God's Flexible Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility - by Pastor Doug Riggs

by John Mark on 10/16/24

This was originally recorded on April 9, 2017.

My notes:

This is a good follow-up to the last message I posted, "The Lord has Numbered our Days"?.

We've learned there is the direct will of God and there is the permissive will of God. We know God is sovereign. We know God is immutable, which means He does not change. There are things we see in the word of God where there is no flexibility as to the timing and circumstances things will happen. "But as to timing and the manner in which they are fulfilled, where there is no specificity, there's flexibility." In this message we are introduced to a term that may be new to some of us, "flexible sovereignty". We may be able to "effect the contouring and the sculpting of the manner and way in which His prophecies which are certain are fulfilled... He has chosen to limit or contour His sovereignty based upon a fellowship and a working together with His people."

Think of the Assyrians living in Nineveh. They were warned they would be destroyed in 40 days. Jonah didn't give them a gospel message or offer them the opportunity to become proselytes of the Jewish faith. He warned them of God's certain destruction on their city. It appears Jonah wanted their destruction. After all, the Assyrians were some of the most brutal and savage enemies of God's people. For sport they would capture Israelites and have contests to see if they could skin them alive before they succumbed to death. The Assyrians deserved to die. Jonah wasn't very happy when he discovered the flexible sovereignty of God when He ended up staying His hand because the people took Jonah seriously and cried out in contrition and repentance.

In this message, Doug gives a wonderful explanation of what the fruit of the spirit "self-control" means. "It means you're in control of yourself? Are you kidding me? Have you tried to master self?" No! Rather: "There's one in me that can take dominion over my self. There is that which only the Lord can be the master of; He's the only one that can master self... It is a rule and dominion that is exercised from within in the person of the Holy Spirit."

The second part of this message could be better titled: "Being Good Stewards of our Physical Bodies". As for the previous message posted, the context of Doug giving this is the reality of some very serious life-threatening physical sickness in the assembly.

As our bodies, redeemed by Jesus, are members of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit, and therefore for God, we also see God is for the body (1 Corinthians 6:13). When it comes to what we put into our bodies, Doug explains all that is called 'food' is not necessarily food. "On our part, we want to make sure that we are ordering things in our life so that our bodies are for the Lord. And then I think we'll begin to more and more discover what it means for the Lord to be for the body."

"Is there anything on our part that the Lord would bring into adjustment that would give the Lord the opportunity to be for the body?" ... "We don't belong to us; our body is not our body."

"There are rules for winning the prize. There are not rules for getting saved and staying saved. There are no rules. We're kept; it's a standing in grace (Romans 5:1-2). It's about winning the prize... The rules are in association with, 'If we endure with Him, we shall reign with Him' (2 Timothy 2:12). That's the context."

Link to Audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/4-9-17+sunday.mp3

Link to Transcript: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/2017_04_09+God's_Flexible_Sovereignty_and_Man's_Responsibility.pdf

Recommended: Erich Sauer's King of the Earth

Maranatha!

John Mark

...hereby committing this unto the providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!