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.