04/09/2026
Danson Ottawa reflects on this year’s Rhema Feast in Nairobi:
The claim that God's purposes on earth cannot prevail unless He has man's permission and partnership may sound spiritual, but it is profoundly unbiblical. The God revealed in the Bible is not a God whose success depends on human cooperation. He is the God who declares, "My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose" (Isa. 46:10). He does not say, "My counsel shall stand if I find enough willing partners." He says, "I will accomplish all my purpose."
The Lord Himself asks, "Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?" (Lam. 3:37). The answer is obvious: no one. God's purposes do not await human authorization because He is the sovereign Creator, not a dependent participant in His own creation.
Scripture consistently magnifies God and humbles man. "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases" (Ps. 115:3). "Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps" (Ps. 135:6). Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful ruler on earth, learned this lesson the hard way and confessed, "He does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'" (Dan. 4:35). None can stay His hand. None can hinder His purpose. None can veto His plans. None can demand that He first obtain permission before acting.
God is not merely stronger than man; He is utterly independent of man. Through Isaiah He asks, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span?" (Isa. 40:12). Again He asks, "To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him?" (Isa. 40:25). The nations themselves, Scripture says, "are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales" (Isa. 40:15). If entire nations are a drop in a bucket before Him, how can His purposes depend upon the permission of individual human beings?
The biblical story is not the story of God waiting for man but of God accomplishing His will despite man. Pharaoh hardened his heart, yet God declared, "For this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power" (Ex. 9:16). Jonah fled from God's commission, yet the word of the Lord still came to Nineveh.
Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, yet Joseph could say, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). Men intended one thing; God intended another. Human rebellion was real, but divine sovereignty was greater.
Peter says Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). The church later declares that Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel did "whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place" (Acts 4:28). Think about that. The greatest sin ever committed, the crucifixion of the Son of God, was simultaneously the greatest revelation of God's sovereign purpose. Men were responsible for their wickedness, yet God's redemptive plan moved forward exactly as He intended. If God could accomplish the salvation of the world through the rebellion of sinful men, then surely He does not require human permission for His purposes to prevail.
Even salvation itself refutes this teaching. Scripture does not describe sinners as people helping God save them. It describes them as "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1). Dead people do not cooperate in their resurrection. Yet God, "being rich in mercy," "made us alive together with Christ" (Eph. 2:4–5). Jesus says, "All that the Father gives me will come to me" (John 6:37), and again, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44). Salvation begins with God's initiative, God's grace, God's power, and God's purpose. As Jonah himself confessed, "Salvation belongs to the LORD" (Jon. 2:9).
The apostles never comforted believers by telling them that God's success depends on them. Rather, they pointed them to the certainty of God's sovereign purpose. Paul writes that God "works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Eph. 1:11). He does not work some things. He does not work most things. He works all things. Therefore Paul can confidently say, "Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Rom. 8:30). God's purpose cannot fail because God's purpose rests upon God Himself.
The church today desperately needs a larger vision of God. We need the God who says, "I am God, and there is no other" (Isa. 46:9). The God who declares, "My purpose shall stand" (Isa. 46:10). The God who asks, "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" (Gen. 18:14). The God for whom "all things are possible" (Matt. 19:26). The God whose kingdom rules over all (Ps. 103:19). The God who "upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3). The God before whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10–11).
God does not need man's permission to accomplish His will. He graciously uses men in the accomplishment of His will. Those are not the same thing. One exalts man; the other exalts God. One diminishes divine sovereignty; the other magnifies it. One makes God's purposes contingent; the other makes God's purposes certain.
And Scripture leaves no doubt which view is true: "The LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?" (Isa. 14:27).
