DEWITT
TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES
ANGELS
ON
PROBATION
By
C.
W. Wood
May 2006
Our sermon this month will
be a continuation of last month’s message. I feel that there needs to be more
explanation concerning the May sermon entitled “Election Verses Man’s
Responsibility.” I am sure some thought that I was not giving GRACE its proper
place in the Scriptures and the Message. Far be it from me to try and bring down
Grace from its high and lofty position. My thought was to try and present
man’s responsibility so that the two doctrines could meet in the middle of the
Spiritual Highway and be compatible one with the other.
My concern is that when
Grace is preached while leaving out man’s responsibility, there can easily be
a wrong understanding enter the minds of unsaved people. When Grace is presented
in such fashion as to leave man supposing that he has nothing at all to do with
his own salvation, then there is a harmful unbalance. I felt strongly to restate
what I believe to be a proper balance between the two doctrines. Man cannot come
to God until he is called, and that is Grace. After he is called he may or may
not come and that is his responsibility. When both Grace and man’s
responsibility are seen in their proper light, there is no danger to either
teaching. Grace is left in its proper place, which is to fulfill the Scripture
in John 6:44, “No man can come
to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him; And I will raise him up at
that day.” This statement, as all other statements in the Scripture, is
true. This leaves the lost man solely dependent on God’s Grace to call him.
Without the call, he is doomed forever in that he would never come to Christ on
his own. He is void of any desire for God, and only filled with the desire to
satisfy his flesh-man, which he will do unless placed under conviction by the
Lord.
And so, we see the Grace of
God as the motivating factor in the Salvation of man. Without it, we are a
doomed race. Now, if it pleases the Lord, let’s look at man’s side of the
thing of Salvation. We have seen that God must instigate it, now let’s see
that once God has called a lost man, and shown him his need of a Saviour, then
the man becomes responsible for answering God’s invitation into the Kingdom.
Jesus said in Matt. 13:15 that after God has called some people, they
“CLOSE THEIR OWN EYES.” It is forever true that they can’t OPEN THEIR OWN
EYES, but after they have been called and their eyes are opened to their need,
then Jesus said, “They close their own eyes.” They refuse to repent and
serve God.
I pray that we can see that
Grace must open our eyes, but also that after we are called we are responsible
for repenting and receiving forgiveness and then the New Birth. To preach grace
without also preaching man’s responsibility is like a bird trying to fly with
one wing. To leave a lost man supposing that he has nothing at all to do with
his own Salvation, at any time during the process, is to leave him doubting that
God would ever think to save a vile creature such as himself. And this is
exactly what the enemy would have him think, that there is no hope for one like
him.
But if we can preach the
Gospel and show that the will of God is that no man should ever be lost, then he
will understand that the most evil person on Earth is welcomed into the Kingdom
of God if he will repent and turn from his sins. II Peter 3:9, “The
Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is
long suffering to usward, NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERSIH, BUT THAT ALL
SHOULD COME TO REPENTANCE.” John 6:37, “……..he that commeth to Me I will in nowise cast out.” Matt.
20:16, “………for many be
called, but few chosen.” If God is not willing that any should perish,
then we can know that He will give every person a chance at Salvation. We
understand then, that all men are called at some point in their lives,
and they must heed the call and repent in order to be saved.
This is his responsibility,
and God leaves the CHOICE up to us, after His call! All the while He is
warning us that He has set before us “Life
and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy
seed may live.” (Deut. 30:19) If this is not true, then God has made man a
robot, programming him to obey God’s will without any say-so of his own. If
man is so programmed, then he has no
will of his own, and he is not a free-moral agent. We know this is not true. Man
is responsible after God calls him.
To bring in the Scriptural
fact of free-moral agency, we will now turn to the title of our sermon,
“Angels on Probation.” Free-moral agency did not start on Earth with man in
his flesh body, but rather, it was implemented in Heaven when God created
Angels. The Prophet said, “So my opinion, the first thing that He made was
Angels……that was before there was even a molecule in the earth; there was
nothing.” (CHRIST THE MYSTERY, PAGE 16) We can know that even the Angels
themselves were not “programmed beings” created with no mind of their own
about serving their Creator.
There is no way to get
around the fact that God, Himself, confronted them with the CHOICE of serving
Him, or the angel named Lucifer. We do know that Scripture says, “God
knew the end from the beginning.” This being so, He knew Lucifer would
rebel before He ever created him, yet He did create him and placed him in
Heaven. God did not tempt Lucifer to sin, and we can be certain he warned him,
even as He did Adam and Eve. At the same time, we should be able to see that
these Angels were on probation as far as they themselves were concerned. God
knew what they would do; nevertheless, they must make their own choices. And we
know that one third chose wrong, while two thirds chose to follow their Creator.
This is our proof that free-moral agency was instigated in Heaven, and that the
Angels were on probation, made to choose their own destiny! We can’t miss this
basic truth; it is simply Holy Ghost logic! God had created all the Angels in
perfection. They were all in eternal bodies, straight from the Hands of their
Creator, with no sins and no flaws. They were in bodies like His own Glorious
Body, in His own likeness, and after His own likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). We
know they were created in perfection because Verse 31 says, “And
God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good-----.”
But although the Angels
were “very good”, God had not created them as His slaves, but rather
with a free will so that they could CHOOSE the path they would take. Again, we
say that God did not want robots,
programmed to obey in spite of their choice. He desired to be worshipped by His
Creatures based on their own free will. In this way He received glory, as they
loved Him, worshipped Him, and obeyed Him because they desired to do so.
Now, one of the great
revelations that God gave His Prophet is that the Bride of every age was at one
time one of those Angels in Heaven that did not fall and follow Lucifer.
QUOTE: UNFAILING
REALITIES OF THE LIVING GOD, PAGE 30, “Let me say one more thing. Creeds
does not satisfy a hungry heart. Creeds won’t satisfy. If a man is hungry for
God, you tell him, say, “Say the Apostles’ Creed, join the church, put your
name on here, be sprinkled or immersed,” or what ever you want to, that
will never satisfy a hungry soul. Cause, they were predestinated, of God to
search for Life. They was once the angels, they was once an angel who did not
fall. Two-thirds (Br. Branham meant one-third) of the angels of Heaven fell;
that’s these evil spirits working amongst people, very religious. You know the
Bible says that. You was just not all always right here. You were once somewhere
else.”
“Remember, sin didn’t
begin on Earth. Sin begin in Heaven, when Lucifer taken and made it. He said,
“I want a denomination, make a great big thing.” went on the North Country
and set up a bigger thing than Michael had. And he was kicked out of Heaven.
And those angels back
there, them spirits. Well, that’s the reason, “When
this earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we have one already waiting.” See?
And that’s the reason “Our name was
put on the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world.” “All the Father has given Me, will come to Me.” (End quote)
There are many more quotes
in which the Prophet tells us that we were once in Heaven in another kind of a
body, and we believe the Prophet. However, we base our final conclusion on the
Scriptures themselves. Gen. 1:26-27, tells us that we were first created
in a body like God’s own body, but we know we are not in that kind of a body
now. At God’s time, we were placed on Earth in this flesh body, to till the
soil. (Gen. 2:5-7) But, a part of us remained in the Heavenlies, still a
Theophany. II Cor. 5:1, “For we
know that our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens.”
QUOTE: GOD’S
ONLY PROVIDED PLACE OF WORSHIP, PAGE 14,
“And we've got to have everything in three's to make perfection. See? And
there's one body here, then that body there which is the--the celestial body,
and then the glorified body in the resurrection. See, that makes it complete.
See? So it's a... It's not a myth; it's not an idea; it's not a spirit. It is a
man and a woman like you are, just exactly.” (End quote)
Our subject is “Angels on
Probation.” Our motive is to show that from the beginning, God has made His
creatures Free Moral Agents, that is to say, with an ability to choose their
own destiny. This fact is clearly shown in that His first creation, the Angels,
having this ability, were made to use it and choose God or Lucifer. Therefore,
we are showing that all God’s creatures, from the beginning until the end,
have been created with this ability, which is to say that man is responsible for
his own destiny.
Now remember, Grace is left
intact in that no man can come until he is called, but once he is called and
sees his need of a Saviour, he becomes responsible and must choose his own
destiny. This makes the doctrine of Election perfectly true, and at the same
time leaves the doctrine of man’s responsibility untarnished. No part of
God’s Word can be ignored. To preach Grace without showing man’s part is
unbalanced, and to preach man’s part without showing Grace is unbalanced. But,
to preach both sides of the page is to show that there will be a need for the
Great White Throne Judgment.
If God had so programmed
His People that they had no choice but to serve Him blindly, and without their
own will in the matter, then we ask the question, “Why would God tell us in Rev.
20 that there is to be a Judgment Seat?” The truth is that “Every
one of us shall give account of himself to God.” (Rom. 14:12) If man has
no say in his own Salvation and if it is solely Grace, leaving nothing at all
for man to do at any time, then a Righteous God could not judge us for failing
to serve Him! We would be compelled to do so, and God could receive no glory
from such.
And so, we restate the
truth that there is a point at which man does become responsible for his own
Salvation. We also know that before this point in time, God’s Grace is our
only hope! Therefore, God’s Grace, and man’s choosing to take advantage
of that Grace, equals Salvation! In this way, God receives glory from His
Creatures. We, without Grace, are doomed, but by accepting it we are saved.
Those whom Grace calls (which is everyone), but who reject it, are lost. Because
God saw the final decision of every creature He could Elect before the
foundation of the world, and put our names in the Lambs Book of Life, never to
be removed! In the same manner, He could also appoint some to damnation, having
seen their final rejection of His Grace.
We must never preach Grace
in such a way as to leave the lost person in doubt as to God’s desire to save
him. The fact that God knows who will and who will not be saved, does in no way
change the fact that He will save all who turn to Him. As the Bride of Christ,
let us put the two doctrines together so that the Scriptural Bird of Salvation
is using both his wings! May we never do away with trusting in Grace that calls
us, and may we never do away with our responsibility to answer that call.
Now, we will look again at
the Angels who were on probation in Heaven. Two-thirds passed the test that God
had set before them, in that they chose to continue serving Him. According to
our Prophet, and the Scriptures, these Angels were placed on Earth in flesh
bodies, and the powerful revelation is that once here they were no longer on
Probation! Having seen the end from the beginning, God had already placed our
names in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Eph. 1:4, “According
as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be
Holy and without blame before Him in love.”
We were put here to
be redeemed, there was no question about it, the fact of our redemption had
already been settled in Heaven. At our physical birth, God would, and did, place
in these flesh bodies a Seed out of our Theophany. In order to serve God’s
purpose of proving His power over the power of Lucifer, we were allowed to be
born lost, and separated from God. But God, knowing what He would do, placed His
Seed in us, knowing that when he watered it so that it sprang into life in us,
it would be Himself again walking the Earth in flesh! I John 4:2, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God; Every Spirit that confesseth that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” There is a double meaning in
this verse. Jesus came in His own flesh body, and now comes in the flesh bodies
of His Elect Saints.
God knows His own, and they
were not placed on Earth still on probation. We were His in Heaven and we are
still His, having been born in flesh. True, we have to be redeemed, but thanks
be to God we were redeemable! All people are not redeemable, but only because
their final choice was against serving the living God. We remember the parable
the Prophet told about the little boy with the sailboat. He had lost it in the
creek when the current took it away. Later, he redeemed it from a pawn shop
saying, “Little boat, you are twice mine now.” The Prophet was not speaking
about sail boats, but about the Bride of Christ that was once His in Heaven, and
who would be redeemed again on Earth, having then been twice His!
QUOTE:
ADOPTION, PAGE 70-71,
“And He made creatures, and creatures fell. And then God, by His infinite-cy,
looked down through the stream of time and saw every man that would be saved.
Every man, He knew it by fore--by foreknowledge. Therefore if He, by
foreknowledge, knew who would be saved and who would not be saved, He could
predestinate. The word's not such a bad word after all, is it? He could
predestinate, because He knew who would and who would not. Therefore, in order
to catch those who would, He had to make a--a propitiation for their sins. Oh,
if we can, we want to get to it, just--just a few verses below. He predestinated
us to Eternal Life, knowing that those who would lay aside everything, and no
matter how indifferent it would look towards the children of the world, it
wouldn't mean one thing to them, because they were children of God. And He
called them.” (End quote)
QUOTE:
C.O.D. BOOK, PAGE 225,
“JUDE: VERSE 4, “For there are
certain men crept in unaware, 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, and 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 willed... 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.” (End quote)
Another
motive for our sermon is to establish the fact that since we came from God in
our original creation ( a chip off the Original Block, God) and were later put
in flesh to be redeemed (brought back), we can now know that “Whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of His
Son-----. Moreover, whom He did predestinate them He also called; And whom He
called, them He also justified; And whom He justified, them He also
glorified.” (Rom. 8:29-30) Friends, if we know we were called, and that we
answered the call so that He has changed our lives, and that old things have
passed away and all things have become new, then we also know we will soon leave
this world in the Rapture. Rapturing Faith is now being revealed!
Now
we are confronted with the fact that Br. Branham said in one place that “Jesus
did not die for everyone, it was only His Elect that He came to save. But, as we
have seen, He also said God did not want any to be lost! This is another place
where his statements seem to be contradictory. How can He only come to save some
when the Scripture says, “And it shall
come to pass that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be
saved.” (Rom. 10:13) Truth is, Jesus already knew who would call upon His
Name, and in one sense then, He only came to redeem those He had foreknown. But,
we must not fail to preach that Salvation is for “Whosoever will may come.”
QUOTE:
C.O.D BOOK, PAGE 226,
“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 gentlemen 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 quote)
Rom.
8:29, “For
whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of
His Son; that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
May
the lost turn to Jesus Christ at once and be saved, and may the ones who have
been called and know they are changed, be encouraged to know that this knowledge
is Rapturing Faith. Amen.