In another thread there was comments and questions by Rick on the ever elusive understanding of God's fore-knowledge and pre-ordain. I decided to review this topic myself for some answers in Ray's articles and boy did I find plenty. So decided to start a new thread with all this material that others might want to review as well. So here is Rick comments and some of Ray's teachings on God's fore-knowledge and pre-ordaining according the purpose of His will.
I’m reviewing Ray’s free will series again, I know Ray said one will not stop doing what they do until God says they will stop.
I’m wondering if somehow I misconstrue what Ray had taught on the subject of free will, all have a will, everyone’s will is subjected to Gods will. What I’m trying to understand now is the fact that I do have a will and is my will subjected to Gods will 24/7 / 365.
My thinking is along these lines, not if but when I sin can I say God made me sin ? God forbid I should believe such a thing, it was my choice to make. Now, Ray said if a man rapes a women, one cannot say it was God who ordained that sin to happen so in other words God does not ordain sin.
Well what else does a person do in the course of their life that God does not ordain? Ray teaches that no one has ever made an uncaused choice so we can conclude that every choice one makes has a cause behind it which is true but its possible to say everything I do is of God in that He is the creator but we know not everything is by God.........God does not ordain sin nor has God given anyone permission to sin.
A key thing to me that Ray mentioned was he ate some girl scot cookies that had nothing to do with God, in other words God doesn’t say what one will eat or perhaps even wear.
We are not mindless robots God created , we take in information we process that information and we make a choice. We make choices according to our circumstances but here Ray eluded circumstances concerning him eating girl scot cookies, did God know he would eat girl scot cookies at that specific time and date perhaps but I don’t know for sure one way or the other.
http://bible-truths.com/lake2.html -----------------------------------------------------------
God follows His own spiritual laws. "Free will" sounds like a marvelous and magical thing -- it is rather, however, the god of stupidity. It is the height of man’s foolishness and human wisdom. It is both ungodly and unscriptural! It is an affront to the Sovereignty of God. Man and Satan are not deities that can operate independently of the Creator! The theory is a hoax, a farce, a sham. Its only reality is as an IDOL OF THE HEART which will be burned out of every son whom God scourges.
Of course all theologians are quick to point out that man does not possess total free will. Man's will is obviously limited we are told. Oh really? So it is "limited free will" that Satan and all humans possess, is it? Does no one ever bother to question the contradictions of Christian doctrine?
"Iimited, a. restricted," Webster’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, page 963.
"free, a, without restriction," Webster’s Twentieth Century dictionary page, page 682.
Does everyone know the meaning of the word "contradiction?" Only Satan could convince otherwise intelligent people that they have a "limited" -- restricted, "free" -- without restriction "will." For sure man has a will; however, it is anything but FREE!
"For it is GOD which works in you both to WILL and to DO of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
"To will" requires a "work" of GOD! We all choose as we choose because there are things and forces and situations by the millions beyond anyone’s control that CAUSE US TO CHOOSE AS WE DO! It matters not that you cannot see or feel the cause. It is there and it does its work on you. And when causes make you choose, then that particular choice could not have ever been otherwise. God is the great CAUSE of all there is. I know Christians by the hundreds of millions deny it and deny God's Word that teaches it. That unbelief and lack of faith, however, does not change the facts of God’s Word or the laws of physics.
That God creates good and peace there is no question. That "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James. 1:17). There is also no question about it among Christians. That God is the creator of evil and preordained the sin of Adam, however, is believed by virtually no one.
And so it is that neither man nor Satan can do anything contrary to the intention of God. God has a will that includes a final destiny of total perfection of His whole creation. God has set man and Satan (his very name means adversary) AGAINST HIS OWN WILL for a period of time. But during this period when everyone goes against God’s will, God INTENDS them to do so. And when God no longer "intends" for there to be any more adversaries or enemies opposing Him or His will, He will remove all such opposition (See I Cor. 15:21-28). ALL OF GOD’S WILL, WILL THEN BE DONE!
Therefore it should come as no shock to us when we learn that even the destruction and crucifixion of His own Son was God’s INTENTION from before He even created the world:
The Kings of the earth stood up, and the Rulers were gathered together against the LORD, and against HIS CHRIST.
"For of a truth against Thy Holy Child JESUS Whom THOU [God the Father] hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel [God anointed them ALL for this purpose], were gathered together, For to do whatsoever THY HAND [the very HAND OF GOD], AND thy counsel [God works ALL according to His ‘counsel’ Eph. 1:11] determined BEFORE [God predestinated His Son’s crucifixion before the foundation of the world Rev. 13:8] to be done" (Acts 4:26-28).
And so we see that ultimately, behind the scenes, it was really God the Father Who planned and brought about the Crucifixion of His Own Son! We are all accountable for the death of His Son, because He died on OUR BEHALF and for OUR SINS which we voluntarily sinned, but it is God Himself Who is RESPONSIBLE for His Son's Death. And God takes responsibility. And He takes responsibility for EVERYTHING that happens in His creation and universe! Therefore God will bring all things back to restoration and perfection. It is so sad that this grand truth is so violently opposed by the enemies of the Cross.
http://bible-truths.com/lake15-C.html ----------------------------------------------------
“…Who works [‘operates’] ALL THINGS after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11).
“For OF Him, and THROUGH Him, and TO Him, are ALL THINGS…” (Rom. 11:36).
“And ALL THINGS are of God…” (II Cor. 5:;18).
“…calls those things which be NOT, as though they WERE” (Rom. 4:17).
“Declaring the END from the BEGINNING…” (Isa. 46:10).
“For in Him we LIVE, and MOVE, and have our BEING [Gk: ‘we ARE’—we exist]…” (Acts 17:28).
All energy, all matter, all creation, and all humans are in God. We can only “live and move… IN HIM.” And this is why:
“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walks to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23).
No man has a will that can choose contrary to what God already knows will be: “…and calls those things which be not [thoughts and deeds which have not yet been supposedly ‘freely’ thought of] as though they were [as though they already were thought of—how is that ‘freedom’ of the will?]” (Rom. 4:17).
I will repeat this until I am blue in the face, and perchance somebody out there will say, “Ah, yes, now I get it.” Once more: Since God says very plainly that He knows all things and that He knows all things before they happen, how is it then possible that anyone can think a thought which God didn’t know he would have to think? And if God already knows every thought that you must think: how are you free to not think those very foreknown thoughts and those foreknown thoughts only?
If any person in the history of the world can think one thought that God did not foreknow that he would think, then God cannot;
“call those things which be not as though they were.”
“Man’s goings [Heb: ‘steps’] are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?” (Prov. 20:24).
“The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.” (Prov. 16:1).
No one can make one statement out of his mouth, unless it was first pre-ordained, foreknown, and approved of, by God!
“The Son of man [Jesus] can do nothing of Himself… without Me [Jesus] ye [all of you—all of mankind] can do nothing” (John 5:19 & 15:5].
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"Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee, You have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass" (Job 14:5).
The word "determined" comes from the Hebrew charats and means "to point sharply." Here we are told that man’s "months" are determined to a precise sharp point in time. There will be no variation in time as to when we must die.
Not only is our precise time of death appointed, but also our resurrection:
"If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my APPOINTED TIME will I wait [in the grave] till my change [resurrection] come" (Job 14:14).
Another:
"Is there not an APPOINTED TIME to man upon earth? Are not his DAYS also like the days of an hireling? (Job 7:1).
Everyone who has ever been born or will yet be born has been appointed by God to be born at that time and season according the purpose of His will. And likewise, everyone who has died or will yet die has been appointed by God to die at that time and season according to the purpose of His will. It just is not possible to alter or change anything in the purpose and intention of a sovereign God. So once more, "free will" is out the window.
If mankind had a free will to do things that only they desired to do, at the time that only they desired to do them, then there would be billions upon billions of additions and deletions to God’s original plan. For it is foolishness to argue that one is "free" to do things that God has not preordained to happen, yet the very concept of free will demands that such unscriptural things can happen every day of our lives.
Free will contradicts:
"I know that, whatsoever God does, it shall be for ever [Heb:’for the eon’]; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it; and God does it, that men should fear before Him" (Ecc. 3:14).
Ecc. 2:23—"For all his day, pains and vexation are his experience."
Ecc. 1:13—"It is an experience of evil God has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it."
Ecc. 9:12—"For a man also knows not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men [mankind] snared [trapped] in an EVIL TIME."
Does a fish know ahead of time when it will be caught in a net? Does a bird know ahead of time when it might be caught in a snare? No? You say, NO? Well then that’s exactly how much you know in advance what will befall you in this life of evil. The human will is not free to change anything that God has pre-appointed. You will "will" according to the circumstances God places in your path. And you are not free to "will" otherwise.
Between the birth of humanity and the death of humanity we find all of the following taking place at their appointed time:
"plant and pluck... kill and heal... breakdown and build up... weep and laugh... mourn and dance... cast away and gather... embrace and not embrace... get and lose... keep and cast away... rend and sew... keep silence and speak... love and hate... war and peace..." (Ecc. 3:2-9).
What we have here in Ecc. 3 is "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and every shade of gray between good and evil. God takes us through such profound experiences as "war and peace," all the way down to tearing a piece of cloth and sewing it together again-"a time to rend [apart] and a time to sew [together]." Not only do we all tear our pants or tear our shirt at some time or another, but, there is actually a God-appointed time for these things to happen.
I realize that this is a hard concept for most to believe, but this is indeed what God is emphasizing in this third chapter of Ecclesiastes: "To every thing there is a season [Heb: "an appointed season or time'], and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Can we believe it? Will we believe these grand declarations of God? Not if we are "free-willers" we won't.
The will of the entire human race combined, cannot bend one blade of grass unless it was foreknown, foreordained, and appointed by God to happen. Read Ecclesiastes 3 and tell me otherwise.
Clearly God tells us that there is an appointed time for everything that happens between birth and death. But nowhere does human free will and free choice enter into any of these God-ordained and God-caused and God-performed events in the lives of all who are born and die among the human race. Man’s "will" is indeed able to always choose what it prefers, but what it prefers will always be in concert with what God has preordained.
All the choices of all humanity are preordained by God to happen, and as such, not one is free to not happen. Therefore, no one has a will that can operate independent from or in opposition to, God’s preordained purpose.
How then is it possible to believe these Scriptures and yet believe in "free choices?" It is not possible, for these Scriptures blatantly contradict any such theory as "freely chosen acts" independent and contradictory to the will and plan of God. Seriously, if anyone can explain how someone can freely choose a course of action, [1] independent of God, or [2] bring about any course of action at a time other than pre-appointed by God, please drop me an email. I will now hold my breath....
Let me assure my readers that I do not make light of the profound heartache, pain, and misery that God inflicts upon humanity. I am not a newcomer, nor a novice to the arena of heartache, pain, and misery. I have on numerous occasions suffered very severe pain. I have been "one knock from death's door" more than once. I have lost my only son when he was but seven years old. Although I can justify God in all His dealings with His creatures, yet I cringe at many of the atrocities deemed necessary for His plan and purpose. Do you think that I am able to take in stride the cruel and evil beheadings by terrorists in Iraq?
We read that, "Jesus wept" as He perceived the near-at-hand destruction of Jerusalem. And yet He fully knew that it was all of God His Father, and at the appointed time Jerusalem and its citizens would be starved, tortured, and utterly destroyed by the armies of Titus. I too weep over the present evils of this world and those yet impending.
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God is both the Creator and User of many forms of evil, and yet is without sin and not evil Himself. God uses evil for good. And this is a prerogative that only God uses righteously 100% of the time.
Why do I spend so much time on this subject of evil’s authorship? Because it is one of the most important truths in the whole world! It is the answer to maybe the most colossal enigma in all creation—Why is there, and must there be, evil in the world? Let me state with all humility that no theologian who believes that Satan is the author of evil, can ever explain why God put evil in the "tree of the knowledge of GOOD…"!! They might attempt a feeble explanation if God had put evil in its own tree, but not when God put it in the same tree with good! God is responsible for not only all the evil in the world, but God is responsible for EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE, and God is the most responsible Being in the universe. Just Who’s responsible for this mess? God is! And just Who’s going to clean up this mess? God is!
NOTHING HAS EVER GONE AGAINST GOD’S PLAN OR INTENTION
No thing, and no body, in the entirety of the universe has ever gone against God’s "intention" or His preordained "plan," even when God Himself has caused many to go against His stated "will." God’s will is going to be completely realized at the consummation of all His intentions and plan (will and intention are not one and the same.) It is God’s intention that men go against His will. So what may appear to be a failure in God’s dealing with mankind is nothing of the kind. All that happens was intended to happen, and all that does not happen was not intended to happen. Here is wisdom.
We have seen that not even Satan can go against God’s intentions. Satan needs permission from God to do his dirty work. Since God is responsible (but not accountable—seeing that nothing He does is without a great and beneficial purpose,) God takes responsibility for His whole creation, and that is why everything will turn out perfectly for every one of God’s creatures.
http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,2354.0.html ------------------------
You are not understanding this subject and the principle behind it. You ask: "Is it man making the choices or is it God's predestination of things?" It is BOTH. Listen: God is SOVEREIGN! Man therefore has NO FREE WILL OR NO FREE CHOICE. That's it. That's all there is to it. That IS the principle. That IS the Truth. That IS what the Bible teaches. It is not a contradiction to say that "Man makes his own choices." You and millions of other just think it is a contradiction to say man makes his own choices if indeed God is sovereign and God is behind all in His creation. It is not a contradiction. It only sounds like a contradiction for those who do not believe that "God is Sovereign, and Man has no free will."
I hardly know what else to tell you. God made man's heart. Man did not make his own heart, or his body, or his mind, or his brain, or his will, or his hopes and dreams. They are all PREDESTINATED by the foreknowledge of God. So then we don't make choices, right? NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO....WE DO MAKE CHOICES. It's just that they are CAUSED by things we can't always see. Sometimes we can see what makes our choices and some times we can't, but either way THEY ARE CAUSED. And God, not us, already knows in advance the outcome of all of those caused choices. How does He do that? He is very smart (has over a 150 IQ), plus HE IS SOVEREIGN, ALL WISE, AND ALL POWERFUL.....and don't forget LOVE.
So, does God FORCE EVIL MEN TO RAPE LITTLE GIRLS? Well, does He? Does God being Sovereign prove that God forces evil men to rape little girls? That's what evil theologians deduce from the truth of no free will. They turn the Sovereignty of God into one of the biggest evils in the universe. If God is Sovereign, then God must be EVIL, because there is so much evil in the world, and God is in control of all things, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong! Man makes all his own choices. Just because they are CAUSED does not mean that he does not make them. He is, in fact, CAUSED TO MAKE HIS CHOICES. But God does not directly do this. He is responsible, but He does not directly cause those choices. Things like the Devil do such things. And who created the Devil? That's right, that One Who is Sovereign and in charge of all things. Evil men like raping just like evil theologians like stealing widow's social security money. God doesn't make them do it--THEY LIKE TO DO IT. They volunteer with little outside influence. God made humanity this way. He created them spiritually weak. Eve couldn't help but sin. God has a good purpose and God will straighten it all out in the end.
http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?topic=253.msg2134#msg2134 ---------
Until we come to realize that we are all just as evil as John Calvin or Adolph Hitler, we will never ever understand evil in the world. I thank God that I have never slowly burned another man or woman at the stake over a low heat fire, but I also know that under the same circumstances, I could have done such a thing. It is within the carnal mind to do ALL the evils of the universe, and that is why carnal-minded people do such things.
Ask yourself what kinda of a God would allow YOU to be led to these same crimes of eating your own children? PEOPLE rape little girls, not God! Some people WANT to rape little girls. Others just want to DECEIVE their fellow brothers and sisters into thinking that they are powerful, or great, or spiritual, or wise, or loving, etc., but are just as evil inside as Adolph Hitler. Given the opportunity we would have all been Calvin and Hitler. But is it necessary? Yes, it is necessary. Do we think that God is playing a game?
I once placed a board across a little stream that I crossed going to school in the first grade. However, laying a board accross San Francisco Bay is a bit more involved. Creating a cat that will sit and purr on your lap is one thing, but creating creatures into the very IMAGE OF GOD HIMSELF, is quite another. Even the miracle of the Golden Gate Bridge compared to a wooden board cannot compare to what we see now and what we will be when God is through with us.
It takes incredible powers of good and evil to accomplish this. Christians cannot justify God's use of evil, and hence attribute it to what they preceive to be a greater force than God--SATAN. Supposedly God doesn't want evil, but He just can't stop Satan. Nonsense.
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Topic: Fore-knowledge / Pre-ordained (Read 4450 times)