by

Chuck Smith on predestination.

WARNING!!! This is an example of BAD theology.  Believe at your own peril…

“…you could go to the race tracks with this kind of knowledge (God’s foreknowledge). Imagine what you could do, having foreknowledge knowing every horse what he was going to do in that race and you would go to the race track with this kind of knowledge. Now if you could do you think you would go there and pick out a ticket of losers?…Would you pick out a bunch of losers? You would be stupid if you did. Of course you wouldn’t you would pick the winners, because you know in advance who is going to win the race. What the outcome is going to be. And so you make your choices predicated on what the outcome is because you already know in advance what it is going to be. That is just using your head. Now that’s what thrills me about God choosing me.  Because he don’t choose no losers.  God’s only chosen winners. … God already knows the choice you are going to make. But you are the one that makes the choice, but God in all of His wisdom, knows the choices each person is going to make. But He doesn’t make the choice for you. He only knows in advance, that which you are going to choose.”

[Source: Teaching on Ephesians]

24 thoughts on “Chuck Smith on predestination.”

  1. Perhaps I’m reading this from the wrong perspective, but it seems to me that God chose the wretched, blind, naked, and hopeless – not “winners”.

    The thing that thrills me about God’s choosing me is how it manifestly had nothing whatsoever to do with me being a “winner”, or any choice He foresaw that I would make in favor or Him, but rather He saw me for the wholly corrupt mass of sin and perversion that I truly am, and despite this He set His divine love upon me not for any good thing he saw that was in me, or could ever be in me, but out of His own vast oceans of grace, mercy, pity, and love.

    We love because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

    A rebellious heart of stone changed to a submissive heart of flesh because of the gift of unmerited divine grace…

    The King of kings emptying Himself and becoming a man of sorrows, laying His life down for his enemies for the joy set before Him…

    Pierced hands and feet, a torn and bleeding back, a crown of thorns, a spear riven side; a New Covenant in His flesh and blood…

    A perfect life, a perfect death, a perfect resurrection, a perfect Prophet, Priest, and King…

    The promise of eternal life in His presence forever and evermore for all those believing whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world…

    …now that’s thrilling!

    Soli Deo Gloria!

    In Christ,
    CD

    Like

  3. My testimony. I am a LOSER of the grandest kind. I deserve death. I deserve to be sent straight to hell immediately after my death. I didn’t choose GOD. I hated HIM. I thought I was a good person, but looking back I was drinking up my evil like it was water. I still sin. There are times, whenever I choose to sin, that I am not choosing GOD. HE drew me unto HIMSELF, and I weep and rejoice in that knowledge.

    Someone will say, “you choose to sin, therefore, you can choose GOD.” That is impossible. I was spiritually dead. I was poor, blind, and naked and didn’t know it. Apart from my GREAT GOD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, all I could choose was sin. I couldn’t and wouldn’t choose righteousness. The only righteousness I had was self-righteousness. I hate who I was. And I didn’t hate who I was until CHRIST Saved me. I loved myself, and thought I was good enough to get into heaven. Praise the LORD that HE Saves to the uttermost. That HE Saves those who hate HIM.

    Chuck. How did we know the plan of salvation before it was presented to us?

    CD, Amen, Amen, and Amen. We are so unworthy, and HE is so Glorious.

    Like

  4. I’d have to say I disagree with this quote. This is the standard Calvary Chapel way around the clear biblical teaching of election and predestination.

    God didn’t choose me based on his foreknowledge that I would choose Him. I chose Him because He enabled me to choose Him. That is, He did make the choice for me.

    Thanks,
    Bill

    Like

  5. Brethren I hoped it would have been obvious, but the point of posting the quote was to reveal the sad truth of where the free will doctrine will lead to. It was not to promote it!

    Like

  9. I was sort of put off when I first read the quote. Not only does it make God reactionary to sovereign sinners but the saved get to pat themselves on the back for being such winners that even the thrice Holy God has to take notice and hedge His bets. The Lord gets a golf-clap while man is the real hero. Onward christian winners!

    Glad to see it was put forth, not in support of its content, but to display the error and anthropocentric egocentric tendency of men. I’m no winner, but a loser, and I would echo everything James Pratt so finely stated already.

    Like

  10. Well Jay I assumed it would be understood based on the clear teachings of this site much as posting a quote from say the Pope would be. But, then again it is never good to assume especially with such a wide audience, so a warning is posted where people can rest a little easier now.

    Like

  12. Amen Brian of the Hill People – folks already know I’m a loser from my posting this fine specimen of doctrinal dribble and causing all the confusion 🙂 Nice to have some old gray mares that I can trod along with who are not the fine stallions that Chuck Smith is apparently galloping along with.

    Like

  13. BoftHP, this is one of the funniest comments I’ve read in a long time: “The Lord gets a golf-clap while man is the real hero. Onward christian winners!”

    I smell an “insta-classic”…LOL!

    In Christ,
    CD

    Like

  14. Thank you for the clarification. I didn’t quite understand where you were coming from. You are so solid biblically–not perfect as none of us are perfect–but very solid and Christ-honoring. Thanks and may God bless you in every way as you stand firm in Him.

    Like

  16. I’ve heard so many varied comments about Calvary Chapels over the years, but only recently have I seen specific issues that display the corrupt doctrine therein.

    Brian’s comment is priceless!

    Like

  18. Ditto, Pratt & CD…only I could not have expressed it so well.

    I had NOTHING to do with my salvation!
    God be praised for His infinite mercy, grace and sovereign election.

    Like

  20. The idea of God choosing winners, etc., is absurd on the face of it and contradictory to Holy Scripture. Acts !3:48 declares “and as many as were ordained to eteral life believed.” Dr. B.H. Carroll founder and first president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary stated in his Interpretation of the English Bible that when he was a young man he wanted that to verse to read as many as believed were ordained to eternal life, but, as he said, it does not say that. It says AS MANY AS WERE ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE BELIEVED. Add to that plain statement the facts that “ordained” (destined is the way one translation renders it) is in the active voice, while believed is in the passive voice. The active voice carries the action, ordained is the cause, and “believed” in the passive is the effect of being ordained. My Hebrew professor in seminary asked me one day why I believed in unconditional election and irresistible grace, and I answered, “If you will look at Ps.65:4, I believe you will find that it is in the hiphil (the causative verb).” He looked at the text in front of the students gathering for the class in Hebrew and said, “Your right.” Then he closed his Hebrew Bible ad never again said another word to me on the subject. Inerestingly enough, he had signed the Abstract of Principles of the seminary which inclluded this statement: “Election is God’s eternal choice of some persons unto everlasting life–not because of foreseen merit in them, but of his mere mercy in Christ–in consequence of which choice they are called, justified, and glorified.” The Sandy Creek Baptist Association Confession of Faith of 1816 back to which that Abstract can be traced stated “We believe in election from eternity, effectual calling by the Holy Spirit.” Effectual calling is another term for irresistible grace. This is the theology of the Great Awakenings and of the Launching of the Great Century of Missions, the theology of Sovereign Grace, the soteriological aspect of calvinism which aspect actually preceeds calvinism. In English history one will fine Lollards dying for Election and Predestination before John Calvin was ever born, let alone converted. And as to Godly liiving, the Pilgrims, Puritans, Anglicans, Reformed, Presbyterians, and Early Baptists have produced believers whose lives were noted for sacrificial service and wondrful accomplishments in spite of depravity, and they created a calvinistic republic noted for its freedoms and responsible citizens who produced the greatest nation the world has ever seen. Now that the secularists, atheists, agnostics, and the religionists who really do not like freedom of religion for any one but their own brand, we see our freedoms eroding and our rights slipping away.

    Like

  22. Thank you “Just a Thought” for not jumping on the bandwagon. I grew up in a very traditional baptist home, went to a conservative Bible college, have attended Calvary Chapel, and am familiar with their teaching. I now serve on staff at a Conservative Baptist church. I have never seen or heard anything in CC’s teachings that is worth the hub-bub that ensues whenever Pastor Chuck is mentioned here. I may not agree 100% w/ everything a CC pastor says, but neither do I agree with everything you say. Howver, both hold to the basic gospel as stated so simply by Paul, “…how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” Now, ladies and gentlemen, can we stop pointing fingers at each other and get to the real business of reaching the lost? The rest of these issues we’ll have eternity to discuss.

    Like

  24. How can KP Yohannan praise love this man? I am reading his book the Lord’s work the Lord’s way. In it he gives much credit to Chuck Smith and KP Yohannan has been fantastic for me spiritually but this makes me sad 😦 I never knew Chuck Smith could think something so disgusting like this without thinking it sin in the end. Hopefully his motives were very different than his words…

    Like

Tell us what you think:

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.