https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Can-Men-Change-Gods-Will.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n\tby Jeffrey W. Hamilton<\/p>\n\t
Text: Daniel 4:28-37<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nI. A difficulty those raised in Calvinist beliefs is resolving the idea of God’s sovereign will\nwith the actions of men.\n A. To many Calvinists, God’s will is immutable (unable to be changed). The idea\nthat men might do something to alter God’s decisions is inconceivable.\n B. This is why Calvinists are so quick to deny that baptism is necessary for salvation.\nTo them, salvation is something God decides; therefore, no action by men can\nchange that decision.\n
II. God does as He pleases<\/p>\n A. The end of Daniel 4 is written by King Nebuchadnezzar after he spent seven years\nof insanity at the hand of God. \n 1. He declared that people are nothing, God does as He decides, and no one\ncan stay His hand – Daniel 4:35\n 2. But read this carefully. Nothing in this states that God can’t change His\nmind about a matter if the circumstances change.\n
B. God works all things according to counsel of His will – Ephesians 1:11<\/p>\n
1. This passage is about God’s plan to save mankind from their sins<\/p>\n 2. Before the world began, God planned to send His Son, so that through his\nshed blood, people would have a way to obtain redemption – Ephesians 1:7\n
3. God has successfully executed that plan. <\/p>\n a. A factor in God’s plan depends on what an individual decides to\ndo.\n
b. In other words, God’s plan includes people making a choice<\/p>\n c. A some point in our lives, we are destined for destruction –\nEphesians 2:3\n d. But some of us listen to message of the Holy Spirit and believe it –\nEphesians 1:13-14\n e. We were made alive through Christ and raised up with him through\nGod’s grace – Ephesians 2:5-6\n
(1) This is an allusion to baptism – Romans 6:3-4<\/p>\n 4. Globally, Satan, the Roman government, and the Jewish leaders were\nunable to stop God from putting His plan for saving people into action\n 5. Individually, God requires those who would be saved to do the works He\nhas laid out – Ephesians 2:10\n 6. Thus, individually, God’s decision to destroy sinners is changed by His\ngrace allowing those who choose to obey him to be granted forgiveness\n
C. God’s counsel stands forever – Psalms 33:8-11<\/p>\n 1. God’s decisions cannot be stopped by nations, nor does He change His\nplans as time progresses\n 2. But this does not mean God is unable to show mercy to individuals or\nnations as He sees fit\n 3. God is able to adjust His plans to accommodate the righteous or punish the\nwicked without impacting His grand design\n 4. Hezekiah was extremely ill. He was told to get his house in order because\nhe would soon die. Hezekiah prayed and God granted him 15 more years\nof life – Isaiah 38:5\n a. God had some “wiggle room” in His plans, so He granted\nHezekiah’s wish\n 5. Later Hezekiah made the mistake of showing off the wealth of Israel to\nrepresentatives of Babylon – II Kings 20:17-18\n a. This destruction by Babylon would not have happened so soon if\nHezekiah had made a different choice.\n b. God’s designs didn’t change overall, but Hezekiah’s choice did\nalter the timing causing punishment to come.\n
D. God plans it and God does it – Isaiah 46:9-11<\/p>\n 1. This passage tells us why<\/i> no man or nation can alter God’s purpose. It is\nGod who executes His plans and no one can stand in the way of the\nAlmighty\n 2. But this doesn’t mean that God has planned out every detail of everyone’s\nlife.\n 3. An aspect of God’s design is that man is allowed free-choice – Proverbs\n16:1\n a. This is implied in Isaiah 46:11 when God said He will<\/i> bring His\ndecisions to pass.\n b. That means the future is not already settled. God takes an active\nrole in seeing that His will is accomplished.\n
III. The illustration of Jonah<\/p>\n
A. When God sent Jonah to Nineveh, Jonah tried to go to Tarshish instead<\/p>\n
1. Jonah wanted<\/i> Nineveh destroyed – Jonah 4:1-2<\/p>\n
2. Notice that Jonah had discussed this with God prior to his departure<\/p>\n 3. Therefore, we can conclude that Jonah knew that the purpose of his going\nto tell Nineveh of their future destruction was to open the possibility of the\nAssyrians changing.\n 4. Jonah didn’t want the Assyrians forgiven, he wanted them destroyed, so he\ntried to remove any chance of them repenting\n B. When Jonah did go, I suspect that his message didn’t call for repentance. The\nBible only states that he said Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days – Jonah 3:4\n
1. That was the part that Jonah wanted to happen.<\/p>\n 2. I could see Jonah avoiding mentioning that there was a chance if they\nrepented.\n
3. Notice also that the king wasn’t certain that God would relent – Jonah 3:9<\/p>\n
a. Thus, the king likely didn’t conclude this from Jonah’s message<\/p>\n C. Thus, despite one, possibly two attempts by Jonah to change God’s plan, God was\nstill able to show mercy on Nineveh.\n D. As God told Israel, He doesn’t destroy because He enjoys punishing people –\nEzekiel 18:30-32\n
1. The people of Nineveh did not cause God to change His plan<\/p>\n 2. They met the condition that allowed God to justly offer mercy, which was\nwhat God preferred to do.\n
IV. The implications of Jonah for us<\/p>\n A. God has granted people, who met His conditions, forgiveness of sin. That is also\ntrue today.\n
B. There is a promise of a home in heaven if<\/i> they remain faithful. <\/p>\n 1. So failing to remain obedient will cause us to miss out on heaven –\nHebrews 4:11\n
2. But that condition means people can impact their destiny<\/p>\n
C. People don’t change God’s plan. His purpose remains the same – II Peter 3:9<\/p>\n
D. People make their plans, but God’s will remains fix<\/p>\n
1. It is the obedient who enter into God’s kingdom<\/p>\n
2. So will you submit to God’s will or try to rebel?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Daniel 4:28-37 I. A difficulty those raised in Calvinist beliefs is resolving the idea of God’s sovereign will with the actions of men. A. To many Calvinists, God’s will is immutable (unable to be changed). The idea that men might do something to alter God’s decisions is inconceivable. B. This is why…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,32],"tags":[59,426,90,747,404,735,55],"class_list":["post-4801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio","category-sermon","tag-calvinism","tag-free-will","tag-god","tag-hezekiah","tag-jonah","tag-sovereignty","tag-works"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38562,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-arminianism\/","url_meta":{"origin":4801,"position":0},"title":"What is Arminianism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good morning Jeffrey, I'm having an issue understand something. A lot of the denominational world is under the assumption that if a person is not a Calvinist, then they are an Arminian. What is an Arminian? I've thoroughly studied Calvinism and its faults, but I can't seem to find\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83552,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-right-to-say-god-has-mercy-on-some\/","url_meta":{"origin":4801,"position":1},"title":"Is it right to say God has mercy on some?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Best regards, A few days ago, I came across this article, \"Are We Condemning Those Who Never Heard the Gospel?\" and I have been meditating on it. My observation and comment are not because I do not believe in the perfect righteousness of God, since I am a Christian,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95111,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/work-because-god-is-working\/","url_meta":{"origin":4801,"position":2},"title":"Work Because God Is Working","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 15, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Edwin Crozier Text: Philippians 2 Jesus established the example. He left the throne of heaven and lived among us as a servant. God highly exalted Him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name because He was obedient even to the point of death on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66933,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-my-generation-neglect-the-grace-of-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":4801,"position":3},"title":"Did My Generation Neglect the Grace of God?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Edward O. Bragwell, Sr. I cannot understand how so many of the younger generation of preachers (sometimes encouraged by a few older ones) can talk about how woefully the generation before them neglected to tell people about the grace of God. They boldly speak about it as though it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47970,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-sovereignty-of-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":4801,"position":4},"title":"The Sovereignty of God (Frost)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 31, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Gene Frost Sovereignty is the state of being sovereign, which is to be \"above or superior to all others; chief; greatest; supreme.\" We illustrate: In all the realm, the king was sovereign. There was no one holding\u00a0 greater rank, with greater authority, or greater power. He willed that on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66504,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-federal-headship\/","url_meta":{"origin":4801,"position":5},"title":"What is “federal headship”?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I really enjoy the content you put out. Very straight and to the point. What do Calvinists mean when they talk about \"federal headship?\" I've heard someone mention this in a podcast in an episode on Calvinism. I had not heard the expression until listening to the podcast. Answer:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}