Pt. 7 LBCF Chapter 3 Of Gods Decree

We're on chapter three of the confession, and this one is titled of the decree of God's decrees, okay? Now, remember, we're going through, this is still the foundation. Remember the whole first part of the confession, if you remember, is talking about the foundations, the doctrines that are needed to build the rest of our faith upon.

So we've looked at the Holy Scriptures, we've looked at of God and the Holy Trinity, and chapter three is of God's decree. Chapter three is divided into two major parts. One is the general decree of all things.

In fact, and let me say this right here. When we see, well, let me give you this. Paragraph one is its universality. Paragraph two is its unconditionality, okay? And then part two is the specific decree of predestination to life.

I want to make this point early on. If you are ever called upon to defend your view of election, to defend your view of predestination, if you don't do it in the context of the broader decree of God, the general decree of God, you're really putting yourself at a loss.

Because if somebody, and I'm talking specifically to when you're, if you're defending this to other Christians, it works. The same thing is true as if you're defending the faith to non-believers, but especially to Christians, because everybody, all Christians claim that they believe in the sovereignty of God.

I don't know of anybody who you would consider to be a solid evangelical Christian who says he denies the sovereignty of God. That's not to say that they actually believe the biblical doctrine of the sovereignty, but they say they do, all right?

So when we start talking about God's decree, all right, what you find out is that there are a lot of Christians who will claim that they hold to this doctrine, but they don't. And if you start trying to defend predestination or election apart from the general decree of God, you're going to find yourself at a loss, and you're really shooting yourself in the foot, all right?

So the part two is paragraphs three and four talk about the major attributes of the special decree of predestination. Paragraphs five and six are talking about its positive outworking. How does this work out in our faith?

And paragraph seven is its prudent handling, all right? That's the general outline, and we're going to work our way through each of these. All right, first, part one is the general decree of all things, all right?

And paragraph one, as we mentioned, is its universality, and it is plainly stated in the first part of it. So, and this is the general statement when we're talking about God's decree, this is what we mean.

God has 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. That is a concise summary of what we talk about, what we mean when we say the decree of God.

And again, I want to point out, notice decree is singular. It's not decrees, it's not like God is constantly decreeing. God decreed one time, all right? And ever since from his decree is the outworking, and remember, we talked about this in the introduction to it.

How is God's decree brought about? Through creation and providence, okay? But so now let's look, what does this say? God has decreed in himself. What does that mean? That means that he counseled with no one else.

There is no other outside influence in the decree of God other than within himself, okay? And notice from all eternity, and that's probably the best way to say it. I used to talk about eternity past and eternity present or eternity future.

I don't do that anymore because that really, it really mitigates against itself how you can't put timeframe on eternity because eternity is outside of time, all right? So I like the way the confession says it, from all eternity, all right?

Because it's putting it outside of time. So from all eternity, God has decreed. What has he decreed or how did he decree it? By his most wise and holy counsel of his own will. God needs nothing else other than himself and his own wise counsel.

And remember, again, notice now when we start talking about his own wise counsel within himself, notice the doctrine of the Trinity, all right? You can't get away from the doctrine of Trinity if you read the scriptures, all right?

And that's why you can never put aside the Bible if you're going to debate, if you're going to evangelize, you have to stand on the scriptures because it's the scripture that reveals who God is. And as soon as you start putting the scriptures away, you're going to find yourself on shaky ground because you're going to start talking about eliminating the Trinity because people don't understand it and you can't do that.

You have to, so otherwise, because if God was not Trinitarian, some of these sayings wouldn't make much sense, would it? Most counsel of his own will, okay? All right, freely and unchangeably, he did it.

There was nothing that compelled him. There's some very poor theology out there that says that God created man because he had this innate need. He needed a people to worship him. That is false. God needs nothing.

What is man that I have need of him? The scriptures tell us. God has perfect unity and harmony within the Trinity complete into himself. He needs nothing. So he was free according to his own counsel and his own will.

And then unchangeably, God does not change his mind. That's one of the attributes of God that we've talked about is the immutability, the unchangeableness of God. What God decrees will take place. And notice, all things whatsoever comes to pass.

If it has happened, if it is going to happen, if it's happening now, it's part of the decree of God. You can see how this plays right into what we talk about, the sovereignty of God. And any questions upon this?

Because this is the basic premise and everything else that's going to follow, we're going to go from the general to the specific. Once we leave the first two chapters, we're going to get into the special decree of predestination.

So any questions on this?

Yes.

Yeah.

A decree is a statement declaring that something will happen. Kings issue decrees. It is decreed, you know, the king can issue an edict and says, I decree from now on that, you know, let me, I'm trying to think of a good example, that all Norwegians must come and register.

Well, you know, we have Caesar Augustus decreed that everybody should go to his own village for the census. That's a decree. When a king decrees something, it must be followed.

Yes.

Well, yeah, well, everything he does has a purpose. Yes, yes, without doubt, because God does nothing purposelessly. You're just trying to get me to say some things. All right, any other questions? And again, I'm belaboring this because this is the foundation for the rest of the chapter.

Okay, so paragraph one is universality. That means it's universal. There is nothing that is outside the decree of God. All right, we're still on it. And it's carefully guarded in the confession. All right, the confession plainly states what we mean by the decree of God, and then it carefully guards it.

Yet so is thereby as God neither the author of sin nor has any fellowship with any therein. All right, now, the reason that this is in there is, and I'm going to explain this a little bit more in just a few minutes in another slide, but let me introduce it now.

Now, remember what I said. If it's happened, it was decreed by God. That includes sinful actions. Sinful events were decreed by God. But notice what the confession says. Yet so is thereby God is neither the author of sin nor has any fellowship with any therein.

Just because God has decreed certain things that are going to happen doesn't mean that he's the author of it. We're going to explain that a little bit more, all right, as we go through. But everybody, the one event that just illustrates this more than any other is the crucifixion of Christ.

God decreed that Christ should come and sacrifice himself for the sins of his people, okay? Yet who was responsible for hanging Jesus on the cross? The council, the Romans, the Jewish people in general, in fact, all of mankind, all right?

And Peter makes this very clear in his sermon at Pentecost. He talks about that Jesus Christ was delivered up by the predetermined plan of God by the hands of wicked men. So see, now we'll talk a little bit more about that.

So it's carefully guarded. This, it doesn't impugn the holiness of God. God has no fellowship with sin whatsoever, and he's not the author of sin, all right? But it's also carefully guarded. Now, notice what it says.

Nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. This also means that you have freedom of choice. When you make a choice, you are responsible for that choice, and you have liberty to do that.

Liberty in that one sense, okay? All right, this precludes the era of fatalism. I can remember this one woman in the church that I went to before hope, and she came to me. When she heard me preach a message, and I guess it was obvious that I was a Calvinist in it, she came up to me and she says, are you Calvinist?

And I said, well, I don't like that term, but yes, I am. And she says, oh, so you're a fatalist. That was her view of it, that somehow, if you believe in predestination, that your will is taken away. Nothing could be further from the truth, all right?

And we're going to get into that a little bit more, so let me continue. That includes, all right, when we talk about the universality, all right, it includes all good and evil events. Everything good that has happened, everything bad that has happened is all part of the decree of God.

It has to be, because if it wasn't decreed by God, it couldn't possibly happen. Sinful acts, free acts of men, and quote, chance occurrences. Now, we just talked about this last Sunday, remember, in the sermon?

We talked about they cast lots for his clothing, and remember, I went into a little bit of an explanation as to what lots are. It's kind of like the rolling of the dice, all right? You roll a dice, that predetermined by God what's going to come up, but you still have to roll the dice, okay?

The details of our lives, all decreed by God, yet they come about by your own volition. The affairs of nation, that should be nations, and the final destruction of the wicked, all of those things are included in the decree of God.

Okay, follow?

Still talking about its universality, looking at the practical outworking of it, in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things in power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree. So in other words, when we see the decree of God being worked out in both creation and providence, all right, and by the way, those are sections that are coming, all right, creation is next, because that's how God starts to work out his decree, by his act of creation, all right, and what we will see in that, his wisdom in how he is going to have all of these things come about, and his power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.

Not one aspect of his decree will go unfulfilled. It's impossible. You cannot thwart this decree, all right? Let me see, where are we up to?

Okay.

I had actually wanted to say this earlier, but I'll say it here. Let me make a distinction. When we talk about the will of God, it is usually used in scripture in two specific ways.

All right?

Sometimes you'll hear people talk about the decretive will of God. That's what we're talking about here. When God wills something, according to his decrees, it will come about. You cannot thwart the decretive will of God, but sometimes in scripture, we see the will of God used in a different way, and sometimes people like to call this the permissive will or the revealed will of God, as defined in the holy scriptures.

What is the will of God for your life? Your own sanctification, all right? What is the will of God? Obey the 10 commandments. Can you thwart that will of God? Can you disobey the 10 commandments? All too often, all right?

So, but don't confuse, you know, the way the will of God is used in scripture and confuse one for the other. You can disobey the revealed will of God, but you can never disobey the decretive will of God.

And what is the decretive will of God? It's also called the sovereign will of God, or sometimes it's called the secret will of God. Do you know why it's called the secret will of God? Because it's a secret.

Nobody knows what it is. I do not know what God has decreased other than what he has revealed in his word. He alone knows the end from the beginning. Now, we know certain things that will happen as, we know how the whole plan of God is going to end, because he reveals it to us, all right?

But other than that, the daily outworkings of it, I don't know. I don't know how many years he's going to give me on this earth. You know, I don't know a lot of things about my life, and that's why we are called to exercise wisdom, to make our choices, and those are free choices.

And what you'll see is, in fact, I think it's unconditionality. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet has he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as a future, or is that which would come to pass upon such conditions?

In other words, what that's saying is, he has decreed it by his own will, not because he, quote, looked down to Carter's time, and saw something, this is going to happen, so I'm going to decree that. You hear that very frequently in evangelical churches.

They say, oh, well, God knew my heart and that I would accept him, that's why he saved me.

No.

That mitigates directly against the scriptures, all right? No, he, even though he may know what comes to pass, you know why he knows what comes to pass? Because he's decreed it. It's not like God looked down to Carter's time and said, okay, now I see what's going to come to pass.

No.

He knows what's going to come to pass because that's exactly what he has decreed to come to pass. So when God reveals something, in fact, one of the quotations I gave you on Sunday, I forget which one it was, talked about the predictions of the Old Testament.

I never use that word, because they're not predictions, they're revelations. Because it's not, predicting has an idea, well, I predict that this is going to happen. I try to predict who's going to win the next election.

Nobody knows, all right? But if I was a prophet from God, I could reveal something. That's not a prediction, okay? All right, that kind of ties up the general decree of God. Any questions on that? Because that's what you have to have as a foundation.

If you don't understand that, then coming into the specific decree of predestination to life, you're never going to get there. And I think this is, yeah, go ahead, Ted.

Is this authentic? He looked down to the corner, showed him as if he didn't know something already and then learned it.

Yes.

So I, you know, that's

You're right, and that mitigates against our doctrine of God. Not just the doctrine of decrees, but of who God is, that God can learn something. God can't learn anything because he has all knowledge. It's impossible for God to learn anything.

Because if he could learn something, that means that there is some sort of knowledge that is outside of him. And just think of what the ramifications of that. That means there could be something out there that could be detrimental to him.

That's not who our God is, okay? All right, so now we come to the specific decree of predestination unto life. Paragraph three, and this is titled, it's distinguishing selectivity, okay? By the way, this is Sam Waldron's outline.

By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ to the praise of his glorious grace, others being left to their act and their sin through their just condemnation to the praise of his glorious justice.

All right, now again, they say it very well, by the decree of God. Now, what does that mean? Remember, you got to go back to the first part. God decrees whatsoever will come to pass. Those who are going to be saved, it has been decreed by God from all eternity.

Therefore, it cannot possibly be thwarted. That's why, that's how you can have the scripture say, you know, that your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life from all eternity because it's part of the decree of God.

All right, this is why it's so important that we evangelize, well, I'm actually getting ahead of myself because we're getting into second causes and all, which we haven't gotten to yet. So let's put that on hold.

All right, so he is foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of his glorious justice. God is going to get glory with those people who are saved through his mercy and his grace and those who are condemned because of his justice because they are getting what they deserve.

Remember, nobody is going to be condemned who does not deserve it because they have chosen that path for themselves. Everybody follow that? Sometimes you get somebody who wants to be a critic of Calvinism and they talk about, well, Calvinism, you know, there are, teaches that there are some people who want God, they're pleading with him and he says, no, and others, you know, are just the opposite.

You know, others don't want him and yet they're saved. That's not what the scripture teaches. That's a gross, inaccurate commentary and what Calvinism really teaches, all right? Now, paragraph four talks about its unchanging specificity.

These angels and men thus predestined and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed and their number so certain and definite that it can neither be increased or diminished. In other words, we talk about this when we talk about the covenant of redemption, that in eternity past, the Trinity entered into a covenant to create, and that's the decree, to create and out of the creation, there would be a certain number of people that they would save and that number is fixed.

And notice too that it's not only men but angels. All granted, there's two different plans for men and angels but nonetheless, there are elect men and elect angels and the scripture teaches that very clearly, all right?

Paragraph five and six talk about its outworking. Now, this is where I wanted to get to. Again, the first two paragraphs of this section just lay out what it says. Now, here we get into how it works out.

Those of mankind that are predestined to life, God before the foundation of the world was laid according to his eternal and immutable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will has chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory out of his mere free grace and love without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving in thereunto.

What that basically says is this. If you're here and you're saved, you didn't earn it. You didn't do anything that God would look down and say, oh, yeah, you know what? He, oh, look at all the good stuff.

I'm going to choose him because he's such a good person. If you're here and you're saved, it is purely because God looked down upon you when you were an enemy of his, when there was nothing good in you and he says, I'm going to save that person.

That's it, no boasting. If you're going to boast, boast in the Lord, all right? And it's very clear without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving him thereunto. And I mean, the whole of scripture testifies to this point, okay?

It's positive outworking is paragraph six, the effectual execution of election, divine appointment as God has appointed the elect unto glory. That's why we talk about salvation is totally of the Lord.

Isn't that what Jonah said when he was in the belly of the fish? Salvation is of the Lord, all right? There's no other reason, if I look at my own life and I know I'm a poster child for this. There is no reason, if you knew me before I was saved, there's no reason you'd look at me and say, oh yeah, he's a good guy and God should choose him.

There's nothing, nothing in me. Anything that that's why any boasting, it's gone. Just praise and glorify God that he chose a wretched sinner like me. The exact identity by the eternal and most free purpose of his will for ordained all the means.

Now here's where we get into it. All the means there unto wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam are redeemed by Christ or effectually called unto faith in Christ by his spirit working in due season are justified, adopted, sanctified and kept by his power through faith unto salvation.

All right, we're going to all the second half of this right over here talking about effectually called, faith, spirit working, justified, adopted, sanctified. These are all sections of the confession.

So I'm not going to cover those too much now because they have whole chapters all to themselves. What I want to look at here is notice the most free purpose of his will for ordained all the means there unto.

Why do we send missionaries to the uttermost parts of the world? And let's go just a little bit deeper than that. That's the simple answer and you're absolutely correct. Yes, God has elect in every tribe, tongue and nation and he has ordained and decreed it so that the only method people will come to faith is through the preaching of the word of God by hearing the word, by hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So when he has people, I don't care if they're in the deepest part of Africa or South America or on an island in the South Pacific, God has elect there, he will see to it that he sends people to those villages to preach the gospel so that his elect will be saved.

He preaches. In the previous church that I went to, I had a very good friend, close friend. He's with the Lord now. His name was Gwambi Makoso, okay? Gwambi Makoso came from, at that time was called the Belgian Congo, all right?

Then it changed to Zaire, now it's back to the Congo but at that point it was called the Belgian Congo. His, I believe it was his grandfather was the first convert in his village. Christian missionaries came, preached the gospel.

Soon as his grandfather heard it, his grandfather was converted and sent a whole chain of thing down throughout the whole family and then Gwambi ultimately immigrated here to the United States, all right?

But that's what happens. God, if God has his elect, no matter where they are, he will foreordain the means that is used but he does use means. God is not going to save his people apart from the means that he has foreordained.

And what is the means that he's used? The preaching of the gospel, all right? Does that make sense? All right, so, and again, all these other things we'll see as we go through in some of the other chapters.

They're exclusive objects. Neither are there any other redeemed by Christ or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. Only those who are chosen by God will come.

We know this to be true. Think about it this way. Sometimes people react negatively to this, but think of it this way. Two people come into a meeting where the gospel is being preached. Both of them hear the gospel for the first time.

One of them immediately repents and is saved. The other one, poof, this is nonsense, and walks out. What's the difference? Both hear the same message. Both products of the same type of environment. What's the difference?

One is elect, one is not. It's that simple. It's not just the eloquence of the pastor. By the way, I take great comfort in this doctrine, that if I stumble over my words a little bit, or if I'm not, you know, I don't have to worry that somebody's going to go to hell because I didn't articulate my words properly, okay?

Now, on the other hand, you have Arminian pastors who will say such very things. There was a very popular book published, and the pastor was giving instructions. He says, now, before you go out with this, make sure you take breath mint because you don't want to offend somebody, and they go to hell because you have bad breath.

I'm not even going to repeat it. I don't think I'm, all right. All right, anyway, moving along. Paragraph seven is the last paragraph of this chapter, and it was labeled, it's prudent handling. Look at what it says.

The doctrine of the high mystery of predestination. I'm just going to stop there. Notice how the writers of our confession said it. Predestination is a high mystery. How do you weigh the fact that man has freedom of choice, but God has the ultimate freedom, and how does the freedom of man and the freedom of God work together?

It's a high mystery. There's been tension. In fact, let me see if I can find it. Let me just read it. This is right out of Sam Waldron's book. He says this. Paragraph four emphasizes this by speaking of the immutability and particularity of God's predestination.

This raises the question, did God elect only nations or groups? Does Romans nine have only to do with election of nations? Did God simply choose the church as a whole? A positive answer to such questions would be both illogical and unscriptural.

And then he says this. Well, you know what, that's not really what I wanted. That's good, but it's not what I wanted. He talks about how illogical it is to say that God elected a group, but not every individual in it, which some people say.

All right, the idea that I wanted to point out is there's always a tension when you get to this predestination between the will of man and the will of God. Some Christians trying to protect the will of God become hyper-Calvinists, okay, that man has no freedom whatsoever.

On the other side, you have those who are so intent on protecting the will of man that they deny the sovereignty of God and go into a full Arminian soteriology. What is the case is man has free will, God has free will, and the two work together.

I like to put it this way. God is absolutely sovereign 100%. 100 sovereign, man is 100 responsible for his actions, and that's how it works together. That's the high mystery, but it's exactly what the Bible teaches.

So it's to be handled with special prudence and care that men attending the will of God revealed in his word and yielding obedience thereunto may from the certainty of their effectual vocation be assured of their eternal election.

So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation so that all sincerely obey the gospel. All right, let me just run that down quickly.

Firstly, it says that you should be able to be assured of your salvation, all right. We have chapter 18 of our confession is a long chapter all having to do with assurance. But how can you be assured when you see the fruit of the gospel in your life, okay?

If one of the criticisms of the doctrines of grace is that, well, if you can be absolutely assured and know that you have your salvation, you can't lose it, that it's going to lead to a wanton, you know, promiscuous lifestyle.

The confession says, no, it's just the opposite. If you are truly saved and you understand how you are saved by the sheer mercy and grace of God, it is going to prompt you to love God and desire to obey the gospel commands.

If it doesn't, the fact is the chances are that the confession of faith was spurious. How can you stick your finger in the eye of the God who has graciously saved you by disobeying his commandments at will?

That makes no sense, right? That's the last of the chapter. Any final thoughts or questions?