The Doctrine of the Divine Decrees. Part 16

The Doctrine of the Divine Decrees. Part 16.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Point 4. The distinctions between what God permits and what He desires. There is the distinction between God’s desires in the decrees, like election, and the rejection of God’s desires.

His desire for the unbeliever is to be saved.
His desire for the believer is to metabolize doctrine and live the Christian way of life.

Obviously then, what He desires and what he permits are two different things. Most believers will suffer loss of rewards at the “bema” seat judgment, 1CO 3:15.

EPH 1:3-4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He elected us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

1CO 3:15 “He shall suffer loss [escrow blessings for eternity at the bema seat judgment]; but he himself shall be saved”

God’s desire is to bless you, and He has; however your desires can cause you to reject His blessings.

JOH 8:31-32, Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word, {then} you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

JOH 8:36 “If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

We think of ourselves as free, but we are born in an inescapable slavery - bondage to sin.

The gracious decree of God for mankind calls for a savior, a redeemer - the Lord Jesus Christ - to purchase our freedom from the slave market.

The only requirement for eternal release from the slave market of sin is faith alone in Christ alone.

While sin and death are displeasing to God and incompatible with His divine nature, nevertheless, they belong to the decrees under the category of the fall of man.

Or while loser believers are displeasing to God and incompatible with His sovereign will, nevertheless, they belong to the decrees, having a printout from their own free will.

The decrees include a lot of things which are not God’s desires, because the decrees include all things we think, say or do.

Sin, human good, and evil are not the desires of God but are in the decrees because they are performed by our free will.

God desires His perfect will and sovereignty, but both angelic and human creatures use their God-given free will and self-determination to violate the desires of God.

God does not desire the discipline of believers, but it is decreed for all carnality, apostasy, and reversionism.

Human volition can and does reject the saving work of Christ and the Christian way of life.

Free will is the most common and the first cause for human suffering in general, and is also a specific cause for believers.

Every human being must take the responsibility for his own decisions and his own actions in life.

You are to take full responsibility yourself, based on your own wrong decisions related to your associations, your activities, your motives, your functions in life.

Human volition is the source of personal sins, human good, and evil.

At salvation all sins were judged at the cross.
Yet all our sins have natural consequences in life, for which the individual who commits them must take full responsibility.

The innocent often suffer with the guilty, being associated with someone else who made a bad decision.

1. Personal sins.
2. Function of human good.
3. Function of evil.
4. Function of moral or immoral degeneracy.

5. Living in cosmic one, “grieving the Spirit.”
6. Living in cosmic two, “quenching the Spirit.”
7. Lack of common sense and bad judgment.
8. Subjective arrogance, the overestimation of your own abilities, or failing to see yourself in the light of reality.

Both believer and unbeliever function under the law of volitional responsibility, not only from sin, but also from the violation of the laws of divine establishment, which are the operational laws for the entire human race within the divine decrees.

This is also why He gave the rebellious children of Israel their own evil desires.
PSA 78:29 So they ate and were well filled; And their desire He gave to them.
PSA 106:15 So He gave them their request, But sent a wasting disease among them.

In respect to His permissive will, God determines not to hinder the course of action which His creatures pursue; but He does determine to regulate and control the boundaries and the results of such actions.

God’s permissive will is His will to permit whatsoever He thinks fit to permit or not to hinder; while what He wills or determines to permit, He also intends to regulate and not to behold as an idle unconcerned spectator.