Spiritual Wimps and a Dangerous View of God's Will

Today I'd like to point out two very pointed articles I ran across. The first concerns the spiritual absence of men in our church(es). The second, totally unrelated article (or wait, is it related?), concerns Henry Blackaby, the author of the prevalent Experiencing God study, and a critique of his dangerous understanding of God's Will (which is smattered all over his famous study).

Dan from the Cerulean Sanctum blog wrote the following about the absence of men in our churches. All I'll add is, "Amen!"

I was part of a church at one time that had about 3,500 attendees. That church had a fairly level ratio of men and women. At that time, the church had groups for motorcycle-riding, gun-shooting, and many others with a “just for the fellowship” emphasis that would appeal to men. Fine by me—I’m all for fellowship groups. The only problem was that this same church had one men’s Bible study and about a dozen women’s Bible studies. I was painfully aware of that inexplicably lopsided ratio too. Why? Because I was the men’s Bible study leader. When I asked why there was only one men’s Bible study group, the answer I usually got was that they’d not been able to maintain more than one or two for any length of time. (What made it even nuttier was about half of the ten or so men that filtered through my group on a regular basis didn’t even attend the church.)

It seems to me that men will show up for church stuff when they have a chance to show off their machismo, but flex some spiritual muscles? Not so much.

So I don’t think it’s as much of a case of the Church being feminized as it is a case of men surrendering their God-appointed roles as spiritual leaders within the Church. They’d rather watch March Madness than bow their knees at a 24-hour prayer meeting for the soul of the nation. Meanwhile, elderly grannies are keeping the devils at bay.

So the next time I hear some guy whimpering about how women are taking over the church, maybe a swift kick to the ‘nads will get him to wise up.
Or some spiritual equivalent.

And on a different note, for all of you readers out there who at some point went through Henry Blackaby's study on Experiencing God, where any of you uncomfortable with how he repeatedly speaks about the will of God? He has a very common understanding of how God speaks and leads us today, one which he sets out in detail in a new book How Then Should We Choose? My thanks to the folks at Pyromaniacs for reviewing Blackaby's chapter and pointing out how dangerous and unbiblical it is to expect God to speak to us in the same way in which he spoke to the Apostles.

HT: Cloud of Witnesses & Pyromaniacs

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.