Dr. William Hinn - The Most High God Reigns Part 2

Now beloved friend, while much more can be written along these lines, it is important at this point as we are emphasizing our God as absolutely Sovereign, that we also point out another very important truth. The sovereignty of God does not eliminate the responsibility of man. There is a realm in God wherein man must walk in obedience or reap the consequences of disobedience. God indeed has apportioned to each man a limited will for self expression. A limited will means that man has the desire without the total ability to accomplish that will. For example, he may desire to be holy yet with his own will sees all he can do is continue to sin. "The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Paul conceded to these same struggles in Romans chapter 7, as he wrote, "For I do not understand my own actions, I am baffled, bewildered. I do not practice to accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loath (which my moral instinct condemns). Then he goes on to say, "Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Surely, He is the only door to freedom. By the grace which have overflowed into our lives, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, we are being quickened to comprehend that it is not a question of the free will of man, but rather it is a drawing of the Father to bring us into obedience, to draw us to unite our will with His through the Son, that we too might pray, "nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." ONE in His will on this earth! Yes, if situations could arise, and all hell could break loose or all heaven pour down from above, if anything in fact can occur in God's creation apart from His plan, where and in whom is our confidence to be placed? May I venture to say, that everything that can be shaken, will be; including our confidence, especially if it has been placed in any other source. How vital it is then that we position our lives, our trust, our plans, our very being into the hands of our loving God, through Jesus Christ His Son, Who is the center and the core of God's plan of the ages, until He is not only our Savior, but also our Master, not only our Redeemer, but also our Lord and King. As we are ordained to be molded, fashioned into the image and likeness of this Almighty firstborn Son, let us resign ourselves to the melodrama of life with the hand of God holding the vessel as He brings forth His purpose in our land, even in the whole earth.

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (tested) of the devil....beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you....and the Lord said, Simon behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, STRENGTHEN THY BRETHREN. (I Pet. 4:12, Luke 22:31-32). There is no doubt, God has purposed an opposing force THAT OUR FAITH MIGHT FAIL NOT. "The trial of your faith is much more precious than gold that perisheth." (I Pet. 1:7). To those who long after the heart of God, opposition, adversity, testings, trials, and afflictions are quickly seen as necessary ingredients for spiritual growth - in fact, not only are they purposed, but they are aimed that we might overcome. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." (Rom. 12:21). "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To Him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life...." (Rev. 2:7). When Paul recognized the truth of this necessity of God he wrote, "I have kept the faith". He rejoiced in this fact. He battled and won three main victories, he had "fought a good fight," he "kept the faith," and he "finished the course". In effect, he won the race, he gained the prize! He knew beyond all doubt, it would pay to lose all and win Christ. In fact, it was in tribulations that he gloried, knowing that tribulations worketh patience and that the sufferings he endured were not even worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed.

On, that we would grasp the vision, that we would be as loyal to Him Who is Truth as Paul was....but after all, we would need Paul's calculator, we would need his arithmetic. He counted differently than we do today. We count things as gain that he would have counted as "loss". God knows us. "He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust." (Ps. 103:14). It is this very "dust" (carnal nature) that God commanded the serpent to feed upon. The very purposeful result will be that one day in the fullness of time, Satan will come, and we will be able to stand and say, "the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me." (Jhn 14:30). No more carnal nature to feed upon because we have been "eating His flesh and drinking His blood". The more we eat of CHRIST Who is our life, the less of this carnal nature will Satan find to devour. As we partake of the Christ we are nourished to grow up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, God is taking away the first (our Adamic nature) that He may establish the second (Christ nature). (Heb. 10:11).

Rest assured beloved, He will not tempt us above that we are able to bear. To quote A.W. Pink, "It is natural to murmur when things go wrong, it is supernatural to hold our peace, it is natural to be disappointed when our plans miscarry, it is supernatural to bow to His Divine appointments. It is natural to want our own way, it is supernatural to say, "not my will, but thine be done." It is natural to rebel when a loved one is taken from us by death, it is supernatural to say from the heart, "The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." As God is truly made our portion, we learn to revere and respect His omniscience for to do so is to know that He doeth all things well! "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (determination, purpose, decree). (Phil 2:13). Yes, a great sacred work of God is accomplished through trials, yet, "God's love never lets us go. The trials and tribulations we endure are not tokens of His displeasure. They are all tempered by His loving heart. A sense of His love hovering over us in the midst of our distresses is the most blessed of all balms..." (A.E. Knoch). The assurance of His unremitting love will enable us not only to endure afflictions, but inevitably embrace them. To paraphrase one of Jeanne Guyon's statements, "His crosses succeed where His caresses could not." It is little wonder that much testing quickly moves us from a place of self-confidence into total reliance upon God. Once again, as we scrutinize Paul's walk we find he learned this very same lesson as we read in II Cor. 1:9 "But we had the same sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God....Being confident of this very thing that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Phil. 1:6).

This same principle was operative even in Job's declaration. "What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). Job by God's own proclamation was a "perfect" man...BUT he had not been "tried by fire." When Satan appeared before the Lord, it was GOD who asked Satan, "have you considered MY SERVANT Job?" It was God who provoked the discussion, it was God who removed the hedge! Upon searching the heart of God for purpose, God in His mercy enlightened Job's heart as to the wisdom of His way, and thus Job opened his mouth and declared, "He knoweth the way that I take; when HE hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." (Job 23:10). Job gave no credit (no place, no inward footing) to the devil for the multitude of calamities that touched his life. Indeed, on the contrary, he fell with his face to the ground and "BLESSED THE NAME OF THE LORD" saying, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now MINE EYE SEETH THEE! (Job 1:22, 42:5). How the endless frustrations in life need to be seen as instruments, weights to gain spiritual muscles, "this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith." (Eccl. 1:13). Exercised - necessary negatives, in which the glory of God Himself is so often revealed, for "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." (Rom 8:28).

We bless Him on the mountain top, and we bless Him in the valley: In all things we bless His Holy name. What else can we say? "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" (Rom. 9:20). We are the clay and He is the Potter. We are His handiwork, a calculated work of God, to whose completion the wisdom and power of God is perpetually devoted. Although at times this vein of thinking may baffle us, we must grasp the truth that as the Potter's wheel turns, our lives are in the hands of Him Who is ever wise, Whose Name is Righteous, Whose love is unending, and Whose grace and faithfulness never fails! "Once we know Him, we should not have it otherwise." (A.E. Knoch). "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure (purpose) they are and were created." (Rev. 4:11).

Concerning God, Francois Fenelon, once wrote, "He is infinite in all things; in wisdom, in power, and in love. It is the height of folly to wish to measure infinite love by limited knowledge." The same Father, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all..." (Rom 8:32) is the same Father who loved us before the foundation of the world. As we catch a glimpse of His immutable love, we might then be a little closer to understanding the purpose of God and evil. "Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even OUR FATHER, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work." (II Thes 2:16,17). "And they that know Thy Name will put their trust in Thee." (Ps. 9:10). "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." (Ps. 24:1).

............. Dr. William Hinn