Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The importance of understanding the Divine Decrees, Part 2.
Tuesday, January 8, 2002
“Moreover” - if Hagar obeys TLJC then His will is to bless her, but she must obey Him in order for His blessing to be upon her.
Point 1. Definition and description.
Decree = His eternal, holy, wise, and sovereign purpose, comprehending simultaneously all things that ever were or will be, in their causes, conditions, successions, relations, and determining the certainty of their future.
a. The omniscience of God knew simultaneously in eternity past everything that would ever happen in human history.
b. The several contents of this one eternal purpose are, because of the limitations of our faculties, necessarily perceived by us in partial aspects and logical relations.
c. The decrees of God are His eternal and immutable will regarding the future existence of all events which will happen in time and also the precise manner and order of their occurrence.
PSA 148:6b He has made a decree which will not pass away.
d. Decrees = the eternal plan by which God has rendered certain all of the events of the universe - past, present, and future.
e. The decrees of God are His eternal purpose according to the counsels of His own will whereby for His own glory He has foreordained whatever comes to pass.
NUM 14:21 “But indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.”
NUM 16:19 “Thus Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation.”
JOH 11:4 “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”
ROM 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
HEB 2:9 But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, {namely,} Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.
JOH 12:23 “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
f. Decrees = all-inclusive will and purpose of God concerning all that ever was or ever will be, which originates wholly within Himself and which He Himself alone must have objectively designed for His own glory and for His satisfaction.
g. By accommodation to creatures of time and space subject to subdivisions, even such minute details as the falling of the sparrow, all decrees were simultaneous, not given by stages.
Because of the finite mental limitations of man, we must perceive them by logical and chronological progression.
(1) Efficacious - that which is directly wrought by God from His sovereignty.
(2) Permissive - that which is appointed by God to be accomplished by secondary causes or by the free will and action of agents.
Efficacious - the sovereign will of God.
Permissive - the free will of man or the volition of mankind.
Point 2. Five characteristics of the divine decrees.
(A) The decrees are all-comprehensive; not the slightest uncertainty could exist as to one of the smallest or most insignificant of events without confusion to all.
Everything you think, why you think it, and the environment in which you think it, was all known to God in eternity past.
God is perfect, and He gave you life at the exact time that He knew would be the best time and environment for you personally.
Everything you think, why you think it, and even the environment in which you think it, was all known to God in eternity past.