[Mr. Gary Petty] So, predestination. It is incredibly complex of a concept. And yet it's very, very important because we have in the United Church of God—in most of the Churches of God—we have a rather unique viewpoint of this. Many of our doctrines—whether it's the Sabbath—you can find other churches that keep the Sabbath, or even some other churches that keep the Holy Days, or so many of the beliefs that we have; our viewpoint on predestination is very similar to the Methodists and some other Protestant groups. But then we have something we add to it that's different and it's unique. I have only found some Sabbath-keeping groups back in the 1800s that have the similarities to this. So, we have a unique sort of viewpoint of this that I want you to understand it because it is a complex problem.

Predestination. The most common belief about predestination in Catholicism, Lutheranism, all the Calvinistic churches, the reformed churches, the Puritans… There's a belief about predestination that is the majority actually of Christians that there's another view that evangelicals have and the old Methodists have. But the view that is the most common actually goes clear back to Augustine who lived in the 400s. It is surprising how many doctrines today that's the Catholic Church and in mainline Protestant churches, their doctrines go back to him. I was going to bring... I don't have all his writings at home, I was going to bring the 12 volumes I do have, and they're all the size of an encyclopedia. Okay? No, I have not read all of Augustine. I've read enough to call him Augustin, which is his name in Latin. So, I feel like I can personally call him Augustin. But outside of that, I have not read all 12 volumes. And neither should you, by the way. But if you want to understand certain teachings, Augustine, he developed the concept. He looked at the Bible and he said, "God had a relationship with Israel, now He has a relationship with the church." He went through the places in the scripture where the word “predestination” is used and he formulated some concepts.

One was when Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden. From that point on, every human being at conception is evil and condemned to hell. Everybody's predestined to hell, except God comes along and He pulls a few people out of hell, you know, their predestination to hell, and He gives them eternal life to show God's grace. So, that viewpoint there, although it's been modified by the Catholic Church and modified by others, that's the basis. The basis of predestination is an idea that God has already predestined people to heaven or hell. That's where God is working from, and we're all on one path or the other. Evangelicals say, "Yes, we're all on one path or the other, but God can pull us off the one path and put on the other." So, they look at it, "No, we can still respond. People who are going to hell can still come back.” And, you know, that's why you got to get out and predestined land, this is why you got to get out with missionaries. You can bring people back into line and get them off that path, but there's these two paths. And everybody's making their decision in this lifetime. Everybody makes their decision in this lifetime, and everybody ends up in one place or another.

Do human beings really have free will then? And there's a... They struggle with that. Some true Augustinians say, "No. You really don't have free will." God wakens you up, and your free will says, "Oh, I like God.” From that moment on, you're saved.  And, you know, we're going to talk about free will because there is some elements about free will we have to understand. And we're going to understand salvation, which predestination has to do with salvation. Why did God allow human beings to be exposed to evil? And that was another thing that really just confused people and why it would help develop the common doctrine of predestination. And then one of the big issues in predestination is, can a person resist God's grace? And the answer for those from the Augustinian or Calvin—John Calvin believed the same thing, which he was a Protestant reformer—that no, you can't resist God's grace. This is where we get the concept you hear, "Once saved, always saved." Okay? This all goes back to this: everybody's on a road to either heaven or hell at birth. God… In the pure Augustinian “Eh, you're already determined. You're going one way or the other.” The more evangelical is “Nope, you can get people off the path to hell and bring them over, and it’ll change their destination here.” But the general agreement is once you come into this path, you can't get off of it. Once you're saved, you're saved. That's it. And, you know, you're going to be in heaven.

So, we're going to look at predestination. It's complex. So, I'm going to try and—and there's no way to cover this subject—but try to give you a concept of it by going through, first of all, some very simple things everybody knows. Okay? We're going to start with what we know. In fact, some of the things I'm going go through here at the beginning we've actually covered in the last six months in a number of sermons. So, it's even some things we've talked about. Okay? So, let's start in Isaiah 46 because there is predestination mentioned in the Bible. And we have to figure out, what does that mean? What is God telling us? Isaiah 46:8. God is talking here, and He inspires Isaiah to write:

Isaiah 46:8-10 "Remember this, and show yourselves men; Recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’"

 Now, some have taken this to the farthest extent that God determines everything. Well, God doesn't determine everything. I mean, does God...like in the sermon I gave a few weeks ago, you know, God even told Hosea at one point, "You tell the Israelites I'm not picking their kings, I'm not picking their princes. They pick their own kings. I wouldn't pick these people." There was a point where God just said, "I'm through picking your kings. You pick your own kings." And, of course, at that time in Israel, it was an absolute mess, and they were in rebellion against God.

So, we do know what God says is He has a plan and He works through history to carry out that plan. Now, if He determines everything, then we have no free will, because we have to define free will here in a minute too. If we really have choices to make, and that's what free will is (the ability to make choices) then God can't make all the decisions for us, or we really don't have choices. So, He makes the choices He needs to make to determine His plan to be carried out. Much of the rest of it is us and what we're doing. We're the source of so many of our problems.

But we also have to go back to Adam and Eve. And I talked about this in a sermon recently, but if we go back to Adam and Eve, and we know the story. Adam and Eve only knew good. Right? They only knew good. Satan came into the picture. The problem is God let him. I mean, you can only come to a couple of conclusions here. He either snuck in and God was like, "Oh, no. I didn't see him," or God let him come into Eden, which means that He was deliberately allowing, He wasn't causing, allowing Satan to present evil to Adam and Eve. He was allowing them to do that. And, of course, we know what happened. Satan came in, deceived Eve, Eve convinced her husband, and they both sinned. And their experience changed. What they were now was a mixture of good and evil. Excuse me. All they'd ever known was good. All they had was good. Now they were a mixture of good and evil.

One thing about predestination (the Augustinian concept of predestination) is all people are so evil, absolutely corrupted, that at conception, they are condemned to hell, and God doesn't care. That's what they deserve. It's only through the mercy of God that a few are saved. That happens right at conception. You're already condemned because He looked at your nature and said, "It's totally, completely corrupted." Now, we know it's corrupt, but we also know when we look at humanity, it's still capable of good. Now, being capable of choosing good sometimes doesn't equal salvation. We're going to have to go through that. But human beings become a mixture of good and evil. They're a mixture of good and evil. So, they're capable of good, but they're also capable of evil, and everybody does both. That's what happened. So, Adam and Eve now are kicked out of Eden, and they have to learn to start making choices. The only conclusion we can really come to is that God allowed Satan to come into the garden to influence Adam and Eve, to present them with a choice because it was His plan to do so. In other words, this is, “Okay, I'm stepping back. You get to now find out what evil is.” which means that it is God's plan for every human being to have to choose between good and evil. Now, you and I have a problem that Adam and Eve didn't have, but it didn't seem to help them. You and I were born into a world of good and evil. They were created in a world with good. So, we're already at a disadvantage.

But there's another problem. And once again, I mentioned this at a sermon recently. And that is when the apostle Paul says that Satan is the god of this age, he's the god of this age, he literally means that. When Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden, Satan became the god of this age. He influences every human being, every human being, you and me, everybody has been influenced by Satan. He's the god of this age. So, what happened is—remember this—they get kicked out, they start having children. It doesn't take long, Cain kills Abel. It doesn't take long until murder takes place. You know, they start producing generations of people, and it becomes a mess. There's all kinds of rebellion against God and there's all kinds of sin. Why? Because every human being is capable of both. And who's the major force of influence in their lives? It's the god of this age. So, you look at that and you think, "We're doomed." Right? We're absolutely doomed because that's what every human being is, but remember God has a plan. And we're going to look at that plan, and we're going to look at how predestination fits into that. So here, a loving, caring God allows human beings to be exposed to evil in order to teach them how to choose. Now, that means you have to have a certain amount of free will. Free will is the ability to choose. Adam and Eve had free will. They could choose. They were shown these two things, and they chose the wrong one. So, human beings have the ability to choose, but human beings are, by nature now, influenced by Satan. We choose back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. One day we choose some good, the next day we choose some bad. Every day, we choose some good and some bad. That's what human beings do. And so, nothing really works.

Let's go to 1 Peter 1 because... No, I tell you what. Before we go there, let's go to someplace else because I want to talk about...I was talking about this idea that human beings are cut off from God. There's something even more profound happening here. Being cut off from God, and you'll see this all through the Bible, it say that human beings live in spiritual darkness. Spiritual darkness. How do you and I come out of darkness? This is what Jesus says in Matthew 13. This is the parable of the sower. We're not going to read the parable of the sower. He gives them an explanation of what it means. He gives them the parable. They're confused to what it means, and then He gives them an explanation. But I want you to really think about what Jesus says here.

Matthew 13:10 "And the disciples came and said to him, 'Why do you speak to men in parables?'" Now, what's interesting is you know by what He says, "These people don't understand anything you're saying." They didn't understand what He was saying either. "Why do you teach them in parables? We get it, they don't." "No, you don't," He said. So, He gives them an explanation. Why would you tell a parable? You know, sometimes I'll tell a parable in a sermon. Why? To help you understand the sermon better or tell a story to help you understand the sermon better. Right?

Well, that's why Jesus was talking parables, to help them understand. Well, let's look at what He says.

Matthew 13:11 "And He answered and said to them, 'Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not yet been given.'" To them, it has not been given. I want you to think about that. Jesus said, "I am telling you the truth, and I am deliberately hiding the truth from them." And who was He talking to, by the way? He was talking to Jews who followed the Old Testament, who kept the Sabbath and the Holy Days and didn't eat pork and all kinds of things that we would agree with, who worshipped the true God. And He says, "Now I'm telling those people, I'm telling them parables because I don't want them to know what I'm teaching."

Matthew 13:12-13 "For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." And then He gives a prophecy from Isaiah that says the same thing, and then verse 16, here's what He says to His disciples.

Matthew 13:16-17 "But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." The earth, the world, all human beings live in spiritual darkness. And Jesus Christ said to His disciples, "They live in spiritual darkness because we”—He and God—"had put them in spiritual darkness."

This is real important to understand. Humanity, since they got kicked out of Eden has been ruled over by the god of this age and has lived in spiritual darkness. And God has not shone the light much throughout history. He has, He's shone it, but not much. Why would He do that? Why would He leave us in darkness and then, not even talk to people to let them know they live in darkness? Why is He doing what He's doing? Well, He has a plan to get humanity out of darkness, but remember, we have a premise here. God, in order to have human beings learn what they have to learn to meet their ultimate purpose—which is to the children of God—they have to be exposed to good and evil, and they have to learn to choose between the two. They have to learn to choose between the two. So, the world for thousands of years has lived in darkness and the world for thousands of years has had human beings that keep trying and trying and trying their mixture of good and evil, and nothing really works. 1 Peter. Now, let's go to 1 Peter 1.

So, are you with me so far? Because we're in the part here that we've covered a lot. And you all know, you've been around most of you a long time.

1 Peter 1:17-19 Peter says, "And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear;" Your stay here means on earth. "knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." So, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is how God reconciles man back to Him to start to bring him out of the darkness. Notice what he says next.

1 Peter 1:20 "He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God."

So, he tells the Church, Peter does, that the reason you have hope and faith is because you know from the foundation of the world. In other words, the moment Satan whispered in Eve's ear and the thought entered her mind, the play was put in. It was just started.

From that moment forward, Christ was going to die. He was going to die in a certain time. There was going to have to be an Abraham, there was going to have to be an Israel so that the Messiah could be there. There was going to have to be a Judah. Now, all these things were going to have to happen and there was going to have to be certain things happen for a church to be about. There was going to have to be all kinds of things to happen throughout history so that you and I could be sitting right here on this Saturday afternoon. God put in play… We're going to have to do this here and this here and this here and this here so that we get what we want in this time of darkness. We're not accidents here. You know, either we have received something special, which sounds arrogant, or we truly are arrogant. Now, if we really receive something special, we shouldn't be arrogant, we should be absolutely humble and a little bit afraid. What does it mean to be a recipient of something special from God? This has to do with predestination. So, God put a plan in place. And still, the world has stayed in darkness, except for these little periods of light, little bits and pieces of light that appear all over the place. But basically, the earth is still in darkness. And God is holding back certain things, His intervention. He's actually holding back His intervention. You know, Paul writes in 1 Timothy that God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. God desires every human being to be saved. And yet, we know from the Scripture they're not. That tells us something else too.

God could force everybody to be saved by grabbing hold of our mind and making us automotons. That wouldn't be that hard. I mean, God could do that. He doesn't do it. Instead, we are supposed to participate. We're supposed to have some say in whether we do this or not. I'm talking about free will again. But our free will's all messed up. Right? Every day, we just choose good and evil back and forth. Our free will's all messed up. And yet, that free will is supposed to set how we participate with God so that we can receive salvation. But God desires all people be saved, but all people aren't going to be saved. It's what He wants, but He's not going to force that to happen. So, God is going to carry out this plan without intervening with free will. He's not going to stop human free will. And yet, He's going to end up with His outcome. How does He do that? How does He end up with the outcome that He wants without interfering with our free will? Well, in some cases, some people will go to the lake of fire because they will not submit to what He's doing. But it appears that the great majority of human beings eventually will. How does He do that? This comes down to the concept of election. Okay? So, we know where we are, we see what God's doing. Throughout history, in order to carry out this plan, He elects people or groups of people. He chooses them.

Now, the word elect in Greek is not what we think of in English, you know, which is to actually vote on something. Although in Greek, I mean, if you belonged to Athenian democracy, you could elect somebody by voting for them. But it literally just means to choose. To choose. So, God chooses people, places, individuals, all through history to carry out what He's doing to accomplish what He wants to accomplish. So, this concept of election, which is mainly used as a term in the New Testament, you will see all through the Old Testament where God says, "I choose. I choose Abraham. I choose this person. I choose these people." He chose ancient Israel to fulfill part of history, what he wanted done to complete the plan. But there's something very, very important to understand about ancient Israel. We've made this point before. But if you're going to understand predestination, you have to understand this. Ancient Israel was elected by God to carry out His plan. But you think about this. Now, some of you are joining the Wednesday night Bible studies that we're doing on the minor prophets. And every minor prophet so far, except Jonah, every one we've done so far, there's a part in there where God tells ancient Israel, "I am going to punish you. And sometime in the future, I will bring the Messiah and I will save you." You find in Ezekiel, you find in Isaiah, you find in Jeremiah. "I will pour out My Spirit upon you. I will give you a new spirit." In other words, understand they are not promised salvation during the time of the Old Covenant.

Now, there were a handful. I mean, Abraham, Moses. You know, you find people who received salvation. We know it because they received the Holy Spirit. They received the Holy Spirit, so they received salvation. But the great majority of Israelites did not receive eternal salvation. He told them over and over and over again, "There will come a time when I will give this to you." This is the problem now that the Augustinians and Calvinists have a problem with, Augustinians and Calvinists. Wait a minute. What do you mean there'll come a time? They're dead. They're already in hell. So, here's what they did. Replacement theology. All of the promises made to ancient Israel have now been switched over and applied to the church, which makes God a liar because when He says to any of the prophets, "You go to these people and you tell this, I am going someday to bring salvation to you," Ezekiel said, "And there will be a resurrection. And all the bones will come together. The people will come up and breath will come into them, and God will give them His spirit." That's a lie. If that's been switched to the church, what Ezekiel said to them was a lie. I think replacement theology is one of the most terrible heresies there are because it makes God to be a liar.

But we have a problem. Wait a minute, wait a minute, remember, the whole premise of predestination is every person in their lifetime chooses whether to go to heaven or hell, every person. And predestination is where you go one path or the other, and God's already set you down the path anyways. God's already chosen your path, and you're headed down it. How can you have people in the future being saved? So, they changed all that to mean something totally different.

So, what we have is God electing people to do things for Him to carry out His plan. And then we have, in the New Testament, election for salvation. There are people in the Old Testament elected for salvation, but it's not the general thing that's happening. We do have it in the New Testament. 1 Thessalonians. I'm sorry, 2 Thessalonians 2. You see why this is important. We're attacking one of the core doctrines of the majority of Christians, well, that know their doctrines. You know, today, we have two types of Christianity. We have cultural Christianity, and we have some semblance, an attempt at Biblical Christianity. The cultural Christianity is the overwhelming number of people in the country. It has nothing to do with the Bible. In fact, for the first time in history, according to Barner Research, a majority of people in the United States don't believe in the Biblical God, a majority. It's over 50%. They believe in something, you know, some spiritual thing out there. Maybe it's the universe. “We worship the universe” or whatever. There may be some god, but they don't believe in the Biblical God. That's unbelievable. That number is unbelievable. And out of the people who do believe in God, an overwhelming number of them believe that Jesus really wasn't divine and He sinned.

So, you know, I listen to the radio and I hear these, you know, old-time preachers talking about repenting and accepting Jesus as the Son of God and all of this, and you realize they're talking to a very small amount of people in the United States. The majority don't accept that anymore.

2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 Paul says, "But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning,"—notice this—"chose you." Okay, election. You're chosen. This is written to the church. From the beginning, God knew you before you knew yourself. Okay? God knew you before you knew God. “For salvation through sanctification by the spirit and belief in the truth to which He called you by our gospel for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

So, your election isn't the same election of ancient Israel. The promises made to ancient Israel were, "You follow me," God says, "and you will have rain in due season. And I'll drive out your enemies. You'll have good crops and lots of strong children. And you won't have any diseases." God hasn't promised any of that to us. What He's promised us is eternal salvation in the family of God. That's what He's promised us.

Remember, ancient Israel was told, "And someday, you'll get salvation." Okay? "You'll get all this physical stuff and then someday you'll get salvation." I'm not saying God doesn't give us physical things because He does. But that's not the core of the gospel of the church. The gospel of the church is, "Repent, be baptized, and become part of the family of God. Receive salvation." And that's why the gospel message of the church broke away from Judaism because it went to the world. It went to everybody. Everybody gets this message. Election today is everybody that God calls and He chooses to come into the understanding of what they're called to do today. And it's not to receive a physical blessing. It is to receive salvation. We're getting closer and closer to understanding predestination.

Now, remember though, God's Spirit has not been made, and it says here by the way, through sanctification. You can only be sanctified in this sense by having the Holy Spirit given to you. So, the overwhelming number of people in the history of humanity have never received God's Spirit, never. It wasn't even offered to them. In fact, they were blinded and God left them in darkness. Jesus said, in fact, the people I'm talking to—Who were the people of God. The elect of God in the sense that they were physically supposed to do something for God on earth—He said, "Yeah. They're not going to get this either, guys. That's why I'm not telling it to them plain." He left the world in darkness. I mean, He had 12 guys, and that was it, and some women. I mean, there were other people that were coming along with Him. But, you know, He didn't have that many people. And He said, "No. I'm showing you the real light." These people are in half-darkness, even the Jews of Jesus' time. All of Israel throughout all their history was at best in half-darkness. And a lot of the time, they were in total darkness. At best, they were in half-darkness. The church is called to come fully and completely into the light, and salvation is being offered to us. So, the question comes up then, okay, God has to get along and give us the light. Yes. You and I don't turn on the light, you and I don't determine the light. We don't know what light is.

Before God comes into our lives, we are at best in a little bit of light. I mean, at seven years old, I began to understand God's way a little bit. But I was just in a little bit of light. I didn't have God's Spirit in me yet. It took a long time to get little bits and pieces of light until one day the light comes on. I said, "Oh, my, there's a lot of darkness out there." In our case, there's a lot of darkness in here because the light sheds inside of us too. So, we are called to come out of the darkness. Israel never came totally out of the darkness because they were only offered future salvation. Oh, man, that just drives predestination people nuts. How do you have a future salvation when everybody's being judged right now? But you and I are not called to a future salvation, our day of salvation is right now. God turned on the light. He called you, He elected you because He chose you. And now, you must participate. Can we resist that? Let's go to Romans 8. We're starting to get an understanding here now of your calling and why your calling is different than... It's similar to Abraham's because Abraham was offered salvation. It's different than the average Israelite throughout history because they weren't called. Well, they were called for future salvation. But the whole world, the whole world has a chance at future salvation.

Romans 8:28-30 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."—We're back to you can't come out of the darkness on your own. Someone's got to turn on the light, someone's got to call you out, someone's got to choose you—"For whom He foreknew." Okay. Remember, you didn't discover God. "Yeah. I was looking for God. I was really searching and searching for God, and I'm so glad I found Him." No, you didn't. He found you. Why do you think you were searching for Him? Why do you think you were searching for Him? He found you. He knew you before you ever knew Him. "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined." Okay. So, what is the destiny of those who God calls and chooses and sanctifies? Remember, to be called and chosen, you have to respond with faith. You have to respond with obedience. So, God calls out of the darkness. You say, "I'm here," and He shows you some light, and you respond to it. So, He chooses you. So remember, He initiates everything. You and I don't bring anything to this table except our response. And we respond and we respond, and He works and He works, and He brings us out into the light. He says, "He also predestines to be"—To be what?—"To be conformed to the image of His son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, who He predestined, these He also called, whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified." You have received a predestination. You were called by God because He knew you before you knew Him. And He called you, and you responded. And because you responded, He says to you, "You now have a destiny."

Now, let's just step back a minute though and realize every human being God wants to give this destiny to. Now, we're going to get into our predestination this is really all about. It's about when God decides to give you your destiny. It's not, "Oh, you're predestined to hell, you're predestined to heaven," it's, "I have a destiny for you, and I will determine when you are called," God says. "And I will determine how you are called and I will determine if you receive it by your response." And when we do respond, He says, "Whom He called, He justified, and whom He justified, He glorified."

When Jesus went to heaven, He said to His disciples, "I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come back." You understand what he was telling them. "You have no idea what I got in mind for you. I'll go wait for a while, but when I come back..." Those people there with Him at that point when He said that, it was personal. "I'm going to go prepare a place for you, John, Peter, James. James, I got something for you. You won't even imagine." He had a destiny. When God called you, He had already predetermined, "Here's what I'm going to give you." You know, when Jesus Christ comes back, every one of us has a role to play in His Kingdom and I don't know what it is, I don't know what your role is. I don't even know what my role is. But you're being prepared for that. Every single one of us is being prepared for specific reasons by God so you have a destiny. You are predestined. It's not that you wake up every day and say, "God, do you have any idea what you want to do with me?" And God says, "I don't know. I've been wondering why I called you anyways." That's not what goes on here.

The Almighty God looks at you and says, "I called you, you responded. I chose you. Christ died for you. I sanctified you by giving you My Spirit. And My Spirit is going to work in you and create you until you become My child. And when you become My child, I got things for you to do." That's your destiny. Oh, not me, right? No. That's your destiny. You're predestined. Now, your neighbor has a predestination with God too. It may not be until the Great White Throne Judgment. God doesn't call everybody now, and He sure doesn't choose everybody now. Many are called, few are chosen. Lots of people get the call, few people respond. You know, well, if you don't pick up the phone, okay, I'll call you later, I'll choose this person. God's choosing people and then giving them a destiny. And this destiny, by the way… You know, it's interesting, every place you see the word predestined or predestination in the Bible, it never has to do with going to the lake of fire. It always has to do with becoming a child of God, every place. In other words, “I've got something for you. I'm working it out.” So, here's the problem then. Does that mean you and I can't resist that? And that's where even a Calvinist, much more than the Augustinians, the Calvinists say, "Nope. You can't resist it. You're going to be there, and you're going to be up there laughing while you watch the people in hell suffer because God chose you and not them." What kind of God would do that?

The bottom line is you're predestined because you're already called. Other people haven't reached that stage where they're predestined yet because, you know, predestination has to do when God calls you. It starts you into the plan and gives you your destiny. It has to do when God calls you, puts you into the plan, and gives you your destiny. Can we resist that? Hebrews 10:26. See why I said this gets a little complicated? Now,I’ll tell you what, after services, I'll be up here in case anybody has questions. You know, I've done that. Sometimes, people will come up. Sometimes, as I told some people this morning, I said, "Oh, no. I probably created more questions than I answered." That's the great thing about the Bible. You now have more questions. Right?

Hebrews 10:26-29 "For if we sit willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." Now, this is more than just the knowledge of truth. We're going to see that we are sanctified in part of the covenant. Not the Old Covenant, the New Covenant. The New Covenant is for salvation. Our salvation isn't the future, our salvation is now. He says, "But a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will be found worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot.”—See, you have accepted Jesus Christ as that sacrifice—"counted the blood of the covenant by which you were sanctified a common thing and insulted the Spirit of grace?"

Remember, everyone is called by an act of grace because you and I can't get out of the darkness. The world is in darkness. And Jesus even said, “And right now we're not even trying to get everybody out of the darkness. It's time for some people, it's not time for others." Now, we are supposed to preach the gospel, by the way, but that doesn't mean we're supposed to shout it from the treetops, and woe one unto us if we don't. But that doesn't mean God's going to call millions and millions and millions of people right now. He's going to call those who He is choosing to this is their predestination time to give them their destiny.

But here we see that you can give up on that destiny. You can give up on that destiny. And this is what the Arminiuns… It was Arminius in the 1600s came out and said, "You know, predestination as taught by all the Catholics and all the Protestants is wrong." And he figured it out, and he was right. He put together a really good explanation on why it was wrong, but he still missed something and that's what I'm going to go through too here today, what he missed. But he understood "No, no, no. You can't look and say God's got everybody on two paths." No. People can change. People can repent. And just because you're on the one path doesn't mean you can leave it. You can leave it and go to the other path. He figured that out. He still was locked into though predestination has to do with your decision today, which puts you in heaven or hell. He couldn't get out of that one.

So, the spiritual blindness is caused by Satan. Only God can open our minds. So, that's an act of grace. A person can lose their destiny by returning to the darkness. So, even though you're predestined, God acts as if it's there because it is there. So, He talks about being erased from the Book of Life. That's a frightening thing. No, no, your name's already there. God says, "Yep, you're there. I've given you everything." Everything you need to be there, God has given to you. Understand that. Everything you need, He's either given to you or He's going to give it to you. He doesn't give us everything all at once. But everything you need to fulfill the destiny He has for you. I mean, you know what excited people about "Star Wars?" "Luke, you have a destiny." Okay. That's what excited everybody. Well, all Christians have a destiny. All Christians have a destiny. And we're predestined for that because we haven't achieved it yet, but we can lose it. We can go back out into the darkness.

Now, here's what's unique about our understanding of this. And it goes back to what I'd already mentioned, the issues of the promises made to Israel about a future salvation. We understand that when Jesus Christ comes back, all those who were predestined to be called during this age and stayed with it, they didn't give it up, they stayed in the light, they will be resurrected to be with Christ, right? Then starts a whole new day of salvation. A whole new day of salvation starts because all the people that are on earth that have gone through the tribulation are now going to have to be taught God's way because their lights come on. Satan's removed. The prince of darkness is gone. Satan's removed, and God turns on the light for the whole world. And so, physical Israel has to be gathered together for wherever they're scattered all over the creation. They have to be gathered together in a... You know, physical Israel goes back to the land. They’re in Isreal, around Jerusalem. Why are they there? Because Christ is there and He says, "Okay. You did nothing but fail. You're now going to go teach people about Me." They have a physical job to do. They're still elected to do that. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But what do we do, the saints that are changed? We've got a world to convert. Understand there's a world to convert because that's their day of predestination. It's their day to choose. And God's not going to say, "You know, you're going to show up in outer Mongolia." And someone's going to say, 'Well, we've decided to remain Buddhist." It doesn't work. The light's on folks. The light's on. You can't do that.

The light will shine in the whole world. And what happens at the end of that? Someone asked me. This is my conjecture, okay? So far, I've stayed pretty much with what the Bible says, but this is my idea. Why does God release Satan at the end of a thousand years? My personal belief is human nature is so sinful it will take that long to get it out of the human race. Every generation will still have a piece of it. I think at the end of the thousand years, they really won't have a choice anymore. Here's what you have to understand about God's judgment. Human beings choose good and evil all the time now, don't they? Every human being out there chooses, and some people become almost totally evil, and yet, some people are really good. But they can't choose salvation. You know why they can't choose salvation? Because at best, they're partially blind, and at worst, they're totally blind. How can you choose something you cannot see? You can't choose something you cannot see. The bottom line is nobody really has total free will until God turns the light on. You can't choose what you don't know.

So, we like to think we have lots of free will, and we do, but in the concept of salvation, you can only have, only have free will when God turns a light on because now you have something to choose. So, we can't get too haughty about ourselves. "Well, you know, I chose God." You didn't even know what to choose, I didn't even know what to choose, except God came along and turned the light on and the darkness went away. He said, "Oh, this is the way I have to choose." Understand that. That is why there's the Great White Throne Judgment. Those people lived in various stages of darkness, most of them in total darkness, their entire lives. So, their free will was remarkably limited. They may choose to be a nice person, but they don't choose salvation because they don't even know what it really means. So, the purpose of the Great White Throne Judgment… This, okay? This is what's missing in all other explanations of predestination. And it's why they have to change all the promises made to ancient Israel because those promises then extend out to everybody.

The purpose of the Great White Throne Judgment is to resurrect all the people who had ever lived and God turned the light on. So, think about it. Satan's released for a little bit there at the end of the millennium. Why? Because those people have to make a choice. Life is getting so easy and good. They're living under Jesus Christ, they don't even have anything to choose anymore. Everybody has to choose. But then Satan's removed. Why? All the people at the Great White Throne Judgment, they know what Satan's like. They all lived under his rule in darkness. For the first time, the light's on, and now they actually, they get to choose.

For the first time, they actually have the awakening of their total free will that says, "I can choose salvation or not salvation," because they never had it. It's a little scary though for you and me though because this is our day of salvation. Our choice now is for eternity. Your neighbor, the guy who's an agnostic and just parties all the time, doesn't care about anything, probably the lights never come on. He's never really had anything to choose. And that I think brings...This opens this up enormously to understand that predestination is the destiny God wants to give for every human being. And predestination has to do when God elects you, when God chooses you to give you that destiny. Let's look at two last scriptures here, Ephesians 1.

Ephesians 1:3. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation..."—in Him. Remember what He chose to do at the foundation of the earth, or before the foundation of the earth? Sent Jesus Christ. So, from that point on, He was going to choose throughout history. So, we've been chosen. What? To be on a path that we can't come off of? No. We were chosen to have the light come on, we were chosen to be sanctified, we were chosen to be given the opportunity that this is our day of salvation.

Ephesians 1:4-6 He says, “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

Just think about this. What is the destiny God's given you? What is it that He says every day, "This is why you get out of bed in the morning," it’s to be His child forever in His family. That's what you're predestined to. Now, we already read you can leave it. I have to keep saying that because I don't want people to think, "Well, I'm predestined. I can't lose it." No. But we don't have to fear all the time that I'm going to lose it because God will make it work as long as we hold onto God. God won't fail. God won't fail us. We have to become bitter, and we have to go back into the darkness, but God won't fail us.

Ephesians 1:7-10 "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him."

Even here, He says, "The salvation is completed when all things are gathered to Christ." Our salvation is completed when? At the resurrection. Our salvation is completed at the resurrection, but that destiny awaits us. It's what God's preparing us for.

Ephesians 1:11-12 He says, "In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory." And that inheritance is not the land of Israel or rain in due season, or good crops or a quiver of children. That inheritance is the Kingdom of God. That is your destiny. That's what God has called you for.

So, now let's go to Romans, our last scripture we'll look at. Predestination's pretty interesting and it's pretty deep. Yeah. You have been predestined, not in the way Augustine said, not in the way Calvin writes, not in the way the Anglicans believe or the Presbyterians believe or others believe. I can't say, I don't know what the Presbyterians believe on this. Most of what they call the high churches believe in this. In Romans 9, we won't read it, but Paul is saddened because he says, "I'm an Israelite." And he said, "My people aren't the main focus of God's work right now." He said, "The church is the main focus of God's work, and I wish all my people to come into the church, but they're not." So, you know, he's writing to Rome. Most of the people there were Italians, although they were probably people from all over the world lived in Rome. So, I suppose the church would be the same way. And there are some Jews there too. We know that from certain things that are said. And he's saying, "You know what? I wish this place was just full of Jews. Everybody else too." But he says, "I really wish all my people were here, but they're not here." And it bothered him. But he said, "This is part of God's plan. God is doing something. And right now, the focus of what He's doing is not Israel and the physical promises, but the focus is God in the church and Jesus Christ leading the church and salvation. That's the main focus." And so, let's go to Romans 10, and then I want to finish up with just a few verses in Romans 11.

Romans 10:11-13 He says, "For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'"

He does it once again, "Shall receive salvation." Now, what he's saying here is the promises made to the church are greater. The promises made to the church are greater. And he says, "And there's Jews in the church." You know, there are Israelites in the church. There were all kinds of people from all over the world in the Roman Empire in the church. And he says, "I still feel bad because, you know, I wish more of my people were here."

Romans 11:25 Paul says, "For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

He looked at his people and said, “They're not completely blind but they really live in darkness." His people didn't accept Jesus Christ, for the most part. Some did. He said, "They live in darkness." And why? Because the purpose of the church is not just to be the representatives of God on earth but to receive salvation now, to receive our destiny when Christ returns.

Romans 11:26-27 He says, "And so all Israel will be saved as it is written." Now, this is very interesting. He goes back to the Old Testament and says, "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins." You know what? He goes in the Old Testament and says, "Yeah. Here's the promise made to Israel. Their salvation comes in the future. This is a future prophecy." He says, "I look at my people, I wish more would come into the church till I realize their time of salvation is in the future." But see, all peoples anywhere who are called into the church can say the same thing. I mean, if you're Polish, you could say, "Ah, the time of salvation for my people is in the future." Right? If you're from India, you could say, "The time for salvation for my people is in the future. The time of salvation for the church is now. Yet, Paul agonized over this because, you know, he wanted his people, but he realized that wasn't going to happen. It says, "So, all Israel will be saved." I'll make a mention about that. Some people say, "Well, does that mean that by an act of birth, all Israelites are saved?" Well, that's predestination in the extreme. This is why Augustine said, "See, Israel has to be the church. All the church will be saved because God's not going to save all Israel." He just said they're blinded. No. The point made here, and some commentators will tie this into a rabbinical saying of the 1st century. And Paul, of course, had rabbinical teaching. I'm not sure he was doing this. But “all of Israel” was a term they used that just meant, you know, “all the Israelites are going to do this.” It’d be like saying, "Everybody in Tennessee agrees with this." No, they don't. Right?

The point about “all Israel” is... Remember too, if you were an Israelite and you rebelled against God and you became a pagan, you were no longer an Israelite. So, all the Israelites who turned to God, which seems to be the overwhelming majority just like it seems to the overwhelming majority of humanity, the majority are saved. If they're not saved, it's because, well, you're not an Israelite anymore. I mean, it's like saying all Christians will be saved. If you leave Christianity and you go out and become an atheist and hate God, you're not going to be saved. Because why? Well, you're not part of the church anymore. So, all the church will be saved doesn't mean everybody who says they're in the church will be saved. The same way with Israel. But the point he's making here is “Your time is still in the future.” This is a new concept of predestination in terms of how it's taught today. It was obviously Paul because he reads the Old Testament. Yeah. They'll be resurrected, and they'll have an opportunity to receive their destiny. So, their time, they're predestined to be called at that time, They're not predestined to be called or chosen at this time.

Romans 11:28 He goes on, "Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake." He's telling the Gentiles there, the Romans there, you know, they've actually been enemies of God because why? It says because they're blinded. They've got bits and pieces of it. I mean, they have part of it. You know, he's writing at a time when the temple still exists. They're still doing sacrifices. They keep the Sabbath. They keep the Holy Days. And he says, "You know, they got part of this, but they're still partially blind." They may not be totally blind like an absolute pagan out here or the worst barbarians. The Scots and Irish, those are the worst barbarians. They painted themselves blue and fought naked. That's just weird. I mean, for Romans, that was unbelievable. You wore armor, and you marched in, and you were highly trained. And these guys come screaming out of the brush naked and painted blue. Okay. Now, how did I get off on that? Okay. I get a little, you know… The Scot-Irish in me, and I guess I, you know... Every time I hear bagpipes it's like, "Oh, we're going to go to war, eh?" Anyways, let's get back to Paul.

Romans 11:28 He says, "Concerning the gospel, they're enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of the Father." He says, "You know, they're still elected by God." Why? Because God loved Abraham, and God promised Abraham some things. See, He's still going to work through those people in the future. Why? Because He promised to Abraham. That's why. That's what He said. So, they were elected still. But their election isn't the same as the church because they haven't received salvation yet.

Romans 11:29 He says, "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." He says, "But when God told Abraham, 'I'm going to do this with your descendants,' He meant it." When God tells you, "I have prepared a destiny for you," and you're predestined for that. If you want it, He means it. He's not calling that back. He's not going to change it. He's not going to change His mind. He's not going to decide, "You're not worth it." Only you and I can remove ourselves from that. He will not. That's the God we worship.

Romans 11:30-32 He says, "For as you were once disobedient to God, yet now having attained mercy through their disobedience," the disobedience of the Jews, "Even so, these also now have been disobedient that through the mercy shown you, they may also obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience that He might have mercy on all." God chooses when and how and where to bring about salvation. He's not done with the world yet. He's not done with humanity yet, but understand what has been offered to you. God has a predetermined plan of salvation that involves when He's going to do things and what He's going to do. It involves firstfruits, and it involves people after the tribulation during the millennium, it involves the people in the Great White Throne Judgment.

You and I have been called, and He's not going to interfere with our free will. He's finally actually given us a choice. But you know why? I have come to the conclusion the only way we can love the way God loves is we have to have free will. We have to choose to love. If He takes away our free will, we'll never love, not the way He does. I'm not sure we will ever love the way He does. But you know what I mean? We'll never learn what we have to learn without free will. So, we had it in this limited way making our decisions every day, and then He turned the light on. And now, we're making a choice that's going to determine our destiny. What a privilege. And that's just by the grace of God. That's all that is. That's just by the grace of God. As Christians, you've been called and elected for salvation. You have been predestined to be an eternal child of God. Do you want the destiny? Then that leads us to the question when we understand what's actually happening, there's only one question that matters. Will you follow the destiny God has for you?