The Sovrereignty Of God # 1

 The Sovereignty Of God # 1

The sovereignty of God may be defined as the exercise of His supremacy. Being infinitely elevated above the highest creature, He is the Most High God, Lord of Heaven and earth. Subject to none, influenced by none, absolutely independent; God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases. None can thwart Him, none can hinder Him.

So His own Word expressly declares: "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure." (Isaiah 46:10); "All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of Heaven and the people of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him, "What have you done?" (Daniel 4:35).

Divine sovereignty means that God is God in fact, as well as in name, that He is on the Throne of the universe, directing all things, working all things "after the counsel of His own will." (Eph. 1:11).

Rightly did the late Charles Spurgeon say in his sermons on Matthew 20:15, "There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God's sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that sovereignty had ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend then the doctrine of their Master over all creatures, the kingship of God over all the works of His own hands, the throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne.

"On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of Heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth!

"And we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter. Then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust." (Spurgeon).

"Our God is in Heaven; He does whatever He pleases." (Psalm 115:3). "I know that You can do anything, and no plan of Yours can be thwarted." (Job 42:2). "The Lord does whatever He pleases in Heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths."

Yes, dear reader, such is the imperial Potentate revealed in Holy Writ. Unrivaled in majesty, unlimited in power, unaffected by anything outside Himself. But we are living in a day when even the most "orthodox" seem afraid to admit the proper Godhood of God. They say that to press the sovereignty of God excludes human responsibility; whereas human responsibility is based upon divine sovereignty, and is the product of it.

God sovereignly chose to place each of His creatures on that particular footing which seemed good in His sight. He created angels - some He placed on conditional footing; others He gave an immutable standing before Him (1 Timothy 5:21), making Christ their head. Let it not be overlooked that the angels whicxh sinned, were as much His creatures as the angels that sinned not. Yet God foresaw they would fall, nevertheless He placed them on a mutable, creature, conditional footing, and allowed them to fall, though He was not the Author of their sin.

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 2)

The Solitariness Of God

 The Solitariness Of God

The title of this article is perhaps not sufficiently explieit to indicate its theme. This is purily due to the fact that so few today are accustomed to meditqte upon the personal perfections of God. Comparatively few of those who occasionally read the Bible are aware of the awe-inspiring and worship-provoking grandeur of the divine character. That God is great in wisdom, wondrous in power, yet full of mercy, is assumed by many to be almost common knowledge; but, to entertain anything approaching an adequate conception of His being, His nature, and His attributes, as these are revealed in Holy Scripture, is something which very, very few people in these degenerate times have attained unto. God is solitary in His excellency. "Who is like unto You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders"" (Exodus 15:11).

"In the beginning God" (Genesis 1:1). There was a time, if "time" it could be called, when God, in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three divine persons), dwelt all alone. "In the beginning God." There was no Heaven, where His glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angles to hymn His praises, no universe to be upheld by the word of His power. There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but "from everlasting."

During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied, in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also would have been called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Malachi 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished.

God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That He chose to doso was purely a sovereign act on His part, caused by nothing outside Himself, determined by nothing but His own mere good pleasure; for He "works all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11). That He did create was simply for His manifestative glory.

Do some of our readers imagine that we have gone beyond what Scripture warrants? Then our appeal shall be to the Law and the Testimony. "Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever; and blessed be Your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise" (Nechemiah 9:5). God is no gainer even from our worship. He was in no need of that external glory of His grace which arises from His redeemed, for He is glorious enough in Himself without that. What was in that moved Him to predestine His elect to the glory of His grace? It was, as Ephesians 1:5 tells us, "according to the good pleasure of His will."

We are well aware thqat the high ground we are here treading is new and strange to almost all of our readers, for that reason it is well to move slowly. Let our appeal again be to the Scriptures. At the end of Romans 11, where the apostle brings to a close his argument on salvation by pure and sovereign grace, he asks, "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has first given to Him, that God should repay him?" The force of this is, it is impossible to bring the Almighty under obligations to the creature; God gains nothing from us!  "If you are righteous, what do you give to Him, or what does He receive from your hand? Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only the sons of men" (Job 35:7-8), but it certainly cannot affect God, who is all-blessed in Himself. "So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, "We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty." (Luke 17:10). Our obedience has profited God nothing!

Nay, we go further; our Lord Jesus Christ added nothing to God in His essential being and glory, either by what he did or suffered. True, blessedly and gloriously true, He manifested the glory of God to us, but He added nothing to God. He Himself expressly declares so, and there is no appeal from His words: "My goodness extends not to You" (Psalm 16:2). The whole of that Psalm is a Psalm of Christ. Christ's goodness or righteousness reached unto His saints in the earth, but God was high above and beyond it all. God alone is "the Blessed One" (Mark 14:61).

It is perfectly true that God is both honored and dishonored by men; not in His essential being, but in His official character. It is equally true that God has been glorified by creation, by providence, and by redemption. This we we dot and dare not dispute for a moment. But all of this has to do with His manifest glory and the recognition of it by us. Yet had God so pleased He might have continued alone for all eternity, without making known His glory unto creatures. Whether He should do so or not was determined solely by His own will. He was perfectly blessed in Himself before the first creature was called into being.

That is the God of Scripture; alas, He is still the unknown God to the heedless multitudes.

How vastly different is the God of Scripture from the "god" of the average pulpit!

Such a God cannot be found out by searching. He can be known only as He is revealed to the heart by the Holy Spirit through the Word. It seems trifling to ask such a question, but is the eternal and infinite God so much more within the grasp of human reason? No, indeed The God of Scripture can only be known by those to whom He makes Himself known. God is "spirit" and can only be known spiritually, and unless a person is born again, he is dead to the spiritual.

The principle prayer and aim of Christians should be that we "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:10).

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)

Foundation Truths # 5

 Foundation Truths # 5

And thanks be to God, this blessed victory over death and the grave has not been won by Christ for Himself alone. For eighteen centuries He has enabled thousands of Christian men and women, believing and trusting themselves to Him, to face the king of terrors without fear, and to go down the valley of the shadow of death in the sure and certain hope that they will yet come forth victorious, and in the flesh see God.

Read the story of the deaths of the early Christians under heathen persecutions. Mark the dying experience of those who suffered at Oxford and Smithfield, under bloody Queen Mary, for the gospel. Find, if you can, in the whole range of biography any death beds of non-Christians which will bear comparison with the death beds of Christians in the matter of peace, and hope, and strong consolation. You may search forever and not find them. You will find yourself shut up to the conclusion that the old Scriptural truth of Christ dying and rising again, is exactly the truth that fits human nature, and must have come down from God. This, and this only, will enable natural man to meet the last enemy without fear, and to say, "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:55).

What shall we say to these things? I know well that the human heart and its necessities are a deep and intricate subject. But, after studying men's hearts attentively for many years, I have come to one decided conviction. That conviction is, that the true reason why Paul preached first and foremost what he preached at Corinth, is to be found in his right knowledge of the nature, moral conditions, and position of man. He was taught by the Holy Spirit, that it was the only medicine that was suited to the disease. What human nature requires, is a religion for dying sinners - a mighty remedial system and a personal Redeemer; and the work of Christ is marvelously fitted to meet its requirements. We are sick of a deadly sickness, and our first need is a living physician.

It would have been worse than useless if Paul had begun his work at Corinth by telling men to be virtuous and moral, while he kept back Christ. It is just as useless now. It even does positive harm. To awaken human nature, and then not show it God's only remedy, may lead to more mischievous consequences. I know no case so pitiable as that of the man who sees clearly sin, sorrow, and death on one side - and does not see clearly Christ dying for sins, and rising again for sinners, on the other. Such a man is just the person to sink into flat despair, or to take refuge in the delusive theology of the Church of Rome.

III. And now let me wind up this paper with some words of ADVICE to all who read it.

Let me, then, advise you most strongly not to be ashamed of holding decided views about the first things, the foundation truths of religion. There is widespread dislike to doctrinal decision and what is called dogmation, and none perhaps are so exposed to its influence as the young. The natural generosity, unsuspiciousness, and love of fair play, of a young man's heart, make him shrink from taking up very positive theological views, and holding opinions which may even seem to be narrow, party-spirited, or illiberal. The temptation of the present day is to be content with a vague earnestness; to abstain from all sharply cut and distinct views; to be an honorary member of all schools of thought, and to maintain that no man can be unsound in the faith - if he exhibits zeal and works hard.

But, after all, your religion must have roots, if it is to live and bear fruit in this cold world. Earnestness, and zeal, and work, are brave words; but, like cut flowers stuck in a garden, they have no power of continuance, if they have no hidden roots below. Admitting to the full that there are secondary things in religion, about which those who are young may fairly suspend their judgment and wait for light - I charge you to remember that there are primary things about which you must be decided and make up your minds. You must, I say - if you want peace within, and desire to be useful. And among these first things stand forth like mountains in a plain, the two great truths which are laid down in the text which heads this paper - Christ's death for our sins, and Christ's miraculous resurrection. Grasp tightly these two great truths. Live on them. Die on them. Never let them go. Strive to be able to say, "I know whom I believe," - not what, but whom I live by faith in One who died for me, and rose again. Be decided about this at any cost, and in due time all other truths shall be added to you.

Remember one chief problem you will have to be continually solving is how to help souls who are laboring under the burden of sin, crushed down with sorrow, or oppressed with the fear of death. The only way to do good is to walk in Paul's steps, and to tell men first, foremost, continually, repeatedly, publicly, and from house to house - that Jesus Christ died for their sins, rose again for their justification, lives at the right hand of God to receive, to pardon, and to preserve, and will soon come again to give them a glorious resurrection.

These are the truths which the Holy Spirit has always blessed, is blessing, and will bless until the Lord comes. These were Paul's first things." Resolve and determine that by God's grace, that they shall be yours in this generation.

~J. C. Ryle~

(The End)