The Secret Will of God

On Sunday nights at HHBC we're trudging along through the book of Romans. Yesterday evening we discussed the will of God from Romans 1:10. This is an important and somewhat difficult topic to wade through these days because there are so many unbiblical ways that we speak about the will of God.

I argued that there are at least two different ways in which the Scriptures speak of God's will. The Bible speaks both of God's revealed will and his secret will. (This language of revealed and secret comes from Deut. 29.) The revealed will of God refers to the Scriptures. These are the things we are responsible to know and keep. When people talk about finding God's will, I want to just point them to the Scriptures. We are not mystics. God has already spoken to us and told us everything he expects us to know. Open the Bible and study! That is the will of God!

But there is another sense in which the Bible talks about God's will. The secret will of God refers to God's acts of providence. We are not responsible to know or discern these things. That's why it's called secret (i.e. not revealed). In a certain sense, if something happens then God willed it to happen. Whatever takes place in the world was willed by God (either directly or through some means). So everything that happens, from the blowing of a blade of grass in the wind to a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic, is the secret will of God. These things are for God alone to know (until they come to pass of course, at which time we know that he must have willed them).

As we discussed this, I listed a catalog from Scripture of various things God is said to "will" or actively control and decree in Scripture. I want to share these with all of you because it was very worshipful to read this list together and think about how big, sovereign, and in control our God is.

The Bible says that God wills, controls, ordains the following:

• the falling of sparrow to the ground
• a creature receiving food to eat (note: the Scripture writers obviously knew that animals hunt and/or gather their food, and yet they had no problem attributing the results to the will/decree of God)
• a creature not receiving food to eat
• the new and/or continued life of a creature
• the death of a creature
• the rain falling to the ground (and thus by extension, the moisture gathering in the clouds)
• the sun scorching the earth
• the clouds protecting the earth from the scorching sun
• the fruit that hangs on the branches of the vine
• the cattle a man keeps in his stalls
• the wine a man stores in his cellar
• the grain growing in a man's field
• the coming of insects
• the eating of insects
• the falling of hail
• the coming and destruction of storms
• the feeding of young ravens by their mothers (again, note the Scriptural awareness that God sometimes uses means)
• the falling off of a tree branch
• the falling off of a tree branch that hits a man (or doesn't hit a man, whatever the case may be)
• the casting of lots (if anything were left to chance, surely it would be the rolling of dice right? yet Scripture says that it is from the will of God)
• the poverty a man comes into
• the wealth a man comes into
• the rising of men
• the lowering of men
• the south wind
• a great fish and his food (poor Jonah)
• the waves of the ocean
• pregnancy (either getting pregnant or not getting pregnant)
• a man's sickness 
• a man's food (and/or lack thereof)
• a man's life and man's death

Isn't that amazing? What a wonderful list. There are certainly many more things that could be added to this list. I challenged our church to take a special color highlighter or pencil next time they read through the Bible and highlight or underline each occurrence of God ordaining or causing something to happen. I trust you will be blessed to see what a big, in control God you serve. He is not surprised by anything. On the contrary, he is so big that he works in, through, and over everything to bring about his perfect will for his glory. And what should we do? Pursue a knowledge of God's revealed will in the Scriptures and act in obedience while we rest in his sovereign hands.