The Scripture teaches us that even sinful actions are in the hands of God. Listen to Peter preaching on the Day of Pentecost at Jerusalem: ‘Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain‘ (Acts 2:23). Then Peter puts it like this in Acts 4:27-8: ‘For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together’ – notice – ‘for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.’ The terrible sin of those men was determined beforehand by the counsel of God. And then you have a striking example of the same thing in the book of Genesis, the famous statement of Joseph to his brethren. Joseph, retailing the facts of his story, turned to his brothers and said, ‘So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God …’ (Gen. 45:8). From our standpoint it was they who had done it. They had done a dastardly thing, a very wicked thing, for mercenary motives and as the result of their own jealousy. ‘But,’ said Joseph, ‘it was not you that sent me hither, but God.’ These sinful actions came under this great eternal decree of God.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Great Doctrines of the Bible.
