What is the Decree Of God?

All right, guys, so here we are. We're gonna have a little lesson this morning, and this'll tell you exactly what we're gonna talk about. It's something that we know and love here at Hope Reform Baptist Church.

The Eternal Decree of God

We're gonna talk about the eternal decree of God. In other words, his purpose. God has a purpose and a plan for every single thing that happens in the world, and today we're gonna go through the scriptures and see exactly what it is and how it is that works.

So what is God's decree? And I love going through the Keech's Catechism, which we have up on the Reform Rookie website and the questions that we go through every Sunday morning, and this is one of the ones that I really, I'm trying to commit it to memory.

For some reason, it's not sticking, but this is one that I want to commit to memory, and I think you guys should, too. And the question is, what are the decrees of God? The decrees of God are his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

Okay, so now we're gonna go through each line of this and answer the, show the scripture references that they have. So Ephesians 111, in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

So we see God has an eternal purpose. He has a will, and everything, all things, are going to happen in accord with his will. Now, as Reformed believers, we recognize we have the prescriptive will of God, which is his moral will, and then his decreed will.

Obviously, when people sin, that's not God's moral will for them. So there's a differentiation between his moral will, which is broken every day of the week, and then his prescribed or decree, I'm sorry, not his prescribed will, his decreed will, which is never broken.

God brings about every single action that we see in the world today. Romans 11, 36, for from him and through him and to him are some things. No, all things. All things are from him, through him, and to him.

And that all things is gonna include some heavy stuff we're gonna see as we go through some scriptures. We're gonna be very heavily scripture-saturated this morning. Daniel 4 .35, all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done?

Now, I read that verse in another place at a point in time in my life, and a woman was like, that doesn't sound so nice. And what that person didn't recognize was the fact that there's a big differentiation between God, our sovereign creator, and us as his creatures.

Certainly, we have infinite value because we're created in the image of God, but we don't want to lessen the distinction between creator and creation. In fact, when we do that, we minimize the glory of God.

When you maximize that distance, you maximize the solution, which is Jesus Christ, okay? So we have to recognize that God is the creator, okay, but he is not like us. We are created in his image, so we are like him, but he is not like us, and Psalm 50 tells us that.

So let's continue on, all right. The defined decrees, and really it should be decree, are the eternal plans God has made for his creation that are now being worked out in the lives of his creatures. So God has a plan before the creation of the earth.

He puts that plan into place and works it out through our lives. Isaiah 14, 26 says, this is the purpose that is purpose concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.

That's God's hand and God's purpose over who? The whole earth. So now let's take a look at our confession. I'm sorry, this is Ketcher's Catechism, next question. How does God execute his decrees? Because that's important too.

If God has a decree, now how does he work this out? The answer is God executes his decrees in the works of creation and providence. So God's decree and God's providence work hand in hand. They're inseparable if God is going to accomplish what he purposes.

Genesis 1, 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. All right, part of God's decree was creating the earth and populating it with his image bearers. So this is step one, basically, for God's providence.

For him to carry out the decree, he needs a creation, right? Revelation 4, 11, worthy are you, O Lord, our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will, they existed and were created.

So the only reason the creation is here is because it was the will of God. If it was the will of God not for the creation to be here, we wouldn't be here. So it's his will that the world was created and that we inhabit it.

Matthew 6, 26, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them, right? God provides even for the animals, the birds, the birds of the air.

They don't have jobs. Their jobs are to tweet and keep us up in the morning, right? And God feeds them anyway. Acts 14, 16 and past, he used this verse a couple weeks back with regards to the common grace.

He says, in past generations, he allowed, God, allowed all the nations to walk their own ways, yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

So through God's providence, he even provides for the nations that walk their own ways away from God. He's even providing for them, so that when they eventually stand before him and tell him, we didn't think you existed, he's gonna say, you didn't think I existed?

Not only did creation provide enough evidence for that, I fed you, I satisfied your hearts with food and gladness. Man's gonna be without excuse. So as you can see, God's decree is executed or carried out in the works of providence.

He feeds the birds, he feeds the nations who go away from him, he creates the world and everything in it, that includes us. Divine providence is the outworking of the defined decree, which is the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, Ephesians 1 .11.

That's a verse you're gonna wanna park on. Nehemiah 9 .6, you are the Lord, you alone, you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all them, and the host of heaven worships you.

God is preserving every single life. The only reason you live right now is because God has preserved you up to this moment, your every breath, to stay alive. He's the one who sustains us, okay? So now, what I wanted to do was show you kind of like a diagram of what this looks like.

And it's an illustration that Millard Erikson did in one of his systematic theologies. He basically likens God to an architect. And what does an architect do? He designs, right? He has a vision in mind, right?

He thinks about that vision, and what does he do? Then he creates a plan according to his purpose. So God is like an architect. Now, God doesn't think the way we think. We think linearly, right? We have to go through facts and start putting things together.

God knows all things at the same time. So I don't wanna say that God thinks because right away, we liken that to our thinking, but God doesn't think like we think. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, okay?

So God knows all things. He knows what he wants to do. This is God's decree according to his will and his purpose. His will, his purpose is the decree. It's basically like the blueprint that he has for the universe.

Now, what does he do? He's gotta work that out. What does he do? He creates the universe. That's step one. Part of his decree is creating the universe and then populating it. Now, how is he going to accomplish that?

What's he going to use? He's gonna use people, contractors, right? The contractor is the one who takes the blueprints. They read the blueprints, and then they start putting the things together and building the building that the architect designed.

Now, this group of people is different than regular contractors because they're God's people. They're his church. God works by providence through his church to bring the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

So we go by what blueprint? The word of God. Now, we take the word of God and what God told us to do, and we do it. We put it into action. And if we're successful, what happens? We build the kingdom, right?

And that kingdom is built over time, step by step, slowly, in order to accomplish God's plan. And it all happens through the works of providence. So God provides each one of us here with life. He provides each one of us here with talents, gifts, and abilities.

He commands us what to do with those talents, gifts, and abilities in the scriptures to congregate as his people, to go out into the neighborhoods, to bring the kingdom, to pray for our leaders, and on and on and on.

And that's how we build a kingdom here on earth. We're to evangelize, we're to proclaim Jesus as Lord. Long Island is Christ's Island, okay? And this is how he brings the kingdom to earth, through his people, by the power of his spirit.

It's not by might nor by our power, but by God's power. So through the spirit of God that inhabits God's people, he carries us along to carry out this plan. So we have God as the architect, he has his eternal plan and decree, blueprints it out with the scriptures, carries it out by the power of his spirit through his people.

Make sense? Is that an easy way for you guys to understand God's? Okay, that's what I was hoping for. I wanted to get the fact that God has a plan, he's an architect, we're like the contractors. Obviously, the GC is Jesus, he's the one subbing it all out to us.

We're a suitable helpmate to the GC in figurative terms, I don't mean that literally, okay? So we're co-laboring with Christ to bring the kingdom here on earth and accomplishing God's decree. All right, so now our confession, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith has a lot to say about this too.

This is a little bit more detailed than the Keech's Catechism. So it says, God hath decreed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever comes to pass.

So as yet thereby God is neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of secondary causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.

That's a mouthful, okay? So we'll start right from the first line. God hath decreed in himself. Why is it in himself?

Because there's no other to...

Yeah, not only is there no one else to bounce this off of, no one else has all knowledge but God. Exactly. God is not counseling with somebody, say, hey, what do you think? You think this'll work? No.

God is doing this within himself, and it happens before creation starts because it says from all eternity. Now, when we talk about eternity, we always use time language. You can't use time language in eternity because it's eternity, it's not time.

God is outside of time. God doesn't grow old. Time began when creation began. So when we talk about eternity, it's before time started. God is eternal, and it's by the most wise holy counsel of his own will.

Again, he's not consulting anybody on this. He's not the architect who has to go to the town and say, hey, listen, you're okay we build a two-story building or three? No, you can't do it? All right, we'll only build a one-story building.

God's not petitioning the town board of what he can and can't build. He is the town board. He's building whatever he wants by his own will, freely and unchangeably. And that's important because this is God's decision and it's unchangeable.

God, before eternity, as he starts to create, has an unchangeable will. If his will changed, well, then God's not perfect. Did he change his will because, oh, this is a better plan and he didn't know that at first?

Once God puts that decree in place, it can't change, right? And we don't want it to change. We remember what Malachi 4 says, I am the Lord your God who does not change. If I changed, I would consume you, okay?

If God's will and decree could change, he could say, Jesus is no longer the Savior. I'm not providing a Savior. Now what do we do? We're in trouble. So God's decree is representative of his nature, derivative from his nature, which is unchangeable.

So once God starts to plan, this is an unchangeable decree. Okay? And it's for all things whatsoever come to pass. So now that brings up a real difficult issue. So are you saying that God willingly brought bad things to take place?

The scripture's answer is yes, yes. God brings, he says, I create light and darkness. I bring forth calamity and I bring forth evil. So how is it that God brings forth evil? Without, the confession says, yet so is thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures.

So if God brings forth human beings, what's a big difference between human beings and God? I just said, God is what? Unchangeable. He's immutable. When he brings forth creatures, are creatures changeable?

Yes. Are creatures mutable? Yes. So God in his plan brings forth creatures who he knows are going to sin, right? Part of God's plan includes sending his son Jesus into the world to save them. So God's decree includes the Savior, but you need a Savior because there's sin in the world.

Sin happens because creatures are changeable. We hear the words of God, we obey maybe for a period, and then go our own way. So that's contemplated in this, but God isn't the one causing the sin. As a responsible creature, I'm the one sinning answerable to God because he's let me know what is right and wrong.

He gives us the commandments. He gives us the top 10. We know what's right or wrong, but he also gives us a Savior, granted to us by repentance and faith in Jesus. So God is not the one sinning, we are, but God knows that we're gonna sin because that's part of his decree.

We sin freely. So God decreed that we would freely choose what our hearts want and we choose to sin. So God's not the cause of sin, but he brings about creatures who bring sin into the world. Now, a lot of times people will push back at that and say, well, then that means God's the author of sin.

And the question I have for them is, well, did God know that Hitler was gonna do what he did before he created Hitler? Well, yes, but he couldn't stop it. If he knew Hitler was gonna do these things, why didn't he just not create Hitler?

Well, Hitler's got free will. I know, that's not what I'm asking you. If God knew that Hitler was gonna do what he did, why did he create Hitler in the first place? And the answer is, it was part of his decree.

Hitler will be punished for what he's done and he's going to receive full justice. Okay, but that is part of God's decree. Everything good and bad is part of God's decree because what? It ultimately glorifies his son, Jesus.

His son, Jesus, takes the penalty of God's wrath upon himself for sinners who freely sin and God displays his mercy and his love for his people in his son, Jesus, that he would save any. The problem is, the human heart flips this around.

And says, why doesn't God save everyone? When the real question is, why does God save anyone? None of us deserve it, none. We've all rebelled against our creator. Did you have a question, Jared? No. Okay, so everything that happens is included in God's decree.

And there are two arguments for this assertion. First, the Bible states generally that God's decree is universal and that comes right out of Sam Waldron's exposition of the 1689. So let me just go through Daniel 434, which we touched a little bit upon before.

At the end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon at that time, he says, I lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever.

For his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, which is offensive to some people, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven, among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done?

In our limited finite knowledge, we would look and say, Lord, why did you let Hitler do that? Why didn't you stop him? But we're working on limited finite knowledge. None of us can say to God,.

Why did you do that? Yes. Yes. I just realized this right now. Is Nebuchadnezzar, he's quoting scripture here. Is this, you had read this earlier.

Yeah, this is part of that scripture. Yeah. Yeah, this is part, this is when King Nebuchadnezzar, yeah, this is when King Nebuchadnezzar is ruling and he says, and he brags, he says, look what I've done.

And God says, really, look what you've done? Now look what you get. And he sent him into the grass, you know, eating and his nails grew. Yes, Jerry.

You used the example of Hitler, right? And wouldn't Satan also fit that picture in a bigger, broader sense? Absolutely. Absolutely.

God created Satan, knowing that Satan was gonna fall, decreeing that Satan would freely rebel against God and freely fall. And what happens? God uses that, he has an intent and a purpose for Satan's fall to bring about the salvation of his people, right?

So Satan tempts people. Do you think he tempted Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Jews and the Romans to put Jesus up on the cross? Surely, right? And what did that do? That played right into God's decree to save people through his son, Jesus on the cross.

Who was also tempted. Who was also tempted, but resisted the temptation. Amen. Right? So Satan is the tempter, God doesn't tempt anyone, right? So Satan is the one who freely tempts people. And again, this is part of our sanctification as believers.

When we're tempted, we have a way of escape, okay? And that strengthens us in our faith and God keeps us from falling. And then there are other people who he lets go. You wanna go? You freely wanna sin?

I'm gonna let you. And again, that's also part of his decree. Nothing falls outside of God's eternal decree. And we're gonna see that in a couple more scriptures. Okay. Romans 8, 27 and 28. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. Right? So according to the will of God, saints are saved. Saints' prayers are sanctified.

He intercedes and sanctifies our prayers so that when they get to God, they're what God wants, right? And they're called according to God's purpose. So the prayers of the saints are sanctified and even us being saints is according to his will and purpose.

He has a will and a purpose in that. Romans 11, 36. For from him and through him and to him were all things to him be the glory forever. We went over that one already. Ephesians 1, 11. We had gone over that one too.

That's part of the confessions scriptures. There's a couple more. Secondly, the Bible teaches specifically that all classes of events are included in God's decree. All classes, good and evil events. Isaiah 45, 7, Amos, Job, and here we're gonna go through them.

Isaiah, this is the one I told you about before. I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. You're gonna like this one. This is one of my favorites.

Is a trumpet blown in the city and the people not afraid? Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? So the floods that happened this week in New York City, random, accident, or part of the decree of God?

Climate change? Is climate change part of God's decree? Right? So everything happens according to the decree of God. Now for some people, that's gonna be judgment. For other people, that's gonna be their deliverance.

How could I say that? When somebody's scared, okay, of a flood coming, right? They may say, you know what? My life can be cut short right now. God help me. And in their fear of this natural disaster, they cry out to God.

God uses that disaster as an impetus to push them closer to God so that he answers that prayer and draws them to him. Right? So the very same event can be used to judge people and it could be used as grace to bring them to him.

God has an intent and purpose in each and every event that happens here on earth. Job 121, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Right? In my Bible study, I misquoted the verse on purpose.

I said, yeah, the Lord gave and Satan takes away. Doesn't that stink? And a couple of guys are like, wait, wait, wait, that's not what the verse said. I said, well, what does it say? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

I said, exactly. The Lord takes away. He takes away from us things that are gonna pull us away from him. He takes those things away for our benefit. He's not being a Scrooge. I don't want him to play baseball, so I'm just gonna take away his bat and ball.

He takes things away and pulls them out of our hands because they're gonna lead us astray. Right? And sometimes we attribute, a lot of people attribute Satan. Oh, I didn't get the car that I wanted. Oh, Satan got in the way and didn't allow me to get it.

Satan may have played a part in it, but it was God's decree and his will that you don't get that car for his purposes and his reasons. Is this making sense? Okay. Jeremiah 15, two, and when they ask you, where shall we go?

You shall say to them, thus says the Lord, those who are for pestilence to pestilence and those who are for the sword to the sword, those who are for famine to famine and those who are for captivity to captivity.

That's not tough to understand. That's tough to swallow. God's basically saying, look, there's gonna be people I'm gonna give over to pestilence. I'm gonna give them over to the sword. I'm gonna give them over to famine.

I'm gonna give them over for captivity as a form of discipline, as a form of judgment for some, but for others, it's gonna be a form of repentance where they fall to their knees and they beg God for mercy.

They may still have to endure whatever the consequence is, but it draws them closer to God. Okay? All right. So God's decree is comprehensive. It includes sinful acts. We're gonna go through all these, and this is the one we tap from the pulpit consistently.

Genesis 50, 20, as for you, meaning this is Joseph speaking, talking to his brothers who sold him into slavery. As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, right?

Because Joseph being sold into slavery ends up bringing him to Egypt where he ends up getting out of the prison, becoming Pharaoh's number two guy in charge of all the storehouses, of all the food, and then ends up calling his family out from where they were to Egypt to feed them.

So now most people say, when they quote this verse, they say, God, they meant it for evil, but God used it for good. And that's not what the verse says. It says God meant it for good. In other words, he decreed that that event would happen, but he decreed it for good.

All of God's decree is for good. He never does anything evil or bad. It's the people who have ill motives or improper motives selling Joseph into slavery. They didn't think that was a good thing. They wanted him gone.

They hated him, right? So they did it with wrong motives. God knew their motives, right? God had a motive in that. I want Joseph to be sold into slavery, dropped in a pit, and become the number two guy in Egypt, and end up feeding the very people who put him in the pit.

Is that not a picture of Jesus? The very people who put him on the cross, which includes all of us here, all of our sin put Jesus on the cross. He now comes and saves. Unbelievable. The gospel is the only story where the hero dies for the victim, for the guilty party.

Yes, Jerry.

I think from humanly speaking, it's difficult for us as humans to look at the big picture. We always see the immediate picture in front of us, and we have this idea that everything is supposed to go smooth and play out the way we think it should play out and the way maybe it plays out for other people.

You know, we work each day, we earn a paycheck, we build a house, we build a family, blah, blah, blah. But when these difficult situations arise, sometimes more difficult than we can even imagine, we don't look at the big picture all the time and say, well, God has a plan for this, he has a reason for this.

We unfortunately look at it and say, where is this gonna lead me? What's gonna happen to me now? What's gonna happen to my family? You know, so it's because of our human failures, we don't always see it.

Right, I think part of our depravity includes self-centeredness. So our first reaction or question is, well, how is this gonna affect me? This is gonna be bad for me. We don't look at it from God's perspective in the sense that he decreed this to happen.

This, all things work together for good, we're gonna learn that in the Bible study coming up on Wednesday. He's gonna work this together for my good. I love what Daniel put up on Facebook. After he got walked out of his job for not getting a vaccine, he put up, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. He understands that God has a sovereign purpose in this happening. And we're gonna trust in God, in the midst of seemingly bad things happening, that he means this for our good.

This is how he's maybe gonna shake the church out, purify his people, and eventually do away with the evildoers, right? We pray the imprecatory Psalms. Lord, save them if it's your will to save them, or remove them.

Scatter your enemies from before you.

Yes, brother. Just one further comment to go along with that. The responsibility we have as Christians, though, is to make sure that we've searched Scripture, and the negative situation did not occur because of our sin, although God uses that, but that we make sure that the way we respond to it, the way we've lived up to it, is as much to God's Scripture as we can.

Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, here's where the book of Job comes in. Job teaches, the book of Job teaches us how to suffer as Christians, right? Job, arguably, is probably one of the most difficult situations in all of Bible, right?

And as Job's possessions are taken away, and his land is taken away, and his children are taken from him, he looks and says, the Lord gives the Lord, takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord, he's the one who said that, and he says, though he slay me, meaning God, yet I will praise him.

In the midst of this trial, he's praising God. And aren't we also told to do that, Romans chapter five, James chapter one, rejoice in your trials, right? Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.

You mean I should give thanks that I lost my job? Yes, you should. And when you think about where other people are in this world, you have a lot to be grateful for, right? We look at what's going on overseas and in different parts of the world, and we still live a charmed life.

But that's not the point. Our point isn't to live a charmed life, our point is to live a faithful, holy, and righteous life, and reflect our Savior to the world around us. I mean, our Savior, it wasn't beyond suffering himself.

He suffered, okay, and learned obedience through suffering, Hebrews chapter five tells us. Our Savior learned obedience through suffering? Second Peter says, if it's God's will that you suffer, do it for good, do it for the good and the glory of God.

When we measure the length of our years, let's say God blesses us and gives us 100 years on earth. What is 100 years in the scope of eternity? Nothing, nothing. If we don't suffer and we don't give glory to God, we're gonna regret it on the other side.

We're gonna lose rewards for what we could have done here. That's why I'm trying to move, you know, get things going in the right direction, momentum-wise, for the Spurgeon Fellowship, and get things happening here on Long Island.

Long Island is Christ's island, we just have to do what he's told us to do. Okay, I was preaching, wasn't I? Anyway, 2 Samuel 16, but the king said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zariah? If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so?

Right, so the king is recognizing that the Lord commissioned a prophet to curse David. And he says, who are you to say why is this being done? If the Lord says it, he said it. He has a plan and a purpose and an intent in saying that to David.

Job 1, 11 and 12, but stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, this is Satan speaking, and he will curse you to your face. And the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your hand, only against him do not stretch out your hand.

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. So here you have Satan, God offering Job up. It's kind of amazing when you read that first chapter. God says to Satan, what about my servant, Job? Be like, Lord, don't just volunteer me for this.

Lord says, what about my servant, Job? And Satan says, I'll get him. He says, yeah, go ahead, try. All to show, number one, that this is all part of God's decree, and ultimately, Job's faith is a gift from God that God sustains in the midst of that.

So when you go through these situations, they're sanctifying and they're evidence of God's work in your heart that you remain faithful to him. It's not a work of man. It's a work of the Spirit in the heart that generates this faith that we can rely on God and trust that even in the midst of this horrible situation, he has a good intent and purpose in it for me so that I glorify him.

Okay, let's keep going. Continuing on with the sinful acts, Luke 22, 22. For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man whom he is betrayed. So it's determined ahead of time that Jesus is gonna be betrayed, but it says, woe to that man who betrays him.

It's Judas, right? But who is the most important apostle out of all of them, out of all 12 at the time? Who is the most important? I'll give you the answer, Judas. Without Judas betraying Jesus, we don't have a savior.

We don't have a crucifixion. Think we needed Judas? Yes, we did. Do you think Judas was cursed for what he did and responsible for what he did? Absolutely, he was judged. But if he didn't betray him as part of God's decree, Jesus might never have gone to the cross.

Now, I use that term might never have gone to the cross, but there is no might never in God's decree, right? It's all going to happen according to his purpose. So even God, did God have a good intent or a bad intent with Judas' betrayal?

He had a good intent. This is gonna bring about the salvation of my people. Now, Judas, in his heart, had a bad intent. So we have God's intent always going towards the good. Let's say it's this way. Let's say good is that way.