Are All Choices In Life Predestined By God?
Hi Mike,
I have a friend with whom I have been sharing God’s truths. He has been reading the works of Ted Weiland and has asked my opinion of them. I have pointed out a few differences with scripture to A___. We disagree over the matter of free will. I have told him that “all choices in life are NOT predestined by God, but God did create man with the ability to choose, but all choices have to be CAUSED either by the carnal mind or by the Spirit of God. Ted needs to get more information before he comes to any theological conclusions.”
But don’t we all need to do that and I certainly include myself. We are all in “the same boat” trying to get to the truth of scripture.In His Service,
M____
Hi M____,
Thank you for sharing with me your letters to your friend concerning the writings of Ted Weiland.
Your spiritual insights into the sovereignty of God, and the Biblical doctrine of the salvation of all, are much more in line with scripture than are Ted Weiland’s writings.
Near the end of your letter to your friend you make this statement:
All choices in life are NOT predestined by God, but God did create man with the ability to choose, but all choices have to be CAUSED either by the carnal mind or by the Spirit of God. Ted needs to get more information before he comes to any theological conclusions. But don’t we all need to do that and I certainly include myself. We are all in “the same boat” trying to get to the truth of scripture.”
The emphasized words in all caps are yours, and I will ask you to consider a few verses of scripture in light of what you say in this same paragraph about “all of us are in the same boat trying to get to the truth of scripture”.
You admit that “all choices have to be caused either by the carnal mind or by the spirit of God.” Now since, in the very same sentence you state, “All choices in life are NOT predestined by God…” and then you go on to say that all choices are “CAUSED either by the carnal mind or by the spirit of God”, you are in effect saying that any choice that is not caused by God is free from God’s sovereignty, because you just said “all choices in life are NOT caused by God…” If God is not the “cause” of the choices made by the carnal mind, then who or what does cause the choices of the carnal mind? Do you and I then become sovereign over the choices of the carnal mind? Is it Satan who is sovereign over our carnal mind and its evil thoughts and choices? Is that what the scriptures teach?
Put another way, can any man change what his carnal mind tells him to do, and if not, then why not? The carnal mind is what is ruling the rulers of this world, and there are very few who have the mind of Christ. If the carnal mind is sovereign over carnal thoughts, then there is very little over which God is sovereign.
So what do the scriptures teach about the thoughts of the carnal mind? Let me give you just a few scriptures to consider, and then get back to me concerning this subject. Look at who the scriptures teach is the Creator of wicked men:
Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Tell me how God can make a wicked man for the day of evil and not be sovereign over, and the very Creator of, evil? So does God really create evil thoughts in the hearts and minds of evil men? What do the scriptures teach right here in this same chapter?
Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
Is that not exactly what Joseph told his brothers concerning “the preparations of their hearts” when they decided to “kill him and see what comes of his dreams” of ruling over his brothers? Here is what Joseph told them after tormenting them mercilessly for many months, accusing them of being spies who had come to spy out the land:
Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6 For these two years [ hath] the famine [ been] in the land: and yet [ there are] five years, in the which [ there shall] neither [ be] earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
Twice Joseph forced his brothers to “give an accounting” of the fact that they had sold him into Egypt. “You sold me hither”. But upon whom does Joseph place the accountability and the responsibility for selling him into Egypt? Let’s read it again:
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
Joseph repeats this message in chapter 50.
Gen 50:18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we [ be] thy servants.
Gen 50:19 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
There it is for those who are given to receive it. All evil thoughts of all men of all time are “meant by God unto good… to save much people alive” through the mercy of His elect whom the world, typified by Joseph’s own brothers, hates and wants dead. Here is how the apostle Paul puts this Truth while speaking to the Gentile converts of Rome:
Rom 11:30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Rom 11:32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
So it was and is all predestined by God. Even the wicked and even every “preparation of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord”.
Now let’s go to the New Testament and see how this doctrine fares there. Here is what the holy spirit teaches concerning our sins and our thoughts which precede those sins:
Jas 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
These are the verses which are commonly used to prove the point you make:
“All choices in life are NOT predestined by God…”
But is that really what is being said here in James? Here is this same section of James in other versions, which are a far better translation of what is being said:
Jas 1:13
(ALT) Let no one say, when tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God is incapable of being tempted by evil, and He Himself tempts no one.
(ASV) Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man:
(BBE) Let no man say when he is tested, I am tested by God; for it is not possible for God to be tested by evil, and he himself puts no man to such a test:
Those are just the first three translations in my e- sword ‘compare’ module. They all show that the Greek says that God Himself does not tempt us, but God Himself does send evil spirits to do that for Him. Is God therefore not the Creator of those thoughts and those evil spirits and those evil men? Of course He is, and He makes no apologies for it being thus:
Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
“I create evil… wicked men for the day of evil… I do all these things”. Our ways are not our own ways. They are the way God makes us, either for good or for evil, and for the masses of mankind in this age, it is for evil that God has created them and the very “preparations of their hearts are of the Lord” (Pro 16:1).
Since God Himself does not tempt us, then how exactly does He work those temptations? Here are a couple of examples of how that is done. Notice what appears to be a contradiction in scripture for the natural man and for all detractors of God’s Word. In 2Sa 24 we read this:
2Sa 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.
How did the Lord move David to do something the Lord himself had commanded never to be done without first taking a tax of the people? Here is how He tempted King David:
1Ch 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
So God works through spirits to tempt us. But as Joseph told his brothers, as Isa 45:7 tells us and as Pro 16:1 and 4 tells us, it is “not you but God” who causes us to sin and to choose to sin against Him and His elect.
Here are a couple more verses which make this point:
Gen 22:1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
This is not “God himself” but Christ, who was the “I Am” of the Old Testament.
Pro 20:24 Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?
Pro 21:1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.
Amo 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
“Evil in the city” is worldwide, and it is all what “the Lord had done” by causing us all to sin, by making us all “by nature… children of disobedience… children of wrath, even as others”.
Eph 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Let’s allow the scripture themselves to tell us why we do evil things which we know we should not do and which things we don’t even want to do. Let’s let the scriptures tell us whether “All our choices are… predestined by God”. Here is why we commit every sin we commit:
Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but [ how] to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
There it is just as clear as it can be stated, and again, it is twice stated, just as Joseph twice told his brothers, that it was not they who sold him into Egypt, but it was God. So who then created and sustains the law that “when I would do good evil is present with me”? Here is what the scriptures teach:
Jas 4:12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
So are “all of our choices predestined by God?” What do the scriptures teach concerning “all things” we do?
Here it is:
Psa 139:16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
So these e- mail exchanges and the days in which they are being written between you and A____ and this exchange with me, were “all written in God’s book, and all the days that were ordained for each of us, when as yet there was not one of these days’. Here is how Paul puts it:
Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
“All things” are being worked by God, who has “predestinated” us to obtain an inheritance, according to the “all things He is working after the counsel of His own will”. That includes “the preparations of the heart and the answer of the tongue” of all men of all time… “I the Lord do all these things”.
Let me know what you think. I too, am ” trying to get to the truth of scripture.”
Your brother in Christ,
Mike
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