Sovereignty

Tim Naab

Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as Head above all" 1 Chronicles 29:11

Isaiah 32:6 for the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

 “The Sovereignty of God is an expression that once was generally understood. It was a phrase commonly used in religious literature. It was a theme frequently expounded in the pulpit. It was a truth which brought comfort to many hearts, and gave virility and stability to Christian character. But, today, to make mention of God’s sovereignty is, in many quarters, to speak in an unknown tongue. Were we to announce from the average pulpit that the subject of our discourse would be the sovereignty of God, it would sound very much as though we had borrowed a phrase from one of the dead languages. Alas! That it should be so. Alas! that the doctrine which is the key to history, the interpreter of Providence, the warp and woof of Scripture, and the foundation of Christian theology, should be so sadly neglected and so little understood.” THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD, Arthur W. Pink, Chapter 1

The “church” today is serving a defeated god, unable to save man unless the man shows signs of life. The cry of the VICTORIOUS CHRIST and His Church is absent from the pulpit. We are told of a Christ that failed and a church that is simply required to mop the deck of the sinking Titanic or polish the brass on this sinking ship. No man can refute from scripture that God is Omnipotent, nor Omniscient. Yet in the same breath man will say that this God simply stands in line waiting for some poor lost soul to recognize His presence and beg for a free gift.

“How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence.” THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD, Arthur W. Pink, Chapter 1

God “tries” nothing, He “attempts” nothing, and He “hopes” nothing. He is a God that DECREES the end from the beginning. All that God is, is HOLY, whether it is love, justice, grace, or wrath. Today the “church” attempts to bestow upon the reprobate SOME of God’s holiness by stating that God loves all men, or that God bestows His Grace upon all men. When confronted with disagreement these men will then say that this love, and grace, is a different love and grace as if this essence of God can be measured in different degrees. God's justice reveals His love for THOSE IN CHRIST, and His grace reveals His love for THOSE IN CHRIST, His wrath reveals His love for THOSE IN CHRIST. We can not toss about God's "HOLY GRACE" or “HOLY LOVE” as a "good" for the reprobate. We can only observe HOW that "GOOD" relates to THOSE IN CHRIST. Just because we can not see the reason for the apparent good bestowed upon the reprobate, does not give us the right to say it is "GRACE" or “LOVE” for the reprobate.

Romans 8:38-39  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.???

Can this love be OUTSIDE of Christ?

Ephesians 6:24  Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.

Grace be with all them that love our Lord????

Can this grace be to those who do NOT LOVE our Lord?

 “If it be true that God loves every member of the human family, then why did our Lord tell His disciples "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father ... If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him." (John 14:21,23)? Why say "he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father"? If the Father loves everybody? The same limitation is found in Prov. 8:17: "I love them that love Me." Again we read, "Thou hatest all workers of iniquity" -- not merely the works of iniquity. Here then is a flat repudiation of present teaching that, God hates sin but loves the sinner; Scripture says, "Thou hatest all workers of iniquity" (Psa. 5:5)! "God is angry with the wicked every day." (Psa. 7:11) "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God" -- not "shall abide," but even now -- "abideth on him." (John 3:36) Can God "love" the one on whom His "wrath" abides? Again, is it not evident that the words, "The love of God which is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:39) marks a limitation, both in the sphere and objects of His love? Again, is it not plain from the words "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom. 9:13) that God does not love everybody? Again, it is written, "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." (Heb. 12:6) Does not this verse teach that God's love is restricted to the members of His own family? If He loves all men without exception, then the distinction and limitation here mentioned is quite meaningless. Finally, we would ask, Is it conceivable that God will love the damned in the Lake of Fire? Yet, if He loves them now He will do so then, seeing that His love knows no change -- He is "without variableness or shadow of turning"!” Arthur Pink

The foundation for righteousness is obedience. We are commanded to believe the Gospel. Christ made many righteous by His obedience,

Romans 5:19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

It is His obedience or righteousness that is imputed to His people. Scripture says that our

righteousness (obedience) is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).

Our righteousness is hypocrisy (from the word; upokrinomai; to impersonate anyone, play a part, to simulate, feign, pretend).  To say that God bestows His LOVE or GRACE on the reprobate it to utter error against the LORD!

Isaiah 32:6 for the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

This is what Christ referred to as the leaven of the Pharisees (leaven zumh zume dzoo’-may metaph. of inveterate mental and moral corruption, viewed in its tendency to infect others).

Luke 12:1 In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

When we attempt to mix this leaven (our self righteousness) into the “lump” it grows, rises and infects those around us with moral corruption.

1 Corinthians 5:6. Your glorying (kauchma boasting, self-righteousness) is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

No matter how miniscule this leaven is, it will serve its purpose. We may try and hide it but it will make itself known for all to see,

Luke 8:16-18 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.

From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45)

To say that a person can dwell, out of ignorance or lack of understanding, which is given by God, in the Kingdom or to say that God gives His love or grace to the reprobate is to say that that person may retain a miniscule portion of leaven, self righteousness, and also partake of God’s love and grace. NO part of our leaven can dwell in Christ’s righteousness with out leavening the whole lump. ALL who are saved WILL believe the Gospel, which IS, JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH alone! This is the foundation for spiritual understanding of ALL things. Out side of this men can only have facts. And only outside of this can a man say that God’s love and grace are shown or bestowed upon ALL men.

1 Corinthians 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made  live.

Being made alive by Christ is life eternal. When we are redeemed we are raised to life.

Romans 6:11  Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Acts 13:48  And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Titus 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

God has DECREED all things. Has God decreed that some would be saved then lost then saved and then lost again? Would this not be a confused God? Can He not keep that which he has raised to new life? If a man looses new life, is he then put to death again only to be raised from death and then killed again? When a man says that anyone can loose this life is in effect saying, ”it is my little LEAVEN that keeps me in the lump” It is MY SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS, MY FILTHY RAGS that God honors. In the same manner to say that His GRACE and LOVE are bestowed upon all men is to say that God BLESSES man’s self-righteousness. This is uttering error against the LORD (Isaiah 32:6) and in so doing they will do the opposite of their intent. Their intent is to put a GOOD face on God to the lost when in essence they will, “…make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. (Isaiah 32:6) This is a denial of God’s Sovereignty and reduces Him to a god made in our image after our likeness after our understanding. A means to be accepted by the “mainstream”.