Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings friends and new listeners, welcome to the R. G. Hardy Ministries program. I'm Sharon Knotts, thanking 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: One reason why God ministers and reaches out and chooses those who come to Christ and then backslide is because He knows, like the prodigal son, they will come back. Amen? And that's why we've got to keep that backslider in prayer and allow the Holy Spirit to use us to minister to them. Amen? And tell them, "Hey, remember Lot's wife? She didn't make it back." You're counting on being like the prodigal. When you get good and ready, when you've had enough, you're coming back. Maybe you won't get back. Maybe judgment will fall on you like it fell on Lot's wife.

You see, the scripture tells us that he that wins souls is wise—not wise to win souls, but it takes wisdom to win souls. Jude said on some people you have compassion, making a difference; but on other people, you save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments that are stained by the flesh. The Holy Spirit gives us the wisdom to know which to do. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:11, "knowing the terror of God." Does that sound like your God? That's what it says: "knowing the terror of God, we persuade men."

Why? It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God when you don't know Him as your father. When you know Him as your father, the most wonderful thing is to run up and grab His hands and say, "Abba, Father!" But when you don't know Him as your father, it's a fearful thing. Knowing the terror of God, we persuade men. We don't soft soap it and whitewash it. There are some people you have to deal with them sternly that they will not be lost. He said, "rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith."

He said that there are some that have been taken captive by Satan at his will. We've got to know how to reach out to them. In some cases, we save them with fear, but in other cases, he said the servant of the Lord must not strive—in other words, don't argue and debate. That's not going to get them saved. All that's going to do is get you a bad attitude that you've got to pray and get over. He said, but the servant of the Lord must be meek, in meekness, in humility, instructing those who oppose themselves.

They're not opposing you, they're not opposing me, they're not even opposing God in so much that they're opposing themselves because they've been taken captive by Satan at his will. They're the ones; they're opposing their own victory and their own deliverance. We have to be led by the Holy Spirit to know how to instruct them, that we may deliver them out of the snare of Satan. Predestination is that once we choose Jesus Christ because God knew that we would, He chose us and then He put us on a path to our final destination.

But here is what predestination is to a lot of people, and this is what you've been hearing. They teach that our destiny is predetermined. It's predetermined by God, and nothing we can do will change it, not even our failures. There are several verses that they like to quote. One of them you know well, and let me tell you, this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. I use this all the time. I don't see how you can encourage a Christian any more than to tell them this. Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of good and not of evil, thoughts to bless you, to prosper you, to give you an expected end"—in other words, to give you a hopeful outcome and a hopeful future.

True, that is God's thoughts towards all of us. But it's not set in stone. It's not what it's going to be regardless of what we do. But this is what you're hearing. Now, I understand their motive. Their motive is to alleviate negative feelings that we may have over our mistakes, about our bad choices that we've made and the consequences we've had to suffer because of it, or because of failures. They're inferring that we cannot do anything to alter our set destiny, so none of that matters. They say because God ordained your destiny before the world began, it doesn't matter about any of that. It's going to be whatever it's going to be.

Here is one of the scriptures they like to use: Proverbs 19:21. It says, "There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." The word "device" can mean plans, imaginations, schemes. There are many plans in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. So, they interpret this to mean that no matter what you've planned in your heart, what you've decided or imagined in your heart, God's counsel for your life is going to stand. I've heard that many times. That is not predestination. That is fatalism, and there is a huge difference.

Fatalism is "what will be, will be." When I was a little girl, there used to be a song out in the world that said, "Que Sera, Sera; whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. Que sera, sera." How many have ever heard that? That's fatalism. That means your fate is what it's going to be regardless. One of the bad things about that—the worst thing of all—is you can deceive yourself and think you're going to have a good outcome when you're not. You can think you're going to end up in heaven when you're on the wrong road.

The other thing is, it makes God get the blame for all kinds of junk. All kinds of things that happen, they put it on God. "Well, God made me this way." Well, God didn't make them that way. I realize there is no simplistic answer to a lot of the things in this world. People say, "Well, if there's a loving God, then why are children born blind or crippled," etc. We've even seen people that have had things, they're born that way, and they finally are able to face life and deal with it. The thing that they use is they say, "Well, God made me this way. That's the way He made me."

I'm glad that they were able to come to a place where they can go on and function in life and be a happy person, but it's under a false assumption. God did not make them that way. God does all things good. So you say, "Well, then why did it happen?" It's generation after generation after generation of sin. There are a lot of things that are caused by alcohol syndrome and drug addiction. If a bad gene mutated and starts somewhere, it can keep popping up over and over and over again; in fact, it can become worse with every generation.

God doesn't do that to people; sin did that to the people. But of course, God can take that life and make something beautiful out of it. How many see what I'm saying? So they say that your destiny is what it is and that's how it'll be. But as we saw already, this violates free choice. It was certainly not Adam and Eve's destiny to be thrown out of Eden. It was not God's will for them to be thrown out of paradise and lose that beautiful life that they had and come under dominion of the enemy.

They were given one commandment: not to eat of one tree. And I love the way God is; He always emphasizes the positive, not the negative, because He's not a negative God. He didn't say, "Oh, don't you eat of this one tree." He said, "Of all the trees you may freely eat, but this one." The devil wants to point out the one negative thing. That's how he does sometimes in your life. He comes and sits on your shoulder and points out one negative thing that's going wrong in your life at the moment. He blows that thing up so big to where you're about ready to quit and act like a baby and have a tantrum and get mad at the Lord instead of looking at all the things God has freely given you.

Do you know how you get out of that? Do you know the best way to get out of that when the devil comes? This is what I do all the time: I start counting all my blessings. I start thinking about all my blessings—I mean, I literally count them. I literally go through my house and say, "Lord, I thank You for my beautiful new leather furniture." I'm serious! And I thank You for the fact that it's paid for and I'm not in debt. I thank You that Your blessings make rich and add no sorrow to it. That's what I do: I start counting my blessings. God said, "Of all the trees you may freely eat; just have yourself a party. But just this one, don't eat."

He gave them the choice, and they chose to eat it anyway, and that changed their destiny. The consequences are ongoing down to you and me. Because of one man's sin, sin entered the world and death entered the world. They made the choice. Now, the person who said this in Proverbs about "there are many devices in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand"—how many know who wrote that? Solomon. He's purported to be the wisest man that ever was because God gave him His wisdom.

God gave him extraordinary wisdom because when he was young and soft in his heart and loved God, God passed over all of his other brothers and chose him, the baby boy of the family. God said, "David, I want you to make Solomon your heir to the throne." When He chose that young man, he was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he was to be: the king of Israel. He said, "Oh my God, how am I ever going to step in my father's shoes? That You would choose me to be the ruler over Your so great people. How can I do this? I who don't know my left from my right."

Now we know he knew how to put the left shoe on and the right shoe. It was a figure of speech to say most little children don't know. We all laugh when we see them, "You got your shoes on the wrong feet." They finally learned how to put their own shoes on. They got the left foot on the right foot and the right foot on the left foot and they look funny and we laugh at them. "You got to put them on the other way." What he was saying is, when it comes to being able to step into the position of the king of Israel and into the shoes of someone so great like my father, King David, I feel like a two-year-old.

So he got away with God. And while he was away with God, when you seek after God, He will show up. When he got away with God, God came to him and He said, "Solomon, ask Me whatever you will and I'll give it to you." You say, "Well, God never said that to me." Maybe He knows what you're going to choose. See, God knew what Solomon would say. He knew what he would say. If He had chosen one of his other brothers, He knew what they would say: "I want the life of all my enemies on a silver platter. I want all the silver and gold. I want to be the richest king that was ever known, that my fame will go through the whole world."

But he didn't ask that. He said, "I ask for wisdom to know how to rule Your people. I ask for discretion to know how to rule them." And God said, "It pleases me, Solomon, that you ask for that. You could have asked for the life of your enemies, I would have given it to you. You could have asked for riches, you could have asked for that, but you didn't. And because you asked me for wisdom, I'm going to give you wisdom like no one has ever had—probably like what Adam had before he sinned in some way. And not only that, I'm going to give you what you didn't ask for. Because when you seek God first and His righteousness and His kingdom, He said, 'I will add all these things to you.'"

So He said, "Solomon, I'm going to give you this great wisdom that you asked." So people say that, well, after all, Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived, and he said this. But let's look at Solomon. I want to tell you, it was not Solomon's destiny to marry a thousand women. Let's go to Deuteronomy 17 and let's see what God said about who would be the king of His people. Now this was when Moses was getting the final words and instructions from God and passing them on to the children of Israel, prophesying in advance the day will come when Israel will have a king.

It's not going to be God's will and it's not going to be what He wants, but they're going to beg and beg for a king, and God is finally going to give them what they asked for. So He said in Deuteronomy 17:16, "When that king, whomever he is, comes to power, he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to get the horses because that's where they had them. To the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord has said unto you, you shall not henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold."

Three things that your king should not do: multiply himself horses and send people back to Egypt to get them; multiply wives to himself; and multiply silver and gold to himself. Okay? So what did Solomon do? If you read 1 Kings the 11th chapter, you will find out it says Solomon loved many strange women: the daughter of Pharaoh, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Zidonians, and the Hittites. All of these were God's arch-enemies. And of all the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, "You shall not go into them, neither shall they come to you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods."

Solomon clave unto them in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. He went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. He did evil in the sight of the Lord; he went not fully after the Lord as his father David had done.

He built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab. Chemosh was the god that they offered their living babies to on the fire. Can you imagine Solomon building a high place for him in the hill that is before Jerusalem? And for Moloch, another one that they gave child sacrifice to, the abomination of the children of Ammon. Likewise, he did for all his strange wives, all their gods. He built places for them, burnt incense and sacrificed unto them.

The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice—not send a prophet like God usually did, not send an angel like God often did, but God appeared to Solomon personally twice and commanded him concerning this very thing: that he should not go after other gods. But he kept not that which the Lord commanded. Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, "Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept My covenant and My statutes which I've commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee and will give it to thy servant."

Was that God's will? Was it God's will and destiny for Solomon to marry a thousand women, and those women, most of them were God's enemies, and then go and serve their gods? I'm not going to read it to you, but you can find out in other places it tells how he sent people to Egypt to bring back horses. We know he had so much gold it was laid up like dust. Now I want to know, was that his destiny? Was that God's counsel that stood? Did God want to rend the kingdom away from him and divide the kingdom up? No.

So that verse does not mean what people say it means. Your destiny, God has a perfect destiny for you, but you get to choose. You get to choose. And if you choose the wrong thing and make the wrong choices, you'll end up like Solomon. Now very quickly, let me tell you what Solomon wrote after when he was old, and now he's bitter and unhappy. Oh, he's got gold like dust, he's got horses, he's got wives and children galore, but this is what he said. He unbares the soul in the book of Ecclesiastes.

"I looked on all the works of my hands and all my labor, and it was vanity. It was profitless and vexation of spirit. Therefore I hated life because I would leave all my labor to the man that shall be after me. Better is a handful with quietness than both hands full with vexation of spirit." Listen to this: "Better is a wise child than an old foolish king who will no longer be admonished." He would to God he could go back and be that young man full of love and only wanting to do the things of God. "Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of thy life, for that is thy portion in this life." That's God's will for you: one wife, first wife, is your portion in life.

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. And 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. And 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 for the radio ministry. Request offer SK157. That's SK157. Mail to R. G. Hardy Ministries, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Or you may order online at rghardy.org. Again, send the minimum love gift of $10 to the radio ministry, mail to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying, "Maranatha."