“The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence.”

A.W. Pink

Not to long ago my faith hinged entirely on this question: Is God sovereign or is He not? I had been taught my entire life that God was sovereign; yet, those same teachers would subject God’s sovereignty to things outside of God, namely the free-choice of men. Their teaching, in a nutshell, was that the sovereignty of God ended where man’s choice began. God, according to some, chose to reveal himself to all and let men do with that what they will. This would later become a fundamental issue for me: If it is God’s desire to save mankind and men are thwarting that desire, then God is not Sovereign. I slowly begin to learn a truth that would forever change how I approached the Scripture and the Creator.

God is not merely able to control all of Creation He does indeed control it.

The Biblical evidence is clear; God is Sovereign over all things. He alone appoints authorities and He alone overthrows them. God rises up nations and God causes them to fall. God may do this through the actions of man, but never the less it is God. God also masters the winds and the waters. They obey Him without objection, whether they bring comfort or sorrow. The book of Proverbs shows us that God decides upon even the random things of life. [1]

His all-powerful nature is an essential part of His being and to undermine that is to remove Deity from Him. Further, to subject God to man’s will, to assume that the created can checkmate Creator is to strip God of His omnipotence. Most people are fine with God being Sovereign over creations, but when we speak of God’s Sovereignty over man’s salvation a lot of people tend to shudder. It is indeed a hard truth to wrestle with. (And one that we will dive into in a subsequent post)

Most people speak of Creator God as if He is spending His time begging people to seek after Him and love Him, as if God so needs our affection that He has reduced Himself to appeasing mankind so that they may yearn for Him. When in reality, God doesn’t need us. Not for love. Not for fellowship. God didn’t desire to step onto the seen and play the role of epic hero saving all from their sin. Instead, God always has been and always will be chiefly concerned with bringing glory to His name, and acting in a way to accomplish that grand purpose.

The good news for us is that one of the ways God chooses to bring His name glory is through the salvation of men. And that firmly places our salvation in His hands and not ours. Knowing that God is Sovereign should bring us great peace. Be comforted in knowing life will play out, exactly as God has ordained it to.

Thoughts?

**This post is part of a series covering the basics of what I believe. To read all the post in the series, click here.**