Proverbs

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NASB	Proverbs 1:29 Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD.
AMPLIFIED 2015	Proverbs 1:29 Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD [that is, obeying Him with reverence and awe-filled respect], [Prov 8:13]

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Bible Question: It is nothing less than shocking for a counselor to see the role of free will in the therapeutic process.

Some say that we have no free will, that our lives are ruled by determinism. Some say that this idea defies logic because the one who believes in determinism must admit that that belief has been predetermined and is therefore not sustainable. But when words fail us to decide or describe a phenomenon, it is something else to see it in operation.

Permit me to tell here a tale of two pastors. They were both in serious need of help, and that is why they came to my attention. One refused to accept help, even while proclaiming belief in the Bible refusing to consider the call to action there, and left in utter confusion, with words about the end of his ministry and/or his life. The other asked to come in as soon as possible, took his place on the couch, went through the process and left with hope, almost unable to contain himself, unable to wait for the changes to take place. One is left to ponder the contrast.

It was C.M. Ward who used to say that the love and power of an omnipotent God can be held in abeyance by the strong will of a puny man.

It was a mysterious thing that God did when he gave us free will. Man is free to defy God. He is free to destroy himself. He is free to choose bad over good. And all the while he justifies himself. It is a strange thing to behold. Sometimes we feel badly when a person says no to us. It is something else to see them say no to the gospel, and no to God. He allows it. He has given us that free will.

Some people see themselves as only judges. They always know what is good and what is bad and they have a constant need to express their opinion. Meanwhile, they do not see their own need. And the counselor feels helpless because he can only help someone who is willing to admit his need and to accept help. And God, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each called Counselor. Love never fails, we are told. Yet God so loved. And the Almighty God is love. How is it we can resist love? How is it we can resist God?

There are those who say that psychology is not a science and cannot be. The reason? Man’s free will. It is possible to explain behavior without it, but with it, man is a mystery. How wonderfully God works for us when we submit to him! How miserably we perish when we reject him!

As a person who preaches the Gospel and counsels people, I look at the free will of man and marvel at it. If anyone has solved that mystery, it would be nice to hear from them. It would not be nice to hear again from those who make themselves the judge and would question the motives or the intellectual capacity of the questioner, as it would only add to the mystery, why they do that.

O, I am tempted to multiply words here in order to dissipate any confusion. I am not comparing a human counselor to God or any such thing. But I am saying that a human counselor sees the free will of man in operation and wonders at that mans ability to exercise it also toward God. I hope that someone can respond to this without getting into Calvinism-Armenianism but I fear someone will exercise his free will to get into it anyway.

Read Jeremiah 7:23-26; 25:1-7; 26:1-5; 29:17-19; 35:13-16; 44:1-5. All of this in one book, about the attitude of one set of people in one situation. How can we explain this?

Bible Answer: A person should be filled with dread, I think, when he finds himself unable to respond to the word of God.

If he believes in God, he should wonder why he is not responding to the word of God. He might ask himself if it is that God has given up on him. Those who are tempted to say that God does not give up on anyone is showing that same inability to respond to the word of God. He should sit before Romans 1:28 and wonder. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind”. If he finds it in his heart to escape or to explain these words away, applying it to others than himself, he should fear.

Sometimes it seems the only reasonable response to the presence of God is the prayer, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). It may seem reasonable to some to say that a saint is no longer a sinner, but then one is at a loss to explain one’s own behavior. Why do we not respond to the word of God?

It is reasonable for a person to ask himself, “Why am I thinking the way I do? Why am I doing the thing I do?” It is reasonable to consider what God says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). What if God is not working in them? What if another spirit is working in them?

It is good to know that God is guiding us. We may not understand it. “Man's goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?” (Proverbs 20:24). We should trust him. But we can only know that he is guiding us if we find ourselves responding to the word of God. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3,4).

When we find ourselves unable to respond to the word of God, we should wonder what Satan might be doing there.

If a person is not sure of his salvation he should sit before 2 Corinthians 4 and ponder. Why is he not able to respond to the good news of salvation in Christ? They may not even see the good in the Gospel. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them”.

It might be that our minds are like theirs, blinded. And their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

If we are saved, we should wonder at our inability to respond to the word of God. It is what he uses, with the power of the Spirit, to guide us, and it does say that we are here, on earth, to help each other. It is to serve and to glorify God, but we do that by helping each other (See Matthew 25:35-40, etc.). If we see a brother drowning and we find it in our hearts to curse him, we should wonder. If we are drowning and we do not find it in our hearts to accept a rope, we should wonder. If we find ourselves saying, “Thou shalt never wash my feet”, and unable to change that, we should wonder.

A passage such as 1 Samuel 2:25 is frightening. What was happening in the hearts of those men? Their father pleaded with them. “Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the LORD would slay them”. Was the Lord making it impossible for them to listen. Does God or Satan blind or minds sometimes, so that we cannot see? We are forced to think about this and wonder if it sometimes happens today, before our eyes.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God, and he has given us his word. It is the word of God that we are using here. And we should be able to use it to wash one another’s feet. When a brother refuses, we may have to return to the word and wash our own feet. We may even be tempted to wash our eyes with it. But it says we must pray.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Open the eyes of our brothers ans sisters, so that we can share.