God is in Control?
When disaster strikes, like the current Covid19 pandemic, Christians tend to respond by saying, “God is in Control”. This gives them confidence, because if God controls everything, he will not allow anything bad to happen to them. If something bad does happen, it is God’s will, and we just misunderstood it as being evil.
The technical name for the idea that God controls everything is “meticulous providence” or “hard determinism”. This doctrine claims that everything that happens on earth is determined by God. Things can only happen if he wills them. If bad things seem to happen, they are actually good, because God has a greater plan that we do not understand.
The problem with this doctrine is that it is wrong. God does not control everything. God is in control of everything, in the sense that he created everything and set up the world the way that it is. Part of his setting up of the world was giving us freedom to control our own lives and be free to make choices, rather than be controlled like puppets.
I know that God does not control the world, because he does not control me. On several occasions, I have chosen to ignore God’s will and do what I wanted to do. He speaks to me and the Spirit leads, me but am I free to disobey. God does not control me, because he has made free. I am not a tough dude, so if God cannot control me, there will be a lot of others that he cannot control.
When I look around at other Christians, I get the sense that he does not control them either. At times, they seem to do things that he does not want them to do. And when I look at the people of the world who don’t know him, it is fairly clear that God does not control them. Not only does he not prevent them from doing evil to others, he does not prevent them from harming themselves.
God gave humans freedom. He also gave humans control over the earth. The spiritual powers of evil tricked them into disobeying God, and they by default they handed authority on the earth to spiritual evil. So much of what happens on earth is controlled by the spiritual powers of evil.
When I look at life, I see a spiritual battle going on between good and evil. I don’t see a God controls everything.
God deals with evil in three ways.
God leads followers of Jesus to do his will. His Holy Spirit speaks to us and prompts us to do his will. If I do the wrong thing, he nudges me back to his path, or uses other people to nudge me back, or changes events to push me back to his will. Sometimes he blasts me with such a dose of his presence, that I have no choice but love and obey him.
He speaks to the people of the world and the powers of evil and persuades them to do what he wants them to do. They are not very clever, so they sometimes follow his suggestions, because they cannot think of anything to do.
God is smarter than the powers of evil. He is able to confuse their plans on earth, despite having limited authority to act. The Holy Spirit can speak to people who do not know God and persuade them to do things that they might not have wanted to do.
God works thought groups of people standing together and resisting evil. When Jesus died on the cross, he destroyed the power that the spiritual powers of evil have over us. That gives those who are in Jesus, authority to resist them. We can bind them and resist the harm that we are trying to do.
God has given us freedom, which is authority in our lives. We have authority to stand against the powers of evil and resist them, if they attack us. Standing against evil in unity with other followers of Jesus that have authority in our lives, because we have submitted to them is the best protection against evil.
More at God’s Sovereignty
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