\n\nACCORDING TO THE FREE-WILL SCHEME, the Lord intends good, but He must
wait like a lackey on His own creature to know what his intention is;
God willeth good, and would do it, but He cannot because He has an
unwilling man who will not have God\u2019s good thing carried into effect.
What do ye, sirs, but drag the Eternal from His throne and lift up into
it that fallen creature, man; for man, according to that theory, nods
and his nod is destiny. You must have a destiny somewhere; it must
either be as God wills or as man wills. If it be as God wills, then
Jehovah sits sovereign upon His throne of glory, and all hosts obey Him,
and the world is safe; if not God, then you put man there to say, \u201cI
will\u201d or \u201cI will not; if I will it, I will enter heaven; if I will it, I
will despise the grace of God; if I will it, I will conquer the Holy
Spirit, for I am stronger than God, stronger than omnipotence; if I will
it, I will make the blood of Christ of no effect, for I am mightier than
the blood, mightier than the blood of the Son of God himself; though God
make His purpose, yet will I laugh at His purpose; it shall be my
purpose that shall make His purpose stand or fall.\u201d Why, sirs, if this
is not atheism, it is idolatry; it is putting man where God should be;
and I shrink with solemn awe and horror from that doctrine which makes
the grandest of God\u2019s works \u2013 the salvation of man \u2013 to be dependent
upon the will of His creature whether it shall be accomplished or not.
Glory I can and must in my text in its fullest sense. \u201cIT IS NOT OF HIM
THAT WILLETH, NOR OF HIM THAT RUNNETH, BUT OF GOD THAT SHOWETH MERCY\u201d
(Romans 9:16). C. H. Spurgeon
Luke writes concerning the Bereans \u201cThese were more noble than those in
Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind,
and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were
Greeks, and of men, not a few. (Ac 17:11-12) They received the word with
a ready mind then searched the scriptures daily. It says, \u201cTherefore,
many of them believed.\u201d So search the scriptures daily to see if these
things I preach are so. It may be that God will give you faith to
believe as he did the Bereans.
Clay Curtis.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ACCORDING TO THE FREE-WILL SCHEME, the Lord intends good, but He must wait like a lackey on His own creature to know what his intention is; God willeth good, and would do it, but He cannot because He has an unwilling man who will not have God\u2019s good thing carried into effect. What do ye, sirs, but drag the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-clay-curtis","category-the-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5323,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5322\/revisions\/5323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}