quote from Berkouwer helps us see this:
“He who does injustice to this freedom [of the creature] does injustice to the Word of God, which already in paradise places man at a crossroad and gives him the choice of which road he will take. But in the light of Scripture, it is decisive that this creaturely freedom poses no threat or limitation to the sovereign and almighty Divine enterprise....We are forced to direct ourselves to the Divine revelation which reveals to us the almighty activity of God and, at the same time, teaches human responsibility.....And anyone who does not take both this Divine ruling and human responsibility seriously can never rightly understand history.”
Our Response
Our first response should be one of trust.
Our futures are in His hands. He is the one who directs it all. We can trust God with our futures.
When we need the protection of man, first we should go to God and pray to HIm.
Confidence in God’s sovereignty should also keep us from becoming resentful and bitter towards when we aren’t treated right.
There may be times when we are treated unjustly and things just don’t seem fair. Even when that happens, know that these things and episodes will not undermine God’s ultimate purpose for your life. There isn’t anything anyone can do to thwart that.
Ultimately we must trust that God has a will and a purpose for us. If we can rest in that, then we can live under a one agenda life, His agenda for our lives. Stress will come about when we try to live out our agenda and fit it into His. We need to trust His agenda for our lives.
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Caution
We should never use doctrine for an excuse for our own shortcomings
If you fail at something, self-reflection is a good thing to see if there is anything you could’ve or should’ve done better.
We shouldn’t allow the doctrine of God’s sovereignty to cause us to respond passively to the actions of other people who affect us.
We should never use this to excuse our own actions of decisions that hurt another person.
Deuteronomy 29:29

29 The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

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Our duty is to obey the things revealed to us and trust God to handle the rest in His divine will and plan for our lives.
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