If it's true that God has the power to intervene and he has the right to intervene,

but he doesn't intervene, the obvious question is, why not?

If God does not intervene, it's because God chooses not to intervene.

Everything that happens, the birth of a baby, a tsunami, cancer,

every hair that falls from our head, is God in charge of all of that?

What about salvation, for example? Some say that he's ordained everything

at his in charge of every detail. There are others who say, no, that God leaves many things up to us.

Welcome to renewing your mind, I'm Lee Webb. This week we're continuing our look at one of the most

precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity. The Westminster Confession of Faith

was published in the mid-17th century and it continues to help Christians understand and defend

what they believe. Here's our teacher, Dr. R. C. Sprawl.

We're going to rush ahead now in our study of the theology of the Westminster Confession

and move right on to chapter 3. And chapter 3 is entitled of God's eternal decree.

Before we look at each of the individual segments of that, let's just say that that word decree

is a word that we are familiar with to some degree. Every Christmas we read the Nativity story

in the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke and we read and a decree went out from Caesar agustus

that all the world should be enrolled. And that was the historical occasion for Joseph and Mary

returning to Bethlehem. And that's why Jesus was born in Bethlehem because both Joseph and Mary

were under the domination of the Roman Empire and were subject to imperial decrees. Now a decree

is a law that is enacted by some great authorities such as a king or an emperor or so on.

We remember the famous play made into a movie that was called Anna and the King of Siam.

Otherwise known as the King and I where Anna goes to Siam and she tries to teach the king

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