Our “Yes” Cannot Change God’s “No”

On 31 May 2026, Pastor Devon Fugard-Gous of Rivers Church in Ballito preached a sermon titled “Yes Is More.” This report examines one claim from that message — that a believer’s “yes” can change God’s “no” — and tests it against Scripture. The concern is not merely hermeneutical: as delivered, the teaching hands the congregation a framework that Scripture directly contradicts.

The Claim

Drawing on the account of Ruth, the sermon argues that human obedience can reverse the declared will of God:

“But there’s something quite remarkable in this, because sometimes the Lord will also say no to us. But sometimes, sometimes our yes can even change God’s no.”

Sermon — “Yes Is More,” Rivers Church Ballito

The argument rests on Ruth’s status as a Moabite. Because Deuteronomy 23:3 bars Moabites from “the assembly of the LORD,” her loyal “yes” to Naomi is presented as the act that overturned that prohibition. It is offered as the plain reading of the text. It is not.

Examining the Text

The reading misunderstands the law it cites. Deuteronomy 23:3 concerned full covenant membership in the assembly, not simply living among Israel — which Ruth did freely. The book of Ruth never cites that law, never stages a conflict over it, and never describes her as “entering the assembly.”

What the text actually shows is that Ruth enters the covenant people by ordinary, lawful means: first through genuine faith in Yahweh, expressed in her confession “your God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16–17), and then through a legitimate marriage to Boaz under the kinsman-redeemer custom, publicly ratified by the elders at the city gate (Ruth 4).

Far from barring her, the only assembly that appears in the book blesses her union — and through it she is grafted into Israel, into the line of David, and ultimately into Christ (Ruth 4:17–22; Matthew 1:5). The account is therefore not about a human “yes” overturning God’s “no,” but about God’s grace bringing an outsider in through his own faithful provision — a picture of salvation itself.

Why It Matters

To teach that saying yes to enough things can overturn God’s “no” is dangerous. It is no framework to live by, and no passage grants believers that kind of authority over God. Scripture teaches the opposite.

The same truth runs throughout: Isaiah 43:13, Proverbs 19:21, Lamentations 3:37, and James 4:13–15, to name only a few.

The teaching also collapses under its own logic. Scripture is clear that God ordains and permits suffering in the lives of his people (1 Peter 4:12; James 1:2; the book of Job). Yet if a believer’s “yes” could turn God’s hand, then suffering would become evidence of an unspoken “yes” still owed — something the sufferer failed to do. That conclusion follows directly from the sermon’s premise, and it stands directly against the Word.

Assessment

Believers are not in control of God’s hand, nor of his timing in the things he has ordained to come to pass. The flock is completely and utterly under his command and his will, and no measure of human “yeses” can change his mind. A sermon that teaches otherwise — however well intended — trades the comfort of God’s sovereignty for a burden no believer was meant to carry, and should be corrected from the pulpit that delivered it.