Discovering Your Predestinated Package

By Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD

Have you ever received a gift? Were you smart enough to open the package? That is precisely predestination! God has a predestinated package with your name on it, will you dare to discover what is in it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD
• Release date: Sep 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370726721

Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD

Dr. Martin Tharp has been an avid student of the Bible for many years and holds a Bachelor, Master and eight Doctorates, one honorary and seven earned, including a Doctor. of Literature and two PhDs. He has been in full time ministry for over fifty-seven years and has authored forty-nine books to date, many of which are being used as curriculum in Bible colleges around the United States and abroad. He has also penned a number of gospel songs and recorded thirty-three albums as well as being actively involved in a school ministry to Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom for the past thirty-eight years, and Dr. Tharp has been honored twice by members of parliament in Ireland for their work in the Protestant and Catholic schools. He and his wife, Sharon, along with Maranda Howells, travel extensively across the USA and the whole of the British Isles holding evangelistic crusades in the churches of both countries.

Book preview

Discovering Your

Predestinated Package

Martin G. Tharp, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2016

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes; This ebook is licensed for your own personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.. Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, King James Version. Copyright 1984, 1991 by AMG International, INC and the Living Bible Copyright 1971, 1986 by Tyndale House Publishers INC

This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations is permitted and encouraged. All scriptural quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise specified.

Available from: The Tharp Family Ministries

3982 Green Forest Parkway

Smyrna, Georgia 30082

Also Available from:

Web site: www.tharpministries.com

Email: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Predestination VS Free Will

2. Predestination: Two Parallel Roads

3.The POP (Purpose of Predestination)

4. Defeating your Predestinated Purpose

5. Predestination: God Had A Plan Before He Had A Man

6. Unbelief: A Deterrent To Our Predestinated Package

7. Seven X Seventy

8. 200 Years in Advance

9. Prophecy and Predestination?

10. Predestination: A Covenant Relationship

11. False, Misleading, Predestinated Package

Epilogue: Four Stages Of Predestination

Bibliography

Introduction

The Biblical system of truth cannot be categorized as one straight line but two. There are no Christians who will ever acquire an appropriate perspective of the gospel until he/she has an understanding of how to look at the two lines of theological truth at once. I see in one place, God presiding over all in providence, yet I cannot help seeing, that God has left man free to act as he pleases and in a great measure, his actions are a product of his own will.

Now, if I were to declare that man was free to act, and there was no precedence of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism, but if, on the other hand, I declare that God so overrules all things, as that man is not free enough to be responsible, I am driven at once into antinomianism or fatalism.

The very fact that God predestinates and yet man is responsible for his destiny, are two things that few are capable of seeing. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they most certainly are not.

The Scripture is clear that man is faced with a choice, either choose to serve God, or you have automatically made your choice to serve the gods of the flesh! Joshua made that very clear as he challenges the Children of Israel;

Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:14-15;KJV).

Even though the nation of Israel was chosen by God and lived in a predestinated covenant relationship with Him, they were still given a choice! Sounds a little like free will!

If I find taught in one place that everything is fore ordained, that is true, and yet if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions and that is also true. Then it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other.

It is an immutable fact that these two truths can be welded into one upon any human anvil, for they shall be one throughout eternity. However, here is the quandary we are faced with, there are two lines which are so nearly parallel, that the mind which presumes to pursue them farthest, will possibly never discover that they actually converge, but in fact, they do converge and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, from where all truth springs.

Chapter One

Predestination Vs Free Will

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For who 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. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30;KJV).

Regardless of what we may feel is perfect clarity in the Scriptures, this question still arises in a very large percentage of the Christian community:

Just what does predestination really mean?

Possibly we should take the time to answer this significant question, but first, perhaps we should clear up an important point that many in the New Testament Church seems to have forgotten, or unfortunately, they are woefully unaware of!

God did not write two books called The Old Testament and The New Testament! God wrote ONE BOOK called the BIBLE!

In regard to predestination, I have asked this question on many occasions as I have ministered on the subject to congregations in Churches;

How many of you had a Christmas tree at your home with gifts wrapped up nice and neat with your name on it under the tree?

Then I ask this follow up question;

How many of you had a birthday or an anniversary this past year and someone wrapped a nice gift with your name on it?

Generally the overwhelming affirmative response to these questions is 100% .

I then proceed to ask this question; How many of you were smart enough to open the package?

That is precisely Predestination!

THINK ABOUT IT;

If it is food? You eat it!

Clothes? You wear it!

A television? You watch it!

A stereo? You listen to it!

A vehicle? You drive it!

A bicycle? You ride it!

Money? You spend it!

Whatever is in your package the donor expects you to use the gift for its intended purpose!

It really should not take a brain surgeon to figure that out, but the problem is that in some religious circles, it is nearly impossible to convince anyone that opening any of their PREDESTINATED PACKAGES (besides salvation) is just that simple!

The most difficult thing to overcome in order to have the courage to open your next PREDESTINATED PACKAGE is the ability to recognize the fact that the decision to open their PREDESTINATED PACKAGE which may totally change your future cannot be based on the failures or successes of your past!

If you make decisions based on any of the following characteristics you will never do anything for God!

1. Income

2. Education

3. Intelligence

4. The color of your skin

5. Your ethnic origin

6. The kind of car you drive

7. The quality of the house you live in

8. Ability (God has never picked anyone based on ability! But rather on their availability).

9. Your appearance (fat, skinny, tall, short, bald or hairy!).

10. Any other physical features, good or bad!

PREDESTINATION does not mean that God has determined the fate of all human beings in advance, or that the entire course of their lives has been decided for them. It does not mean that all human beings who have ever lived were chosen to be either lost or saved. This should be abundantly clear through the multitude of Scriptures which will be quoted in the following chapters of this book.

Unbelievably, there are only six places where the King James Version of the Bible mentions predestination, but only four where either the word PREDESTINATE or PREDESTINATED is used in the translation.

However, we must certainly admit that the word is in the Bible, but it is simply the actual meaning of PREDESTINATION that is still in question. Let us first read the four verses that has actually been translated PREDESTINATION from proorizo and then look for an explanation.

There are two places in the book of Ephesians;

"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