#74: God's Will vs. free will

On episode 74, Tim discusses the 10 plagues that God poured onto Egypt to release the Israelite people from slavery.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome into episode number seventy four of Bring Heaven Down.
My name is Tim and I'm the host of this
daily devotional podcast that shows up in your feed Monday
through Friday. Make sure you hit that follow button wherever
you're listening. Thank you for choosing Jesus today. If you
have a question, a comment, a disagreement, a thought, anything,
email the show Bring Heaven Down number seven at gmail

(00:27):
dot com. That's Bring Heaven Down number seven at gmail
dot com. Today we're gonna talk about the ten plagues.
Moses approaches Pharaoh said, let my people go. He says no,
and God introduces the ten plagues upon Egypt. So we're

(00:49):
gonna break it down. We're gonna analyze it. So grab
your favorite drinker, cup of coffee, and let's bring Heaven
a little closer together. So God brought the ten plagues
upon Egypt as he promised he would. God told Moses

(01:12):
that he heard and saw the cries of his Israelite people,
and he will stretch out his hand and free them.
So the ten plagues are. The first plague was blood,
second plague was frogs, third lice, fourth flies, five pestilents,
six boils, seven hail, eight locusts, nine darkness, and ten

(01:35):
death of the first Born, which included Pharaoh's own son.
And when I read and analyze the Ten Plagues, what
I see is a battle between free will and God's

(01:56):
sovereignty and power. Because God grants everybody free will, God
allows people to make their own decisions. And because we
have free will, we can choose which direction we want
to go. Now, God also has sovereignty and power and control.

(02:21):
So there's really a rub between God's sovereignty and our
own free will. How is God dictating what happens? But
we also have our own free will to dictate which
decisions we make. And here is the conclusion that I've

(02:41):
come up with through the Holy Spirit revealing it to me.
We do have free will. God is sovereign and powerful
and in control. Because God is sovereign and in control,
if He wants something to happen, it will happen. But
we have will. How does that work? Because God is

(03:02):
sovereign and all powerful, he can manipulate our own free
will to do things that God wants us to do.
For example, the Ten Plagues, Pharaoh did not concede to

(03:23):
God or Moses through the first nine plagues, but then
his son died, and because his son died because of
an act of God, God's act manipulated Pharaoh's free will

(03:43):
to release the Israelite people. It's a case of God
allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves. There
are so many testimonies that tell that story. God allows
what he hates, Pharaoh's son dying. God didn't want that

(04:04):
to happen to accomplish what he loves, freeing the Israelite
people out of slavery after four hundred years, and that
really is a story for so many people. God allows
what he hates to accomplish what he loves. I remember

(04:25):
when I was feeling really lonely when I lived in Washington,
d c. By myself, and it wasn't fun. It was tiresome, depressing.
But looking back, God made me lonely so that I
would find my identity in him. God made me lonely

(04:48):
so that there was no other direction I could go
other than to seek God first. It's a case of
God allows what he hates to comp plish what he loves.
We do have free will, but God can manipulate our
decisions by altering our world with decisions and suffering and

(05:20):
other things that can get us to do what he
wants to do. Pharaoh's son would not have died if
after the first plague, Pharaoh released the Israelite people out
of slavery. But he didn't, and sometimes that can be
the case for us. Our world does not have to

(05:42):
be as tough or as rough if we listen to
God the first time. But what we do as we're stubborn,
we think our way is right and we push back
against God's plan, and then God gets our attention through
a series of actions that we don't like, and then

(06:08):
we're like, Okay, God, you win. It took trials and
suffering to submit and surrender to God because we're prideful.
But through a series of actions, God can manipulate our
free will to do what he wants to do because

(06:28):
He is sovereign and all powerful and in control. Submit
and surrender. Thank you for choosing Jesus today, and I
hope the Holy Spirit revealed more and more about our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.