To Decree Or Not To Decree? That Is The Question

 Over the last few years, I have become concerned about some well-known charismatic preachers and their practice of "decreeing things." They teach that we can decree things like who should be president and energy independence for the United States. 

The main verse they use for this teaching is Job 22:28 KJV which says, "Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways."  The proclamation of Truth with our mouths is a biblical practice. But, to decree something, because we desire it does not guarantee we will have it.

 In Hebrew, the word for "decree" is (gazar, "to cut"), in the sense of deciding a matter."  (Net Bible Second Edition with notes.) The ESV version uses the word "Decide." 

When you read Job chapter 22 in context, this verse is about Job's intimacy with God and answers to his prayers.

I contacted three highly respected biblical (Charismatic) scholars on this issue. I chose not to include their names because these were private messages. The first quote is lengthy:

(1) "It concerns me. A lot depends on what one means by “decree.” If it only means that we are declaring as truth something the Bible clearly promises or asserts, then it is ok. For example, if one “decrees” that God will overturn the curse on creation and redeem the natural realm (Romans 8:18ff.), then good. That is simply making known what God has promised he will do. Countless other examples could be cited, such as the final judgment on Satan (Rev. 20:10ff.). 

 

 But if by “decree” someone means that by saying certain words with great passion and “faith” the thing stated will come to pass, there are problems. We have no basis or grounds for decreeing things that God himself has not previously revealed as certain. When people “decree” in this sense it comes perilously close to the Word of Faith heresy, the idea that simply by believing something and speaking it out we create or bring to pass some reality that isn’t explicitly endorsed in Scripture.

Again, it all depends on what these people think they are accomplishing by their “decrees.” I can “decree” that whoever believes in the name of Jesus will be saved, but I can’t “decree” that a particular unbelieving pagan will be saved. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. But that is something not in my power to know or decree. It is only God’s to determine.

 My fear of people issuing “decrees” is that it feels presumptuous and arrogant. And what happens to that person’s faith and confidence in God when what they “decree” doesn’t come to pass?

 Be sure that these people aren’t developing their concept of “decree” on the basis of Robert Henderson’s books, primarily his Operating in the Courts of Heaven. It is a horrible book." 

(2) "I think such commands are to be done at God's leading, for something we know to be God's will and have enough confidence to do so. But merely "decreeing" things we want seems just a newer version of "positive confession," which has the wrong object to its faith."

(3) "...the practice is not of God at all. It is how they claimed Trump would win!"

 

 

How George Müller Started His Day

George Müller (born Johann Georg Ferdinand Müller, 27 September 1805 – 10 March 1898) was a Christian evangelist and the director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. He was one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren movement. 

He cared for 10,024 orphans during his lifetime and provided educational opportunities for the orphans to the point that he was even accused by some of raising the poor above their natural station in British life. He established 117 schools that offered Christian education to more than 120,000. - Wikipedia 

"While I was staying at Nailworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now...more than forty years have since passed away.

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditation, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning.

The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord's blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give to prayer but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer.

When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I have myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer… But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonished me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning-by-morning is to obtain food for his inner man.

As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man; not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts....

I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one!" 

GeorgeMuller.org - The George Muller Web Site