Has God fore-ordained everything that comes to pass?

2BHizown,

Predisposed statements. Sometimes we have our minds made up on a matter. Bottom line, God's Providence does not debunk the idea of human choice. Problem is, taking an extreme view of Providence can lead to the idea that God decrees every single circumstance in human life. To me, the next logical step is to believe everything is fatalistic.

 

2BHizown,

We can be assured that God is in control. Not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from His will.

I will try to post the LBC on the subject later.

KJB

 

Of course He has. What has ever happened that God did not intend to happen?

 

So, does God cause the perverted to rape and kill helpless children? Does He cause homosexuality? Does He cause merciless uncivilized tribes to skin their victims alive and build pyramids from their heads?

Think of the most disgusting, perverted, twisted, mind-boggling, puke-inducing sin conceivable and wonder if a holy God Who says "Be ye holy, for I the LORD am holy" actually plants such an idea in man's mind and literally puppeteers him to do such. Why would God give you a conscience that such activities are diabolical while at the same time cause people to commit heinous acts for His mere pleasure?

I would say the sovereignty of God does not necessitate such an ideal. He can be absolutely sovereign yet create mankind, though fallen, in His own image. God can know the beginning from the end and can allow fallen man to die in his sins, but please don't treat a Holy God as a zoorastrian or yin-and-yang dictator. I have no problem with Calvinism. I may disagree on a few things, but please don't go to the extreme!

 

But that is not what my Bible says. He knows when the sparrow falls, he does not predestinate it. It is my WILL to write this post. God allows me to choose. When God spoke to Adam he did not question his sin as one that had no choice. God did not ORDAIN the United States to kill 1/4 of our children over the last 30 years...yet we have done so. Jesus said of Jerusalem...I WOULD, but YE would not. Phil. 2:5 says "LET this mind be in you." All of Romans 6 speaks of the war which is in us and that we must choose to serve one (old nature and sin) or the other (New nature, righteousness & OBEDIENCE). To believe that God has created sin rather than free will flies in the face of His Righteousness.

The bottom line is, I know I do whatever I want, and many times it grieves God. I fight that old man by attempting to submit to the Lord and LET this mind be in me...but, as Paul said, there is a war in my members and it is AGAINST the WILL of God and has its seed in the WILL of man (Rom.6&7). These are just simple Bible facts.

 

AresMan,

Why do you equate 'intend' and 'cause'? I intend for my children to respect their elders but if they do when I am not around then I do not cause it. I might contribute to it indirectly by my influence over them, but that's about it.

I don't think that's how we treat God. But consider this - think of the most disgusting, perverted, twisted, mind-boggling, puke-inducing sin conceivable and ask yourself, since God knew before He created the world that it would happen, why did e create the world anyway? If He doesn't create the world that sin doesn't happen. If He creates the world a little differently then perhaps that sin doesn't happen. And yet He intentionally created the world knowing that if He did so everything would happen just as it has happened. I don't see how anyone can get around this, except by denying God's foreknowledge.

 

jarhed,

How do you KNOW it is not God's will that you write this post? And how do you KNOW that God did not put in your heart the will to write?

How do you know?

Here is an example of a king that did not know....he merely thought.

In Isaiah 10, God is doing some speaking;

"Destruction is certain for Assyria, the whip of my anger. Its military power is a club in my hand. Assyria will enslave my people, who are a godless nation. It will plunder them, trampling them like dirt beneath its feet.

But the king of Assyria will not know that it is I who sent him. He will merely think he is attacking my people as part of his plan to conquer the world.

After the Lord has used the king of Assyria to accomplish His purposes in Jerusalem, He will turn against the king of Assyria and punish him--for he is proud and arrogant.

He boasts, "By my own power and wisdom I have won these wars. By my own strength I have captured many lands, destroyed their kings, and carried off their treasures. By my greatness I have robbed their nests of riches and gathered up kingdoms as a farmer gathers eggs. No one can even flap a wing against me or utter a peep of protest."

Can the ax boast greater power than the person who uses it? Is the saw greater than the person who saws? Can a whip strike unless a hand is moving it? Can a cane walk by itself?

Listen now, king of Assyria! Because of all your evil boasting, the Lord, the LORD Almighty, will send a plague among your proud troops, and a flaming fire will ignite your glory. The LORD, the Light of Israel and the Holy One, will be a flaming fire that will destroy them. In a single night he will burn those thorns and briers, the Assyrians. Assyria's vast army is like a glorious forest, yet it will be destroyed. The LORD will completely destroy Assyria's warriors, and they will waste away like sick people in a plague. Only a few from all that mighty army will survive--so few that a child could count them!

Acts 4:27-28

"That is what has happened here in this city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. In fact, everything they did occurred according to your eternal will and plan.

I tell you jarhed, He who boasts should boast ONLY of what the LORD has done.

Daniel 4:35

All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him. He has the power to do as he pleases among the angels of heaven and with those who live on earth. No one can stop him or challenge him, saying, `What do you mean by doing these things?'

Does anybody know how to be thankful anymore?

Everybody is so ready to credit themselves with anything and everything all the time.

If God has included you in His good things boast of Him! Boast of Him always! In good times and in bad times boast of the LORD!

Phil 1:6

And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again.

KJB

 

2BHizown,

AMEN!

KJB

 

My bible doesn't say that God knows the beginning from the end..... It rather says..... "Declaring the end from the beginning".... He declared the end... from the beginning.... Insomuch as whatever he declares comes to pass..... I think I have to give heed to the fact He is pretty much in control of all that comes to pass.....

Ps 135:6 Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.

Note: Whatsoever.... He pleased..... that He did...

Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

And what is his work?

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

God's work was that the 'whosoever' would believe.. And who are the whosoevers.... They are the as many as were ordained to eternal life.

Please feel free to hermanute and exegete and hebrew this and greek that..... and tell me why this all isn't so....

Every word of God is pure, He is a shield to those who put their trust in him....

 

I posted earlier regarding God’s Decretive Will, God’s Preceptive Will, and God’s Permissive Will but the post was largely ignored. God's Permissive Will is involved in the above, but not his Preceptive or Decretive Will. </font>[/QUOTE]Agree completely! Yet there are those here who would say that God cannot be sovereign unless He absolutely causes to happen every minute detail good or evil to the same ultimate and decretive level. To me, that is a limited view of sovereignty based on man's finite logic. But of course, anyone can argue that anything else is based on man's finite logic, and I can't argue with that either.

 

I guess He then chooses not to receive enough credit?

 

This thread has a lot of texture to it. I like it.