R.C. Sproul

which are the things that the great saints of the ages would have loved to peer into, but have been given only to a few in church history.

And so, since the angels manifest the glory of God, only when the glory of God is eclipsed in a culture and in the church that angels are dismissed as insignificant.

But where the glory of God is honored,

and the glory and exaltation of Christ is upheld, we see attending those moments in the past and in the future the heavenly host who serve as an escort for the King.

We want to know whether He wants us to live in this city or that city, take this job or that job, marry this person or that person, when it's enough to be busily engaged in the central concern that the Bible has for living at the will of God.

We're looking at the subject, how do I know the will of God for my life?

I remember lecturing that on one occasion where I talked about the different ways in which the Bible speaks of the will of God.

And in theology, we distinguish among several nuanced ideas of the will of God because in the first place, there are two different Greek words in the New Testament, both of which can be translated by the English word will.

And each of those words have several nuances of meaning.

So we know that the Bible speaks about the will of God in more than one way.

And some of the distinctions that we make in theology, and remember that it is the prerogative of the woman to change her mind.

It is the prerogative of the theologian to make fine distinctions.

is that we would distinguish between, for example, what we call first of all the sovereign efficacious will of God and the preceptive will of God.

And what is meant in that distinction is simply this, that the sovereign efficacious will of God is that reference to the will of God by which God sovereignly brings to pass whatsoever He wants to bring to pass.

It can't possibly be resisted.

It cannot be overthrown.

When God creates the universe and says, let there be light, there's no possibility that the light won't shine because God is commanding it.

He's willing it sovereignly and exercising His sovereign power and authority to make it come to pass.

The precept of will of God refers to God's commandments.

Thou shall have no other gods before me is a precept that comes from God.