22 Nov 2009

The bible says there is a God. And this God gave us the record of Himself and in that record He declares that He is the creator and owner of everything (Psa 115:16) but He gave CONTROL of the earth over to man (Gen 1:28) – ‘dominion’ is what it is called. The bible says that man then gave that dominion to satan by submitting to his will (Gen 3:1). Nevertheless, God will not go back on what He has promised (Psa 89:34) – He calls it a ‘covenant.’ The authority granted to man still stands and the dominion over the earth given by man to satan, still stands. So in THIS world, God is NOT in absolute control. The Lord’s prayer (Matt 6) alludes to this when it says ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ No one doubts that God’s will is all that is done in heaven, but the prayer accepts the fact that God’s will is not automatically done on earth. That could not be if God was in control of everything!

The bible makes many statements illustrating the fact that God is NOT in control of this world – for example He say ‘He is not willing for any to perish’ (2 Pet 3:9) yet Jesus himself made the prophecy that most will perish (Mat 7:14). How can that be if He is in absolute control? No, God is at the top of the food chain. He is the creator and He is sovereign (that means He is the highest law making authority). He can influence the thoughts and actions of men by the power of His holy spirit. But He is only in control of those things on earth that man submits to His control. The default condition is that satan has control over the earth. And Satan was granted that dominion by man. Satan is the default power and he automatically has control if we do not deliberately submit to the creator God. In whatever we submit to God, satan loses control over us in that area.

No, God is not in control of everything. The bible does not say that or illustrate that.
That is a folk belief promoted by a church system, which has left believers helpless and impotent before a religious God who can visit upon them all the evil of this fallen world and have them call it from God, and even have them submit to it believing it to be for a redemptive purpose, but it is a lie of the devil. It is not in scripture. God has immeasurable good planned for everybody. He says I’ll show you what I’m made of - I sent a part of me to die for you while you were still bad-mouthing me. That’s how much I love you! (Rom 5) ‘God commends His love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’

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