 Take your Bibles please and turn to the book of Psalms, Psalm 135. And stand with me and we're going to read verses 1-6. You know in the Scripture, whenever God's Word is read, the people stand out of reverence and respect. And I think that's a good habit for all of us to be in. Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Praise Him, O you servants of the Lord. You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God, praise the Lord for the Lord is good. Sing praises to His name for it is pleasant. For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His special treasure. For I know that the Lord is great and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does. In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places. This is the Word of God. You may be seated. Tonight we're looking at the sovereignty of God, that God is sovereign. And this sixth verse was really the text that I want to open. The Psalm is a psalm of praise. We are commanded from the beginning of the psalm to praise the Lord, to praise Him, to praise His name. And verse 3 gives us the first reason for this praise, which is what we saw two weeks ago. Praise Him. Why? Because He's good. Verse 4 tells us to praise Him for His electing love. Verse 5 tells us to praise Him for His preeminence. And verse 6 expresses His sovereignty. And in just two verses, two phrases in verse 6, we have the sovereignty of God laid out for us as simply and as fully as we need to have done. Because we see, first of all, the delight of God with regard to His sovereignty. And second, the domain of God with regard to His sovereignty. I want us to look, first of all, at the delight of God, or the good pleasure of God. That's a phrase out of the old King James Version from Ephesians. This is mere good pleasure. Here's what the psalmist said, whatever the Lord pleases, He does. Now that tells you two things. One, it tells you that God is not married. He does whatever He pleases. It also tells you He is autonomous. The Hebrew word that's translated in English pleases means delight. Literally, God does what delights Him to do. This idea is a repeat of Psalm 115 verse 3, but our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. I have to tell you this story just to back up a few minutes. I was doing a class, I was preaching in Birmingham, Alabama. And the man who had invited me said, before we go to that church for you to preach, what would you think about teaching a Sunday school class? And I said, well, sure. He says, but not at that church, at the First United Methodist Church. Oh, really? Seriously? He goes, oh, yeah. And, okay. So I went over and just off the top of my head, I did a thing on the subject of free will. Which, of course, everybody in that church would affirm. And I said, there's no such thing. I said, there is, how did I say it? You freely will, but the will is not free. I said, now there is free willy, but that's a movie about a whale. And so I explained what I understood free will to be that there were no restraints on the will of any kind, that there were no pressures on the will to make a certain choice, that in order for the will to be free it had to be absolutely neutral and didn't have any inclination one way or the other. And right in the middle of this, a woman stood up and says, I think you're dead wrong. I think that man is absolutely free to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. I said, okay. I said, may I ask what you do for a living? I'm just curious. She goes, I'm a lawyer. Strikes one, two, and three. And I saw a man sitting next to her just going like this. So I took a wild guess. I said, are you married? She said, yes. I said, is that gentleman your husband? She said, yes. I said, may I ask him a question? That was my dig. She says, of course. I said, sir, are you a married man? He said, yes. I said, are you free to do whatever you want anytime you want? He says, no, I'm married. And I said, my argument is done. Any married man knows there's no such thing as free will. God does whatever he pleases and whatever God does pleases him. Now, we mentioned this last week. People ask us the question, can God do anything? And we want to get God's back and we want to stand up for His. God can do anything, and that's false. The Westminster Catechism says, God can do all His holy will. But God cannot lie. God cannot die. God cannot sin. God cannot deny Himself. He cannot do anything inconsistent with His own holiness. God limits Himself. God can do anything consistent with His character and with His purposes. I remember over almost 35 years ago, I was working as a football coach at a small Methodist College in Central Missouri. And I was talking with one of the cheerleaders one night. Her name was Cheryl. And she says, God's called me to be a minister to preach. And I said, you can't. She goes, why not? I says, because that's not an office open to you, to your gender. Of course, in the Methodist Church, you can. But I said, biblically, you can't. And she said, I don't even want to, but God told me I have to. I says, well, there's two qualifications that you immediately don't meet. One is, it says, if any man desires the office, you're not that. And secondly, it says, if any man desires the office, and you don't want it. So on the first two counts, you're out. She says, well, I know what God told me. And I says, OK, so after thousands of years of saying no, God said yes to you. God can't go contrary to His own word or purposes. But God's being unable to do wrong is not a weakness in God. It's rather a strength. It's an affirmation of His purity. Don't you wish that it was impossible for you to sin? I have people say, what do you think will be the best part of heaven? And people want to say, oh, I get to see grandma again. I don't know how to tell this to you. When you get to heaven, grandma's going to be too busy to spend time with you. I mean, it's like all the folks among us remember W.C. Fields, in a way, kid, you bother me. You go to heaven, you find grandma. Grandma, it's me. I'm busy, kid. We've got millions of years to get to you. I'm busy praising God. The best part about heaven ain't going to see grandma. And for me, the best part of heaven is not going to walk streets of gold. When I think about heaven, I think about this. No more sin. No more repenting. No more saying I'm sorry. No more guilt. No more shame. No more hoping nobody sees me do this. None of that kind of stuff. We don't have to worry about that anymore. That's heaven. Oh yeah, and then there's Jesus. God can do whatever He finds consistent with Himself and His own purposes. God does whatever He pleases and no one stops Him from doing that and no one interferes with His accomplishing whatever He desires to do. He is God. I mean, that's surely the message of Isaiah 55-11. My word will not return to me void without accomplishing the purpose for which I sent it. That's a very strong affirmation by God of His own sovereignty. There was a musical some years ago with Yul Brynner and Deborah Carr called the King and I. And Yul Brynner played the King of Siam, which I think is now Iran, isn't it? What is that called today? Anybody know? Iran? Thailand, I'm sorry, yes, Thailand. And he would give a law and he would say, so let it be written, so let it be done. Why can't God do that? He is God, He's not the King of Siam, you know. My word will not return to me void without accomplishing the purpose for which I sent it. One thing that should be very comforting for a church like yours that is so strong about evangelism. You're not successful when somebody makes a quote decision. You're successful as soon as you have spoken the truth of God's word. What He does with it after that is up to Him. It's not up to you. I'll never forget over 30 years ago, I was in Jacksonville, Florida, getting ready to graduate from seminary with my master's degree. And there was a kind man who let about 10 of us, single guys come and stay in his house, just sleeping bags on the floor and it was like that. And I remember we were going around in a circle, just like, who are you, what do you do? And I said to this guy, what do you do? He said, I save souls. Well, really you mean that? He goes, yeah, I save souls. So I thought that was God's job. He said, He helps. I said, how many souls have you saved in the last 10 years? He said about 12,000. Wow. Did you ever do any follow-up? Actually we did recently, it was kind of interesting. I said, out of 12,000, how many are active in a local church? He said, three. I said, so 11,999 Christians don't go to church, but three out of that number do, and you think they're all saved. And he, hmm, never thought of that. When you have spoken the truth of God's word, you've been successful because you've been faithful. And you know, at the end of this life, we will never hear God say, well done, now good and successful servant. Well done, now good and faithful servant. It's our job to be faithful. It is God's job to be successful. And it is God's job to determine what success looks like. I mean, I've had people say, well I went out witnessing and nobody responded at all. Well they all responded. I said, every single one of them said no. Not interested, that's a response. You know, we're that way with our prayers. I've been praying for this for 30 years and God has not answered my prayer. Yeah, for 30 years he said no. We just think if we don't get what we pray for, it doesn't count. Well let me give you a working definition of the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God means that God is in complete control of every situation and will accomplish his purposes as the divine initiator. I'll read it again. God is in complete control of every situation and will accomplish his purposes as the divine initiator. You don't have to go far into scripture to see that this is true. The book of Genesis says, God said, let there be light. And what was the result? Well the light particles got together, formed a committee, took a vote to see if they felt like cooperating and the majority ruled so there was light. Ah no. God said, let there be light and guess what? Where was light? Turn with me to the book of Isaiah and the 46th chapter. Isaiah 46 beginning in verse nine. Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no one like me. There's no other, I am God and there is no one like me. Declaring 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. Calling a bird of prey from the east. The man who executes my counsel from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it, I will bring it to pass. So let it be written, so let it be done. I have purposed it, I will also do it. Does it sound like God is just hoping it works out right? Well I sure hope this works. No. So how does God show himself to be unique? He says there's none like me. In this I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that haven't been done. What's he saying here? I can tell you the end of history from the first day of history. I can tell you things that haven't even been done yet. Why? Just because he knows more? Is he like Superman? He can see into the future with his X-ray vision? No. The basis for his knowledge is his sovereign decree. My purpose will be established and I will accomplish most of the things I want to do. All my good pleasure. Verse 11, truly I have spoken, truly I will bring it to pass, I've planned it, I will do it. I don't know how even God could be planer than that. In Daniel 4.35 he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth and no one can ward off his hand. In other words, nobody keeps God from doing exactly what he wants to do which is anything he pleases. When the Westminster Divines met in the chapel of Henry VIII and the Jerusalem Chapel of the Westminster Abbey to formulate and compile the Confession of Faith, the 1643 one. You knew kids on the block came along 46 years later and but at least you had the good sense to copy most of it. Chapter three of God's eternal decrees. Now, confessions and catechisms are not inspired. They are subordinate standards to the Bible. Only the Bible is inspired but these things help us understand them sometimes. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin nor is violence offered to the will of creatures nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away but rather established. God ordains everything that comes to pass yet he is not the author of sin. Now there are well-meaning people who because they can't understand this try to help God out of his dilemma. I know people who call themselves reformed. They are really deformed who are willing to make God the author of sin because they can't figure out any other way. There's only one problem with that. God's not the author of sin. So whatever you came up with in your pea brain to somehow make God the author of sin must be wrong and violence is not offered to the will of the creature nor is our second causes taken away. People take this and they turn into fatalists. Well, God's gonna do whatever he's gonna do. I don't need to do anything. No. God has established the means and God has established the end that comes through those means. For example, God wants people saved, right? Yes. So if God wants people saved then we could have a little bo peep evangelism. Oh, what's that? Leave them alone and they'll come home wagging their tails behind them. We don't need to evangelize. Well, except for this, God said, faith comes by hearing. Nobody ever got to say, well, I can think of two in the Bible, but other than John the Baptist and Jeremiah, nobody ever got saved who didn't hear the gospel somehow. Either God speaking to them or you speaking to them. And you can be concerned about that poor innocent naive in Africa who's never heard the gospel, then go tell him. If you're really concerned about him, go find him. I don't know which one's the innocent one, but nobody's gonna get saved apart from the gospel. So don't tell me I'm concerned about it. I says, well, then go. Question 12 of the Catechism, what are the decrees of God? God's decrees are the wise, free and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby from all eternity he has for his own glory unchangeably foreordained whatever comes to pass in time. Now, the term sovereign connotes a situation in which a person from innate dignity exercises supreme power with no areas of his province outside his jurisdiction. Somebody who's sovereign enjoys complete autonomy. That limits it to God alone. Applied to God, it indicates his complete power over all creation so he exercises his will absolutely without any necessary conditioning by a finite will or wills. For example, you'll hear people say this phrase, prayer changes things. Which things does it change? Does it change God's mind? Oh yes, really? Seriously? God from all eternity passed determined what he was going to do, but you gave him information he didn't have before. Why didn't I think of that? What prayer changes most is the prayerur to get in accordance with God's will. The term itself is often used by Christians, but I'd be willing to bet that very few professing Christians believe that God is sovereign if it were pressed upon them in practical terms. The English theologian G.K. Chesterton once said, most people who profess to be Christians don't know what Christianity is. And if they ever find out, they won't like it. I mean, you hear people say things like, God allowed this instead of God ordained it, or God decreed it. You heard that a lot after 9-11. There was a interfaith service, which really means a no faith at all service. And a Protestant minister said, God had nothing to do with this. What? So then the terrorists are in charge of the world. Well, it may look like that sometimes, but we have God standing idly by while we make a mess of our lives. And then he cleans up the mess, which makes God reactive rather than proactive in the affairs of this world. That's really what a deist is, you know. A deist believes there is a God, but he set the world in motion, and then he took his hand off it and said, good luck. In scripture, God is always the divine initiator, not the responder. He brings his will to pass through his decrees and through the means which he has ordained. God has not only ordained the end, but the means by which that end comes to pass. If God wants that guy in Africa saved, you're going to go tell him. But the sovereignty of God is really a natural conclusion drawn from his other attributes. I mean, if he's eternal, then he's the source of everything that is. If he's the source of everything that he is, then he's omnipotent. If he's omnipotent, he's obviously sovereign. If he's not sovereign, he can't be omnipotent. If he's not omnipotent, he can't be God because he'd have an equal or a credible rival. The old theologians used to use this phrase with reverence to God, he's Lex Rex. Means he's a law unto himself. And he absolutely and sovereignly rules his creation, ordaining everything that comes to pass. In Lamentations 3.36, God asks that in the form of a rhetorical question. What is there that comes to pass that I didn't ordain? Well, now he's not waiting for an answer. Well, I can think of something and back in 1974, somebody ran over my cat, I ordained that. How could you do such a horrible thing? What kind of a God are you? I'm the God of the Bible. All other authority in this world is derived authority. God's authority is intrinsic. You remember the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate? Pilate really thought he was all that. And he thought he was threatening Jesus with his authority. He says, don't you know that I have the power to take your life or to let you go? And Jesus said, you wouldn't have any authority at all if it weren't given you from above. Neither would anyone else. We have elections coming up in a few months. Everybody's really concerned. Well, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if another one of these guys gets in there? What if we don't get a conservative in there? You know who will be the next president? Exactly who God wants. It may not be who you want, but it will be exactly who God wants. What if God were saying, I'll give you what you deserve? Oh, please don't do that again. So God freely ordains all things that come to pass and nothing happens that God is not ordained to come to pass. God displays and asserts his sovereignty in various ways. You can just write down these scriptures and look them up later. In Psalm 75, six and seven, God exalts some and he puts down others. I mean, you see that people ask all the time, well, why would God save him and not him? Because God's offer. In Psalm 104, verses 27 to 30, God feeds some at times and not others. God opens his hand and satisfies some people. God hides his face and dismayes some people. God takes the very breath right out of some people. In Psalm 107, God creates storms and he stops storms. In Isaiah 45, God forms light and creates darkness. God causes well-being and God creates calamity. Here's one. In 1 Chronicles 13, God kills Uzzah for touching the ark. Remember that story? God had said, I want you to transport the ark and here's how I want you to do it. I want you to put ringlets on the four corners of the ark, slide poles through there, carry the ark on four sets of men's shoulders. Whatever you do, don't touch the ark, but they knew better than God. How much trouble in this world has been caused because of people who thought that? Yeah, I know better than that. How about Abraham and Sarah and Hagar? They helped God out of his dilemma because God had said, you're gonna have a son. We're too old for that. Abraham, go sleep with Hagar. And you realize what came of that union? Israel's been at war ever since. They helped God out of his dilemma. I say this often, we think that God knows everything except what he's doing. Well, the same thing happened here. God said, whatever you do, don't touch the ark. Carry it on your shoulders. Ah, that's too much work. So they put it on a cart pulled by oxen. And as they were going along, the oxen stumbled and the ark started to slide off, headed towards the mud, the dirt. And Uzzah said, like mighty mouse, here I come to save the day. And he reached up and he steadied the ark and God said, whew, thank you, Uzzah. Now he killed him on the spot. I said, don't touch the ark. What part of that didn't you understand, Uzzah? And yet in 1 Samuel 4, God lets the Philistines take the ark and steal it. Wait a minute, what are you doing? There isn't anything that God won't do to glorify himself. He's not restricted in any way by factors, circumstances, or limitations of any kind. Everything he does pleases him and he always does what he pleases. Now, isn't the interesting question now, how come I'm not pleased with what pleases God? If everything God does pleases him, how come I'm not pleased with what God does? Because if he did it, it pleases him. You can't have God at odds with God. Well, I didn't, but I'm not happy about it. Why is it I'm not pleased with everything that God does? See, the problem is me, not God. If God isn't sovereign, he's not God. If God isn't sovereign, there's no explanation for anything that happens. I remember years ago, there was a cartoon in Christianity Today. And for a long time, the cartoons have been the best thing about Christianity Day. There were two fish swimming in a fishbowl and one of them said to the other, there's no God, who's changing the water? I mean, this is a no-brainer, folks. If there's a cause, if there's an effect, there must have to be a cause. When somebody dies, how come he died? Oh, it just happened. Nothing just happens. That's why we do autopsies. That's why there's the show CSI. So you have an explanation for what happened and how it happened. But we have to remember that Scripture does not teach fatalism. We're not allowed to blame God's sovereignty for our sin or our failings. I was a football coach at Wheaton College many, many years ago. And we were having a scrimmage and the quarterback was running into the end zone and he fumbled the ball. And the head coach goes, Dave, what are you doing fumbling going to the end zone? And the quarterback says, I don't know, it must be God's will. Yeah, but he's not gonna run, you are. The sovereignty and providence of God should be a comfort to us, not a stumbling block. We might rebel against God's complete control, but we'd rebel more if he weren't completely in control. Who wants a God like that? Hey, I'll do what I can, folks. Really? So we've seen the delight of God with regard to his psalm. God does whatever he pleases. God does what delights God. And that goes back to last week that everything God does is for God's sake. His reason for everything he does is to please himself. But I want to look for a moment to the domain of God's sovereignty. We're back in Psalm 135. Verse six, whatever the Lord pleases he does, that's his delight. Here's his domain in heaven, in earth, in the seas, and in all deep places. Those are the only places that he's sovereign. God is sovereign over everything that happens in heaven, on earth, in the seas, and in all the deeps. He's in complete control over everything that happens in heaven. He's in complete control over everything that happens on earth. He's in complete control over everything that happens in the seas. Everywhere else, you're on your own. As I said, we have those elections coming up, and no matter who wins, God is still on the throne. After the attacks on September 11th, 2001, people were asking this question, where was God on 9-11? And the answer is, he was in the same place he was on 9-10, and the same place he'll be on 9-12. He's on the throne in complete control. Jonathan Edwards once asked it this way, if it happened, it was God's will. So he said, well, how do you know that? Could he have prevented it? Yes. Did he? No. Then he must have wanted it to happen. I find it so interesting that we are people who have to have control. We've even coined a phrase, he's a control freak. I don't know anybody like that. They're so in control, they're freakish about it. I've never heard anybody called a self-control freak, just controlling somebody else. We want to control our surroundings. We just don't like it when God does it. You know, in the Scripture, that's really the essence of sin. We will not have this man to rule over us. If I can put it in the vernacular, nobody's gonna tell me what to do. Not God, not the government, not the police, not my husband, not my parents, not the teacher. I'm the captain of my ship, the master of my own fate. Well, that explains your complete being a failure. Psalm 103, verse 19 tells us the Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. The very word Lord speaks to his sovereignty. And that's why it's so essential that people come to Christ as Lord and Savior, not just Savior, and not Savior and Lord. Because that's an option the Bible never gives. The two terms Lord and Savior are used 631 times in the Bible, always in that order. 631 times it's Lord and Savior. God is actually called Savior more times than Christ is. The term Savior and Lord is used none, 631 to zero. You say, wow, that's a coincidence. No, three times would have been a coincidence. 631 to nothing is a slam dunk in your face drop dead act. The greatest football blowout in history took place in 1925. Big Georgia Tech played little Cumberland College of Kentucky and beat them 222 to nothing. It was 56 to nothing after the first quarter. 222 to nothing. Wow, how about 631 to nothing? That's three times that score. And people blow right by that. I remember going to church camp in the summers and the last night before we all went home we'd have the fireside service where we'd throw our stick on the fire. And how many times people said, I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was nine and tonight I've come to make him Lord of my life. That's not something you can do. First of all, you can't make him anything. Second of all, you're too late. God already made him that. He is not yours to tell him, okay, you can be this and I'll follow you this much for these years and then later on, I'll get serious. If Christ isn't Lord, he's not Savior. Period. Now, that doesn't mean that a person understands all the implications of that the moment they get saved. They will submit to his Lordship the more they know about him. But it does mean there's no place in your life that's off limits to God. People think they can make Christianity like a smorgasbord. I don't think you use that term here, like a buffet, like the golden corral. And I'll tell you ladies, there's nothing closer to hell on earth than for a man to be behind a woman at a salad bar, particularly because she's not there by herself. She's there with four or five friends from work or from the Bible study group or something like that. Yes, I think I'll take one pea and one carrot. Oh, look at there, there's broccoli. I'll take two broccoli's and the man could just feed it up. I wanna get to the mashed potatoes. Theology's not a smorgasbord. It's not a pick and choose. You take all of God or you get none of God. We have no right to offer Christ to people in a way the Bible never does. You can't go and say, would you accept Jesus as your personal savior and where do you find that in the Bible? But to return to the Psalm passage in Psalm 103, it says that God has established His Word. That literally means prepared. God's authority is infinite as God Himself is. Whatever God does, He did it by Himself. Doesn't need any help. I was looking for cards for a friend one time and I saw one that I thought was perfect. There was an old style telephone on there that says this is God. You open it up and it says, I'll do it all today. I won't need any help. Thank you. God doesn't need our help. We need to consider this when we think of God being sovereign. I mean, all the attributes come into play here. However long this series goes, I want you to see that these things all mesh together as a unit and you take one away and you don't have God anymore. He's all of these things. He's not some of these things. We say that God is sovereign but just saying that doesn't give us the full connotation of the truth of it. God's attributes include His power and His goodness, His unchanging nature, His wisdom, His omniscience just to name a few. And if we add those adjectives to His sovereignty, we have to realize that God is powerfully sovereign. He is mercifully sovereign. He is immutably sovereign. He is sovereign according to wisdom. He is infinitely sovereign. All of those are absolutely necessary. The old Puritans used to say it this way, it must needs be so. God is powerfully sovereign. The sovereign has to have the power to do what he wants to do. And God is often referred to as the Lord of hosts. All the powers of heaven are at His command and at His disposal and they do His bidding. I like to think of biblical stories and imagine what it must be like, must have been like. I think of Jesus in the garden when the soldiers came to take Him. And Peter pulls out his little pocket knife. I'll defend you. Jesus says, put that thing away. Don't you know that I have 12 legions of angels at my bidding? All I have to do is give them the sign. A legion was 12,000 soldiers. Each angel, at least one angel in the Old Testament, killed 185,000 people all by himself. That was one angel. He not only had 12,000 of them, he had 12 times, he had 144,000 angels waiting. And can you imagine, you men know this, if you've ever played sports, how the things start to build up. Testosterone goes rampant. They're ready to fight. And the angels in heaven are watching the Lord Jesus in the garden. He said, here come the soldiers. Get ready. And 144,000 angels put on battle gear. And they have their spears in hand and they're tapping the ends on the streets of gold. 144,000. Just give us the word, Christ. Give us the word, Lord. The word never came. Because Christ was already in complete control of that situation. I was at a church a few weeks ago where they sang a song and in the song, there was a phrase that Christ was a victim of the cross. And when I got up, you always make sure you're the last person at the mic if you're gonna do this. But I said, this is why the people sing acapella psalms. When you sing God's word, you don't say things like that. Christ was not a victim of the cross. He was in charge the entire time. We say, there where the blood of the lamb was spilt. You spill things by accident. He said, no man takes my life from me. You're not killing me. I'll die when it's over. And he didn't spill his blood, he shed it. Because he was in charge the entire time. God is mercifully sovereign. He always has his glory and our good in everything that he decrees. Remember the psalmist said God is good and he does good. He can't do otherwise. So a good God cannot decree anything that's not good. We may not like it, but that's completely irrelevant. I've had people listen to me and they say, well, I don't agree with you. So, what does that prove? Well, I think you're wrong. Okay, that's irrelevant. Rejection is not the same as refutation. I mean, give me a biblical argument. Where in the Bible do you find that I'm wrong? Well, I don't know anything about the Bible. I just, I don't like it. Thanks for sharing. What's relevant is this, God liked it. And if he didn't, he wouldn't have done it. And it is much more important that God likes it, right? You know, the Bible makes it a possibility that God may be the only one who likes it and it's still right. Let God be true and every man a liar. God may say something is true and they take a vote and everybody on earth says, no, it's not true. It's still true. Because God doesn't do things by popular vote. He doesn't take polls. God has unchangeably suffered. He was in control before he created anything. He's in control now. He'll always be in total control. Nothing happens outside his authority. He's infinitely sovereign. There's no limits to his control. There's no limits to his authority. There's nothing that he does not have control over. And there's nothing he doesn't have final say over. That's what the psalmist means when he says he's kingdom rules over all. What else could that possibly mean but that his kingdom rules over all? I love it when people come up to me, I'll say something like, his kingdom rules over all. Well, that's just your interpretation. Can you think of another one for that phrase? Now again, the Bible does not teach fatalism. What we do does matter. If God has ordained a decree that something comes to pass, he's ordained how it will come to pass and he's ordained by what means it will come to pass. For example, you're here tonight because in God's wise counsel, God decreed that it would be best for you to be here tonight. In fact, you chose to be here tonight. Now I know there's some young person, yeah, this is how I'd spend my Sunday nights all right. This little fat white guy up there go on and on and on, tell stories about his childhood. Yeah, that was my choice. And one of you was drugged through that door. Not one of you had mom have you by the ear lobe pulling you in. I remember, here's one of those stories. When I was young, one of my high school friends said, what do you guys do on Sunday? Oh, we always go to church. Why? Cause dad says we go to church. Don't you go to church? No, I told him I didn't want to go. And what they say, okay, does he mean that works? What I found out is it works with his dad. He says, try it, what's the worst they can do? I didn't want to think about that. So Sunday morning comes and my dad says, you're not dressed for church, get ready. I says, I don't want to go. So, I'm not going or you are going. I'm not going. He started towards me. I says, what difference does it make if you beat me to a pulp? I'm not going. Why not? I don't want to. Huh? You don't want to. Okay, you don't have to go. You mean it worked? He says, while we're gone, I want you to do all the dishes, have lunch on the table by the time we get home, wash all the sheets on all the beds, iron everything that's in the ironing bed. I want the lawn mowed. I want the dog and the cat fed. He says, I want the oil and the car changed. I said, give me five minutes. I'll be ready. God didn't, he did not coerce my will. He didn't make me do anything. He gave me more options. Some of us older folks remember Jack Benny. There was a famous skid he did where he was in Central Park and a robber comes up to me and puts a gun to his head and says, your money or your life? And Benny just stands there and they go, I said, your money or your life? He goes, I'm thinking. I'm thinking about it. You can't force the will. The will cannot be forced. It's your will. But the will can be changed. But the fact that you're here means there was no chance at all that you wouldn't be here. But that doesn't bring a shrug of the shoulders on our part. You're participating in God's sovereignty. You're not a passive entity. If God has ordained that someone will be saved then he's ordained that someone will preach. And that's why you go door to door. You don't know who the elect are. Spurgeon once said, if all the elect in London had big yellow E's on their backs, I'd run up and down the streets of London pulling up shirt tails so I'd know who to preach to. But he said, but he didn't do that. So I preached to everybody and I let God sort it out. There used to be a big mammoth college and pro football player named Bubba Smith. He played for Michigan State and then he played for the then Baltimore Colts. He was all pro every year. He was huge. Always all pro. And one time at a news conference somebody had, Bubba, how do you know who's got the ball all the time? He said, I don't. But you always tackle the guy with the ball. He says, no, I tackle the whole backfield and I just throw guys away until I find the guy with the ball. We preach indiscriminately. We witness indiscriminately. Sir, if you died today, do you know what would happen? If God is ordained that someone will be saved, he's decreed that someone will preach repentance and faith to that person. Someone will speak to them about their soul. You. You. You. Ultimately, the fact that God is in control should be a great comfort to us. The all wise, all knowing, all merciful, all powerful God is the one who's in control of everything. As the songwriter wrote, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? I don't know if you've heard this story before, but it was told about a man on a submarine in World War II. And the announcement came over the loudspeaker, tomorrow morning at 0600, we're going into battle against the German war machine. And of course, you watch these movies and you realize the wars have been won by kids. You look inside those helmets, you see baby faces. This one particular young man was a professing Christian. So he got up in his bunk and he went to sleep. And that was more than his shipmates could handle. They woke him up and they said, aren't you scared? Yeah. What are you doing sleeping? Well, the Bible tells me that the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and I don't see any reason both of us should be up all night. That's true of us, you know. No reason for us both to be up all night. Your God is in control. He does whatever he pleases. He does what pleases him and he will always do what is best. So it's our job to get on board with that. Shall we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time in your word as we reason together with what the Scripture says. May we be doers of the word and not hearers only and may our trust in you be evident and as you most surely will put us to the test to see if we do believe it. Blessed as we go from this place, may our lives reflect our gratitude. Christ's sake, amen.