"The kings heart is in the hand of the Lord, He turns it wherever He wishes"
"The Most High rules in the kingdom of men and sets up over it whomever He chooses"
"A sparrow does not fall to the ground and die apart from your Fathers will"
"The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord"
Certainly scripture is true when it says: "The kings heart is in the hand of the Lord, He turns it wherever He wishes" But this does not, as the determinist supposes, necessitate a deterministic interpretation. Pharaoh worshipped idols long before God sent plagues upon Egypt. The thorns that Jesus said choke the seed, that is the word, had deep roots in his heart long before God sent Moses to free his people. And God did not cause Pharaoh to be an idolator, nor any of us to sin. Scripture itself says directly, in the same passage, that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Since the same sun that melts butter also hardens clay, one can easily see that the heart of a hardened idolator like Pharaoh would likely only be further hardened by God's judgement.
God certainly does control each of our hearts, but not in the way determinists suppose. Rather, the Sovereign Lord employs a much more sophisticated sovereignty than one of brute force. The Lord maintains control over a universe populated with free agents the way a master of Judo or Jujitsu is in control of a fight against a powerful opponent. In Judo or Jujitsu, the "techniques that relied solely on superior strength [are] discarded or adapted in favour of those that involved redirecting the opponent's force, off-balancing the opponent, or making use of superior leverage." "[Judo] is characterized by the indirect application of force to defeat an opponent. More specifically, it is the principle of using one's opponent's strength against him and adapting well to changing circumstances. For example, if the attacker was to push against his opponent he would find his opponent stepping to the side and allowing his momentum (often with the aid of a foot to trip him up) to throw him forwards". (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judo) What determinists fail to recognize in scripture is the tremendous freedom God permits angelic and human beings to resist and oppose his will.
Certainly scripture is true when it says: "The Most High rules in the kingdom of men and sets up over it whomever He chooses" But a deterministic interpretation of this verse does not treat with respect the divine jujitsu. Remember that God never intended Israel to have a king. In her sin, Israel longed to be like the nations. God wanted to be Israel's only king. But God conceded. Yes, divine concession! Then, if that weren't enough to unequivocally prove dynamic sovereignty, the man God chose from among his people---God's chosen king---fails to fulfill God's will. And what does God declare in scripture? "I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions." (I Sam 15.11)
The Potter whom the Reformed attempt to paint as a meticulous, coercive despot is the Potter whom Jeremiah describes as a responsive, adaptive artist. When the clay is marred, the Potter reacts, compensates, reconsiders. This is how God expresses his sovereignty: "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it." (Jer 18.7-10)
Certainly Jesus is telling the truth when he says, "A sparrow does not fall to the ground and die apart from your Fathers will." He is likewise being truthful when he pleads so earnestly that the Father change his plan in Gethsemane that he sweated great drops of blood. Jesus, being very God, treats God's will as contingent and intercedes, as many like Moses did in generations before him, to possibly change the future. So, yes, the Father's will encompasses all life and death, but the Father's will is no blueprint, but an improvisational symphony he conducts with all creation.
And finally, stripped of its context (amidst the many, many proverbs that emphasize our responsibility to act and choose righteousness and trust in the Lord), this one proverb can easily be understood to mean something no singular Christian with any rational faculty believes. Certainly if every cast of the lot was the decision of the Lord this would be the overwhelmingly prescribed methodology for discerning the will of God in the New Testament. In fact, were this the case, the authors of the New Testament who overwhelmingly prescribe submission to, fellowship with, and guidance from the Holy Spirit as the primary means of discerning God's will, did not get the memo.
May the God revealed in scripture, the God who so longs to transport we who were once his enemies into his love, that he took on flesh, suffered and died, reveal to us his dynamic sovereignty of suffering, vulnerability and risk---his divine jujitsu.
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