(Ver 1.3)  This is now Part 3 in a series of advanced Bible studies concerning the erroneous doctrine of extreme “Predestination”.  If you have not read from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1“.  It seems that there is not a shortage of ignorant people in the world or on the internet.  Today I will address a very deep topic that I have addressed previously but I will do it today in a more detailed way for these people who refuse to believe the truth.  There are so many levels of deception in the world.  There are so many variations of the same lies that it is almost impossible to address them all.  I had a reader write me a new variation of an old deception about “Predestination”.  His claim was that everyone will be saved who wants to be saved, but God still predestined some people for hell because the Bible says Jesus chose Judas to betray Him.  I guess according to this man’s reasoning Judas didn’t want to be saved and this was why Jesus chose him.  I really do not know what people are thinking when they say some of the things that they do.  Hopefully by writing this I can help someone in the world not to fall into this level of deception, for you see I do not believe that you can help people who do not want to be helped.   It is very difficult and even impossible to help everyone.  If you noticed while reading your Bible even Jesus could not help everyone.  That statement might shock you, but you do realize that some of the Jews hung Him on the cross?  Did Jesus not preach and teach the same words to these people as He did everyone else?   How is it that some accepted and others rejected and the same words were spoken to each?  I guess according to this guy it was because of God’s predestined purpose that everyone did what they did.  After all God controls what every human on the planet does every minute of the day.  We are all just God’s puppets and we only do His will.  That is why there is so much good in the world and love towards each other.  Heck, I haven’t seen enough love in the church, much less in the world.  Why does the church bicker and fight within their own ranks so much?  I guess it was all just God’s will and Jesus doesn’t get His prayers answered.  Remember in John when Jesus prayed and asked His Father to “Make them one as we are one”?  Has this ever happened in the last 2000 years?  I think one of the few times that I saw it was in the Bible in Acts 2:1 when there were only 120 in the upper room and they were all in one accord.  It seems to me that once the church grew beyond the 120 it became increasingly more difficult to remain in harmony.  Why is that?

Today I’m going to speak about “Predestination” vs. “Freewill”.  What is predestination?  According to definitions that I have found it is the theology that states God has foreordained every event in the course of human history including the end result of salvation for every man, woman and child.  This was a popular teaching that originated from “Calvin” I believe and it has continued in many ignorant and deceived churches to this day.  This teaching has many problems and ignores many other Bible verses.  It promotes a theology of “Limited Justification”, where only those selected by God have been atoned for by the Blood of Jesus.  Therefore the Blood of Jesus is not all encompassing or powerful enough to save everyone.  It further promotes the theology of “Once Saved Always Saved” where a God selected Christian can do nothing to lose their salvation.  This philosophy is based upon the fact that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and can do whatever He desires, so therefore they make the erroneous leap that God controls everything that happens to us in the world.  Just because God can they think that God does.   If it happens in the world then that is or was the plan of God in manifestation.  This teaching comes from the minds of heavily deceived individuals who do not see or understand the Bible.  Why do they not understand the Bible; primarily because they do not know the author of the Bible who is God!   To understand the Bible you must first and above all else come to know Him (the Author) and allow His Holy Spirit to guide you into all of the truth (John 16:13).  By knowing God you learn His character, His Integrity, His Nature, His Ways and His Personality.  God’s integrity and character is the highest moral standard that exists above everyone else.  For example, the Bible says it is impossible for God to lie.  You can clearly see that makes His character way beyond mine.  It is entirely possible for me to lie to you.  It is entirely possible for any human on the earth to lie to you.  In fact I do not know of another being natural or spiritual that exists that cannot lie.  The existence of Satan proves that even angels can lie.  That is why we MUST see what God says in His Word in order to find the truth.

Whether you realize it or not we have a significant problem within the Body of Christ, a major conflict, a battle of theologies between the “Predestination” Theology and the “Freewill” Theology.  Many may have never heard of either of these teachings.  Therefore they do not understand what they mean or know that there is a conflict being debated.   If you do not understand these subjects then you need to learn quickly which one is the truth and which one is a fabrication.  But, hopefully you will better understand them as I go through the rest of this lesson.  What we have on the surface is the theology that God is in control of everything that happens vs. the theology that man has a freewill to choose his own destiny.  This is the root of the battle.

So this reader of mine who ignored everything that I said in the last lesson on the subject of predestination (“Many Called and Few Chosen”), wrote me a long comment why I was so wrong giving me lots of his misunderstood Bible verses about how God prophesied every major event in the Bible before it ever happened in the world.  Therefore according to his brilliant reasoning “Prophesy” proves “predestination” or a “predestined plan” that cannot be changed.   I have written in other Bible lessons that God lives outside of the boundaries or constraints of time.  Do you believe God is limited to time?   If you think God is limited to the dimension of time where was God before the “beginning”?  Scientists clearly understand that our known universe had a beginning, a clear starting point in time called the “big bang”.  We must logically conclude that if God created time God existed before time.  Can we agree upon this factual conclusion?

Jesus said “I am the beginning and the end” and this clearly tells us that God pre-existed in a self-existent perpetual state before and after either of these two points of reference in time.  Let’s consider the nature of prophecy.   The Bible clearly says that “I make known the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:10).  Therefore God definitely knows the end before it happens.  We are therefore at a crossroad point of decision to choose to believe one of two paths of opposing theology.   The first path is the belief that just because God knows the end and everything in between that also means God orchestrated and caused it all to happen this way.  This belief alleviates all other source or influences of freewill choices.   Or the second path that we could take is that God did not cause it all to happen this way but rather only reports to us in the Bible what will happen based upon foreknowledge.  This approach keeps the positive or negative influences of human freewill and other spiritual beings.   Just because God knows what will happen does not mean God causes it to happen that way.   Let me ask you this, do you believe that God is in control of everything that happens?   Can you show me a Bible verse that says this?  I simply do not know one and if you do then I would be happy to learn about it.  However, you cannot take a prophecy and say God caused it to happen unless you see the words “God caused Judas to betray Jesus”.  Otherwise your theology is based upon assumptions of human reasoning and that is a very dangerous place to put your confidence.  The Bible says many things that will counter this theological theory that God controls everything and we must see these clearly to understand the real truth.  I mean can you read?  Here are some Bible verses that you should pay very close attention to:

Mat 13:25  But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

Jesus is teaching a parable that relates a spiritual truth about the Kingdom of God.  The first thing that you need to note is the fact that God says He has an enemy.  Not an evil puppet, an enemy.  You can find this reality multiple times in the N.T.  God says in Hebrews “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies thou footstool” (Heb 1:13).    Do you know the definition of an enemy?  According to God your enemy never does what you want them to do; if an enemy did what you desired then they would not be your enemy.  We are fighting terrorism in the U.S., because why?   Terrorists call the U.S. their enemy.  Therefore, we are forced to defend our nation and to try to defeat them because they called us the enemy of their god Allah.  Do you have a different definition for an enemy?  You should go through the Bible and see the references to what God calls an enemy.   An enemy is never one that under the control of those they are opposed to, unless they have been totally defeated.  In this parable of God’s garden or farm, God is said to have sown wheat seeds and an enemy has come along in secret and sown “tares” in God’s garden.  It doesn’t sound like God is in complete control of His own garden, does it?  You cannot read a story like this and believe in “predestination” unless you twist it to believe that God’s enemy is just a part of God’s planned design.  If you believe that, then you have to change the definition of what an enemy is.  If Satan is doing exactly what God wants him to do, then he is a friend of God and not an enemy.  You can clearly see this is true or it makes Jesus Christ out to be a liar.  You see in John 15:14 Jesus said this to His disciples “You are my friends, if you do what I command you”.   So if Satan is doing what God wants he would not be called an enemy he would have to be called a friend of God.  I mean are you blind or can you read?  Go through your Bible searching and tell me where it says that Satan is a friend of God?  Knowing this fact alone blows extreme “Predestination” out of the water.  There is no way to believe in predestination unless you change God’s definition of a friend and an enemy.  By clear definition it is impossible for God to have enemies and be in total control of everything.  You really need to study your Bible more before you make wild theological statements like God has predestined some to hell.  Let’s see another new perspective that counters the theology of extreme “Predestination”.

Gen 6:5  And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

In the book of Genesis God is telling us of a time when man was morally corrupt.  It is easy for me to understand that this is why America is in the dilemma that we are in today.  Liberals want to remove God from our government and our schools and then expect things to get better.  However, the Bible proves this is not what happens in our world without God’s involvement.  Without churches, a Bible and God being intimately involved you can see what God says happened in the world.  The rise of “wickedness” and “evil” in the thoughts and minds of humanity in our country has caused a generation of people who are not better than we use to be, but much worse.  If you take God out of your schools you teach ignorance, children grow up without any moral character, standards and integrity.  Therefore, they do what they want to do to who they want to do it and whenever they think they can get away with it.  Take a look at this next verse in Genesis:

Gen 6:6  And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Ok, I’m going to ask you again, Can You READ?  What does this verse say?  It says “God was sorry that He made man because He saw the wickedness that was running rampant in the earth.  I thought God caused all of this wickedness to occur by His designed plan?  After all how would God use Noah to save humans if God had not caused the evil in the world to be present in the first place?  So this is the reasoning of predestination theology that you have to say that God purposely caused the “Evil” so that He could implement a plan of “Salvation” for us all.  That is what extreme “Predestination” is preaching.  But, how can you cause something to happen and then regret that it happened?  Does that make any logical sense to you?  You see you cannot do this if you have any morality and integrity at all.  You do not ever go to your car in the drive way and purposely break it just so you can fix it, that would be called insanity.  You see this is a major problem for extreme “Predestination” theology.  If God wanted something different than what was happening on the earth, God would have controlled it to make it occur differently.  God would not have allowed “wickedness” if it was all up to God.  You can see that, can’t you?  These verses just don’t make any sense in the extreme “Predestination” world that God caused it to be this way so that God could regret that He created man to be evil.  Wow, this is some very powerful stuff if you can accept it as the truth!

Let me give you another verse of scripture that is directly opposed to the exreme philosophy of “Predestination”.  You see according to “Predestination” theology God has foreordained that some people would go to hell and some people would be saved.  If this is true, man would have no choice to ever make to obtain either one of these end results.  So how do you deal with a verse that says something like this?

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

I have heard many opinions to what this verse means and most of them are wrong.  There are those who claim this verse teaches that everyone will be saved because God always gets His will done both in heaven and on the earth.  This is the theory of “Universal Salvation” and it is another lie from Satan.  Then there are others who must ignore this verse to teach “Predestination” theories.  This verse very clearly says God desires everyone to be saved.  This verse countermands the philosophy of “Selective Atonement” that other deceived Christians want to buy into.  In the “Selective Atonement” philosophy God only paid the price for the sins of those that were chosen.  The others have their sins carried with them to hell forever.  But, you can read and see that God is speaking in this verse about being patient towards us on the earth because His will is for “everyone” to be saved.  If it is therefore possible for everyone to be saved by the shed Blood of Jesus then Jesus paid the price for ALL sin with His onetime blood sacrifice.  Where many Christians get confused is in the fact that salvation is not totally up to God.   The reality is found in the Bible that God saved everyone but this does not mean that everyone is saved.  For those who want to leave salvation totally up to God is how they created the belief of extreme  “Predestination”.  For those who can see the truth, they know that man has a part to receive through faith everything that God has given to them by His grace.  Can you help explain to me what God needs to have patience if He is controlling what is happening in the world?  It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Here is another popular verse that “Universal Salvation” teachers try to exalt to the total truth.  Since everyone was condemned to die by Adam, we can now clearly see that by Christ everyone will live again.  But, the problem with that is this is not what it says.  This verse says only those “IN CHRIST” will be made alive and that is totally different.  If you do not understand what it means to be “IN CHRIST” you should go and read my lessons on “Understanding Seeds”.  What we have seen in these two last verses that I gave you is that the Bible says it is possible for everyone to be saved, but that it is not an automatic occurrence just because this is the will of God.  So we are uniquely challenged by God to take every verse we can find in the Bible on a given subject and then to balance the information given to us in order to come up with the correct interpretations.  One of the keys to doing this is by allowing God and His Word to interpret itself.  This means getting God’s definitions for every word.  This means reading God’s commentaries on the given subjects that we are learning.  There are many factors to understanding the Bible and one of the greatest errors that men make is to take a single verse or two and try to make a single truth found in the Bible the complete truth and this is a major mistake.

Let’s go into another Bible verse that is often overlooked by “Predestination” teachers.  In the Gospels the disciples of Jesus come to Him and ask “Lord teach us to pray as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1).  If extreme predestination was really true, then Jesus’ response should have been “You don’t need to pray and ask God for anything because God’s will is always done”.   However, this was not Jesus’ response was it?  This was Jesus’ response to His disciples:

Luk 11:2  And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

Obviously Jesus thought praying to God was important enough to teach His disciples how to do it.  This fact alone discredits “predestination” completely.  Why do you pray to God?  Do you pray to find out the will of God for your life and that is all?  If you pray and have to ask for the will of God to be made known to you so you can do it then you are obviously not doing the will of God already.  Do you understand that logic?  In this verse Jesus is teaching His disciples to “pray” that the kingdom of God should come.  Wow, that was a very heavy duty statement for God to make.  If God’s will is always done on the earth then there is absolutely no need to pray for the Kingdom of God to come.  Jesus then continues to pray that the “will” of God be done on the earth like it is performed already in heaven.  Right there we have another MAJOR conflict to the extreme “Predestination” theology.  Jesus who is God in the flesh is speaking to us and teaches us to pray and ask Him for God’s will to be done on the earth.  This clearly means the will of God is NOT currently done on the earth if we have to pray for it to be done.  Jesus says very clearly that in heaven the will of God is done, but on the earth we have a different situation occurring.  Do you understand this?  Is God stupid?  Did God lie?  Many must think that God is either confused or that He just wants people to believe that they are praying for something that is already going to be done on the earth to make them feel important.  I tell you the deception occurring in the people who do not know how to read, seeing what it says and to those that try to explain verses like this away to hold on to their fantasy reality is just so incredible to me.

Let’s talk about foreknowledge next.  Since God obviously did have a laid out plan for man, does that mean God must control everything to make it happen?  Extreme predestination means that God is in control of everything that happens in the world and nothing happened unless it was part of God’s plan.  This means Adolf Hitler was God’s plan.  This means the terrorist who flew into the World Trade Center was part of God’s plan.  This means the death of little children in the world was a part of God’s plan.  The level of deception and ignorance to believe in something like that borders on insanity, if it does not cross well over that boundary line.  If you believe that God is killing people in the world as a part of His divine plan for man you are a fool.  You first off do not know the definition of what “LOVE” is.  God who is LOVE (1 Jn 4:8) must demonstrate this highest level of LOVE as an example to us or we are following the wrong God.  If God does not abide in LOVE then we are all in major trouble!   If people want to redefine LOVE as it if it is permissible to kill people in mass, then we should all be taking up guns and doing exactly like God does.   However the Bible says “Thou Shalt NOT Kill” (Exo 20:13).  This Hebrew word translated as “kill” means to commit murder.  So according to many ignorant theologians God is in clear violation of His own governing laws that He gave to man to follow.  When Jesus Christ was born a man through a virgin named Mary (Gal 4:4), God placed Himself under the very laws that Theologians claim is Ok for God to violate.  Completely foolish people think that God is some how separate from His Word.  In other words God can say one thing and do something that is completely opposite to what He said and it is OK because God did it.  Can you tell how much I dislike ignorance and stupidity?

I do not think I ever got to talk about the “foreknowledge” subject in the last paragraph.  “Foreknowledge” is the specific knowledge of an event, planned outcome, or schedule before it happens.  However, this is very different than man’s definition of “foreknowledge” and let me tell you why. Humans even have a variation of foreknowledge in limited degrees based upon planning.  You see you might know that there is supposed to be a party tomorrow at 2:00 PM in the meeting room where you work.  You know this because someone planned it and invited you to it.  We can clearly see that just because this event is scheduled and planned that it does not necessarily have to occur, because in this world unexpected STUFF still Happens!  The day the terrorists flew into the World Trade Center probably caused many parties to be canceled un-expectantly.  We need to take this example and apply it to God, if we can.  Extreme “Predestination Theology” wants us to believe that everything that occurs in the world is because it was “God’s Planned Event”.  Then they have to further say that God does not allow anything else to interrupt His plans since He is in ultimate control of everything.  Wow, these are really deep thoughts!   What confuses many Christians is trying to determine the difference between foreknowledge and predestination.  Just because God knows what will happen, when it will happen, to who it will happen and where it will happen does not mean that God caused it to happen or that someone cannot do something to change it from happening?   What does the Bible teach about this?

You might recall that in the O.T. the prophet comes to the King and says get your house in order for God says that you shall surely die (2 Kings 20).  Who said this and is it set in concrete?  If understand the Bible you know the prophet was just a messenger for God and that God said it therefore God knew what was going to happen before it happened..  Is the king being told the set firm willed plan of God?  Or is the King being told one possible outcome?  Isaiah leaves the King and the King gets in prayer with God.  God then sends Isaiah back and tells the King God has heard your prayer and you shall live another 15 years.   So here is where people come up with more stupid interpretations.  I have heard ignorant people claim that God has a secret will and God has a revealed will.  So God’s secret will was for the King to live another 15 years because this is what happened.  But, this is more crazy human reasoning trying to makeup explanations for spiritual things that they do not understand.  I tell you stories like this just baffle me to how people can believe in the concepts of extreme “predestination”.  Either God changed the predestination of the King or the King did something to change his outcome in life or God just lied.  God said you are going to die and the King lived another 15 years after he prayed.  So what is it?

Let’s continue to look at what else God says in His word and see if we can determine the truth.  By the way “Freewill” theology is one that teaches that man has a freewill choice in their destiny of going to heaven or to hell.  “Predestination” means God has already determined who goes to heaven and who goes to hell and therefore man has no clear choices to make.  If “Predestination” was true why get up in the morning and do anything that day?  Why preach the gospel to anyone?  Why even eat food and live?  What are we doing here?  Let’s go back to the beginning in Genesis 2 and 3.  In these two chapters God reveals the fall of man.  The Bible says God has created a Garden called Eden and has placed His created man in this location.  God tells the man that it is OK to eat from every tree.  But, then God says “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you do, you shall surely die”.   Right there is a major problem for predestination theorists.  Why would God tell the man anything if man was already going to eat from the tree and fulfill the real plan of God?  You see according to “Predestination” the man Adam has no choice in what he does, so obviously when Adam fell it was God’s plan all along.  So the warning of God to Adam makes no logical sense and is incompatible with the doctrine of “predestination”.  Why warn someone they are going to die if they eat this fruit, if this is what God wanted them to do anyway.  So that is the basis of the major downfall in the theology of “Predestination”.  Why does God write us this book called the Bible to every human that is full of warnings?  If man has no choice in fulfilling their destiny, this makes no logical or theological sense?  The existence for the entire book of the Bible makes no sense in the theology of “Predestination”.    God does not have to speak to people who are already programmed to do what they were created to do?  You see in order to believe in true absolute “Predestination” you have to believe in a “preprogrammed” humanity.  If man has no choices to make then whatever they do in life is what they were designed by God to do, good, or bad or in different.   This is just a real philosophy that is not found in the Bible:

Deu 30:19  I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Bible verses like this one have to be totally ignored by “Predestination” deceivers.  God who writes this verse for us, says “I have set before two choices, one is Life and the other is Death, therefore choose life so that you can live”.  Why would God give a choice to a man who had no choices to make in their eternal destiny or earthly existence?   That is clearly very STUPID to think that man does not have a choice to make!

Pro 1:29  For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

Here we have another example of how ignorant people fail in our world and teach errors like “Predestination”.  Because they “hated” knowledge and ignored the truth they have not chosen the fear of the Lord.   Does God say we have a choice to make?  Does God say we can choose to be ignorant?  Does God put the ball in our court as being our decision to make?   It sure looks like that to me.

Isa 56:4  For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;

Does God again say that these men had a choice in what they could do?  Doesn’t it say that they could have done like others and not pleased God?  “Predestination” says man has no choice to make.  They are pre-designed to please God or to be thrown in hell.  If this is the case why does God not believe this?  Didn’t God know He just lied to us in the Bible?  What is God stupid or are people stupid?

Php 1:22  But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.

I have blogged on this verse before.  In this chapter Paul is in a quandary trying to decide to stay on the earth and continue his ministry to the people or to leave the earth and go and be with Christ which he called “FAR BETTER” for him.  Paul says very clearly that this is his choice to make and that he does not know yet which way he will decide to go.  Wow, there are hundreds of verses found in the Bible like this one that throws “Predestination” into a downward spiraling airplane that will soon crash and burn.  If man has no choices then why does God say that we do in the Bible?  No, you see the problem is that people want to take part of the truth of the Bible and exalt it to be the complete truth and this is just a huge mistake.  Yes, God has a plan for man!  Yes, God know the destiny of every man!  No, God did not intend you to go to hell if that is where you end up.  In my first blog on this subject I clearly showed you that God had written everyone’s name in the Lambs Book of Life and that the Bible says that God was forced to blot out those who would not receive His free gift of salvation.  So if God had predestined you to hell already from the beginning, why would your name be recorded in the “Lamb’s Book of Life” and then be blotted out?  Do you understand the problem in that question?  Doesn’t God already know who makes it and who doesn’t?  After all if God “Predestined” you for salvation then He would just have a book of names that He predestined to be saved and would not have to blot out anyone else’s name who was not predestined.  Predestination and foreknowledge are very similar but yet totally different concepts.  If I know that you are coming to my house tomorrow, that is different than me making you come to my house tomorrow without inviting you to come.  So God can very easily get accused of doing things that He is not guilty of doing.  Just because idiots want to teach “Predestination” does not mean it is the truth.

Then there is the difficulty of the fact of “prophecy” found in the Bible.  Clearly, God has prophesied many things in the Bible that will happen even in future events to come.    I can understand if God prophecies something that He is responsible for fulfilling.  This only makes sense to me.  God says I will do this and that in this time frame and then it happens.  But, when God prophesied things concerning other people, places and things it makes you think that God is controlling these people, places and things to cause them to also occur.  However, we have the factor of “foreknowledge” that is not being taken into account correctly.  Because God knows how you will react to something, can mean that He can use this knowledge for something that He needs accomplished in the earth.  You see a reader pointed out to me that Judas was “predestined” to betray Jesus and to die.  In the “predestination” mentality they believe that God created Judas so that he could betray Jesus.  Did you know you can’t find that statement in the Bible?  If God does this then He is the master designer of a Heavenly Matrix system that puts every man into the specific role they are destined for.   The necessary level of control is beyond our imagination for this to occur;  God would have to use the power of suggestion, mind control and even mental and physical manipulation would not be off the table for predestination to occur.  Is God capable of this, yes I believe that He is?  However, is this the God that you know?  It is not the God that I know and it is certainly not the God found in the Bible.

So we have covered a lot of different angles found in the Bible that to me clearly dispute the philosophy of predestination.  I have given many verses that states man was given choices to make in life.  You must therefore decide which way you want to believe.  You cannot believe both ways like some would think.  You must either choose to believe in the fantasy of predestination and ignore all of the verses that I gave you today or open your eyes to what I have tried to clearly teach from the Bible.

If you want to continue to read the follow-up to this lesson series on Predestination you can go to “Understanding Sheep“.

You can also go and read “Part 4” of the lesson series to study this subject further.