I’m troubled by two words that I sometimes see coupled together when I read 
different books. For instance, from Howard Hendricks great little book Teaching to Change Lives, I read,
“He wants to work through you but He can’t until He works in you…”
p. 29 of the 1987 edition from Multnomah
Eugene Peterson makes me cringe when he interprets Paul’s words to the Corinthians as,
“If any one of you thinks God has something for you to say or has inspired you to do something, pay close attention to what I have written. This is the way the Master wants it. If you won’t play by these rules, God can’t use you. Sorry.”
“I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?”
Other than “God can’t sin” and “God can’t change” should the words ‘God’ and ‘can’t’ ever be coupled together in any statement?
Your thoughts?
All Thyngs 
Great point. I think people have a tendency to want to project their own “human-ness” onto God.
I think you are touching on the basic difference between the Reformed view of God, in which God is sovereign in all things, and latent Arminianism. Many at DTS believe that God is sitting by, waiting for us to step up to volunteer or comply and don’t see that this in effect, makes us little gods over God.
In other words, He makes it possible for us to be saved and to serve Him, yet He has to wait patiently for us to do so…
The Reformed view is that we reject the gospel at every level because we are in darkness and want nothing to do with the Light. The Light has to shine into our lives, causing us to become born again, at which point, we do desire to be with Christ and accept the gospel laid out before us. He has to move, before we can move. Works then follow out of hearts of gratitude, not guilt like so many in the DTS camp believe.
It’s very much like a couple who attended our Adult Bible Class as guests a few Sundays back. We’ve been going through Romans and are in chapter 8. As we were walking through verses 29-30 and talking of this wonderful “chain” of God’s acts, the wife began to speak of God’s sovereignty. Her initial words were sending chills up and down my spine, so eloquently was she articulating the marvelous sovereign grace of God. But it all came to a screeching halt, like that old needle/arm on record players getting bumped across the album, when she then said one little word––”…but…” and then continue to expound on the freedom of man’s will and why God wouldn’t ever violate that.
I’m not sure you can ever talk of God’s absolute sovereignty and use the word “but” in the same sentence!