Desire and Plan

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Let’s pray and then we’ll get started. Father, we come to this study knowing that you are the supreme ruler of the universe. We know that. You’ve declared that. You were the one that made it. You’ve spoken into existence. And help us always to remember that as we look into these things. Help us be accurate as we talk about these different terms and where they’re used. Help us to understand you better. And thank you for those things. Amen. OK. The proposition. Do I just touch this? Got to swipe it over? I see. It’s got to be to the left. OK. So here’s the situation. When you read your Bible, you read, this man wished this.

This man desired that. This man purposed to do this. This man counseled to do that. This man planned to do that. And these two words are the words that are used in the New Testament for that and in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. So there’s two words, and they get used interchangeably. The proposition I want to make is that they are not interchangeable. The first word, which is thello, is a Greek word that should be translated desire. The second word is bulimai or bulay should be translated plan. Just simply that. One desire, one plan. Now the issue comes if you translate the word that says plan as desire or wish, it doesn’t make any sense.

It weakens it to where it’s nothing. I wish I could go to Disneyland. That’s not the same as planning to go to Disneyland, gathering my clothes together, packing my trunk, getting a roadmap, buying gas, having a car, all of that. I can wish and desire a lot of things, okay? Now these terms do become trickier when we start talking about God, but you’ll see as we examine where men state them, where God states them, they start to clarify if you just think about it this way, that the first word is desire, the second word is plan. Now the next question is, why would you get a bunch of Bibles with all these different words in them?

How come they don’t stick to it? John MacArthur, in the last couple of years, has written this book called Slave. And what he did there was say everywhere in the New Testament due loss is used, it is slave. That’s the common term for a slave. Not a bondservant, not a special deal where I go and make a deal and become under somebody like that, but a common slave. And so he wrote that book, Slave, showing we are slaves of Christ. Okay? And it’s the same thing. Translators say, well, that just gets boring to put slave every time. So sometime we’ll put bondservant, sometime we’ll put this. And it’s more literarily acceptable.

The problem is when you start doing that with God’s word, you can start fudging the meanings if you don’t know what it is. And you’ll see as we go through this, there are some tricky passages where people come up with different conclusions because a word that means plan is being translated as wish or desire or one of those kind of things. You’ll see how that works. So that’s where I’m going with this. Where I got this idea was back when I was in seminary and talking with people, a guy named George Zemek, whose theology wonk, and he looked at these words and did a whole word study on him when he was going through theology too, and said that somebody should attack this as a doctoral thesis and write a whole big book on it, because throughout the ages people have done this.

You’re gonna see, I’m gonna bring up terms that theologians have come up with, and all these things, and you can read these theological books where I, Oh, in this particular case, that’s God’s permissive will. In this particular case, it says decreed will. Well, the problem is solved if you just translate these words in those verses this way, and you don’t have to have all these fancy terms. You just see exactly what God has said. So that’s the proposition of the thing. So people say, well, why would they do that that way? Bibles are translated by committee. A bunch of people from different denominations and they’re experts in the languages, but different denominations and theological points of view get together and have to come together and agree on the words and the phrases as they go through these things.

And that causes them to say, well, I am not gonna give on this particular word in this particular place, or it could cause our whole denomination to have a problem. That’s why, like in the Russian translation of the Bible, most Russians believe they can lose their salvation because the Russian translation is very weak in those areas where you could lose your salvation. Once they come to learn what the original language says, most of the students get very upset with their Russian Bibles. So then they go back to their Russian Baptist churches and say, well, that word should be this. Now, that causes a big ruckus. What do you mean we can’t lose our salvation?

If you tell people their destiny is secure, then they won’t obey and they’ll run off. So they protect those kind of things. So translation committees are kind of a unique thing. As we go through this, though, we need to pay attention to these particular verses, keeping in mind as we talk about these things that there’s an overarching principle, all right? Deuteronomy 29, 29 says, the secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever that we may observe all the words of this law. Isaiah 55, eight, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways, higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Romans 11.33 says, Oh, the depth and the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor or who has first given to him that it might be paid back to him again. For for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever and amen. Now that obviously says we should be careful when you start making these judgments. But to the things he’s revealed to us, we should embrace. So there’s no sense in being afraid if there’s clear verses on different subjects. It’s just when you’re out there farming around where it isn’t clear.

The other thing that we have to keep in mind as we study these kind of things is the absolute sovereignty of God, and that the word of God knows nothing about a semi-sovereignty or a contingent sovereignty. That would be no sovereignty at all. So in other words, this does away with process theology. If God says, oh my goodness, only 30 people showed up tonight and I had it planned, 40 people showed up, so those 10 people aren’t where I had them planned, so now I have to rearrange my plan for the universe because it didn’t work out how I wanted it. See how ridiculous that is? If God made it and he knows the beginning from the end, all in the middle he is planned perfectly out.

The other thing that happens when you study the Bible is the bottom sentence, the wretched sinfulness of man, and yet the genuine responsibility of man. God is totally sovereign and we are totally responsible. That’s one of those things that even though you can’t put it in your head, you have to keep it balanced. You have to know that God is three in one. If you don’t, you’re a heretic, and if you do say you understand it, you’re crazy. It’s beyond us, but it’s something that he’s declared and that we should believe by faith. The other thing to always keep in mind is my favorite saying, there is a God, and you’re not him.

If you remember that every time you think you’re going to do something, that’s a really good thing. Because what is sin anyway? It’s you doing what you want to do, regardless of what God wants. You’re not God. You don’t get to do that. So keep that in mind as you walk along the street and go everywhere. All right. Next one is that every translation is an interpretation. I’ve said this a lot of times, people have heard me, but you start translating something, you’re interpreting it. So what this defense is, you’re gonna say, well, you’re suggesting I pick this word and do that. Yeah, but if you’re quote, woodenly literal, it may not read easy, but everybody understands, oh, you’re using that word in place of that Greek word.

Now, translations are that, you know, it’s a difficult thing to get an exact equivalent in each language. But in this kind of thing, it’s not so difficult in these particular words, I think. And then the problem of the translation committee, which I’ve already spoken about, and that they come with their own presuppositions. The other thing to remember is everybody comes with their own presuppositions, all right? You always want to guard against that and recognize that. The next thing is the whole discussion that you’ve probably read in theology books. The secret will of God, the revealed will of God, permissive decrees, the order of the decrees, all of those kind of things.

What makes a decree and what makes God’s will in doing something? Or if God really desires to do something, can’t he just do anything he wants? So therefore, if he desires it, he will do it? You know, those are interesting questions. If he desires it, then he will do it. Not necessarily. That desire may be a description of his character. If he’s long suffering, yeah, he’s long suffering, he’s going to wait, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to do what he’s going to do in the end. If he, like for instance, desires all men to be saved, then does that mean everybody’s saved? that they aren’t, but it shows his heart and his compassion for us. And that’s where the divine sovereignty and our responsibility get on that teeter-totter.

You know, so you have to keep those things in mind. So the next thing is we’re going to look at these words and start looking at examples of them, and as we do that it’ll start to gel, I hope, as we talk about it. This is the Greek word This is a dictionary definition. This is on your piece of paper. You don’t need to read through it now. This is a Freiburg Greek lexicon. It’s a recognized lexicon. And you’ll see all of these things put in here, what it could be translated, and the different verses in them. What you’ll see on your paper is I’ve… This is a computer search giving you all the forms of each word, of each of the four words, their verb form and their noun form.

form and both things and every reference is there. We’re not going to look at everyone, we will look at some examples. Then on the second side is the plan word, bulimai, with the same thing and then the last thing where we will spend some time is both words in the same verse. So there are places where both words come together in the same verse that I think really clarify why I’m making the case that it should be translated this way. So the first one is, and what I did was choose some examples that when you’re looking at it in the English, you might not see the word and wonder, how did they come up with that word?

And I’ll show you that if you just go back to my premise that you just translated desire, oh, that makes sense now instead of these other kind of phrases that help you with the meaning. And the, there’s another thing on this little paper that I gave you guys. If you don’t have a Strong’s Concordance, all right, Strong’s is one that gives it to you in English in the King James Version, and it’ll give you reference numbers to the words so that you look at the word and then you can look at that reference number and then in a different section of the Strong’s it’ll tell you that’s this Greek word or that Greek word where that translator got that word from.

And if you don’t know Greek, that’s kind of the way you’re going to have to go about this. So on the back of this paper, I gave you a free concordance on the internet where you go to that biblestudytools.com and you can click on the words and get the same thing. It’s a little handier than looking it up in a book. But the idea is you do need to know which word is being translated in the verse to get it. Now what I’ve done in these notes is I’ve colored the word blue that’s translated from the word desire in this section. So that’s how I’m going to try to help you along as we go. Okay. So like for instance in this one that I chose, which is like the second verse in on the list there, is Matthew 2 18.

A voice was heard in Rama weeping in a great morning, Rachel weeping for her children and she refused to be comforted because they were no more. Refused to be comforted. How is that fellow? Well, she desired to be comforted because they were no more. The kids that were killed were no more. So she desired to be comforted. There’s like a wooden translation of that word. Then in Matthew 5.42, give to him who asked of you and do not turn away from him who desires to borrow from you, wants to borrow. Now that one’s much closer. want and desire close. But like wish has a whole other connotation and it gets strung in there a lot.

But the person who desires to borrow from you don’t turn him away. Be a good neighbor. Do unto others as you’d have them do under you. Make sure I keep the slides. Matthew 8, 2, and behold a leper came to him and bowed, down to him, saying, Lord, if you are willing, If you desire, you can make me clean. Different, isn’t it? Now, if you already know he’s talking to God, he wants to be cured, he’s recognizing who can do it, he could even say when you’re talking about God with these two things, they could have said, if you’re planning, you can make me clean. But in this particular case, remember Jesus is on earth, he hasn’t totally exposed himself yet, He’s proving himself to be the Messiah.

And the guy comes to him and said, if you desire, you can make me clean. And then in 8.3, Jesus says, and he stretched out his hand and touched him saying, I am desiring, be cleansed. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. So they’re using willing there, but you see, if you desire, Lord, you’ll make it happen. And he says, I do desire, and he was cured. The next one is Romans 9.22. What if God, although desiring to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience of vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? Now this one gets everybody hot about what it means and double predestination and all of that.

But the whole situation is, although desiring to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, what did he do? He endures with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. So it shows another character, a quality of him. And these things, when you try to describe God to a mere human, these are called anthropomorphisms. You’re trying to take something that’s not human and trying to make us understand him on human terms. But don’t turn that thing back on God saying, now that I understand you in a human term, you’re in my human box. You desire you have to do this. Or you feel like I do, therefore God feels like I do.

Don’t get into that trap. Everybody tracking with that? You can’t, just because God is long suffering doesn’t mean you’re necessarily long suffering, even though you should be. All right? Those are examples of the noun form of that, I mean, sorry, the verb form of that. And now we get into the noun form. And this one, there’s the whole definition. It’s on your sheet. It’s down here, the second section of this front page. And then we have examples of the noun form. And it says in Matthew 6.10, thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, thy desire be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now people talk about, you know, you’ve got commentaries and books written on the Lord’s Prayer about, oh, what is God’s will and His permissive will and all these kind of things.

His desire, God’s desire, will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And this is God Himself telling us how to pray, right? Jesus. In 1 Peter 3 17, for it is better if God should desire so that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for what is wrong. If the desire of God desires it, okay, that’s what it actually literally reads. If the desire of God desires it so that you suffer for what is doing right rather than doing what is wrong. So not only does God’s desire desire it, but you are going to do that and you will suffer for doing right rather than doing wrong. That’s not too cheery, but it’s, you know, that’s what Peter’s all about.

So that’s that. A couple examples of that. And then in the verb form, plan, now we’re moving to the next word. We’re moving to the word plan. So that was the desire. Now we’re moving to the word where I say you should be translating it plan not wish or desire. Okay. That word is bulimai and that’s on the second side of your paper up at the top and all the references are there and the same definition that you see up there on the thing. Then the references that I’ve pulled out there for the verb form of this is Matthew 1127, all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father.

Nor does anyone know the father except the son and anyone to whom the son plans, wills to reveal to him whom the son plans. That’s interesting, isn’t it? What has Sean been teaching us as we’ve been going through the book of John? Christ is continually praying with the father and talking about us, and as we get into the Lord’s prayer, he’s going to say, those whom I have chosen, those whom I have already put into my system will come to me, those you have given me. And here, he’s telling to whom the Son plans to reveal to him, the Father. Marvelous interaction of the Trinity. Remember, Sean camped on it. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, and yada, yada, yada.

As you get all that together, this is the Trinitarian love of us and the incredible power of the gospel in that it’s all lived out through the spirit, through the Father, through the Son, all working together like that. So I think plan is a much more powerful word than these little wills and wishing words here. Mark 1515, and wishing to satisfy the multitude, and planning to satisfy the multitude, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he delivered them to be crucified.

So Pilate planned. He felt, I got this crowd, it’s getting out of hand. My plan will be send this guy over to him. Makes it different, huh? That’s why he washed his hands of the deal. James 1.18, in the exercise of his plan, his will, he brought us forth by the word of truth so that we might be, as it were, the first fruit among his creatures, the exercise of his plan.

I think it makes a lot more sense when you start thinking about this. It’s not just his will or his wish. Like he started this whole thing going and then he looks at it and goes, oh, at this time, I’m going to wish that that would happen. I hope they all obey and make it happen. He planned it that way. And if you start plugging these words in where they’re used in that way, it makes it crystal clear. Oh, well he planned that. That’s exactly how it should go. I think it gives you much greater security and it gives you a real respect. God is God and he’s running the show, which I think is a good thing. Always a good thing.

Second Peter 3.9, this one will, for those Arminians out there in the audience, you’ll go after me here. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not planning, wishing, for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. Now this one, people argue, he doesn’t wish for anybody to perish, but all to come to repentance, so how come they all don’t get saved? And this is the word for plan, this is bulimai. So he is planning, he is not planning, not planning for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. So that verse says everybody ought to be saved, right? Ralph’s nodding his head.

You guys know that that’s a trap, but who is 2 Peter written to? Believers. Are they suffering persecution? Absolutely. The whole book is Peter writing to people that he knows are saints. He says that right up front in the beginning. That be patient toward you, not planning for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance who are saints.

Not the people that are non-believers. He’s speaking to saints. So the audience is in the plan, all right? So that’s the danger when you start plucking verses and going there. It’s always look at the context. When the cult comes to the door, don’t let them versify you. Grab the verse, look at the verses around it, and most of the time you destroy their argument. So it’s not planning the all or the believers of 2 Peter. Then we go to the noun form of plan. And this is boule, and there’s the definition. It’s there on your paper again in every verse that it’s used. So this little paper gives you every occurrence in the New Testament of these things in all their different ways.

So now we’re looking at the noun form of the thing. And you’ll notice that when they use the noun form, it shifts to what I’m proposing much more readily. So in Acts 2.23, this man delivered up by the predetermined plan, that’s the word right there, and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. Acts 20.27, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole plan of God. OK? That’s Paul talking to all of these people at that point. So again, plan, plan. All right. So I could have gone and listed all these verses and bored you for three hours going through every verse.

That’s the theology course. Every verse is looked up, yada, yada, yada. We’re not going to do that. These are interesting, though. And here’s where I think this really This is the one we just talked about, and now we’re to the both words in the same verse. There’s four occurrences in the New Testament where both words occur. And this is really interesting, I think, because you’re gonna see, oh my goodness, they used the wrong word in that part of the thing, and if they would have used the right word in that part of the thing, this thing makes a lot more sense than it does at a different time. So the first occurrence where both words are in there, and notice the color coding, I’ve done the blue and the red.

The red is plan, the blue is desire. That’s the way you kind of have to think of it. The reason I color coded is because I didn’t want to put Greek sentences here and have you try to search for the word and all of that. And that’s why I’ve referenced that lexicon thing where you can look it up and do it for yourself. So, and Joseph her husband being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her desired to put her away secretly. So the way I wanted to go is, and Joseph, her husband being a righteous man, and not planning, or not desiring, not desiring to disgrace her, planned to put her away secretly. So he had a desire and he came up with a plan.

They put he wanted to and then he desired. Interesting, huh? I think it’s a shuffling of the two together then they shouldn’t be shuffled that way. So that’s one example. And the next example is Luke 22 42. Now we get to see the son and the father, two parts of the Trinity negotiating with each other, what’s their will and what’s your plan, right? Okay. So Christ says, father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will, but thine be done. Now, even if you didn’t know anything about this, this whole sermon, you know that Jesus is going to be crucified. And this one gets, you know, ink gets spilled over these verses.

It just goes on and on and on. How can Jesus suffer like this? And how all this kind of stuff? But just look if you just read it the way it should be. Father, if thou art planning, remove this cup from me. Yet not my desire, but yours be done, thine be done. So it’s God’s plan in Jesus’ desire. Jesus still knows this is a rough road he’s gonna go, but he knows the plan, this is no secret. He was created from the foundation of the earth. Remember, he’s telling them, whoa, don’t tell him who I am just yet, as he’s working with the disciples. We’re still in those stages in John where he’s doing all these miracles and some people are getting it and all of this and the disciples come and he says, not yet, don’t tell him yet.

And they’re going, but, but, but. So we see all that. So I think this one is a really strong one to see that. But they’re just putting will in both things. It’s not will. One’s a plan and one’s his desire. Then in Acts 1720, this one’s an interesting one because it’s more difficult to see the translation. But I think as we look at it, you’ll go, oh. So this is, he’s talking here in Athens. For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. The Athenians are talking to Paul. We want to know, therefore, what these things mean. And you notice, what in mean? I’ve gotten blue. So the first thing is we plan to know. They’re asking Paul, what are you talking about? We plan to know what you’re talking about. And what they’re talking about is that to know the desire of these things, That’s the literal Greek translation of the little phrase there of what these things mean, the desire of these things, period.

So what these things mean, if these things desire things, the things that Paul is talking about, they have a certain compilation meaning something and they’re grouping. And so it’s an interesting way for it to say the desire of these things, you know, and obviously it’s referring back to the things he said. So in that one, it’s we plan to know the desire of those things. Then in the last one, which is Ephesians 1.11, it’s also, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will. And it’s actually after the plan of his desire. So that one also is just a jammed up, locked up, this is what he planned and he desired it.

And then this one is really loaded because the phrase before that has, having been predestined according to his purpose, which is another simile, but it’s a different word to plan. And you’ll notice they use council. Council gets translated a lot as one of the things for Boule and Boulemais also. He counseled with him. It was his counsel or whatever. So bottom line is, and what did we do here? About 35 minutes, you saw that when you look at all these verses that if you just translate them plan and desire, I think it clears a lot of the confusion when you read some of these things where it goes on about this guy’s will and that guy’s will.

Now here’s some of the interesting things that happen when you start looking these words up. When it’s speaking of men, yes, these men do desire to do something and then they’ll do something totally different in the verse showing that they’re screwed up, they’re sin tainted. When you look at it from God’s point of view where God’s in these verses, it like solidifies it. It goes, not only does he plan it, but he desired it. And even within the Trinity when you see the same words with Jesus and God, Jesus knew he was going to have to go to the cross, but he’s saying, I don’t really like this, I don’t desire this, but it is in the plan of God, so therefore your will will be done.

Your desire will be done. I know the plan. So I think it’s incredible when you really start thinking about this. And what happens is when you read, especially Buzzwell, covenant theologians love talking about the decrees because they get into infant sublapsarianism and this kind of stuff. And what it is, is the order of the decrees of God. Were you first chosen to be saved and then you became saved and you have all these orders of all these decrees and they get into arguments of which order do these decrees go in. If it’s in the plan of God, you don’t need to worry about which order it’s in. If you’re in the plan and you have faith, you’re in the plan.

You’re going to get saved regardless if you get every jot and tittle organized in that thing, in those things. But what it does is cause thinking people to start getting in the thing and start writing books on, oh, this is good, and oh, that must be God’s permissive will, and This is God’s kind of what he would like to see happen, but it really can happen in all this kind of talk. And it goes on and on, page after page, and you’re going, how are you getting into this verse? And when you start then going back to the literal translation in the verse, you go, what are you doing? This is simple. God just says, he planned to do it, and he desired to do it or whatever.

So it’s fascinating how a lot of ink gets spilled over things like that. For those of you that went through the theology notes with me over the past, my goodness, seven years previously, you noticed that as we studied some things that everybody thought was going to be confusing, as you looked up each verse, it just started locking down that thing where it was like, duh, okay, that’s enough. I don’t need 40 verses to prove the same thing. But what happens is people get stuck on one that seems to be a little loosey goosey and they run off with that one and they don’t look at the whole counsel of God and look at it together.

So the purpose of this is not to confuse you. It does take a little bit of work, especially if you don’t know the Greek and looking at the Greek text and that kind of thing, to understand which words are which. But if you just look at them and you go through this, it’s a fascinating study and you start going, oh my goodness. This is a lot more black and white and simple than some of these Bible texts make it. I think some of these verses are written so convoluted that you read them and you go, what are they talking about? And when you plug these words in, it just becomes, boom, these guys plan to do this according to their desire instead of they will to do this, but they were willing to do that and you get confused when you start reading some of it.

So that’s the purpose that I wanted to present this. It will cause a lot of hubbub with people that have read certain theology books because they’re going to want to tell you, well, this is dismissing the wills of God and it’s too simplistic to view God this way. You know what? I think that the plow boy can understand the scriptures. I think that that’s the great thing of having the text in front of us. We can search it out. And most of the time, it’s a matter of faith. It’s really not that confusing. God is who he is, and he wants to be worshiped, and that’s pretty much bottom line it. And sinful men make up all kinds of stuff and make it more convoluted, and we need to sometimes be more like the kids and the childlike faith and just see it for what it is instead of trying to become super intellectual or whatever on it.

So that’s the basis of what I want to talk about. I think it’s an incredible thing that happens, especially when you get into discussions with people because they’re going to start to throw things at you. Well, if he wanted everybody to be saved, then he could, so therefore he’s not God and that kind of thing. And remember the anthropomorphisms of God, God does not have wings, he’s not a chicken like Walter Martin used to say, when he describes himself as a mother hen wants to get her chicks under his wings and those kind of things. Those are pictures, those are examples trying for us to relate to the unrelatable.

God is incomprehensible and yet he directly tells us about himself in certain ways. So if you keep all that stuff in balance, I think it makes you stronger, makes you more forthright, and I think it gives you a better understanding of who God is. So that’s what I wanted to bring to you tonight. So let’s pray and we can go home.

Father, in a simple study like this, we do see that you are God. We see that you have planned, that you do desire what you desire, you do plan what you plan, and you do make it happen. And we are those created beings that somehow, some incredible way, you have opened our eyes. You have caused us to see these spiritual things. And as we see them, it causes us to be more in awe of you, to fill us, to make you more awful. And in that sense, we wanna worship you. And we know that you are a jealous and all consuming God and that’s what you do want is our worship. So help us to understand these things and to worship you more.

And thank you, of course, for the ultimate sacrifice of your son through with which we can pray to you and we can understand these things and we would be lost without it. The power of the gospel, as Jonathan told us this morning. So thank you for all those things and thank you for what you’ve done for us. Amen.