Posts | Clayton Howard Ford | The Truth Shall Set You Free

Predestined to Hell

Posted on May 1, 2018 by chfordenterprises

By the same token, God, and only God, knows how to predestine people to hell without violating their free will. In the story of the plagues, the Scriptures tell us that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exod. 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10). In fact, the Lord told Moses before he returned to Egypt that he, the Lord, would harden Pharaoh’s heart (Exod. 4:21), which means that God had predestined Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened. That was God exercising his choice (election). This did not preclude Pharaoh’s free will, for the Scriptures also say that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exod. 8:15, 32; 9:34). That was Pharaoh exercising his free will. Both election and free will were working at the same time. I have heard it said that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart because Pharaoh hardened his heart, but that is not what the Scriptures say. And, as we shall see, that is not the conclusion Paul drew in Rom. 9. The Scriptures simply say that both God and Pharaoh chose to harden his heart.

We understand that people can freely choose to spend eternity in hell by refusing to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior; however, many people balk at the idea that a loving God could predestine people to hell. Yet logic says that he does. Since there are only two places in which a person can spend eternity, if God does not predestine a person to heaven, then, by default, he has predestined that person to hell. Calvinism accepts that logic; Arminianism does not. But even if we adopt the Arminian position that God looked down through history and saw who would choose to be saved and so predestined them, does not that also mean that he looked down through history and saw who would NOT choose to be saved? So why did he create them, knowing full well that, by creating them, he was automatically condemning them to spend eternity in hell? Whether you are a Calvinist or an Arminian, the fact remains the same: God could have avoided sending anyone to hell by simply creating only those who were predestined to be saved. But he did not. Why not?

The Scriptures not only clearly teach that God predestined people to destruction, they also tell us why he did:

The Lord has made all for Himself,
Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom (Prov. 16:4)

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens (Rom. 9:14-18).

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles (Rom. 9:22-24)?

The Scriptures say that God created the wicked for himself, meaning that he created them for his own purposes. His purposes include making known his power, his name (that is, his character), and his wrath. Christians lately have been emphasizing one facet of God’s character, his love, at the expense of another facet, his wrath. He predestined some, “the vessels of mercy,” to heaven to show everyone his mercy and his love. But he also predestined others, “the vessels of wrath,” to hell to show everyone his wrath.

He also created them to show the vessels of mercy “the riches of His glory.” If God had simply created only those who were predestined to heaven, then telling us that we could have spent eternity in the lake of fire would have been meaningless. And living a life of righteousness here on earth would also have been meaningless since everyone was going to get saved anyway. The only way to make salvation meaningful was to make the possibility of not being saved a real possibility. That meant a real lake of fire, a real outpouring of his wrath, and real vessels created to receive that wrath.

But if God predestined people to hell, why does he hold them accountable for their sins? He does so because, as we saw with Pharaoh, they can still exercise their free will. Yes, God chose to send them to hell before the foundation of the world, and yes, they freely chose to go to hell. Election and free will worked together in condemning them, just as election and free will worked together in saving us.

At least, that’s my answer to the question based on pulling some Scriptures together. The Scriptures themselves address this question head on and give us an even harder answer:

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor (Rom. 9:19-21)?

We keep forgetting that God is God and he can do whatever he wants. He does not have to answer to us for what he does. He predestined some people to go to heaven. That is his prerogative. He also predestined some people to go to hell. That is also his prerogative.

Some people, when confronted with the truth that God has predestined people to hell, either doubt God’s love or reject this truth altogether, for how can a loving God send people to hell? But that is not the Scriptural response to this truth. When we realize that God did not have to predestine us to spend eternity in heaven with him, that God could have chosen to predestine us to destruction but did not, our response should be thankfulness and praise: “Thank you, God, that you chose me even though you did not have to do so.”

Praise the name of the Lord;
Praise Him, O you servants of the Lord!
You who stand in the house of the Lord,
In the courts of the house of our God,
Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;
Sing praises to His name, for it is pleasant.
For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself,
Israel for His special treasure (Ps. 135:1-4).

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy (1 Pet. 2:9-10; italics mine).

To be continued…

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Reconciling Election and Free Will

Posted on April 27, 2018 by chfordenterprises

So which doctrine is correct?

The two doctrines have existed since the first century and the supporters of the doctrines have been arguing with each other also since the first century. And so far, no one has been able to convince the other side. The problem is that both sides have Scriptures to back them up, which suggests that the Scriptures actually teach both.

In fact, there are instances where both doctrines show up in the same Scriptural passage. In Jer. 18:1-10, the Lord tells Jeremiah to go to the potter’s house. There the prophet sees the potter make a vessel, only to squash it and make it into another vessel. The Lord then says that he can do the same to Israel, that he can do whatever he chooses. That’s election. That’s God making his choice. But then, in that same speech, the Lord tells Jeremiah that if he says he is going to destroy a nation but that nation chooses to repent, he will spare that nation. Conversely, if he says he is going to bless a nation but that nation chooses to do evil, he will relent from blessing it. That’s free will.

Acts 13:14-51 tells the story of how Paul and Barnabas came to Antioch in Pisidia to preach the Gospel. They started at the synagogue of the Jews and were asked to return the following Sabbath to preach again. But the Jews became envious of all of the Gentiles who also came to hear, so they contradicted Paul and Barnabas. Paul said to them that he and Barnabas would therefore turn to the Gentiles, “since you reject it” (v. 46). That’s free will. The Gentiles were glad to hear Paul say that, and the Scriptures say, “And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed” (v. 48). That’s election.

But if the Scriptures really teach that both are true, why do we argue so much over these doctrines? We do so because, logically speaking, we cannot reconcile the two. We cannot understand how we can freely choose to be saved if God has already chosen who would be saved before the foundation of the world. We see the two as logically opposed to each other and therefore cannot reconcile them in our minds.

But the Scriptures are full of mysteries like this one. Trying to reconcile these two is like trying to reconcile how God can be one God, yet three Persons. And it is like trying to reconcile how Jesus can be both God and man at the same time. Yet, the Church stopped arguing over these truths long ago because it simply accepted that reconciling them goes beyond our limited human understanding.

So, too, reconciling election and free will goes beyond our limited human understanding, which is why the Scriptures teach both without once trying to explain how both can be true at the same time. C.S. Lewis acknowledged this decades ago. In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (p. 49), he refers to Pelagius and Augustine, who debated each other over this very issue in the fifth century. Pelagius supported free will; Augustine supported election. Lewis refers to them in his discussion of “the whole puzzle about grace and free will. You will notice that Scripture just sails over the problem. ‘Work out your salvation in fear and trembling’—pure Pelagianism. But why? ‘For it is God who worketh in you’—pure Augustinianism. It is presumably only our presuppositions that make this appear nonsensical. We profanely assume that divine and human action exclude one another like the actions of two fellow-creatures so that ‘God did this’ and ‘I did this’ cannot both be true of the same act except in the sense that each contributed a share.”

Perhaps an analogy will help us understand what he is saying. Suppose that I have a flat tire, but the nuts are on so tight that I cannot loosen them by myself. So you grab one part of the wrench and I grab another part. We twist it together and the nuts come off. The question then is: who loosened the nuts? You or me? The answer is, we both did.

Who chose to save us? Did God choose to save us before the foundation of the world (election)? Or did we choose to save ourselves (free will)? The answer is Yes. Yes, God chose to save us before the foundation of the world and yes, we freely chose salvation. We and God did this together.

In fact, the Scriptures teach that everything we do, we do together with God. As Jesus said, “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). We cannot even choose to be saved without him. Perhaps we do not understand how that works, but God does.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God reminds us that he is in control of everything, including the future:

“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,’
Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it” (Is.46:8-11).

God sees the end from the beginning, which means that God has a predetermined plan. God is so wise and powerful that he can give all of us free will and still pull it off. His counsel shall stand. As an example, we are told that Ruth just “happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz” (Ruth 2:3). We know, of course, that she did not just “happen” upon Boaz’s field. It was God’s plan for her to get to that field and he fulfilled his plan without violating her free will. God predestined us to be saved, but he did so without violating our free will. God, and only God, knows how to make election and free will work together.

To be continued…

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Election and Free Will

Posted on April 25, 2018 by chfordenterprises

“But the just shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4)

In The Emperor’s New Groove, the emperor, who has been turned into a talking llama, and his peasant pal, Pacha, are being chased by his evil advisor, Yzma, and her henchman, Kronk, both of whom end up being locked in a closet in Pacha’s house by Pacha’s family. Yzma says to them, “Tell us where the talking llama is and we’ll burn your house to the ground.” Kronk says, “Don’t you mean ‘or’?” Yzma sighs in frustration, then says, “Tell us where the talking llama is OR we’ll burn your house to the ground.” Pacha’s daughter says, “That is a pretty crucial conjunction.”

It is a pretty crucial conjunction. I have entitled today’s lesson “Election and Free Will.” In most churches, the title would have been “Election OR Free Will,” because most Christians believe that the Scriptures teach one or the other and that anyone who believes the other is, at best, sadly mistaken or, at worst, a heretic.

The doctrines of election and free will are an attempt to answer two important questions: Did God choose to save us before the foundation of the world? Or did we choose to save ourselves?

Those who would answer yes to the first question believe in the doctrine of predestination (election). This doctrine has existed since the first century, but it was most ably defended by John Calvin (1509-1564), a French reformer who headed the church in Geneva, Switzerland. Because of this, the doctrine is also known as Calvinism. This is the belief held by the Southern Baptists and the Presbyterians.

Calvinism emphasizes the sovereignty of God. Before the foundation of the world, God in his sovereignty chose who would be saved and who would not be saved. That decision was not based on anything any person would do but on the purposes and will of God. People choose to get saved because God has already chosen them to be saved. Each person’s choice to be saved or not to be saved, therefore, is determined by whether God has already chosen to save that person or not. In other words, you chose to be saved because God chose you to be saved from before the foundation of the world.

There are, of course, Scriptures to support this doctrine:

The Lord has made all for Himself,
Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom (Prov. 16:4)

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:11-13).

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you…” (John 15:16).

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Rom. 8:29).

“I AM WHO I AM”

Posted on January 27, 2018 by chfordenterprises

Moses, therefore, is not asking for God’s name because he does not know what it is. He is asking for God’s secret name. But notice that he is not wanting to learn God’s name for himself. He is picturing the Israelites in Egypt as wanting to know God’s name. He sees himself coming to the Israelites and telling them that he has met with God. He sees the Israelites as figuring this to be their golden opportunity, for if Moses has really met with God, then perhaps he has learned God’s secret name. So he sees their first reaction to his news not as rejoicing that God has finally answered their prayers but as wanting to extract information so they can force God to do their bidding.

This is why God’s answer, “I AM WHO I AM,” is so appropriate. In English, it sounds like a tautology, a statement that is true but gives us absolutely no new information. Of course, God is who God is, but that does not tell us who he is in the first place. It sounds like God is trying to evade Moses’ question, even as Re tried to avoid Isis’.

But God is not Re and he is not evading Moses’ question. In Hebrew, this syntax is used to express determination. Thus, when Moses returns to this very mountain, God says to him, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Exod. 33:19), that is, God will determine to whom he will be gracious and on whom he will have compassion. What God is saying to the Israelites, therefore, is, “I determine who I am. I chose to have this personality and this character, which means that I chose my own name. Unlike Re, I was not given a secret name by someone else. So your attempt at manipulating me through the use of my secret name will be in vain.”

His answer subtly—or perhaps not so subtly—reminds the Israelites that because he, and only he, determines who he is, he is a God who does not change. Ever changing circumstances do not determine who he is. Fleeting emotions do not determine who he is. And certainly their puny attempts at magic do not determine who he is. Nothing can make him change except himself. This fact may cause consternation among some of the Israelites who think he is not moving fast enough to free them from slavery, but it should also comfort them. For a God who does not change is a God who can be counted on to be there when you really need him and who can be counted on to follow through on his promises. He is not the kind of God who one day promises to do something and the next day changes his mind. He is an unchanging God, which means that he is a faithful God.

He reminds them of all of this in the next part of his answer to Moses when he says, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” …”Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you” (Exod. 3:14f). He is the same God who introduced himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He has not changed since then. He was faithful then, he is faithful now. But this answer is also a mild rebuke, for when he answers Moses’ request to reveal his secret name by giving him the name the Israelites already knew, he is telling them, “I have already revealed to you who I really am. I have already revealed to you the deepest, innermost part of me. You should have already known that my heart belongs to you and that I would be faithful to you. You should have never doubted me.”

Thus, God recalls for the Israelites not only his chosen name but also the meaning of that name. The name Yahweh does not simply mean “He is,” but “He is unchanging and therefore faithful.” And it is his faithfulness, more so than any other aspect of his character, that he wishes everyone to think of when they think of him: “This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations” (Exod. 3:15).

This is also why in Exodus 6 (and in Genesis) he emphasizes the name Yahweh over his other name, El Shaddai. To be sure, God is El Shaddai, the Almighty One, which means that he is capable of delivering the Israelites from slavery. But just because someone is capable of doing something does not necessarily mean that he will actually do it. What the Israelites needed to know was that God is faithful, that he can be counted on to do what he said he would do. The actual deliverance was going to be a long process, and the march across the wilderness was going to be perilous. They needed to know that he could be trusted.

And so, he emphasizes his name again and again in his speech to Moses in Exodus 6:

And God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am Yahweh, the Faithful One. I allowed myself to appear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, for did I not let Myself be known to them by My name Yahweh, the Faithful One? I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the children of Israel: ‘I am Yahweh, the Faithful One; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am Yahweh, the Faithful One, your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am Yahweh, the Faithful One’” (Exod. 6:2-8, with some modifications).

There is no need to manipulate a faithful God. One can simply trust that he will do what he said he will do.

Thus, an understanding of the Hebrew (and Egyptian) culture and language reveals that the contradictions are merely illusions. There is no contradiction between Exod. 3 and Genesis or Exod. 6 and Genesis.

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The Secret Name

Posted on January 26, 2018 by chfordenterprises

In the Hebrew language, the word name carries the same connotations that it does in English. It can mean the label given to objects and people (“The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai.”); a person’s reputation (“A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.”); or a person’s authority (“And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus.”). But it also takes on one additional connotation: it represents the person’s character (“Holy and awesome is His name.”). In fact, a person’s name is the person himself. To blaspheme God’s name (Lev. 24:11) is to blaspheme God. To worship God’s name is to worship God.

The Egyptians took it one step further. They believed that a person’s name was an integral part of his being. Where we might say that a man consists of his body, soul, and spirit, an ancient Egyptian would say that a man consists of his body, name, and ka (double). An inscription inside the tomb of Pepi I sees the king in his afterlife going “forward with his flesh, Pepi is happy with his name, and he liveth with his ka.” Indeed, it was impossible to live without a name. They believed that “a man only came into being upon this earth when his name had been pronounced” and that “the future life could only be attained after the gods of the world beyond the grave had become acquainted with it and uttered it.”

This belief applied to the gods as well. According to one creation story, when the creator god Neb-er-tcher began to create everything, he said, “I brought (i.e., fashioned) my mouth, and I uttered my own name as a word of power, and thus I developed myself out of the primeval matter which had evolved multitudes of evolutions from the beginning of time.” According to The Book of the Dead, the sun god Re (or Rā) was “the creator of the name[s] of his limbs, which came into being in the form of the gods who are in the following of Rā.” As E.A. Wallis Budge, the late Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, noted, “From this we see that all the ‘gods’ of Egypt were merely personifications of the NAMES of Rā, and that each god was one of his members, and that a name of a god was the god himself” (The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 2, 1904).

Conversely, blotting out a person’s name was the same as destroying that person. If anyone wished to destroy the evil power of a demon, then, in some cases, all one had to do was to make a wax figure of the demon, write its name on the figure and then destroy the figure, thereby destroying its name which was its power. To the Egyptians, therefore, the name was a real, dynamic, active, even life-giving (or life-taking) force and was thus a source of great power.

Knowing this makes it easy to see why the Egyptians came to believe that if one retained a magical or secret name, a name which no one else knew, then one retained a source of power which no one else had. However, should someone happen to learn your secret name, then that person held that power over you and could make you do whatever he or she desired. Again, this belief also applied to the gods. Each god had a secret name. Should a person happen to learn the secret name of a god, then the god would be forced by the power of magic to do whatever that person desired whenever that person spoke the name.

In a story which is a part of an Egyptian magic spell designed to counteract scorpion poison, Re is described as “abounding in names, unknown to that (god) and unknown to this (god).” Later in the story, Re himself says, “My father and my mother told me my name, (but) it was hidden in my body before I was born, in order that the power of a male or female magician might not be made to play against me.” The goddess Isis, who was especially skilled at casting magic spells, decides that she wants to know this name, and so she fashions a poisonous snake which ambushes Re and bites him. Re immediately calls upon the other gods to cure him. Isis, of course, offers to cure him, but only if he answers her one request: “Tell me thy name, my divine father.”

Viewed out of context, Isis’ request, like Moses’ question, would seem absurd because Isis obviously knows this god’s name. Even though the text does not have the words “secret” or “hidden name,” the context makes it abundantly clear that this is what she wants.

Re, too, knows she wants this name, but he is not ready to give it to her. So he recites a list of his accomplishments and then ends it by saying, “I am Khepri in the morning, Re at noon, and Atum who is in the evening.” But Isis is not fooled. She already knows those names, and besides, if his secret name had been among those he had listed, he would have recovered. But Re is still sick. So Isis says to him, “Thy name is not really among these which thou has told me. If thou tellest it to me, the poison will come forth, for a person whose name is pronounced lives.” Re finally reveals his secret name (which the author himself did not know or which he withheld from his Egyptian audience so only he would know!) and is cured.

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Asking for God’s Name

Posted on January 25, 2018 by chfordenterprises

In the famous story in Exodus 3, God calls to Moses out of a bush that is on fire but is not being consumed. God introduces himself as “the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He then commissions Moses to return to Egypt and deliver the Israelites from their slavery. Moses feels overwhelmed and tries to get God to change his mind by asking a series of questions that are intended to show God just how inadequate Moses is to the task. One of those questions is, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exod. 3:13).

God’s answer is, “I AM WHO I AM.” Then he tells Moses to say to the children of Israel that “I AM has sent me to you.” The words “I AM” in Hebrew is ‘ehyeh. The third person form of the word is yahweh, which is the name God chose for himself.

The problem with Moses’ question is that it seems to imply that Moses and the Israelites do not know God’s name. Yet Genesis makes it clear that Moses’ ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, knew that God’s name was Yahweh. Surely this name would have been passed down through the generations to Moses and the Israelites of his time. So why is Moses asking for God’s name?

The answer is to be found in the Israelites’ propensity to fall into idolatry on a moment’s notice. Jacob buried the idols of his children under a tree on his way to meet God at Bethel, which shows that the Israelites practiced idolatry before they went into Egypt. The Israelites had Aaron make a golden calf which they worshiped simply because Moses had been gone for a long time, which shows that they practiced idolatry after they came out of Egypt. It is not surprising, therefore, to find they practiced idolatry while in Egypt. Near the end of his life, Joshua says to the Israelites, “Now therefore, fear Yahweh, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve Yahweh!” (Josh. 24:14). Ezekiel pictures Yahweh as commanding the Israelites who were living in Egypt before the exodus to avoid defiling themselves with the idols of Egypt, but they refused (Ezek. 20:7-8). Indeed, Ezekiel says the Israelites of his day will go into exile to break the influence that the idolatry their ancestors had learned in Egypt still had over them (Ezek. 23). Since the Israelites had lived among the Egyptians for over four hundred years, they had plenty of time to learn and adopt the Egyptian system of beliefs.

The Israelites had also spent most of those four hundred years crying out to Yahweh to free them from their slavery, and by Moses’ day they had become impatient with him. Asking him to deliver them was not producing the desired results, so they were looking for some way to force him to deliver them. The Egyptian belief in the secret name seemed to offer them exactly what they wanted.

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A Question of Translation

Posted on January 25, 2018 by chfordenterprises

There are two verses in Exodus that seem to contradict what is said in Genesis and both of them center on the name of God. The first verse is Exod. 6:3. As it is usually translated, that verse states: “’I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them.’” The latter half of the verse conflicts with the book of Genesis, which clearly testifies that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did know that God’s name was Yahweh.

The problem is the translation. The latter half of verse 3 should be translated as a rhetorical question, making the whole verse read as follows: “’I allowed myself to appear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, for did I not let myself be known to them by my name Yahweh?’” The answer, of course, is yes, he did let himself be known to them by his name Yahweh. The verse now agrees with Genesis rather than contradicting it.

An objection to this translation may be that in Hebrew a question usually begins with an interrogative pronoun or adverb (such as “who” or “where;” Hebrew does not use question marks). The latter half of verse 3 has neither, which is why most scholars fall into translating the verse in the usual manner. But in the standard textbook on Hebrew grammar, Dr. Wilhelm Gesenius, a highly respected scholar, has stated:

A question need not necessarily be introduced by a special interrogative pronoun or adverb…. So especially, when the interrogative clause is connected with a preceding sentence by וְ [a particle which is translated as and, but, or for, depending on context]…or when (as in some of the examples just given) it is negative….

One of his examples is Jonah 4:11. This verse is connected with the preceding sentence by the particle, it is negative and it is missing an interrogative pronoun. It could be translated, “’And I should not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city,’” but this translation conflicts with the context. God was obviously explaining to Jonah why he, God, should have compassion on Nineveh. This verse, therefore, must be translated as, “And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city?’” Translating verse 11 as a rhetorical question and not as a negative statement makes sense because the question better fits the context.

The latter half of Exod. 6:3 is also connected with the preceding sentence by the particle, it is also negative and it is also missing an interrogative pronoun or adverb. Translating it as a rhetorical question and not as a negative statement makes sense because the question better fits the context and eliminates the contradiction.

Translating it as a rhetorical question and not as a negative statement also shifts the meaning of the sentence from denying the knowledge of God’s name in previous generations to emphasizing the importance of this name above that of his other name, El Shaddai. This emphasis is indicated in Genesis: Yahweh is used frequently, El Shaddai rarely. But, given the context of verse 3, why would God want to emphasize this name above the other? To answer that, we need to turn to the other problem text.

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Exalting Me

Posted on January 22, 2018 by chfordenterprises

The second trend in today’s Christian worship music that I see is the increasing emphasis on me instead of on God. The worship songs may mention the names of God and Jesus, but the focus is on me and my feelings

Worship should be about God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. It should be about their great love for us and what they have done for us. It should be about their faithfulness to us. Instead, today’s Christian worship music is about me and how much I love God and what I am going to do for him. It is about my faithfulness to love him and to praise him for the rest of my days. It is about me and my feelings.

For example, the song, “I Love Your Presence,” has this line in it:

I can feel you near, God.
I believe, I believe.

It implies that I believe because I can feel him near. What happens when I don’t feel him near, which is the vast majority of the time? Do I stop believing? The song implies that our belief is based on our feelings, rather than on truth.

For the truth is our feelings are not a sure foundation upon which to build our faith. Our feelings change from day to day, even from minute to minute. If we build our faith upon our feelings, then our faith wavers when the “good” feelings disappear.

The Church has always taught that our faith is based on truth. The truth is that God is always near, even when we don’t feel his presence. He always loves us, even when we feel that he does not. He is always faithful, even when we feel that he has let us down. But today’s Christian worship music assumes that our relationship with God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ is based on our feelings rather than on truth.

The song, “You Know Me,” says “Wherever I go, you find me.” That sounds so spiritual and so Biblical because the Bible does say “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). But the line actually reverses what Jesus himself said: “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also” (John 12:26). God is not our servant. We should not decide where we are going next, expecting God to follow us. We are called to be the servants of Jesus Christ. He decides where he is going next, and we are expected to willingly follow him. The song ignores the truth because it is really exalting me instead of God.

But that this song exalts me should come as no surprise when you learn from where this song came. It was written in 2011 by Steffany Gretzinger and William Matthews, both of whom were worship leaders at Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church at the time. My pastor once pointed out with great insight that the Word of Faith theology is an error unto itself, but it also tends to lead people further and further away from the truth. The Word of Faith theology ends up putting us in charge. We decide if we should be wealthy and we decide if we should be made well and we end up commanding God to give those things to us. God is not in control; we are. And in fact, that is precisely what Bill Johnson teaches his congregation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB1BGhvCij4). That is why his worship leaders wrote a song that pictures God following us instead of us following God.

At the same time that today’s Christian worship music teaches us that we can control our circumstances, it also teaches us that we can’t control ourselves and even that we shouldn’t want to control ourselves. The song, “Set a Fire,” was written by Will Reagan, the same person who wrote “Break Every Chain.” The chorus says:

So set a fire down in my soul,
That I can’t contain, that I can’t control.

But this request is contrary to what the Word teaches. The fruit of the Spirit includes self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). The Word tells us repeatedly to “be sober” (I Thess. 5:6, 8; Titus 2:2, 6; 1 Pet. 1:13, 5:8). The Word says that “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1 Cor. 14:32). The idea of losing control is a pagan idea. Satan wants us to lose control because it opens us up to demonic suggestions and can cause us to sin.

The teaching that we should lose self-control is appealing because it releases us from all responsibility for our actions. If we end up doing something wrong, well, it’s not our fault; we lost control. And yet, if we lose control and end up doing something “spiritual,” we still want the credit for it. Somehow we believe that we are better people if we love someone because we couldn’t help it, rather than choosing to love. We believe that we are more spiritual if we couldn’t help but do what is right, rather than choosing to do what is right. The Word never teaches us to lose self-control. It teaches that we are to be in full control of our faculties so that we can choose to submit them in obedience to God.

Years ago, my worship leader sang a song (I do not remember the title) in which we asked the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit to come fill this place and be with us. Then he prayed, “Lord Jesus, we do ask you to come fill this place.” He paused because it suddenly occurred to him what he had just requested. Then he went on: “But in fact you are already here because you said that if two or three are gathered in your name, you will be there.” This perfectly illustrates my point. So often today’s Christian worship music proclaims error because it is based on our thoughts and our feelings and our desires and, dare I say, our lusts. But the Word proclaims the truth. Our worship songs, like our teaching, should be based on the truth. Any worship song that is not is simply not worth singing.

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“Unstoppable God” and “What a Beautiful Name”

Posted on January 21, 2018 by chfordenterprises

There are two more songs that promote the Dominion/Kingdom Now theology, though not as blatantly as “Break Every Chain.” The first is “Unstoppable God.”

Heaven thundered
And the world was born
Life begins and ends
In the dust You formed
Faith commanded
And the mountains moved
Fear is losing ground
To our hope in You

Unstoppable God
Let Your glory go on and on
Impossible things
In Your name they shall be done (oh)

Freedom conquered
All our chains undone
Sin defeated
Jesus is overcome
Mercy triumphed
When the third day dawned
Darkness was denied
When the stone was gone

Nothing shall be impossible
Your kingdom reigns unstoppable
We’ll shout Your praise forevermore
Jesus our God unstoppable

The troublesome line is “Impossible things in Your name shall be done.” It says that the impossible things shall be done, not are being done, meaning that they will be done in the future. Kingdom Now theology says that this future army shall do impossible things, things that the present church has not done, things that even the apostles did not do.

The song was written by Steven Furtick, Christopher Joel Brown, and Wade Joye. These three plus Mack Brock started the worship band, Elevation Worship, in 2007. The band is the worship band for Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Furtick is the pastor. Furtick is also a seeker friendly preacher, a Word of Faith preacher who has openly endorsed Joel Osteen, and a Dominion/Kingdom Now preacher who has spoken at least twice at an annual dominionist conference held in Ohio called Dominion Camp. It seems that if there is a Christian aberration out there, Furtick has bought into it.

The second song is “What a Beautiful Name.”

You were the Word at the beginning
One With God the Lord Most High
Your hidden glory in creation
Now revealed in You our Christ

What a beautiful Name it is
What a beautiful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King

What a beautiful Name it is
Nothing compares to this
What a beautiful Name it is
The Name of Jesus

You didn’t want heaven without us
So Jesus, You brought heaven down
My sin was great, Your love was greater
What could separate us now

What a wonderful Name it is
What a wonderful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King

What a wonderful Name it is
Nothing compares to this
What a wonderful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
What a wonderful Name it is
The Name of Jesus

How sweet is your name, Lord, how good You are
Love to sing in the name of the Lord, love to sing for you all?
Death could not hold You, the veil tore before You
You silenced the boast, of sin and grave
The heavens are roaring, the praise of Your glory
For You are raised to life again

You have no rival, You have no equal
Now and forever, Our God reigns
Yours is the Kingdom, Yours is the glory
Yours is the Name, above all names

What a powerful Name it is
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King

What a powerful Name it is
Nothing can stand against
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus

You have no rival, You have no equal
Now and forever, Our God reigns
Yours is the Kingdom, Yours is the glory
Yours is the Name, above all names

What a powerful Name it is
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King

What a powerful Name it is
Nothing can stand against
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus

What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus

The song praises the name of Jesus until it says, “You didn’t want heaven without us So Jesus, You brought heaven down.” This is Johnson’s theology. Jesus did not bring heaven down. He made it possible for us to go to heaven to be with him. Heaven will not come down until the New Jerusalem descends after there is a new heaven and a new earth.

This song was written by Brooke Ligertwood and Ben Fielding, two of the worship leaders at Hillsong Music, which is a ministry of Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia. The pastors of Hillsong Church are Brian and Bobbie Houston. That’s right, Brian’s wife, Bobbie, is also listed as the head pastor of the church. In my research, whenever a church lets a woman be the head pastor, even if she is married to the head pastor, deception always follows. For example, Bill Johnson and his wife, Beni, are listed as the Senior Leaders of Bethel Church.

Hillsong has been criticized for not taking a clear stand on homosexuality. The Houstons’ son, Joel, is a worship leader. In a recent worship song which he wrote, he uses a swear word (“Even when it hurts like h—“, https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/hillsongunited/evenwhenithurtspraisesong.html ), which shows that the quality of the worship songs coming out of Hillsong is declining.

So how did Johnson’s theology get into one of their songs? Every year Hillsong Church hosts a conference which is held in Australia, then again in other parts of the world. Brian Johnson, Bill Johnson’s son and a worship leader at Bethel Church, was a speaker at the 2016 conference. Other Word of Faith preachers, such as Joseph Prince from Singapore, have spoken at past conferences. Rick Warren and his followers have also been speakers at it. Furtick is a speaker at this year’s conference. So, like Furtick, Houston seems to have bought into whatever Christian aberration is out there. Many of our worship songs come out of Hillsong Music. I worry about the kinds of songs we will be seeing from there in the near future.

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“Break Every Chain”

Posted on January 19, 2018 by chfordenterprises

Another popular worship song, one that blatantly preaches the Dominion/Kingdom Now theology, is “Break Every Chain.” Here are the lyrics: