Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome to the R. G. Hardy Ministries program. I'm Sharon Knotts. Thank you for joining us today, because we know faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Our message today is an eye-opening teaching that I believe is sorely needed in Christianity today. It is Predestination versus Fatalism. Much of what is being heralded as destiny by many preachers and teachers is really fatalism: that God has chosen certain people and chosen certain destinies for them that will happen regardless of what they do or don't do.

If you've been confused by the terms predestination, election, or just the latest buzzword, destiny, you will be helped by this message: Predestination versus Fatalism.

R. G. Hardy: Hallelujah. There's nothing that will give you a greater spurt of instantaneous joy than for you to say, "Yes, Lord." I tell you, you can't feel any better than you feel when you say, "Yes, Lord." Amen. Amen. Yes to God's will, His purpose, His way. I will gladly give Him all my cares, all my burdens, and surely give Him all my pain for the joy of the Lord.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty good deal. So, I'm not going to carry around unnecessary loads and burdens when the Lord said I could cast all my care on Him because He cares for me. Hallelujah. Amen. How many love the word of the Lord?

I want to preach this morning a message that is a little different than maybe anything I've preached in the past, but I think it's something that will open your eyes up, and I hope that it will be a blessing to you. Now, there's a major buzzword—at least I've been aware of it, and I think some of you will probably agree with me—that today in Christian teaching, a lot of times when you tune in on watching Christian television and you hear people talking and preaching, teaching, and even testifying, there's a big emphasis that's put on the word destiny.

I mean, it's become the hot word, the buzzword. Amen. And everything is about destiny, destiny. Technically, the word destiny is not in the Bible. However, predestination is in the Bible. Amen. So, what does predestination mean? It simply means to determine or decree, ordain something beforehand. Amen.

What I want you to see as we go in the scriptures today, and we see what the Bible has to say about predestination, the emphasis is not on the who. The emphasis is on the what. The Bible, when it teaches about predestination, it's not emphasizing so much whom God has predestinated and who will receive His salvation, but the emphasis is more on the what.

What are they predestined to? I'm going to make it really simple for you. What is your destination? That's how simple it is. What is your destination? I mean, as a child of God, as a Christian, what is your ultimate destination? And we'll come back to that. Amen. I think you know the answer. It's really, really easy. There's only one word. It all boils down to that.

The emphasis in the word of God is not so much on who, but on what. Now, let's begin by going to Romans, the eighth chapter. You know these scriptures very well, but we'll look at them, and then we'll be able to see as we go along what we mean by what God has predestined us to ultimately.

Okay, Romans 8 and verse 29. Well, let's look at verse 28 since that's a really good one. There's no sense wasting it; we might as well read it. Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be, that is His Son might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." Now, there you have really the whole doctrine of predestination. We find out that it all began with God's foreknowledge. And there is a difference between foreknowledge and predestination because foreknowledge precedes predestination. Amen.

God has perfect foreknowledge. There are many verses that tell us that. Don't turn there, but if you take notes, you can write it down. Acts says, Acts 15:18, "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning." That just says it all. God knows everything that He's about to do, will ever do; He knew it from the beginning. Amen.

Now, let's look at this for a moment on a minute scale. Let's look at us. We have, even we human beings, we have foreknowledge of certain things and certain people. Let's try to see how this might work in our lives. We can predict about people that we know really well—our spouses, our children, our parents, very close friends. We can predict certain things we know they would do or would never do based on our knowledge of them. Amen.

Okay, let's say you go to a theme park, and they have a water slide there. It's one of those ones that's way up there; it has a 90-degree drop straight down. Now, you may know someone in your family that you could beg, coax, you could promise them 50 dollars. You could say, "If you don't get on that water slide, we're all going home right now, and you're going to ruin it the whole day."

It wouldn't matter what you said. It wouldn't matter what you did. It wouldn't matter how much you promised them. You know that you know they're never going to get up to go down that 90-degree drop because they're afraid of heights and they're afraid of water. And you know they're not going to do it. Amen. You have foreknowledge that that person is not getting on that ride. Amen.

This happens all the time. Maybe where you work, maybe there's a big change that needs to be done, and a lot of the employees get together, and they say, "We're going to do this." Maybe there's something that it involves that's not really on the up and up. Maybe it's just a little bit on the side of deception, or you've got to tell a few little white lies. You've got to promise people something you know good and well you're not going to do, but you promise them so they'll sign the contract.

So you know that in order for you to do that, everybody in the office has got to be on board, or everybody on the board has got to be in agreement. But there's one person. That person is a stickler for the truth. They are honest as old Abraham Lincoln himself. They're not going to lie, they're not going to cheat, they're not going to defraud. You know that you know what no matter what you do.

And somebody can say, "You know them really well. Now, do you think possibly you could persuade them? You could tell them this or that or the other, and you could persuade them to come along with us." I don't care what you say, I don't care what you tell them, you can threaten to fire him, and he won't do it. I know it's against his core values. It's against his core beliefs, and he's not going to go along with it because you know that person.

Now, that is foreknowledge on a very limited basis. Amen. But God has perfect foreknowledge. Amen. He absolutely has perfect knowledge, and He knew from the foundation of the world what His plan is and who would be a part of it. Let's turn to 1 Peter 1:18. 1 Peter 1:18, "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:" Now, pay attention to verse 20: "Who verily," who truly, who absolutely "was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." So Peter tells us that when God created the world and God created Adam and Eve, before there was a sinner, before Adam and Eve ever sinned, God already had His Son as the Lamb of God, who in God's mind was slain way back then.

He was slain before there was ever a sinner to sin to need a Savior. From the foundation of the world, He was slain. How many understand this is in God's mind? In His mind of perfect foreknowledge, He saw Jesus already on the cross. That's why—and I'm going to get ahead of myself; don't do it, but I got to—that's why He can see you and me already glorified, sitting up there on the right hand of the Father. Did we just read that? All right, that's all, we got to wait. Getting ahead of ourselves.

Okay, so in His mind, Jesus was already slain from the foundation of the world. Hold your finger in 1 Peter because I want to read another verse, but if you want to follow me or you just want to take notes, that's up to you. John 17. John 17, we have Jesus in Gethsemane praying the true Lord's Prayer. Amen. The other one was for the disciples, but this was His prayer in His moment of agony.

You can read the whole chapter later, but I want you to look at verse 24. "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." Again, confirming what Peter said, before the foundation of the world, God had already given His only begotten Son to be that Lamb on the tree, to be that sacrifice.

And not only that, He said, "You gave Me these. You gave Me these from the foundation of the world." From the foundation of the world, God gave Him Peter, James, and John, and Matthew, and Thaddaeus, and all the other disciples. From the foundation of the world, He had given Him those who followed Him that were with Him, Mary Magdalene and the other Marys and such. Amen.

Not only that, if you look at verse 20, it says, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word." Well, who is that? Every hand should go up here. Are you a believer? Did you believe the Gospel? Amen. So He said, "I'm praying for them too, because from the foundation of the world, God gave you to Jesus." Amen. God said, "Here's the ones I'm going to give You. I'm going to give You Sharon Ann Hardy Knotts. I'm going to give You a William somebody Shanken, AKA Murph."

That's what He said. From the foundation of the world, "I'm going to give these to You." He gave them to Jesus. Do you see that? Amen. So He said God gave Jesus from the foundation of the world, and He gave Him Peter, James, and John. Why? Why did He give them? Because He knew that they would choose Jesus. He knew that when Jesus said, "Follow Me," He knew that they would throw down their nets and follow Him.

Imagine that, that they would forsake all immediately and go follow Jesus. That's why Jesus went to them. That's why He didn't go to some other guy somewhere else, some other ones here or there. God sent Him to the ones that He knew would follow Him. How many are getting the picture? All right, we were back here in Peter. Let's look at verse 2, 1 Peter 1:2. In verse 1, he talks about he's writing his letter to those in these different places and cities.

But here's what he calls them in verse 2: "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied." Now, here's the word elect. The word elect is synonymous with the word chosen. Elect or chosen, chosen, elect; they're the same word. Don't think it's some special group of people somewhere other than what you already know.

So where it says that we are the elect according to the foreknowledge of God, don't you see that foreknowledge precedes election? Foreknowledge precedes predestination. God chooses whom He already knew would answer the call and do what we just did a moment ago and say, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, yes, yes." Do you understand that? All right, if you understand that, you're well on your way to understanding the whole message.

It says in 2 Thessalonians 2:13—I love this verse—"But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord," anybody here? "Because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." From the very beginning, God has chosen us. Let's flip over just a few pages to 2 Timothy 1:9, "Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Before the world began, God gave me, God gave you, this holy calling. Why? I wasn't even born. I wasn't even thought of. Amen. Before the world began? Oh, but I was. But I was in the mind of God. God, with His perfect foreknowledge, looked all the way down to November the 27th, 1951, 11:51 AM. Did you notice that my month is 11, and my birth year is 51, and my time is 11:51? I don't know what it means, but I like it.

It's just interesting to me. Amen. I'm sure it means something, and maybe I'll find out when I go to heaven. But what I'm saying is God looked down and He saw in that moment that I would come into the world. And He knew that when the time was right and I was able to understand and to know that I wouldn't just go to church because my mother and father drug me there and made me go, and said, "You're going till you're 18 whether you like it or not," but He knew that one day He would knock on my heart's door and that I would come weeping to the altar and say, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, yes, Lord."

He knew me from the foundation of the world. I was elected. I was chosen from the foundation of the world in Jesus Christ. Now, here's what I want you to understand. God chose us simply because He knew that when we were given the offer and the opportunity, we would choose Jesus. Amen. And Jesus is the chosen one. Now, let's turn to Isaiah 42:1, and we'll see this. Jesus is God's chosen one.

This is one of the Messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah. I'm only going to read the first verse, but really it goes on to tell you what His ministry will be like. And it's beautiful, it really is. If you continue on down, you'll find out that it talks about His healing ministry and His delivering ministry, etc. But I'm interested in verse 1: "Behold My servant, whom I uphold; Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth; I have put My Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment," or justice, "to the Gentiles."

To prove it's the Lord Jesus, you read on, and it'll give you all the Messianic signs of His ministry. But what I wanted you to see is that He's God's servant, God's chosen one, the one God delights in; He's God's elect. Now, turn to Matthew, the 12th chapter. Matthew 12 and verse 17: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Behold My servant, whom I have chosen;" elect and chosen are the same thing.

"My beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My Spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles." Then he goes on and tells you about the Messianic ministry of Jesus Christ. So what I wanted you to see is from the foundation of the world, God chose Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, whom we know according to John, the first chapter, was the word of God. But He chose Him to come and take on human flesh to be His servant, in whom He would delight, and whom He would choose because He elected Him to be the chosen one to bring light or bring truth not only to the Jewish people but also to the Gentiles.

What I want you to see is because God knew that we would choose His chosen one, He chose us. He chose us from the foundation of the world because He knew when He would reveal to us His chosen one, we would choose Him. And that right there is the very crux of predestination. God doesn't go around arbitrarily saying, "I like the way you look; I'll choose you. No, I don't care for you, so no, you're out. And I don't care how much you beg and plead Me, I said no, you can't come.

And I don't care how rebellious you are and what a hard time you give Me; I said you're coming." That's not what God does. But that's what some people think. Amen. What you have to understand is once we choose Jesus, God chooses us. God never violates our free will. He does not arbitrarily, He does not indiscriminately choose us because if He did, He would be taking away our right of free will. And this He will never do, and I've said this many times and I'll say it again: He will never do that even if it would be better for you if He did.

If He just thrust His will on you because He knew that what you're choosing is not going to be a good outcome. He didn't force Adam and Eve not to choose to eat that tree. It was their choice. But once they chose, they had to deal with the consequences. See, that's another thing about free choice. You get to choose whom you will serve, but once you make the choice, you do not get to choose the consequences.

The consequences are what they are, whether you receive Jesus and choose Him and receive eternal life, or whether you reject Him and receive eternal damnation. That you don't get to choose. Amen. The consequences are what they are, and God is upfront. He never deceives anybody. He lets you know upfront what the consequences will be. He even goes so far as to say, "I want you to know if you do choose My Son, if you do choose Jesus, I promise you eternal life.

I promise you that your ultimate destination is heaven, is to be glorified with My Son." But I'm not going to lead you astray. I want to let you know right upfront, if you choose My Lord, if you choose My Jesus, I want you to know you better count the cost because you're going to have to take up your cross and follow Him. He didn't make the way look easy. He said, "No, the way is straight and narrow, and many are going to try and not be able.

But if you choose Jesus, if it's in your heart to say, 'Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord,' I promise you that I will give you what you need to make it all the way." Amen. So God gives us free choice, and He foreknew that we would choose Jesus. And so He predestinated our destination. And our destination is heaven. Once we choose Jesus, we are now on a new path, and the final destination is to be glorified with Christ, as we saw here.

God, in His foreknowledge, sees it as already done. That's why He allowed Paul to write in Ephesians that not only is Jesus seated at His right hand, on the Majesty on high at His right hand, but he said we are seated with Him. We're seated with Jesus. Amen. God sees us in our final position. Jesus said that if you will suffer with Me, you're going to reign with Me.

If you overcome like I overcame, you will sit down with Me in My throne like I'm sitting down with My Father in His throne. Now, if it was automatic, why would Jesus write those seven churches, those letters, and say to every single one of them the same condition: "To him that overcometh"? If it was already chosen and a done deal, what do we have to overcome? Amen.

When Jesus left, He said, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." Hallelujah. He's been working on that place for over 2,000 years. He's been preparing a place for those who choose Him. Hallelujah. And Peter said, "We have this place. We have this inheritance. It's undefiled, it fades not away; it's reserved in heaven for us."

My name is already on that door. My name is already up there on that title. It is just as done as if I was already there because I chose Jesus and I'm going to go all the way.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen. I hope you're being spiritually informed by this revelatory message, Predestination versus Fatalism. Perhaps you've noticed that a favorite buzzword in Christian teaching and preaching today is destiny. While this term is not actually in the Bible, the closest word to it is predestinate, which means to determine, decree, or ordain beforehand.

But the emphasis is not on who, but what. Not whom God has predetermined to be saved, but what are they predestined to? What is their destination? Once they choose to follow Christ, where will the road lead them? The scripture says that known unto God are all His works from the beginning, and Paul said in Romans 8:29 that God foreknew who would answer the call to receive His Son and who would not.

God will never violate man's free will, and He does not arbitrarily choose or refuse anyone. He did not force Adam and Eve not to eat of the forbidden tree. It was their choice. But once they made that choice, they had to deal with the consequences. We also get to choose whom we will serve, but we don't get to choose the consequences.

Those whom God foreknew would choose Jesus, He predestinates our destination. Once we choose Christ, God chooses us and puts us on the path to our final destination, which is to be glorified with Christ in His eternal kingdom. God is no respecter of persons, and He is not willing that any should perish. So even knowing many will not choose Christ, He invites all to receive Him so that on judgment day they are without excuse.

The false claim that everyone's destiny is predetermined by God and nothing you can do will change it, even if you fail, is fatalism. It is motivated by a desire to eliminate any negative feelings over mistakes, as though they are also meant to be a part of one's preset destiny. They quote King Solomon, who said, "There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord shall stand."

I will show you why this very verse disproves predestination, and Solomon's life is Exhibit A. Don't miss this landmark teaching. Order your copy today on CD, Predestination versus Fatalism, for a love gift of 10 dollars for the radio ministry. Request offer SK157, that's SK157. Mail to R. G. Hardy Ministries, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203, or you may order online at rghardy.org. Again, send the minimum love gift of 10 dollars to the radio ministry, mail to PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying, Maranatha.