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.

I know that God will win in the end. When followers of Jesus proclaim the good news of his Kingdom in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God advances, bringing people and territory under God's authority. Eventually, all things will be brought voluntarily under the control of God, but we still have a way to go.

More at God’s Sovereignty

Authority and Control

When God made us free, he gave us authority over our own lives, and he will not take that back.

So we can give God permission to speak to us and guide us, and bring events our way, but we cannot give all control over our lives to him. We have to listen to his leading, and choose to obey. And we have to take responsibility for our decisions, and accept the consequences, though he will rescue us from mistakes.

So If we are under attack from demonic powers, he will not deal with them if we remain passive. He expects us to exercise our faith, and take up the authority that he has given us and command them to leave.

Submission or Control

Authority is a topic that gets Christians stirred up. Who should exercise authority in the church? Must everyone submit to the pastor: Do apostles have authority over pastors? Must prophets submit to pastors? These debates focus on control of the church.

The problem is that when control is at work in a church at any level, the spiritual powers of evil have authority to work in it. The question we should be asking why the spiritual powers of evil have authority to work in the church.

The biblical model is that we must all submit to one another and love each other. That means that even the most experienced pastor or prophet can be challenged by a new Christian. Submitting to one another eliminates control and shuts the spiritual powers of evil out of the church.

Control and the Kingdom of God

A growing fear is that Christians are trying to take control of the world. Several books have been written warning the Christians in the United States are using the political system to get control and force their religion on the rest of society.

In the world, authority is accumulated. People with authority try to get more. In Satan’s kingdom, a few people hold a great deal of authority and the rest submit to them. Unfortunately, some Christians are quite keen on this model.

In the Kingdom of God, the opposite happens.

• Authority is chopped up into bits.
• Authority is pushed down and out to people who do not have it.

Control and authority are diffused as widely as possible. When Jesus got authority he gave it away to as many people as possible.

I guess that those who fear the Kingdom of God would worry less, if all Christians understood this.