God’s Will and the Evil of the Cross

00:00:00.000 | Last Wednesday in episode number 411, we talked about God's moral will, how we come to know

00:00:10.120 | what God wants us to do in various ethical situations, and in situations when we must

00:00:14.360 | decide like who to marry, what car to buy, and in what vocation to pursue.

00:00:19.960 | But there's another dimension to God's will, another will altogether of God's ultimate

00:00:24.600 | sovereign will over every event in this world, and including His will over the evils of the

00:00:30.640 | cross.

00:00:31.920 | The following sermon excerpt is taken from the sermon "What is the Will of God and How

00:00:36.080 | Do We Know It?"

00:00:37.080 | It's really crucial that we understand this difference between two meanings for the phrase

00:00:46.560 | the will of God.

00:00:48.000 | Understanding the difference between these two kinds of the will of God in the Bible

00:00:54.720 | will be a key to unlock one of the biggest mysteries or the biggest perplexities in the

00:01:02.080 | Bible, namely that God is absolutely sovereign over all things and disapproves of many of

00:01:11.280 | them.

00:01:12.280 | That's a very puzzling paradox.

00:01:15.680 | God governs and controls all that is and manifestly in the Bible hates much of what happens.

00:01:25.240 | That's an insoluble and I think contradictory situation unless the term the will of God

00:01:33.680 | in the Bible has more than one meaning, which it clearly does, and you'll be able to see

00:01:40.000 | it as I just take you to the various texts.

00:01:45.200 | So we want to handle on how to manage this paradox or mystery that God forbids things

00:01:54.880 | He brings about and God commands things that He hinders from happening.

00:02:02.040 | That in one sense something is the will of God and in another sense that same something

00:02:06.560 | is not the will of God.

00:02:08.840 | Without this category of thought, I don't think you can make sense out of the Bible.

00:02:14.840 | The God of the Bible.

00:02:16.320 | So let's look at these two kinds of willing.

00:02:18.920 | Here's number one.

00:02:20.440 | Let's call it either the sovereign will of God or His will of decree.

00:02:28.560 | It means God's sovereign control of everything that comes to pass.

00:02:33.840 | It's one of the clearest teachings of the Bible.

00:02:38.800 | Let's look at some verses.

00:02:41.520 | You know them, most of them.

00:02:43.320 | Matthew 26, 39, Jesus is in Gethsemane and he prays like this, Father.

00:02:50.000 | If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

00:02:55.360 | Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

00:03:02.920 | Matthew 26, 39.

00:03:05.240 | What does as you will mean?

00:03:10.120 | What kind of will of God is that?

00:03:12.960 | Well, it means his plan for Jesus to be crucified.

00:03:18.280 | If there is no other way, Father, if that is the infinitely wise way, the infinitely

00:03:23.720 | loving way, the infinitely just way, do what you must do.

00:03:28.920 | And he did it.

00:03:29.920 | And here's the crucial thing to observe.

00:03:32.240 | It was shot through with sin and could not have happened without sin.

00:03:37.480 | It's a sin to kill the Son of God.

00:03:39.600 | It's a sin to mock the Son of God.

00:03:41.800 | It's a sin to whip the Son of God with stripes prophesied in the Old Testament.

00:03:48.560 | It's a sin to be expedient and wash your hands and hand him over.

00:03:53.040 | And yet, we all know from Acts chapter 4, verse 27, "Truly in this city they were gathered

00:04:00.360 | together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate,

00:04:06.520 | along with the Gentiles and peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had

00:04:12.040 | predestined to take place."

00:04:14.320 | The script was written for this night and this Good Friday in Isaiah 53 in great detail

00:04:21.800 | and in Psalm 22 and in many other passages.

00:04:25.440 | The script was written.

00:04:28.000 | The will of God is a fixed, determinate purpose to bring about the death of his Son, Isaiah

00:04:35.280 | 53.10.

00:04:36.720 | It was the will of the Lord to bruise him and it was full of sin, which means we must

00:04:44.360 | have a category of thinking that says God can ordain that sin happen without being a

00:04:56.240 | sinner.

00:04:57.240 | If you don't have that category in your mind, you can't handle the cross and the prophecies.

00:05:04.160 | God ordains that there be sin in the particulars of the death of his Son because he couldn't

00:05:10.440 | have been crucified without it, and he is not himself a sinner in ordaining that sin

00:05:16.040 | be.

00:05:17.040 | Amen.

00:05:18.040 | We have over 1,200 John Piper sermons in our website, DesiringGod.org, but none of them

00:05:23.760 | are more popular than this one.

00:05:25.760 | It's titled "What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?"

00:05:28.560 | Preached on August 22, 2004.

00:05:30.560 | Check it out and download the entire MP3 from our website free of charge.

00:05:34.840 | Well, does God delight in other Christians more than he delights in me?

00:05:40.160 | Pastor John says sometimes the answer to that question is yes, and he'll explain why tomorrow.

00:05:44.640 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:05:46.160 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:05:48.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:05:56.820 | [ Silence ]

God’s Will and the Evil of the Cross

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