Eph 195 1/14/86, 237 3/13/86; Isr 214-215 4/9/92
A. Introduction.
1. Under the law of volitional responsibility, we cause our own misery and suffering. This is the most common and the first cause for human suffering in general, and is also a specific cause for believers. Our emphasis here is on believers only. Under the law of divine punitive action, God disciplines us to remove guilt from us. The guilt must be completely removed by the punishment from God; for often one of the hangovers of emotional sins is to carry guilt. When punishment continues after the use of rebound, the purpose is to convert cursing into blessing. (See also the Doctrine of Guilt.)
2. Every human being must take the responsibility for his own decisions and his own actions in life. You must understand that you can never blame others for your misery, your unhappiness, and your suffering. You take full responsibility yourself, based on your own wrong decisions related to your associations, your activities, your motives, your functions in life. 3. Human volition is the source of personal sins, human good, and evil. In God’s plan for your life, sin, human good, and evil are all VERBOTEN, absolutely rejected. But it is inevitable that throughout all our life as a Christian we will sin, perform human good, and fail in evil. Volition is the cause for sin even in insanity, neurosis, psychosis and sociopathic behavior.
4. Therefore, this category of suffering deals with the natural consequences of sin, human good, evil, and bad judgment in our lives.
5. At salvation all sins were judged at the cross. Yet all our sins have natural consequences in life, for which the individual who commits them must take full responsibility. We must always link consequences with bad decisions, rather than blaming someone else. A short trip to unhappiness is to always blame others for your problems, not seeing them as a result of your bad decisions.
6. The innocent often suffer with the guilty, being associated with someone else who made a bad decision.
7. Gal 6:7 states the law of volitional responsibility: “Be not deceived; God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”
8. Volition and decision is the source of both sins of ignorance and sins of cognizance. Therefore each person must be held responsible for his own decisions, whether he understands their category or their consequences.
9. The consequences are generally classified as self-induced misery, self-imposed misery, and self-indulged misery.
10. Under the law of volitional responsibility, the believer inflicts on himself unbearable suffering from the following categories.
1. Personal sins.
2. Function of human good.
3. Function of evil.
4. Function of moral or immoral degeneracy.
5. Living in cosmic one, “grieving the Spirit.”
6. Living in cosmic two, “quenching the Spirit.”
7. Lack of common sense and bad judgment.
8. Subjective arrogance, the overestimation of your own abilities, or failing to see yourself in the light of reality.
11. Both believer and unbeliever function under the law of volitional responsibility, not only from sin, but also from the violation of the laws of divine establishment, which are the operational laws for the entire human race within the framework of a national entity. There is intense suffering from violating the sacredness of life, property, and privacy in criminal acts. There is also suffering from rejection of responsibilities related to your nation; e.g., being a draft dodger.
12. A lot of suffering comes to Christians because they are confused, lack Bible doctrine, and are ignorant about many true principles in life. If you are suffering from your wrong decisions, no prayer in the world can help you. You must go to the solutions found in the Word of God.
13. Many wrong decisions come from arrogance. To protect us from this, God has provided parents, pastor-teachers, coaches, bosses, and all other forms of authority.
14. Many wrong decisions result in mental illnesses and psychotic, neurotic, and sociopathic behavior on the part of believers.
15. Man is naturally a fool since the Fall. This is proved by the tremendous amount of suffering experienced throughout all generations of human history. We’ve all born with genetic handicaps and flaws; we acquire environmental and volitional handicaps and flaws; and this all adds up to this first cause for suffering.
16. Although genetical and environmental flaws are often blamed for mental illnesses, all too often the cause is locked-in arrogance which can cause a tremendous amount of self-induced misery and trouble.
17. Many wrong decisions from a position of weakness result in mental illness, which is acquired from arrogance, self-centeredness, selfishness, self-righteousness, and the practice of making thousands of wrong decisions.
18. Man manufactures his own problems and resultant suffering. God manufactures solutions and blessings in the midst of suffering. Only God has provided three systems to turn cursing into blessing.
B. Ways to Make Yourself Miserable under the Law of Volitional Responsibility.
1. The law of volitional responsibility applies to four categories of your life: thinking, motivation, decision, and action.
2. Negative or wrong thinking is self-imposed misery. Negative thinking includes all wrong mental attitudes, all forms of arrogance, everything by which you react to life in your thinking.
2. Negative or wrong motivation is also self-imposed misery. So by wrong thinking and wrong motivation, we enter into self-imposed misery long before we make any decisions that cause self-induced misery.
3. Negative or wrong decisions is self-induced misery.
4. Negative or wrong actions is classified in two ways.
a. Deliberate wrong actions which bring self-induced misery
b. Impulsive wrong actions which is self-gratification or self- indulged misery.
5. Since deliberate wrong actions originate from wrong motives and wrong decisions, these cause self-induced misery, whereas impulsive actions are spontaneous and impetuous. Hence, they circumvent motives and decisions and generally fall back to thinking related to lust and self-gratification or related to a locked-in system of arrogance.
6. Self-imposed misery is suffering caused by bad thinking and wrong motivation. It is also suffering caused by ignorance of doctrine and resultant self-deception.
7. WEBSTER:
a. “Self-imposed” means voluntarily assumed or endured.
b. “Self-induced” means willfully acquired or brought on.
c. “Self-indulged” means yielding to the desires and whims of oneself, especially to an excessive degree.
8. Hos 8:7, “They who sow to the wind shall also reap the whirlwind.”
9. Col 3:25, “For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of that wrong which he has done, and there is no partiality [from God].”
10. Suffering related to self obviously follows the policy of wrong thinking, wrong motives, wrong decisions, and wrong actions in life. Sometimes it’s a matter of lack of common sense or bad judgment from not knowing your limitations.
11. Good decisions result in blessing from God; bad decisions result in suffering from self: self-imposed, self-induced, and self-indulged.
12. So there are four ways to make yourself miserable and to manufacture your own suffering.
a. Negative or wrong thinking: self-imposed misery.
b. Negative or wrong motivation: self-imposed misery.
c. Negative or wrong decisions: self-induced misery.
d. Negative or deliberately wrong actions: self-induced misery.
e. Impulsive wrong actions: self-indulged misery.
13. There are at least seven categories of wrong decisions which produce self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility.
a. Wrong decisions based on sin.
b. Wrong decisions based on human good.
c. Wrong decisions resulting in evil.
d. Wrong decisions based on erroneous emotions. This is one of the worst reasons to make a decision. For emotions cannot think, cannot rationalize, have no common sense.
e. Wrong decisions based on bad judgment. This is a very common cause, and is due to lack of common sense, total disorientation to life, and not knowing your limitations.
f. Wrong decisions based on lust.
g. Wrong decisions based on false teaching.
14. So you see, you can’t rebound all these categories. You can’t rebound bad judgment. Most who have bad judgment don’t even know it anyway.
C. Scriptural Illustrations from Proverbs.
1. The book of Proverbs is a composition of good and bad thoughts, motives, decisions, and actions in life. Proverbs teaches the believer how to live without learning the hard way, i.e., from mistakes and from suffering, self-induced, self-imposed, and self-indulged.
2. Most wrong decisions reflect indifference or negative volition toward Bible doctrine, as mentioned in many verses in Prov 1 and 8.
3. Self-induced misery and Divine discipline is illustrated by Prov 22:8, “He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of His punishment will surely come.” Gal 6:7 says the same thing.
4. Proverbs 2:10-17 teaches good decisions always result from metabolized doctrine, called CHAKMAH or wisdom (the equivalent of the Greek word EPIGNOSIS).
a. Verse 10, “For wisdom [metabolized doctrine] will enter your right lobe, and knowledge will do good to your soul.”
b. Verse 11, “Discretion [power of free decision, of independent judgment based on metabolized doctrine] will guard you, understanding will watch over you.”
c. Verse 12, “To deliver you from the way of evil, from the person who speaks distorted things [human viewpoint].”
d. Verse 13, “Who leaves straight paths to walk in dark ways.”
e. Verse 14, “Who delight in doing evil, who rejoice in willfulness and deviation of evil.”
f. Verse 15, “Whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.”
g. Verse 16, “To deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her word.”
h. Verse 17, “That leaves the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God [principles of sexual morality].”
5. Bad decisions that cause self-induced misery are related to sin; the seven worst sins are stated in Proverbs 6:16-19.
a. Verse 16, “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are abominable to Him.”
b. Verse 17, “Arrogant eyes [idiom for arrogance as a system], a lying tongue [sins of the tongue], hands that shed innocent blood [murder].”
c. Verse 18, “A heart that devises thoughts [systems, plans] of evil [inordinate ambition and lust for power by the smart], and feet that run rapidly to evil.”
d. Verse 19, “One who utters lies as a false witness, and one who spreads strife among brothers [troublemaker].”
6. Prov 11:22, “As a golden ring in a pig’s snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.” A woman can get so carried away with her beauty that she makes a lot of bad decisions in her mental attitude, and so brings on herself self-imposed misery. An ugly woman can do the same thing, but this is more obvious.
7. Prov 12:13, “In the transgression of the lips [the sins of your big mouth] is an evil snare [triple-compound discipline], but the righteous will escape this trouble [misery].” Every time you judge, malign, gossip, or run down someone, you have manufactured misery for yourself. The righteous here isn’t someone who is perfect, but someone who does not gossip, malign, or judge others.
8. Prov 13:20, “He who walks with the wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer misery.” We make good and bad decisions with regard to the people with whom we associate. If you associate with the wrong crowd, you’re making a decision that will cause you a tremendous amount of unhappiness!
9. Prov 15:17, “Better is a dish of cabbage where love is, than a chateau briand and hatred with it.” In other words, you not only choose your food, but you choose your associations.
10. Prov 15:33, “Occupation with the Lord [gate #5] is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility.” Good decisions based on humility will eventually lead to honor, to include virtue-love as a problem solving device.
11. Prov 16:18, “Pride [arrogance] goes before destruction, and an arrogant way of life before a fall.” Destruction and fall here refer to both self-imposed and self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility.
12. Prov 17:1, “Better a dry crust with tranquility [peace and quiet] than a houseful of religion [sacrifices] and strife.”
13. Prov 17:13, “He who returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house.” It will not only affect him but also everyone associated with him. This is compounding self-induced misery.
14. Prov 17:20, “A person with a perverse right lobe [deviation from what is right, obstinate, petulant, willful, wrong person] does not prosper; he whose tongue is deceitful falls into trouble and misery.”
15. Prov 19:8, “He who gets wisdom loves his own soul [spiritual self- esteem]; he who cherishes understanding prospers [spiritual self-esteem to spiritual autonomy].”
16. Prov 19:15 is the decision to be lazy: “Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless person suffers hunger.”
17. Prov 19:16, “He who obeys instructions guards his soul, but he who is contemptuous of his own ways will die.”
18. Prov 19:19, “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him you will have to do it again.”
19. Prov 19:23, “Occupation with the Lord leads to living, so that one rests in contentment, untouched by trouble.”
20. Prov 19:25, “Flog a mocker and the simple will learn prudence, but rebuke a discerning person and he will gain knowledge.”
21. Prov 20:19, “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid the person who talks too much [i.e., about others].” Do not associate with gossips, or you’ll end up receiving misery.
22. Prov 20:22, “Do not say, `I will get revenge’; Wait for the Lord, and He will deliver you.”
23. Prov 21:9, “Better to live in the corner of a rooftop than to share a house with a contentious wife.”
24. Prov 21:19, “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging woman.” In other words, making a wrong decision in choosing your marriage partner causes misery.
25. Prov 21:21, “He who pursues virtue-love finds capacity for life, prosperity, and honor [spiritual self-esteem].”
26. Prov 24:17-18, “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; Or the Lord will see {it} and disapprove, And He turn away His wrath away from him to you.”
27. Prov 22:8, “He who sows wickedness reaps trouble [law of volitional responsibility], and the rod of His [God’s] punishment will surely come to him.”
28. Prov 23:9, “Do not try to teach [counsel] a fool, for he will scorn the wisdom of your words.”
29. Prov 23:27-28, “A prostitute is a deep pit, and a strange woman is a narrow well; like a bandit, she lies in wait and multiplies the unfaithful among men.”
30. Prov 23:29-30, “Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? Those who linger too long over wine and who search out mixed wine [a bar].” Making a wrong decision to go to a bar offers you all the options of this passage.
31. Prov 24:17-18, “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn His wrath away from him.” This bad decision leads to triple-compound discipline, a third of which is your enemy’s discipline transferred to you.
32. Prov 25:16, “If you find candy, eat just enough. Too much of it, and you will vomit.”
33. Prov 29:1, “A person who remains stiff-necked [negative, arrogant] after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy.”
D. The Standard Operating Procedure For Dealing With Problems.
1. There are two laws of discipline. There is the law of volitional responsibility and the law of divine punitive action. In the first, we hurt ourselves; in the second, God disciplines us for blessing to take away the guilt.
2. There are three items in the procedure of dealing with problems.
a. Recognize your problem of postsalvation sinning.
b. Utilize the solution—the rebound technique supported by the other problem solving devices (filling of the Holy Spirit, the faith-rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, a personal sense of destiny, personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, sharing the happiness of God, and occupation with Christ).
(1) Interaction with people is always going to fail unless you have personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, and occupation with Christ.
(2) If God emphasis does not have the priority, then interaction with people will constantly put you out of fellowship. All the problem solving devices work together.
c. Emphasize the priority—God emphasis over people emphasis. When you reach a personal sense of destiny, you are at a crisis point in your life, because people can make you upset, unhappy, cause you to loose your focus. People are a big part of the outside pressures of adversity. Everything depends on your scale of values at any given moment.
3. No one ever has an original thought. There is nothing new under the sun. All the power of thought is found in Bible doctrine. The more doctrine you master, the more conclusions you can draw. The more you learn and master, the greater should be your humility. People who know they know nothing have no hang-ups. The Christian way of life or protocol plan of God is designed for you to master the subject by listening. One subject that you must master is the problem solving devices, which are the defense system of your soul. The only thing you need to bring is your very own positive volition. Doctrinal discoveries are made by those who master the subject and are persistent. Mastering a subject requires sacrifice. You have to be very patient and consistent in your motivation. You must learn your assets and apply them for yourself.
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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