William said, “Jesus gave me a choice.”
“That’s right,” I said, “He gave you a choice of life or death, and you chose death.”
“No,” he said.
He didn’t see it as right or wrong. He thought that either choice was fine. He thought that God gave him an autonomous decision: a decision for which he would determine what was right for him.
He made this clear when I told him that God could heal his marriage. He took me aside and said, “I agree with you. If I wanted God to heal my marriage, God would fix everything. He could make everything work out.” He shrugged his shoulders and concluded, “But I don’t want to.” This amazed me. Imagine knowing that God could save your family from destruction, and you decide that you would rather tear it apart and start a new one “from scratch.” God could heal all the hurts, but you say, “I don’t want to.”
It’s not like, today I’ll have vanilla, and tomorrow I’ll try chocolate. This is a lifestyle decision. Choosing divorce reflects another world-view, another vision. You can forgive your wife and have her back. Instead you pay a lawyer and go against your wife and divorce her for her sins. You, your wife, and your child could be together as a family, but instead you choose to have an ex-wife and a child that goes back and forth. What world-view causes a man to prefer divorce? What makes him desire a soap opera lifestyle?
Don’t tell me that one choice is as good as the other. Don’t tell me that this is chocolate and vanilla. I understand a Christian settling for divorce when his partner refuses to return to him, but I cannot see a Christian choosing this lifestyle.
William told me about two men at his church. One chose to stay with an unfaithful wife, and the other man chose divorce. The first man loved his wife and gladly forgave her. One of their children was not even his, and William made it clear, “I would never raise someone else’s child.” He looked down on the first man’s decision, considering it cheap. Instead, William looked to the second man as a model to follow. This man divorced his wife, and the children supposedly did not suffer. As far as William could see, they looked happy. That was the picture he wanted to paint. That was the vision he wanted to follow.
I don’t agree. I would say that the first man really understood justice. He had a keener understanding of justice and knew that he would never want to be on the receiving end of it. He obeyed God’s commandment to love his wife as himself. This man went home justified and not the other.
With his lips William preached the same gospel that I know. With his actions he embraced another.
“Who rules your life?” I asked.
“Nobody,” he said.
“Nobody does?”
“God doesn’t even rule people,” William said with a smile, “He gives them freedom. God didn’t make Lucifer Satan. Satan made Satan. He made himself Satan.”
I couldn’t believe it. I never saw such a radical concept of free will before. In all my years as an Arminian, I never would have imagined such a radical concept of free will. If our free will enables God to come into our lives He is never really in charge. He is always subject to our free will.
This is a huge obstacle, keeping people from seeing the sovereignty of God. It’s an obstacle so big that only the free will of God could ever move it.
