Destiny Destiny No Escaping That's For Me

First of all, kudos to everyone that caught the Mel Brooks references in the title of this post and accompanying meme.

You can't read an article or listen to a homily from the Charismatic fringe without hearing the word "Destiny" being being beaten into your head. Not just false prophesy but falsely prophetic merchandise like Destiny Pants and Destiny Cards are being sold to the theologically gullible. This got me to thinking; where is all this Destiny nonsense coming from?

Destiny is not just a vacuous concept, it's a tired and overworked  Buzzword that the charismatics have been flinging at their followers like #4 birdshot at a flock of mallards. Destiny is defined as "the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future" AND "the hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future"

If you are a human being your destiny is the same as all other humans, when you die you will stand before the throne of judgement. If you are a Christian and truly believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead, He will stand as your advocate at your judgement. As for "the hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future" I'll get to that in a few moments, let''s look at the use of the word destiny first. 

The cool thing about a search engine is that you can search for something particular in one site if you want, so if I were to search my own blog for all the articles where I've used the word "UFO" I would enter this in the search engine:

site:https://wideawakechristian.blogspot.com UFO


The results should come back 9 results (including this post). So I did the same with Chrismamag.com, the web home of Jennifer LeClaire, and I searched for "Destiny" which came back with 2,700 results (the search engine Bing came back with 11,000 results). The articles in Charismamag.com have breathless titles

"Satan's Sneaky Way of Derailing Your Destiny"
"Are You Unwittingly Cursing Your Destiny?"
"Release Your Kingdom Destiny by Doing These 3 Things"
"Discerning Unhealthy Alignments That Block Your Prophetic Destiny"
"If You Find This, You Will Find Your Destiny"
"Connecting the Prophetic Dots of Your Destiny"

Wow! From the look of these headlines and the sheer number of them, Your Destiny must be incredibly important! The bible must be dripping with admonitions on protecting Your Destiny! Let's look it up, let's go to  https://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/, select NASB as our version, punch in Destiny and we get (drum roll please!)

One result.

Sixty six books, 1,189 chapters, 31,102 verses and destiny is mentioned ONCE. It is Isaiah 65:11

11 “But as for you who forsake the Lord and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, 12 I will destine you for the sword, and all of you will fall in the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.”

Ummmm yeah. Do you think that all of those breathless destiny headlines would be published like that if everyone knew that the only use of Destiny in the bible was a threat of being slaughtered? But in the case of Isaiah 65:11 the use of Destiny looks a bit odd, who would set out wine for a concept? so I looked it up even further. In this verse destiny is Strong's Number H4507 the Hebrew מְנִי (Mĕniy), Meni is the name of the pagan god of fate who the Jews worshiped in Babylonia. Remember when I said we'd get back to "the hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future", it didn't take long, did it.

Am I saying here that the charismatics are pushing a worship of Pagan idols?

To be fair I did the same search on the NIV also and got about 7 returns, all of them signify "destiny" as the end; Destiny = Death. In the NIV the references for Destiny are all death, and there's nothing nice in their context. Except for Isaiah 65:11 where the NIV and the NASB both show that Destiny is a pagan god, in other verses where the NIV says 'destiny' the NASB says "end". In Philippians 3:19 the Greek word translated to "end" is "telos" which is the termination, the limit at which a thing ceases to be. In Ecclesiastes 7:2 the word that the NIV says is destiny is סוֹף sofe - termination, conclusion, the end.

So if you're speaking biblically, destiny is not salvation, Salvation is Salvation. Destiny is the name of a pagan god worshiped by a lost and imprisoned people who, sadly, were doomed to ignore their salvation. I never realized how heartbreaking that is until I typed it out and read it. Sadder still is the hundreds, nay, thousands of people who honestly believe that their salvation lies in a pair of yoga pants (sold through a really bad photoshop image) or a deck of tarot cards (that picture may claim to be a Christian gathering, but who can blame the world if they see a pagan rite?)

And if you want to accuse me of mincing words, fine. Good in fact. Even better - thank you! Because as I've said very staunchly in the past in a bible study when I was asked to rewrite a bible verse to fit it into my life "I am not God's editor, I am his servant" I am not worthy to re-write the word of God. The Christian church has not invented the claim that the Bible is the Word of God, it is the claim of the Bible itself and the bible also requires how it will be treated:

15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15-17)

32 Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it. (Deuteronomy 12:32)

5 Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. 6 Do not add to His words Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)