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Transcript 340A — The Permissive and Desirous Wills of God
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I wanted to raise a question with reference to God's omniscience. It is said that God has a permissive will and a desirous will. And many times this statement is abused. And I was wondering, with relation to the believer, how are we to understand God's desirous will for us in our life, and His permissive will?
HC: The question is, what is the difference between God's permissive will and God's desirous will? Now these are terms of course that are not found in the Bible. These are actually theological terms. But we can see, as we study the Bible, why we might make this kind of a distinction.
Let's think, for example, of the brothers of Joseph. They hated Joseph, and finally they sold him as a slave into Egypt, a terribly terribly sinful thing to do. Now God permitted this. This was allowed because of God's permissive will. Through this God was going to accomplish His purpose to eventually save this family, because eventually Joseph would become prime minister of Egypt and would provide grain so that Jacob and his brothers would be saved. That was God's permissive will.
Now God's (to use your term) desirous will would be that God says that we are not to commit adultery. We are not to steal. We are to love God above all. This is the positive declaration of God's will for our lives, that we are to live holy lives, that we are to be obedient to the commandments that God has laid down. That is the will of God for our lives.
Now when we sin, God permits this in our lives, and frequently He'll work out His plan through our sins. That's God's permissive will. It is never God's holy will that we will sin. Sin is rebellion against God. But God permits it and works out His plan through our lives even though we are living sinfully.
CALLER: Okay. Thank you very much. I was wondering about that. It seems like, in terms of Christian life, many times the situation will come up, even in terms of people being unequally yoked. A friend of mine said she felt it was the will of God for her to marry outside of the Christian family.
HC: Now in a case like that, when someone goes against God's rules that we should not be unequally yoked, God permits this. He doesn't strike us down. He doesn't stop that marriage. He doesn't cut that person off, right there, because he persists in violating God's rules. God permits this sin to be engaged in. Of course it's a terrible terrible path to follow because all kinds of bad repercussions can come from it.
Any time we engage in sin God allows it, because of His permissive will. But you can depend upon it that we're under the wrath of God because of that sin. It gives us absolutely no encouragement or incentive for this kind of action just because we might recognize that there is such a thing as the permissive will of God.
God also permits Satan to rule the hearts of unsaved men. God permitted Eve to fall into sin in the Garden of Eden, but think of all the evil and terrible consequences that came out of that action.
CALLER: Thank you very much.
HC: You're welcome. Good night.