Wednesday, 17 July 2013

PREDESTINATION


Did you know that God foreknew all things from the very beginning and that He foreknew each and everyone of us even before the foundation of the world?

Yes, the Bible said that God is infinite and omnipotent that He foreknew every gnat, every fly, every sparrow, and every man that will ever be born upon the face of the earth. And that included YOU and me. The Scriptures say that God can hear your prayers even before you open up your mouth; the hairs on your head hath He numbered; and that He hath engraved your name on the palm of His hand.

YOU ARE PREDESTINATED

Ephesians 1:5-6 states that God hath “predestinated us according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise and glory of His grace.”

Romans 8:30 further emphasizes this election saying, “Whom He did predestinate, THEM He also called; and whom He called, THEM He also justified; and whom He justified, THEM He also glorified” (past tense). And “their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world” (Rev.13:8)

If you are truly a child of God, you are foreknown of God even before there ever was a star or moon in the entire universe. Jesus said, “All that the Father has given Me will come to Me and NONE of THEM will be LOST.” The Bible says, “All things work together for good to them that love God”, and that “the footsteps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord.” Surely, you have to recognize yourself today whether you are God’s predestinated or not, for if God has elected you to eternal life, “nothing can pluck you from out of His hand.”

FALL OF MAN: A PERMISSIVE WILL
Did you know that it was God’s permissive will for SIN to come into this world? Strange, but true. He permitted sin in order for Him to display His great attributes of being a SAVIOUR and a REDEEMER. He allowed Adam and Eve, our first parent, to be deceived by the serpent in order to make way for His great redemptive plan of salvation. God Himself wanted to be glorified. He could not have been glorified as a Saviour if there was nobody to be saved in the first place. There had to be sinners first, before He could ever display His attributes of being a Saviour. In the same manner that He had to create sons and daughters in me and you first, so that He could become a Father. Man’s existence and fall, therefore, had made God both Father and Saviour to us, and a Blessed Redeemer, too.

In order to be God, He knew from the very beginning who will be saved and who will not be saved. God was not willing that anyone should perish, but that all might come to repentance. But He, being infinite, knew the end from the beginning. And therefore, He knew who would accept and those who would not accept His provided way of salvation. He knew who would go to heaven and those who would go to hell. If He didn’t, then He isn’t God. But God is unlimited. He is infinite and He makes no mistakes. His works are perfect; and He knows all things. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

JESUS DIED JUST FOR THE ELECT

And God sent Jesus Christ for only one specific purpose : that’s to save and redeem those who God foreknew will be saved; and not the rest of the world. Yes, sir. Notice Jesus in His prayer to the Father in John 17:9-10, “I pray for them : I pray NOT for the world, but for THEM which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in THEM.”

To “REDEEM” simply means to “TAKE BACK” what was originally God’s own. Jesus, as a Redeemer, was to take back only those who once belonged originally to God but were trapped in sin by the natural birth. Jesus shed His precious Blood only for those who had been foreknown of God, and for those whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world. Jesus could never redeem the Devil’s children, for they are not of God. They were simply predestinated unto eternal damnation, and were basically created for that purpose. Yes, though this might seem to be a hard saying, but the Scriptures support this truth.

HOW CAN THE POT SAY TO THE POTTER?

Don’t you realize that even sinners and reprobates are predestinated by God? Yes, In 1 Peter 2:8 and it says, “Even to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient: whereunto they were appointed.” Jude 1:4 says it, too: “Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness”.

Talk about Judas, Cain, Pharaoh and Balaam - all these men had played their significant part as God’s adversary in God’s greatest drama series, the Bible, without them even realizing it so. “How can the POT say to the POTTER, ‘Why hast Thou made me thus?’ Hath not the Potter power over the clay to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Romans 9:21), these words pertain to predestination. God raises evil to fulfill his glorious purpose of greater good. God said in Isaiah 45:7-”I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”

THE GOSPEL IS HID

Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit (Luke 10:21) saying, “I thank Thee Father, O Lord of heaven and earth, for Thou hast HID these things from the eyes of the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” This blessed Gospel is, therefore, revealed only to His elected ones. God hid His truth from unbelievers.

Did you know also that one of God’s permissive will has been to allow sickness to afflict mankind? Yes, He sometimes permit sickness and diseases in order for Him to manifest Himself as a Healer. Exodus 16:26 states, “For I am the Lord that healeth thee”. Isaiah 53:5 states this also: “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes, we are HEALED”. Doctors simply make the stitches and give us prescriptions, but it’s still God Who does the real Healing, which is multiplication of new cells in the body, which is creation by nature. God truly foreordained all His godly attributes to be displayed unto men and all these attributes were finally fulfilled when God Himself became MAN through His Son Jesus Christ and took the penalty for our sins so that by believing in Him we may be justified and forgiven. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father except by Me.”

Your salvation and my salvation, therefore, is truly dependent upon God’s choosing and approval. Romans 9:16 states, “It is not him that willeth or him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy”. For God saith unto Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” God hath even declared, “Jacob have I loved, and Esau I have hated”, even before the two children were born from their mother’s womb, not having done neither good nor evil. That only proves God’s election to us.

The apostle Paul finally concluded, “But if our gospel be hid, it is HID to them that are lost” (2 Cor. 4:3). Truly, in this day, “Many will be called, but only very few are chosen.” Sincerity and being just religious is not enough. The Pharisees and the Saducees were so sincerely wrong. They spent all their lives studying God in the synagogues yet when the very Messiah-God came to them, they dubbed Him as “Beelzebub” to the extent of crucifying Him on the cross.

NOT EVERYONE SHALL ENTER THE KINGDOM
“Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,” saith Jesus in Matthew 7:21, “but he that doeth the will of My Father.” The Bible says that we are not saved by any of our good works nor by any of our own personal merits. We are saved by faith alone in the finished atonement of Jesus Christ. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: NOT of WORKS, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8,9).

Only God’s ELECTED few will be able to receive the full understanding of these mysteries in the Scriptures. Others who are not, will simply continue to hold to man-made dogmas, creeds, rituals, and religious traditions to merit their own salvation. “In vain you do worship Me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of men”. That’s what Jesus told the Pharisees. “There seemeth a way that’s right to a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death.” It’s always death to trust in the sinking sands of man’s ideas. The elect will only walk in the way of God’s Bible. The elect of God will hunger and thirst only for the fresh manna of the Word that’s revealed in the age that they are living in. And this is that Word. Receive it.

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