Introduction
     Free will implies choice and one can exercise it either positively or negatively. Another’s response to its exercise will either be positive or negative. And Yahweh’s response to its exercise will either be positive or negative, blessing or judgment of its exerciser.
    In this discourse, we will first consider some who executed their free will positively and others, less acceptably.
    We begin with the following Scripture:
    For this [is] thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward Eloha endure grief, suffering wrongfully For what glory [is it], if, when ye buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer [for it], ye take it patiently, this [is] acceptable with Eloha, 1 Peter 2:19-20. (The King James Version used throughout, unless otherwise noted.)

Joseph
     Joseph, at age 17, was sold into slavery to Potiphar whose wife exercised her free will by casting her lustful eyes upon this Hebrew youth, beckoning him day by day, saying, “lie with me” (Gen. 39:7). And he, in turn, exercised his free will day by day, refusing her cunning and she yielded to her free will by asserting a false accusation against him, which resulted in his incarceration – protracted longer, because of the chief butler with whom he was imprisoned exercising his free will in not recompensing this youth’s interpretation of a troublesome dream by making mention of him to Pharaoh when he should be restored to the king’s service (Gen. 40:14).
    Yes, not until Pharaoh himself was disturbed by nocturnal busyness as he slept, and found no redress from the magicians and wise men of Egypt, did the butler remember, and with the exercise of his free will – some two full years later (Gen. 41:1) – confess, saying, “I do remember my faults this day” (Gen. 41:9) and rehearse his own experience and relationship with Joseph.

Moses
     Remember, [and] forget not, how thou provokedst Yahweh thy Eloha to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against Yahweh. Also in Horeb ye provoked Yahweh to wrath, so that Yahweh was angry with you to have destroyed you. When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, [even] the tables of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water: And Yahweh delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of Eloha; and on them [was written] according to all the words, which Yahweh spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, [that] Yahweh gave me the two tables of stone, [even] the tables of the covenant. And Yahweh said unto me, “Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted [themselves]; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.” Furthermore Yahweh spake unto me, saying, “I have seen this people, and, behold, it [is] a stiffnecked people: Let Me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.” So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against Yahweh your Eloha, [and] had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which Yahweh had commanded you. And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes. And I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith Yahweh was wroth against you to destroy you. But Yahweh hearkened unto me at that time also. And Yahweh was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time. And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, [and] ground [it] very small, [even] until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibrothhattaavah, ye provoked Yahweh to wrath. Likewise when Yahweh sent you from Kadeshbarnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you;” then ye rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your Eloha, and ye believed Him not, nor hearkened to His voice. Ye have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you. Thus I fell down before Yahweh forty days and forty nights, as I fell down [at the first]; because Yahweh had said He would destroy you. I prayed therefore unto Yahweh, and said, “O Sovereign Eloha, destroy not thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou hast redeemed through Thy greatness, which Thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember Thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin: Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, ‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness’. Yet they [are] Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou broughtest out by Thy mighty power and by Thy stretched out arm, Deuteronomy 9:7-19. 
    In this passage, we read a lot of expressions of free will – from Moses, submitting to Yahweh’s summons to come atop Sinai, and abide there for forty days and nights, fasting from food and water during this time; to communing with Yahweh Who committed to his trust the two stone tablets of the Covenant; to obeying Yahweh’s command to get himself down from the mount; to declining Yahweh’s proposal of making of his seed, a greater and mightier nation than they whom He had delivered from Egypt; to Moses’ display of anger in casting down the tables of stone, breaking them into fragments; to confronting Aaron and the assembly for their affront toward Yahweh in the matter of the calf of gold; to breaking up and grinding to powder the molten image of the calf and making the assembly drink of the solution of powder and water; to returning to Sinai and making supplication in behalf of the people whose fathers Yahweh had made a compact to bring them into the land; to assuaging Yahweh Whose mind and execution of will was changed through Moses’ intercession.
    In Numbers 12:3, we read parenthetically, (Now the man Moses [was] very meek, above all the men which [were] upon the face of the earth.) The authorship of these words might not be attributed to Moses, whose attitude of will in having to bear with Yahweh the ten documented temptations with which Israel provoked Yahweh was one generally, of forbearance.
    We read in the 40-year Wilderness account, only one instance, in which where Moses exercised a negative expression of free will … only one instance, when he’d lost his.
    The Psalmist in Psalm 106 provides us with a brief digest of the wilderness experience, beginning with Israel’s provocation of Yahweh at the Red Sea as they observed Pharaoh’s army coming down upon them through to their coming into Canaan and their assimilation with the people there.
    Of particular note, are verses 32 and 33, They angered [him] also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes: Because they provoked his spirit so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.
    The psalmist here, is rehearsing a matter first recorded in Numbers 20:7-11. There, Yahweh had directed Moses to speak to a rock wherefrom the people who, once again, were grumbling that Moses had brought them out into the wilderness to die, and that it had been better for them had they remained slaves to Pharaoh and to his taskmasters might be satisfied with water to supply their animals and to refresh themselves.
    We note, however, it wasn’t so very much Moses speaking unadvisedly with his lips, as it was his disobedience to Yahweh Who had instructed him to “speak ye unto the rock (Num. 20:8) as it was his disobedience in lifting “up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice …” (Num. 20:11) – an expression of free will that had been better subdued and he, ruling his spirit – seeing that Rock is later identified by the Apostle Paul as the pre-incarnate Messiah (1 Cor. 10:2-4).
    So, it was his hand and not his tongue by which Yahweh was not sanctified in the eyes of the children of Israel and which precluded him from bringing this congregation into the land which Yahweh would give them.
    Furthermore, much more do we read in the Torah account of this man Moses respectfully beseeching Yahweh to “COOL” inflicting the full weight of His fury against this people who had three times covenanted with Him, affirming, “All The Words Which Yahweh Hath Said, Will We Do, And Be Obedient” (Exod. 19:8, 24:3, 7) and reminding the Almighty One, that if He did unleash His hot displeasure upon this people, the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with whom He had over generations made covenant promises, then His indignation and wrath would become occasion for His enemies to greatly blaspheme His Worthy Name.
    Though Moses was spent numerous times appealing the Almighty One to withhold the execution of His anger, He was not successful, supplicating in his own behalf.  
    O Sovereign Yahweh, Thou hast begun to shew Thy servant thy greatness, and Thy mighty hand: for what El [is there] in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might? I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that [is] beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. But Yahweh was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and Yahweh said unto me, “Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto Me of this matter, Deuteronomy 3:24-26. 
    From that time to this time, Yahweh has had many millennia experience dealing with a stiff-necked, hard-hearted people who are also, iron-clad, dyed-in-the-wool apostates.

Eliyah
     In 1 Kings, chapter 18, Eliyah is distinguished as having done that which none other had ever done. He dared to exercise his free will, in mocking the 450 prophets of Ba’al, urging them at the altar upon which they had dressed a bull.
    “And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, ‘Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked’. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Kings 18:27-28).
    Then, following their failure to intreat Ba’al to send fire to consume their sacrifice, Eliyah freely and willingly repaired the altar, made a trench about it, and three times, poured four barrels of water upon it, the wood upon it, the sacrifice upon the wood, and the trench around it, and called upon Yahweh Elohim Who immediately rained fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice, the wood, the stones of the altar, and the dust, and even the water in the trench (1 Kings 18:30-38).
    Afterward, he and Israel as an expression of their corporate free will, and without consideration as to its consequence, slew the 450 prophets of Ba’al, and the 400 prophets of the groves as well, and according to his word three and a half years earlier that it should not rain upon the earth until he summoned the rain, he called for the rain and the heavens were black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain (1 Kings 18:40-45).
    And then, he fled from before the wrath of Jezebel who was resolved to slay him (1 Kings 19:2-3), making his complaint before Yahweh:
    “It is enough; now, O Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” … And he said, “I have been very jealous for the Yahweh Eloha of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:4, 10, 14). 
    Being very jealous for Yahweh is a positive exercise of free will, though as we have seen, its exercise sometimes produces discouragement, despair, and depression as an outcome of a negative disposition of free will from those affected by its acceptable initiative.
    But because Yahweh is Strength and encourages us in discouragement, despair, and depression, He assures Eliyah that He has reserved 7,000 in Israel as an acceptable expression of their free will, who have neither bowed to, nor kissed, the image of Ba’al.

Isaiah
     In chapter 1 of Isaiah, Yahweh shows us the converse of the Apostle Peter’s quadrivalent, of a people, through their exercise of free will becoming “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Pet. 2:9) which is exactly, what He desires we should aspire toward becoming … transformed from “a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters” (Isa. 1:4).
    Isaiah’s ministry spanned 60 years, from 740 BCE to 680 BCE and during the reigns of four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. He is thought to have been martyred – tradition says, “sawn asunder” … perhaps a reference to him recorded in Hebrews 11:37, a method of execution used by the wicked king Manasseh who succeeded Hezekiah, and of whom it is recorded, bathed the streets of Jerusalem with blood.
    Reading the breadth of Isaiah, leaves us with the impression by the time we get to Chapter 65, that Isaiah, now an octogenarian, was worn out.
    I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way [that was] not good, after their own thoughts; A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable [things is in] their vessels; Which say, “Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou.” These [are] a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day, Isaiah 65:2-5.

Jeremiah
     Jeremiah is called the weeping, or sorrowing prophet. He, too, could have said, “All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people” (Rom. 10:21, the Apostle Paul’s reference to Isaiah 65:2).
    By the time we get to chapter 20 of 51 chapters of Jeremiah, he’s had enough, complaining,
    O Yahweh, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the Word of Yahweh was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His Name.” But [His Word] was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not [stay]. For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. “Report, [say they], and we will report it.” All my familiars watched for my halting, [saying], “Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him,” Jeremiah 20:7-10.
    What we perceive here is a man wrought up in emotion which he has permitted to define the execution of his free will – discouraged, despairing, and depressed, he, too, is ready to give up, yet constrained is he, for reason of the dispensation of the Word that has been committed to his trust and revealing, that but with the decision of one’s will, it is possible to change the exercise of free will from what is a negative expression, into that which is good and acceptable … though the outcome of the latter, should bring sorrow of heart and a grief of mind.

Ezekiel
     Yahweh tells the Prophet Ezekiel,
    Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, “Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from Yahweh.” And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee [as] My people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, [but] their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou [art] unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come), then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them, Ezekiel 33:30-33.
    Disappointment, despair, depression – but common experiences among prophets and others, who have relinquished their own free will, submitting such to His good, and acceptable, and perfect will. Nevertheless, ’tis better for him to whom His Word is committed, not to long permit himself to languish in the 3D’s, lest he should discover that his estate to have come into communion with them to whom he was come, but who neither received him, nor the Word which he sought to distribute.

Yahshua
     A common experience, we say, likewise Yahshua’s of whom the Revelator spoke, saying, He came unto His own, and His own received Him not, John 1:11.
    The Master, Who knows what is in man, that is, in his flesh, needed not that any should testify of Him (John 2:24-25). In commissioning the twelve, He foretold them to whom He committed the Evangel to the exercise of their free will, to expect rather, that they to whom He would send them as His emissaries (apostles) would counter their positive exercise of free will with a negative free will response.
    “And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against [their] parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all [men] for My Name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come,” Matthew 10:12-23.
    An ominous outcome of evil, a negative expression of free will, in exchange for what was purposed to be a positive exercise of free will? Yes, but so much the more necessary was it for them, and necessary for us, too, to first count the cost of executing a positive expression of free will. For it is certain, that in espousing the truth, we shall, as they were, be counted as enemies (John 8:40; Gal. 4:16). It is worthy of our notice, that prophets, and later, apostles, were sent, scourged, stoned, and otherwise killed … their successors, acknowledging, too, that in freely and willingly assuming this mantle of the Evangel, that others might with the execution of their free will reject Yahweh’s offer of grace and mercy.
    Following that notable Pentecost of Acts, chapter 2, we read of men, now emboldened, being brought before the tribunal of the Sanhedrin for preaching the simplicity that is Messiah, beaten and commanded to speak no more in That None Other Name Under Heaven, Neither Is There Salvation In Any Other, Given Among Men, Whereby We Must Be Saved – an unacceptable exercise of Free Will.

The Acts of Apostles
     In the Acts of the Apostles, which is perhaps more, a record of the Apostle Paul’s ministry – the Apostle Paul who declared in one place, “for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the Evangel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward …” (1 Cor. 9:16-17).
    Nevertheless, wherever he and his company itinerated, Jews to whom the Oracles were first committed, and the covenants of promise, and the giving of the Law, and service of Eloha (Rom. 3:2, 9:4), and to whom it was necessary they should be the first to hear the terms of this Renewed Covenant (Acts 13:46), instead followed seeking to destroy him and doing injury to the Word he preached, and to undermine the works he did, ascribing these latter to the devil.
    Moved with envy, because he was making more disciples than they were of proselytes, they expressed their free will seeking out “certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gather[ing] a company, and set[ting] all places in an uproar” (Acts 17:5).
    He was given a new cognomen: “a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the Sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5).
    Before the “authorities,” these of his opponents put on a demonstration of their free will: casting off their clothes, throwing dust into the air, and crying out, “Away with this fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live” (Acts 22:23, 22). Free will, we say, exacerbated the more through stonings and beatings and imprisonments and sundry perils (2 Cor. 11:23-28 and his own free will response of continuing steadfastly in, and earnestly contending for the faith that was delivered to him as he tarried in a house on a Damascus street called Straight (Acts 9:11) … in weariness and in pain; in hunger and thirst; in fastings; in cold and nakedness; and besides all this, that which was imposed upon him daily – the care of all the assemblies!
    All these, we say, and like prophets and apostles before him, he and others could only conclude, “I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice” (2 Cor. 2:3). Oh, but rather had they, been able instead to joy to their constituents’ favor, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in Truth” (3 John 1:4).
    Better had they received the commendation of others’ expression of free will, acceptance and appreciation of men like Cornelius, a centurion of the band that is called the Italian band, and who’d said to Peter when he was come, “Now therefore are we all here present before Eloha, to hear all things that are commanded thee of Yahweh” (Acts 10:33) or of Lydia, a seller of purple of Thyatira, who said to the Paul, “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Master, come into my house, and abide there” (Acts 16:15).

Of Prophets & Apostles: Some Last Observations
     Joseph, Moses, Eliyah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Yahshua, and the Apostles Peter and John and Paul, and all since who have occupied their respective Sacred Desks and who spent, and were spent, who had, and have, this common experience – discouragement, despair, depression (the 3D’s) – sometimes even, together with anger and frustration as their recompense come from the lips and the hands of them who with the exercise of their free will repudiated that surrender of the others’ to Yahweh’ good and acceptable and perfect will … what more can we say, except the only thing that kept them in the ring, fighting the good fight and enduring to their end, was that a Message had been committed to them and woe to them, if they should not preach Its Content.
    No, more often than not, because they, as Word Expositors, and as many, too, who have succeeded them to the Sacred Desk can testify, were, and are, always at odds with this Gift which Yahweh has endowed every man and woman: this gift of free will, which every man and woman struggles to bring into captivity and into subjection to both willing and doing Yahweh’s good pleasure. For many, free will is set at variance with, at enmity against, and contrary to Yahweh’s will. For them, free will has become a curse, rather than a gift.
    Free will – men don’t much deliberate or premeditate its use in ordering their activities. More often than not, response and reaction to stimuli are autonomous – that is, occurring without much immediate thought, consideration, or planning as to consequences. Or if we do first think, consider, or plan, our thinking, considering, or planning are usually transformed into making provision for the affections and lusts of what is fleshly and sensual.
    Some of religion are fond of quoting parts of Scripture, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty …” (Gal. 5:13) and adding the Apostle Peter’s, “as free” (1 Pet. 2:16) dispensing with other, more definitive words which read, “… only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another … and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of Eloha” – yes, where liberty here, is understood to mean free will.
    ’Tis the reason, some with their lips honor Him while their heart is far removed from first, willing and then, doing His Good Pleasure.
    ’Tis the reason, some choose to be encumbered about like Martha, instead of choosing that good part like Mary, who was found instead, sitting at the Master’s feet, hearing His Word.
    And that is precisely the reason why, so very much of what is said, is rehearsed again and again, because until a Spiritual Foundation is laid, the Building cannot be erected!
    And we should not be remiss in commending prophets and apostles past who had, and they which are occupying the Sacred Desk today, also freely and willingly exercising their free will for necessity was, and is, laid upon them. For His Word was in theirs, and is, in our hearts as a burning fire, shut up in theirs, and our and woe to them, and us, if they, and we, should forbear!
    This work of His emissaries has to be met with their conscious submitting their free will to a Higher Will.
    And some will think to misappropriate His Word, “to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:18) for the purpose of excusing themselves, not considering that in Yahweh’s economies, they will never find how to perform what is good and acceptable and perfect without first seeking to perform what is good and acceptable and perfect.
    So, where to begin? Provided us is this admonition: “TO DAY … NOW is the accepted time … if ye WILL hear His Voice … harden not your heart …” (Psa. 95:7, 8; 2 Cor. 6:2)
    Notice, the peculiar wording here: “TO DAY … NOW … if ye WILL hear His Voice …” – with its emphasis on the words, “TO DAY … NOW … WILL!”