IS ALL PROPHECY GOD'S DIRECT WILL

Is prophecy God's direct will for the future or is it a fore-view of God's permissive will regarding the future?

a) Directive (Numbers 22:12) - What God directs

b) Permissive (Numbers 22:20) - What God allows

c) Overruling (Numbers 23) - When God overrules

Page 182 BIBLE TOPIC BOOK - OMNIBUS EDITION 2006 – by DR PETER MOSES [General Editor]

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We can say with absolute confidence that God’s direct will is that all men should be saved (John 1:7, 3:16-17; 1John 2:2; 1Timothy 2:3-4).   But we can also see the permissive will of God in the fact that all men are not saved.  And why are they not saved?  Because they reject the truth, they superimpose their will over and above God’s will.

God foreknew the actions of mankind and foretold (through the gift of prophecy) the things that men in their rejection of truth would do.  The evil actions of men are not due to the direct will of God, but permitted by God to fulfill his ultimate and direct will: the saving of those who would believe, including the Jewish remnant of the last days.

Many ‘innocent’ people are destroyed by the evil actions of others, but God knows every circumstance and the condition of every heart and he is righteous and just in each and every case.  The ungodly may abuse God, the believer may question him, but God is righteous and just in every case because his knowledge is complete.

The ‘innocent people’ often include children, but again God is righteous as can be seen in the death of David’s first child to Bathsheba.  Whilst the child lived David wept and fasted in petitioning God for its life, but upon hearing of the child’s death he “arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshipped” carrying on with life as normal.  His reason being that “while the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?  But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I SHALL GO TO HIM, but he shall not return to me”.

Because the child was not of the age to be held accountable, he would be in heaven waiting for David’s arrival many years later.  A question to be answered then is what is the age of accountability?  Is it early to mid teens, or is it twenty years as is intimated in the cause of the wanderings of Israel.  All those, twenty or over (except Joshua and Caleb) would die in the wilderness, those twenty or younger were not held accountable for the decision not to enter the Promised Land.  We might not know for sure, but God does and on the basis of his righteousness he will accept those who cannot be held accountable.