REQUEST #1 - "I would like to have you explain the difference between Predestination — as taught in the Bible — and the Fatalism of 'what is to be, will be' thinkers who do not really believe this Doctrine of the Bible."

Well, there is a vast difference between Predestination, Fatalism and Chance (or Fortune).

Fatalists teach that there is a blind, impersonal force, back of which there is no Divine purpose or any other, and over which none has control — nay, not even God — and that things happen in this world and are swept along by this blind power. This is Fatalism.

Chance (or Fortune) means that things "happen" luckily, that things are not controlled and directed by God. According to chance, God can forsee what will happen, but that is all. Everything is of mere luck. And if the advocate of Chance is asked why or how things come to pass, he has no reply except to say that "it just happened."

Predestination, the doctrine of the Bible and the doctrine I believe, is that God has a purpose and He is working all things out according to His Own will and purpose (Ephesians 1:11, Daniel 4:35, Isaiah 14:24 and 46:10).

Predestination teaches that God does nothing nor permits nothing except that which serves to carry out His purpose (Psalms 33:11). This means that GOD IS the SOVEREIGN of the World, the One who does all things as He So wills.

Those who blankly say or believe "what is to be, will be" are as wrong as the advocates of chance. It is true that events are certain, but only so because of the sovereign God who fulfills His Own decrees. Actually, those who believe "what is to be, will be," without giving any consideration for God, are as difficult to convince of the Bible doctrine of predestination as those who believe in chance or fortune.

I do not believe that things just "happen." I believe that a wise, holy, good and sovereign God has the control and guiding hand in every detail of life (Matthew 10:29-30). The only man who does not really want God to have this control, or the man who despises the truth that God does have the control, is the person who does not love God and does not want God in his life. He wants his own will and way. He wants God on one side and he wants on the other. He, like the devils of old, would say, "Leave us alone." But not so; God is sovereign and He Cannot deny Himself.

REQUEST #2 - "Define Bible Predestination with verses on God's governorship over the world."

Predestination, strictly speaking, covers all that God has pre-determined with respect to the world. His working this purpose or predetermined plan out in time is called His Providence. He has his purpose and He works all things according to it.

Here are some Scriptures which reveal to us something of God's governing the earth.

"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." [Revelation 4:11]

Did you ever ask the question, "Why WAS the world made?" Well, here is your answer:  for the pleasure of God. Really! — HIS pleasure, not mankind. God made this world for His own pleasure. He did not make it for man's pleasure, though man enjoys the things God has given him. The chief end of the creation is not the good of man, but the pleasure of God. You no doubt have heard people express an opposite teaching to the Bible on this subject. They have taught that man's good is the chief end of the creation. But this verse teaches otherwise. (also, Proverbs 16:4).

"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." [Psalms 24:1]

God owns the earth, its fulness, and its inhabitants. Vain man holds a man-made document which he calls a deed and he thinks he owns something. But he is only occupying God's own property. As a matter of fact, this verse shows us that man himself belongs to God, and God Can do with man — His Own property — as He So wills.

"For the kingdom is the Lord's: and he is the governor among the nations." [Psalms 23:28]

Read the book of Psalms and you will see that the God of the Psalmist is quite different from the god preached today. The God of the Psalmist was a God who was the King and Governor of the nations. The reason so many people can get no comfort from the Psalms is that they know not the sovereign God of whom the Psalms speak. Their ideas of God are so small that they cannot receive the great truths spoken of by the writer. Why, some people could put their god into their back pockets and never miss him, he is so little.  

But not the God of the Psalms. He is a person of action, not of idleness; He is one of power, not of weakness; He is one of success, not of disappointment; He is one who fills Heaven and earth, performing His will, not one bound up on every side. He is truly God to his people.

David said of Him in Psalms 60:12 —

"Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies." Again David says, "Say unto God, How terrible art thou in works! through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee... Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men." [Psalms 66:3, 5]

"Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wonderous things." [Psalms 72:2]

The only things that the god of many folk can do is what man permits.  He is so weak and tiny that He can't do anything but what they allow. NOT SO, David's God.

Listen to this —

"But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another." [Psalms 75:7]

"But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased." [Psalms 115:3]

"Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants." [Psalms 119:90-91]

"For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places." [Psalms 135:5-6]

"A man's heart deviseth his own way: but the Lord directeth his steps." [Proverbs 16:9]

"The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord." [Proverbs 16:1]

"The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." [Proverbs 16:33]

"The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." [Proverbs 21:1]

"Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath  made crooked?" [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

Author: Bob L. Ross

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C. H. Spurgeon: "How I Learned of Grace"

Born as all of us are by nature, an "Arminian," I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the Grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this.

I can recall the very day and hour when first I received these truths in my own soul — when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron:  I can recollect how I felt that I had grown all of a sudden from a babe into a man — that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God.

One week-night when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, "how did you come to be a Christian?" (...I sought the Lord). But how did you come to seek the Lord? — (the truth flashed across my mind in a moment) — I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him.

I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, "How came I to pray?" — I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. I did read them; but what led me to do so? — Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith; and as the whole doctrine of GRACE opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make it my constant confession.

"I ascribe my change wholly to God."

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