By Roy Waldrom
A man wrote to me.
A friend of mine was going on about us being predestined and that some are predestined and some aren’t. I guess that shook me up a bit as I think it was tapping into some childhood roots when my dad always did things with my older brother and left me out. He was dad’s favorite as far as I can always remember. This friend said that the scriptures say that God hated Esau and loved Jacob, as well that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened by God and that God had predestined him as well as Judas to do His bidding. I don’t seem to be able to get on top of this at the moment and have just been avoiding the issue when talking with God. The more God given revelation I can get the better. I’m fed up with doctrines that really don’t build up or edify even if they are in the Bible.
Here is the reply.
After many years of reading the Bible through at least once a year, it has become clear to me that the Church is full of LAW. It continues to drag the laws of the Old Testament into the church age and make some new ones. From the garden to Calvary, man was under law, put another way, the judgment of God that included all the curses of the law. Man had no choice, he only had the knowledge of Good and Evil to get direction from. Out side that man was lost.
Along came redemption through the Cross. Jesus died for the sin of the world, Father God removed all His judgments, all that was binding was removed. The way to the Tree of Life was open again for man to eat and live. Man then had a choice to live in the new nature, or, the old one. Being a Christian is a moment, by moment, walk, getting all knowledge from the Tree of Life. The other tree, every time a person eats of it, they eat death. “The day you eat of it, you shall die.”
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is all about Law, the Tree of Life is all about relationship. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. There is no Law after Calvary, just relationship. If no relationship, man reverts to Law which proves he has no relationship.
Father God removed all his judgments at Calvary and only asks one thing in return, which is that we remove ours. It is only judging that destroys relationships.
What was wrong with Esau?
He was full of pride.
Pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride is located in judging.
Judging is to play God.
Judging is one thing forbidden to man, Father God has reserved that for Himself.
His glory he will not give to another.
For God so loved the world, John 3:16.
No one is left out.
What makes man miss out is mans choosing.
Now down to predestination.
From Father God’s stand point, He knows the beginning from the end.
He let us into a little of that RE the destination of Satan.
Jesus died for the sin of the world, which includes Satan’s sin.
Satan could be saved, but we know he won’t because of pride.
How do we know? Read the end of the book.
Many are called, but few chosen.
Who does the choosing?
We do, we have a free will.
He has called all, Jesus died for all.
The gospel message is not just about salvation, saving people from hell, it is all about creating an army that are trained in this life to reign with Christ for 1000 years on this earth, then for all
eternity on the new heaven and earth.
The entrance to that army is to repent.
All this can be looked at another way. All I say and do, does it build relationships or smash them?
Also if I do not steal as obedience to the law, my heart is not changed.
When I walk by the Spirit, the Spirit does not steal, hence nor do I, I do not want to.
It is only the Spirit that gives life with a capital L.
There was a man who believed in predestination and very sure of himself until he realized that his own daughter might not be ‘chosen’ and there was nothing he or she could do about it! He freaked out completely which took him into deep depression. Showed how far he was from relationship!
Man cannot create life, man can only manipulate life.
Man can take life and destroy it, first by the tongue because life and death
are in the power of the tongue. Everything man makes ends up in death.
Instincts, gut feeling, intuition, where do they come from?
A smart man from the past called it a divine stroke of madness, the
nearest he would come to acknowledging there is a God.
He that comes to God, must believe He is.
The moment a person acknowledges there is a supreme being, a creator of it all,
they will receive understanding.
An atheist is a believer in God, one can not disbelieve without having
believed in the first place.
Disbelief leaves people in total confusion, always seeking and never coming to a place of rest.
To be truly Christian is to believe and live as Jesus did by the indwelling presence of the Holy
Spirit, no more no less, all about walking in communion with the Holy Spirit.
It is a relationship that starts with an experience and is maintained by an
experience, not a set of rules which end up as religion.
Man was not left to live in the unknown, which he will do if he does not get
in contact and communion with the one who knows the unknown.
Contact Roy Waldrom
May, 2007