In Arthur W. Pink’s book, The Sovereignty of God, he writes in his introduction:

After nineteen centuries of Gospel preaching, Christ is still “despised and rejected of men”. Worse still, He (the Christ of Scripture) is proclaimed and magnified by very few. In the majority of modern pulpits He is dishonoured and disowned. Despite frantic efforts to attract the crowds, the majority of the churches are being emptied rather than filled.ⁱ

What an assertion this is. Isn’t Christ exalted in pulpits today? True, but not the Christ of Scripture. Christ as God, King and High Priest is preached too little, and in His place a weak beggar is worshiped and exalted by many. Sir Arthur then continues:

And what of the great masses of non-church goers? In the light of Scripture we are compelled to believe that the “many” are on the Broad Road that leadeth to destruction, and that only “few” are on the Narrow Way that leadeth unto life. Many are declaring that Christianity is a failure, and despair is settling on many faces. Not a few of the Lord’s own people are bewildered, and their faith is being severely tried.

And what of God? Does He see and hear? Is He impotent or indifferent? A number of those who are regarded as leaders of Christian-thought told us that, God could not help the coming of the late awful War, and that He was unable to bring about its termination. It was said, and said openly, that conditions were beyond God’s control. Do these things look as though God were ruling the world?ⁱⁱ

Many in what passes itself to be Evangelicalism today would strongly deny what is said above, but is it not true? How true it is that the God that is thundered in pulpits today, though a form of sovereignty is given lip-service, is one that is utterly helpless and weak. God is given the task of regulating the heavens and the seas and the deep, but when it comes in the affairs of man who is regulating it? What is confessed by most Christians today is that man himself is the final authority in the affairs of his life. “God has a vote, the devil has a vote and we cast the deciding vote.”

Who is regulating affairs on this earth today—God, or the Devil?

Or is Man the Ruler and Final Arbiter of his fate?

The systems of man that he has designed in religion even in religion that calls itself Christianity all has to make room for man in the scheme so that man’s power, man’s authority can have some say, and fundamentally God is the one controlled by the religions of man.

Who is regulating affairs on this earth today—God, or the Devil?

What saith the Scriptures? If we believe their plain and positive declarations, no room is left for uncertainty.

They affirm, again and again, that God is on the throne of the universe; that the sceptre is in His hands; that He is directing all things” after the counsel of His own will”.

They affirm, not only that God created all things, but also that God is ruling and reigning over all the works of His hands.

They affirm that God is the “Almighty”, that His will is irreversible, that He is absolute sovereign in every realm of all His vast dominions. And surely it must be so.

Only two alternatives are possible: God must either rule, or be ruled; sway, or be swayed; accomplish His own will, or be thwarted by His creatures. Accepting the fact that He is the “Most High”, the only Potentate and King of kings, vested with perfect wisdom and illimitable power, and the conclusion is irresistible that He must be God in fact, as well as in name.

This is the God of Scripture. He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. (1 Timothy 6:15-16)

Were all the denizens of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth to combine in revolt against him, it would occasion him no uneasiness, and would have less effect upon his eternal and unassailable throne than has the spray of Mediterranean’s waves upon the towering rocks of Gibraltar. So puerile and powerless is the creature to affect the Most High, Scripture itself tells us that when the Gentile heads unite with apostate Israel to defy Jehovah and his Christ, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” (Psalm 2:4).ⁱⁱⁱ

Though men so desperately desire to shackle the arms of Omnipotence in the confines of the heavenly realm Scripture testifies so differently concerning God’s nature. The Lord of Glory is not only the Lord of the Heavens, but He too is the Lord of all the earth and all creation.

The Only Potentate

The whole of God’s Sovereign Kingship is summarized in the words of Paul:

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)

Nothing comes to pass without His decrees. Nothing exists or sustains it’s existence without His empowerment. To limit God’s sovereignty is to nullify the whole of that sovereignty and to assign it to something or someone else. Fundamentally this is the desire of man since the fall of Adam, placing ourselves in the throne of the universe and put God in the position of serving us.

But no, that is not the testimony of Scripture. God is God. He is the only Potentate. These descriptions are not mere poetry or just empty trinkets to adorn the throne of grace, rather these are God-ordained titles as prescribed in the realities revealed in Scripture.

God truly is the King of kings. God truly is the Lord of lords. Anything less is an idol, a fashioning of an imaginary being in our minds.

Sovereignty of God, Humility, Praise

Though even when presented with these truths many still want to keep their autonomy, many still want to be the king of their own universe. Against popular belief this is a futile activity. We are but creatures, unprofitable servants before Him. What are mere worms to do in order to take the throne from the God of the universe?

Yet still it is denied by so many. I am convinced that the acceptance of the reality of the Sovereignty of God is a self-crushing thing. This truth is not something that man would think up in order to be popular and win the crowd. This truth strips man of all forms of boasting, even to the smallest degree.

There are many a time when men and women, even the advanced in age have been approached with this truth, and they replied with nothing else but: “I can never love a God like that.”

That is true, they never will. Unless God takes a man’s heart of stone and changes it with a heart of flesh, he never will. Only when a man sees himself as undeserving, wretched and unprofitable will the truth of God’s Sovereignty be understood, by the grace of God, be loved.

Men can of course consciously uphold the sovereignty of God in one sense, but they can do so and absolutely despise it. Yet it is only the saved and humbled soul that can say with the Apostle: “To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)”

The Sovereignty of God and the Heart of Man

How involved then is God in the exercise of His sovereignty in the affairs of this earth? In the lives of men? Many would decry that he is only involved in the big things, the volcanoes, hurricanes, and tsunamis (though of course there are those who deny God even of His authority over nature), but not in the minutia, not in the everyday details of human life, definitely not in the human mind and heart.

What does Scripture say?

1 From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife. 4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, She is my sister? And she herself said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.

6 Then God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. (Genesis 20:1-6)

What a declaration that is! So plainly said yet so invariably denied. It is thundered in most pulpits that it is we who direct our hearts to God in obedience, or in sin in disobedience. But what does Scripture tell us? It is God Himself who kept Abimelech from sinning!

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:1-2)

But no, sinful man doesn’t like that. “Don’t you dare step on my freedom.” Suddenly in Christendom today it is God’s heart that is a stream of water in the hands of men, and man turns it wherever he wills.

23 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year. (Exodus 34:23-24)

God kept Abimelech from sinning against Him to not take Sarah as his wife, the same thing is expressed here. Three times a year the men of the house of Israel are commanded to appear before Jehovah in worship. Three times a year the land they posses will be left without them. Now remember, Israel isn’t really popular with the neighboring countries.

In fact, all those around Israel would want to do is to either conquer or destroy Israel. In the midst of that God would say, “I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land.” Now that’s surprising. God did not go for, “No, I will defend your lands against them”, but He went for, “no one shall covet your land.” No one shall even desire their land! They may hate the Israelites all they want, they may have that overwhelming desire to take hold of their land, but when that time comes thrice a year, the LORD God of Israel sovereignly says, “No, no one shall even covet your land.”

30 But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day. (Deuteronomy 2:30)

Here again we have the unflinching declaration of God’s Sovereignty over the hearts of men. It should be understood that each and every kingdom that the nation of Israel has come against to this point have been devoted to destruction. Any person in their right mind would realize that there’s no point going against Israel at that particular point in time.

It’s fairly obvious that they’re unbeatable (being the elect of God). Yet what do we have here? Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let the nation of Israel pass, for it is God who hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that they too may be devoted to destruction!

Surely of course, the king of Heshbon didn’t plan at all to be destroyed. I’m sure many of us in our own personal lives had other plans different from what came to pass. But what does the Word of God say about our plans?

20 Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future. 21 Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. (Proverbs 19:20-21)

We plan and desire so many things in our hearts, in our arrogance we perceive ourselves as the sovereign of our lives. From youth we are told that we can do anything that we put our minds into. But what does Scripture testify? It is God who moves the heart of man like streams of water. It is God’s purposes that will stand.

5 Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger;

the staff in their hands is my fury!

6 Against a godless nation I send him,

and against the people of my wrath I command him,

to take spoil and seize plunder,

and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

7 But he does not so intend,

and his heart does not so think;

but it is in his heart to destroy,

and to cut off nations not a few;

(Isaiah 10:5-7)

Here we have God’s declaration in using Assyria to punish apostate Israel, and yet what do we read here? God used Assyria to accomplish His purpose though Assyria did not so intend and his heart did not so think? And when He was done with using Assyria to punish His people, He then turns back against Assyria for doing such evils against Israel?

12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.

13 For he says:

By the strength of my hand I have done it,

and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;

I remove the boundaries of peoples,

and plunder their treasures;

like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.

14 My hand has found like a nest

the wealth of the peoples;

and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken,

so I have gathered all the earth;

and there was none that moved a wing

or opened the mouth or chirped.

15 Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,

or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?

As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,

or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!

(Isaiah 10:5-15)

How could God do such a thing? He uses a nation to punish His nation? Then after He’s finished using that nation to punish, He’ll punish that nation for what the nation did? Does your theology allow to have a God like that?

But no, most of us don’t like that. There’s that pull in our hearts that says: “No, they don’t deserve that! …That’s not fair!”

Is God Unfair?

People then would object that that’s just the Old Testament. God is different in the New Testament. Which of course is an impossibility since God is the same today, yesterday and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and to Him there is no variableness or shadow of turning (James 1:17).

Luke 13. Two disasters: Pilate kills worshipers and mixes the blood with the sacrifices, and the tower of Saloam falls killing 18 innocent bystanders. Question for Jesus: “What’s up with this? Where was God?” But on 9/11, God was in the same place he was in 9/10–sovereign on his throne.

Jesus did not say that these two events happened while God was asleep. Jesus did not say that God was diverted by counting the hairs on someone else’s head.

Jesus gave the same answer regarding each disaster: “You’re asking me the wrong question. If you really wanted to know about the providence of God, you would ask the real question–why didn’t the temple fall on my head? Why wasn’t it my blood.”^iv

“But, wait wait! Isn’t that unfair?” God used Assyria but punishes them anyway after and now this? Not to mention the king of Heshbon?

Any man with even the slightest bit of humanistic reason would argue at the majority of text I presented that, as much as God is presented as a sovereign God, He surely appears to be one that is so unfair. But is not God just? Is not God holy, righteous and just?

Who are we to say to Him: “You know, they deserve mercy!” A pagan people? Deserving of mercy? A people that has blasphemed God, lived idolatrous lives, and as the letter to the Romans tells us, that though they knew God they did not honor Him as God, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened?

Is God under any moral obligation to show mercy upon such a people? Is this not the moral state all sinners are in?

Omnibenevolence?

Certainly there is that thing in us, that voice in our hearts that cries out, “No! I don’t deserve this! They don’t deserve that! Aren’t You love? Are you not a merciful God?” We as fleshly human beings have this idea that God is “omnibenevolent”. We have this idea that God must show love and mercy to every single individual.

Omnibenevolence? We can’t have a man be omnibenevolent. For a man to be unable to carry out justice and punish the wicked? Can you imagine a judge that cannot pass sentences against child molesters and murderers? It would certainly be so disgusting for a judge to be such! And yet what we can’t stand for a mere human being to be, most of us would want to see that very thing that we despise and hate to be in God.

But no, God is just, and all the heavens tremble before Him, and all the nations are reputed as nothing before Him. Then is it not right when we read Romans 9 when it says that God will have mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills? Can we see and understand that there is particularity in God’s sovereign grace?

Total Depravity of Man

But yet there is that thing that clicks in our hearts when we talk about total dependency on a sovereign God. It is in our nature to do something, to do stuff, to do things that would validate some degree of value in us. What is it then that so pulls us to feel and think this way? What is it in us that so demands of God and puts Him in the position to bend His will to ours? What is it in a man that raises His fists towards the face of the Sovereign and says: “How dare you!”

It is nothing less but man’s depravity. That man is sinful and sin has corrupted every part of his nature. A man dead in sin will never acknowledge a sovereign God. A man worshiping His self-righteousness never will. Only the man that God Himself has humbled, changed and regenerated to spiritual life can say with the Apostle: “To Him be the glory forever and ever. (Rom 11:36) And say with the Psalmist: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. . . (Psalm 115:1)”

In This Series:

1. Reformation Theology: An Introduction
2. God’s Sovereign Kingship

Footnotes

1. Pink, A. W. (1996). The sovereignty of God. Index created by Christian Classics Foundation. (electronic ed.) (12). Simpsonville SC: Christian Classics Foundation. [↩]
2. Pink, A. W. (1996). The sovereignty of God. Index created by Christian Classics Foundation. (electronic ed.) (12). Simpsonville SC: Christian Classics Foundation. [↩]
3. A.W. Pink, The Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 37 [↩]
4. R.C. Sproul, http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AuthorIndex/37/1980_Holiness_and_Justice/ [↩]