The Sovereign God of All Grace

“…the God of all grace … To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:10-11)

There is one and only one who has absolute power. He is sovereign over all. He truly rules over all. The Bible rightly calls Jesus, who is the eternal ‘I AM’ in human flesh, “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:6).  The one, true and eternal, living God is sovereign over all, in every realm. If He were not absolutely and universally sovereign He simply would not be who He is; absolute sovereignty is necessary to God’s essential being. When Simon Peter writes, “To him be glory and dominion forever and ever,” he ascribes to the triune God all power over all things without exception; he declares the absolute sovereignty of the one, true and living God.

Any mention of God’s sovereignty makes some Christians strangely uncomfortable. The living God who holds real and absolute power over all things is and should be gloriously intimidating to a thinking person. “The fear of the Lord” is a proper starting point for us all, but most men prefer a smaller, more manageable god. They may be able to comfortably entertain thoughts of a spiritual deity that is in many ways superior to us, but the thought of God as absolute Sovereign is harder.

If by no other means, many attempt to explain away God’s sovereignty by insisting (on the basis of their own philosophical musings) that His very nature puts limits on Him, so that He cannot actually exercise His will in every possible realm because, in their not-so-humble opinion, for God to do so would involve Him in some measure of tyranny or evil. Indeed, the man who will not have God to rule over him evermore finds fault with the Almighty; such is the nature of unbelief. Such is the wisdom of this age.

It has ever been a supposed dilemma, to reconcile the concepts of divine goodness and divine sovereignty – the idea being that these two things are irreconcilable in this world. The reasoning put forward goes something like this: “If God is good, then He cannot possibly be sovereign – for if He were both good and sovereign, then, by virtue of His sovereign goodness He would not allow evil and injustice and suffering. The fact that those things exist in abundance in this world insists that the only conclusion to be drawn is that God is not both good and sovereign. Since it is unthinkable to sacrifice the goodness of God as a concept, we must assume that God’s ‘sovereignty,’ whatever it is, must be in some sense, limited.”

The Bible teaches that God is absolutely good and incapable of moral evil. The Scripture also teaches that God is absolutely sovereign and that He actually exercises His will in every realm. Those who see these as irreconcilable concepts are, themselves, limited in their understanding by unbelief. Human reasoning is not infallible; the Bible is.

King Nebuchadnezzar, glorious sovereign of ancient Babylon, finally understood the dangers of human pride lifted up in the face of Almighty God.

“And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.” (Daniel 4:34-37)

To the child of God, the absolute sovereignty of our Father, Savior and Paraclete is strength to the soul and peace to the mind. The God who has called us by the gospel unto eternal glory, He alone is God. His sovereignty rules over all. What can strengthen the believing mind more than this, to know that our souls’ best friend is the Almighty Sovereign, the King of glory? –Pastor TSA

"O LORD, hear me..."

Prayerful thoughts from Psalm 86:1-7

“O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy” – O living God, Yahweh, ‘I AM’ who created all things! Uncreated Eternal, listen to me. My appeal to you who can do all things arises from my severe poverty, my painful awareness of deep need.

“Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee” – Save my life! My very soul is in danger – danger of fainting, danger of failing, danger of despairing. O LORD, I am yours and you are mine by faith. You have caused me to hope in you. I live to serve you. I am your servant and I am trusting in you every moment. You alone can deliver me! Only you can make me secure. As it is, I live each second in weakness and danger unless you come to my aid.

“Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily” – I am asking for your gentle mercy, not for anything I deserve. Do not my tears and my pleadings give evidence that I am looking to you with all my hope? Does not my constant praying come before you and in some weak way show that you alone are my hope? Have mercy! See my weakness and need; look upon my poor heart and be moved, O Lord, by my constant crying out to you!

“Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul” – Only you can make my heart glad. The world holds out to me only vain hopes of true joy, true gladness; you alone can make my being rejoice again! I do recall past victories and past delights, but they bring small comfort. They are like yesterday’s bread; they bring too small strength for today. I plead for new mercies for this day, for this season. Do for my soul what only you can do! To you and you only I lift up my very life with tears, for you to see and pity and bless. Surely, you will not despise one who, being broken, hopes in you. My appeal is to your goodness and to nothing in myself. For I know full well that I am sinful and undeserving of favor.

“For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee” – All that I know of you, of your being and nature, tells me that you will surely look with gentle grace upon the one who is crying to you and hoping in you. You do not break the bruised reed, though useless it may be. Although matchless in purity, you yet give mercy to the undeserving, forgiving sin and giving grace to the one who looks to you. You hear the sinner and forgive him because of your great love. When he offers you his broken heart, although guilty, he has good reason to expect kindness from you and not wrath, because you delight in mercy. “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” (Psa 34:18). I am sorry for my sins, in thoughts and acts! You know the very darkest trace of my heart, since nothing is hidden from your view!

“Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me” – Listen, O LORD! Listen to my voice when I plead out my prayers. Mine is not the voice of anger, neither the voice of demand; it is the quivering voice of hope for your love, your goodness. I feel trouble weighing heavy on my soul. To whom shall I go, if not to you? Turn me not away! You alone have power to command trouble to flee! You have power to relieve and to cheer the needy soul! I am asking with all my heart, Help me, O God! Answer in the affirmative! Answer in love and kindness. Amen. Amen! –TSA

Challenging Bigotry

A dinosaur with a big head and a small mind recently conversed in public. He referred to these people and them and how we have tried to help them in so many ways to pull themselves up out of their native poverty and general uselessness – and all that’s happened is that they have dragged us down. Instead of us making them better, they have made us worse. Ain’t it a shame what this country has come to, and other such talk.

Relics are out there, as bigoted as ever, sitting on church pews every Sunday, singing hymns and giving cold hard cash to send missionaries around the world to help those people learn about Jesus and go to heaven in the sweet bye and bye. Of course, if one of them walked in one Sunday morning and sat down beside them when they were worshipping Jesus, they might very well lay a dinosaur egg on the spot.

Just when we begin to think that everyone around us understands that people are people, all members of one human race – think again. Dinosaurs yet live in our neighborhoods and attend churches and we do business with them every day. Some are preachers, deacons, elders and teachers. Listen up and you may overhear them lamenting the condition of ‘the good old U.S. of A.’ because of what those people have done to ruin it. And, of course, it’s always someone else that’s the problem in this land of immigrants and immigrants’ children.

The Holy Scriptures teach that there is one human race. All nations (that’s everyone, y’all) are descended from one man. Whatever differences exist between people of whatever ethnicity, the differences are not essential, having to do with essence. People are people.

Ancient Jews and Greeks were different in plenty of ways, descended from different ethnic streams. But Paul (the Jew) said to the Athenian philosophers (Greeks), “God that made the world and all things therein…hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:24, 26). According to Christ’s apostle, all people of all ethnicities descended from one man.

The living God, the Creator of all that is, has revealed His mind through the special revelation contained in the Bible. He ordained that all people of all nations would descend from one man, Adam. There is one and only race of people: the human race.

When a dinosaur speaks of Whites and Blacks and Asians and Islanders as belonging to different races, he shows his ignorance – ignorance of the Bible and ignorance of reality. He also shows insecurity.

An insecure person always looks for someone else to blame. That is the very sort of fearful thinking that Hitler capitalized on, blaming them and those people for all of Germany’s problems. Playing to the fear, the insecurity, he convinced enough Germans that if only they would eliminate a certain group of undesirables, everything would be wonderful again. Eliminate them they did. The Holocaust followed. Ideas have consequences. Some people never learn; they love darkness rather than light because their hearts are as dark as hell itself.

–TSA