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Children of god, whatever you have not got, you have a God in whom you may greatly glory. Having God you have more than all things for all things come of him, and if all things were blotted out he could restore all things simply by his will. He speaketh, and it is done; he commandeth, and it stands fast. Blessed is the man that hath the God of Jacob for his trust, and whose hope Jehovah is. In the Lord Jehovah we have righteousness and strength; Let the times roll on, they cannot affect our God. CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON One of the most ridiculous ideas I have seen in a long time is a ‘Jesus action figure’ doll for children. The plastic character comes dressed in a robe and sandals. It is just one of a whole line of "Bible Greats Action Figures" manufactured by a Michigan-based company. Others in the series include John the Baptist, Peter, David and Goliath, and Daniel and the lions. For girls, the alternatives include Mary, Ruth, and Esther. Or, resourceful parents may simply buy biblical costumes from the company and turn their child’s Barbie doll into a woman of faith.’ Not to be outdone, a Florida doll-maker offers ‘Jesus The Doll,’ a $29.95 rag doll that is fully machine washable. Designed primarily to ‘help children discover Jesus," the floppy toy supposedly also "can provide solace for the elderly and the infirm, for those in recovery programs, and those under emotional duress. In other words, everybody. What kind of "solace" can a rag-doll Jesus provide that the real Jesus cannot? According to the doll-maker, the actual Jesus isn’t tangible enough: "It’s hard to hug air." More rag dolls are planned to complete the line, which the manufacturer calls "Firstfruits." The next two will be Mary and God. Asked what a rag-doll god might look like, the doll-maker brought out a prototype. It is two feet tall, white-haired and white-bearded, with a long, rainbow colored robe -- completely machine washable, of course. When I first read about "Jesus The Doll" and the "Jesus Action Figure," they struck me as fitting metaphors of the way some professing Christians imagine our Lord. Too many think of Him as someone who can be manipulated any way they please, rather than the utterly sovereign Jehovah of the Bible. The truth is, the average person would actually prefer a benign, utterly passive, white-bearded rag-doll image to the Almighty God revealed in Scripture. GOD’S ABSOLUTE SOVEREIGNTY If we do not believe in the sovereignty of God in salvation, we will be forced to believe that salvation is left up to us, or it is left to the lost person to save themselves. We are the ones who really called preachers to preach, and we are the ones who really call lost people. The example I give is of a young couple who came to services last Sunday evening, but got here too late for services. He was going to Hyles-Anderson College to learn how to be a preacher, or to win souls. To those people, the most important of all is to win souls. The most important thing is not to teach holiness, or Bible doctrines. They generally believe they are the ones who save souls, and they are the ones who call preachers, they are the ones who organizes churches. Of course, the church isn’t so important to them. When the Bible speaks about the absolute sovereignty of God, there are usually two things about God’s sovereignty men disagree with. The first is God’s sovereignty in salvation. Secondly, if God is sovereign, why is there sin. I would like to address at least the first of these issues this morning. No doctrine is more despised by the natural mind than the truth that God is absolutely sovereign. Human pride loathes the suggestion that God orders everything, controls everything, rules over everything. The carnal mind, burning with enmity against God, abhors the biblical teaching that nothing comes to pass except according to His eternal decrees. Most of all, the flesh hates the notion that salvation is entirely God’s work. If God chose who would be saved, and if His choice was settled before the foundation of the world, then believers deserve no credit for any aspect of their salvation. But that is, after all, precisely what Scripture teaches. Even faith is God’s gracious gift to His elect. Jesus said in John 6:65, "…no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." Matthew 11:27 agrees by stating, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." It is important to notice Matthew 11:28-30, in which Jesus urges unbelievers to come to him that they might find rest. Compare John 6:66 where the people went away and Matthew 11:28, where Jesus urges people to come to him. Which will you do? You will do according to what you have. Do you have any place to go except to go to Jesus? Should sinners come to Christ? This is a very silly question, but it is asked, therefore needs to be answered. See my file on the following link: ..\..\MATTHEW\11v28-30 - 2.doc Ephesians 2:8,9 further concludes, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast." Jonah adds, "..Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9). The doctrine of divine election is explicitly taught throughout Scripture. For example, in the New Testament epistles alone, we learn that all believers are "chosen of God" (II Thess. 2:13). Eph. 1:11 states, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:" Verse 4 and 5 of this same chapter earnestly declares, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." We are "called according to his purpose." Romans 8:29 states, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." When Peter wrote that we are "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:" in I Peter 1:1, 2, he was not using the word "foreknowledge" to mean that God was aware beforehand who would believe and therefore chose them because of their foreseen faith. Rather, Peter meant that God determined before time began to know and love and save them; and He chose them without regard to anything good or bad they might do. Note that Eph. 1:11 explicitly states that God has "…predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." Sovereign choice is made "according to the counsel of His own will" - that is, not for any reason external to Himself. Certainly He did not choose certain sinners to be saved because of something praise worthy in them, or because He foresaw that they would choose Him. He chose them solely because it pleased Him to do so. Isaiah 46:10 emphasizes "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." God is simply not subject to the decisions of others. His purposes for choosing some is hidden in the secret counsels of His own will. Psalms 14:2-3 again emphasizes, "The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one." God looked upon all the children of men, and saw none understanding, repenting, or seeking God. Therefore he chose some to salvation. It is not that God accepted some and rejected others. It is that all rejected Christ, therefore Christ in his eternal grace and mercy, chose some to salvation. Moreover, everything that exists in the universe exists because God allowed it, decreed it, and called it into existence. Ps. 115:3 states, "But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased." Psalms 135:6 continues by declaring, "Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places." Ephesians 1:11 continues this line of spiritual reasoning by stating that God works "all things after the counsel of his own will." Romans 11:36 states, "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever." And I Cor. 8:6 repeats, "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." What about sin? God is not the author of sin, but He certainly allowed it; it is integral to His eternal decree. God has a purpose for allowing it. He cannot be blamed for evil or tainted by its existence. I Sam. 2:2 declares, "There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God." God certainly wasn’t caught off-guard or standing helpless to stop it when sin entered the universe. We do not know His purposes for allowing sin. If nothing else, He permitted it in order to destroy evil forever. And God sometimes uses evil to accomplish good (Gen. 45:7, 8; 50:20; Rom. 8:28). How can these things be? Scripture does not answer all the questions for us. But we know from His Word that God is utterly sovereign, He is perfectly holy, and He is absolutely just. Admittedly, those truths are hard for the human mind to embrace, but Scripture is unequivocal. God controls all things, right down to choosing who will be saved. Paul states the doctrine in inescapable terms in Romans 9:11 by stating, "(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)." God chose Jacob and rejected his twin brother Esau. Why? Because this was God’s desire. God didn’t choose Jacob because he was a better person than Esau. Both were equally sinners, and both deserved eternal destruction in the fiery flames of hell. Jacob was chosen by God before the birth of the twins "that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth." A few verses later, verses 15,16, Paul adds this: "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." Paul anticipated the argument against divine sovereignty because he states in Romans 9:19, "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?" In other words, doesn’t God’s sovereignty cancel out human responsibility? But rather than offering a philosophical answer or a deep metaphysical argument, Paul simply reprimanded the skeptic in verse 20 and 21. "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" Scripture affirms both divine sovereignty and human responsibility. We must accept both sides of the truth, though we may not understand how they correspond to one another. People are responsible for what they do with the gospel--or with whatever light they have, so that punishment is just if they reject the light. And those who reject do so voluntarily. Jesus cried in John 5:40, "And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." Christ told unbelievers in John 8:24, "I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." In John chapter 6, our Lord combined both divine sovereignty and human responsibility when He said, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Christ continues in verse 40 by stating, "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." Christ continues in 44, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." Verse 47 emphatically declares, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." and verse 65 concludes, "And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." How both of those two realities (the election of God and human responsibility) can be true simultaneously cannot be understood by the human mind--only by God. Above all, we must not conclude that God is unjust because He chooses to bestow grace on some but not to everyone. God is never to be measured by what seems fair to human judgment. Are we so foolish as to assume that we who are fallen, sinful creatures have a higher standard of what is right than an unfallen and infinitely, eternally holy God? What kind of pride is that? In Psalms 50:21 God says, "…thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself..." But God is not like us, nor can He be held to human standards. "‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’" (Isaiah 55:8,9). We step out of bounds when we conclude that anything God does isn’t fair. In Romans 11:33, 34, the apostle writes, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?" |