Isn't there a centuries old heathen heresy, which the heathen call destiny?

Wasn't it a common theme over the years?

Isn't one way to sum up how the lost view destiny, is by what they say, themselves?

Haven't we all heard lost people after a tragic event say, “Everything happens for a reason”?

On the surface, doesn't that sometimes sound very deep and theological, on their part?

Isn't their “reason” this thing that they call destiny?

For most lost people in America, that “reason” is God, that God has a “reason” for everything that happens.

An example is getting so angry when getting stopped by a red light, the anger is really at God, because he didn’t destine a green light.

However, when the lost say, “Everything happens for a reason”, they don’t realize that sometimes that “reason” is because someone sinned.

Some professing Christians believe in the same type of destiny, though they don’t even realize it.

One example is the approach to the following scripture:

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Appointed can mean like one is “appointed” to an office, or it can mean to make an appointment, like in Microsoft Outlook’s Calendar.

Many of us look at it like the LORD pre-ordained the very year, day, hour & minute of everyone’s death.

However, the LORD didn’t pre-ordain our death, as he didn’t plan or create death in the first place, death came because of sin.

The LORD did pre-ordain one death, though:

Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, was the death the LORD pre-ordained.

The LORD didn’t pre-ordain that Cain was to kill Abel, and that on a certain day and at a certain time.

For one, that would make the LORD the author of sin, which he is not.

Cain didn’t kill Abel because it was decreed by the LORD that he was to do so.

No, Cain “chose” to sin, similar to how his parents “chose” to sin.

The other problem is to think that the hour of Abel’s death was pre-ordained, so that even if Cain didn’t kill him, something else would have.

There is a movie series about this particular strange doctrine,  the “Final Destination” series.

In those movies, people’s deaths were pre-destinated, so that if somehow they escaped what was meant to kill them, something else then had to kill them.

The point of the movie was that the destiny of death is essentially written in stone.

That would also make the LORD the author of suicide, as well as murder, which would be wrong.

When someone commits suicide, it is not because the LORD pre-ordained that, or that the time of their death was pre-ordained.

It is sadly because someone chose to sin, and to kill themselves.

There is a nurse that I know that is questioned by people about someone's death.

He said when someone passes, people will ask him a question like, “Why did God take her?”.

He replies that God didn’t take them, but rather that God received them.

There are also other variants of “destiny” that the heathen have, like superstition, luck, and astrology.

Superstition involves some kind of way to avoid a destiny, like by knocking on wood or by not stepping on a crack.

Luck involves someone destined to win and someone else destined to lose.

Astrology says our behavior is predetermined by the time of our birth, written in the stars.

As Christians, we need to completely avoid these things, no matter how reasonable somebody may make them sound.

Eve was presented a very convincing argument, and she got pulled in.

Men and angels are different than the rest of creation, in that we have been given the power to break the word of God.

The moon, or an eagle, cannot break the word of God.

However, as free moral agents, we are allowed to choose whether we will keep the word of God or whether we will break it.

The LORD did not pre-ordain those choices of ours, where we chose to sin.

Sadly, because we’re fallen, we yearn for and strive to keep the word of God.

However, for something like a flower or an ocean, its nature is to keep the word of God.

A flower does what it’s made for, we generally do not.

The LORD allows us to make choices to either follow him, or to rebel and sin.

In a similar way, the LORD allowed the devil to hurt Job.

Some people may call that the “permissive will of God”.

Yet, that's not a very good term, as it may imply that the LORD willed the very acts of wickedness.

We may try to use the following scripture to justify the doctrine of destiny:

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

However, that scripture more so shows how the LORD can turn things around, or turn something evil into something good.

The evil inflicted by men upon the apostle Paul, were individual choices to sin by those men, but the LORD brought great things out of that.

I do not think that the LORD imagined what form of cruelty those men would do, and then pre-ordained for them to do it.

It was pre-ordained that Paul would suffer for the LORD, but not the choices of sin by the men who did it.

Neither did the LORD invent and pre-ordain the cruel wickedness those men had in their hearts, by which they tortured Paul.

The LORD did make it all work together for good, though.