Tuesday, June 23, 2009

God's Providential Will

Be Still My Soul

1. Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;
With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In ev'ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy heav'nly Friend
Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

2. Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

3. Be still, my soul: The hour is hast'ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: When change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Hymns # 124
Text: Katharina von Schlegel, b. 1697;trans. by Jane Borthwick, 1813-1897
Music: Finlandia, by Jean Sebelius

The preceding hymn beautifully summarizes the personal meaning of the fourth and final aspect of God's will: His providential will. The providential will may be described as the particular path to eternal happiness that God has charted for each of His children. It involves all of the aspects and attributes of the divine charecter, especially God's knowledge, wisdom, omnipotence and love.

While Latter-day Saints usually refer to this doctrine as "foreordination," the scriptures everywhere testify to it and it has always been a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. As one Protestant source defines it:

"Divine providence is that activity of God whereby He uninterruptedly upholds (preserves), governs, and directs lifeless creation (Jb 9:5–6; 28:25–26; Ps 89:9; 148:8), plant life (Ps 104:13–14; 147:9), animal life (Ps 145:15; Jon 4:11), the world of men (Ps 139:13, 15–16; Jer. 1:5; Mt 4:4; 5:45; 6:26–28; 18:14; Acts 17:24–28) and all that concerns men (Ps 31:15; 91:1, 3; 121; Pr 20:24; 21:1; Lk 12:7), heaven, hell, everything (Lk 12:6–7; Cl 1:16–17; Heb 1:1–3).
Divine providence normally expresses itself in definite laws (Gn 8:22) that represent inner urges and drives implanted by God in His creatures. These laws proclaim the benignity of the Creator (Acts 14:17).

"Divine providence is ordinarily exercised through secondary causes; but these are operative only so long as God works through them. Scripture teaches that both God and the means are operative (Ps 69:9–11; 127:1; Is 55:10; 1 Co 12:6); this cannot be completely explained by the human mind.

"Divine providence deprives men neither of their liberty nor of their responsibility; it neither reduces men to automata nor makes God responsible for sin (Ro 1:18–32). God is operative in men and acts through men also when their deeds are evil (2 Sm 16:10; 24:1; Acts 17:28), but He is not the author of sin (Ps 50:16–21).

"From the viewpoint of God all is predetermined and immutably fixed (Jb 14:5; Acts 4:27–28); from the human viewpoint things happen contingently, events can be modified and depend on circumstances and decisions that men make and for which they are responsible (Ps 55:23; Is 38:1–5).

"Ultimate goals of divine providence: (1) the temporal and eternal welfare of man, esp. the salvation of the elect; (2) the spreading of the Gospel; (3) the promotion of the glory of God (Ro 11:36)."

The following is a long excerpt from a talk given by Elder Neal Maxwell at BYU in 1978, when he was a President of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Using the term "foreodination," it discusses the concept of the providential will of God much more thoroughly and elogquently than I ever could.

*******************

Of course, when we mortals try to comprehend, rather than merely accept, foreordination, the result is one in which finite minds futilely try to comprehend omniscience. A full understanding is impossible; we simply have to trust in what the Lord has told us, knowing enough, however, to realize that we are not dealing with guarantees from God but extra opportunities--and heavier responsibilities. If those responsibilities are in some ways linked to past performance or to past capabilities, it should not surprise us.

The Lord has said,

There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated--
And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. [D&C 130: 20–21]

This is an eternal law, brothers and sisters--it prevailed in the first estate as well as in the second. It should not disconcert us, therefore, that the Lord has indicated that he chose some individuals before they came here to carry out certain assignments and, hence, these individuals have been foreordained to those assignments. "Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of Heaven before the world was. I suppose that I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council" (Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 365).
Foreordination is like any other blessing--it is a conditional bestowal subject to our faithfulness. Prophesies foreshadow events without determining the outcomes, because of a divine foreseeing of outcomes. So foreordination is a conditional bestowal of a role, a responsibility, or a blessing which, likewise, foresees but does not fix the outcome.

There have been those who have failed or who have been treasonous to their trust such as David, Solomon, Judas. God foresaw the fall of David, but was not the cause of it. It was David who saw Bathsheba from the balcony and sent for her. But neither was God surprised by such a sad development. God foresaw, but did not cause, Martin Harris's loss of certain pages of the translated Book of Mormon; God made plans to cope with that failure over fifteen hundred years before it was to occur (see D&C 10 and Words of Mormon).

Thus foreordination is clearly no excuse for fatalism or arrogance or the abuse of agency. It is not, however, a doctrine that can simply be ignored because it is difficult. Indeed, deep inside the hardest doctrines are some of the pearls of greatest price. The doctrine pertains not only to the foreordination of the prophets, but to each of us. God--in his precise assessment, beforehand, as to those who will respond to the words of the Savior and the prophets--is a part of the plan. From the Savior's own lips came these words: "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine" (John 10:14). Similarly the Savior said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27). And further in this dispensation, he declared, "And ye are called to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts" (D&C 29:7).

This responsiveness could not have been gauged without divine foreknowledge concerning all of us mortals and our response, one way or another, to the gospel. God's foreknowledge is so perfect it leaves the realm of prediction and enters the realm of prophecy.

The foreseeing of those who would accept the gospel in mortality, gladly and with alacrity, is based upon their parallel responsiveness in the premortal world. No wonder the Lord could say as he did to Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; . . . and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5). Paul, when writing to the saints in Rome, said, "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew" (Romans 11:2). Paul also said of God that "he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4).

The Lord, who was able to say to his disciples, "Cast the net on the right side of the ship," knew beforehand there was a multitude of fishes there (John 21:6). If he knew beforehand the movements and whereabout of fishes in the little Sea of Tiberias, should it offend us that he knows beforehand which mortals will come into the gospel net?

It does no violence even to our frail human logic to observe that there cannot be a grand plan of salvation for all mankind, unless there is also a plan for each individual. The salvational sum will reflect all its parts. Once the believer acknowledges that the past, present, and future are before
God simultaneously--even though we do not understand how--then the doctrine of foreordination may be seen somewhat more clearly. For instance, it was necessary for God to know how the economic difficulties and crop failures of the Joseph Smith, Senior, family in New England would move this special family to Cumorah country where the Book of Mormon plates were buried. God's plans could scarcely have so unfolded if--willy-nilly--the Smiths had been born Manchurians and if, meanwhile, the plates had been buried in Belgium!

The Lord would need to have perfect comprehension of all the military and political developments, including those now underway in the Middle East--which, when they unfold, will combine to bring to pass a latter-day condition in which "all nations" will be gathered against Jerusalem to battle (Zechariah 14:2–4). It should not surprise us that the Lord who notices the fall of each sparrow and the hair from every head would know centuries before how much money Judas would receive--thirty pieces of silver--at the time he betrayed the Savior (Matthew 26:15; 27:3; Zechariah 11:12).

Quite understandably, the manner in which things unfold seems to us mortals to be so natural. Our not knowing what is to come (in the perfect way that God knows) thus preserves our free agency completely. When, through a process we call inspiration and revelation, we are permitted at times to tap that divine databank, we are accessing, for the narrow purposes at hand, the knowledge of God. No wonder that experience is so unforgettable!

There are clearly special cases of individuals in mortality who have special limitations in life, which conditions we mortals cannot now fully fathom. For all we now know, the seeming limitations may have been an agreed-upon spur to achievement--a "thorn in the flesh." Like him who was blind from birth, some come to bring glory to God (John 9:1–3). We must be exceedingly careful about imputing either wrong causes or wrong rewards to all in such circumstances. They are in the Lord's hands, and he loves them perfectly. Indeed, some of those who have required much waiting upon in this life may be waited upon again by the rest of us in the next world--but for the highest of reasons.

Thus, when we are elected to certain mortal chores, we are elected "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Peter 1:2). When Abraham was advised that he "was chosen before he was born," and that he was among the "noble and great ones" (Abraham 3:22–23), we received a marvelous insight. Through the revelation given to us by the prophet Joseph F. Smith we read that "The Prophet Joseph Smith, . . . Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and other choice spirits" were also reserved by God "to come forth in the fullness of times to take part in laying the foundations of the great latter-day work" (JFS Vision 53). These individuals are among the rulers whom Abraham had described to him centuries earlier by God. They were to be "rulers in the Church of God" (JFS Vision 55), not necessarily rulers in secular kingdoms. Thus those seen by Abraham were the Pauls, not the Caesars; the Spencer W. Kimballs, not the Churchills. Wise secular leaders do much lasting and commendable good; but as Paul observed to the saints in Corinth, as the world measured greatness and wisdom "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called" (1 Corinthians 1:26).

President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: "In regard to the holding of the priesthood in preexistence, I will say that there was an organization there just as well as an organization here, and men there held authority. Men chosen to positions of trust in the spirit world held priesthood" (Doctrines of Salvation 3:81). Alma speaks about foreordination with great effectiveness and links it to the foreknowledge of God and, perhaps, even to our previous performance (Alma 13:3–5). The omniscience of God made it possible, therefore, for him to determine the boundaries and times of nations (Acts 17:26; Deuteronomy 32:8).

Elder Orson Hyde said of our life in the premortal world, "We understood things better there than we do in this lower world." Elder Hyde also surmised as to the agreements we made there as follows: "It is not impossible that we signed the articles thereof with our own hands,--which articles may be retained in the archives above, to be presented to us when we rise from the dead, and be judged out of our own mouths, according to that which is written in the books." Just because we have forgotten, said Elder Hyde, "our forgetfulness cannot alter the facts" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:314–15). Brothers and sisters, the degree of detail involved in the covenants and promises we participated in at that time may be a much more highly customized thing than many of us surmise. Yet, on occasion even with our forgetting, there may be inklings. President Joseph F. Smith wrote:

But in coming here, we forget all, that our agency might be free indeed, to choose good or evil, that we might merit the reward of our own choice and conduct. But by the power of the Spirit, in the redemption of Christ through obedience, we often catch a spark from the awakened memories of the immortal soul, which lights up our whole being as with the glory of our former home. [Gospel Doctrines, pp. 13–14; emphasis added]

As indicated earlier, this powerful teaching of foreordination is bound to be a puzzlement in some respects, especially if we do not have faith and trust in the Lord. Yet if we think about it, even within our finite framework of experience, it should not startle us. Mortal parents are reasonably good at predicting the behavior of their children in certain circumstances. Of this Elder James E. Talmage wrote:

Our Heavenly Father has a full knowledge of the nature and disposition of each of His children, a knowledge gained by long observation and experience in the past eternity of our primeval childhood; a knowledge compared with which that gained by earthly parents through mortal experience with their children is infinitesimally small. By reason of that surpassing knowledge, God reads the future of child and children, of men individually and of men collectively as communities and nations; He knows what each will do under given conditions, and sees the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge is based on intelligence and reason. He foresees the future as a state which naturally and surely will be; not as one which must be because He has arbitrarily willed that it shall be.--From the author's Great Apostasy, pp. 19, 20. [Jesus the Christ, p. 29]

Another helpful analogy for students is the reality that universities, including this one, can and do predict with a high degree of accuracy the grades entering students will receive in their college careers based upon certain tests, past performances, and so forth. If mortals can do this with reasonable accuracy (and even with a short span of familiarity and finite data), God, the Father, who knows us perfectly, surely can foresee how we will respond to various challenges. While we often do not rise to our opportunities, God is neither pleased nor surprised. But we cannot say to him later on that we could have achieved if we had just been given the chance! This is all part of the justice of God.

One of the most helpful--indeed very necessary--parallel truths to be pondered when studying this powerful doctrine of foreordination is given in the revelation of the Lord to Moses in which the Lord says, "And all things are present with me, for I know them all" (Moses1:6). God does not live in the dimension of time as do we. Moreover, since "all things are present with" God, his is not simply a predicting based solely upon the past. In ways which are not clear to us, he actually sees, rather than foresees, the future--because all things are, at once, present before him.

In a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord described himself as "The same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes" (D&C 38:2). From the prophet Nephi we receive the same basic insight in which we, likewise, must trust: "But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men" (1 Nephi 9:6). It was by divine design that Mary became the mother of Jesus. Further, Lucy Mack Smith, who played such a crucial role in the rearing of Joseph Smith, did not come to that assignment by chance.

One of the dimensions of worshipping a living God is to know that he is alive and living in the sense of seeing and acting. He is not a retired God whose best years are past, to whom we should pay a retroactive obeisance, worshipping him for what he has already done. He is the living God who is, at once, in all the dimensions of time--the past and present and future--while we labor constrained by the limitations of time itself.

It is imperative, brothers and sisters, that we always keep in mind the caveats noted earlier, so that we do not indulge ourselves or our whims, simply because of the presence of this powerful doctrine of foreordination, for with special opportunities come special responsibilities and much greater risks. But the doctrine of foreordination properly understood and humbly pursued can help us immensely in coping with the vicissitudes of life. Otherwise, time can tug at us and play so many tricks upon us. We should always understand that while God is never surprised, we often are.

Life episodes can take on a new meaning. For instance, Simon, the Cyrenian, wandered into Jerusalem that very day and was pressed into service by Roman soldiers to help carry the cross of Christ (see Mark 15:21). Simon's son, Rufus, joined the Church, and was so well thought of by the apostle Paul that the latter mentioned Rufus in his epistle to the Romans, describing him as "chosen in the Lord" (Romans 16:13). Was it, therefore, a mere accident that Simon "who passed by, coming out of the country" (Mark 15:21), was asked to bear the cross of Jesus?

Properly humbled and instructed concerning the great privileges that are ours, we can cope with what seem to be very dark days and difficult developments, because we will have a true perspective about "things as they really are," and we can see in them a great chance to contribute. Churchill, in trying to rally his countrymen in an address at Harrow School in October of 1941, said to them:

Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race. [Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, p. 923]

Brothers and sisters, so we should regard the dispensation of the fullness of times--even when we face stern challenges and circumstances, "these are great days"! Our hearts need not fail us. We can be equal to our challenges, including the aforementioned challenge of the secular church.
The truth about foreordination also helps us to taste the deep wisdom of Alma, when he said we ought to be content with things that God hath allotted to each of us (Alma 29:3, 4). If, indeed, the things allotted to each of us have been divinely customized according to our ability and capacity, then for us to seek to wrench ourselves free of our schooling circumstances could be to tear ourselves away from carefully matched opportunities. To rant and to rail could be to go against divine wisdom, wisdom in which we may have once concurred before we came here. God knew beforehand each of our coefficients for coping and contributing and has so ordered our lives.

The late President Henry D. Moyle said,

I believe that we, as fellow workers in the priesthood, might well take to heart the admonition of Alma and be content with that which God hath allotted us. We might well be assured that we had something to do with our "allotment" in our preexistent state. This would be an additional reason for us to accept our present condition and make the best of it. It is what we agreed to do. [CR, October 1952, p. 71]

By the way, brothers and sisters, I hasten to add that among the things "allotted" are not included things like a bad temper. The deficiencies of a developmental variety are those we are expected to overcome.

Now, as I prepare to conclude, may I point out what a vastly different view of life the doctrine of foreordination gives to us. Shorn of this perspective, others are puzzled or bitter about life. Without gospel perspective life would be a punishment, not a joy--like trying to play a game of billiards on a table with a rumpled cloth, with a crooked cue and an elliptical billiard ball (from Sir William S. Gilbert's libretto of The Mikado). (Perhaps the moral of that analogy is that we should stay out of pool halls.) In any event, pessimism does not really reckon with life and the universe as these things "really are." The disciple will be puzzled at times, too. But he persists. Later he rejoices over how wonderfully things fit together, realizing only then that, with God, things never were apart.

Jacob said that the Spirit teaches us the truth "of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be" (Jacob 4:13). Centuries later Paul said that the "Spirit searcheth . . . the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10). Of some of these deep things we have spoken today, and of how things really are. Brothers and sisters, in some of those precious and personal moments of deep discovery, there will be a sudden surge of recognition of an immortal insight, a doctrinal déjà vu. We will sometimes experience a flash from the mirror of memory that beckons us forward toward a far horizon.

When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and we were found equal to our tasks; and, therefore, let us continue, but with a more determined discipleship. When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance that God will not overprogram us; he will not press upon us more than we can bear (D&C 50:40).

The doctrine of foreordination, therefore, is not a doctrine of repose; it is a doctrine for the second-milers; it can draw out of us the last full measure of devotion. It is a doctrine of perspiration, not aspiration. Moreover, it discourages aspiring, lest we covet, like two early disciples, that which has already been given to another (Matthew 20:20–23). Foreordination is a doctrine for the deep believer and will only bring scorn from the skeptic.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Lord Is Able to Do All Things According to His Will -- 1 Nephi 7:12

The following message provides a further explanation of the Permissive Will of God.



ROMANS 8 – A MOST PRECIOUS PROMISE

My text for today is Romans 8:28-39, which declares:

(Rom 8:28 KJV) And 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 8:29 KJV) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

(Rom 8:30 KJV) Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

(Rom 8:31 KJV) What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

(Rom 8:32 KJV) He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

(Rom 8:33 KJV) Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

(Rom 8:34 KJV) Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

(Rom 8:35 KJV) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

(Rom 8:36 KJV) As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

(Rom 8:37 KJV) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

(Rom 8:38 KJV) For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

(Rom 8:39 KJV) Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


Here we find: (1) a Promise Made; (2) A Promise Explained; (3) A Promise Assured and (4) A Promise Experienced with Joy.


(1) THE PROMISE MADE:

(Rom 8:28 KJV) And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

(A) Similar promises arecfound in D&C 90:24 – “Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted with one another.”

(B) In D&C 59, we are commanded to thank the Lord “in all things” and we are warned of condemnation if we do not see His hand in all things: “And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.”

(C) Note that the promise is made, not to all people, but to “them that love God, who are called according to His purpose” – i.e., to the faithful.


(2) THE PROMISE EXPLAINED:

(A) Does this promise mean that all that happens is good, that bad things do not happen to good people, or to bad people for that matter? Obviously not. Sin, pain and death abound in this world (marriages fail; spouses and children are abused; jobs are lost; long and painful illness afflicts; death takes away). These are truly painful and difficult events.

(B) So what is the “good” toward which God works all things for His faithful? Verses 29 and 30 show us the answer

(Rom 8:29 KJV) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

(Rom 8:30 KJV) Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

The good that can come from all things is – the plan of salvation, our eternal life and exaltation. To God, everything is simple. His perfect love seeks for us perfect joy, which is to be found only in knowing and loving Him, becoming one with Him and receiving the fullness of eternal life. His goal is not our mortal pleasure, or happiness, or contentment – His goal is our eternal life, no matter what the cost to us, and no matter what the cost to Him.

“The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, drive all planes and cars, fees us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not . . . .

“The basic gospel law is free agency and eternal development. To force us to be careful or righteous would be to nullify that fundamental law and make growth impossible . . . .

“If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure and short life would be calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the pre-earth past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in perspective.

“Is there not wisdom in his giving us trials that we might rise above them, responsibilities that we might achieve, work to harden our muscles, sorrows to try our souls? Are we not exposed to temptations to test our strength, sickness that we might learn patience, death that we might be immortalized and glorified?

“If all of the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.

“If joy and peace an rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be do evil – all would do good, but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls.

“Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or even death, and if these were not, there would also be no joy, success, resurrection, eternal life or godhood. ‘For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things . . . righteousness . . . wickedness . . . holiness . . . misery . . .good . . . bad’ (2 Nephi 2:11)

“Being human, we would expel from our lives physical pain and mental anguish and assure ourselves of continual ease and comfort, but if we were to close the doors upon sorrow and distress, we might be excluding our greatest friends and benefactors. Suffering can make saints of people as they learn patience, long-suffering and self-mastery. The sufferings of our Savior were part of His education.”

-- Spencer W. Kimball, Tragedy or Destiny, 1977, pp. 2-3.


“I am afraid there are some, even of God’s own children, who scarcely think that he is equal to themselves in tenderness, and love, and thoughtful care; and who, in their secret thoughts, charge him with a neglect and indifference of which they would feel themselves incapable. The truth really is that his care is infinitely superior to any possibility of human care; and that he, who counts the very hairs of our heads, and suffers not a sparrow to fall without him, takes note of the minutest matters that can affect the lives of his children, and regulates them all according to his own perfect will, let their origin by what they may.

“The instances of this are numberless. Take Joseph. What could have seemed more apparently on the face of it to be the results of sin, and utterly contrary to the will of God, than the action of his brethren in selling him into slavery? And yet Joseph, in speaking of it said, ‘As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.’ ‘Now, therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.’ It was undoubtedly sin in Joseph’s brethren, but by the time it had reached Joseph it had become God’s will for him, and was, in truth, though he did not see it then, the greatest blessings of his whole life. And thus we see how God can make even ‘the wrath of man to praise him’ and how all things, even the sins of others, ‘shall work together for good to them that love him.’ ”
-- Hannah Whitall Smith



(3) THE PROMISE ASSURED:

(Rom 8:31 KJV) What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

(Rom 8:32 KJV) He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

“All things whatever, in heaven and earth, are not so great a display of God's free love, as the gift of his coequal Son to be the atonement on the cross for the sin of man; and all the rest follows upon union with him, and interest in him. . . . He that has prepared a crown and a kingdom for us, will give us what we need in the way to it.” -- Matthew Henry


(Rom 8:33 KJV) Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

(Rom 8:34 KJV) Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

(4) THE PROMISE EXPERIENCED:

(Rom 8:35 KJV) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress [trouble or calamity], or persecution, or famine [lack of food], or nakedness [lack of clothing or shelter], or peril [any kind of danger], or sword [threat of violent death]?

(Rom 8:36 KJV) As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

(Rom 8:37 KJV) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors [not just enduring; not just overcoming; not just victory, but overwhelming victory] through him that loved us.

(Rom 8:38 KJV) For I am persuaded, that neither death [humanity’s most universal and dreadful fear], nor life [with all its challenges and trials], nor angels, nor principalities [earthly authorities of any kind], nor powers [Satan and his hosts], nor things present [our current trials, concerns and fears], nor things to come [worries about the future],

(Rom 8:39 KJV) Nor height [however high we may be, either physically or in whatever success or accomplishment we achieve], nor depth [however low we may be, either physically or in terms of our losses or failures], nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


TESTIMONY:

God lives. His love for us is eternal and unchangeable. It will never fail us, but instead assures us that nothing happens that is outside His eternal purpose of our eternal life and exaltation, or beyond the power of His sovereign grace. We can be assured of all of this because of the life, ministry, atoning death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

I know that He lives, for I have come to know Him. He has restored His Gospel in its everlasting fullness. This is His Church, led by His living Prophet.

The Lord Is Able to Do All Things According to His Will -- 1 Nephi 7:12

This post covers the third aspect of the will of the Lord -- His Permissive Will. I write this with some concern: this discussion is of theology and doctrine. As you will see as you read, this is not a subject that should be taught, by itself, in the context of trying to comfort those enduring grief, loss or despair. By itself, the Permissive Will of God can seem to portray Him as merciless and uncaring. It is critical, therefore, in applying this teaching to those who suffer, that the doctrine of God's Providential Will (the subject of a later post) be included as well.

The Permissive Will of God is explained simply: it is that which God permits or allows to happen, but which He does not otherwise cause. The concept of the Permissive Will arises from three great truths that are taught so clearly in Scripture that we cannot cite all of the references. These truths are: (1) that God is omniscient, so that He knows in advance (from our perspective) everything that is going to happen; (2) that God is omnipotent, so that He could prevent any particular event from occurring; and (3) that God is infinitely kind, loving and merciful, so that His goal is to bring about the greatest joy for each of His children. It involves the ancient and continuing questions: Why do bad things happen to good people? Where is God when appallingly terrible things happen? Why was there a Holocaust? Why did 9/11 happen? Why do tens of thousands of children die every day from disease and famine? Of these things and of everything else that occurs, the Scriptures require us to acknowledge that it is, at a minimum, in accord with the Permissive Will of God.

The teachings of Scripture also outline for us three principles that seem to apply to God's decision whether to allow a particular event to happen. (1) God is fully committed to honoring human agency or freedom of choice. He does not force any of His children to choose either good or evil. He always allows each person to choose how that person will act, even if that decision may have a devastating impact on others. (2) God has established a physical world that is governed by natural law. To teach His children the crucial lesson that breaking or keeping such laws has necessary consequences, He generally does not intervene in the operation of natural law. (3) Finally, and most importantly, God's infinite compassion and mercy require Him to use His unlimited power always to bring good out of evil. God does not allow any event to occur unless, somehow, someday, it will yield an eternal benefit to someone. This last principle is the overriding one. God may allow someone to chose evil, but may intervene to limit the effects of that choice. God may allow nature to take its course, even as He directs the track of the storm.

This can be a hard doctrine, especially if it is not considered at the same time as the doctrine of God's Providence. Yet, if we can learn it during relatively good times, it can be a great comfort in the times of trial. It assures us that the calamity that is a surprise to us is not a surprise to Him. It also teaches us that if God has allowed it to happen, He already knows how it can be turned to a good purpose.

Such is the understanding that inspired 18th century English poet, William Cowper, to write one of the greatest expressions of faith ever put on paper. Cowper suffered throughout his life from severe depression and attempted suicide several times. Having passed through such darkness into one of the brighter periods of his life, he wrote:

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Ye fearful Saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev’ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan his works in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
{Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.}
{Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.}
Hymns, #285. (The last two stanzas
were omitted from the 1985 LDS hymnbook.)