Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Fully Accepting God's Sovereignty
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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1 Chronicles 29:10-16
This is part of King David's final prayer of thanksgiving, a portion of his benediction preceding the building of the Temple, as he had made provision for it so that Solomon could begin construction with everything in order. The words should be meaningful, coming to us from the heart of one we admire, of whom even God said was a man after His own heart. It schools us in how David felt about God. It touches on His greatness, power, glory, majesty, rulership, headship, and strength. How puny we are by comparison! We are nothing, aliens and pilgrims in a world that gives us no recognition. Compared to His, our days are but a shadow, and despite this, we are able to make an offering to Him because He has given us all we have. Who is this One to whom we pray, calling Him "Father," "Lord," or "God"? Who is this One whom we refer to as our Creator, Healer, Savior, or Sustainer? Who is the One who is referred to as the Almighty Ruler, Life-giver, and Forgiver of our sins? He is the sovereign Ruler of all that He has created. The term "sovereignty" first speaks of supremacy of authority, but with the exception of personal evil, God reveals Himself in His Word as supreme in every aspect of life. He is the Most High. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth; none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will. Thus, Psalm 115:3 asserts, "But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases." Can we accept this? Is this merely a listing of grandiose titles of One who is great in His being but distant and remote in the actual operations of our lives? Do we relate to Him merely as most people in this world do, or is His greatness truly personal to us, as it was to David, because we know Him personally?
John W. Ritenbaugh
Fully Accepting God's Sovereignty (Part One)
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Isaiah 55:1-3
Notice Isaiah 55's symbolic terminology: thirst, waters, eat, wine, milk, bread, satisfy, listen diligently, incline your ear and come to Me, and hear and live. Within the context, all of these things imply eating spiritually. Jesus states in John 6:51, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." Jesus is the living Word of God. He adds in John 6:63, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." Thus, the symbolic connection is made between Isaiah 55:1-3 and "eating" of Christ. Sacrificing our lives to do this, through God's grace, leads to our making an everlasting covenant, to which the phrase "the sure mercies of David" alludes. The original recipients of this prophecy had already made the Old Covenant with God, but as Hebrews 8 proves, the Old Covenant was not an everlasting covenant. Thus, the covenant promised in Isaiah 55 was a future one. He is alluding to the New Covenant made with us, bringing the church directly into this context. Understand that, even though we have made the New Covenant with God, it is not a completely "done deal" until we are in His Kingdom. This is a stern warning: Completing the agreement depends on whether we, by faith, allow Him to be sovereign over our lives. God has greatly increased our opportunity to enter His Kingdom over what He gave to those under the Old Covenant through the gifts that He provides when we make the New Covenant with Him. These include the forgiveness of sins to justify us, access to Him in prayer, forgiveness of sin after justification, and the great gifts of His Holy Spirit—that is, His continuous grace and enabling to overcome. All are given to help us come to know Him better and be prepared.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Fully Accepting God's Sovereignty (Part Two)
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Lamentations 2:1-9
Jeremiah is the likely author of Lamentations, writing after reflecting on the devastation of Jerusalem following the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army. A number of prophets, Jeremiah being the most obvious, had thoroughly warned the Jews for many years. God even raised up a righteous king, Josiah, to provide godly governmental and religious leadership, but it was to no avail because the people were not truly repentant and sincere in any changes they made. The changes were only on the surface, not reaching their hearts, so idolatry—especially—continued to rage unabated. The chapter continues with more of the same, leaving no doubt at all that God was directly responsible for His reaction to their sins. Jerusalem's devastation did not merely happen randomly in the course of history. God was directly involved. He brought on the horrific fear and pain. It was His warnings through the prophets that were ignored because they did not fear the Lord and did not truly believe that they were answerable to Him.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Fully Accepting God's Sovereignty (Part One)
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Hebrews 3:15-18
In regard to faith, we must understand what the Bible means by its frequent admonitions to "hear." Paul writes in Hebrews 3:15, "Today, if you will hear His voice." He is not pressing us to hear the sound of His voice, but to understand what God wants us to learn through what Paul, the preacher, is expounding in his epistle. Paul is urging us to take the time now to "get" it, to "see" or "grasp" what God is teaching. Hebrews 3:17-18; 4:2 will help us reach a conclusion about what God intends regarding hearing. Whether a person physically hears the actual voice of God Himself is of little importance. Whether "hearing" in our personal reading or "hearing" the preaching of a minister, what is critical is that we obey the godly instruction, because unless we actually obey, we have not yet truly heard. If a person continues to sin, he has not really heard, in the biblical sense, what God has taught. Put in another way, if a person continues to sin because God's Word does not motivate him to obedience to what He teaches, then he, in a worst-case scenario, either does not believe God or at this point his belief is so weak that he cannot bring himself to trust Him. Such are the ones who died in the wilderness. The weakness is not that people do not believe that He exists, but that they do not trust what He says because, in reality, they do not know Him. Thus, in the biblical sense, they have not yet truly heard. In Hebrews 4:2, Paul uses the Greek word pistis for the first time in his letter. He will use it 31 more times. Pistis is translated either as "faith" or as "faithfulness." I believe that "faithfulness" is better here because that is what the Israelites lacked. Faithfulness is trusting God in continuous fashion as shown by conduct. God has given us a great deal, but it is our responsibility to hold firmly to His instructions by living them. Living them engrains them into our characters as habits, and this is good. Through habitual use, they become so entrenched in our behavior that we do not even have to call them to mind. The unbelief that Paul is speaking of here is that our weak trust results in weak Christian living because we do not know and "see" God with the clarity that we should have. It can be rectified, but that is not always easy and at times may seem costly.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Fully Accepting God's Sovereignty (Part Two)
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1 Peter 2:9
Peter refers to the church by several descriptors, including “a royal priesthood” and “a holy nation.” Consider the latter for a moment. God's holy nation stands in contrast to the nations of our birth. As called children of God, we are not entirely removed from our birth nations, even as Paul calls Judah “my nation” (Acts 24:17; 28:19; see Acts 26:4; Galatians 1:14). But the spiritual, holy nation carries far more significance than our physical nations. The holy nation stands in a privileged state before the Most High God, and He bestows far greater favor on His spiritual nation than on the physical nations that oppose Him. Though He sends rain on the just and the unjust, He also acts to benefit those who are in Christ in ways that He does not act for those in the world. The heavenly citizenship we have because God conveyed us into Christ's Kingdom is one of the most precious gifts He has given. If we truly value it, we will prioritize the holy nation and its peace far above our opinions of what is happening in our birth nations. However, because we still have connections to our physical nations, we have concerns about their well-being and direction. Thus, Paul says we should make supplications, prayers, and intercessions for kings and all who are in authority (I Timothy 2:1-2). Admittedly, our human nature may resist his advice, depending on who is in power. But the reason for those prayers, the apostle says, is so that “we [the holy nation] may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” We can combine his instruction with the reality to which God opened Solomon's eyes: “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1). Although God has not yet established His Kingdom on earth, He is still sovereign, and He intervenes to direct events according to His purpose. We should pray for the authorities because God can work through them to provide us with a peaceful environment. Interestingly, Paul does not say to pray about who will be in authority but that we pray for whoever is in authority. God can easily direct any king's heart to do things for His holy nation. God stirred the heart of Cyrus, a pagan king, to command the exiled Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the Temple (II Chronicles 36:22; Ezra 1:1). His sovereign dominion includes even the most carnal of those in authority. But His focus is the apple of His eye, and He wants us to bring our concerns to Him in prayers of faith and not draw back in fear of what men can do. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego feared God more than the Babylonian government, and God responded to their faith by standing with them in the furnace, defying the heat and smoke. Daniel feared God more than the laws of Medo-Persia, and God responded to his faith by closing the lions' mouths until they could devour the schemers. The machinations of mere men mean less than nothing to Him. Instead, He wants to see whether we trust Him. Before Cyrus, God raised another pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar, to chasten His people, yet He also humbled him when his pride reached a tipping point. God says He did that “in order that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men” (Daniel 4:17). In another striking example of God's power over human hearts, He transformed the worst human persecutor of the early church—Saul of Tarsus—into the church's most prominent advocate and supporter. Is anything too hard for God? God also inspired Solomon to write that “when a man's ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Proverbs 16:7). This proverb teaches us to pay more attention to our own ways than to the actions of those who oppose our way of life because God determines how and even if their opposition affects us.
David C. Grabbe
Implications of the Gospel of the Kingdom
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Revelation 4:8-11
The One who receives continuous praise and submission from these awesome angelic beings is our Savior and Creator. Without directly saying it, this passage touches on a major issue in this great purpose He is working out: that, unlike Satan and his demons, will we be loyal, faithful, to our Creator God, as He works out and governs His purpose for each of us personally? Or in our impatience will we resist and rebel? Verse 11 contains the key statement that is vital to our living by faith: He created all things in the first place and all—including us—is created for His purpose to be fulfilled. The King James Version translates this phrase, "For You have created all things, and for Your pleasure they are and were created." Satan could not accept this. Consider deeply what has resulted! So we need to take this sobering thought down to our level and to our time and examine it in more detail against the issues of our own lives. Can we live by faith that He is, that He knows what He is doing with our lives, and that by His merciful act He has included us as part of His good pleasure? Can we accept that He knows exactly where His creative efforts are headed and what it will take to form and shape us into what He pleases? At the same time, we know His goal for us only vaguely, yet we must fully accept whatever He brings to bear on us for His purposes.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Fully Accepting God's Sovereignty (Part One)
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