The Bible says, Jn. 3:16 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. … 11:25 … he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

The command is given, Acts 16:31 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

It can’t be any clearer, - the sinner is called upon to believe in order to be saved … and the Arminian tells you the sinner therefore has a ‘free will’ to help him to come to that point where he might choose to believe, or choose not to believe.

Arminianism is a form of doctrine that teaches the sinner has the freedom to say a final “Yes” or a final “No” to God … and God’s plan, - they tell you, - is based upon the sinner’s choice of whether he/she chooses to accept God’s offer of grace.

You see how relevant the subject of man’s ‘free will’ is to the subject of God’s Sovereignty because if man - by his ‘free will’ – is able to reject God’s offer of grace it brings into question the Sovereignty of God and leaves God’s plan utterly dependent upon how man is going to react!

There is absolutely no doubt at all that everyone of us has an individual will … and we demonstrated it literally at the moment of birth when we came out of our mother’s womb.

Right from the very instant we were born we began to make demands, first of all upon our mother for milk … and it went on from there …

You say, “That’s natural!” Yes, I know it’s natural … and that’s my point! We do have a human will right from the very beginning and it does have at its centre … me! That’s how it was at birth. No-one else mattered,

If my mother was in pain after she had given birth, or if the mid-wife had cut herself with a knife doing something … it wouldn’t have mattered! What mattered was … me and what I wanted!

Yes, I know, you may be saying, “David, you’re stretching it out a little, you’re making too much of it … talking about the little newborn baby …”

Then, what about the child in the school classroom who despite having classmates demands your individual attention to him/her regardless of how busy you are with the rest of the class. As far as he/she is concerned he/she is all that matters. … Me, me, me … what I want, what I want, what I want.

What about the teenage years? As a teenager you feel the whole world is against you and your philosophy becomes, “I’ll do it anyway!” … What makes you think like that? … It’s my human will that made me think like that.

Do we change any? Do we stop thinking like that through our various stages of adulthood? … You marry, and you love your spouse … but there’s one thing you need to change about her, … she’s got too much of her own mind; if it’s going to work for her and me she better learn she’s got to work in with my plans! J

… There is absolutely no doubt at all that everyone of us has a will, and we exercise that will freely, often vocally and always regularly. J

We are most certainly people who know what we want and very often don’t give up until we get it.

From the moment we enter this world until we leave it the human will is active and at work.

It makes you believe you are in control; it gives you confidence; because of the human will you can put forward a point of view and you can stand on your platform.

The human will is the basis of every decision that is made.

It is the human will that underlies every decision in every department of society and of life in general.

The human will exercises its ‘right’ to express itself, - and that is how we have all the views we have on all the subjects you could imagine … and society conditions – ‘lords over’ – how we feel we have the right to make a decision.

The President, Prime Minister, dictator, government rules by the exercising of the human will; the most illiterate down-and-out and socially depraved member of society is also dependent upon his human will to survive.

There is absolutely no arguing with the fact that man has a human will and he is always freely able to express it, regardless of who he/she is and regardless of the circumstances they are in.

The exercise of the human will always has a definite direction it chooses to follow.

That direction it chooses to follow is in pursuit of itself and its own priorities.

Someone may choose to follow the priority he has for his own comfort and stability in life, or he may choose to pursue an agenda or a programme such as pro-abortion, anti-abortion, pro-war, anti-war … and he follows his agenda through exercising his ‘right’ of his own human will.

Spiritually-speaking, take a look at how this forms our consideration concerning spiritual and religious matters.

It is innate within each person, - whether they acknowledge it or not, - that there is some ‘force’ beyond ourselves with which we need to be in touch.

We can’t name all the religions in the world, because they are far too many … from the cathedrals and the mosques in our capital cities to the poles and effigies of the idols in the jungles.

For those in our society who say they have given up on the concept of a God in Heaven they have replaced Him with something else that they worship.

Humanity cannot help but worship something … and it is the human will that makes him ‘sit down and work out’ what kind of a god he/she is most at ease with.

So … The human will, what it is … is active and is ‘me-centred’. The human will, what it does … it sets out to work a plan of action that is concentrated round me and mine. The human will, where it leads … spiritually-speaking … is to the inauguration of a god and a form of religion with whom and with which we are most at ease.

The will is that part of us that causes us to decide what to do. It makes us choose either to do one thing or another, but what makes you choose is something that attracts your attention and ultimately determines your decision.

What that means is your will is tied up with outside influences that bring you to the place where you make a decision.

You decide to buy a particular car because of how you have been influenced in thinking about it (£1000 reduction, 0% finance, your own car is getting older and developing faults). In other words, the will is the servant and not the sovereign. Our choice is affected by certain considerations outside of ourselves … When we think about God we have an idea of how we want our concept of Him to fit into our lives.

That’s how you get people saying … “Keep God for Sundays and for special ‘religious’ days of the calendar.” “Use Him for ‘christenings’ and weddings and funerals.” “Call Him in when you need Him … when your loved ones are sick and when you become unemployed.” God’s good for when you need Him! … Otherwise, you don’t need ‘to bother’ Him and perhaps more importantly, He doesn’t need to bother you in case He makes demands on your life.

Isn’t that how the will affects how we treat the subject of God. The god, concocted by the will of the sinner, is a replacement for the God of Heaven … for that is the way the human mind has willed it.        It’s no wonder then that …

Man does not consider his sin and his lifestyle as a barrier to approaching the god he has created … because of the imaginations of his fallen will.

Therefore it is entirely logical to him that he can come to God whatever way he chooses and whenever he chooses.

He finds no trouble at all thinking that he - a hell-deserving sinner – can come boldly before God at any time he chooses to ask for salvation.

He has no trouble at all ‘squaring it in his mind’ that since he thinks he controls everything else he can control when he comes to God, how he comes to God, and even if he comes to God. It is all down to his own capacity and human will as to whether or not he makes the choice … and whether or not he gets round to it!

Through this way of thinking … what kind of a God do you think the human will allows the Sovereign God of Heaven to be!

Let’s get it straight as to what the Bible says about the human will … because if we don’t get it right I fear for any who are trusting in a salvation that has been initiated and orchestrated by man’s human and fallen will.

Turn to Eph. 2. The Bible tells us that we are dead in trespasses and sins; if you are dead, how can you do anything?

Of course, this plainly refers to spiritual death, - it means we are dead to God and the things of God. It means there is nothing in us that is alive to the Gospel and to God’s Word.

You can bring your child up in the church and in the Sunday School and CE; you can teach them all the stories of the Bible … but yet they can leave it all behind them and cast off what they have been taught and go their own way.

They know what the Bible says but spiritually-speaking they are ‘dead’ to its truth. … And how ‘dead’ is ‘dead’? it describes it here in vv.2, Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3  Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

Dead … is dead to God and the things of God while yet being actively in pursuit of the things of this world. We don’t need to be taught how to sin, - we choose to do it naturally.

But here is the Sovereignty of God upon the human will … 2:1 And you hath he quickened …

Do you see Who is the sole Instigator of your new life in Christ? It’s not your human, fallen, dead will because it is powerless to do anything to take you from the path of sin. The Bible says And you hath he quickened … It is Him – God – that has done it all.

What Christian would set out to to rob God of this great truth! It is the human fallen will, controlled and motivated by the enemy from hell that would only want to do such a thing!

When you came under conviction of sin – and God called you to repent of your sin - it was God that ‘quickened’ you to see your sin, - He did to you spiritually-speaking something that you were not able to do for yourself … in a similar way to how he breathed into the bodies of our first parents and made them alive.

Just as the physically dead person cannot raise themselves from the dead neither can the spiritually dead, - it takes God the Holy Spirit to come for v.5 when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved. … and you could not have believed unless God came and breathed into you and made you alive to breath!

Now, would you like to dare to rob God of His Sovereignty in coming to you and convicting you of sin, breathing into you, - a dead person, spiritually, - and giving you new life in Christ?

Would you like to take some of the glory to yourself …?

Would you like to tell me that you who had been a dead person spiritually would have been able to decide whether or not to be saved? … that you could have said to God, “No, I don’t want to be saved”.

“God, You are making all this effort, but I (the dead person spiritually) have to weigh up the pros and cons and I’ve got to decide whether or not I want to be saved!”

Would you argue with the Bible when it plainly says, Rom. 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

Do you see what I’m doing? I’m setting out that our salvation is due in every respect to the Sovereign work of God and the operation of His wonderful saving grace.

Surely there ought not to be anything in all of this that is offensive … because it gives all the glory unmistakeably to God.

The human will is dead to God because of sin and can never make itself alive unto Him. The awakening of the heart is due to God’s Sovereign work of grace … and to Him be all the glory!

The 17^th century Puritan John Trapp said, “The friends of free will are the enemies of free grace”.

Throughout every part of this sinful world God in mercy comes along to men, women, boys and girls who are incapable of being saved through their own efforts and He wonderfully does a work in our hearts through Christ’s victory at Calvary:

	He unblocks our eyes so that we can see the filthiness of our sin and its offensiveness to God,
	He opens our ears that we would hear Him call,
	And He finds us like the shepherd finds the lost sheep and brings us home.

How can a dead man choose? … A dead man can’t until God breathes into Him new life.

That is the simple Biblical God-honouring truth that our salvation is all of His Sovereign saving Grace that He made us willing, - despite our sin, - to open up our hearts and through the prayer of saving faith we received Him in! … Eph. 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9  Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.