The Sovereignty of God

The Sovereignty of God
By Rev. Robert P. Elkins
All Scripture verse taken from the NIV Bible unless otherwise noted

I won’t be opening with a reading of the Scriptures but have no fear, by the time we get finished you’ll have plenty of references to look up and hopefully you will have much to review in the comfort of your own home later on.

I am sure that at some point of time in our past we have all heard the term “The sovereignty of God” or maybe “God is Sovereign”. That’s got a nice ring to it don’t you think? “God is sovereign” or “We serve a Sovereign God”. Any way we say it, we have got to admit that it really sounds impressive just to hear the way those words sound together. But how many of us really know what it means? How many of us know what the word “sovereign” fully implies and the power behind that implication? And equally important, how many of us, if asked, could show someone else even one single Scripture verse that show’s God’s Sovereignty, gives an example of God’s Sovereignty, or could explain it to them? Well hopefully friend by the time you finish with this simple teaching I am offering you can say, “yes I can” to all of these questions.

Before going to the Scriptures it would be beneficial for us to go to the dictionary just to see what the word “sovereign” means. According to good old Mr. Webster, and his New World College dictionary. And no, this is not an advertisement for Webster’s New World College Dictionary or an endorsement of any kind. It just happens to be the dictionary I have in my office and to tell you the truth I am much happier with a huge old 1957 Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary I found in a yard sale a few years ago. I don’t know what “New World” Mr. Webster is talking about but his New World book has some word definitions that are of the vilest and obnoxious language you can think of. In particular, if you’re a parent, or have young people in or about your home, you may want to spend a little time looking at the dictionary you have and see if it’s like the one I’m talking about. Because the words old Mr. Webster put in his book today are words no decent Christian should be using much less have a full and graphic description of what they mean and they sure don’t add anything to our vocabulary other than embarrassment if we use them.

Now back to the meaning of “sovereign” and “sovereignty”. Sovereign means 1) above or superior to all others; chief; greatest; supreme 2) superior in power rank or authority 3) of or holding the position of ruler; royal; reigning 4) independent of all others. And “sovereignty” means “the state of being sovereign”. All of that sounds like God to me! Amen.

God is supreme and above all others. The Israelis or Hebrews if you will, of the Old Testament and of today still proclaim what’s known as the “Shema”. (Deuteronomy 6:4) “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One”. What this is saying is that “we have only one God and he is the only God among the many small case “g” gods. It is this belief in the one God that made the Israelis or Hebrews so different from all the other peoples in the land in which they lived, this is what set them apart from everyone else. All the other nations around them were polytheistic, they had many gods, their people had gods of fertility, and gods for the weather, gods for food, and gods for pleasure. They had a god for every occasion and every occupation. And then here comes these strange Jewish people and they are monotheistic, they worship just one single God, a God that covers every aspect of their lives. They worship one God and this one God is the God of Creation and the God of the Harvest and the God of the Weather and he’s the God of everything and to the neighbors of the Hebrews this is strange behavior. And then they tell the neighbors that “their God” is the only God that deserves any type of worship and that their God is superior to all the other little gods and that the other gods are false and of no value. A case scenario of how to make friends and influences people “Jewish style” which if you think about it isn’t such a bad idea since they are right. This mindset is what got the Apostle Paul in so much hot water with the people in Ephesus; so much so that there was a riot over his teachings that he gave in Athens earlier. Look at the book of (Acts 17:22-31) Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
Notice how Paul was very polite in his speech, he complimented them on their being very religious and how he noticed that they even had a god for those who didn’t know who to worship, he was the original generic god. We might want to learn a good lesson in being diplomatic from Paul’s technique. He was a gentle witness but he still got the point across.

The Jews knew that there is only one God and that that God is sovereign and above all others. King Davis knew this and recorded his thoughts in (Psalm 135:5-7) “I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the end of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouse.
Friend if you want a verse of Scripture that proclaims God’s sovereignty this is it. Verse 5 tells us that the Lord our God is great, that he’s greater than any and all other gods! That little bit of information in it’s self says he’s sovereign. But it gets better. Then it doesn’t tell us who the other gods are or where they come from and it really doesn’t matter because these other goods don’t matter. David knew and understood that it didn’t matter what title the false gods carried or how many people worshiped them, the name or number of the followers was of no importance because they were following a false god. This verse makes one blanket statement that covers it all. Remember that Kennel Ration dog food jingle from a few years ago? Change the words; use the jingle and it works perfectly. “My Gods better than your god, my Gods better than yours. My Gods better cause he’s the only God, my Gods better than yours.”

Now look at the beauty of verses 6 and 7. “The lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouse.” Friend, what else is there? God does whatever he pleases regardless of where he’s at because time means nothing to him and he’s at all places at all times. Whether he’s in the heavens or on the earth, whether he’s in the seas or at the very bottom of the seas it matters not. This verse is telling us God is in every square inch of the land of the earth and he’s in every molecule of water. This verse is telling us that God does what he wants when he wants and that he’s superior to all things and all gods. If the Almighty wants it to rain… it’s going to rain, Amen? If God wants the rain to be accented with lightning it’s going to be accented with lightning, Amen?

Friend I’m here to give you personal testimony of five years experience in the United States Navy. You will never see anything more beautiful, more majestic or more powerful in an unlimited, un-restricted, or unfettered sense of the word than a raging wind, rain and lightning storm in the middle of the ocean. The lightning flashes from the heavens to the water, from horizon to horizon in blinding brilliance, the wave caps, driven by the winds glow in the dark of night with phosphorus in the waters. And if you want to see a sovereign and majestic God in all his might and majesty you’ve got to see waves crashing over the bow of the largest warship in the world, an aircraft carrier. And that bow is 90 foot above the waterline, and those mighty waves are over 100 foot in height. Once you’ve seen that you can’t but help cry out “O God, truly you are sovereign above all gods”.

Another wonderful example of God’s sovereignty can be found in the end of verse 7. If you’ll recall the words of Jesus, he said that the winds come and go and no one knows from whence they come or where they are going. Verse 7 says that God brings the winds out of his storehouse. The KJV says “He bringeth the winds out of his treasuries.” Think of the things simple man locks up, pieces of paper with print on it, colored stones God made and pieces of the earth. Can you imagine anyone trying to lock up the wind other than a sovereign God?

If you still have your finger in Psalms, go to 115:3. “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him”. Again we see an un-restricted, all-powerful Deity of superiority over all things, reigning from heaven. This theme is repeated in (Isaiah 46: 9-10). “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come”. Remember the dictionary explanation? “As one superior in power, rank, or authority”. There is no greater anything above God. Can anything created be greater than the creator?

Most likely the greatest, most awesome invention man has ever devised would be nuclear power. Look at the nuclear weapon and it’s unbelievable power of destruction. This weapon is able to blow away a mountain and melt rocks. And nuclear power in electricity, a nuclear power plant burning no fossil fuel but using only the power of the atom is able to run an entire city with all of it’s needs for electric. Nuclear waste, what in the world have we made here? Something that is of no use what so ever as far as we know at this time and it will remain deadly for thousands of years. And this wonderful source of power, this awesome source of destruction, and this dreadful source of waste product was only discovered by man, men didn’t create nuclear anything, God did. Man didn’t create this power source; they only found what the Sovereign God created and hid in the ground. Only a sovereign God can create anything by speaking it into existence from nothing. And then we, mankind comes along and we then find what God created and we refashion it in some way, mix his created things together and then claim credit for creating it. We even place a patient on it and say it came from the mind of this man or that woman when in all actuality all we did was stumble upon something that was always there to begin with. Man can take a grain like wheat, grind it up to powder, add salt, yeast, a little this and that, mix in water and come up with bread. God on the other hand can speak into existence manna, which floated down from heaven in a quantity as was needed, could be gathered up for a daily ration and if you took to much it spoiled over night so that the greed of man would not be fed. Unless of course it was on the weekend, then the people could take a double portion and it was fine because God didn’t want them to labor on the Sabbath. Now that my friend is a sovereign God, he can make bread that is predisposed to rot on Sunday through Friday if you take too much and then last longer on a Saturday when he wants it to last a little longer. Who else but a Sovereign God could do that? That’s having total authority over all! Amen? Give him a praise offering for having authority over everything including heavenly bread.

In doing a study of God’s sovereignty, we need to ask, is there anything in all creation that doesn’t fall under the authority of God’s sovereignty or power? I’m not talking about something foolish like questioning as to whether God could make a rock so large that God couldn’t move it. A question with this kind of reasoning is pure foolishness and won’t be addressed; it would serve no purpose. So far we’ve talked about false gods and the relationship of the true God in all his sovereignty over them. We’ve even, to a light extent, talked about God and his sovereignty over the elements of the weather, how God sends rain or wind when he so desires. But what about some of the other aspects or objects of God’s creation, is there anything that isn’t under God’s sovereignty?

With the simple finite mind of man and our limited intelligence, it is conceivable that the created things of our will, the things that did come from our minds, will at some point be no longer under our total control or authority. Just a little side note, I read once a quote that caused me to chuckle, why is it that man’s intelligence is limited but his stupidly isn’t? Think about that for a second. Anyway, going back to our study. Look at nuclear energy, … we have it, we created it so to speak. But are we in total control of it? Once we release that energy, in whatever form we choose, do we still have total control over it? I would dare say “NO”! Once that awesome energy is released it’s free to react as it desires, we can guide it or attempt to control it but if it gets out of hand it’s on its own. Look at the nuclear reactor in Russia, once it was left uncontrolled it took off on its own and the result is a place on this earth that will be uninhabitable for years. But allow me to go to an example that will be more simplistic, something we can more relate to on a personal level.

Through the power of our Sovereign God’s Spirit, through his blessing, he has allowed man and woman to come together and create a child. This child is born, we nurture it, we care for it and it develops into a young teenager. You know where I’m going with this don’t you? Okay, I’ll skip the teenager years. This child over time grows into a full-grown adult, marries and has a family of his or her own. Once this child has grown into full maturity, once we’ve released this child into the world. Do we as parents still have total control over that child any longer? Did we ever have total control over this child? We as parents will love that child with all our heart and the child may love us with all their heart as well, but will that child, now an adult, be totally subservient to us any longer? Rather than thinking of our children, think now about ourselves, if our parents are still alive; are we, their child, totally subservient to them? Most likely not. Do parents have total control over their children for life? I’m being ludicrous here, we all know the answer is no. We all know that the parent’s sovereignty ends at some point and that child is a free spirit to be autonomous or self-governing. And with the liberal laws of society today this is almost to the point of absurdity. But that’s a different sermon for a different day.

So, what about God and his sovereignty? Is there anything or anyone that reaches that point of autonomous self-governing independence and is no longer under the sovereignty of God? The Bible must have an answer to this question so where do we look? Is God sovereign over all life and creation? How about our daily events and plans of life? The Apostle Paul seems to think that God is in control of his life. Look at (Acts 18:21). Paul’s in Corinth and he’s talking about future plans with Priscilla and Aquila. He’s leaving but he says, “I will come back if it is God’s will.” Paul knew that every step of his life was under the direction and control of God when he submitted himself to God’s spirit. I think this theme is better found in the book of James. In James’ epistle to the scattered tribes of Israel he says in chapter four, verses 13 through 15. “Now listen you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If it’s the Lords will, we will do this or do that.” We, simple man or woman, have no knowledge as to what the future holds for us. But we are subject to the Sovereign God’s will.
At this point you may be asking yourself, “what about those who turn to a life of sin or reject God and the Scriptures?” we have to ask, is this also God’s will that they do this? This may shock you but the answer is yes! If God is sovereign and in total control then even this situation is under his authority and rule and subject to his will. But with an explanation. I’ll bet that there are at least a few who are saying to yourself right now, “I have to see how this preacher gets himself out of this mess.”

As a student of the Scriptures we will see that God lays out all of the paths of life for us. He has no hidden agenda, there are no real surprises, there’s nothing hiding in the bushes that will jump out and catch us off guard. In particular, study your Old Testament. In the Old Testament we read time and time again that the Sovereign God, talking through his prophets, tells his people that this is what I want for you. This is the path I’ve selected for you and this is the blessing I have in store for you as your reward for following my ways. If you do this and you do that, then I’ll bless you with this and I’ll bless you with that because blessing is what the Sovereign God wants for his people. And as clear as the path he’s selected for us is laid out so also is the opposite if we decide to not follow his will. His word tells us in no uncertain terms; if you don’t do this and you don’t do that then here is the penalty that your actions will warrant. And whether it’s blessing or penalty, it’s still under God’s authority and sovereignty. If God is to be a just and sovereign God, he must allow penalty to follow rebellion. If God is a true God of complete justice and love, when there is rebellion there must be consequence. So is it the will of God that some follow a sinful life style? No, that goes against his will. But it is within the will of God that they are allowed to follow that sinful life style and it will be under his complete authority that there will be justice administered if repentance isn’t shown by that person and grace and mercy asked for pleading that the blood of Jesus be applied to the sins of that life style.

What about sickness, death or disaster? Friend we live in a fallen world; we live in a world that holds sin in its heart. God doesn’t bring about these things but he allows them to come to be because God is also the creator of all his laws of nature. It wasn’t Sir Isaac Newton that created gravity; he just discovered it, God created it. God’s laws say if you lead this certain lifestyle, then this is the result of that life style. If you step off a tall building, God’s law of gravity kicks in and you crash to the ground. If you’re in a car and you go off the road and hit a tree, does God want you to be hurt? No, but he established the laws of inertia and God doesn’t on a regular basis violate his own laws so inertia kicks in and you hit the windshield if you’re not wearing a seatbelt. If your car is moving and it suddenly stops, unless your restrained by something you’re going to keep moving at the same speed the car was traveling at until something stops your foreword progress. In every motor vehicle accident there is more than one collision, the vehicle hits something; that is the first collision. Then the occupants in that vehicle hit something on the interior of the vehicle unless restrained by a seat belt; that is the second collision. That is the law of physics in action and it is a creation of God. Another example, if you smoke tobacco or anything else that people smoke, be it of the legal or illegal variety, chances are there is going to be a bad result. We all know what the body can do to protest with these substances in them, we were not designed to breath smoke; we are “air breathing” creatures. Actually we are “clean air” breathing creatures and this is becoming more and more apparent as we see the respiratory problems arise is us as we live in the dirty air we have created through the things we have done to our environment.

Friend I have to tell you that in the beginning these bodies didn’t have the problems we have today. When The Sovereign God designed this body he gave us he did so making it a really great working machine. When sin came into the world, when God had to place limits on how long these things we call home would last, that’s when the problems started to happen. Cancer? It doesn’t just happen like we would like to think, God doesn’t just allow something to “Happen” that is out of his control. Cancer is the end result of something that gained entrance to the body at some point in the past. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the location in which we live, the gene pool we came from, there was something that triggered it to begin with. It may have happened in our generation, it may have gained entrance in a past generation, who knows how long ago. But it didn’t just happen outside of the will of God, not if God is Sovereign. Heart attack? They don’t just happen, something brings it on, it may be in our family genes, and something passed on from past lifestyles. Drug addiction, alcoholism, stress, lack of exercise, diet, here’s the action … here’s the result. Did God create the evil? … No, but when sin was released into the world the evil came along with it. When man made the decision to misuse what God created, God in his infinite wisdom had already created the result of what that misuse would bring. When we use or misuse something of God’s creation there is always an end result. Sometimes we already know what that end result will be and we still do it. Is that our fault or Gods? Sometimes we use or misuse something God created and we don’t know the end result, eating a poison mushroom that we didn’t know about, we get sick and die because of our ignorance. Is that our fault of Gods? In our legal system we use the scales of justice and one of the rules of those scales is “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. I hate to tell the politicians this but whether they want to acknowledge it or not in their great quest to remove God from all government activities, in using this statement they are enacting one of the laws of God. That law of “ignorance of the law is no excuse” was established when God established all of his laws for nature.

I think one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in all my years as a law enforcement officer working within the New York State Department of Corrections was when I took an inmate to New York City for a double funeral, his sister and his little niece. They had both drown at a family picnic, the little girl because she made the decision in her little untrained mind to go to close to the swimming pool and she fell in. The mother because she made the heroic decision to jump in to save the girl, and neither one of them could swim. Did God want that to happen? Of course not! Did he allow it to happen, yes! He’s a Sovereign God and he created the laws that say people can’t live and breathe underwater; he created us with lungs to breathe air. Both the little girl and her mother made a wrong decision and they suffered the consequences of it. Was God unjust in allowing it to happen? No. His established laws were already in effect whether the people knew them or not and unless God allows a miracle to take place those laws and the consequences of them must be followed regardless of the outcome.

Does God ever alter or change the laws that he established? Yes, but only on rare events. It’s known as miracles, if we study the Scriptures we’ll find countless times when God did just that. Old Testament examples are plentiful, parting the waters of the Red Seas, it was a miracle to bring about God’s perfect and Sovereign will for his people. Stopping the sun from moving for a while to win a battle, it was a miracle to bring about God’s perfect and Sovereign will for his people. Jonah in the belly of the whale, it was a miracle to bring about God’s perfect and Sovereign will for his people. Examples are also found in the New Testament, raising an ordinary person back from death, healing a blind person, multiplying loaves and fishes, changing water into wine, and raising a dead man, God’s only Son, back to life to defeat sin for all men and women. All miracles to bring about God’s perfect and Sovereign will for his people. Did the miracles end when the Canon was closed, when the writing of the Bible ended? Of course not, we see miracles every day. All of us have seen, heard of or experienced a miracle in our life. All of us have seen, know of someone or have experienced the power of the Sovereign God when he’s altered his own laws to minister to his people in his perfect and Sovereign will. A car that didn’t hit yours when you know it should have. A fall that should have killed you but it didn’t. A bill that was paid when you don’t know how, when your child was healed when there was no hope. Friend; miracles are those things that happen when you know in the laws of nature, in the laws of God they shouldn’t happen and they do. Does this happen all the time? No … if it did then it wouldn’t be a miracle. If it happened all the time then it would no longer be a miracle but it would be the standard, regulated law of God and the miracle factor would discontinue or cease being a miracle.

And now, I’m sure that there are a few or at least one reading this that is saying to them “I’ve never seen or experienced a miracle”. Well to show you that God is still in the miracle working business I’m going to give you an example of one of God’s miracles that he works every second of the day, twenty four hours a day every day of the year. Think of our lowly sinful state, think of all those who were lost in sin and despair and had no hope of anything but God’s prefect justice and the raging fires of hell. And the Sovereign God, in his perfect love and mercy gives salvation to all that ask for it. That beloved is a miracle. Our sins and rebellion screamed out for justice, our past cried out for punishment and then God in his love said: “I think I’ll perform a miracle because this one has asked for forgiveness. This one has called out to my Beloved Son and my Son has said, “Father forgive him or her because they know not what they do.” My perfect law says that I’ve seen their actions; my perfect law says that this is the result of their actions. But my Son says: “Father, change your perfect law for this one because this one belongs to me, you gave me this one and he or she is now mine and it’s my desire that this one isn’t going to be lost”. And beloved when this happens, you’ve seen the greatest miracle of them all. When this happens you’ve gone from the perfect law of the Sovereign God that said the perfect and just punishment is eternal flames and suffering but the miracle of grace has changed that suffering to eternal glory in the presence of our Sovereign Lord and King, Jesus Christ.

I could go on a lot longer but another miracle is having a pastor that knows when to stop, it’s a miracle when you have a pastor who knows when you’ve had enough for one teaching. But before we stop completely let me give you a few verses that will show our Sovereign God and his sovereignty over Satan. Look these up when you have time or when you’re doing your Bible study this week. (John 12:31) (2nd Thessalonians 2:8) and (Revelation 12:7). God is Sovereign and that includes sovereignty over Satan, sin and salvation. I pray that when you leave this web site today you have a better understanding of what A Sovereign God is and what it means to all of us. Grace & peace.