Psalms 115:1-3

I’m going to speak on the sovereignty of God this morning, and I’ll be speaking from Psalm 115, and I’ll be looking at the first three verses of this Psalm together with you this morning. Psalm 115 in the first three verses, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but under thy name, give glory. for thy mercy, for thy truth’s sake. Wherefore should the heathens say, where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this morning. There was a cobblest. that applied for health insurance, and the agent asked him if he had any accidents in the previous year. He said, no, but I was bitten by a rattlesnake, and a horse kicked me in the ribs. And that laid me up for a while. And the agent said, weren’t those accidents? And the cowboy said, no, they did it on purpose. You know, anyone who understands the sovereignty of God should realize that there are no real accidents in this life. God has a purpose behind everything that he does. One of the most neglected attributes, I think, at least from the pulpit today, is that of the sovereignty of our God. Nothing, though, should be more comforting to you as a believer than to believe in the belief in the sovereignty of our God. Nothing, though, should be more comforting. a sovereign God. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, you can be assured that God has ordained them and he has worked in them and overrudes and overrules everything for your good. Yet there is no doctrine that is more hated, despised, and ridiculed, no truth which has been kicked around like a soccer ball more than the sovereignty of God. People will allow God in his workshop to fashion the world, the sun, the moon, and the stars. They will allow God in his bank to bring out good gifts and bestow the necessities of life. They will allow God to work in the hospital, so to speak, and be the great physician to heal the sick. and God is allowed in his being in stem to sustain the world and uphold the eternal pillars of this earth. But they are troubled when God sits on his throne and he rules. This very idea causes people to gnash their teeth and burn with anger. For an enthroned God is not the kind of God that they want, but God on the throne, is the kind of God that our Bible speaks about. And there is no other. Do you understand what the sovereignty of God is? Well, the sovereignty of God is defined, I think, in verse 3 for us here. When we read that our God is in the heavens, he have done whatsoever he hath placed. The sovereignty of God is an expression which in the past, many of the sound church members knew well. It’s common in the older writings, and it was a theme that was frequently expounded in the pulpit. It’s pretty hard to go through the Bible without running into it. It’s everywhere. Sadly, today, it would be interesting view to act. ask people, what does the sovereignty of God mean? I’m talking about churchgoing people and see if they can give you an answer to that. Ask the average churchgoer and he may stare back at you, dumbfounded. This is an extremely disappointing situation. For the doctrine of the sovereignty of God is the key to history. It is the foundation of Christian theology. So what do we mean by the sovereignty of God? of God, the sovereignty of God may be defined as the exercise of his supremacy. The God has the free use of all his attributes to bring honor and glory to himself. He is the king of the universe. Our God is in the heavens. He rules from the heavens. He’s the only potentate. He’s the king of kings. and he is the Lord of Lords. He’s supreme above all opposing powers, all the rulers on earth. And he reigns over this whole universe to bring about his purposes. He have done whatsoever he hath pleased. Now that’s pretty straightforward. If God is pleased, or it has pleasure in doing something, it’s going to happen. It’s going to come to pass. His decrees are always fulfilled. His purposes are always accomplished. He does all his pleasure, and there’s no power in heaven or an earth that can frustrate. The scripture asks in Psalm 2, as we read it, why do the even rage in the people imagine a vain? thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the Lord and against his abointed, saying, let us break their bands asunder, cast their cords from us. He that sitteth into heaven shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak under them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. God laughs at puny man’s attempts to frustrate his purposes. He is in fact directing all things, working all things after the counsel of his own will. He has an eternal purpose and everything is being worked according to that purpose without fail. He sets up kingdoms and he tears them down as simply as a child would build with blocks and then destroy what they built. He says, sets up kingdoms. He tears them down. He gives a man life and he takes it away when his determined number of years is fulfilled. For God sets the time that every man will live on this earth. He controls the minute details and circumstances in life. There is nothing small or anything great that happens in your life. But that God has determined it and brought it to pass. This is what we mean when we talk about the sovereignty of God. My friends, today, God is dethroned by many. You’ll notice in verse 2 of our text this morning. Wherefore should the heathens say where is now their God? Now, I care for reader, if you connect this with Chapter 114 of Psalms, where God is praised for his miraculous deliverance of his people from Egypt and granting them victory over the Canaanites, God was active. He was working. But now people are saying there’s no miracle. There’s no prophet. There’s no vision. There’s no special deliverance for the people of God. And thus the heathen, the godless, hauntingly chant, where is now their God? Your God is nothing. He can’t do anything. He’s a weak deity. My friends, when the church is in decline, and the godly are downtrodden, and the righteous suffer, they always face the ridicule of the world. What is disturbing today that there is so many so-called Christians who could not answer as the psalmist answered in verse 3 because they don’t believe in a sovereign God. How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom? God is portrayed as weak knee, weak-willed, a Casper Milto’s God, if you would. He is viewed as impotent, effeminent, a helpless deity, deity, who merely observes man’s miserable plight, but can’t do anything about it. A God who is miserably sad because sinners spurn his commands. A God who is defeated by natural events like earthquakes and tornadoes. Oh, he didn’t want people to suffer like that. A God who cannot accomplish his will on earth because he’s checkmated by Satan or man. That’s what we’re told today about God. What foul smelling trash, that is. Our God is in the heavens he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Let’s not forget that. Even when we don’t see any miraculous actions by God, let’s not forget he’s still that God that we read here often in verse 3. Why tie his hands so that he can’t do as he pleases? Why cut those glorious passages out of scripture like verse 3 from the Bible and substitute some kind of weak deity in the place of a sovereign God. Regardless of how God is portrayed today, he is the king of the universe. None can successfully oppose him. His mere pleasure is accomplished with unfaltering certainty. You can have today’s Casper Mill close God, I’ll take the God of the Bible any day of the week. 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. Daniel 435. So do we understand what the sovereignty of God is here? Now do you acknowledge the sovereignty of God over all things? Look at the sovereignty God over nature. I read an account of a 1997 series of tornadoes that went through Arkansas, killing 26 people resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage. And to protect the disaster victims, the Arkansas legislature passed a bill that would bar insurance companies from canceling coverage. However, at that time, the governor, Mike Huckabee, refused to sign the bill because he objected to one phrase in it. And that phrase was this. He would not accept the fact that a destructive and deadly force be called an act of God. He suggested it be changed to natural disasters. You know, insurance companies have traditionally for many years refer to any natural disaster as an act of God. Who’s right? I think previous generations knew better. The scripture calls it an act of God. It is an act of God. Is there evil in the city? Is there calamity? Disaster in the city and God has not done it? Does it occur spontaneous? Without his command? Anyone who reads the Bible must acknowledge that all the elements of nature are controlled and directed by God. Look at the rain. I cause it to rain in one city and cause it not the rain in another. I do that, God says. Amos 4-7. You remember the Red Sea and how God parted it so the Israelites the cross and then how he brought it back together and flooded out and killed all the Egyptians. Think about the weather. He giveth snow like wool. He scattereth the hoar frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like marsels. Who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word and meldeth them. He causeth his wind to blow and the waters flow. Psalm 147, 16 to 18. Look at the sun. Can God cause the sun to stand still so Joshua who could win the battle? Yes. Nothing is too hard for our God. Does God send a burst star to guide the three wise men right to the Messiah Jesus Christ? Even destructive events are totally in the hands of God. We think about the flood. The flood of Noah and the untold destruction that was brought upon the earth by it. It was God’s doing. We talk about the hail plague of Egypt. That was killed men and beast in the fields. It was God’s doing. We talk about fire and brimstone that turned Solomon Gomorra into ashes. That was the hand of God. We talk about the great wind and mighty tempest threatening to destroy Jonah and all aboard the ship that he was in. That was the hand of God who brought that storm up. The raining down of great hailstones smiting the Canaanite armies. That was God’s hand. It didn’t. that. The earth opening and swallowing up core in his rebellious company. That was God who said he was going to do that. He has sovereignty over nature. He has sovereignty over the animals. Look at all the vast array of animals that God has created on this earth. He controls them. He uses them for his own purposes. Did he not bring the lion, the elephant, the bear, the panther, the wolf, the eagle, the crocodile, two by two onto the ark himself. See the ravens who are sent to bring food to Elijah by the Brook Cherath. That was the Lord’s doing. See those hungry lions that passively ignored Daniel when he was thrown into Darius’ lion’s lion’s death. But the next day, they certainly devoured the enemies of Daniel as soon as they were thrown in. we could talk about the two she-bears that came out and destroyed the 42 children who mocked the prophet Elijah, go up thou bald head, go up thou bald head. Were the wild dogs that chewed up Jezebel and licked her blood, as the scripture said in fulfillment of what God had promised. Think of the great fish that God had prepared to swallow. up Jonah and later caused it to vomit out the prophet on the dry land. Think about the fish that had the tribute money in its mouth when Peter went down to to catch it according to what Jesus told him to do and opened it up and there was the tribute money to pay for Peter and Jesus. Think of the donkey that God caused to speak to the prophet Balaam and rebuked the prophet. Or the quail which God caused to cover the whole ground surrounding the Israelites in the wilderness. Or the rats that God caused to infest the great Philistine cities when they had captured the ark of the covenant. Or the plagues of Egypt that God sent the frogs and the lice and the lice and the lice to punish Pharaoh and the Egyptians for not releasing the Israelites. Think of the small worm that God prepared to eat the gourd that was giving a shade to Jonah in as he sat outside the city of Nineveh. We could talk about this throughout the scriptures. This is the case. He has sovereignty over the angels. The angels are God’s servants, his messengers, to do his will. Gabriel and Michael carry out the Lord’s business with Mary and Daniel. There’s an angel that sent to free Peter from prison when Herod threw him in. The angel the Lord is sent and Hezekiah’s day after his prayer to destroy the great army of the Assyrian’s under Staccharip. And God’s sovereignty isn’t just related to the good angels either. But the demons, and Satan himself are under the sovereignty of God. King Saul, we read an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. In the New Testament, a whole legion of demons go out of their victim into a herd of swine at the Lord’s command. He cast out demons at his own will and pleasure. Even Satan himself is under absolute control of God. And you can’t miss it as you read the book of of Job chapters 1 and 2. Satan can’t touch Job because God has a hedge about him. And when God removes the hedge, he tells him how far he can go. You can afflict the body, but you can’t take his life. He’s restricted. He’s restricted by God. And that’s what the scripture tells us. When Christ commanded Satan to depart after temptation in the wilderness, he said, get thee hence Satan. feed and the Lord and then the devil leaveeth him. I had to. And then we come to the sovereignty of God over man. This is the one area that men do not wish to have God sovereign. He can be sovereign on all the rest of these things, not over man. But my friend, you either have one of two alternatives, either God has. his way and men have theirs. Who rules? Who is in control? Our God is in the heavens he hath done whatsoever he had placed. I don’t read anything about man getting to do whatever he places. In fact, I read in scripture he gets thwarted. He gets checkmated by God. Is man untouchable? Is man outside the journey? jurisdiction of God? Must God merely react to man’s decisions? Is God sovereignty limited? Man is an actor. Perhaps unknown to himself, he’s carrying out the secret decrees of the most high. He doesn’t even know it. Listen to what the scripture says in Proverbs 161. The preparation of the heart of man, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Psalm 169. A man’s heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 1921. There are many devices in a man’s heart. Nevertheless, the counsel the Lord shall stand, regardless of what man plans and plots. Proverbs 21.1. The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. As the rivers of water, he turns. it withersoever he will. That tells me who’s in charge. Those verses are plain and obvious, and that’s just from Proverbs. Pharaoh Refuses to let Israel go. They carry out the instructions of the Lord, but God broke him by the plagues and he had to let him go. Nimrod and his followers were determined to erect the Tower of Babel up to heaven that God frustrated their plans by changing their language. Haman was determined to exterminate all the Jews in the vast kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, but God turned everything against him, and he dies on the very gallows on which he hoped to hang Mordecai. Jonah was determined not to preach at Nineveh, but when God gets through with him, by the storm and the fish, Jonah indeed goes to preach to the Assyrian. Assylon, we read that the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Eithrafel to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom. Ahithrafel was that great counselor, always wise, brilliant. And yet God caused Absal not to listen to him that he might bring about his destruction. I read about Napoleon, the emperor, French emperor at the height of his career, he’s reported to have given this cynical answer to someone who asked if God was on the side of the French. He said, God is on the side that has the heaviest artillery. Then came the battle of Waterloo. When Napoleon’s great firepower was negated by a heavy rain that morning, so the cannonballs didn’t bounce. And thus the Duke of Wellington and had his men lay flat on the ground behind some small crests so that the cannibals balls wouldn’t hurt them. The French cannon were thwarted. Napoleon was defeated, even though he had the most in the heaviest heart rate. His empire was lost. Years later, in exile on the island of St. Helens, chastened and humbled, Napoleon quoted the words of Thomas Acampus. Man purposes, God disposes. Yeah. He had to learn that lesson. This is the lesson which history confronts us that God is able to sovereignly work despite the vain determinations of men. Now, I’d take this one step further. God’s sovereignty extends to the eternal destiny of men. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the sovereignty of God to receive. but you’ll find it everywhere in the Word of God. Salvation is of the Lord, scripture says. But God doesn’t save all. He sovereignly saves whom he pleases. Now, this is probably the toughest truth for man to swallow. It is for some like cod liver oil. I don’t know if you were a child and had to take cod liver oil at all, but it was a disgusting thing to take. but it was supposed to be good for you. Acts 1348 says this. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Now think about that a minute. If you weren’t ordained to eternal life, you didn’t believe. And it took you being ordained to eternal life to be able to believe. I invite you to turn with me to Matthew 11, verse Versus 25 to 27. At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. It’s pretty plain. All things are delivered unto me of my father, and no man knoweth the son but the father. Neither knoweth any man the father save the father, neither knoweth any man the father save the son. son, and he to whomsoever, the son will reveal him. And then, if you would, the book of Romans, chapter 9, beginning with verse 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion, whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth. nor of him that runeth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose, have I raised thee up, that I might show forth my power in thee, that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore, hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he will, he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth he find fault? For who hath resists. it is will. Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed? Say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor and another under dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory of the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared under glory. Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. Who’s the sovereign potter? Who’s the one that makes vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath? It’s our God, our sovereign God. And so these things, are very obvious to one who reads the Bible. At least I think it is. I readily acknowledge it’s a very humbling thing to a proud human heart to have a sovereign partner. Yes, you may willingly have embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but it was the Lord who made you willing and drew you to Jesus Christ. Do you realize the full extent of the Lord? words that he had done whatsoever he hath pleased when it comes demands eternal destiny thirdly and last do you see the practical implications of the sovereignty of God look at verse one with me not unto us oh Lord not under us but under thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy mercy and for thy truth all glory belongs unto the Lord. Israel declared or desired God to act on their behalf and to silence the heath. However, there’s always a danger of God having his honor stolen whenever we’re victorious. You’ll recall how God whittled down the army of Gideon to 300, lest they boasted that they had won the victory themselves. And by extension, the sovereignty of God overall things should be a humble reminder that anything you do, anything you accomplish is because of God. He enabled you to do it. You didn’t do it on your own. Success is from the Lord, who directed all things so that your goal was reached. And thus you must confess with the psalmist that all glory belongs to God. what have you that you did not receive? What gifts, what talents, what abilities do you possess, which you can contribute to yourself? Whatever you accomplish, physically, financially, materially, or spiritually is because of the Lord. Let no man think more highly of himself than he ought to think. And notice here that God’s mercy and truth are important to him. Sometimes it seems these attributes. are in jeopardy. How could the heathen think Jehovah to be a merciful God if he gave his people over to their enemies? How could they believe him to be faithful and true to his word if after all his solemn and solemn promises, he ought to rejects his chosen nation and it goes into captivity? But God is very jealous of these two glorious attributes, and therefore they should be the basis of our pleas for help. Since God is in complete control of everything. He will not utterly cast off his people, nor will he allow his words to fall to the ground unfulfilled. Are you troubled? Does it seem like God has deserted you in your hour of need? Then plead for his mercy, which has never taken from his people. Are you concerned that God has let you down? Do his promises seem to be unfulfilled, in your eyes, then plead for the truth to be upheld for God is not a man that he should lie. He always keeps his word, and there’s nobody who can stop him from doing so, though sometimes he tells us he waits that he might be gracious. Let me close. There are no accidents in this life, as the cowboy indicated. They did it on purpose. God rules from his heavenly throne. He accomplishes his will on this earth. And while this is hated and despised, I hope that you, as a believer, find it to be a comfort and joy. Give me the sovereign God to rule. Because when trials and adversity come your way, let this be your consolation that our God is in the heavens, he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Let’s close with you.