Here We Stand Conference 2025 Session 1 - How Sovereign is Our God

you got your bibles turned to Romans chapter

11. Romans chapter 11. We are speaking this

weekend

on the all different kinds of aspects on the

sovereignty of God. In one sense, I'm

preaching

to the choir. I know that I'm not on the

street preaching to the people who've never

even heard

of God, let alone sovereignty of God. But what

's interesting about this subject on the

sovereignty

of God is that, you know, when you preach the

gospel, like it says in Romans 10, how shall

they

hear without a preacher? But when it comes to

the sovereignty of God, you're reminding

people,

you're not preaching something new. They know

God is sovereign from the get-go. It's prefab

built in to their DNA according to Romans 1.

This is what they suppress in unrighteousness,

because although they knew God and they know

his power, they suppressed these things. In

other

words, this aspect of him being sovereign.

Romans chapter 11, verse 36, at the end of

this section

of 9, 10 and 11, where Paul's trying to answer

the question that seems to be coming up a lot

for him,

of why does the Jews not get in? I mean, they

've got more Gentiles than Jews. And so he

tries to

answer that question in chapter 9 with how God

, his salvation is built on promise, not pedig

ree,

and how things in chapter 10, they've been

disobedient, and it's through simple faith,

not through performance. And he gets into

chapter 11 and kind of says, well, God's not

finished

with him yet. He's breaking off branches, but

he's also putting in branches. But when he

gets to the

end of chapter 11, and he makes a statement

about the wisdom of God and how unfathomable

it is and

everything, he makes this statement. He says

in verse 36, "For from him and through him and

to him

are all things. To him be the glory forever,

amen." My sermon is going to break down in

those three

parts. I'm building my sermon on three prepos

itions. From, through, and to. The sovereignty

of God,

my topic for my message is how sovereign is

the God of the Bible.

Just how sovereign is he? Well, if you want

the short answer, you don't want to stay for

the whole

message. It's pretty sovereign. He's pretty

sovereign. Psalm 103 and 19 says, "The Lord

has

established his throne in the heavens and his

sovereignty rules over all." But some of the

things we need to also address is does his

sovereignty have limits? Are there areas of

his creation that God does not control or

leaves control to others? He got big debates

about this.

Throughout church history, this is probably

the topic that has caused more heat and more

controversy in the churches and probably any

other topic. And in the early centuries, I

mean,

the Trinity and the incarnation and things of

that sort. But this, the limits of God? Or

does he

have limits? Or how sovereign is he? What does

he control? Does he control anything? Or all

things?

Or what? It causes fits to people. Well, if he

does this, then that means that he's the

author of

evil. Or if he does that, then that means that

he's tampering with us and we're robots.

You ever heard things like that? Well, of

course, comes up all the time. And it goes

back to that

basic question of how sovereign is our God.

Also, is sovereignty different than the prov

idence of

God? Are they synonyms? Or is there a little

difference of that? We'll try to answer a few

of those questions hopefully tonight. But let

me first of all start with what the

sovereignty of

God is not so that you can understand. I

always like to try to define my terms before

we start.

And the best way to define it is to try to get

out there before you affirm something,

you try to deny a bunch of things, kind of

clear the garden of the weeds, and then you

can plant

some stuff. First of all, it's not an

attribute of God's character. Really? It's a

function of his

character, of a position or a role that he

occupies. It's not eternal, but it is

everlasting.

The sovereignty of God is tied to His creation

. In other words, back before anything was

created,

God wasn't sovereign. It doesn't mean He

couldn't be, but He just wouldn't. It wasn't

anything to be

sovereign over. So sovereignty has to do with

jurisdiction, sphere, dominion. There's things

out there that interact with God, called the

creation. That's a function of all of His

attributes.

So when you talk about the sovereignty of God,

you're talking about the most basic word

is the word control. And so my task is, how

much does God control when you talk about the

sovereignty

of God? Another way to define this or describe

it, if you go through the Scriptures, just

take the

word throne and do a Bible search, because

throne means authority. Throne means

sovereignty.

Psalm 97 says, "But the Lord abides forever.

He has established His throne for judgment."

He talks about the scepter of His throne in

Psalm 45. God reigns over the nation. God sits

on

His throne. His throne is established from old

, from generation to generation. He goes on. He

says

things like, in Isaiah chapter 6, in the year

of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting

on a

throne, sitting on a throne, sitting on a

throne. Not standing around it, not sitting in

a lazy boy,

not dancing or anything along these lines,

sitting on a throne. The number one piece of

furniture associated with God is His throne.

And throne is a great symbol of sovereignty.

When kings sat on thrones, they were wielding

authority, which assumed that they had control

.

Where are you going to find the word throne

the most in the Bible? It's in the book of

Revelation.

Immediately, I was in the Spirit, and behold,

a throne was standing in heaven. Ezekiel gets

caught up in that first chapter. What's the

first thing you see? He sees a throne. Isaiah

sees a

throne. All these people have visions of God,

have visions of Jesus. Never talk about a

throne.

And every creative thing which is in the

heavens, and on the earth, and under the earth

, and on the

sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "

To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb,

be blessing and honor and glory and dominion

forever and ever, amen."

And the lost say, "Fall on us and hide us from

the presence of Him who sits on the throne."

They don't even address Him by name. They

describe Him, and more they are describing Him

well.

And they cried out with a loud voice saying, "

Salvation to our God who sits on the throne."

So my definition of the sovereignty of God, so

that you have now a positive definition,

or the sitting on the throne, that aspect of

authority, is the sovereignty of God is the

authority and ability of God to control the

existence, the regulation, and the destination

of all things. And I get it from my text. From

Him existence, through Him regulation,

to Him destination of all things. That's the

sovereignty of God, the jurisdiction that He

has

over all of His creation. I like how R.C. Spr

oul puts it. He says, "If God is not sovereign,

God is not God. If there is even one maverick

molecule in the universe, one molecule running

loose outside the scope of God's sovereign ord

ination, we cannot have the slightest

confidence

that any promised God has ever made about the

future will come to pass."

Now, a little sampling of how wide this

jurisdiction of God's sovereignty, or control,

so you can substitute the word, or throne. I'm

using them all kind of interchangeably here.

Random events. You think of, well, how

detailed? Is it meticulous?

Proverbs 16, 33 says that the lot is cast into

the lap, but as every decision is from the

Lord.

Lot? I mean, how minute is that? Yeah, but the

decision came from the Lord.

He's sovereign over nature. Psalm 135, 6, and

7, "Whatever the Lord pleases He does in the

heaven and on the earth, in the seas and all

deeps, it is He who makes the clouds rise at

the end of

the earth, who makes lightnings for rain and

brings forth the wind from his storehouses."

The disciples ask in Matthew 8, "What sort of

man is this that even the winds and sea obey

him?"

He's sovereign over nature. He's sovereign

over animals, or not two sparrow, soul for a

penny,

and not one of them will fall to the ground

apart from your father.

Somewhere out in the jungle somewhere, there's

a little bird that

breathed this last and fell over, and God was

sovereign over that and controlled that.

And then you swing on the pendulum, and you

read in 2 Chronicles chapter 20 verse 6,

"You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations

, in your hand, or power, and might,

so that none is able to withstand you." Sovere

ign over animals, sovereign over nations.

All this stuff going on in the world right now

, in the hostility in our country and all that,

controlled by God. Totally. The Lord brings

the counsel of the nations to nothing. He

frustrates

the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the

Lord stands forever. He is sovereign over

every

single human decision. Now think about that.

He was sovereign over every single decision

you've

ever made, even the decision to come tonight,

even the decision to listen to me or listen to

Larry.

He was sovereign over that. He's going to be

sovereign over whether you eat the dessert and

stick on your diet or not, later on. "The

plans of the heart belong to man, but the

answer of

the tongue is from the Lord." The heart of man

plans his ways, but the Lord establishes his

steps,

Proverbs 16, 9. "Many are the plans in the

mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the

Lord that

will stand. The king's heart is in the stream

of water in the hand of the Lord." He turns it

wherever he will. God's controlling that

shutdown of the government right now,

controlling all the

hearts of all the politicians right now. He's

controlling the hearts of the people who say,

"Let's continue the shutdown. No, let's sign

the bill." He controls both sides.

So in our text in Romans chapter 11 verse 36,

our first point is that the origination of the

sovereignty of God is that the author and

ability to create his pottery. The potter

creates the pottery.

He brings things that are not in existence

into existence. You are here tonight, not just

tonight,

but here on planet earth, because God willed

it. You were born because God willed it. You

were born

to your parents because God willed it, and

those parents, and not some other parents. And

you were

born in this century, not some other century

or century before. That's how you got here.

God has the authority and ability to control.

Remember, that's our basic definition. What

comes into existence stays into existence and

exits existence. When we say he's the potter

and he

controls the clay, he controls not only what

he does with the clay, that'll be later. That

's regulation

and destination. But even if he's going to

create it in the first place, you got theolog

ians that

talk about alternate universes and alternate

things that God couldn't do and things of this

sort,

they don't exist. They're nice for philosophy

class, but not in theology. Here it is, right

here.

He has the legal ownership of all of his

creation, because he created it. See, as a pot

ter, think

about it. If we were a potter and we got some

clay and we put it on the wheel, we're already

working

with something that we never created. I didn't

create the clay. I had to go buy the clay.

Maybe

I had to go buy a wheel or something. But God

had to create all of that. All of that he owns

. See,

when you own something, you got legal title to

it. He has legal title and rights to your life

,

to your time, your energy, your health, or

lack thereof.

There ain't anything one you can say about it.

What are you going to say? He doesn't have

title to it?

Oh, you've got a right to something. Well,

show me your papers. Show me what you've done.

Can't do it.

Romans 9, verse 20 and 21 says, "The thing

molded will not say to the molder,

why did you make me like this? Will it? Or

does not the potter have a right over the clay

?"

There's the authority. A right. The rights of

potters over clays. And he calls himself a pot

ter

in Isaiah and in Jeremiah. And he's got the

right. He's got the title, entitlement.

But not only that, because he's got to

understand something. A person can have, when

we talk about

sovereignty and you talk about control, you

can have title but not have the actual ability

.

You can have a cop trying to make an arrest.

And the guy's, you know,

six, nine, weighs 350 and gets the better of

him, right? So he's got the right to arrest

him,

but he doesn't have strength. Or you got a

fellow who's got the strength and he comes

and he got a gun pointed at you and says, "

Give me your wallet." Well, he's not entitled

to my wallet.

Yeah, but he's got the strength at the moment,

doesn't he? So he's got the strength, but he

doesn't have the authority. Well, God's got

both. Title and strength. Authority and

ability.

He's almighty, this is called. And men know

this and they suppress this truth in unright

eousness.

Because the most basic truth in Christianity,

listen up, this is where your Christian life

starts,

is the unqualified, unmitigated authority of

Jesus Christ. When you come to Christ

and you say, "I want to be a Christian," and

you can't answer the most basic question about

his authority and ability, you're not a

Christian. If you can't bow, you can't serve.

I mean, that's

just, I mean, that's not fancy, fancy

preaching material, that's just Bible. That's

what it means

to be a Christian when you press the claims of

the gospel. That's why when people get out

there

and talk about God being loved, they say, "God

's God first. We've got to get back to basics."

He's

God and He's sovereign over you. I mean, how

are they going to hear in Romans chapter 10,

the preacher,

if they're not submitting in Romans chapter 1

to God? See, if God's going to open their

heart here,

He's going to have to get them to unsuppress

the truth over here. That's just how it works.

It makes the heart pliable, which means I'm

willing to bow and I wasn't willing before.

So, there's that ability. Colossians 1.16 and

17 says, "For by Him all things were created,

both in the heavens and on the earth, visible

and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or

rulers or authorities, all things have been

created through Him and for Him. He is before

all things

and in Him all things hold together." John 1

verse 3, "All things came into being through

Him and

apart from Him nothing came into being that is

coming to being." The first point is the

origination of the sovereignty of God. It's

built upon His being the Creator of all things

.

And we got text after text, Revelation 4.11, "

Worthy are you, O Lord, in our God, to receive

glory

and honor and power for you created all things

. And because of your will, authority, strength

,

you get the title to write to do it, and you

also get it. And because of your will,

they existed and were created." Now, the

second aspect of the sovereignty of God,

I'm going to jump to the last one, because I'm

going to use the middle one for the last one,

because that's where the, they say the devil's

in the details, or C. Sproul says, "No way,

God's in the details." And he's right. But it

's the destination of the sovereignty of God.

When

God as potter, you know, has these vessels and

He brings them into existence, as a potter,

there's a destination for them. You know the

difference between a guy working with clay,

who's a potter, and a guy who's operating a

backhoe? An awful lot.

The guy with the backhoe is just trying to

remove clay and move it somewhere else because

he's going to put something there. But a pot

ter has got a design element for the clay. It's

something

that he wants to accomplish with the clay. At

the end of the day, all of creation is going

to glorify

King Jesus. Every knee is going to bend, every

person's going to bow, and they're going to

say,

"He's Lord." You know why? Because all things

from Him through Him and to Him is to that end

.

That's your destination. That's your mission

statement. People say, "What's your mission

statement in life?" Here it is. Like it says

in Isaiah, "You were created from unglory."

So kind of wanting to get on the same page

with God on that. The program, that's what He

's doing

with vessels of mercy, who He has prepared

beforehand to receive mercy.

The Westminster Confession of Faith says in

chapter 3, the very first paragraph,

"God from all eternity did, by the most wise

and holy counsel of His own will,

freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever

comes to pass." This is the destination part

from Him,

through Him, to Him. In other words, when God

starts making pottery, He's got a goal in mind

,

and He's got a design in mind. He's following

a pattern. He's something He's going to say,

"This thing is going to do that. This one's

going to sit on my mantle. This one's going to

go in the

bathroom." It's not the thing when you're

going to be able to counsel Him and say

something different.

"Well, I don't like what He's doing." Okay,

there's no complaint department in heaven.

You'll be like Isaiah in chapter 6, when you

see Him high and lifted up on His throne,

trained, feeling the temple, smoke so dense,

people can't come in there.

You've got angels who are perfect, can't even

behold Him because He's so holy,

covering their feet. They basically are

signaling to Isaiah there

and crying out, "Holy, holy, holy," saying, "

We're uncomfortable here.

We've got to hide our eyes, hide our feet and

everything because we've got two different

contrasts going on here and they're sinless."

No wonder Isaiah says, "I come from a people

of unclean lips." I mean, talk about, I feel

out of joint. And of course, God remedies the

situation

with taking a cold from the altar and touching

His lips. I mean, this is God's prophet. This

is

the guy who speaks for God in His lips through

unclean. It says, "Our days whatsoever comes

to pass,

yet so as thereby neither is God the author of

sin nor is violence offered to the will of the

creatures, nor is the liberty of contingency

of second causes taken away but rather

established."

Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11, "Also we have

obtained an inheritance, having been predest

ined

according to the purpose who works all things

after the counsel of His will." So He's got a

counsel, He's got a will, He's going to make

pottery and the pottery is going to do

something at the

end of the day. It's not just killing time, so

to say, doing, whittling it away on something.

You're not whittling on a piece of wood and

then going to throw the whole thing away.

He's not shaving an apple with a knife and

then going to throw it away. That's not what

God does.

He's going to do something with the pottery

and He's going to do something with you and He

's going

to do something with me. Isaiah 43, 7, "

Everyone who is called by my name and whom I

have created for

my glory, created for my glory, whom I have

formed and whom I have made." The end game of

all creation

is the panoply of all things to His glory.

Everything that comes into existence is in

existence

at the end of the day, as we say, to glorify

God. Simple concept, right? So from Him, He's

the

origination, there's the origination of His

sovereignty. If He doesn't create, there's

nothing

created in heaven's on earth or whatever,

there's no sovereignty. So the origination of

His sovereignty

is based on creation. But then this

destination of His sovereignty is based on His

glory.

Everything is going to be based on His glory,

not your well-being, God's glory.

Doesn't mean He's not interested in your well-

being, but it's in the back of the line.

That's not the first thing. That's not the

first reason why Christ went to the cross for

you,

is for His Father. It was to glorify His

Heavenly Father who is in heaven, to satisfy

Him.

You got in on it, but that was the reason, and

that's always going to be the reason.

Now the third thing, and the last thing we see

, the regulation of the sovereignty of God,

is His authority and ability to shape His

pottery. It's basically how the potter uses

His hands

on specific pieces of pottery, you. For some

of us, the wheel is going 500 miles per hour.

Clay's flying out everywhere. It looks like

people having more trouble. This poor person,

this looks like he's born for trouble. Every

time he wakes up, there's clay flying

everywhere.

And there's others, man, the wheel goes so

slow. I mean, they're like a rose opening up,

you know,

and there's petals, and it's like, yeah. It's

like, how come I can't have that? You're not

because

you're not that. You don't get to compare

yourself to other pieces of pottery. You're

going to glorify

God in the way He has created you, and you

have got to learn to accept that. What's the

old phrase?

Stay in your lane, bro. This is your lane, and

nobody else is going to run it. You've got to

stay in your lane. Well, what about that man?

Remember Peter says to Jesus about John? Well,

what about him? Wrong question. If I want him

to stay till I come, what is that to you?

And why is that a concern? Yet, we'll grumble

because of it. We'll look at other people and

see what they got, and you'll, you know, peak

our interest and make us not pray and things

of that

sort, or maybe I'm in sin, maybe there's some

sort of rhyme or reason. Remember the Job's

friends

try to tell him, look bro, nobody goes through

these many trials without some sort of rhyme

or

reason of something he's done. Must be

something wrong with you as a pot. It wasn't.

So this idea of regulation through him are all

things. This is the part of the Providence,

or this is part of the sovereignty of God

people have the most problems with.

They don't understand, or they don't like, or

they're going to fight against how the potter

's

hands touch the pottery. They think some way-

shaped form. There's a handbook for potters on

what they

can and can't do, and you'll see people try to

come to the defense of God and try to aid God

in what he can and can't do with his

sovereignty. Instead of just saying, this is

what he said,

this is what he's going to do, and we have to

accept it and not try to limit

what God's hand can do on the pottery that's

on the wheel. Stop it.

Through him.

Some of the objections you find, you find too

basically. If God is meticulously sovereign

over all the activities of mankind, then that

means God is the author of sin.

You're saying he's sovereign, right? He's

sovereign over all the events. He's

sovereign over World War II. He's sovereign

over 9/11. He's sovereign over what's going on

in our world,

right? Either he's not as just as we thought,

or he's not as loving as we thought, but there

's

got to be a problem here. So undoubtedly, here

's some limitations they say on the potter and

what

he can do with the pottery. He doesn't venture

into this area when it comes to evil. Because

if

we got, if you're going to tell me God is

behind all of this, then he's responsible for

it.

Well, the first problem you need to get away

from is bad language when it comes to theology

.

God is not responsible. You need to listen for

his own actions. You are, but he's not.

Exactly. Tell me how he's responsible for his

actions. Like, who is he accountable to?

Because

that's what it means to be responsible. When

you're responsible, you have to answer

to someone for what you're doing. You're

responsible, which means built in, there's an

accountability somewhere. It doesn't matter

who you are, you're going to be accountable to

somebody.

And exactly who this potter is accountable to,

responsible for his actions. Every single

action

that God does according to the Bible is just.

Every single action God does is good.

Even the bad ones. Oh, that's where we get

into the fight in that. Well, I can't really,

I mean,

really, he's not responsible for evil because

he's not accountable. It's an oxymoron.

So you got to change the language and don't

mind changing it. Now, he's the ultimate cause

of all things, but responsible. No, you won't

find that language or that terminology,

any kind of thing close to that in the Bible.

And the second objection to God in his, the

through

him section of how he regulates his

sovereignty over his creation. And people try

to limit God

on what he can do and can't do. But remember,

my task tonight is, was how sovereign is our

God.

And he's a 100% sovereign over all of his

creation. He owns it, has title to it,

authority, right, to bring it about and has

the ability. And none of this escapes God's

notice. Everybody tries to help God out when 9

/11 showed up. I remember that. I think I even

remember John MacArthur going on the, was it

Larry King show or whatever. And he,

people are asking him questions. He was the

only one there that was given biblical answers

. And

they were, you know, all over the place. Well,

God wouldn't do this. And, and he's not behind

that.

And God was like, God was wringing his hands

on the sidelines somewhere. And all these

other

things were happening, you know, just out

there randomly. And God wouldn't part of it.

Can you

imagine, you get in there and you start saying

, well, no, well, God was the ultimate cause of

it.

Yeah, God calls 9/11. What's the problem here?

What kind of a God causes 9/11? I mean, they

're ready to duke it out with you or something.

But why? Because you see Romans one, they know

that he's sovereign. And if he's all powerful,

he could prevent it. And if he's all knowing,

he knows about it before it ever happens and

plan

for it. And if he's all loving, he should have

prevented it. That's what they say. Because I

would have prevented it. And God's got to be

like me. And we make God our own image and we

worship

that thing instead of the God of the Bible. It

's called theodicy and philosophy. If God has

these

omni traits and you have this evil in the

world and God's accountable for something, God

's got to

answer for something and God don't have to

answer for anything. It's these people on

their high horse

and Paul brings them down to size and Romans

is not saying, who are you to answer this back

to God?

You can't do that. God's God. But then the

second objection is usually along the lines of

free will.

If God's sovereign over all the decisions of

mankind, that means man is not free to make

his own decision. He's a robot. Gordon Clark

says in the religion reason and revelation in

his book,

he says, the question is, is the will free?

The question is not, is there a will? Calvin

ism

most assuredly holds that Judas acted

voluntarily. He chose to betray Christ. He did

so willingly.

No question is raised as to whether or not

Judas had a will. He had a will.

What the Calvinists ask is whether that will

was free. In other words, here's the answer,

okay.

But someone like Judas, Judas had a human

capacity, the ability of a human being to make

a human choice.

Frogs make frog decisions, right? Humans make

human decisions. He had the capacity,

but he didn't possess a neutral human nature.

Let's see if you can understand this.

Wills are built on natures. Every will has a

nature. God has a nature.

God doesn't have a free will. If you mean by

free will, the libertarian definition,

that nothing acts upon my decision. That's a

lie. That's not even attainable. You don't

have will

floating out there unattached to natures. You

have a nature. It's a human nature. Frogs have

a frog nature and they make frog decisions. It

's not hard. The frog becomes a prince.

Nature changes. He's going to make prince

decisions. God makes God decisions.

It's not hard to figure out. So nobody's will

is ever free. It's natural to the nature,

but it's never free. It's tied to a person's

nature. And here's some things you need to

understand about your nature and anybody else

's nature. You're created to make choices and

you

will make the choice. Even if you don't make a

choice, you make a choice. It's built in to

your

human nature to make a choice. Adam and Eve

had a nature and it wasn't even fallen and

they made

a choice. Your decisions that you make are

yours and yours alone. Nobody else makes them.

You're responsible for your decision. Yeah,

but you're making me mad. No, they're not.

No, they might be a catalyst in that. And you

turn around and give them what for? You

decided

to give them what for? Judas. But the woman

thou gave us me. You think God listened to

that,

entertained that? Oh, dummy me. You're right.

You're off the hook. Come here, woman. He didn

't do that.

You made the call. You fell. Romans five. And

because of that, everybody else that was born

to

Adam got a warped nature because of his

decision. He wasn't off the hook. You make

them, you make

your decisions, you make them freely. It's not

forced. Well, he forced me to shoot him with

the gun and then force you to shoot him with

the gun. Yeah, but if I wouldn't have shot him

,

they would have shot me, then you get shot.

But you pull the trigger. You still own the

decision.

Doesn't mean there are other people and other

persons who will be culpable.

Didn't say they weren't. The decision is yours

and yours alone. And if you're gonna grow in

grace,

that's the first thing you need to own up on

is your own responsibility and quit shuffling

off on

others or on God. But the most basic thing

here is that your, your decisions are nature

guided.

They're socially shaped. You don't have any

idea how many forces and vectors are working

on you

right now to make you make a decision. You'd

have to be omniscient to know that. So when

someone says,

well, you know, I made this, this choice

freely. Well, to the best of your knowledge,

you made it

freely. God pulls back the curtains and there

's legion of demons constantly lying to you or

pushing

your desires and appetites every which way but

loose so that you make a decision. Then you're

gonna begin to realize, hey, there's some

other entities out there with a different

nature than

mine, way more malevolent than mine. And they

're trying to impress me and force me to make a

decision,

you think? Happens all the time. Your body

that's unredeemed is gonna whine and cry and

kick

because it wants its way. Because it's unrede

emed. Passify me, satisfy me.

Listen to me. And you have got to make the

choice because you are responsible for your

choices.

And you're gonna be held accountable for the

choices you make. Yeah, but I had those

influences

working on me and your point is, well, I

couldn't help it. You're really gonna sell

that story.

You can't. Yeah, but they're all guilty. I'll

get to them later, one at a time. We're

dealing with

you right now. See how the judgment works? It

's one at a time. The judgment of God is like a

turnstile. You go through it one at a time.

Yeah, but mama always said and daddy always

did and,

you know, and I would have been better if and

there's always something with society, right?

If the government was only doing this, or if I

was only raised doing that,

or if God just gave me victory, then I would

be able to see God's gonna blame God on

something here.

So your decisions are guided by your nature

and they're shaped by the natures of other

things

around you who try to impose their will on you

. Evil people, good people, evil demons,

could be angels that are good. I don't know.

There are a lot of things I don't see and I

don't know

that they're working and they have a nature

and they're making decisions too and they're

going to be held accountable before God on Jud

gment Day and you're going to see all of that

unfold

and realize, boy, I remember when I was in

that situation, I thought I was all by myself

making

that call and I had a World War III going on

with all these spiritual forces, demonic, good

,

all these things pressing in upon me. Yeah,

you're going to find out. At the end of the

day, you're

going to be charged with the decision you make

, just like they're going to be charged with

the

decision they make. Now, the decisions you

make are also going to become an influence in

the future

on others. It doesn't escape. God controls

every single influence in your decision-making

,

all those voices and all these things. God's

in total control of that.

Just pick on Judas a little bit. It says, I

think it's in Mark 14, 21. It says, "For the

Son of Man

is to go just at his written of him, but vote

to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed

.

It would have been good for that man if he had

not been born. It had been good for that man,

not for God's glory, but it would have been

good for that man if he never became a pot."

But he had to be a pot. He's been determined.

Well, Judas, then, he didn't have a choice in

the matter. Oh, he had many choices in the

matter. You think Judas just showed up one day

and decided

to betray Christ for 30 pieces of silver with

no influences on him? Judas cultivated that

nature.

Judas cultivated all those past decisions to

get to that point where he makes that decision

. You

know what? He makes it freely. But I think at

the last supper, it said, "And the devil

entered into

Judas." There is another nature with a will

that's going to be imposed, all guided by the

sovereignty

of God. All guided because, and this is what

you're going to see, is that Judas gets to

that

point to make the decision because this is the

end game of the judgment of God. When God

judges

people and controlling all of their influences

and all of their decision making, and it goes

south,

it's called the judgment of God. See, you

think in the judgment of God, it's going to be

in time,

great white throne, everybody's there, sheep

and goats, and there's going to be that. But

God

judges, as it says in Romans 1, people who

suppress the truth and unrighteousness, the

wrath of God

is revealed. God is not sitting on his hands.

He's judging people right now, and you can

tell

because, and you can tell in your own life if

you're not a Christian. How did I get here?

How did I get here? And I started out, I

remember I was back in junior high and

everything. I never

say, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be a drug runner, a gun runner and

sell drugs. Really, I would have never said

that. How did you get here then? A series of

decisions.

And a series of those decisions were made

because every time you made one of those

decisions,

God judged it and said, you want that? I'm

going to give you more of it. Oh, you like

that? I'm

going to give you more of that. And your

nature begins to change to like it and like it

more. And

I like it and like it even more. Until finally

at the end of the days, Judas says, he doesn't

see

Jesus as Messiah. He sees Jesus as a business

opportunity. 30 pieces of silver. That's an

awful lot. You can do a lot with 30 pieces of

silver. He sees that. None of the rest of the

disciples saw that. They had a different

nature, making different decisions, non-Judas.

But Judas

chose freely to do those things. Here's what

you need to understand. When God sovereignly,

because it says through him, when God

sovereignly controls all things, he uses the

creation,

the created order to do it. He just doesn't

come on there with his hand and controls

something.

He uses creation to control. Think how you got

here. You just didn't drop down from the sky.

No, Stark didn't deliver you to earth. You

have parents who had parents who had parents

who had

parents. And you inherited from them what they

possessed. What did they possess? Well,

if they had this kind of background or they

had this kind of eye features or hair or

whatever,

you got that. It's part of your DNA. You even

got your soul from them because it all comes

down

lineage. That's called traducenism and

theology. Your existence, God used them to

bring you

into existence. He just didn't drop you from

the sky. Now that's going to be important

later on

when we get into Romans 9. When it says in

Genesis chapter one, verse 12, "The earth

brought forth

vegetation, plants yielding seed after their

kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in

them,

after their kind." Verse 21, "God created the

great sea monsters and every living creature

that moves and with the waters swarmed after

their kind, birds, after their kind, cattle,

after their kind." He gets to Genesis chapter

five, verse three, "When Adam had lived 130

years,

he became the father of a son in his own liken

ess, according to his image, named him Seth,

after his

kind." And then Romans 5, too. That's how

death spreads all men because he now we're

after his

kind, Adam. So there's no neutral clay for the

potter to make his pottery. You come from

decomposed

clay. You come into this world. You come bent

underneath the wrath of God. As it says in Eph

esians

chapter two, "You're born to hate God." It's

just part and parcel of how you're made.

So the methodology, this how God regulates his

sovereignty, he uses the creation. Think about

it in the realm of salvation. Nobody here got

born again because all of a sudden one day you

just

woke up and got born again. The Bible says it.

Romans 10, "How shall they hear without a

preacher?"

1 Peter chapter one, 22 and 23, "Since you

have an in obedience to the truth, purified

your souls

for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently

love one another from the heart. For you have

been

born again, not of seed which is perishable,

but imperishable. That is through the living

and

enduring Word of God. And this is the Word

which was preached to you." Preached. There's

human elements

to your salvation. Imagine that. Well, it

takes the Holy Spirit to cause us to be

regenerated.

That's exactly right. Can you piggyback on the

preached Word of God to do it?

Now, that's not really where people have their

problems with. And I'm going to finish up with

this. Where they have their problems with is

in the realm of how God judges. Because see,

God still uses creation to judge. He does.

Yeah. Well, what is he? How does God judge?

This is how

God judges sin in real time in creation. He

uses sin to judge sin. He uses preaching to

get people

saved, right? He uses parents to have children

to get you into the world. There's always a

means to

an end. When it comes to judgment, and that

might sound weird to say, but God will use sin

. He will

use evil to judge evil. Now, I'm just telling

you, this is how the hands of the potter works

on the

pottery. And if you're a vessel of wrath

prepared for destruction, this is what he's

using to prepare

you for destruction. If you're a vessel of

mercy prepared for glory, he uses his hands as

well.

And he makes sure that the pottery receives

the preaching that is needed. And you will

hear

the preaching that is needed. God controls,

think, think about what it says in Isaiah 45,

6, and 7, "I am the Lord and there is no other

, the one forming light and creating darkness,

creating well-being and creating calamity. I

am the Lord who does all these." Control.

You even have Isaiah 63, 17, where people knew

this, and this is part of their prayer,

and they say, "Why, oh Lord, do you cause us

to stray from your ways and harden our hearts

from

fearing you?" Well, wait a minute. Well, God

doesn't cause that. They're praying that He

does,

because they're admitting that He does. Well,

ultimately, you say ultimate cause, distal

cause,

yeah. Proximal is going to be them that's

doing this. And their prayer to God is, "Ret

urn for the

sake of your servants, the tribes of your

inheritance." Amos 3, 6, "If a trumpet is

blown in the city,

will not the people tremble? If calamity

occurs in a city, has not the Lord done it?"

Acts 2, 23, "This man delivered over by the

predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God,

you nailed to a cross by the hands of Godless

men and put him to death." Was God in control

of the

Godless men? Absolutely. It's predestined.

Please rest in plan and foreknowledge of God.

To do whatever your hand and your purpose pred

estined to occur.

God in controlling evil does not commit evil.

There's a difference. It says it in James 113,

"Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being

tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by

evil,

and he himself does not tempt anyone. He is

not the immediate cause of evil."

But he is the immediate cause. He's the

ultimate cause. He has to be. He controls all

things.

He's too pure to look upon evil, it says in Ab

akkuk 113.

John tells us in 1 John 1.5 that there is no

darkness in him at all.

So God is not responsible for sin, because he

's not responsible for any of his actions.

But God uses evil as a form of judgment on the

wicked.

You ever read, this is an amazing passage to

me in 1 Kings chapter 22.

1 Kings 22, "You got Ahab, who's the king of

the northern kingdom,

and by marriage with their daughters and sons

," and all that.

He's got Jehoshaphat on the hook there. Jehosh

aphat comes to see him and they kind of,

you know, want to make a deal on all this.

Well, Ahab says, "Hey, look, I've got these

people,

they're wanting to fight me. Once you come

with me, we'll fight them together."

And so he says, "Well, before we do that, we

need to find the mind of the Lord on this."

And so he says, "Oh, yeah, you're right. Okay,

let's bring in the prophets."

Well, they bring in all the yes men prophets

who tell him, "Go up, you'll destroy him,

and you'll do this and that," whatever. And Je

hoshaphat can see through that.

And he says, "Is there not a real prophet?"

And we can really kind of quarrel.

Ahab says, "Well, yeah, there's a guy named

Micaiah. He just doesn't like me,

and I don't like him. He never says anything

good about me."

"Oh, don't say that, bring him on." And so Jeh

oshaphat says, "Go get him, bring him in."

So they bring him in. Micaiah kind of mimics

the other prophets and says, "Yeah, go in,

go up, yeah, you're going where I'm sure." And

they know he's being sarcastic.

And so the king adjures him, says, "You're

going to tell us. I want you to tell us

the real prophecy from God." And so he says,

Micaiah says, in 1 Kings 22 19, he says,

"Therefore hear the word of the Lord. I saw

the Lord sitting on his throne."

We've heard that little phrase before. "And

all the hosts of heaven standing by him on his

right

and on his left, the Lord said, 'Notice what

the Lord says. Who will entice Ahab to go up

and fall at Ramath Gilead?'" That's going to

be the means of the method of his judgment.

And one said this while another said that. It

's almost like a guy putting out bids.

Notice, God's not doing it. God doesn't do

that.

You can't do that. You did that. You'd be

complicit in a crime. The God can and does.

And now it just says it in 1 Kings 22. You can

read it in 2 Chronicles 18. Same episode.

And one said this and another said that. Then

a spirit came forward and stood before the

Lord

and said, "I know what I'll do because I will

entice him." Oh, then the Lord said, "How?"

And he

said, "I will go out and be a deceiving spirit

in the mouth of all of his prophets. I will go

out

and I will sin through the mouth of his false

prophets." Then he said, "God, you are to ent

ice

him and also prevail." He's got that authority

. "Go and do so." That's what he wanted to do.

Now that spirit's going to be judged for what

he did.

"Go and do so." In other words, succeed in

your sinning.

Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put it.

This is Micaiah telling Ahab this.

"Therefore, behold, the Lord has put a dece

iving spirit in the mouth of all

these your prophets and the Lord has

proclaimed disaster against you." And so what

does Ahab

do? Fall on his face and say, "I need to

worship God. I'm so sorry for my sins." Now

that's what

me and you would have done. We have different

nature, not him. He said, "I'm going to pull a

fast one on God. I'm going to disguise myself

as a common soldier and I'm going to do this."

You stay geared up looking like a king. Great.

They're going to follow him and try to shoot

at

him because he looks like the king and they

did. And Jehoshaphat called out to God and God

delivered

him on the battlefield. But not Ahab. And he

said, "Oh, there was an archer who drew his

bow at random

and shot at random and the arrow came and hit

in the joint of the armor and killed him."

What luck.

Because Ahab says before he goes out to battle

and he's talking to Micaiah when they're

dragging

him away to go in prison, he says to him, "

Okay, when I get back, we're going to deal with

you."

And Micaiah says, "Yeah, you come back, my

prophecy is false. You ain't coming back."

And sure enough, he died in Asheria. Now, why

are we told this? I'm giving a peek

into how God regulates his sovereignty through

him and to him are all things. This is in the

realm

of judgment. He's made everything, he says, in

Proverbs 16.4 for its own purpose, even the

wicked

for the day of evil. Romans 1, when you read

Romans 1, here's a guy, and maybe this was

part of you.

He sins. He doesn't give thanks to God, right?

He doesn't honor him as God. Like it says,

he suppresses the truth and unrighteousness.

He suppresses the truth and unrighteousness

and

he should be honoring God and he doesn't.

Because evidence is all around him that there

is God and

God, not a God, but the God, and he's all

powerful. And he sins against that. He doesn't

give thanks.

Well, God's not sitting on his hands. After a

while, he says, "Okay, well, I'm going to

punish

you for that sin. Oh, no. Lightning, no. I'm

going to start giving you over to loving idol

atry, loving

creation." And so he starts worshiping

creatures that crawl and things of this sort.

How did that

happen? You go back because he, "Well, you

didn't give thanks and he judged you for it.

Now you've

got this nature that looks to idols, looks at

the gifts of God and thinks the gifts are

better than

the giver." That's why I'm doing these things?

But you need to break off from your idolatry.

He doesn't. He, you know, thinks he's wise and

he's a fool, as it says in Romans 1. So God

says,

"Okay, I'm going to judge you for your idolat

ry now. I'm going to give you over to impurity

."

And it usually manifests itself in the sexual

realm. So you want to know why there's all

this

transgenderism and things of this sort. This

is further on down the line. God has been

judging

sins and these people for a while. And we've

getting down the line to where they're at.

And so they're practicing impurity. And God

doesn't sit on his hands. Keep that up. Well,

I'm going to give you over to homosexuality.

And then he judges homosexuality and gives

them up to a reprobate mind. See, all of these

things, it's because of what they did before,

and their nature has changed all the way. You

didn't run across anybody wanting to be

transgender

a hundred years ago and trying to do something

about it. But you have it now. And I wonder

why.

See, as you get further down the Niagara River

closer to the falls where there is,

God takes your life, the speed of the river

picks up, that the gravity picks up. And

people start

doing things that you would never thought they

would have done. But God also uses evil, and

this

is where I want to close on this regulation

thing, as a tool to preserve and sanctify the

righteous.

Look what Joseph says in Genesis 50-20, "You

meant it for evil, and they did.

And God meant it for good. All things work

together for good to those who love God." See,

they don't work together for good to everybody

. So those who love God and are called

according to

his purpose, they're going to be vessels of

mercy. You know that going in, whatever

trial I'm going through, God's got his hand in

it to make it better for me to be more like

Christ. That's why we consider it a joy when

we encounter trials. It's not because it's

joyful,

the trial, because we know the end game. And

the hands of the potter is on me. And boy,

the clay is flying off everywhere, and the

wheel is spinning 90 miles an hour. But you

know,

his hands are on me. That's a good spot. He's

personally touching me and making me more like

Christ. And it hurts, Lord. Help me. But

whatever you give me to help me through this,

help me to be thankful. So I don't want to go

down the road in Romans 1. I want to be

thankful,

I want to honor you as God, you and you alone

are God. I don't have a right to exist five

minutes

from now, and yet I'm existing. I'm alive. I

have a heartbeat. I have a pulse. I'm living.

I mean, I got money on my wallet. I got sanity

on my brain. I mean, that's a lot of gifts

going

on here, especially as you get older, you

appreciate more sanity in your brain. You do.

Trust me.

Even 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 20, when you're

not finding, you know, he getting beaten down,

he says you're harshly treated. He says you

patiently endure. This finds favor with God.

How sovereign is the God of the Bible? From

him through him and to him are all things.

I'll close with a quote by Sproul. He says, "

To me, there is nothing more comforting than

knowing

that there is a God of providence." Providence

is the sovereignty of God directed toward good

.

Something, we say, it's just by the providence

of God, it means it was his sovereignty and

action

for good. He says, "To me, there is nothing

more comforting than knowing that there is a

God of

providence who is aware not only of every one

of my transgressions, but of every one of my

tears,

every one of my aches, and every one of my

fears. Not only does he know about them,

he controls how long I have them and how heavy

they become. And that control today that he

has

in my trials has been planned and ordained

before the foundation of the world."

And so nothing takes us by surprise. People

who believe in the sovereignty of God, like we

do,

should be people who have the utmost

confidence in knowing God's doing a good work

in our lives.

As it says in Philippians 1:6, "You're his

workmanship, creating Christ Jesus for good

works,

and so even the bad, the evil, the things that

men do, and they do according to their nature,

right freely, and we know why they do them

because they've been judged and they're

continuing to be

judged." Remember, you're storing up wrath for

yourself as it says in Romans 2, but for us,

he's conforming us. The same trial that hard

ens a man whose vessel of wrath softens the

Christian.

You put a candle and you put a thing of clay

outside in the sun, two different reactions

and two different effects. Candle will melt,

the clay will harden. All depends on their

nature.

You're made to be a candle. Father, we thank

you for this time. We ask, Father, you take

these truths

and cause us, Father, to trust in you, knowing

, Father, that you are sovereign over all of

our

lives. You have caused us to be here. You've

caused us to trust. And as we're told in

Scripture,

Lord, as surely as you have started this work

and you've brought us down this path,

we ask, Father, you complete it. Keep us from

growing sluggish as we run the race. Help us

as

we see these truths, Father, to run faster.

For us in Christ's great name we pray. Amen.