Friday Everything: Patriotic Hymns

Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From Patriotic Hymns

America! America! God mend thine every flaw. Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law. *** My country, ’tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty, of thee I sing; From every mountain side, let Freedom ring. *** Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven rescued land praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation! *** He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! Be jubilant, my feet!  *** Thy love divine hath led us in the past. In this free land by Thee our lot is cast. Be Thou our Ruler, Guardian, Guide and Stay. Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way. *** Our fathers’ God to Thee, Author of Liberty, to thee we sing. *** Oh Lord I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in. *** Long may our land be bright with Freedom’s holy light. *** Our God is marching on. *** Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King. *** Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel. *** As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, while God is marching on. *** My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills. My heart with rapture thrills like that above. *** O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life. *** America! America! May God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine. *** God bless America. *** Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way. Lead us from night to never ending day; Fill all our lives with love and grace divine and glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine. *** As we go, this we know: God is nigh.

 

One day early. Happy Fourth Of July! 

Where I Differ With Jonathan Edwards, Part 2

Yesterday I began discussing an Adult Sunday School lesson that our teacher (Dr. DeRouchie) presented to show that while God wills, or ordains, that sin happens, he is not the positive or active agent when sin happens. He showed that God is holy and quoted Jonathan Edwards.

 

<And here let me reiterate that the point that I am bringing out is perhaps the only one that I disagree with either our teacher or Pastor Edwards>

 

Dr. DeRouchie continued:

 

Two wills in God? God at times wills that which he hates (e.g., sin) in view of the ultimate universal consequences.

 

And again he wisely goes for evidence from the bible and he provided an excellant list of bible passages that show that God ordains Sin. I have added the Verb phrase from the key verses:

 

Biblical Support:

God opposes hatred toward His people, yet ordained that His people be hated in Egypt (Gen 12:3 with Ps 105:25 – “He turned their hearts to hate his people”).

TURNED

—

God hardens Pharaoh’s heart but commands him to let his people go (Exod 4:21 with 5:1; 7:3–5 with 7:13, 22; 8:15, 19; 9:12, 16, 35; 10:20, 27; 11:9, 10; 14:4, 8, 17–18).

HARDENED

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God makes plain that it is sin for David to take a military census of His people, but He ordains that he do it (2 Sam 24:1 with 10; cf. 1 Chr 21:1).

INCITED

 

—

 

God views false teaching as evil and will destroy it, but he ordains it to test his people (Rom 16:17–20 & Gal 1:6:6–9 with Deut 13:1–5).

 

Deut 13:1 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

TESTING

— 

God opposes adultery but ordains that Absalom should lie with his father’s wives (Exod 20:14 with 2 Sam 12:11).

 

Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’”

I WILL DO

—

2 Sam 12:11

Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.

RAISE UP

 

—

God forbids rebellion and insubordination against the king, but He ordains that Jeroboam and the ten tribes rebel against Rehoboam (Rom 13:1 with 1 Sam 15:23 & 1 Kgs 12:15–16).

 

1 Kgs 12:15–16

So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

BROUGHT ABOUT

—

God opposes unjust killing but ordains the unjustified killing of His Son (Exod 20:13 with Acts 4:28)

 

27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 29 

 

“TO DO whatever your hand . . . Predestined”

—

 

Reminder: “Sin is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the most High, but on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances, necessarily follows on the want of his influence.” (Edwards, Freedom of the Will, 404)

Conclusion: God wills that sin be, but not in the same way that he wills us not to sin. The biblical wording demands we understand God’s will in two senses, which Edwards terms “will of decree” (i.e., foreordination) and “will of command.”

. ..

 

Hmmm. Turned, Hardened, Incited, Tested, Doing, Brought About – these all seem quite Active, or like significant positive agency.

 

So why do they say there is none?

 

Can someone help me get comfortable with the ‘no positive agency’ concept? Is it supported biblically? Is it just there to make us feel comfortable with God ordaining sin?

 

I am Hyper-Compatibleist. See me point out problems with both sides.