PREDESTINATION (DB STOKES)

We wish to make it known that we have problems with this article.  These issues will be discussed by Elder Robert Lackey in a response article he published in 1983 in The Remnant - ed.

Attempting to write on this subject. I do so in fear, knowing it is a cardinal point of doctrine about which many have set forth their views. And in doing, one is left to wonder what is meant by predestination. Some say absolute, some eternal, and others limited predestination. I do not believe that a cardinal point of God's decree has to have absolute or eternal in front of it, or in other words a handle. I firmly believe that it is strong enough to stand for itself. We do not find The word predestination used in the Old Testament or the New Testament. But we do find the word predestined. Predestination is derived from the Latin word "predistinore", which means to predestine, to determine beforehand to settle in advance. In modern English, Webster, a writer of dictionaries and a very learned man, says that predestination is "the act of predestinating or the state of being predestinated, the theological doctrine that all events throughout eternity have been foreordained by divine decree or purpose, the foreordination by God of each individual's ultimate destiny, particularly to eternal life."

By God's grace, let us look at the book of Acts 15.18. "Known unto God are all of His works from the beginning of the world." And Isaiah 46.10. "Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasures." These two verses of Scripture are sufficient to settle our minds concerning the sovereignty of God's power. That is to say that God, even before the world began, set things that have been, the things that are, and the things that will be in motion, and declared that they would be as He did foresee them. I will admit that this point of doctrine is hard to understand. And that all of God's people are not favored by the heavenly master to see or understand it. Peter said concerning Paul, II Peter 3.16. "As all so in all of his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which are some hard things to be understood, which are they that are unlearned and unstable, wrest, as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction." Yet if we have a belief in God, we have to admit that the things that are here are by God's purpose.

There is an order in the sovereignty of God. First, his foreknowledge. Surely we will say that God did foreknow all things. And when I say all things, this I mean. the good as well as the evil. He knew Adam would fall, and in that fall God had a purpose, as he does in all things. There was a purpose in Joseph's being hated by his brethren. He was given a dream. That dream came when he was asleep. He had no physical knowledge or mental capacity to stop it from coming, but it was sent by the divine Providence of God. Do you know what the purpose was? Surely. I will say yes, I know what the purpose of that was. Joseph was a type of the Savior. He was to be sent down into Egypt by his brethren. However, we find when Joseph's brethren, who had done this thing in malice with evil intentions in their hearts were brought to the true understanding, Joseph embraced him and said "You meant it for evil but God meant it for good."

Do you not believe that God knew what would happen to his Son when he was born of a virgin and was sent into this world? Jesus himself says "For this cause came I into this world. And to this end, I was born." He was to lay down his life, and yet it was wicked hands whom God did before ordained, that should take him and crucify him, that the will and the purposes of God might be made manifest. In that wicked act alone came the salvation of the Church.

Surely there is beauty in the doctrine of predestination. There are some points on which I feel all of God's people are agreed.

Now let us go further into the matter. If the Lord is willing concerning God's foreknowledge and predestination. Proverbs 16.4. "The Lord has made all things for Himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." This verse of scripture says he has made, not going to, but already has. We not only find that the good things in life are made by God but also the wicked. Now we may consider that the sovereignty of God is in control of one as much as the other. Look in Acts 17.26 again as the apostle speaks. "And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before point, and the bounds of their habitation."

I find there is a spirit of truth that comes from God, which is Jesus Christ our Lord because he is true. He says I am the way, the truth, and the life. Also, I find there is a lying spirit. Read II Chronicles 18.22 concerning Ahab, the King of Israel. "Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a Lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets and the Lord has spoken evil against you." Only God is able to do these things. Yet some will say this is a fatalistic doctrine. This is fatalism only if you can't believe it. Not only are the righteous in his hands, but the wicked as well, even as the sun and the moon are under his decree and they move in a predestined course that God did predetermined they would move in. So does all of creation, the birds, the insects, the fish, the creatures, and even man move in the course that God, even before he created the heaven and the earth, saw that they would. Even our steps are numbered, even the hairs of our head, and we are told that even a Sparrow cannot fall without your Heavenly Father. If God knows and controls the minute things, how much more so the large obstacles that are in our life that are there by the decree of God?

The condition of the world that we are now in comes as no surprise to God because he has created all things and for your pleasure, they are and were created. The wars, the contention, the hate, and the condition of world orders are as God would have them to be. Some will say no, this has not got away. Oh man, who are you that replies against your maker? He makes one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. Let it be known here and now. God by justice owes no man anything but hell and damnation. Paul also says "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" Truly, it would be more simple for humanity if we did not know the mind of God. But we cannot find out the works of God from the beginning until the end, we find in the book of Proverbs, that "He has made all things beautiful in his day." He has put the world in the heart of man so that no man can find out the works of God from the beginning until the end. God is supreme and all the things that He has made and created, He governs them by decree and control. He did for know what they would do in the time and in the seasons that He has appointed here in this world. If these times and seasons were not in the sovereignty of God, then everything would be chaos. If there is a part of it over which he has no knowledge, there is a part of it over which he has no control. The Scriptures that have been laid down for our learning have told us that God has fixed all things, that he has ordained A righteous unto everlasting joy in heaven and immortal glory, and that the others he has seen fit by the sovereignty of his own will. To leave in their sins and damnation, even by sending them a strong delusion that they should believe a lie and not be brought to the knowledge of the truth. Let us also know this one thing that the powers that are. Are the powers that are ordained of God, and there are no powers in this world or in the world to come, but those which are of  God.

Oh, my loved ones, if we could understand the beauty of the doctrine of God's foreknowledge, of God's election, of God's predestination, that all this hangs on a firm decree that he sits on no precarious throne. As we wrote at the beginning of Isaiah. He declared the end from the beginning and our manner of speaking we mortals which start at the beginning and go ahead to the end. We start at birth and we go to death not knowing what moment of time in advance will bring, but hoping. But God in his sovereignty has declared this one event, that God went to the end, the final consummation of all things, and came back to the beginning, declaring the end from the beginning, not the beginning to the end. And the things that have been taking place are the things that have been, and the things that will be are the things that were ordained of God. This is proved again and again in prophecy. For instance, when the Lord said unto Peter, before the cock crows, you shall deny me thrice. Here is a point of predestination. Peter declared that he would not do this thing, yet the Lord knew that he would. And when it came to pass, it brought repentance into the heart of Peter when the Lord looked at him. You know, we find many things in the scriptures that foretell future events, and when they come to pass, God doesn't look down and say I told you so. Jesus, when Peter had denied him, didn't look at him and say, well, I told you about it. No. He smiled at him as if to say, Peter, I know you are of the flesh. You are weak. But remember, Peter, I have told you that I have prayed for you.

This doctrine of foreknowledge. Is the effectual cause. Predestination is the power of God to make his foreknowledge come to pass. He said, As I have thought, so shall it be As I have purposed, so shall it stand. Remember what God did for know wherever he also did predestinate, not only the heirs of heaven and immortal glory conformed to the image of his only begotten son, but also those who did not receive the imputed righteousness of the blood of Jesus. Are under the decree of God. Yay, the wicked are in his hand. He has made them for the Day of Evil, as was quoted from the 16th chapter of Proverbs. And yet God, in his infinite wisdom has placed in man a mind, a will, and an understanding which conforms man unknowingly to the decree of God.

There is a doctrine that says man is free with the ability to choose right and wrong. Do we mortals really know what is right and wrong? We do things in the most sincere manner of our hearts, sometimes thinking that they are right, and later we find those things were wrong. We find that the Apostle Paul thought he was fulfilling the will of God concerning salvation. He went about in his manhood, shutting up those who called upon the name of the Lord and Savior Jesus. Christ and Paul say for this ignorance God winked. Paul did it in ignorance, not knowing when he was brought to the knowledge of this beautiful truth. He was a strong advocate of predestination and the sovereignty of God, controlling all events.

We are told that God, in his infinite wisdom has set the times that are in this world and in the world to come. He has also placed all things in the hollow of his hand in a manner that will work to the glory of him and to the glory, and to the admiration of the Church. He holds the issues of life and death in his hands. 

Solomon, who was a wise man, wrote in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Solomon went on to say there is a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time. To cast away. A time to reap and a time to sow, A time to keep silent and a time to speak, A time to love and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace.

Thus not this embraces the beauty of the sovereignty of God, and that he has made all things. Some have said well, the Lord has let the wicked go in such a manner that he is not watching over them. As well as he does those that belong to him by the blood of Jesus Christ. But even the wicked, as we have stated already, is in the hands of God. Their steps are ordered so much as those the steps of the righteous because the ways of man are not hit by him. But the Lord delights in his way. Man cannot conceive or perceive his ways, or he knows nothing as he ought. Thanks be unto God, All of these things are in the hands of God.

Surely in this doctrine of the sovereignty of God to elect and love, He looked down from heaven, and out of this chaos he has picked a few to embrace life eternal through the suffering of his own Son, Jesus, and has brought them to the knowledge of that of themselves. They can do nothing that embraces creation as well as the mortal things upon the earth. All creations of themselves can do nothing. But by the Spirit of the Son of God that strengthens them, they are able to do all things. Surely one would say, well, why does God do this?

We cannot always give an answer to what would satisfy all the minds of individuals concerning why God does these things, why He created the devil, and why He made him more subtle than any beast of the field. Why these things are we cannot truly say. Some say I believe we shall know when we are gathered around the blood wash throne. If we are all if we are his children. Only God in all this is able to bring good out of evil. God said of the evil he sent in the life of Jacob, I will surely do the good all the days of your life.

In every war that we have seen upon the face of the earth, if we could see the hatred and malice that has been and the destruction of humanity, we could say if God would give us a spirit. And the understanding that in each one there has come some good. In World War 2000s and thousands were killed. I believe that this war was by the decree of God. Some have allocated this to Hitler and to the Japanese emperor and to Mussolini and to Stalin But out of that war came the technology that we are living in this day and age. The modern techniques of medicine and modern equipment for operations, which have eased the suffering of thousands and thousands of lives, came out of that war. A new lineman is only able to produce something worthwhile when he has been tried by serious afflictions which come from God on high. Not only does this relate in the spiritual realm, when we are enabled to call upon God, but also in the physical realm there are always things that come out of it that are good if this were not true. How could the Apostle Paul say that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose?

Paul on one occasion had a messenger of Satan. And Paul said the Lord gave it to him. I have no reason to doubt Paul, though Paul did not charge God foolishly. By saying now Lord, you made me thus, what is the reason I am as I am? Paul could not charge God in such a manner. Some would say well by predestination God has purposed our sins and our iniquities. True there is a purpose in it. But whether it is God's purpose to send us to hell? Or to make us suffer hell here on earth, in the knowledge of knowing godly sorrow and repentance in our hearts of the things which have been done in our bodies, we do not know. That we are unable to say we do not know this one thing. There is a purpose in every event, in every action. There have been actions that have hurt many people. We believe that those things had to be simply because they have been. We cannot say they should not have happened.

During World War 2, two men were discussing the doctrine of predestination, one believed it and one didn't. One said, oh, that ship that sunk had many hundred boys on it. They all drowned. You know that that was not God's will. The other one looked at him and said, I hope it was his will, and I friendly believed that it was, for it had not been God's will, God would not have known anything about it, and not knowing anything about it, he might not have been there to be a present help in the time of trouble and in the time of death.

In our feelings, we believe that the end has been fixed, that the beginning has been fixed, and that everything in between has been decreed. We believe that our station of life is fixed. And that we will be tomorrow. Where we will be, and even when our deathbed has been prepared for us, some say, I do not like that kind of doctrine. Oh, I revel in that kind of doctrine. I have been taught that I am not able to direct my own steps. There were times in life when I felt that I could do this, but the time came when God made me realize what a Messiah was. Made of it. Then I was glad that someone else had directed my steps, that someone else was watching over me, and that someone else had been with me. Even when I knew it was not, Jacob said. "The Lord was in this place and I knew it not." That is to say, God's Providence, God's purpose or God's decree, was with him, and he knew it not. New line therefore it is God's foreknowledge that causes predestination to be since predestination is the power causing God's foreknowledge to come to pass, it is always looking towards the final consummation of all things. It is the act of the will of God concerning the events that are in this world. Therefore, we would say. I am glad that God knows this. It is comforting to know that God has already prepared our deathbed. We someday will be brought to the deathbed by the motivating cause of life itself, the Spirit that God has placed in man. That spirit belongs to God. It moves and motivates the body to the will of God concerning the Providence who are in God has decreed. That will apply to one individual or to one nation, or to the whole world. Some would say that it seems strange that war could be for the good of God's people. Do you not realize your children of God, that God has given nations for the benefit of the children of Israel? Some would say that it was not good that the whole host of Egypt and Pharaoh was destroyed by God for persecuting his children. Oh, dear children of God, this was God's way of delivering his children. It was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart. It has been said that God left Pharaoh alone and that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. I am told by the Scriptures that he said unto Moses, I will harden Pharaoh's heart. This is the sovereignty of God concerning the events in this life and in the world to come. This is the doctrine that our forefathers had advocated. This is the doctrine that nothing has transpired or ever will transpire without the will of God in direct control of the events.

David said. "Is there not a cause?" May God enable us by His grace to look around and say, is there not a cause? Surely there is a cause. What is the cause we are not always able to see or understand? Therefore, the Scripture says the revealed things belong to us, but the hidden things belong to God. May God enable us all to see the beauty of the sovereignty, of predestination, and all things and in all events that are in this world that are under the direct control of the Almighty God. Isn't it wonderful to think about what our heavenly master did for know? Did foresee, and did declare all the things that are here, and has made us rejoice in them concerning the doctrine of predestination. No wonder that the Apostle Paul could speak concerning this doctrine as a doctrine that is surely A doctrine that is able to stand without the inventions of men, but a doctrine that God has decreed within himself that He is able to deliver us from the power of darkness and translate us unto the Kingdom of his dear Son. And Paul goes on to say that by Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature? For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things. And by him, all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence, for it pleased the Father, and that in him should all fullness dwell.

Think about this beautiful doctrine of God's everlasting predestination of governing and controlling the mind not only of the animals and the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, but also the minds and the actions of every human preordained of God and declared to be this same power, controls the stars and heavenly constellations, and governs even the grain of sand upon the seashore. I am assured in my closing remarks, that it would be easier for heaven and earth to fall away than for one decree of God to ever fail. All of them shall take place according as he has purposed and declared that they shall be.

Elder D. B. Stokes
Signs of the Times Vol. 151.7