Hello Mike,

Thanks for the great teachings. I’ve been reading your teachings for years now.
My Question: Could you break down the process of a decision, scripturally? I am specifically interested in how a person comes to a decision to commit suicide. Also, same question about a decision to have an abortion. What were the choices, if in fact God leads a person to a specific choice?
Am I misunderstanding that God leads one to that choice?

Thanks for your time,
E____

Hi E____,

A person would have to be without question a very tormented and tortured person to commit suicide. But does the incredible pain and torment of this age in any way at all diminish the truth of these plain Biblical words?:

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
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?

I could go on and on with such scriptures. But if you have “been reading [ my]… teachings for years now” then you have already seen many of the literally hundreds and thousands of scriptures which proclaim that all of our days were ordained in advance and that God is “working all things after the counsel of His own will.”

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them. (ASV)
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:

Are we to assume that the day King David lusted after Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, was omitted from that book and from “the days that were ordained for” King David?  Are we to assume that God had not ordained that day? No, God plainly tells us that He is the one who creates evil and wicked men for their days of evil, and He works all things after the counsel of His own will. It is but a testament to our spiritual blindness that we can apply those verses to the wickedness of others, and completely miss the primary, personal inward application they are meant to impart.

You ask.

I am specifically interested in how a person comes to a decision to commit suicide? Also, same question about a decision to have an abortion?

Since James tells us that the Lord Himself is not tempted by evil and “He Himself tempts no man,” how then can the evil we see every day be said to “after the counsel of His own will?”

Jas 1:13  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: (ASV)

If “God Himself tempteth no man,” then how are “all things made for Himself, yes even the wicked for the day of evil?” To understand how God accomplishes all the evil in this world without Himself doing that evil, let’s look at the next couple of verse in James.

Jas 1:14 but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death.

“His own lust… brings forth death?” Who has been given by God, the power of death?

Heb 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

From where, pray tell, does “his own lust” come. Here is what Christ tells us about ourselves when we think we are his children, while we are not yet given to place our love of Him above our love of this world.

Joh 8:38  I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
Joh 8:39  They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Joh 8:40  But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Joh 8:41  Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Joh 8:42  Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43  Why do ye not understand my speech? [ even] because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

We read those words and apply them to the Jews of Christ’s days while He was on this earth in a body of flesh and blood.  We fail to see that these words are words which are, were and always will be applicable to all men of all time, simply because we are all, “by nature… children of the disobedient” spirit of “our father the devil.”

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.

So when anyone is guilty of any sin, it is the result of being “by nature children of wrath… children of disobedience… of our father the devil.” The only reason we don’t all abort children or commit suicide is simply because that was not written in His book of our life. It is not because it is not in the nature of our father the devil, to do these things. The vilest sins of all mankind are in the nature of every man who has ever been born. But neither Hollywood nor any natural man will ever acknowledge that we are all, by nature, evil men. That would diminish the beast’s fabled free will, and that would place man under the influence of a spirit world which is vastly superior to anything any man could even imagine.
God actually has complete control over the realm of the spirit. This places in His hands the ability to control and direct the very thoughts of every man who has ever lived. That is what the scriptures teach from Genesis to Revelation.

Psa 94:11  The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.
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.

Dan 5:6  Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

God “knows our thoughts” because He who ordained them “before there were any of them.” This gives God complete control of His entire creation, and all the Star Treks and Star Wars episodes to the contrary, God is not the least bit affected by all the efforts of all mankind to diminish Him. It is He who has written the script that has been preordained and predestinated, and as monstrous as it may appear to our self- righteous flesh, it will all be justified and redeemed to Him.
“How [ does] a person come to a decision to commit suicide?” Here is how that is accomplished. It is the same for every sin ever committed.

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.

There it is. Twice Joseph acknowledges that his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. Yet he declares that their thoughts and actions were not really their own but God’s work. “So now it was not you that sent me here, but God.” How had God done that? He Himself tempts no man so He had sent an evil spirit to cause that thought to be conceived and carried out. Just as He withdrew His own spirit and then sent His evil spirits to trouble King Saul and to cause King Saul to want David dead, and just as He sent a lying spirit into the mouths of all of King Ahab’s prophets.

1Sa 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15  And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.
2Ch 18:21  And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the LORD said, Thou shalt entice [ him], and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so.
2Ch 18:22  Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil against thee.

The words Joseph spoke to his brothers in Gen 45 are repeated in chapter 50, where after seventeen long tormented years of believing they could die at the hand of their brother Joseph, his brothers finally are freed from those tormenting thoughts. It is in this chapter of Genesis that we learn what is the purpose for all sin and all evil that has ever been committed or that has ever taken place in the predestined plan of God. Here is the reason for the sale of Joseph by his own brothers, as a type of the betrayal of Christ and death of Christ at the hands of His own people, and here is the reason for all sin of all time:

Gen 50:15  And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
Gen 50:16  And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
Gen 50:17  So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
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.
Gen 50:21  Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

God alone can “mean the evil we do unto good,” and that is the purpose for all evil. In the end it will produce good. If it did not, then God would indeed be the monster that so many accuse Him of being. The truth is that “as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.”

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

I hope this helps you to see that God really does “work all things after the counsel of His own will,” and that suicide, the millions of abortions that have been committed over the years and all the other monstrous sins men commit against their fellow man, are one and all the work of the spirit realm manipulating the physical real to accomplish what “God has made for Himself” and for His plan and purpose of bringing all men to Himself.

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

But it is all “meant… unto good… to save much people alive.”

Jer 29:11  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

In spite of all that is said to the contrary, the truth remains “God is love.”

1Jn 4:16  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike