“Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven,
and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places”
Psalm 135:6
The sovereignty of God may be defined as the exercise of His supremacy. Being infinitely elevated above the highest creature, He is the Most High, Lord of heaven and earth. Subject to none, influenced by none, absolutely independent; God does as He pleases, only as He pleases always as He pleases. None can thwart Him, none can hinder Him. So His own Word expressly declares: “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10); “He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand” (Daniel 4:35).
Divine sovereignty means that God is God in fact, as well as in name, that He is on the Throne of the universe, directing all things, working all things “after the counsel of His own will” (Ephesians 1:11).
Because God is absolute Sovereign, such is His own claim: “This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hast purposed, and who shall disannul it? and His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” (Isaiah 14:26,27).
Because God is irresistible Sovereign, such is His own claim: “All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Daniel 4:35).
The Sovereignty of God is true not only hypothetically, but in fact. That is to say, God exercises His sovereignty, exercises it both in the natural realm, and in the spiritual.
- One is born black, another white.
- One is born in wealth, another in poverty.
- One is born with a healthy body, another sickly and crippled.
- One is cut off in childhood; another lives to old age.
- One is endowed with five talents, another with but one.
And in all these cases it is God the Creator who makes one to differ from another, and “none can stay His hand.” So also is it in the spiritual realm.
- One is born in a pious home and is brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord;
- Another is born of criminal parents and is reared in vice.
- One is the object of many prayers, the other is not prayed for at all.
- One hears the Gospel from early childhood; another never hears it.
- One sits under a Scriptural ministry; another hears nothing but error and heresy.
OF THOSE WHO DO HEAR THE GOSPEL,
One has his heart opened by the Lord to receive the truth; while another is left to himself. One is “ordained to eternal life” (Acts 13:48), while another is “ordained to condemnation (Jude 4). -“To whom He will God shows mercy, and whom he wills He hardens” (Romans 9:18).
God not only created everything, but everything, which He created, is subject to His immediate control. God rules over the works of His hands. God governs the creatures He has made. God reigns with universal dominion.
One of the most flagrant sins of this age is irreverence. By irreverence I am not now thinking of open blasphemy, or the taking of God’s name in vain. Irreverence is, also, failure to ascribe the glory, which is due the great and dreadful majesty of the Almighty. It is the limiting of His power and actions by our degrading conceptions: it is the bringing of the Lord God down to our level. There are multitudes of those who do not profess to be Christians who deny that God is the omnipotent Creator, and there are multitudes of professing Christians who deny that God is absolute Sovereign. Men boast of their free will, prate of their power, and are proud of their achievements. They know not that their lives are at the sovereign disposal of the Divine Despot. They know not that they have no more power to thwart His secret counsel than a worm has to resist the tread of an elephant. They know not that God is the Potter, and they the clay.
Rightly did the late Mr. Spurgeon say in his sermon on Matthew 20:15:
There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation-the Kingship of God over all the works of His own hands-the Throne of God and His right to sit upon that Throne.
On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when.28 God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth, and we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust.
