—ROMANS 8:19-22
I feel sorry for creation, from the cows and chickens forced by man to be cannibals, to the fish having industrial waste dumped on them, to the forests that are destroyed. Putting genetic material from one entity into another leads not to improvement but to distortion. All things created have an awareness of their Creator, for in Him all things are held together. The trees and mountains proclaim Him. Jesus said that even the rocks would shout out His name. God never intended us to mess with His artwork the way we do. To destroy anything mindlessly is a sin against Jesus. No wonder creation longs for the revelation of the sons of God.
There is nothing wrong with need; we are free to eat a cow and eat the calf, but the law stated not to boil the calf in the mother’s milk. As a child I remember killing a small bird, not to eat, but for nothing. It haunted me and still
does. I know my coming to Christ changed the way I view and treat creation. Just as it would not be right to visit one’s earthly father and break everything he has made around the house, it is not right for man callously to break what the Father in heaven has made. The abuse of creation is most obvious in countries without a Christian base. Where abuse of man is tolerated or encouraged, imagine the abuse of creation. I am not a “greenie”; I just love what my Father has made and know it has suffered untold injustices. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
]]>—PROVERBS 27:6
My grandfather told me of the time a neighbor invited him over to see how well his litter of pigs was doing. My grandfather noticed one pig had a large boil on its cheek making it squeal in pain when it tried to eat. He grabbed the pig, who squirmed and protested the whole time, and lanced the boil. Immediately the pig became quiet and audibly sighed; the pain of the cut was nothing compared to the relief the pig received.
The wounds we receive from true friends and from our Father above release poison and bring relief. These are to be distinguished from infectious wounds received from false friends and the enemy that produce only pain. When we receive a wound, we can ask ourselves if it expels poison and replaces it with life from above, or if it merely points out error to hinder us through guilt and deliver more condemnation. Too often believers have been told they must do better, and yet when they get one heel and two fingertips on the ledge out of the pit of despair, the same person who told them to improve appears to step on their fingers.
]]>—GALATIANS 5:22 & 23
The other day I was noticing the similarities between cigarette smoking and philosophy. When one is addicted to smoking, his ten preceding smokes do not seem to relieve the need for the eleventh. The tenth cigarette did seem to give an immediate pleasure, but it left the participant immaculately unchanged in satiating his craving for the eleventh, which also will not alleviate the need for the next twenty. Having never been addicted to cigarettes, I understand it is an esoteric experience that looks odd to those who are unaffected.
Philosophy is like the tenth cigarette. For a moment it sets one on a throne and allows him to look down on others and give opinions, but it leaves the participant unchanged and merely waiting for another observation to make. A sick, morbid satisfaction can come from analyzing the flaws in others’ ideologies and the shortcomings in others’ logic. It feeds pride and somehow justifies lazy living. A person thus employed will do nothing to help fix the problem; instead he will move on to what he considers another case of inferior human reasoning, maintaining his lofty position. Philosophy is an addiction just like smoking; in both cases the participants die through not doing anything beneficial with what they know.
]]>—ROMANS 9:14-23
What a topic to weigh in on! I still stand on the side of the train of thought expressed like this: “The way that leads to Life is narrow, and there is a wall on both sides to bump into as you move along making forward progress. One wall is predestination and the other is free will.” I believe both are needed. Beyond that, the topic can quickly degenerate into man’s wisdom and speculation, for systematizing God is dodgy business, as is thinking that one can know all there is to know about God. Where did God come from, anyway? Does a simple “I AM” not suffice? Does it not have to suffice? However, some things are worth a cursory look. A dilemma for many is that if God predestines, then what is the point? If it is all choice, then who ultimately gets the glory? Besides, we have found ourselves too weak to make the right choices. To be more succinct, what is it that man must do because God refuses to do it for him? At the same time, what is it that only God can do and man cannot? I believe God has a responsibility, and so does man. We are made in His image, and we see every family operating on that same principle: the parents have responsibilities, and so do the children. Some things only the parent can do, but there are also things only the children can do. Understanding our earthly relationship will take us a long way toward comprehending our heavenly one.
Romans 9:16 is an amazing passage and contains enough dynamite to blow to pieces 95% of all of those discipleship and church programs that proclaim what the Christian must do to be pleasing to God. The Amplified Bible states it in this way: “So then [God’s gift] is not a question of human will and human effort, but of God’s mercy. [It depends not on one’s own willingness nor on his strenuous
exertion as in running a race, but on God’s having mercy on him.]” This passage and more make it abundantly clear that God is in charge of gift giving, yet there is hardly a chapter in the Bible not dealing, at least on some level, with man’s free will or choice. Joshua 24:15, “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Then there is the foreknowledge of God. I Peter 1:1 & 2, “who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.”
First, definitions must be addressed, for we stand and fall by our definitions. Mine are as follows:
Predestination: pre-determined, planned beforehand
Foreknowledge: omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience
Free will: the ability to choose
There are two categories within the concept of predestination. There are those in Christ predestined for heaven, and there are those outside of Christ predestined for hell. This cannot be argued, for there are no other classifications. Those who are in Christ will receive mercy, and those outside of Christ will receive wrath, so it cannot be disputed that God did, in fact, make vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath. The question that arises is whether a person can choose which predestined group he is going to be in. First, lesser truths must be seen in the light of greater truths, such as “God so loved the world” and desires “that none should perish”; “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” If we know the heart of God, we can understand, in part, how He is acting.
Imagine two rooms adjoined by one door. In one room are those predestined to heaven, and in the other, those predestined to hell. The door is Jesus. God wishes that “all” men be saved. As those in the room for the damned attempt to escape through every window, God is gently latching those windows, not wanting any to escape except through the one Mediator, Jesus. He will not make the choice for anyone, but He will do all He can to make Jesus the only choice. In this, another greater truth is revealed, which is that God does not show partiality. In the room for the damned, God both hardens hearts and softens hearts of people that go through the same event. I know two fellows who broke their necks and are now confined to wheelchairs. Assuming that God permitted what He could have prevented, God permitted both accidents. Why? God, knowing every intimate detail about the men, understood how this particular type of accident for these particular men was the best option to move them into the room for those predestined in Christ. One man was broken, his heart softened and revealed, and he gave his life to Jesus. The other man was hardened, his unyielding heart revealed, and he is strongly anti-Christ. Did God harden one heart and soften the other? Yes, for He permitted the accident. God’s actions in permitting did not create the hard heart or the soft heart; His actions brought them to the light. So some might ask, “Who, then, made the heart that would be broken and the heart that is hardened?”
Man, in the image of God, is also an “i am,” but in all lower-case letters! This does not mean that man is God, or even a god. But there are things about the creation of man no man knows. Some might ask, “Why does one man have a hard heart?” My reply is, “That man is an ‘i am,’ period.” No answer beyond needs to be given, since no man knows everything about his creation.
Here is another greater truth: God is love, and His love compels Him to continue to work and give everyone in the room for the damned the best chance possible to make the choice to move into the other room. This He does, even knowing those who will not respond. Who among us can grasp that kind of love? In His foreknowledge, He knows who will be hardened, and yet He will not give up on them until the very end. Beautiful love! In my life, I came to the place where there was only one option other than Jesus, and that was suicide. God had been breaking me and softening my heart. My pride had been dealt a deathblow, and I was ready to move over and let someone else take over. I chose to believe in Jesus. Do I now have something in which to boast? No! First, He did the work of bringing me to the doorway. Second, man is not born again through effort inwardly or outwardly, but only from above. Even if I chose to believe in Jesus, God had to choose to give me a new birth, graft me into the Vine, and give me the Holy Spirit. James 1:18, “And it was of His own [free] will that He gave us birth [as sons] by [His] Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures [a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself ].” To be locked up in jail and to choose to be free does no good; someone amenable to that choice must come along with the key. Here is where we need to see the limits of free will. I can choose to go to the airport, but only the plane can take me away.
Once we have passed from death to life through rebirth, God will permit those in the room of the damned to throw bricks into the room housing those of us who have received mercy. However, He will only permit those bricks that will work for Him in furthering the revelation of His Son. A wicked man may take our job so God can reveal His provision, and so on. Romans 8:29 & 30, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
Back to the family, as parents we do all we can to see that our children make the right choices. Parents who have put themselves in the place of making all the right choices for their offspring are slowly going mad, and their children are not far behind them. Even when a parent sees his child making a wrong choice, the parent will not give up, even with foreknowledge of what is going to happen. I have seen parents outwardly give up on a rebellious child who is addicted to drugs, and yet all the parents’ lives they will secretly hope beyond hope for a turnaround in the child’s life. They will covertly work toward that conversion experience. Take a parent’s love, multiply it by untold billions, and see why God is constantly at work in the room of the damned!
]]>—II SAMUEL 7:18-22
Prayer is a wonderful thing, for in it we can express the greatness of our God—the only God—and our gratitude toward Him. Prayer is a relationship builder . . . that is, from our perspective; God has had a relationship with us before the foundations of the world. I have often pondered prayer and have a few observations. Again, everything I say is not absolute, but I trust that I am pointing to the One who is absolute, the sum total of resolution and truth, fixed eternally in the universe.
To begin with, I do not think that the purpose of prayer is to direct God. We have a God, and that statement says it all, for the very confession of that designation proclaims 413
that He does not need directing. Only those with a small god need to direct him; our God knows all and is directed by no one, but we are to listen to His direction. So many who entitle themselves “Prayer Warriors” believe they will change the course of God by countless repetitions. Jesus spoke to this very attitude: “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:7, 8). I have never understood the emphasis on going to a city to walk around it and pray. In a city near where I live there is even a huge building around which fly the flags of differing countries, positioned in the direction the country lies from there; the goal is to stand at the flagpole representing the country for which one has a burden and pray. I cannot get anyone to explain to me why we would have to go to a country or point toward it to pray. Can we not enter our closet and pray? Amen, if believers want to travel and see a place, they should go without spiritualizing it. God does not really care if they go to Israel for curiosity or enjoyment.
I believe there are several purposeful bases for prayer. First, it is the recognition of the constant unbroken relationship we as believers have with the Father, a relationship not dependent on time, place, or our present condition. “For in Him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28); it is so good to recognize that and not feel the need to create it. Second, the intent of prayer is not to change the mind of God but to come to peace with the will of God. This is of utmost importance in this present day. We must remember that God is permitting what He could prevent for the revelation of hearts. We will not change an evil person’s choice. God permits man to have choice for the revelation of hearts. In the final judgment, a heart will be judged as it was revealed to be in this life. In prayer, we find peace with what God does, allows, prevents, and denies. Finally, prayer permits us to participate in the work of God. For example, I am awakened in the middle of the night and told to pray for someone. It is not as though if I turn over and go back to sleep, God will not act; it is merely a matter of my missing the blessing of participating in what God is going to do. Later, when I hear that the person was under attack, in a near accident, or had family struggles, I rejoice in the awareness that God came at the exact moment to deliver, and I am blessed that He allowed me to participate in what He was doing. In fact, any time we experience answered prayer we can boast in the Lord that He enlightened us to pray for what He was going to do; He allowed us to take part in His kingdom doings.
In short, prayer is very easy and enjoyable. In the recognition of His presence within and without, we rest, participate, and enjoy our life in Him; we want nothing but His will, which is the overriding affirmation of our prayer life. Have we not all had our fill of our own will, since we have never enjoyed it?
]]>—HEBREWS 12:26, 27
I am fascinated by and enjoying the amazing move toward 3-D movies. My first real experience with this technology was at the World’s Fair in Seoul, Korea. I remember the little old women in traditional dress waving their hands in front of themselves to push away the images that appeared to be coming toward their faces. As an aside, I did make a mistake on that trip, in that there were few Westerners visiting and somehow the word spread among the crowd that I was Dustin Hoffman, the American actor. Out of politeness, I started signing autographs for the non-English-speaking spectators who had waited for me to emerge from an exhibit. It was people-pleasing gone mad, and it spiraled out of control when hundreds began to wait, and in the end I was exited out the back door of the fair! By the way, I am happy just being me. Well, back to the theater, where we are given glasses that allow us to see what the producer wants us to see, which are things that do not really exist.
In a like manner we are given “theological glasses” so that we will see what the giver wants us to see. Often it simply is not there. From our youth denominations have given us glasses to see what they desired to be seen. Something that must be twisted and distorted to be seen is rarely something true. Man is intent on knowing and systematizing God, which brings comfort to those who lack faith. Honestly, the mind of the created will never fully understand the mind of the Creator; it is not possible. The end result is the categorizing of believers. Are you Calvinist, Armenian, pre-tribulation, covenant, freewill, sovereignty, full-gospel, Spirit-filled, or more? When we hear a speaker, the glasses go on and we try to pigeonhole him. Often this is merely done to discount what is being said. Many actually are comforted by the thought that denominational leaders have already addressed all the pertinent issues, and therefore they do not need to. Of course, in all of this is the pride of man that makes him unteachable because of blindness and deafness. Why say all of this? Simply because I do not believe that the people of God are so stupid, unenlightened, ignorant, or “sheepish” (in the negative sense of the term) that the panic button needs to be hit when they hear something outside the denomination’s theological box. Denominational leaders generally hate and oppose the teaching of the equality of believers. After all, they have sat through countless meaningless meetings and kissed up to hordes of self-important men to get to the place of wearing a robe or in other ways being “recognized.” If all men and women were equal in Christ, they would have to admit to a wasted life. In fact, I have noticed that the truth of the equality of believers in revelation, relationship, and understanding of Christ creates a jealousy in those who have jumped through the hoops to gain some church-styled superiority.
Amen. I do not believe I know a thing more than any other believer, I have a special dispensation, I have a special handle on the truth, or others’ insights into Jesus are any less important than mine, period. This is the foundation for looking at permission and preventing. I am not speaking in Calvinistic, Armenian, freewill, foreknowledge, or any other terms. I am just posing a question to a fellow believer, to a brother or sister in Christ. Ready? Does God permit what He could prevent? To bring this question quickly into black and white, I will add suicide to my question. Does God permit some to commit suicide while He prevents others? If the answer is no, then we should stop praising God for situations in which a believer was delivered. I have heard hundreds of such testimonies.
“My son was to take the bus, we got him there late, the bus ended up going off a cliff, and everyone died. Praise God that my son was not on the bus.”
“There was a huge traffic accident, and if my daughter had been there one second earlier, she would not be here, praise God.”
“My husband, praise God, at the last minute was sent to a different unit; his former unit was attacked, and no one survived.”
“My wife overdosed, and her aunt she had not seen for years was in town, came to the house, called the police, and today my wife is alive, praise God.”
Now, if God did not prevent these things, we must just label them as fate, and fate must be praised. On the other hand, if we are to thank God for preventing a death, we must admit that He has permitted others to die. For some reason that thought is quite objectionable to believers. It seems to lead to questions, justifications, and accusations, such as, “What kind of a God permits wars, death, and accidents?” This begs for an answer to the turnaround question, “Well, what do you believe in: Buddha, Krishna, spirits, the government? How can you keep believing when those ‘gods’ permit wars, death, and accidents?” Wars, deaths, and accidents are all absolutes; however, preventing and permitting is not to be equated with causing. The worship of false gods does cause those things, sin in human beings does cause those things, but the Creator does not cause them. If I let the dominoes fall in the direction of saying that God does not permit and prevent, the end is chaos, and there is really no need to have a God but just press on in chaos and fate.
Therefore, I must say I believe God will both permit and prevent. This is not a stretch on two counts. First, I believe what the Scripture teaches, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (I Corinthians 15:50). This establishes an absolute: Man must die. This then leads to another Biblical truth: The days of man are numbered. If God numbers our days, then can a drunken driver shorten them? Could a war shorten them? Can cancer shorten them? Could suicide shorten them? I do not believe it is accurate to say that a murderer took a life; instead, he was the “means” by which the life was taken; he was not permitted to take the life until the fullness of time, for flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of God. I do not believe that cancer took the life of someone’s mate. I believe that flesh and blood do not enter the Kingdom of God and cancer was the means by which God permitted the loved one to exit.
To recap, God has numbered our days, we must exit, there must be a means of our exiting, and God permits or prevents the “means” according to His will and the number of our days already set. Therefore, if the means of exiting is suicide, murder, war, disease, or old age (which is technically a disease), what is the difference? Here is how I see it. God permits the perfect means to accomplish the most in His will. For example, look at murder, which did not happen without permission, His permitting. However, the means will accomplish much. For those who have a heart for the Lord, hearing the news will break them. My children attended Columbine High School, famous for the mass murders. Hundreds of students turned their hearts toward Christ. Those who were killed only exited by permission. Those who did the killing by permission had their hearts revealed also; they were murderers. The glory of God is in choice. He permits choice, but choice is within His parameters, so man chooses, but God, in a sense, restrains the choice until the perfect time, when the choice will either reveal the soft hearts of people or their hard hearts; they will receive a blessing or a curse. Their judgment will be “good and faithful servant” or “depart from Me.” Pharaoh’s heart was hardened by both the good God had provided for him and the curses brought to his land and people. Is that not amazing to see? Some have pitted themselves against God, and any occurrence not proving their assessment of Him must be twisted and distorted in their minds to continue to support their position. At that point God is condemned by them if He helps and condemned if He does not. Even the blessings of God prove to them that God is to be rejected. One day I will die. I do not know the means, but I believe those means will be perfect, and some will recognize Jesus, and others will have the cup of judgment filled as they refuse to see Jesus. God is really incredible!
Now, if God has permitted something unpleasant into our life, it was done out of love. He only permits in the believer’s life the things that will build the believer. I know so many people who would never have come to Christ had they not been abused. Does this mean God condones abuse? Never! It means He allows wicked men to choose, wicked men choose to do something wicked to victims, and those wicked men will be judged. However, it also means that God permitted the wicked to act in a believer’s life only because it would ultimately drive him to Jesus. Had it not driven him toward Christ, He would have prevented it. This takes revelation, but it will set the believer free and keep him from living in regret concerning an event in time; the enemy only knows the past and therefore comes to whisper, “If that had not happened to you, if God had prevented it, you would be fulfilled and happy.” It is a lie. The fact is that had the event not happened, the believer might never have come to know Christ. No doubt the wicked meant it to destroy the person, but God meant it to build him, and He has the last word.
Now, having established the above—that we must exit, there must be a means to our exit, and God will maximize the means of our exit—I will revisit my question. Is there a difference between exiting through old age or suicide? No! Many of us have had to experience a suicide in our families. I know the questions left unanswered. God permits. I have more stories from those who wanted to commit suicide and it did not work out than I do notes from families who had to deal with a suicide. God has both permitted and prevented. In our minds, the consequences of the “means” of exiting are much different. I must agree. Suicide is the most hurtful thing anyone can do to those he loves. It is much easier to blame a war or a drunk driver for a death than to blame the person who killed himself. However, I believe God did permit. Many “victims” of suicide have gone as far as they were going to go in this life concerning the revelation of Christ. God permits their exit in order to avoid many negatives that might come their way in the future. This is hard to grasp, since we only see someone’s exiting as missing out on blessings. This is deception, because we all know the daily struggles of life with a small “l” as we discover life with a capital “L.” I believe the God of LOVE permits a teenager to die in an accident because the revelation he needed was attained, and to remain on the earth would actually send him in reverse. I believe the same of the person who commits suicide.
I began all of this by saying that you have Christ, Christ is teaching you, and we believers are equal. This is my assessment, my gospel, and I have shared it with you. Amen.
]]>—ROMANS 12:10
I remember as a child being given a toy hammer and pegs sticking out of holes in a piece of wood. I would beat on each peg until it was even with the surface, turn the board over, and do the same again. Many see their relationships this way, full of pegs to be driven down before moving on to the next task. However, a relationship is not a task but something living, something that is never “accomplished.” There is an old proverb about how one can know he (or she) is ready for marriage if first he manages to keep a plant living for one year, then a fish in a bowl alive for a year, and finally a dog or cat thriving for a year. If that can be done and nothing living around him suffers, he is ready for a relationship.
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