Failing Man to make free choice

The Most High, Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth provided the people with brains which enable him to observe, analyse and think. God equipped man to be aware of the things around him and of the scientific elements. He provided man with a free will, which made they themselves, could take free decisions. On their own it was to consider what they would do and how they would react to certain things.

My Choice/The Evil that Men Do (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Man was given the right to choose for himself, making him to select different possibilities. This also meant that they themselves (individually) could choose someone or something from a group of people or things, they decide which one they want. This way they can make the choice to obey or go against God.
Everyone still has the free choice to decide whether or not they want to go to follow God’s commandments or to go against God His Will.

This of course begs the question: how can the universe, including man, have been “good” as a result apparently acts so depraved. If God has created that heart, why is it so “insidious”? We begin to understand the answer to that question, as we read God’s answer to Jeremiah’s question:

Jer 7:10 The Scriptures 1998+  (10)  “And you came and stood before Me in this house which is called by My Name, and said, ‘We have been delivered’ – in order to do all these abominations!

Man can obey God or go against His ordinances and may lie, steal, murder, and commit adultery, swear falsely, or do other bad things. Man is free to do good or  free to return to their wickednesses.

From what is said in these verses of men talking as if delivered to do evil, it should seem, that there were in the Prophet’s days, as well as in ours, persons who took occasion from the doctrine of free grace, to contend for the heresy of fatality: and by reducing men to the character of mere machines, would do away all the consequences of evil. But as this is levelled against the sovereignty of God, so is it refuted by the word of God. All men are by nature disposed since the fall, not delivered, but disposed to evil: and grace only it is that makes the whole difference between one man and another. To tell God therefore, in justification or apology for ourselves, that we are delivered to do evil, is to charge God foolishly, and to make him the Author of our sins.{Hawker}

God tests people to see if they will obey Him willingly. He could have created man as robots, or at least so that they were not able to sin. Apparently, the angels in heaven are slightly so. It admittedly are not robots, but we have to conclude that they apparently are unable to sin (see Chapter 9, “Ministering spirits’). But apparently God will be served only by such creatures.

About God’s purpose in creation, we shall be talking in the next chapter.
The bottom line is that God will be glorified in creatures that have served Him out of free choice. Because he has people equipped with a free will. They can choose: obey or go against God. That also explains why redeemed believers after their resurrection will reign over angels (1 Corinthians 6: 3). People who have voluntarily chosen to serve God (once in perfect condition) apparently a ‘value’ above beings who do not have stood for that choice. Of course, our Lord Jesus, who was completely sinless, stands again above the redeemed, which only by his sacrifice are “made” sinless. But those who leave people with a free choice take the risk that the free choice would not be the one like they would prefer. It well could be that those people because of their choice shall fail.

We as humans have a tendency to want to mitigate that risk. Much as we would not dictate our children how their own freedom of choice should look. How easily are church leaders to establish their own free choice of their followers in all sorts of commandments and prohibitions. How smart are not totalitarian rulers to ‘protect’ the people against the fatal consequences of “their own shortsightedness. But God obviously takes that risk. When Israel received the promised land, Joshua says in his “farewell speech”:

Jos 24:15 The Scriptures 1998+  (15)  “And if it seems evil in your eyes to serve יהוה {Jehovah}, choose for yourselves this day whom you are going to serve, whether the mighty ones which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the mighty ones of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But I and my house, we serve יהוה {Jehovah}.”

Moses when he speaks to Israel at the end of their forty-year wilderness journey asks them to remember all the way which the Almighty Elohim Jehovah their God brought them these forty years to bring them back to their senses, humbling and putting them to the test in order to know what was really in their heart.

Deu 8:1-3 The Scriptures 1998+  (1)  “Guard to do every command which I command you today, that you might live, and shall increase, and go in, and shall possess the land of which יהוה  {Jehovah} swore to your fathers.  (2)  “And you shall remember that יהוה  {Jehovah} your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.  (3)  “And He humbled you, and let you suffer hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, to make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that comes from the mouth of יהוה  {Jehovah}1. Footnote: 1Messiah quotes this in Mt. 4:4 and in Lk. 4:4.

Here, too, it is the purpose of the test again in order to see on which side they are. But it also served to humble them. If serving יהוה  {Jehovah} God would have succeeded there had arisen another evil: pride. In his speech quoted above says Joshua also:

Jos 24:16 The Scriptures 1998+  (16)  And the people answered and said, “Far be it from us to forsake יהוה  {Jehovah} , to serve other mighty ones,

Even well-good-meaning, trying man, think they could not serve that Only One God or was not able to serve the Most High, for He is an holy God.
Here, however, looms a huge problem. The fact that human beings, even the benevolent man, fails to serve God in perfection, which makes man himself humble, the situation nonetheless seems very hopeless. However, it does not remain thereby. In the following chapters we will see how God has provided for this.

Conscience and law (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another reason why the Bible so extensively goes into this matter of all kinds of human error, however, is that God wants to warn us. All these impurities should strengthen us in our intentions with our free will to want to choose the right direction. That free will we received, results in a battle between good and evil in our hearts. And the many examples of evil in the Bible should convince us of the danger that we run when we in that fight even relax for a moment. Man simply learns the fastest from his own mistakes, but we learn the “cheapest” way of other people’s mistakes. The ‘learning’ for once own mistakes is disproportionately higher. This aspect of the school of life is further discussed in section II. Another reason why there is so much human failure in the Bible, is that it convinces us of God’s grace. Our mistakes can not be so great or God is ready there for us, able to forgive them, as long as we sincerely ask for it, and earnestly strive to do better next time. See further Chapter 6 (“Salvation”). The cause of the downfall of Judas Iscariot was not betraying his Lord, but afterwards his conviction that God would not be able to forgive him.

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Previous writings:

Colour-blindness and road code

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Additional reading:

1. Being Religious and Spiritual 2 Religiosity and spiritual life
2. Being Religious and Spiritual 5 Gnostic influences
3. Being Religious and Spiritual 6 Romantici, utopists and transcendentalists
4. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
5. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
6. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
7. Why think that (4) … God would reveal himself in words
8. Creator and Blogger God 4 Expounding voice
9. Creator and Blogger God 7 A Blog of a Book 1 Believing the Blogger
10. Truth never plays false roles of any kind, which is why people are so surprised when meeting it
11. Myth 12: The Hyper-Grace Gospel Makes People Lazy
12. Necessity of a revelation of creation 1 Works of God and works of man
13. The Importance of the Prophetic
14. Understanding God’s Wrath
15. Counterfeit Gospels
16. Not holding back and getting out of darkness
17. What is life?
18. Your life the sum total of all your choices
19. Are people allowed to have doubts
20. No man is free who is not master of himself
21. We may not be ignorant to get wisdom
22. Coming to understanding from sayings written long ago
23. Only the contrite self, sick of its pretensions, can find salvation
24. Running away from the past
25. Breathing and growing with no heir
26. Let you not be defined by the effect of your wrong choice
27. Choices
28. For those who make other choices
29. A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses
30. Not enlightened by God’s Spirit
31. Fear of God reason to return to Holy Scriptures
32. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
33. People should know what you stand for
34. Choose you this day whom ye will serve
35. It is a free will choice
36. An anarchistic reading of the Bible—(1) Approaching the Bible
37. Isaiah 55-56, Revelation 11
38. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
39. The Existence of Evil
40. What others think about the tree of knowledge of good and evil
41. Why God permits evil
42. Satan the evil within
43. Fear and protection
44. Pain, sanctification and salvation
45. Don’t be afraid to fall
46. I Can’t Believe That … (2) God would allow children to suffer
47. Struggles of life
48. The Immeasurable Grace bestowed on humanity
49. Choose you this day whom ye will serve
50. Each choice we make causes a ripple effect in our lives
51. Always a choice
52. We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace
53. How do Other People Feel About Mental Health?
54. Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you
55. Cognizance at the doorstep or at the internet socket
56. The waiting game – Wachten
57. Answering a fool according to his folly
58. Speciesism and racism
59. Race, Skin colour and differences
60. Some one or something to fear #4 Families and Competition
61. The Immeasurable Grace bestowed on humanity
62. Parts of the body of Christ
63. Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26
64. Casual Christians
65. What’s church for, anyway?
66. United people under Christ
67. People who are always making allowances for themselves soon go bankrupt
68. Are religious and secular ethicists climbing the same mountain
69. Helping to create a Positive Attitude
70. Most
71. See the conquest and believe that we can gain the victory
72. Peace Takes You

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Further related reading:

• You Choose
• Choose To Proclaim
• Doing Time
• Abiding Word!
• Hunger – The Metaphorical Kind.
• MisTakes
• Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
• On Failure and Missed Opportunities
• Daily Choice
• “Love doesn’t force itself on others.” ~Apostle Paul
• You’ll Fail
• Modern Illness – Chapter 7: Failure
• Choose!
• Had any Directions from God lately?
• Make God your choice today
• God in our DNA
• God Contends with Men Today
• God’s Plan for Mankind
• Why God?
• Weekly Torah Commentary — Passover April 3-4, 2015
• Accountability and Freedom
• A Want or an Excuse?
• The seduction of addiction
• Under the Influence
• Individual Behaviors
• Walking in the Dark
• Sharing the Light
• Life’s Crossroads
• It’s in your nature
• When you are enough
• the illusion of autonomy
• How “Free” Is Our Freedom Of Choice?
• 7 Rules Everyone Should Know
• Four Essential Principles for Discernment
• Proverbs in Light of The Cross; Its Your Own Choice
• The freedom to learn is a great liability
• True Freedom.
• Choices We Make
• A Bad Attitude – the Chosen Disability
• Any Road
• Who You Are
• There is the God!
• August 20, 2015
• All You Need Is Love (More Please)
• Will my current ‘choices’ get me to where I want to be in Life?
• Is it a case of the ‘what ifs’ or something else?
• Directly Opposed To Morality
• Failure Rate
• Proverbs 5
• Gethsemane
• 2015–Day 52
• The Human: Doomed, Genetic Birth Defect

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