Human Beings Becoming Sovereign...

If we want to recover the doctrine of God we have to recover the attributes of God, and one attribute that is sorely missing in our time is the attribute of God’s sovereignty.
What happens in the Christian world if you don’t give attention to the sovereign God?
Human sovereignty comes in to take the true God’s place. Idols always replace the true if the true is not kept there.
So you have human beings becoming sovereign in their own estimation in a variety of ways.
Theologically: we are the ones who elect God rather than God electing us.
Programmatically: we are the ones who determine what should be done in our worship rather than following the statements of Scripture.
In this sort of business God gets relegated to the sidelines, we really don’t need him. But really, when you think about it, this is secularism.
I think the best illustration of this in the Bible is the story of Nebuchadnezzar when he stood on the roof of his palace in Babylon and he looked over that magnificent city with its famous hanging gardens and he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” That is probably the best statement in all of literature of what we call secular humanism, because he is claiming that the world he observed was of him, by him and for his own glory. But the sad thing is that it is not just secular humanism, but is becoming “evangelical” humanism as well.
If we’re the ones who conceive of what should be done and we’re the ones who accomplish it by our skills, whatever they may be, often without prayer (because we are not a prayerful people), then I guess the glory should go to ourselves. So we find ourselves right back where Nebuchadnezzar was, right around the time God judged him with insanity. And as I look at the evangelical world I’d say a lot of it is insane. In addition, Nebuchadnezzar was driven out to live with the animals to behave in a bestial way. And when I read the polls that tell me that evangelicals behave virtually no different than their secular counterparts, and I recognize the bestial manner that the world around us is behaving, I think that maybe the judgment of Nebuchadnezzar has come home to us as well.
Fortunately, Nebuchadnezzar got the message. For his final testimony reads:
At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” …Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (Dan 4:34-35,37 [show] At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?" Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (ESV)
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God is not only able to humble them. He does humble them, and perhaps that ought to be a good starting point for renewal in our churches. We evangelicals need it especially.
—James Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to God?
Read the whole of this perceptive article on the reality of the absence of God in today’s Christian culture, It’s causes, and it’s prescribed remedies, here. This is a very pressing and dire situation in Christendom today. I believe John Piper got it right when he said that people are starved and they don’t even know it! What sin it is to preach without accord to the Word; against God, at the expense of man!

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2 Responsesto Human Beings Becoming Sovereign…

Barry

July 2nd, 2009 on Tuesdayat 5:22 am

Relatively few people acknowledge God's sovereignty precisely because they want to retain some sovereignty for themselves; they want to be the master of their own fate. That's an illusion, of course, but a very real desire nonetheless.

[Reply]

JM Vergara

July 14th, 2009 on Tuesdayat 5:22 am

As I've heard Dr.James White mention quite a few times, the sovereignty of God is a self-crushing thing. I believe that it really is. Apart from the grace of God a man will never ever yield to the Biblical presentation of who God actually is. That indeed He is God and we are not.

I am convinced that the battle we are faced with today is not a battle to make Modern “Christians” fit in God's Sovereignty with whatever view of God they presently have, but rather, to show them how removed their understanding is from what the Bible actually proclaims. It's a very sad thing how almost everything in Christian Religion is REDEFINED to suit the selfishness of men. The love of God is redefined. The providence of God is redefined. Afflictions received is redefined. They pay lip service to Bible truths and yet they deny and spit on them in the same heart beat.

Such a hard and difficult age we live in.

But then again, we have our hope, joy and comfort in the unstoppable purposes of our Sovereign God!

[Reply]

March 7th, 2010 on Sunday at 6:58 am

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