This concept means simply that God is in control of everything. A simple message with massive recupercussions, and frankly the cause of a lot of problems too. If God is in control of everything then He must also be responsible for everything, but a God who does not control everything? How many christians can cope with that idea?
The Calvinists are so attached to this idea that anyone who says the simple words "God is not in control" are seized with indignation and call it heresy. But the simple fact is that God really isn't controlling everything. No, He isn't. He could but He has chosen not to. Just like we as parents could become hyper controlling of our children but choose NOT to, so God does not hyper control every detail of your life or the events of the world.
One of the reasons why God is not in control because He devolved authority and control of the world to us - man.
Adam was God's ruler and steward called to exercise dominion and "rule" if you recall. What happened in the book of Gensis - and read it how you will (literally or symbolically) - is that Adam stepped out of God's devolved authority and handed the keys over to another ruler whose intent was entirely different. That person was the devil.
There is no record of sickness, suffering, pain, evil or famine in the Garden of Eden. That came in when the keys were handed over. There is no record of it in heaven either.
So fast forward to the year 30 AD and Jesus teaches his disciples to pray as he did "our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name, let your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven".
Stop there. That means that God's will in not being done on the earth right now. It isn't being done on earth yet. Clearly God isn't controlling everything. But God does have a plan. A plan to restore all things under Jesus' feet back to how they were and then some.
Jesus prayed that we should ask God that His kingdom - or rule - comes, and that His will is done on the earth as in heaven. Which means that we can bring in that rule. We can co-operate with God and bring in the rule of heaven on the earth.
Problem is God hasn't stopped devolving His power and authority down to mankind in His people. Remember His call and gifts are irrevokable. Jesus restored the relationship and the kingdom - rule of God on the earth. We just have to start working out how to actually exercise it. (Strangely I have only started to be taught how to do this in the last three years of my christian life...but thats another story.)
And that is where the Calvinists have gone horribly wrong. Most Calvinists have never considered that God wants to partner with them to bring in His kingdom rule on earth. They are too stuck in a rigid idea that God is literally controlling and manipulating everything around them in a deterministic way. Now of course God can and has intervened in His sovereignty in history, but it isn't His usual way of doing stuff.
He expects us to pick up our mantle and responsibility and partner with Him.
Second area that Calvinists have got it wrong is that they fixate on the fact that God sovereignly chooses who will be saved. They love teaching that it is God who decides and chooses, which is right and true, but I have never heard one teach that once saved - the rest of your life is not down to sovereign acts by God - it is down to your partnership with God and the exercise of your obedience and faith. (Sometimes I have even heard defeat and failure in christians has been put down to the mysterious sovereign will of God. No - you/we just didn't get it right)
When bad things happen in churches, relationships, marriages, personal failure etc, using the theology of a sovereign God who somehow controls every detail in your life in a deterministic way is just plain stupid. At what point do people mess up and at what point does God pre-ordain that to happen? I don't believe God pre-ordains His people to mess up.
Bill Johnson puts it well, he says God is in charge, not in control - there is a difference. Or another way - God is in authority, not in control.
Do you want a verse for all this? Christians like verses - well Paul says in Hebrews 2 v 8 that "all things have been put under Jesus' feet" and nothing is not subject to Him, "but now we do not see all things subjected to Him".
Thirdly - Calvinist churches also have a very bad understanding of prophetic promises. Most people with this idea of a sovereign all controlling God think when they get a prophecy from Him, that this is some sort of fixed thing that God is going to bring about in the future if you will just wait long enough and co-operate with Him.
Actually it is much more complicated than that. What God has done in a true prophetic word I believe is to create something in the spirit just for you. You have to then seize it and use that word to break into the reality of that thing. Paul talked about using the prophetic word in the good fight - or fighting with the prophecies - decreeing the prophetic over your circumstances. Those promises won't bear any fruit if you don't combine the word with faith, activate it with action and bring them back to God in prayer. As someone once put it - prophecy is the potential.
For example if God promises to give you a ministry like Katherine Kulman, then go read about her, find out how she sought God for her anointing and press in like she did to get it. If you don't actually start praying for people and believing that word it simply won't happen. What God has given is the potential for you to have such and such, but you get there by stewardship and obediance. It isn't automatic.
Do you see how important it is to understand the sovereignty of God properly?
I would dearly like to see this preached properly in churches, so people would seize their destiny, learn to partner with God, be taught who they are and what they have inside them, and not wait for the sovereign move of God to come "suddenly" out of the blue (as I have heard some senior leaders in Calvist movements teach!)
Last point - if God is not in control how can we have any reassurance for the future? Well, the bible indicates quite clearly that God has ultimate control - i.e. is in charge, in authority - and that He exercises His sovereignty to limit the extent of evil, to restrain it, usually for our protection. Even the devil has to go to God for permission to attack His people. Not even a bird can fall from the sky without His knowing it. It also teaches us that He extends His wings over us and us and knows every detail of our lives. But I come back to the fact that if we don't partner with Him we may miss His best for our lives and His will. It won't do you much good believing that God is in control of your life if He is waiting for you to get up and deal with the storms that come along. Come on, this is bad doctrine that holds you back and stops us growing - which is why I am kicking it so much.
