The knowledge of God is an ever unfolding revelation. Seeking the truth is sometimes akin to stepping into a puddle only to find it a pond, jumping into the pond only to find it a lake, and diving into the lake only to find it an ocean. The more we see of Jesus Christ, the more we see our need to know yet more of Him, to be changed from glory to glory and conformed to His likeness. Therefore, until we have obtained the fullness, no man may claim to know all of God. Until there is nothing more in us that needs to be changed, and we resemble perfectly the Unchanging One, we will always be seeking Truth, which is embodied in the person of Christ Himself.

Having said all of this, God has already revealed many precious truths in His holy scriptures, and by His Spirit, and we would do well to come before Him humbly to receive His revelation, and having received, to stand boldly in the light shed by His glorious Gospel. We must be balanced in our perception of truth, stubborn for the true light that we have, yet always eager to have more unfolded to us, finding that our previous knowledge is ever "in part".

But where do we start, in seeking this great God of ours? Knowing the foundation to be Christ Jesus, how do we build? Indeed, this is a pertinent point, because the closer to the base of a structure the flaw is found, the more precarious the integrity of that building, and likewise, a foundational truth twisted or rejected causes much ruin to anything built upon it. Similarly, a little leaven leavens the whole lump, and a little poison contaminates much water. We must therefore take heed how we build (1 Corinthians 3:10).

One of the most basic issues in the search for truth is the Sovereignty of God. To what degree is God in control? To what degree does He intervene and direct? Is He sovereign enough to achieve His stated aims? Indeed, though this is a weighty matter, I am much grieved that it should be a subject of such disagreement in the Church, simply because the Word is so very clear on this matter.

The issue that has clouded the water of truth has really been the supposed ‘free moral agency’ of man. This has caused a rejection of much of God’s sovereignty and has often reduced Him in people’s minds to a rather helpless old man who would like to do much, but can in reality do little, and a creator who began something without the end in mind, now needing the help of His error prone creatures to even salvage a fraction of mankind. Many are downright patronizing to God, picturing Him wringing His hands in Heaven, and weeping impotently as the world He intended to save goes to Hell, and remains under the dominion of Satan permanently.

But what saith the scriptures? What manner of Creator and Savior do we find within the pages of the Bible?

Dear Saint of God, as we enter into this Truth, I would encourage you to consider all created things, both seen and unseen, knowing that, regarding the Christ,

³All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:3-4)

Consider that He was in the beginning with God, being indeed the very Alpha and Omega. Consider that through Him the worlds were framed, and the heavens stretched out like a scroll. Consider the beauty and majesty of this Earth, even in its fallen state, from its tranquil forests to its heaving oceans. Consider the intricacy with which all things have been designed, from the craggy peaks of dead rock, to the perfectly constructed web of codependent wildlife. Consider the things you do not see – the mystery of electricity, energy, and the very wind itself. Indeed, consider some of the most beautiful and invisible things of all – Love, Joy, and Peace. And Consider God:

²⁰For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead… (Romans 1:20)

Knowing that this creation, visible and invisible, and all mysterious to us, was spoken into existence by Him who created all, we can begin to appreciate how small we are. And when we remember that we ourselves are part of that same creation, brought forth out of His own substance, can we not begin to perceive that He must be sovereign? Such awesome power, divine love, and overwhelming genius, presiding over the works of His own hands, must surely be in control of that which He brought forth!

As stated previously, the stumbling block over which the religious man is forever tripping, and rejecting the complete sovereignty of God, is the perception of how the Almighty will interplays with the will of man. An unbiblical term, "Free moral agency", is used to describe the supposed state of mankind. According to the traditions of men, God set within man the ability to be a completely self-contained moral agent, able to weigh moral issues upon the scales of his own heart, and thus make a decision one way or another, completely free of any divine compulsion or bondage to sin. At the surface, it sounds very humane. "God did not create robots." "He wants us to choose to love Him. Forced love means nothing to Him." "He offers salvation – it is up to us to accept or reject it." You will almost undoubtedly have heard statements similar to those on occasion. However, I do not hesitate to tell you that such declarations are erroneous and false. The mistake that the carnal minded man makes, is supposing that man either must have a completely free will, or else no will at all. Brethren, man indeed has a will, but that will is subject to other forces, not least the Sovereign will of the Almighty God!

¹ The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD,
       Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.
       ²Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,
       But the LORD weighs the hearts. (Proverbs 21:1-2)

We find it clearly stated throughout the Word, as in the two passages above, that God indeed exerts sovereignty over the very hearts of men. There is simply no other way for these scriptures to be taken. Paul further expounds upon this in his letter to the Romans:

These verses are so clear as to the sovereignty of God that I might very well underline the whole passage! Dear saint – consider! Meditate upon the story of Israel, how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart that He might bring His chosen nation out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Meditate upon the subsequent history of that chosen nation, with the divine hand guiding it and preparing it for the appearance of the Messiah. And meditate upon the story of the Incarnation, and how it was God Himself who delivered Jesus Christ up for us all (Romans 8:32). Are these the actions of a God who is in control, or out of control? Are these the actions of someone with a predetermined plan, or someone who is just doing the best He can, bound by our unfaithfulness to fail in most of what He wished to accomplish? Saint of God – consider!

According to His good pleasure! Which He purposed in Himself! Who works all things according to the counsel of His will! Oh Saints – can we not see with perfect clarity that God indeed has a plan, and is unquestionably able to carry it on to complete, triumphant fulfillment? Woe unto any man that subjects the Lord to His own limited, carnal mind, and claims that God cannot do such and such, or is unable to do so and so.

⁸"Remember this, and show yourselves men;
       Recall to mind, O you transgressors.
       ⁹Remember the former things of old,
       For I am God, and there is no other;
       I am God, and there is none like Me,
       ¹⁰Declaring the end from the beginning,
       And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
       Saying, "My counsel shall stand,
       And I will do all My pleasure,'
       ¹¹Calling a bird of prey from the east,
       The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
       Indeed I have spoken it;
       I will also bring it to pass.
       I have purposed it;
       I will also do it. (Isaiah 46:8-11)

What a Lord! We can boldly declare that He has designed and created everything according to a purpose, and that He can and most certainly will accomplish it! Only a sovereign God could know the "end from the beginning", and "from ancient times, things that are not yet done." And praise His holy name, that is precisely who we have, a Sovereign God!

It is a blessed assurance indeed to know that we are in the hands of He who opens and none can shut, and shuts and none can open (Revelation 3:7). And when we begin to apply that sovereignty to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, what vistas of revelation, what pathways of epiphany, and what gateways of splendor and truth open up to our wondering eyes! If God indeed be sovereign over all, what unspeakable glories we find in the message of the cross!

The Greek word for ‘draw’ here is helkuo, or helko, indicating a forceful, irresistible movement, akin to dragging, pulling, or even yanking. It was this same word used to describe Peter drawing his sword before cutting off the ear of Malchus. This action could hardly be considered a ‘wooing’, as opponents to the sovereignty of God declare.

³⁷All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. (John 6:37)

Jesus explicitly states that everyone the Father has given into His hand shall indeed come to Him, and shall not be cast out. How could He make such a statement, were the process of coming to Him dependant upon the creature? He goes on to make a clarifying declaration, a few verses later:

There you have it! Only by the Father’s drawing can we come to Him, and all that the Father gives Him will come to Him! So, how many people has the Father given Him? Let us return to John 12 for the answer:

What an amazing salvation! What a far reaching reconciliation!

Brethren, God indeed subjects our will to His own in the process of salvation, yet I would add that He does this in such a way that we are not violated in the slightest. We must remember that, being brought forth out of God’s own substance it is in Him we live and move and have our being, and "…if He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return to dust." (Job 34:14-15) Understand, dear friend, that the Almighty God permeates everything He has made, and, in the words of the Psalmist:

It is this God who is the giver and sustainer of life, because He IS Life! And it is He who sovereignly directs our paths and works in the inner chambers of our hearts till His great plan is consummated into its fullness, and He that began a good work in us "…will complete it until the day of Christ." (Philippians 1:6)

Consider also what Paul says his letter to the church at Philippi:

What illuminating verses! Work out your own salvation – for it is God who works in you! And for His good pleasure! We now begin to see how God’s will works even within the will of man.

Brethren, there is still much mystery as to how God accomplishes His aims within our very hearts, but consider the following: We are created beings, and our growth in spiritual things is totally dependant on our Creator. Meditate upon the parables the Lord used to describe our relationship to Him:

¹ "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. ²Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;^[a] and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

Here the Lord Jesus clearly establishes the source of our growth – He Himself! We are simply described as the branch on a vine. Now I ask you the following: If a man were to plant seeds, water them, and nurture the resulting plant until it grew into the fullness of summer, would such a man be accused of "forcing the plant to live"? Would He be accused to turning the plant into a "Robot"? Having considered that He is the Life, we have to understand that to accuse God of violating us by laying hold of us sovereignly unto life, is akin to accusing oxygen of forcing us to stay alive! Indeed, though there are clearly branches that are "taken away", such branches are as completely fulfilling the sovereign plan and purpose of God as those who remain, because He is the Sustainer, and He sees the end from the beginning, having a purpose for both those who fall away and those who remain, as we will see more fully later.

Another way The Lord influences our will is through the fire of circumstances. For instance, if I were to ask you to leave my house and you refused, and I then turned off the air conditioning on a blistering summer day, you would certainly choose to leave – my control over your circumstances influencing you. Similarly, God skillfully refines us in the fires of affliction and suffering, producing that precious gold of His nature in us.

One of the many problems with the fleshly and carnal traditions of men with regards to salvation is the place and ability of man within the process. Ask an orthodox preacher how we are saved, and you are likely to hear something along the lines of "Jesus died for us, and now we are to fulfill the Great Commission by preaching to as many folks as we can before they slip off into a Christless eternity. Anyone, however, who repeats the sinner’s prayer, will be saved, because they chose God." There are many variations on this garbage, but that is the gist of it.

Saints of God – consider! In what state were we in before salvation? I will not hesitate to tell you, we were DEAD!

Dead! Not alive – not walking freely in our ‘moral agency’, but dead! And not only that, but we were children of wrath BY NATURE. There is no "choice" about it! We had been given over to a carnal nature, from which we were powerless to save ourselves, or even choose the way of salvation! We were in rebellion, and our eyes were blinded to God! Saints – if our nature were one of wrath, our will was in bondage to that same nature, not flying free in the moral stratosphere! We were sold into slavery! (Romans 7:14)

²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; (Romans 8:20)

Indeed, if we had played some vital role in the process, would not scripture testify that, to some degree, we chose Him? But no, Christ said:

Though not much taught or expounded upon in today’s religious arena, it is illuminating to discover that the word "choose" appears in the King James version of the New Testament a total of ONE time. Yet the word "chosen" appears TWENTY NINE times, twenty six of which are in the context of God sovereignly choosing!!!!

Pause, and Consider!

 ¹⁸Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. (Matthew 12:18 KJV)

27But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; ²⁸And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: (1 Corinthians 1:27-28 KJV)

Scripture upon scripture upon scripture! Dear Saint, next time you hear people talking of "a decision for Christ", ask yourself: Whose decision? Whose choice?

By grace we have been saved - that is simple enough. Grace is of God – no-one would dispute that. And that grace is dispensed through the medium of faith – which is also a gift of God! And He has prepared our works beforehand for us to walk in! What is more, the Holy Spirit makes it crystal clear here that this truth is being relayed "lest anyone should boast." And what would someone seek to boast of? Why, that they themselves chose Jesus Christ! That faith was something that they generated! That, in short, they exercised free moral agency in coming to the Lord! Brethren, reading the above scripture from the pen of Paul again, we can plainly see how false the traditional idea of salvation is, and how abominable it is that the professing church is filled with souls believing that they chose God!

Brethren, there is a flip side to God sovereignly opening eyes, and that is the realization that it is He that sovereignly blinds them in the first place!

In the above passage in the book of Romans, we are clearly shown that God has a sovereignly chosen remnant, and has also sovereignly blinded Israel, and indeed all mankind who have not seen the Christ for who He is. Now, this truth (as with so many truths) may ruffle our religious feathers, but Brethren – we must not be in bondage to useless traditions of men, however "humane" they sound. We must instead listen to what the Lord God Himself says regarding His decrees:

The Hebrew word for ‘evil’ here is ‘ra’, which is the word almost exclusively used for ‘evil’ throughout the Old Testament. No mistranslation there! So, we have God Himself declaring that He ordains evil. This does not mean He Himself is evil (a house divided against itself cannot stand, said the Christ), but that He ordains evil to achieve His good, benevolent ends. To reinforce this, let us look into the first book of the Kings, where King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah summon the prophet Micaiah to appear before them regarding their intent to fight the King of Syria at Ramoth Gilead:

¹⁹Then Micaiah said, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left. ²⁰And the LORD said, "Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?' So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. ²¹Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, and said, "I will persuade him.' ²²The LORD said to him, "In what way?' So he said, "I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' And the LORD said, "You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.' ²³Therefore look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you." (1 Kings 22:19-23)

We have the very word of scripture that God sent a lying spirit to speak through the false prophets and deceive the evil King Ahab! This does not make God a liar, it simply makes Him sovereign over all the spiritual principalities and powers, which He uses for His own wise purposes. To gain further insight into this truth, one only needs to read the first two chapters of the book of Job, where we find God’s sovereignty and ordination of evil extending even to Satan, who we see clearly as an instrument of God, unable to do anything unless God decrees it!

⁸Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?"

It is clearly seen here that Satan cannot do any evil unless it is decreed by the Lord, and furthermore, He asks the Lord to "stretch out your hand"!!!! He recognizes God as the source of any future calamity for Job! And Saints, consider what Job says when the evil befalls him and his wife tells him to "curse God and die":

By attributing the evil that befell Him to God, Job did not sin with his lips! How far is such a testimony is from today’s religious world, where Job would instantly be branded a "heretic" in many quarters for saying God ordains evil! But dear Saint – we do not do God a favor by thinking of Him differently to how He presents Himself, however "nice" we think he ought to be. No – the problem is man’s misconception of how evil is used by the righteous hand of God for His own awesome and glorious ends. Consider – if a King decreed a rebellion against himself that he might have mercy on the transgressors, does that make him evil? No, such a King would be a benevolent King, overcoming evil with good, and using evil until it has run it’s course and achieved it’s ends!

 ¹⁶Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. (Isaiah 54:16)

There is no gainsaying such explicit declarations. God creates the waster to destroy. He sovereignly ordains destruction. And then what? He says "Return, O children of men"!!! Here we see in crystal clarity His benevolent ends, even in the evil He has preordained!

God is then indeed Sovereign! Over His creation – over our hearts, over our circumstances, and over our very salvation. Yea, over the very devil himself! There is nothing that has come from His hand that is not also set firmly under His control. When this blessed truth pierces the veil of cold tradition, what joy is ours! When we truly understand that nothing escapes His sovereignty, what rest, what peace, what victory! Furthermore, knowing His great sovereignty can thrill us and give us all manner of wondrous expectation as we look into His plan and purpose, because we know it will be fulfilled. For indeed – God has a plan! A beautiful, majestic plan that transcends our limited perception and encompasses more than the carnal mind can dare imagine! Amen.