Practical Uses of the Doctrine of Decrees
The Word of God uses direct and indirect injunctions. The
scriptures urges us to go through research and comprehensive study of every
issue looking for the best truth that can apply to any topic. There are a
combination of thoughts that I live by. They are:
Psalm 23: "God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction. Even when the way goes through
Psalm 118: Thank God because he’s good, because his love never quits. Tell the world,
Hebrews 10:35: Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.
I don't care
what it takes, and costs in money and material. We must expose Satan in
all his deeds against the Church and saint of God. Search the scriptures.
The comparing and harmonizing of its different parts comparing spiritual things
with spiritual, the gathering of all about the great central fact of
revelation, which is Christ in you, the ope of glory. The preaching and
teaching of it in wholeness as well in its due proportions (preach
and teach the Word). The minister of the Gospel is called a scribe who
hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven. The pastors of the
churches are at the same time to be teachers (Ephesians 4:11); the bishop must
be apt to teach (I Timothy 3:2), handling aright the word of Faith (truth);
holding the faithful word which is according to the teaching (II Timothy 2:15);
that he may be able both to exhort in the sound doctrine and to convict the
gainsayers (Titus 1:9).
Over the years, my philosophical and critical point of view is hopefully developing in areas that represent the purpose and call upon my life as the times and circumstances that effect the church. While I still hold to the hard stands of church doctrines. I interpret them differently and expound on them more clearly, because I seem to have reached a fundamental truth, which sheds new light upon all things. The still hard truth is that Christ is the one and only leader and revealer of God, in nature, in humanity, in history, in science, in scripture, by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, is in my judgement the key to all theology. In my life, I am moving closer and closer to a solid reality. I am first and foremost a Christian, a husband, a pastor, a father, a grandfather, and a Black man. I have not mixed up the order, for without this order I would become from time of challenge, and being taught by the word of God I would miss the whole call.
Psychology is what is left where there is no Holy Spirit, no spirit-filled life, no sound doctrine that works and meets every need known to man. You must at some point and time agree to the only moral source for it is not being mind lead but spirit lead.
Christ is man in His fullness is where the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge is furnished. Christ as the head of the Church has made available immense power to His representatives to overpower the works of the devil. Christ creating and educating through divine process, that has taken years to develop in me. I have never lost anything that has been given to me. You as a minister of the Gospel must understand that there are places you can't go to try to keep what God at a time is using for a teaching exercise to develop your faith and trust. We are always from time to time put in an Abraham and Isaac classroom example.
Any leader thinking he can start mixing new age concepts, mind healing, or using psychotherapy is wasting his time. He is just making demons more aware of what happens along side the mind of Christ we should be developing. There are to many in pulpits in our community that are still playing childish games of God's ordinances, which are holy and sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ. You can say they don't know any better. They are just products of their generation. In times past God winked at our sins, but in this time He is calling all men everywhere to repent.
The scripture terms "generation" and "procession" are applied to the Son and the Holy Spirit, are but approximate expressions of the truth, and we are to correct by other declarations of scripture any imperfect impressions, which we might derive solely from them. Every man must be his own judge for his willful sin and leading God's people. A lack of knowledge is no excuse. In Acts 2:38, they signed a contract to REPENT, BE BAPTIZE, AND TO RECEIVED THE HOLY SPIRIT. They say this or that is what I choose to follow. In the choosing is death or life.
The fact that ascending scale of life is marked by increasing differentiation of faculty and function should rather lead us to expect morals and ethics from the highest of all our church leaders who should operated at a more complex level than our own. In man many faculties are united in one intelligent being, and the more intelligent man is more distinct from others in that the faculties of the divine nature, in our leaders, should become; until intellect and affection, conscience, and will assume a relative independence, and there arises even the possibility of conflict between spirit, soul, and body so people that we endeavor to preach and teach the word of God with Christ logic, and not just man's usage of interesting words that really don't mean anything.
Man must not lead a dual life, a unanimously consented life, "Love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul (mind), and with all your strength, and with all resources. The good life is the unified life.
Once again, the practical uses of the doctrine of decrees inspires humility by its representation of God's unsearchable counsel and absolute sovereignty. It teaches confidence in Him who has wisely ordered our birth, our death, and our surrounding even to the minutest particulars, and has made all things work together for the triumph of His kingdom and the good of those who love Him. It shows the enemies of God that as their sins have been foreseen and provided for in God's plan, so they can never, while remaining in their sins, hope to escape their decreed and threatened penalty. It urges the sinner to avail himself of the appointed means of grace, if he would be counted among the number of those for whom God has decreed salvation.
For the church leader this doctrine is one of those advanced teachings of scripture which requires for its understanding a matured mind and a deep experience. All the circular explanations, and excuses, your immaturity or lack of biblical training by clever ministers can come up with will never change the responsibility required by all believers.
The beginner in the Christian life may not see its value or even its truth, but with increasing years it will become like a staff to lean on. In times of affliction, and persecution, the Church has found in the decrees of God, and in the prophecies in which these decrees are published, her strong consolation. It is only upon basis of decrees, that we can believe that "all things work together for God, or pray His will be done.
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Artesian
Talk to you soon,
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