The Wiseman said: “There are many devices in a man’s heart, nevertheless, the counsel of the Lord shall stand” (Proverbs 19:21).
The word device means plan, imagination, or scheme: There are many plans in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord shall stand. I often hear Christians interpret this verse to mean: No matter what you plan, God’s counsel—destiny for your life will stand, regardless of what you do. This is fatalism, which is not a biblical concept. It can deceive a person into thinking he is going to have a good outcome when he’s not. Furthermore, God gets blamed for many bad things that happened because of people’s wrong choices. How often I have heard people say such foolish things as: “God doesn’t make mistakes, so it must be His will,” concluding that everything is God’s destiny for them. No, God does not make mistakes, but people do, and it is not God’s will for them.
When Solomon wrote this proverb, he was young with a soft heart and loved God more than anything. God passed over his strong older brothers to choose him, the baby boy of the family, to be the heir to his father David’s throne. He was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of stepping into his father’s shoes, he pleaded with God to give him the wisdom he would need. God was pleased with his unselfish request and gave him wisdom and riches above all others (1Kings 3:5-14).
But there were three things God ordained through Moses that Israel’s kings should never do: Multiply horses, for which they would have to return to Egypt; multiply silver and gold, and multiply wives (Deut.17:16-17). Solomon did all three. Sadly, his heathen wives turned his heart away from the Lord and unto idols (1Kings 11:1-13). In the end, he was bitter and cynical, lamenting, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecc.2:11). Because of his idolatry, God declared He would rend the kingdom from him and give it to his servant.
So I ask you, Was this God’s destiny for Solomon?
Destiny has become a favorite buzzword in Christian teaching. While this term is not in the Bible, the closest to it is predestinate which means to determine, decree, ordain beforehand. The emphasis is not on who—but what. It is not whom God has pre-destined to be saved, but what are they predestined to—what is their destination? Once they choose to follow Christ, where will the road of life take them? Predestination does not begin until one is in Christ. All the blessings and promises in God’s Word are only for believers in Christ.
Predestination vs. Fatalism
Predestination begins with God’s foreknowledge, and there is a difference between foreknowledge and predestination. Foreknowledge precedes predestination: “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” (Romans 8:29).
Scripture says: “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning” (Acts 15:18). Paul said that God foreknew who would receive His Son, and He predestinated them to be conformed to His image. “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.8:30). This sums up predestination.
God calls, “Whosoever will, let him come,” but we have to answer the call, and He knows who will. God will never violate our free will, and He does not arbitrarily choose or refuse anyone. He did not force Adam and Eve not to eat of the forbidden tree. It was their choice, but once they made that choice, they had to live with the consequences. All humans have freedom of choice whom they will serve, but they don’t get to choose the consequences if they reject God’s salvation.
For those whom God foreknew would choose Jesus, He predestinated our destination: Heaven! Once we choose Christ, God chooses us! He then puts us on the path to our final destination, which is to be glorified with Christ in His eternal kingdom. We have not yet been glorified—received our glorified bodies—but God has already ordained that when we die in Christ, He will “change our vile (humiliated by the Fall) bodies and fashion them like unto his glorious body” (Phil.3:21). This is our destiny when we choose Christ.
“The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2Peter 3:9). “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1Tim.2:4). Yet, knowing many will not choose Christ, He invites all to receive Him. On judgment day, they will be without excuse.
God desires for all to live good lives, and He has ordained plans for us to this end: “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jer.29:11). But they are not set in stone. We have free choice, and all choices have consequences, good and bad. Take our diet, for instance: We know continually eating certain foods can bring on diseases like heart trouble, HBP, diabetes, and obesity. These can lead to severe health problems and early death. Is it God’s pre-determined destiny for them to suffer these consequences? When they die early from this, does it make sense to say: “God doesn’t make mistakes—It was their time to go!”?
As stated, the erroneous claim that every Christian’s destiny is predetermined by God, and nothing we do will change it, even if we fail to obey His will, is mere fatalism. This is motivated by a desire to eliminate negative feelings over one’s mistakes, bad choices, and failures, claiming they cannot alter the pre-set destiny God ordained for us before we were born. As we saw with Solomon, this is not true, and I believe this to be a dangerous mindset, because it encourages Christians to characterize their bad choices as part of God’s plan. While we should never allow ourselves to be plagued with self-condemnation or harassing reminders from Satan about our past, we must also recognize God’s universal law of sowing and reaping governs our lives too, and our bad choices can alter His good plans (Galatians 6:7).
God alone has perfect foreknowledge and knows who will answer the call. Humans have limited foreknowledge about certain people, and based on this, we can predict what they may or may not do in particular situations. For example: You’re at a water park with a slide that has a 90° drop straight down, and there’s someone in your family that you could beg, coax, even promise money, but it wouldn’t matter what you said, you know she would never get on that slide, because she’s afraid of heights and water. According to your foreknowledge—she will not do it based on what you know about her.
Suppose there is a controversy at your employment, and the boss decides to do something dishonest which requires a few little white lies in order to work, and everyone in that department must be on board. But one employee, whom you happen to be friends with, is as honest as Abraham Lincoln and will not lie, no matter what anyone does. The boss approaches you to persuade your friend to go along. Based on your foreknowledge of your friend’s character, you say: “It won’t matter what you say; you can even threaten to fire him; it goes against his core values, and I know he will not go along with it.”
This is limited human foreknowledge. God has perfect knowledge that spans from everlasting to everlasting, and He knows who will answer the call to receive salvation. This is different from predetermining who will receive salvation, because “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” He wants all to be saved. Once we answer the call to be saved, His plan to conform us to the image of His Son is set in motion with our final destination to be glorified with Christ.
This is our destiny, if we stay on the course set before us, laying aside every besetting sin (Hebrews 12:1).
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