Welcome to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries with Dr. Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

First, from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter 14, verse 24. And then we will turn to the book of John, chapter six, verses 37 and 44. Isaiah, the 14th chapter, the 24th verse. The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass. And as I have purposed, so it shall stand. Now, turning to the book of John. John, chapter six, verse 37. And verse 44. Jesus is speaking, and he says, all that the Father gives to me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out. Verse 44. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up at the last day.

Our God and our father, we ask that your word would be implanted in our hearts and in our minds. That we might consider how sovereign you are. For we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Let me ask you a very straightforward question. Who rules the world in which you live? Who rules the world in which you live? I realize that the topic of the sovereignty of God is an unpopular topic. It always has been unpopular. It will remain an unpopular subject. Because at the heart of the teaching of the sovereignty of God, that God is in control of all of his creation, that there is nothing that occurs that is outside of God’s plan. Just to say that to the natural man, the man who is outside of Christ, his first reaction is, well, that’s not true.

I decided what time I would get up this morning. I will decide what time I will go to sleep this evening. I decided what color suit I will wear. I decide what kind of car I will drive. Why? That’s the american way. I am sovereign. I am in control over every minute of my life. I remember, before becoming a Christian, if there was one thing that I was absolutely convinced of, it was that I was in control over my life. And yet, from the beginning of time, the question who’s really in control? Has been at the center and the forefront of some of the most tragic events that have ever happened in the history of the world. Because from the beginning of time, it was angel of light, Lucifer, who looked upon God.

And Lucifer, that lofty angel, declared that he would be like God, that he would declare his independence from God, that he would be sovereign in his own life and in control of all the events that were part of his life. And so Lucifer was heaved out of heaven with a host of angels who came with him. And he showed his work in the garden when he came to Eve with that beguiling appeal that surely if you eat of this fruit of the tree, you will be like God. Perhaps there is no other topic that so touches our heart and our mind in a foreign way than the concept that it is God who is totally sovereign over his creation. And yet it seems that you and I, mankind throughout the ages, has always declared we have no sovereign. I am my own sovereign.

And so we come seated upon our lazy boy chair, our throne with our plastic crown and our polyester suit, and we declare to God that we are sovereign. Look at my empire. Let me show you to my video machine. Let me show you to my entertainment sources. Let me show you to my desk where I make so much money. Why God? I am sovereign. And man looks at God and says, look at all that I have done. By the sweat of my brow, by the strength of my hand, I am sovereign and I shall have no God who will be sovereign over me. There are many people who believe that God is simply powerless. That one woman several years ago heard me pray in a prayer meeting.

And afterwards she said, you really don’t think that God is concerned about those little things that you were praying about, do you? I mean, he’s got so much more important things to be worried about yet that strikes at the very heart of our understanding of who God is. Is there anything that happens in your life that God says, I’m not interested in that. I’m not concerned even the slightest about your problems. They’re too small. Why the scripture would say no. God is absolutely concerned with even the hair on your head. He is concerned with all aspects of our life. And if there is anything that the Bible seems to teach clearly, it is this one truth, that it is God who is involved in every part of his creation. This truth has been recognized by the christian church throughout the ages.

This is not a teaching that is special to Presbyterians. No. The sovereignty of God is embraced not only by Presbyterians, but it is embraced by the Baptists, by the Lutherans, by the Episcopalians. Virtually every church that takes the name Christian has within their confessions, within their teachings, the belief that God is sovereign, that God is in total control over all events within his creation, and that there is nothing that comes to pass that is outside of the sovereign will of God. I lived a good part of my christian life believing that there were different tours that God had for us to go through life on first class, best accommodations. That was for the people who were totally obedient and so everything went very smooth for that crowd. Unfortunately, I did not consider myself part of that crowd.

So I had to settle for tourist accommodations where you always had the sense that somewhere there were Christians who were totally in obedience to the Lord, totally following the Lord, and for them, plan a first class. But for the rest of us, oh, well, tourist will do. And for the first seven years of my christian life, I believed that I could simply live my life, go along, hopefully stumbling from one event after another with the hope that I hadn’t made some tragic mistake along the way that totally derailed me from the will of God. And now here I am, one year, five years, ten years, 20 years later, because of something that happened so many years ago. And now I am so derailed that I have gone off into the distant horizon, never again touching the will of God for my life.

What a tragedy. What a calamity to believe that if I should sin, God is so incapable of transposing that disharmonic note and bringing it into harmony with his plan. There is nothing that occurs within your experience or mine that is outside of the sovereign will of God. Does that sound strange? Well, perhaps the greatest objection that is given to the sovereignty of God is the objection that most christians can say, I accept that God is sovereign in my life and directing me when I am obedient. But certainly the sovereignty of God cannot have anything to do with when I sin. Certainly my sin would bring me so far out of the will of God that it’s impossible to conceive that my sin can be used by the Lord in his sovereign will, his sovereign plan for me.

The book of Isaiah, chapter 45, verse seven, a verse that we often leap over. A verse that says, I form the light and created darkness. I make peace and create evil. I am Jehovah that doeth all these things. And it was the belief of Amos in the third chapter of that book, the 6th verse, shall evil befall a city, and Jehovah hath not done it. Is it possible that I am so powerful in my life that even my sin, my disobedience, can so derail God that he looks down from his throne in heaven and he says, oh, no, look at the sin that they have committed? It’s impossible for me to reconstruct the world. It’s impossible for me to accomplish my purpose. Why? That is at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian.

 We know that we will continue to sin and that we come to the Lord and ask forgiveness. If were to believe that our sin was so powerful that even God himself could not react and use that evil for good. Then we would have a God who is thwarted by every one of his creatures, a God who wrings his hands and says, what shall I do? My plan will never work. Well, there is another objection that some have to the sovereignty of God, and that is that it sounds so fatalistic. Now, fatalism is the belief that all events are determined by an impersonal force which is called destiny. Has anyone seen destiny recently? And yet we talk about destiny as though it were a person or a being.

And yet the scriptures talk nothing about that fatalism, that destiny, that impersonal force that is directing or behind all of the activities of man. But rather, the Bible puts the world’s fate into the hands of God. God who is all powerful, who is wise, who is holy, who is righteous. It is this God who has within his hands the power over his creation. The world is not some driverless train where the throttle is locked at full power. That train goes shooting down the track, no one in control, until finally that train reaches a precipice and the bridge is out, and that train goes careening fatalistically over that precipice into the abyss. No, that is not what the scriptures teach.

What the scriptures teach is that there is a God, an almighty, loving, merciful God, who is seated in his throne, whose hand is on the throttle, who controls the movement of that train, who knows exactly where it will wind up and its destination. But there is another objection that some raise to the whole idea that God is sovereign, and that is, they put it in different, cute statements. It’s God who proposes, but man who disposes. Some say it’s God who submits, but it’s man who permits. Others say, it’s God who makes, but it’s man who shapes. How foolish to think that this almighty God who, when there was nothing, simply by declaring with his word that there should be a world, that man could somehow stand like some mighty mouse and say to this God, you shall go no further.

God, you cannot enter here. I am sovereign. I will not permit you to come and to interfere in this world. God, I will not allow you to have your way. And yet, isn’t that what the book of Romans, chapter one, teaches as being the great sin of man? That we look at God and we conclude in our foolishness that God is not God. We construct a wise tale, and we profess ourselves to be wise, and we begin to worship the creature rather than the creator. It is God who directs. It is God who is sovereign just about every other day or so it. I have the fun experience of wrestling with my little boys. Not so little anymore.

And one of the way it always starts, it’s like this, that at first I sit there and on comes Nathan, the biggest boy, and he puts up all of his might. And as soon as he starts to laugh and the other boys hear it, they come from all the other rooms to run and wrestle with Daddy. And at first I stand there like some great mighty man and they can’t budge me. But as they continue to fight and wrestle and put the shoulder against my leg, then suddenly a leg falls down and I’m on the ground and one of the boys grabs my arm and another one grabs my leg and another one pulls my ear. And they all start to really believe we’ve got Daddy. And that’s just about the time that little Mary comes crawling into the room.

She sees what’s happening and so she grabs hold of anybody and anything. And so there I am, seemingly powerless under the great might of my one year old and of my five year old and eight year old and twelve year old. And I lay powerless as they continue to show me their strength and their sovereignty. But you know how we always end up. Finally, Daddy simply stands up and peels them off one by one. Now probably there’s a day coming when I won’t be able to do that. But isn’t that like us? Here we go looking at this God, and we have declared in ourselves, he’s powerless. He doesn’t intervene the way we expected. And so we exert our sovereign will and we begin to declare, I am sovereign. I am all powerful, I am all knowing. My will shall prevail.

And so perhaps you have some success in life, and then you make this critical error believing that the strength in your life came from you. And once we begin to believe that, then we begin to create for ourselves our own world in which we are sovereign. And it’s interesting about businessmen who declare their sovereignty. I’ve noticed that those who are successful in business are very good at constructing a world in which they can be sovereign. But as soon as you take them out of that world and put them into another world, not only are they not sovereign, but they are weaklings. They are not able to function. And so the man who has great ability in the business world, if you ask him to come over to this world of sports, he might say, I don’t have time for that.

And what he is really saying is, what that means is that I must go into a world where I’m not sovereign, I’m not all powerful, I’m not all knowing, I’m not totally capable. And that only reminds me that I am not all powerful and all sovereign. And so man is very busy creating a world in which he sees himself and constructs for himself a small little empire where he is sovereign. Listen to the words of Daniel, chapter 435, about this God whom so often we do not declare as being sovereign. He says this, I do according to my will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain my hand, no one.

As Christians, if there is any truth that you and I should be intimately familiar with, it is the truth that God is sovereign, that he is accomplishing his perfect will through each one of us, and that God has a plan which he is bringing to complete fulfillment. We just look to any other discipline. An architect is simply a person who is able in his mind to conceive of a finished building. And so once he has conceived it in his mind, he sits down at his drafting table and he draws the plans, and he knows that it will turn out exactly as he planned. Or if were to consider the man who builds bridges, why, that engineer knows exactly how the bridge will look when it is finished. And so he sits down and he draws a plan.

Mental asylums are filled with people who have plans, but absolutely no way to accomplish those plans. And so the man who would declare, I am Napoleon, and I shall take over the world without a plan, he’s a fool. What should we think of God, who created this world? By his hand he made this world. Shall we think that this God did not have a plan for this world, that he simply built it and said, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I don’t know how it’s going to all turn out. I have no purpose for it. I just like to tinker. And so I’ll make me a world. And he set it into motion, and he left. Why anyone in the earthly sphere who would have such a plan, or lack of plan, we would say, is foolish.

And yet we’re all too often willing to say of God. He is a builder. He makes things. He lets us live on the things that he makes, but he has no plan for it. Isaiah 46, verses nine and ten. I am the God, and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things that are not yet done. God is involved in all aspects of his creation, unlike man, who often changes his mind, our sovereign God does not change his plan. We read in Isaiah 1424, Jehovah of host hath sworn, saying, surely, as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. In the last book of the Old Testament, chapter three of Malachi, God says, I, Jehovah change not.

Well, surely there are some things in life that are just simply chance. Your number was up. The chance is 50 that you’ll have a boy or a girl. Isn’t that true? If I flip a coin in the air, the chances are 50 that it will come up heads. Isn’t there such a thing as chance in the life of a Christian? The scripture says, no, there is no such thing as chance. Chance is simply a mathematical way of explaining a reality. But chance by itself has no power, no force. Do you remember the drawing of the lots we read in proverbs, chapter 16, the lot which would be used to determine God’s will? We read there that the lot is cast, but the outcome is wholly from the Lord. What about chance events?

What are the chances that an arrow should fly through the sky and pierce through the opening of the Armor of a wicked king? What are the chances of something like that happening? We would say one in a million, one in a trillion. Recently, there was a woman in New Jersey who won the lottery two times. And what are the chances of something like that Happening? They said the chances are one in 17 trillion. Surely God had nothing to do with something like that. Well, the prophet Micah told King Ahab that tomorrow you shall die. And in another part of that battlefield was a soldier, a certain man who drew his bow. The scriptures say, at a venture like a chance, he knew not where it would land. And where did that arrow land?

Between the opening of the Armor of wicked King Ahab, who died. And there was no chance. It was certain. What about lightning? What are your chances of being struck by lightning? Who controls lightning? Certainly here is a chance event, if there ever was one. Well, Job tells us it is God who covers his hand with lightning, and it is he who gives it charge to strike where he wills. What about the sinful acts of man? Are these included in the sovereign will of God? Can they be overruled for good? Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. He was cast into prison. He was accused of rape. He languished in the darkness of that prison until finally brought before him through the Lord’s providence. As he was made the prime minister of Egypt. Joseph stands. And before him are his brothers.

His brothers who wanted only evil for him. And what did Joseph conclude? He concluded, as for you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. You mean to say that even the sinful actions against Joseph were used by the Lord according to his sovereign will? Yes. And there are some who even say, well, granted, God is in control over kings. Yes, the scripture teaches that the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. There are some who will even grant, yes, he is in control over his creation. But surely there is one area where God does not have total power, and that is in the conversion of a man or a woman. Certainly, before they would be converted, they must give their permission to God to convert them.

Well, ask Saul, as he’s walking down a Damascus road, do you give your permission to be converted? And God enters into the life of Saul and converts him without so much as a desire on the part of the man. He has converted wonderfully. His name is changed to Paul. If were to look to the scripture, we would find that even our conversion is not dependent upon our will nor upon our might, but wholly is dependent upon the mercy of the Lord. It’s interesting how we will give room to a sovereign God. We will let God be sovereign in his workroom as he creates the universe. And we will say, yes, you are sovereign. We will let God be sovereign as he brings warmth, as he brings the sunshine. Yes, God be sovereign as he brings the snow in winter. Yes, God be sovereign.

But when God sits upon his throne and he declares, not only over nature, not only over my creation, but I shall be sovereign over you, it is at that moment that man seems to raise his clenched fist and declare, we will have no sovereign here. I am my own sovereign. I shall run my life as I please. Yet God declares from the beginning to the end, I shall control. I shall rule. My plan shall be perfectly fulfilled. And if you are a Christian, then the teaching of the sovereignty of God is one that I think you would look upon and say, how wonderful to know that my heavenly father holds the reins of my life in his hands, and I will surely trust myself to his mercy. But if you are not a Christian, then perhaps for you, these words sound harsh.

You say, no, I shall be sovereign. Then look at your own heart and know that your declaration of sovereignty is at the heart of what it means to trust in the living God. A living God who sits upon his throne, who judges nations, who causes nations to rise, who causes kings and presidents to sit to be removed. A God who can control chance. A God who controls sovereignly his creation says to you and to me, I am sovereign. My word shall stand forever. Let us pray. Our God and our father, we would ask that as we would find your sovereignty to pinch us, that this would simply remind us of our old nature where we declared totally our sovereignty.

And father, help us to see that you are a loving, merciful, compassionate father who watches over your children, who has a plan that you are working out perfectly for each of us and that you are even able to take our sin to use it for the good, that we might know that all things work together for good. To those who love you and are called according to your purpose, father, we would declare that thou art sovereign, that you are our creator, and that you have made us to fulfill your plan. Help us to thank you, for we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. One of the great mysteries of the sovereignty of God is the mystery of the way that he works in our life. Seemingly that we make decisions each day, and yet that he mysteriously is at work.

And as we would sing this great closing hymn, number 603, that we would remember that it is true that God does move in a mysterious way. Let us stand.

Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton Ministries Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. That’s Princeton Ministries Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. The Lord bless you and Dr. Smith looks forward to hearing from you. We would like to thank Rones web development company for making this webcast possible. You can find their link at the bottom of our website, princetonministries.org