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The Decree involves a concept which is totally beyond human attainment, because it is the official act of God which
established reality. Here is a big chunk of knowledge to bite off; God comprehended all things simulntaneously,
percieveing at once their causes, conditions, relations and determining their certain futurition.
Obviously, we need to kick this around a bit!
God has the prerogative, and He alone, to establish reality. Now, I know there are many people who think otherwise,
that they have the influence and power, or wealth, or other ability which makes it possible for them to effect the
working of reality. But this is their illusion. God, alone, says what will be real, and what will not.
This ablity, as immense as it may seem, becomes even more unwieldy when we consider that, along with the trillions of
miniscule acts of men which God comprehended instantaneously, not to mention the flight path of every bird, the makeup
and function of billions of stars in the vast heavens, and the exact number of the grains of sand on every beach on
earth; He also had to sort out the potential and the possibile from the real.
But rather than trifle with the immensity of God's abilities, let's focus of the principle at work in The Decree.
Saying that The Decree establishes reality is one thing, but truly understanding what it means is quite another.
First and foremost is the principle that God, in His Decree, did not force reality to conform to His wishes, but rather
He observed the whole of human activity, and all creation for that matter, and pronounced that the final disposition of
each volition on any given subject was real. However, The Decree does not involve God in any single moment, or circumstance,
where He does not will it. In other words, The Decree is not God doing something, but rather observing something, and
recognizing it as something that would come to pass.
This distinction is critical, for some claim that God sponsors sin in The Decree. This, ofcourse, is not true, for He
merely recognized it's existence. There is a vast difference. Keep in mind, lest you surmise that He had the power to
deny the existence of sin, and refuse to acknowledge it as reality, that God would have violated the freedom of human
volition, and this would have rendered the entire experiment of human history a sorry mistake, and God does not make
mistakes. He saw, in his mentality, the birth of sin in the garden, even before the formal event, The Decree, came before
Him to be enacted. He nonetheless set into motion the days which have become many centuries, knowing of man's failure,
and the angels before us, yet He permitted sin to become reality on a conditional basis, that it be encapsulated in a
temporal sphere and, therefore, it must end at some point.
The Decree, then, is not an expression of God's preferences, or His standards, but the necessary act of a Sovereign
Ruler, and in His case, a Ruler who wields the power, vested in Himself only, to establish the real. Apart from His
disposition on this matter, nothing could be real, and therefore, would not come to pass.
As I said early on, this is a subject which is not even possible for human kind, so it requires some mental gymnastics
to comprehend. Only a Sovereign of God's supreme stature, a being capable of creation on an immense scale, would have
to deal with this prefunctory matter. But God gives us this information in order that we come to know and love Him,
an attainment which requires a profound respect for Him, as I imagine the Decree helps to resolve.
Let's put away this juvenile idea that God is responsible for sin, for if He were, He would not be God, and we
would not be here! This is one of those principles that may require you to use faith, not completely understanding every
nuance of the subject, but giving God the benfit of the doubt.
There are some thoughts and actions of men that God did not decree as real, and these fall under the heading of "arrogance".
Included in this category are angelic thoughts which are arrogant, but we'll examine man for the present.
When a man takes off, mentally, into the boonies, entertaining thoughts that are preposterous, he is embarking upon a journey
into the unreal, and his soul is placed in great peril. Some call the extremes of this condition "insanity", and that is
precisely what it is, but this bears upon the subject of Decree in that, man cannot will something to be real when God has
not decreed it.
Many years ago, just after I returned from Viet Nam, I came under the influence of some wierd people with really far out
beliefs. I was at a point, then, to entertain just about anything, and I bought into this bull****!
One of the things they practiced was the "power of positive thinking". They maintained that man causes his own reality by
the working of his mind, with the criteria being, he must believe with his entire being that something will be so, and it
will come to pass. I don't think they had my mercenary train of thought in mind when they laid out these ideas for me,
but I immediately put this "power" to work on a new car. But not just any car! I think big.
On my way to work there was a Cadillac dealership. On the back lot, tucked in a row of other gaudy sleds, was a beautiful
Eldorado, long, sleek and black. I turned loose this great new power to get it for me. Each day I would park on the side
street and walk to the fence, focus on my Eldorado, and go to work being positive. In keeping wiith the rules of the
game, I imagined myself in all manner of circumstances at the wheel of my black beauty. I even tried negative circumsatnces
when the positives didn't work. I saw "the hook", a local repo man, hooking onto it with his wrecker and hauling it away.
I imagined trips to San Francisco, making out with my main squeeze in the back seat, even spilling beer on the front seat!
I suspect that I raised the level of "positive thinking" to new heights, for I resorted to every concievable scenario, and yet,
the Eldorado stayed parked where it was, and I kept driving my Plymouth!
What possible reason could there be for any human being to turn down God on the matter of salvation? Let me phrase it in more
worldly terms...
Hey! I have a proposition for you! The deal of a lifetime! Ten lifetimes! Here's what I'll do:
I'll give you unlimited wealth, and make you royalty in a dynasty that will rule forever!
You'll get a free pass into Paradise.
You'll get eternal life, you'll never die
You'll receive a new body, weightless, with unlimited energy
You'll have an expanded mentality, a thousand times greater that now
You'll be incapable of feeling negative emotions, forever. No sadness, no apathy,
no self pity, no hatred, no unhappiness, ever
You'll be incapable of sinning, of commiting a wrongful act, forever.
You'll live an exaulted life, higher than angels, with great respect and
stature, forever.
And all of this is FREE! It won't cost you one penny. The only obligation is
that you listen to a five minute message and acknowledge that Jesus Christ
is your Savior. From that moment, you can go your merry way, even forget
His name for the rest of your life. You will never be required to do a
good deed, or change your lifestyle in even the smallest detail, yet you will
have these things the second you depart from this life.
How about it? What fool could pass up a deal like this? Well, as you well know, millions pass it up, and they will die
and spend eternity in horrible agony. Why? It's so terribly sad that this will happen, for having everything is so easy!
Easier that easy! God does it all, you just nod your empty head and smile.
The reason is that millions stray into that no man's land called "unreality", the territory beyond the Decree of God. Man
has the ability to do this, whereas an animal does not. Nature does not. Find one honey bee that joins an ant colony, or
one gazelle that adopts an orphan elephant calf. Only man, with his volition, can depart from reality and exist in a world
of his own creation. The tragedy is, God's reality is the genuine article, and the tinkering of man in such a maneuver, to
exclaim a decree of his own, is the epitome of abysmal idiocy. We are not sovereign over even ourselves, and the folly
of man's delusions is proof enough of that.
But, talking about the wrong path is a drag, no? How about the right way?
So there is a God who, amoung other things, is the sole dealer in reality, the dispenser of salvation, the giver of
eternal life, the Creator of all things....I figger that making a friend of this Person is a good idea.
The closer we hew to the reality of the absolute, infinite God, the greater our blessings in this life and the Kingdom that
will come. It's a no brainer! And the greatest news of all is....do you know what God wants more than anything else?
For us to love Him!
Pleroma, "fullness". This is the ultimate destination of a human soul in this world, to have a deep, unshakable love
for eternal God, The maker of the Decree. Forget the required acts of contrition, the tithing, the acts of good that
we con't really want to do, the stupid "christian speak" nonsense, giving up things we really like to do, like gambling
and drinking beer and cussing a blue streak. How close to reality do these things bring us? They don't...they are the
trappings of life in the boonies of unreality. God has already seen us top to bottom, and accepted us warts and all.
THAT is reality. Stop trying to be little Lord Fontleroy or Rebecca from Sunnybrook Farm! These airs don't impress the
Sovereign of Light! As if our attempts at righteousness are what He wants of us. I that were so, He would have saved us
on that basis.
The Decree of God is the basis for reality.
Amen
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