DEWITT TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES

“Foreknowledge”

By C.W. Wood                                                      December 2013

   Can we believe that God saw His creation, every part of it, and every life that would ever be on it and every decision that every person would ever make all their way to the end of his or her life?  And He saw it before He created the world.  If we don’t believe this, then we either don’t know all the Word yet, or else we refuse to believe it all!  He does not require us to understand it, but He will judge us for not believing it.  He not only saw the End from the Beginning, but He saw all that was in between the start and the finish.  And then, after watching every detail of everyone’s life, He made a plan and placed everyone in it according to the decisions that they would make during their lifetime.  I want to make a statement that I hope and pray will clear up a question in some minds.  Here is the statement backed up by our End-time Message:  There will be millions of people in Heaven with Eternal Life, who are not Bride.  But there will be no one there who does not have the Holy Ghost (the New Soul, which is the New Birth)!

   The full meaning of the scripture that tells us that God had full and complete knowledge of every life that He would create; this is hard for us to understand!  He knew before He created anything at all how it would all end up.  He saw every individual’s life, from their first breath to their last breath, before there was a world!  He knew every decision that every person would ever make, including their last and final decision, so there was no guesswork in the plan that He made!  He placed every person in the place on His great checkerboard exactly where they belong, and it was according to the decisions they had made!  Deut. 30:19-20, “I call Heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Verse 20, That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

   He knew every world event that would take place before He created the world!

   Isa. 46:5-13, “To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me that we may be like?

  Verse 6, They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they fall down, yea, they worship.

  Verse 7, They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of trouble.

   Verse 8, Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.

   Verse 9, Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

   Verse 10,  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying,  My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

   Verse 11, Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.

   Verse 12, Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:

Verse 13, I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.”

   There is none like Him, and who will give Him counsel?

   This was Isaiah the Prophet, telling what God would do in the last days.  Don’t wait until you can figure out how God knew it all before you will believe it.  The bible says he had foreknowledge of it all and we are held accountable for believing it.  We can understand what the word foreknowledge means, can’t we?  It means information that God knew before, and the question is, “Before what?”  It is knowledge that He had before He created the world.  So, understanding what the word foreknowledge means, let’s see what the scriptures say about it.

   Rom. 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son…”  

   He predestinated because o what He knew about us, saying that He called and predestinated those that He had previous knowledge about.  He knew what we would be and do before He created the world.

   Rom 11:1-2, “I say then, Hath God cast away his people?  God forbid.  For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”   God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew!

   Acts 2:21-23, And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

   Verse 22, Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth,  a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:

   Verse 23, Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.”

   Did God know what would happen to Him, when He came down to live in a body like ours?  He knew exactly what Pilot and Herod would do!  He knew exactly what every disciple would do at His death.  He knew every Roman soldier’s name that smote Him on the face and pulled out His beard.  He knew the names of the ones who beat His back to shreds.  He knew the names of the soldiers that drove the nails into His hands and feet!  He knew the name of the High Priest that would not be satisfied until He was dead.  He knew He would suffer for 6 hours and then rise from the dead the third day.

   We are reading in the scriptures that there could not ever be one circumstance or happening that God did not already know would take place!

   In 1 Peter, he says he was an Apostle of Jesus Christ, elected to be so by the foreknowledge of God.

   1 Peter 1:1-2, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

   Verse 2, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied.”

   God knew Peter would deny Him, but He also knew what he would do on down the road.  He also knew we would sin, but He knew what we would do on down the road!

  Now we’ve read where the scriptures teach God’s total knowledge before He created!  Now let’s read where His Word Prophet taught it also.  In the following quote, Br. Branham says, God didn’t elect some to be lost!

   QUOTE: THE SUPER SIGN, PAGE 2, 1963, “God knowed the end from the beginning, therefore He could plan everything, that it would work out just to His glory.  And that gives us courage, to know that no matter what comes or goes, God is making everything, the clock ticking just exactly on time.

   Sometimes we get weary, upset.  We get hastily.  We think, “Oh, we must do this or do that.”

   But, remember, God’s clock will be just exactly on time.  All these things has to be this way.  It has to all be done according to His great knowledge, His foreknowledge, for by foreknowledge He could predestinate; not by His desire, but by His knowledge.  God doesn’t predestinate by His desire.  He is not willing that any should perish, but by His foreknowledge He knew who would accept it and who would not.  Therefore He could make everything work according to His big time clock that’s ticking away, for He could foretell the end from the beginning.  And therefore, He knew that we’d live in this day.  He knew that this would be our day.  He has had plans for every day.  And never has one of His plans ever failed.  He is always on time.”  (End of quote)

   QUOTE: C.O.D. BOOK, PAGE 19, “And then, God, before there even was a star, knew that this world would be.  And He knew that I’d be William Branham preaching the Gospel from the pulpit and you would be John doe sitting there listening to it, before the world ever began.  Hallelujah!

   Now, that’s where people sometimes, in the –legalistic Calvinists get all mixed up.  See?  They say, “Why was some ordained to be lost?”  God’s not willing that any should perish.  He don’t want no one to perish, but yet, being God, He knows there’s some that won’t accept it.  See?  See, He had to know the end from the beginning in order to be God.  Didn’t He?”  (End of quote)

   Here again, He says, “God did not ordain some to be lost!”

   QUOTE:  C.O.D.  BOOK PAGES 225-226,  (Jude 1:4)  “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,… (How?)…turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness…)

   “Ordained of old!  Not that God set back on the throne and said, “I’ll save this man, I’ll lose that man.”  That wasn’t it!  God died, and when Jesus died, the atonement covered the entire earth for every person.  But God, by foreknowledge…….Not that He will….He’s not willing that any should perish.  He wanted everybody to be saved.  That was His—that was His Eternal purpose.  But, if He was God, He knew who would and who would not be saved.  If He didn’t know, then He wasn’t the infinite God.  So the Bible teaches that….

   (Our subject is The foreknowledge of God, and how He knew everything and everybody before there was anybody or anything.)

   PAGE 226, Not just to say, “Well you say God don’t know whether she’ll be saved or not.”)  God knowed that you’d be saved, or whether you would or not, before the world ever begin, or He wasn’t God.

   Do you know what the word infinite means?  Look at …look in the dictionary and find out what the word infinite means.  Why, He knowed every flea that would ever be on the earth, every fly, every gnat, every germ.  He knew it before they ever come into existence, or He wasn’t God. Certainly, He knew it.  All right.

   Then, in there, God could not—not say, “I’ll take you and send you to Hell; and I’ll take you and send you to Heaven.”  God wanted you both to go to Heaven.  But by foreknowledge He knew that one would be a shyster, and the other one would be a gentleman and a Christian.  See?  Therefore He had to send Jesus to die, to save that man that He foreknew that wanted to be saved.  Do you get it?  (End of quote)

   QUOTE: HEBREWS BOOK, PAGE 213-214, “Could you imagine God running His office so loosely, as to say, “Well, maybe somebody will think real sad about Me, maybe they’ll come and get saved?”  God don’t have to beg you to do nothing.  Any begging, you need to do the begging, not God.

   And then, Christ died to save those who God by foreknowledge elected to meet Him yonder without spot or wrinkle.  Before the foundation of the world, He seen you in Glory.  That’s what the Bible said, Ephesians the first chapter… the fifth verse.  God predestinated by foreknowledge!

    Now, if God did that (predestinated us before the foundation of the world, and knew everyone of us by name before the foundation of the world, and He Elected us to Eternal Life, and sent Jesus Christ to redeem us, that six thousand years ago He saw us, that we might appear to His praises in Glory),    How can you ever be lost?

   PAGE 214, “Now if you’re saved, you’re saved!  If God saves you tonight, knowing He’s going to lose you ten years from today, He’s defeating His Own purpose (the infinite, Almighty, Eternal, everlasting wisdom of God doesn’t know enough then to know that, whether you will hold out or whether you won’t).  Then, when He saves you, you say, “Well, I’ll give Him a try, I’ll see what He’d do,” (then He does not know the end from the beginning).  God knows what He’s doing, don’t you never worry about that.  It’s you and I stumbling along, God knows what He’s doing.  And He knew we’d…whether we’d hold out or what we would do.

   Now, the Bible said that Esau and Jacob, before either child was born, God said, “I love one and hate the other one”; before they even breathed their first breath, that His election might stand true.  (End of quote)

   Esau chose his own destiny.  ROM. 9:11, misleads a lot of people.  God did not disown Esau before He watched his life from start to finish, then God judged him after he had sinned away his day of grace!

   Now I want to ask a question, Did some angels (people) that were in Heaven, fall from their original position?  Yes!

   Rev. 12:3-4, “And there appeared another wonder in Heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.  And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven, and did cast them to the earth…”

   Br. Branham called these stars angels, some of which fell and followed Lucifer, but two-thirds of them stayed in Heaven with their Creator.

   QUOTE: UNFAILING REALITIES OF THE LIVING GOD, PAGE 30,  “They were once the angels, they were once an angel who did not fall.  One-third of the angels in Heaven fell.  That’s these spirits (wrong spirits) working among people, very religious!...You was all always not right here, you were once somewhere else.” End of quote)

   Jude  1: 4-6, “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

   Verse 5, “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

   Verse 6, And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day!”

   Now, another question, Why did God put one-third of the angels out?  Verse 6 says it was because they kept not their first estate.  Their first estate was Holy Created Beings.  So we see that God had a reason for putting them out, and that reason was in the angels themselves, not in God!

   Iniquity was found in Lucifer, not in God’s plan for Lucifer!  Iniquity was also found in the angels that followed Lucifer and not in God’s plan for them!  Question.  Did God already know who they were and what they would each one do?  Did He warn them not to rebel?  If you are a born-again Christian, you know that God never sends judgment without first warning!  Did He warn Adam and Eve?  Did He warn the people in Noah’s day of the flood?  Did He warn the Egyptians before He killed them?  Did He warn the people in Jerusalem before He allowed Titus to kill the Jews and burn the Temple?  Did He warn the people following Moses not to listen to Dathan’s son?  Did He warn the High Priest, Caiaphas, that He was about to kill the Messiah?  He has always warned the people before He sent judgment!  He has warned the world today through a Word-Prophet that the Bride is about to be caught up in a Rapture.  So the answer to the question, “Did God warn the angels in Heaven not to follow Lucifer?” is “Yes!  He most surely did warn them, but they wandered away anyway and were eternally lost.  Is He warning today not to accuse Him of sin by saying that He created some to be lost?  Yes!  He is calling on those who believe that to get back on the Word, and back in the Message that our Prophet brought!

  Ezek. 18:21-25,  “But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

   Verse 22, All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.

   Verse 23, Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?

   Verse 24, But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live?  All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die

   Verse 25, Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal.  Hear now,   O house of Israel; is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal?

   In Verse 25, the Lord asks us a question that we must answer!  He said, in so many words, “Do I not treat everybody the same?  But you say that I don’t!” the Lord is rebuking us for thinking He has foreordained some to be lost and for not understanding that they made their own choice!  This is the truth about God’s foreknowledge.  Amen.