Insight into God’s foresight enables us to see everything in hindsight. In other words, nothing can happen to us in life that God does not permit, indeed, did not permit from before time began. This is not fatalism!
Pontius Pilate said to Jesus, “Don’t you know that I have the power to crucify you or release you?” Jesus replied, “You could have no power against me at all, unless it had been given you from above.”
That power came from God in heaven. But God would hold Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, responsible for being behind the death of Jesus. He was the manipulator and Pilate the executioner, but God knew all and for the sake of the salvation of the world, permitted the act to take place.
We do not need to know why an evil thing is happening to us: we only need to know that it is happening for Christ’s sake, and therefore it could not be happening without God’s permission. But if we perceive it as having no Christian purpose or value, then we should do as the Apostle Paul did, twice, and claim our civil rights — or challenge it head on and fight it with all our might.
1. Matthew 13:35 — HIS SECRETS “That it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.”
2. Matthew 25:34 — HIS PREPARED KINGDOM “Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’
3. Luke 11:50 — THE BLOOD THAT HIS PROPHETS WOULD SHED “That the blood of all the prophets that was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation (those living in the time of Christ).”
4. John 17:24 — HIS LOVE FOR JESUS “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
5. Ephesians 1:4 — HIS CHOSEN BELIEVERS
“Just as He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
6. Hebrews 4:3 — ALL HIS WORKS
“For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.”
7. 1 Peter 1:20 — CHRIST’S APPEARANCE IN TIME
“He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you.”
8. Revelation 13:8 — THE SLAIN LAMB
“All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
9. Revelation 17:8 — THE BOOK OF LIFE
“The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.”
10. John 17:5 — HIS GLORY IN CHRIST
” And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
NOTE: Remember, whatever you do, God knew.