Cheryl Schatz

Gazza #255,

David speaks of God knitting him together in his mothers womb (Psalm 139), God made David exactly who he was.He made David trust God right from the time he left the womb (Psalm 22). As our creator He makes us exactly who we are. I did not choose to love peaches and hate apricots – its simply who I am, my brother loves them both – that is who he is, it is how God has made us. In the same way was not the love of God part of who David was?

Yes, but David still had a choice. This is very much like another person who was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. This was John the Baptist. But even with being filled with the Holy Spirit, John the Baptist had a choice whether to trust or not.

In Matthew 11:3 John expresses doubt about whether Jesus is the expected Messiah even though he had been filled with the Spirit from birth and his own birth had been prophesied in the OT.

Jesus uses this doubt to teach a very valuable lesson to his followers. Jesus said:

Matthew 11:4–6 (NASB)
4 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see:
5 the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.
6 “And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”

Jesus not only gives the signs of His being the true Messiah, but he gives a message to John saying that the blessed ones are those who do not take offense at Him.

Was John without faith at this moment due to his own choice? Jesus said that anyone in the Kingdom was greater than John at that moment. Why? Because someone who is without faith is not in the kingdom.

Even though John had everything that one could get for earthly predestination – filled with the Spirit from birth, he was the messenger of the Messiah and he saw the Holy Spirit light on the Lord Jesus, still his earthly position and his being filled with the Holy Spirit from before birth was not enough to grant him faith as one who was given the “gift” of saving faith. He had to believe God for himself. And at that moment John was not believing.

Sure it was a choice he made – I am not disputing that David chose to stick by God in tough times when he could have turned his back. But why did he choose to trust God? Where did he choose to have such fortitude? Was it not part of who God made him to be- part of his character knitted by God Himself?

No. At some point it had to be David’s own faith. He could not inherit his faith from God.

Psalm 37:5 (NASB)
5 Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

The consistent message of Scripture is that we must trust in God and then He will do it. No matter how good our position is on this earth, no matter how privileged God has made us, we are still required to believe God on our own. If God could just put inbred faith into us as humans, so that we were saved without ever having to fight through our inner struggles between believing God or not believing Him, don’t you think that God would have created us all with ‘natural’ faith? God is a good God, not wanting to be unjust and so He has committed all of us to the place of sin so that all of us will be in the place of needing to trust Him. We are all equal in this way and God planned it that way.

This also fits with Romans 9 v20 “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ We are who God made us to be, our choices are our own, they are the choices we want to make, when and how we want to make them. Yet God made us who we are, He chose what we would like and dislike, He chose what we would choose to do and not do.

While this is true of our earthly position and each of us has no choice regarding whether we were born or not and to whom and where and how much privilege we got, it is not true of salvation. God never said that He chose Jacob to be saved and Esau to be dammed. Don’t you think that God could have made this plain in Romans 9?

Romans 9:11–12 (NASB)
11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,
12 it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”

Why did God say that his purpose was that “the older will serve younger” instead of “the older will be damned and the younger will be saved”? The choice of God was their earthly circumstances, not their eternal destiny. If even John the Baptist had to choice his eternal destiny, then why should we think that God chose Esau to be damned from the time that he was a baby in the womb?

WE DO CHOOSE our actions but they are only ever an expression of the nature God gave us. Thus we are accountable if we reject Christ – it is our free choice, but it is not a surprise to the God who defined our being as He created each of us our mothers wombs.

But God has not defined our eternal destiny by our nature.

What happened to John the Baptist?

Matthew 14:10–13 (NASB)
10 He sent and had John beheaded in the prison.
11 And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.
12 His disciples came and took away the body and buried it; and they went and reported to Jesus.
13 Now when Jesus heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself; and when the people heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities.

When Jesus heard about John’s death, he withdrew to a secluded place by Himself. Was He mourning? I don’t know. The Scriptures don’t tell us. But what I do know is that John was not born saved. Even though he was given the Holy Spirit in the womb, he still had to believe God for himself.

This speaks a lot to me about not taking anything for granted. It speaks to me about being humble and knowing that what God has given us with privileges of having Christian parents and Christian families does not guarantee anyone’s salvation. We are like everyone else. We must believe God and fear Him and if we do we will be saved. If we don’t, it doesn’t matter that we were a prophesied person from the OT. John was born once as a baby with the Holy Spirit right there. But he too had to be born again of the Spirit to see the Kingdom of Heaven.