“God is sovereign,” the youth pastor taught his middle school group. “That means He controls everything that happens.” One puzzled middle schooler replied, “So God was in control when my dog died? Why would God kill my dog?”
Trying to answer this question, the youth pastor replied: “That’s a tough one. But sometimes God lets us go through hard times so that we’re prepared for even more difficult things in the future. I remember how hard it was when my dog died. But going through that helped me deal with an even more difficult time later when my grandma died. Does that make sense?”
After a long pause, the middle schooler replied, “So God killed my dog to prepare me for when He’s going to kill my grandma?”—Marc Cortez, quoted in John C. Peckham, Divine Attributes: Knowing the Covenantal God of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), p. 141.
People sometimes assume that everything that occurs happens just as God wants it to. Whatever happens in the world is precisely as God wanted to have happen. After all, God is almighty. How, then, could anything occur that God does not want to occur? Hence, no matter what happens, no matter how bad, it was God’s will. That, at least, is what this theology teaches.
Read Psalm 81:11–14; Isaiah 30:15, 18; Isaiah 66:4; and Luke 13:34. What do these texts say about the question of whether God’s will is always being done?
While many people believe that God must always get what He wants, the Bible tells a quite different story. Again and again, Scripture depicts God as experiencing unfulfilled desires. That is, what happens often runs counter to what God states that He actually prefers to happen. In many instances, God explicitly declares that what is happening is the opposite of what He wants. He willed one outcome for His people, but they chose another instead. God Himself laments: “ ‘My people would not heed My voice. . . . Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies’ ” (Ps. 81:11, 13, 14, NKJV).
Think through the implications of any theology that attributes everything that happens to God’s direct will. What kind of deep problems, especially in the context of evil, would such a theology create?
Supplemental EGW Notes
In the face of the most positive commands of God, [many] men and women will follow their own inclinations and then dare to pray over the matter, to prevail upon God to consent to allow them to go contrary to His expressed will. The Lord is not pleased with such prayers. Satan comes to the side of such persons, as he did to Eve in Eden. . . . The religious world is covered with a pall of moral darkness. Superstition and bigotry control the minds of men and women, and blind their judgment so that they do not discern their duty to their fellow men and their duty to yield unquestioned obedience to the will of God. . . .
But God will not be trifled with. He will permit such persons to follow the desires of their own hearts. Psalm 81:11, 12: “But My people would not hearken to My voice.” “So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.”—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3, pp. 72, 73.
When you make failures, when you are betrayed into sin, do not feel that you cannot pray, that you are not worthy to come before the Lord. . . . With outstretched arms He waits to welcome the prodigal. Go to Him, and tell Him about your mistakes and failures. Ask Him to strengthen you for fresh endeavor. He will never disappoint you, never abuse your confidence. . . .
“In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” Christ knows the strength of your temptations and the strength of your power to resist. His hand is always stretched out in pitying tenderness to every suffering child. To the tempted, discouraged one He says, Child for whom I suffered and died, cannot you trust me? “As thy days, so shall thy strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25).—Lift Him Up, p. 299.
Oh, how greatly Christ is dishonored by those who, professing to be Christians, disgrace the name they bear by failing to make their lives correspond to their profession, by failing to treat one another with the love and respect that God expects them to reveal in kind words and courteous acts!
The powers from beneath are stirred with deep intensity. War and bloodshed are the result. The moral atmosphere is poisoned with cruel, horrible doings. The spirit of strife is spreading; it abounds in every place. . . .
One who sees beneath the surface, who reads the hearts of all men, says of those who have had great light: . . . “Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before Mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.” “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie,” because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” “but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Isaiah 66:3, 4; 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 10, 12.—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, pp. 248, 249.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.