b. The Sovereignty of God - Real or Imagined?

Back to Pastor's Page

Bible Studies in The Sovereignty of God

Bible Studies

The Sovereignty of God - An Introduction

The Sovereignty of God - real or Imagined?

The Great Truth of the Sovereignty of God

The Sovereignty of God Defined

The Sovereignty of God in Creation

The Sovereignty of God in Administration

The Sovereignty of God in Salvation (part 1)

The Sovereignty of God in Salvation (part 2)

The Sovereignty of God in Operation

The Sovereignty of God and the Human Will

The Sovereignty of God and Prayer

Our Attitude toward the Sovereignty of God

The Value of the Doctrine of the Sovereignty of God

The Sovereignty of God, - Real or Imagined?

As you walk through the Vatican’s Cistine Chapel and look up at the ceiling Michelangelo painted you can’t help but have a few thoughts running through your head ...

	How did one man ever do something as beautiful as all that?
	How did he get the thoughts and the pictures into his mind?
	It must have taken fantastic time and effort to do all that.
	How did his back cope when he had to lie there and paint?!

It is absolutely marvellous all that Michelangelo painted and even if you are not a connoisseur (and I’m not!) the intricacy of the detail and the work he put into it is just so magnificent. I’ve seen many beautiful works of art, - I’ve see Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Liza’ a number of times and I can’t really see why it’s priceless, especially when I compare to the paintings in the Cistine Chapel …

But the subject we are considering is undoubtedly beyond all comparison. It is a subject twe shall completely appreciate when we stand before the Throne. The Throne itself, - as John tells us, - is beautiful, ornate and magnificent. But, it’s not the Throne that will hold our concentration, because in comparison the Throne fades into the background; it is the One Who is seated upon the Throne in Whom we shall glory. Therefore I believe, – inasmuch as we can through the teachings of the Bible, - it is the Christian’s prerogative and responsibility to prepare ourselves for the glory of Heaven that awaits us … which is the glory of the Sovereign God.

It is a concept that doesn’t necessarily come to mind too easily in these days … the Sovereignty of God. Questions are being flung around … For example, where was God on September 11^th 2001? Where is God when the starving millions are needing to be fed? Where was God when the earthquake ripped through an area and a school collapsed on top of little primary children, as it did in Italy less than a year ago? Where is God? The same people who ask you the question have already made up their own minds as to the answer to the question.

There are many people who believe in some form of a God-influence. They have come to understand Him as Someone in Heaven Who is completely detached from this world. He has given up on it and has gone back to Heaven. Others believe in a God that they have manufactured for themselves to fit in to their lifestyles and how they believe He ought to be so that they can deaden further their consciences.

Many don’t believe there is such a Person at all; they don’t believe He created everything or that He has any personal interest or concern in the world. They talk confidently about the laws of nature, the ongoing process of evolution, man’s apparent increasing ability to map out his own future … God’s not real for He is not needed! We’re not savages dancing around a boiling totem pole in some African jungle … we have progressed!

So, to many it just seems as if God has neither existed or else He has ‘retired’ to Heaven. His own creation has largely banished and exiled Him! He’s not needed. Humanity believes it has the power of the ‘free will’ to determine and to decide without any call for external intervention ... least of all, God’s!

I’m often amazed at the up-to-dateness and the relevance of former writings that many – even, sadly, in Christian circles, - have long since jettisoned. A.W. Pink wrote, “But who is regulating affairs on this earth today - God, or the Devil? Attempt to take a serious and comprehensive view of the world. What a scene of confusion and chaos confronts us on every side! Sin is rampant; lawlessness abounds; evil men and seducers are waxing "worse and worse" (2 Tim. 3:13). Today, everything appears to be out of joint. Thrones are creaking and tottering, ancient dynasties are being overturned, democracies are revolting, civilization is a demonstrated failure; … Unrest, discontent, and lawlessness are rife everywhere, and none can say how soon another great war will be set in motion. Statesmen are perplexed and staggered. Men's hearts are "failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth" (Luke 21:26). Do these things look as though God had full control?”

I was brought up believing in ‘the good old days’ when you could leave your door unlocked all night and no-one would break in. I was brought up with courtesy and manners. Society was altogether different. Respect and authority played such a large part in our development … but yet when I read the sermons and writings of former preachers you would honestly think they were living and writing today and not in some former age. You’ll find the old preachers speaking and writing about the same immorality and degeneration within society, - I could quote you from Whitefield, Wesley, the Puritans, and prove my point ... but here’s even an Old Testament preacher talking about these terrible things happening in his society, Hab. 1:2 O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! 3 Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. 4 Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

Does it mean that Christianity and our faith in God has proved futile … that what we believe in has been devalued and reduced and is the failure many consider it to be? Does it mean then, that God is unable to keep His promises and to hold on to the reins of control? Has He in some way lost His power and his authority … because we – the Church – seem not to demonstrate it any longer? Is the Sovereignty of God an old relic of some former age? And … who is regulating affairs on earth today?!

This is an important subject … a subject I dare not get wrong as I stand here. I dare not contribute to the flood of publications that are being deluged upon Christian bookshops nowadays with the whole emphasis on how we can help God sort out the state the world is in. The authors write as if God has collapsed under the strain of modern challenge and He needs us to give Him a hand up! But God is not helpless! …

	He is the God Who brought the Israelites out of Egypt and Babylon … a fact of history that the preachers of the Bible reminded the people time and time again. And it is good to be reminded by history …
	He is the God Who strengthened the witness of the apostles throughout the opposition of the Greek and Roman society.
	When the Church became established throughout the nations but apostasy set in God did what He always has done and He kept unto Himself a remnant faithful; such as the little-known groups as the Petrobusians the Paulicians from Asia Minor, the Waldensians, the Lollards and the Hussites.
	He wasn’t helpless when He troubled the heart and conscience of such a man as the unheard-of Martin Luther and raised up men like John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and Philip Melanchton.
	He gave a little-known man like John Knox a voice that echoed throughout Scotland and even into the royal court. Queen Mary trembled when she heard of Knox!
	In the small insignificant village of Falkland Richard Cameron was born and became a great champion of the Covenanters and it is where God also used Andrew Melville to instigate the Reformation in Scotland.
	A little country place like Anwoth in Dumfrieshire had a man like Samuel Rutherford that God used as a mighty herald of His Word and was the precursor of the Covenanting cause.
	John Bunyan, because of his preaching, was thrown into a prison in Bedford … the same John Bunyan who touched the lives of so many by his Pilgrim’s Progress.
	John Wesley was often heckled and all manner of things thrown at him as he stood in the open-air preaching the Gospel … as did George Whitefield and other mighty men of God as they faced the opposition that hates anything to do with the truth of God and His Word.
	Don’t be under any illusion, - our God is not helpless … He is Sovereign. At any time in history when He chose to intervene He raised up men and women to stand by the preaching of the truth of His Word.
	The devil has not gained the upper hand. In II Cor 4:4 Paul wrote, In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. … but he is only ‘the god of this world’ with a small ‘g’.
	Our Heavenly Father never gave into him or never added to his power … The Bible says that the devils believe and tremble. The devil and all the devils can do nothing outside of the authority and Sovereignty of God … and they hate to hear us reminding them they are defeated and God will cast them into the eternal fires of hell.
	We are only starting out on this subject of the Sovereignty of God but already I hope you see its importance.
	God’s people need to focus again on His Sovereignty: His Sovereign plan, His Sovereign grace, His Sovereign choice, His Sovereign Person.
	He is not beaten or anywhere near it. He remains where He has always remained … even from before the foundation of the world, - He is still seated upon the Throne.
	The earth and the universes act in accordance to His command. The world moves in line with His plan of the ages. … We don’t understand it all but that is why He is God.
	Standing before Job, the young man Elihu – for all his faults – spoke some tremendous words, Touching the Almighty we cannot find Him out (Job 37:23).
	Our main occupation, then, is to bring glory to God and we do that by concentrating upon how the Bible describes Him to us.
	No other consideration of God is viable but that which we find based upon the totality of His Word.
	Here, as He spoke to his suffering servant Job, is what He said about the subject of the Sovereignty of God that He holds so close to His heart … Job 38:4 – 40:2.