Jesus said to his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). The Bible teaches a doctrine of election, or predestination. Before we became Christians, we were sinners, wicked to the core, so that in ourselves it was impossible for us to turn toward righteousness. It was impossible for us to choose any spiritual good. If we were to turn from evil to good, some other force outside of ourselves would have had to change us. When we accepted the gospel and decided to follow Christ, it was because God had first chosen us before the creation of the world. If you think that you indeed made a choice to follow Christ, you are correct, but your choice was an effect of God’s prior choice. God’s acceptance of you was not an effect of your choice, but your acceptance of Christ was an effect of God’s choice, a choice that happened long before you were created. As John said, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” And then he added, “We love because he first loved us.” Of course we love God, or we would still be unsaved, but we love him because he first loved us and saved us. This is the doctrine of election.

This is not the end of it. Predestination is for more than bare salvation, or to say it more correctly, salvation involves more than the mere forgiveness of sins and the promise of heaven. Salvation in Christ is a whole package of blessings and responsibilities. I do not mean that you need to achieve these blessings and responsibilities in order to attain salvation. No, I mean that when you receive salvation, these blessings and responsibilities also come with it. Thus it is not that you need to reach heaven in order to be saved, but that because you are saved by faith in Christ, you will reach heaven. And if you do not reach heaven when you die but fall straight into hell, it means that you have never been saved. This is simple, but it is important to keep it in mind, because people tend to stop thinking this way once they approach topics that they are biased against.

God has chosen us, and predestined us. Predestined for what? There was more to what Jesus said: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit — fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” God predestined us to bear fruit. What is this fruit? Christian teaching often assumes that fruit refers to spiritual and ethical effects such as improvements in character, works of charity, and also works of ministry, such as saving sinners and building churches. This is not entirely wrong, but the biblical idea of fruit includes much more, and Jesus clearly had other things in mind when he made the statement.

Even in the same verse, we can see that Jesus had in mind not only works of preaching and charity, because he said his followers would produce fruit and that “the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” Gospel life and ministry is characterized by answers to prayers. What kinds of prayers? Wait, this is weaker than the way Jesus said it. The doctrine of prayer in historic unbelief is that “God will answer your prayers if it is his will (regardless of what he promised). Or, you can say that he always answers your prayers — sometimes he says yes, sometimes no, sometimes maybe, sometimes later. Or, when you ask for egg, he will give you a scorpion, so that when you ask for spiritual growth, he will give you cancer to teach you a lesson.” Among us, we have never accepted this view of prayer. We recognize it as satanic deception. But Jesus did not even say, “God will answer your prayers” or “God will always answer your prayers.” He said, “God will give you whatever you ask.” This is how God wants us to think about our relationship with him. This is how he wants us to think about discipleship. This is how he wants us to think about faith and prayer. God will give me whatever I ask when I approach him in the name of Jesus. No hiding behind a thousand qualifications. No excuses for me or for him.

God will give me whatever I ask. I will have whatever I ask. What I ask, I get. And I am predestined for this. So I am chosen to get whatever I ask. I am predestined to get whatever I ask. It is my foreordained destiny to receive whatever I ask God in the name of Jesus. If you have never heard this, then you have never heard the Bible’s doctrine of predestination, you have never heard the Bible’s doctrine of prayer, you have never heard the Bible’s doctrine of the name of Jesus, and you have never heard the Bible’s doctrine of discipleship. Just several verses earlier, Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (15:7-8). Getting whatever we ask from God is intertwined throughout his discourse with the notions of bearing fruit, being his disciples, and loving one another. Thus getting whatever we ask from God is as pervasive as the gospel itself. It cannot be taken out and thrown away without tearing apart the entire gospel, and thus also our salvation. Here bearing fruit is almost the same thing as getting whatever we ask from God, and by getting what we ask from God, we show ourselves to be true disciples of Christ.

Tradition teaches that we show ourselves to be disciples when we demonstrate how well we put up with God when he does not answer our prayers. Historic unbelief suggests that we show ourselves to be disciples when we keep our word of allegiance to him more than he keeps his word of blessing to us! That is supposed to be good fruit. That is supposed to be true discipleship. But Jesus said that we show ourselves to be his true disciples when we abide in him, have his words abide in us, and then ask for whatever we wish, and receive whatever we ask from God. Look, are we disciples or not? If we are disciples, then we should let the master define what it means to be disciples. People say that we show that we are disciples by remaining faithful when we do not get what we want from God – when he disappoints us and appears to break his promises. But Jesus said that we show that we are disciples by asking for what we want and getting what we want. Decide. Accept what Jesus said and be a Christian, or reject what Jesus said and walk out the door. Get out! And stop calling yourself a Christian.

I speak to outsiders, of course, because this doctrine from Jesus has always been accepted among us, that we can have what we want from God by faith. The outsiders always say, “But what about the abuse?” What abuse? Did Jesus say anything about abuse? Or are you more orthodox than he was, or smarter than he was, so that you know something that he did not know? If you claim to be his disciple, then shut your mouth and obey your master. In any case, we should attempt feats of faith so extreme and outrageous that they venture even beyond “whatever” before we begin to think about abuse. Right now any talk about “abuse” is only an excuse to not even start at all, to not believe even a little of what Jesus said.

Still, what kinds of prayers did Jesus have in mind? Or what did he want his disciples to ask God to do for them? He said, “God will give you whatever you ask.” What was the “whatever” he was thinking of? Of course “whatever” could include more than what he had in mind, but if he had something specific in mind, then we must know about it and invest everything into it first. And in fact, the context makes it very clear what he was talking about.

Earlier in the discourse, Jesus said, “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves” (14:10-11). The word is translated “works” in some versions, and the version we use offers the correct meaning as “miracles.” We know that the “works” cannot refer to his preaching, because he just said, “The words I say to you…believe me when I say…or else believe because of the works.” That is, he said, “I want you to believe my words, but if not, at least believe my works.” He made a distinction between his words and his works. If you do not believe because of this thing, then believe because of the other thing. So by his works, he did not mean his words, or his ministry of preaching, but his ministry of miracles. Later in the discourse, Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken to them…” (15:22), referring to his sermons, and then he said, “If I had not done among them what no one else did…” (15:24), referring to his miracles. He again made a distinction between his ministry of preaching and his ministry of miracles. It is not a matter of emphasis, but in this context, his “works” refer only to his miracles, and exclude his ministry in doctrine and charity.

He continued, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (14:12-14). Again, he did not include actions or events related to his words, such as preaching. And he did not include actions or events related to charity, because he added that these works refer to things that the disciples would “ask” to happen, and that they would expect God himself to perform when they ask in the name of Jesus.

Therefore, Jesus said that anyone who has faith in him can perform the same miracles and even greater miracles. He staked his own name on this guarantee: “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Some Christians keep muttering like a mantra, “For the glory of God, for the glory of God,” but they are cessationists. How is God glorified? Jesus said that he is glorified when we perform the same miracles he did and even greater miracles by the power of the Father, and in the name of Jesus. Getting whatever we ask from God is what it means to be a Christian, God glorifying himself by giving us what we ask. This is not an optional or dispensational aspect of discipleship, because according to Jesus, this is discipleship — getting whatever we want from God, and especially miracles, in the name of Jesus.

Then he immediately said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (14:15). What did he command just now? Do the same miracles, do greater miracles, glorify the Father by asking for “whatever,” especially miracles. Now if someone refuses to perform miracles, refuses to even try, and even speaks against this, who has the authority to say that such a person loves Jesus? If you dare, go ahead. I surely do not have the gall to say better things about someone than Jesus did. If Jesus said that someone does not love him, I confess that I am entirely helpless to contradict him. I have no such authority and no such arrogance to defy Christ to his face. And surely I am not stupid enough to insist that such a person loves him.

We have limited ourselves to John 14 and 15, and restricted ourselves to only a few themes. But Jesus kept talking about this, so that all the way at 16:23-24, we still hear him say, “I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” When something is repeated so many times, and so emphatically, many creeds would have devoted entire sections to it. In fact, the creeds would include doctrines based on only a few biblical passages, sometimes only one, and sometimes even when there is none! And even those passages they include are often distorted, in order to promote their man-made doctrines and traditions. Certain items that have much less biblical basis are asserted as tests of orthodoxy. Yet we hear nothing about what Jesus commanded in the creeds. Nothing! We hear nothing about asking and getting the miracles we want from God in the name of Jesus. We hear nothing about seeing this as the fruit of faith, as the evidence of discipleship, and as the way to glorify God. It is directly and explicitly stated as the test of orthodoxy, and how someone could recognize true disciples (John 15:7-8). But we hear nothing about it. If the topic is mentioned at all, it comes as an official denial, that it has ceased, or that it is wrong, or something like this. Why? As Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

All this is to say that according to Jesus, if you have been chosen for salvation, you have been chosen to perform the same miracles that Jesus performed, and even greater miracles, so that the Father may be glorified through the name of Jesus. If you are a Christian, this is your life’s purpose. If you do not preach this, then you do not know predestination. You might as well be an Arminian. An Arminian who believes God’s promises is so much better than a Calvinist who denies God’s promises, who appeals to “the will of God” against the word of God, and refuses to allow God to keep his word. This is the worst kind of heretic. This is deformed theology. It is anti-covenant theology. Yet Calvinists are proud to be cessationists, when they should be ashamed and terrified.

Which is better? A Calvinist who claims to believe in predestination, but who refuses to obey Christ, and refuses to bear fruit and work miracles, or a Pentecostal who does not believe or understand predestination, but who obeys Christ, and who bears fruit and works miracles? The Pentecostal ought to become convinced by the biblical doctrine of predestination when it is explained to him, but even in his ignorance he is now light-years ahead. He is living his life’s purpose. The Calvinist might like to talk about predestination, but if in doctrine and action he does not fit the description of someone who has been chosen for life, then we have no basis to believe that he is one of the chosen. The Calvinist has a poor grasp of predestination in the first place. Even in areas where he appears to agree with Scripture more than other people, his doctrinal formulations are incompetent and paradoxical. He is absurdly weak where he is the strongest. Combined with the fact that the Calvinist refuses to accept what Jesus said we are predestined to do and to become, it means that he does not even believe in biblical predestination. The Calvinist who is also a cessationist does not believe in predestination any more than a Pentecostal who is an Arminian. He is just more hypocritical and disobedient.

By the supreme authority of Jesus Christ, I rebuke every doctrine, every creed, every church, every denomination, every theologian, and every other thing, person, or institution that asserts the doctrine of divine sovereignty, election, reprobation, or predestination, but at the same time asserts cessationism, or in any other way and by any other doctrine or policy fails to also assert the doctrine that anyone who has faith in Christ should perform the same miracles that he did, and even greater miracles, as a matter of ordinary faith, spiritual fruit, discipleship, and obedience.

I command each one to repent in public, and either overturn or revise all historic and current creeds, doctrines, policies, credentials, and institutions that continue to permit or support such blatant resistance to the direct promises and commands of Christ. Here is where my responsibilities end toward all those who fall under the statement. I cannot force them to change, but it is my duty to testify against them, so that God may confirm them in their disobedience and multiply their guilt, or else turn them from their wickedness and destruction by his Spirit. The more they claim to know the word of God, the more they claim to defend the faith, the more they claim to uphold the Scripture, but persist in their unbelief and disobedience, the more they condemn themselves.

A true disciple of Jesus Christ is not predestined to believe the mere idea of predestination, but he is predestined to believe what Scripture says we are predestined for, and to produce what Scripture says we are predestined to do – to bear fruit, to receive from God, and to work miracles. In our ministry, we do not make Calvinists and Pentecostals out of people. We value the gospel and our labor too much to aim for something so utterly idiotic. But we make disciples for Jesus Christ. We do not accept stupid theories from men, and we spit on their stupid rules and rituals, their stupid labels and traditions. Again, it is not that they are sufficient as either an asset or a threat to deserve much attention, but we value the gospel and our labor too much to allow mere men to control our doctrine, our mission, and our conscience. We will be all that Jesus said we should be, and we will have all that he said we should have. Anyone who tries to steal anything of the gospel from us can burn in hell. They do not have to perish – they can believe Jesus Christ. But if they want to disobey Christ, they will disobey Christ. And if they want to burn in hell, they can burn in hell.

(Sometimes labels are convenient, so that for example, if some people wish to call us Calvinists, or Pentecostals, or charismatics, or whatever, we might not always deny it. However, these are at best nicknames, not identities. Here is where traditionalists step into error. They embrace and cherish these things as their identities, and then they would defend them as if they defend their very lives. Now they are no longer disciples of Christ, but followers of men. When labels lead to limitations and misunderstandings, and idolatry, as they often do, it is best to limit their use or cast them aside. So we will sometimes tolerate nicknames when we speak to outsiders, but among ourselves, we tend to despise them.)

No cessationist is qualified to teach predestination. This is just like no one who rejects the atonement is qualified to practice evangelism. No one who believes less than all the wonderful things that God predestined for us should speak a word about predestination. Such a person’s doctrine of predestination will always become a distortion and misdirection. Regardless of what label he gives himself, and we know people love their labels so much, such a person is an enemy of the doctrine, and an enemy of the gospel. The same applies to anyone who claims to believe these things only on paper, but refuses to affirm and teach what Jesus said about the same works and greater works, and refuses to take action in asking and getting miracles from God in the name of Jesus, even when the proper occasions arise before him. Calling yourself a Pentecostal or a Charismatic is just as foolish and worthless as calling yourself a Calvinist, when whatever you call yourself, you do not believe or obey the word of God. All of this is nothing more than religious posturing. It is nothing more than pious swagger. There is no faith, no action, and no power behind any of it.

The Bible teaches predestination, and predestination guarantees miracles by the gospel. Therefore, the biblical doctrine of predestination must guarantee miracles. If this is denied, then it is not the biblical doctrine of predestination. To illustrate, Paul wrote that those God foreknew he also predestined, and those he predestined he also called, and those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified. If you have one thing, you also have the next, and if you have one thing, you also have the rest. You cannot say, “I am predestined to be justified by God, but not predestined to be glorified.” No, it is one decree and one doctrine. They are one just like God is one. You cannot love the Father and hate the Son, but he who has the Son also has the Father. If you are not predestined to be glorified, then you are not predestined to be justified. You cannot say that only the apostles were predestined to be glorified, and it is enough that you are justified. And you cannot say that justification passed away after the apostles or after the first century, but that you would skip justification and move straight to glorification. No, it is one decree of election and one doctrine of predestination. You either have everything that belongs to predestination, or you have none of it.

Likewise, you cannot say that you are predestined for justification, but not predestined for miracles. You cannot reject predestination to the ministry of miracles without renouncing every other thing that belongs to predestination, including your conversion and justification. There is no biblical basis or logical method to surgically remove this one part from salvation. It is one with the gospel, so that it is not really a part, but it is as good as the whole. You cannot chop off Christ’s right arm, rip out his eyes, cut off his legs, and then decide to keep the rest of him, and still think of yourself as his disciple or even a spiritual hero, a defender of the faith. You cannot make a monster out of Christ and expect to escape unscathed. Christ is one. If you cut off part of him, you are cut off from him. You cannot have a modular Christ. If you reject part of him, you lose all of him.

Forget about spiritual gifts. What does that have anything to do with what we are talking about? Jesus said that anyone who has faith can do the same miracles he did and even greater miracles, because he will get whatever he asks from God (John 14:12-14), and he said that this has to do with fruit, not gift (John 15:7-8, 16). So I am not thinking about any spiritual gift at all. I am talking about spiritual fruit. I am talking about the fruit of ordinary discipleship. I am talking about what naturally happens when any person abides in Christ and have his words abide in him. I am talking about obeying Jesus, who told us to do the same miracles that he did, and even greater miracles. I am talking about asking for whatever I want from God the Father, so that he would be glorified through the name of Jesus. Let all the gifts cease, and it would not change a thing. I am talking about predestination. God has chosen me and appointed me to bear fruit, fruit that will endure, so that whatever I ask the Father, he will give it to me. By this, I show myself to be the disciple of Christ, and the Father will be glorified in his name. The fruit of discipleship has not ceased. The God who glorifies himself has not ceased. The name of Jesus has not ceased. My love for Christ has not ceased, so that I obey his commands to perform the same miracles and greater miracles, and so that God will glorify himself by giving me whatever I ask.

If the fruit of discipleship has ceased, then discipleship itself has ceased, and this means that no one can be a disciple of Christ, and this in turn means that no one can be saved, and everyone will burn in hell. But if anyone can still be saved by faith in Christ, then that person can be his disciple, and the fruit of discipleship is that the man will perform the same works that Jesus did, and even greater works, and that God will be glorified by giving him whatever he asks in the name of Jesus. This is the gospel, and there is only one gospel. Anyone who rejects this also rejects the gospel, and also rejects Jesus Christ and salvation. I am repeating this in several ways, and this is because it is truly as straightforward and undeniable as it appears, and there is no fanciful version of this, unless we wish to obscure the teaching and suppress it. We go back and forth repeating what Jesus said in several ways, and many people still do not get this. It does not “click” with them. And they will still not get it, because they don’t want to get it. Religious hypocrites keep talking about God’s sovereignty, but they will not respect his decision. They will not believe his words, or obey his commands. There is no salvation à la carte. It is not up to you to decide whether there is healing and prosperity from God by faith. It is not up to you to decide if this has ceased or if that continues. It is not up to you to decide if Jesus meant what he said. It is not up to you to decide if it is possible for men and women who believe in Christ to perform the same miracles and even greater miracles. And it is not up to you — thank God it is not up to you! — to decide what the rest of us can think or do. Because we love Christ, we will do what he said. If you refuse to do what he said, if you refuse to teach what he said, or if you speak against what he said – if you do any of this – then we all know what you are.

If someone claims to love Jesus Christ, then let him show it by asking and getting miracles from God (John 14:11-15). If someone claims to abide in Jesus Christ, then let him show it by asking and getting miracles from God (John 15:7-8). If someone claims that that the words of Christ abide in him, then let him show it by asking and getting miracles from God (John 15:7-8). If someone claims to bear fruit for God, then let him show it by asking and getting miracles from God (John 15:8, 16). If someone claims to bring glory to God, then let him show it by asking and getting miracles from God (John 14:13, 15:8). If someone claims to be chosen by God, then let him show it by asking and getting miracles from God (John 15:16). But if someone does not ask and get miracles from God, and if he refuses to even try, and if he speaks against this, then according to the words of Christ, this person does not love Christ, does not abide in Christ, does not have the words of Christ in him, does not bear fruit for God, does not bring glory to God, and he is not chosen by God.

All arguments are futile. This person is damned at least six times in one short section of Scripture. If he teaches predestination, he is damned once more by his hypocrisy. He embraces an empty idea of an eternal decree, but he rejects the content of the eternal decree. Predestination is not something to be toyed with like this. It will crush him like a bug. By talking about predestination, he shows that he has an awareness of the doctrine, but then by denying what predestination inevitably implies and produces, he testifies against himself and damns his own soul. It is as if he announces himself a reprobate, predestined for hellfire.

For those of us who believe, predestination is good news. The faith in our hearts is evidence that we have been chosen for salvation, predestined for blessing and greatness. We have been foreordained to follow Christ, to remain in him, and to have his words remain in us, so that we can ask whatever is our will, and it will be done for us. As he said, “You shall ask what you will.” No matter what the Bible says, some of you will always retort: “Yeah, but only if it is the will of God.” Um…no, he made a point of saying, “You shall ask what YOU WILL.” He deliberately said, “You will ask whatever you wish.” Jesus could have said “the will of God” as many times as he wanted. If he had wanted to say “the will of God,” he would have said “the will of God.” God’s will is for you to ask what “you will” or what “you wish.”

If you insist on “the will of God” in this context, you change the word of God and expose yourself as reprobate. But you still lose, because Jesus told you the will of God. He told you to ask and get the same miracles that he did, and even greater miracles. The Bible says this straight to your face. Why do you refuse to do it? Why do you refuse to ask for the will of God, you hypocrite? You go around saying, “The will of God, the will of God.” You go around defending the doctrine of divine sovereignty and attacking the people who do not believe like you. You are so proud of your resolve that, adding to the name of Christ himself, you would name yourself after men who were associated with the doctrine. But when the Bible tells you what the will of God is, you reject it. And when someone asks for the will of God or teaches the will of God, you forbid it. See? You have never cared about the will of God. In fact, you have always been very much against it.

Predestination is good news for those of us who believe the gospel, not those who pretend to believe, but those who truly believe. We have been foreordained to bear much fruit, fruit that will remain. We have been foreordained to have faith toward God and love toward Christ, so that we will obey all his commands. We have been foreordained to perform the same miracles that Jesus performed, and even greater miracles, because he promised, “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” We have been foreordained to receive answers to our prayers – not just empty platitudes and vague providences, but supernatural manifestations of exactly what we want and what we ask. This is our destiny. You are predestined to experience success in the work of healing and prophecy. You are predestined to lay hands on the sick, and see them recover. You are predestined to receive visions and dreams, tongues and interpretations, and all kinds of signs and wonders in the name of Jesus. Then as it is written, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” And this is how we use the doctrine of divine sovereignty. God will give us whatever we ask in the name of Jesus, and because he is sovereign, he will do “immeasurably more” than whatever we ask, and even more than whatever we can think or imagine.