Mar 11
28
God’s sovereignty
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 of God 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 worldlings, 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 God ascends His throne—then His creatures gnash their teeth!
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!
And how is it that I am made to differ?
(John MacDuff, “The Prophet of Fire” 1877)
Let us adore the freeness of God’s mercy, and the sovereignty of His grace.
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways. Man has generally
some reason for conferring his favors; some claim arising from person or pedigree, from
character or attainments.
But God’s sole motive in conferring favors is His own free and gracious purpose. “It is not
of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.”
He takes a Manasseh filling Jerusalem with blood,and makes him a monument of forgiveness.
He takes a Saul breathing out his blasphemies, and converts him into the great Apostle.
He takes . . .
a crude heathen jailer, or an unprincipled tax gatherer of Jericho, or a profligate woman of Capernaum, or a felon in his dying agonies, while many encircled with the halo of natural virtues
or with the prestige of religious education and training, are left to perish in their ungodliness
and unbelief and pride! And it is the same principle we recognize still in His dealings. He often passes by . . .
the great,
the powerful,
the rich,
the sophisticated,
the educated;
yes, even the virtuous and the amiable;
and He crowds the marriage supper of the King from the highways and hedges;
with the poor and the illiterate; the outcast and prodigal. He often leaves palace and castle and stately mansion and lettered hall; and enters the humble cottage and the poor man’s hovel.
He takes the children’s bread and casts it to Gentile dogs! Many old companions; those at one time better and more promising than I; have been long ago scattered as wrecks on life’s ocean, entangled
in the swirling vortex, and hurried down into nameless depths of infamy.
And how is it that I am made to differ?
How is it that that tale of misery and ruin; that which, in the case of others, has broken a parent’s
heart, and sent him sobbing and halting to the grave;how is it that I have escaped these dread temptations; and that, while others have broken loose with a worse than maniac’s madness, I am this day sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in my right mind? Not unto me, O God! not unto me! But unto Your name be all the glory! I read the reason, written in gleaming letters,
in the heights and depths of Your own Infinitelove. By Your grace, Your free, sovereign,
unmerited grace alone, I am what I am!
The love of God!
Spurgeon, “The Love of God and the Patience of Christ”
“May the Lord direct your hearts
into the love of God…” 2 Thes. 3:5
Believer, God loves you as much as if there were nobody else in all the world to love!
God can pour the infinite love of His heart upon one object and yet, for all that, can
love ten thousand times ten thousand of His creatures just as much. Your Father loves each child as if He had no other! Peer into this abyss of love! Plunge into this sea! Dive into this depth unsearchable! Oh, that God might direct you into theimmeasurable greatness of this love!
Enter into this love by remembering its antiquity. Some fight the great truth of the eternal electing love of God. But to me it is as wafers made with honey. What music lies in that sentence, “Yes,
I have loved you with an everlasting love!” When this great world, the sun, and moon and stars, had not yet flashed the morning of their little day, the Lord Jehovah loved His people with an everlasting love. In the Divine purposes, before the Lord created the heavens and the earth, God loved His own people. He had chosen you, thought of you, provided for you and made ten thousand forecasts of
loving kindness towards you before the earth was. Beloved believer, you were engraved on the hands of Christ even then! Oh that the Lord would direct you into the antiquity of His love. It shall make you greatly prize that love to think that it had no beginning and shall never, never have an end.
Again, think of the love of God as to its infallible constancy. The unchangeable Jehovah never ceases to love His people. The love of God abides forever the same. Since you have known Him He has never varied in His love to you. When your love has grown cold He has loved you. When you have grown cruel He has loved you. You have grievously provoked Him till He has taken down His rod and made you smart. But He has loved you in the smiting. With God there is as much love in chastening as in caressing. He never abates in fervor towards His ancient friends. He has said, “I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.” I ask the Lord to direct us into the immutability of His Divine love, for this is a great medicine inthe day of soul trouble. Whatever condition you may be in, the Lord is still active in love towards you. All true love goes towards purification. And the true love of God goes that way with an invincible current that can never
be turned aside. O believer, your God loves you so well that He will not let a darling sin stay in your heart. He loves you so strongly that He will not spare any iniquity in you. The knowledge of His love will make your heart as sweet and aromatic as a chamber in which a box of precious ointment has
been broken. Oh, that you might be led into the innermost secret of the Lord’s love till it shall saturate you, influence you, take possession of you, carry you away! Beloved, let the love of God to you flow into your hearts and abide there until it settles down and bears on its surface the cream
of love to God, yielded by your own heart. The only way to love God is to let God’s love to you dwell in your soul until it transforms your soul into itself. Love to God grows out of the love of God.
“May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God…” 2 Thes. 3:5
Divine Foreknowledge
By Arthur Pink
“Great is our Lord, and of great power. His understanding is infinite.” Psalm 147:5
God not only knows whatsoever has happened in the past in every part of His vast domains, and He is not only thoroughly acquainted with everything that is now transpiring throughout the
entire universe, but he is also perfectly cognizant of every event, from the least to the greatest, that will ever happen in the ages to come!
God’s knowledge of the future is as complete as is His knowledge of the past and the present; and that because the future depends entirely upon Himself. Were it in anyway possible for something to occur apart from either the direct agency or permission of God, then that something would be independent of Him and He would at once cease to be Supreme.
“…NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH…” II Peter 3:9
In this passage of scripture Peter is comforting the children of God with the assurance of Christ’s second advent. If you will read the chapter carefully, you will observe that the apostle makes a clear and deliberate distinction between “us” who believe and the scoffers who believe not. Unbelieving scoffers arise and say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” And Peter tenderly protects Christ’s sheep from such raging wolves by those sweet assurances.
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise.” Did he promise that Christ would come to judge the world and to gather his elect unto himself? Most assuredly he did. Let the wicked mock and scoff. We will comfort ourselves in the assurance that, at the appointed time, Christ will appear in his glory. Though the promise tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” “Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.”
The Lord “is longsuffering to us-ward.” The promise and the longsuffering of God is to us – Those who are loved, chosen, redeemed, and called of God – Those who believe on Christ for life everlasting. There is only one reason why God tolerates the enemies of Christ, only one reason why Christ has not yet come to judge his enemies, and it is this – God has a people in this world whom he has determined to save, He would not destroy the old world until Noah was in the ark. He would not burn Sodom until Lot was out of the city. And God Almighty, even in his strict holiness, will not send his Son to destroy this world until the last one of his chosen sheep has been brought safe into the Shepherd’s fold! Indeed, “The longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.”
Once more, it is promised that God is “not willing that any should perish.” To whom is this promise given? Not to Pharaoh, God killed him. Not to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, God sent them to hell. Not to Judas, God sent him to his own place. To whom then is the promise given? To us-ward! Not one of God’s elect shall perish in his sin. Not one of Christ’s sheep shall, be missing from the fold. Not one soul redeemed by Christ shall be cast into hell. Why? Because God is “Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” And the will of God cannot be frustrated. Peter is simply reaffirming the promise of Christ, “All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”-Don Fortner