Imagine an ant, a tiny inconspicuous creature, standing between his anthill and a giant bulldozer blade advancing towards the anthill.
The huge earth-worn, shiny surface of the blade polished by tons of gravel scraping its surface dominates the ants gaze. He cannot see over it, around it or under it as flattens all resistance before it - inexorably advancing upon the ants home. He cannot see or comprehend the immense power of the diesel engine, the heavy tracks that grip the earth, the intelligence seated behind all of this, commanding this mighty machine.
Like many creatures, quite oblivious to the limitations of his own strength, and unaware of the incomparable might of the bulldozer to his puny power, the ant advances towards the oncoming blade... he gets to the blade and resists it with all his might.
All of his anthill mates look on from a safe distance with a mixture of hope and dread.
Can their friend succeed against such might?
The ants legs kick up little squirts of dust as he is slowly but inexorably forced backwards as he strives with all his might against the terrible invader.
Miraculously the blade grinds to a halt, all the ant onlookers are in stunned silence, and then they begin to cheer. The defiant ant is an instant hero.
The situation has every appearance of successful resistance.
However, far from the ants gaze, beyond his hearing over the roar of the bulldozer engine, the driver in relative quiet in his air conditioned and sound insulated cab has pulled his 'dozer to a halt because he's just received a call from his boss. "That's far enough, no need to go further, you are at the edge of the designated site clearance, don't go any further".
While the ant - in its apparent success - appeared to have the upper hand, the power to thwart the actions of the bulldozer - the reality is that its resistance to the advance of the bulldozer was not the ultimate cause, but only the apparent cause, of its success proving the old adage, correlation is not necessarily causation.
Now before I go further I want to say some things about this little story.
It's an analogy.
An analogy is picture or an illustration of something quite difficult to understand put in in a way that children and adults alike can understand. Before I go further I'd like to say this analogy - like all analogies - has its faults, it fails in certain areas. If an analogy equalled in all respects what it's trying to illustrate, why, there would be no need to speak of it as an analogy, it would no longer be an analogy but the thing itself.
So the problem with the little story is that I have made the little ant the hero of the story, and that is not what the actual lesson is which I wish to convey through the story. In reality, the real hero is the bulldozer, because it represents something of a mystery to many people. But I've had to represent it this way, maybe because of my lack of imagination in finding a better way to do it. Maybe you could do better when you see what I'm trying to get across, and if you do, by all means let me know because I am intensely interested in such things.
The little ant story is my attempt at reconciling a certain aspect of the relationship between God and man. An attempt to show the difference between what is apparently happening and what is actually happening when the world - with complete disregard for God - thinks they are successfully resisting what God has commanded we do, which He has every right to ask. Every right because, it is “‘In Him we live and move and have our being". Everything - including our existence is - from the perspective of the Christian narrative - due to His workmanship.
A man once told me "But we and GOD'S angels are given free will and can resist Truth."
Yes, I never doubted that humanity can resist truth, and in resisting truth, especially spiritual truth, this is universally and absolutely true of humanity - but for the grace of God.
But let me develop this a little further, on resisting truth. Which is after all resisting God, because all truth is God's truth.
There may yet be those among you reading these comments who have not been completely given over to Satan's lies. And who knows? God may yet grant you repentance, and I pray He does for Jesus sake and His glory - Amen.
So a perfect example of resisting God is the story of Pharaoh.
Now please understand there are two senses that are common to the idea of resisting God.
Here is one sense: God told Moses to tell Pharaoh "Let my people go". It was clearly God's revealed will not only to tell Pharaoh "to let His people go", but His will to actually do it.
Pharoah did not let them go, (at least initially). A prime example of resisting God's will. But truth be known, Pharaoh's experience of apparently resisting God was true only in respect of His revealed will relayed through Moses and Aaron.
And this experience of Pharaoh, resisting God's will, is precisely how the world at large see themselves resisting God.
In this, God has sent them "strong delusion". They think they have it over God. They think that God is impotent, or at best has "limited Himself" from overriding the will of man. That is the spoken or unspoken attitude of a faithless and unbelieving world. (Why should we be like that?)
The second way to understand God's will is to know His secret decree.
A story not told to Pharaoh, but to Moses and those who have "ears to hear". Even before Moses presented the ultimatum to Pharaoh, God had told Moses "I will harden his heart".
And sure enough, God was as Good as His word, and Pharaoh resisted God and in doing so fulfilled God's will for him.
Pharaoh - in not doing what God commanded, paradoxically, did what God decreed. It was God ultimately, who was the primary cause of his hardened heart, yet God was not guilty, because Pharaoh's heart was what was natural to him, being a child of Adam, under the curse of sin, his heart was deceitfully wicked. And the proof of this is the fact that Pharaoh didn't complain about being forced against his will, despite the increasing personal cost to himself as the plagues brought on by his continued resistance wrenched his kingdom apart.
So, in one sense, Pharaoh appeared to be able to, and indeed did, resist God. But all the while that resistance played into God's higher purpose.
Pharaoh was doing exactly as God planned.
And so it is, has, and ever will be - God's purposes are not thwarted. As it was for Pharaoh so it is for the world that resists God. But if this resistance continues, as it was for Pharaoh, so it shall be for the world.
It will not end well.
In like manner, the ability to "resist" God in any ultimate sense is a delusion, otherwise we cannot truly speak of His omnipotence. Yet where it suits God's purposes, by all appearances, and in reality, we, -speaking in terms of fallen humanity -are in fact resisting God, and this is the bondage of the will.
'All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” ' Daniel 4:35
All of those born of Adam, do resist God - incessantly, being under the curse, being children of wrath, at enmity with God. But the great lie, or the great delusion, the massive assumption of all of this is that God cannot do anything about our resistance and is "doing his best" but can not, or will not violate our will.
But that idea of God not willing or able as regards violating our will to achieve obedience, is an anthropomorphic understanding of God's power.
Humanly speaking we have made a god in our image when we believe, that God, like a mere man, has only recourse to two ways in which He can get His will done. For humanity the only two ways we can get obedience, is either by persuasion/coercion or by force.
Those are the only actions available to humanity, and because this is true of us, we think it therefore must be true of God also, and thereby impose that thinking upon God.
But as the scriptures attest, God is not like a man.
He need not recourse to force, because he can without fail, turn a mans heart so that his resistance becomes obedience.
"Do not judge by appearances but judge with righteous judgement".
Another great Biblical narrative demonstrates this principle.
Joseph, sold into slavery, betrayed by his own brothers did so because their hearts were hardened against their brother. Yet near the end of the story, Joseph understood what the ant needed to know.
Joseph's brothers were set against, and resisted the command to love their brother. They were, in effect - "successful" in resisting God, in resisting the law of God. (Though the codified law was not formally given until Mt Sinai, it was known - see Gen 26:5) Yet at the same time they were fulfilling God's plan.
And despite people protesting - saying that God just tidied up a bad business, making the best He could out of an evil deed. This is not what the Bible says: "As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people." Genesis 50:20.
Notice that an "intention is not an accident", nor is it something done in a contingency, it is by design. And this is especially true of God's providence.
But the greatest example of this is what happened to Jesus.
"Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it."
Who killed Jesus?
The Jewish leaders demanded he be killed. They delivered him to death.
The Roman leader, (representing Gentiles) took Him and crucified Him.
We whose sin made his death necessary are also responsible.
Jesus gave himself up to death, He said to Pilate words to the effect - "you could have no power over me unless it was given you". He also said "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. " Jesus was free to do so.
Peter stood up and said on the day of Pentecost, and he testified Jesus was crucified because he was "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God".
It was a predetermined plan where the evil resistance of men accomplished the will of God, and the greatest victory of all time.
