The Greatest Farmer Ever:
(The Will, Counsel, Intent, and Work of God)
A farmer has a will…to see a good crop. He then uses his counsel to decide how best to carry out his plan. Then he sets out with intent to accomplish his will. He may not even like the work he has to do to get to the end product, especially if it is hot out in the sun. But he perseveres until the garden yields the goodies for his family to eat.
So, in a nutshell, we have 4 items here:
a) The Farmer’s will b) His counsel, and c) His intent, and d) his hard work to get the job done, and each are to be understood a bit differently.
God also has a will. He has a counsel. He has an intent as to how he will get that plan/will accomplished. And God works to that end. Do you know what his plan is? (More on that later.)
This may fry your brain to think upon, but I believe it is needed to understand a few things that God allows…as in the following shortened list:
….. Sickness … he hates it … Evil … He hates it … Hard hearts … thick skulls … deception … lies … murder …. adultery … idolatry …. I believe you get my drift … any and all things not good.
Why would God hate all these things and yet allow them? Do they still exist?
Why would God promise us a better “day?” (the “Day of the Lord”), if all is already quite well everywhere in his creation? Yes, he has provided a way out through the accomplished work on the cross, but we do not yet see it completed in every mind of his children. So, he is still working by his Spirit to convince the world of hamartia (wrong thinking patterns resulting in fear and bad actions, of righteousness, and of the true nature of God.
He even “creates evil” …not by his will…but by his intent.. His intent is that the evil will bring out the need for the opposite. This leads to his eventual overcoming of all rebellion and evil everywhere. He shall rule and reign until this is experientially true…not just potentially true.
Thus was Lucifer created with the capability of becoming evil.
Thus was Adam given a chance to fall…
Thus was Abraham allowed to raise a knife over his son, almost ready to kill his own Son.
Thus was King David allowed to commit adultery and kill a man to cover it up….
Thus was Job allowed to be pummeled by Satan.
Thus was Jonah allowed to run away from God’s assigned task for him.
Thus was King Herod allowed to kill all the unborn babies in Jerusalem area under age 2.
Thus was Pharaoh’s heart hardened over and over and over again. Would it not have been a very boring story of “deliverance” if Pharaoh would have just smiled and said, “Sure thing Moses. Just take all the gold of Egypt. I’ll send soldiers along to protect you. Oh, and by the way, have a great day.”
God would not have had a wonderful deliverance, nor gotten the glory for being so good to his people. With a strong hand, he rescued them out of slavery! Glorious!
—- How much of God is God? How do you see God?
a. Do you see a God who started the universe & kind of wound it up and then never again interacts in his creation?
b. Do you see him as lovingly wanting to do best for us but can’t because of man’s free will and sins and evil getting in the way?
c. Do you see him as playing second best to Satan because of all the sickness and disasters and evil in the world?
d. Or do you think he doesn’t care?
e. God doesn’t exist is not an option. Remember how fearfully and wonderfully you are made.
Ok.. Now for answer time…:
When considering the work of carrying out God’s plan through the ages, we find that God has a great and glorious plan. We can find out what his good and pleasing and perfect will is by what a verse says it is not… The converse, so to speak… ” IT IS NOT God’s WILL that ANY should PERISH, but that all would come to metanoia (the repentance word).”
Of course this metanoia word cannot mean to grovel or pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps to make ourselves worthy of a Holy, “wrath filled” God. NO WAY! Instead, it has a much more glorious meaning, and here are a few ways to understand “metanoia”: “See the light”, Eureka, awakening, awaken to truth of God and our relationship to Papa, see ourselves for who we really are, have our thinking changed, etc….
An example of this is when Saul was on the rode to Damascus and was blinded by the great light… and then he “saw the light” so to speak. He was enlightened as to who Jesus really was and he saw himself now in a servant/slave position before a LORD. He probably did not even fully realize his favored position in Christ until much more revelation was given to him, and that is ok.
None of us are fully awakened to truth all of the sudden. Many a time, God takes us through seasons of being more awakened. And the more we are filled (or controlled) by Holy Spirit, the more we fall in love with God and love others more fully.
But we must realize that we were included in Christ a long, long, time ago and that the work of our redemption from a fallen way of thinking (as well as the accompanying actions) was accomplished long ago. We think of the words of Jesus on the cross as “IT IS FINISHED” or accomplished, or done deal…
But really it began way before that…. “Even before the foundations of the world” it was a done deal in God’s “timetable”, since he is in all of time and out of time at the same time. It just hasn’t manifested yet to the full extent in man’s minds or timetable.
Our minds are warped by the Satanic/ Luciferian/ Matrix system until we see the light of the glorious gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. That is why we can say “we regard no man any longer after the flesh.” We are all included and made righteous and holy and beloved in his sight. No one is left behind. We are justified, not just forgiven. That brings true freedom from sin.
“All flesh shall see the glory of God.”
I do not have the time here to include the over 100 hundred verses in scripture that tell us that history will conclude with ALL before God’s throne worshiping without any rebellion at all in anyone’s hearts …but 1 Cor. 15 describes this process… And it is a process in our ages of time as we know them. There will be a “DAY” that will sneak up on the earth as a thief in the night. In that “DAY”, which I believe lasts a thousand years (unless possibly it is figurative, and that would be fine by me as well) we see Christ Jesus ruling and reigning here on Earth, and then, if that time is not enough, another age or two or three, whatever it takes to get everyone’s heart healed of all the junk we have blamed God for or not believed will be over and done with, and every last person has entered the New Jerusalem through the gates that always stand open wide …. God is a consuming fire, and that fire burns until all wood, hay, and stubble are burned away from the pure gold God desires.
Why would the gates of the New Jerusalem stand open wide always? The Spirit and the Bride say “Come” and let him who hears say “Come.” History will culminate when Jesus hands the kingdom back over to his Father (and our Father)… who then becomes “ALL in ALL”. This is by no means just a simple “All in 10%” or even 90% of his creation, but it is “ALL”. Let us believe this with a childlike faith. The problem is that religious mindsets cannot hardly believe the Good News is really that Good! God is Good all the time. God is Love. God is light. God is carrying history forward to a grand culmination to where All are reconciled, healed, set free from wrong mindsets, and loving Father for what he has done. They will all give Jesus Christ credit for his grand role of being a servant of the grandest type. One who perfectly mirrored his Fathers’ heart for all of us, “laying down his life for a friend.”
So now let us go back to the Pharaoh and Egypt arena with Moses asking for freedom to take “my people” out of bondage. Why would God harden a man’s heart? Well, if he hadn’t done so, would there have been any contest? Would there have been any evil for God to overcome? Would God’s goodness have been displayed openly to all the nations who would hear of this great deliverance? You know the answer…
There is a verse in Isaiah 45:7 that says this …”I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” This is in the middle of the passage that I will quote from next… (If you know the verses, you can skip ahead.)
This is the KJV version of Isaiah 45:5-9:
5 I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it.
9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?
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So now let us observe that if this is correctly translated, then it is God who created evil, and as I said before it is not for his will (he hates it as in he doesn’t really want it, but maybe temporarily needs it around for a while) Evil is opposed to God’s character of goodness… his perfect will. So why would God create something he is against? “Because he is God” is probably not a good enough answer. That answer seems to create Atheists, who would then say that God is Schizoid.
But if we think of this in terms of his perfect will versus his counsel of how he is going to get that will accomplished, we can see that with intent to eventually triumph over everything that is not good, he allows and even creates the possibilities for his creation to go astray and not love and do all manner of evil.
God still seems to hold individuals accountable for their actions and says things like “Be sure your sin will find you out” … and that we will “reap what we sow.” If we do evil, we will reap evil.
Now … how long will God be at this intention of heading his creation towards a reconciling of all things into Christ under one head? He says that “ALL things will become NEW”… and that in the fullness of time, Christ died so that ALL can be reconciled into/under one head. Please read Ephesians 1:9-11…
God is said to be “patient, not willing that any would perish, but that all would awaken to right thinking/living.” He also says that with him a thousand years is like a day. It might take a while.
What can we be doing meanwhile? “Love covers a multitude of hamartia (wrong thinking and actions). Love others into a new kingdom realm way of thinking. Help them “see the light” of how glorious they already are in Christ. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The mystery of the ages is unfolded in Ephesians and Colossians.
The mystery is this: that Christ has ALL of his creation enfolded into him on the cross, whether we realize it or not. “Christ is in you, the hope of glory.” Christ is in everyone and will manifest his presence and his message of love eventually in everyone. You can run from this kind of love for a while… you can run from his love for a lifetime…maybe…. but you cannot run from his love forever.
He has a way of dragging (drawing) us gently to himself. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will helkuo (literally drag in the Greek) ALL to himself… Some versions place “ALL men” in this verse, but the Greek leaves “men” out. So, in essence, he draws ALL of his creation into himself and makes it whole, healed, restored, delivered, you name it… anything that is good. He has baptized us by means of one spirit into one body… with his love and spirit and word and assurance and He is the one who will have “all men to be saved” ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM, ONE GOD AND FATHER OF US ALL. … (ALL)!
Rev 5:13 speaks of a time when ALL of his creation will be giving PAPA “blessing, and glory, and honor, and praise.” This will finally fulfill what God promised to many OT saints such as Abraham… “In you shall ALL the families of the Earth be blessed.”
So, when death, which God allows for a time period until time is no more, is finally done away with, and swallowed up in victory, then will be fulfilled the sayings and promises of old… “No more death, nor sorrow, nor pain (no torment anywhere in all of God’s universe), for the former things are finally passed away.”
God will no longer have to “put up with” the things he hates…hated to have to allow. But in his wisdom, God counselled himself that there was no other way than to plant a tree in the garden of the knowledge of good and evil… he created both darkness (in him is no darkness at all) and light (God is light and God is love.) And his allowance of all this bad, evil, wicked, things that he put up with for several ages will finally be over. God will be celebrating this culmination just as much, if not more so, than we will. God will applaud each one of us, including Pharaoh, for the role he played in bringing glory to God.
Jesus in the garden prayed “Is there any other way out of this evil.” In his spirit, he came to rest in the fact that God knows best.
This is my best understanding of why God allows or even “creates” evil. Thankfully it will all end up well and good.
….and there is definitely no way that there could be a God who will torture all of his Pharaoh’s who are doing/ fulfilling his perfect plan. God keeps no record of wrongs.
Can you see the difference between God’s perfect will and his intent on how to accomplish it? Intent is a means to a goal or an end. The end goal is within his character and will …his good, and perfect, and pleasing will.
“Behold what manner of Love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we (all of us) should be called the sons of God. And it does not YET appear what we shall be, but when we see him, we shall be like him, for we shall “see” (know/understand/ be enlightened in understanding of) him as he is. In all of his glory and so shall we ever be with him in glory… Because LOVE NEVER FAILS! Amen!!!!!
Is God still at work today? Or is he resting? “I believe we may still be in the “6th day of creation” in which God is working to make us into his image, on the cusp of the “7th, and final day of creation, wherein he rests.” — quotes paraphrased from Peter Hiett. “My father works, and I work.” I must work the works of him who sent me. Jesus is the mirror image of his Father, therefore, we know the Father is not done working yet. “He’s still working on me!”
Paul G. Myers
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—- much credit goes to thoughts gleaned from “The Absolute Sovereignty of God” – edited by my good friend Andre Sneidar with forward by C.L. Pilkington, Jr. (Excellent reading!)
—- Also you can get daily emails from “Daily Email Goodies” at the following address: http://www.pilkingtonandsons.com/emailgoodies.htm
or you can visit online at Study Shelf.com for books you can order at : http://www.pilkingtonandsons.com/index.htm
Cylde also has many teaching videos online at Youtube and elsewhere.
Some quotes from Peter Hiett… See some of his work on Vimeo and Youtube or at his homepage at http://www.thesanctuarydenver.org/
See Boyd Purcell’s excellent book “Christianity Without Insanity: For Optimal Mental/Emotional/Physical Health”.
Also visit www.tentmaker.org for many good videos and a wealth of info.
and so many more…