THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

“The Lord reigneth, He is clothed

with majesty; the Lord is clothed

with strength.”

—Psalm 93:1

It has been said that Psalm 93 was a psalm that was written to be sung the day before the Sabbath. Therein the great Lord and Jehovah of the universe and of His Church is glorified. The conclusion of this psalm is: “Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, for ever.”

The author of this psalm, be it Moses or David, has knowledge of the great God and Creator through the inward instructions of the Holy Ghost. He has divine contemplations of God as a supreme Ruler, Who is clothed with the greatest majesty throughout His whole dominion. He sees God as a Divine Sovereign. There is no other sovereign like God. He is the greatest King: A King of kings, and a Lord of lords. His sovereignty is manifested in a supreme and independent power and authority. Earthly rulers may be sovereigns to a certain extent over an earthly kingdom or land, but God is superior to them all. They may raise themselves up against the Divine Sovereign, refusing to bow before Him, but hear to the declaration of God’s threatenings against His adversaries which we find in Psalm 2:

“But the Lord will scorn them all,
Calm He sits enthroned on high;
Soon His wrath will on them fall,
Sore displeased He will reply:
Yet according to My will
I have set My King to reign,
And on Zion’s holy hill
My Anointed I maintain.”

God is an almighty Sovereign, as the psalmist writes about Him, saying in Psalm 103:19: “The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens; and His kingdom ruleth over all.” How great is His power and His dominion. In a holy vision Isaiah saw this sovereign King and exclaimed: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.”

O, that by the grace of God all creatures upon this earth would see and know the great Jehovah: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That they would bow at His feet and give all honor and glory to the eternal, sovereign King. It becomes them to do so. Are they not His creatures, brought forth to love God and honor Him in all His perfections or properties? Has He not created them and adorned them with His glorious image that they may know God, bow before Him, and love His sovereign will and dominion?

Through the great sin committed against God in Adam, man, a finite creature, and being filled with the spirit of the devil, now wants to be a sovereign god and king. He has believed the lie of Satan when he said to Eve, “When ye eat of the forbidden tree, your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods.” Pride and imagination filled the heart and yet fills the hearts of creatures who are compared to dust. In this deceitful and deplorable state every creature sets himself in battle array against the mighty Sovereign. Filled with pride and enmity, he thinks or says as Pharaoh: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?” He reveals himself as if he is god and king, and that he has a sovereign will. What terrible delusion, pride, blindness, and imagination! This evil spirit is not only manifested more or less in those who are journeying forth on the way to eternity without any religion, but also in those who are filled with some kind of religion. When Jesus made known the will of the Father to the religious Jews, how clearly was it seen that they would not bow for God as Sovereign, Holy, and Righteous. Being filled with a spirit of blindness and self-righteousness they resisted Jesus and the Truth, despised Him, and afterwards cried: “Crucify Him!” Jesus spoke to them as we find in John 8: “Why do ye not understand My speech? even because ye cannot hear My word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe Me not.”

The old man of sin, bearing the image of the devil, will at all times rebel against a Sovereign God. Flesh will not bow for God, for it is enmity against God. Some kind of religion or piety, some talk and confession of the truth in its purity, will not change or alter this truth. A man may speak about the breaches in the church and state, condemn this and that, and being without powerful free grace in the heart he acts as a sovereign, goes his own way, executes his own will, and will not bow for the great Sovereign of heaven and earth and His holy will revealed in Old and New Testament.

It is very clearly to be heard and seen that just about all the religious denominations of the world arise against the sovereign will and dominion of God. With their mouths full of Jesus in word and song, they deny the eternal and sovereign will of Jehovah and raise up their corrupted free-will, which shows very clearly the desire and will of Satan. Is not the world and church of this day filled with the free-will of man, out of which flows a free-will religion? An Arminian minister and an enemy of the sovereignty of Jehovah wrote not long ago: “What is hell? It is an infinite negation. It is infinite chaos. And it is more than that: I tell you, and I say it with profound reverence, hell is a ghastly monument to the failure of the Triune God to save the multitudes who are there. I say it reverently, I say it with every nerve in me tense: sinners go to hell because God Almighty Himself could not save them! He did all He could. He failed. If this isn’t the most tremendous thought in the universe, I know not what it could be.”

The majority of our readers will read the above statement with a great amount of shock. It will come as a surprise to you that any individual short of an infidel would make such a statement. But this is a man carrying Arminianism, Pelagianism, and free-will to its logical conclusion. Anyone who holds to the false doctrine of, “God does His part — now you do yours,” must come to face this daring conclusion —God has failed!

I do like the language of Augustus Toplady who took the beast of Arminianism in the strength of God and truth by its horns, saying: “I shall fix my foot upon Arminianism; which, in its several branches, is the gangrene of the protestant churches, and the predominant evil of the day.”

It is a true fact that the quickened sinner, who has learned to love God above all, learned to love God in all His infinite properties, may yet at times, by the powerful influences of Satan and the Old Man, show rebellion against the sovereignty of God. We see it in Jacob’s life. When he had to see all his sons go to Egypt he could not bow before God and let Him be God alone, and he exclaimed: “All these things are against me!” When in the flesh, Asaph did not only place himself against God, but also above Him. In his great ignorance and enmity he shot an arrow against the sovereignty and wisdom of God, but his faithful and loving God showed him mercy and did lead him into His sanctuary. And what was the fruit thereof? Hearken to his own words: “Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before Thee.” And then follow such good words of Asaph, when in the right frame and at the right place: “Whom lave I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee.”

Reader, is this or has this been the confession of your soul too at times, and have you been enabled to say with Job in his great and painful trial: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes”? Job 42:5, 6. Such souls will justify God in all the revelations of His sovereign will and pleasure, and say at times with the psalmist: “I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing.” Psalm 101:1. May God give grace thereunto to His dear people regardless of which stage of grace they may have been led into under the dispensation of a sovereign and merciful Lord. That it might also be granted unto them to learn to watch and pray against dangerous self, and to say continually with Job: “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” How many reasons has a follower of Christ to admire and praise a sovereign God for the abundance of His sovereign grace. Are there not times that such souls will and must do so? God will form them all to His praise.

May also many monuments of sovereign grace be raised up by a sovereign and almighty God, in Christ Jesus, that His wonders may be performed as we find in Isaiah 55:13: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

We conclude this meditation with the words of Paul, as we find them in Romans 9: “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”

More articles about the sovereignty of God will follow, D.V.

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