The Sovereignty of God

Why the Sovereignty of God Matters for the Doctrines of Grace

This is Truth and Love Network, and this is the Pastors' Panel Podcast. And tonight, you have Dan and myself. I'm Robert, and hopefully, maybe, we will have some other friends to join us if they can. And tonight, we're going to be talking about the sovereignty of God.

We need to know what to do. That's my attempt at a little video or a logo video. I don't know the technical terms for these things, but I'm going to have to work with Brother Claude, and he's really creative.

He's really talented at making these things, so maybe he can help us make one. But that was my attempt. I hope it was okay. You're fine. Cool, cool. Yeah, tonight, we're going to be talking about the sovereignty of God.

And first of all, I think we need to just say why that's important. I think of all the doctrines of Scripture, to understand them, to have a right understanding of them, to keep us going in the right direction, we need to have a firm understanding of the sovereignty of God, what the Bible says about the sovereignty of God.

Is God sovereign? I mean, you have to ask that question. Is he sovereign? What does that mean? What does that look like? And by answering that question, it keeps us in the right position. It keeps our eyes looking in the right direction.

It keeps us on the right path. And that's the case with any doctrine, of course. But especially the sovereignty of God, knowing the sovereignty of God, and it steers us in the right direction as we look at other doctrines.

We are going to start a series, and this is the first of that series. And of course, what I just explained is the reason why we want to start with the sovereignty of God, because it's going to be the foundation of these other doctrines.

And the other doctrines that we're going to look at, Dan, what would you call these doctrines? We're going to be looking at the acronym TULIP, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.

So does that acronym, does that branch of theology and doctrine, what would you label that? Well, Spurgeon labeled it the gospel. Okay. A lot of people will take issue with that. So I guess we'll call it by Doctrines of Grace.

You can know it by the name of Calvinism. Some people like to fight about that because they say, well, you're making your doctrines after some guy who lived several hundred years ago, which isn't the case.

He's just the one who kind of, I don't know, he said it really well. So people kind of went with his name. Yeah. Yeah. You can say a whole bunch of stuff. I'd say a couple most popular would be the Doctrines of Grace or Calvinism.

Yeah. And I don't see any difference between learning from Calvin and giving a label. And I think I've read somewhere that, well, I don't want to misquote the person about Calvin rolling over in his grave for some reason, but there will probably be a reason why he would roll over in his grave, but I don't want to misquote somebody.

But using Calvin, using that label is no different than every denomination has their boundaries, which we would call our confessions or our creeds. Right. And so it's no different than that. It's just giving it a label.

So we're not, nobody is worshiping Calvin or getting their doctrine from Calvin. He is just pulling from scripture, what we see in scripture as well. And we just use that label. Right. Yeah. It's basically just saying that we think Calvin said it really well.

Kind of like the Lutherans, they don't worship Luther. They don't do anything like that. They just say, we think Luther was onto something. And so we're kind of following after what he did, by looking to the scriptures and living how we believe would be consistent with being faithful to God.

Yeah. Really. Yeah. And same thing would be true with the Wesleyans and the Methodists or the Presbyterians with John Knox, the Baptist with... Don't say John the Baptist, we'll fight. What are those folks?

The... Amish? No, not the Amish, the folks that want to trace their lineage all the way back to John the Baptist. Oh, the primitive Baptist? It's not primitive Baptist. It might be the primitive Baptist, but that's not the one that I'm thinking about.

It'll come to mind later. Hold of the trail of blood theory? Yeah. Church history is slipping my mind right now, but I'll think of it here in a little bit. Oh, Thomas, you got Thomas Helwus, but I don't think Baptists really have a real main figure up top.

So yeah, nobody worships those folks. Oh, we got two comments already. And I cannot read it. It's in Arabic. Interesting. So let's see, the sovereignty of God. Are you tempting to read it? You were looking...

I'm halfway decent at Greek and Hebrew, no Arabic. I know Arabic. I was going to give you a chance. I know you were looking pretty intently at it. Well, I was hoping maybe if I just stared at it, it would, I don't know, maybe highlight it and press translate.

Yeah, there's no translate button. So we are, it's a YouTube viewer, which is cool. Pretty cool. So let's start with the sovereignty of God and that will help us. I believe this video will help us. I think there's misconception of the sovereignty of God, just like there is with Calvinism.

Different avenues of teaching what it is. So let me start with two definitions. I think that's the direction that I'd like to go, is two definitions. One that I think that you and I and the rest of the folks on the pastors panel would agree with.

And another one, I've got a label for it on my paper, but I'm not going to give it a label here in our video. But a definition that we may not agree with exactly, but I think is also a popular definition that others may take.

So here is one definition of the sovereignty of God. And I'm going to be pulling from, tonight I'm going to be pulling from, I want to reference John Piper and things that I looked at, at what he did.

So I want to give him credit for the study that I did and what, and the work that he's done. So the definition, the first definition is powerful and authoritative to the extent that he is able to override all other power and authorities.

And nothing can stop or thwart God's will. Do you have a similar definition? Yeah, I like that. Okay. Powerful and authoritative to the extent he's able to override all other powers and authority and nothing can stop or thwart God's will.

That's one definition that I think we would probably agree with. Here's a second one that I think is popular. There's other folks that would say they believe in the sovereignty of God, but they would have a slightly different definition.

They would say, we believe in the sovereignty of God, but God's sovereignty has limited control in relation to man's freedom and their response to it. Would you agree that that would be another popular definition?

I'd say that that's probably the definition that a lot of people have in the church today, the broad church. That would probably be where a lot of folks are coming from. I think that they would probably nuance it a little bit more than that.

They would probably that God can do anything. He can override people, but He has chosen to allow our free will to run amok for a time, and then He will deal with us accordingly at the end. I just want to get clear in my mind exactly what you were saying, that God's will and man's will can't co-exist at the same time?

Well, I heard one guy say that in God's sovereignty, He chose to allow our free will to reign for a while. I don't think He used the word reign, but He chose our free will to take control for a while, knowing that He will push it, nudge it, the history and everything on down the line.

But He'll generally allow man to run his course while controlling the big portions of history. Basically, I'd say that God in His sovereignty has stepped aside a little bit to allow for man's moral responsibility and free will.

Okay. All right. Well, I'm ready to look at Scripture. We're going to go through, hopefully, a good bit of Scripture tonight. Just exposit the Scripture, look at it, see what it says. We want to determine which definition out of these or maybe another definition that we can pull out of the Scripture because the Scripture is God telling us who He is and what He wants us to know.

We want to understand what God thinks or how God describes His character, nature and His sovereignty. That's what we want to do tonight is look at Scripture. All right. Our first one is, this is the one that Jason gave us in our chat earlier.

Let's see what it says. Daniel 1 -2, the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into His hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God. He brought them to the land of Shinar, the house of His God.

He brought the vessels into the treasury of His God. Okay. I'm not sure where Jason was going with this one. Did he say Daniel 1 -12? I thought I saw it different. I may not have. Was it 1 -12? I'm not sure.

We can read it anyway. Reading the Bible is never wrong. That's right. Please test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Well, that's not relevant at all. Let's go to the Scripture that I have.

Yeah. He said Daniel 1 -2. We'll have to ask him about that. Sure. Daniel 4 -35. All right. All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, what have you done?

I have to say this to myself because I've heard this. This comes up, I think, in the conversation of Calvinism and Arminianism, free will, and God's sovereignty. When you get to the verses that have the word all in it, it's pretty popular for somebody to say it.

All means all, all the time, always means all. All means all, and that's all all means? That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. And so that's true, and we believe that, but all always means all in the context of where all is.

So we've got to keep it in this context to understand what the word all means. So here, all the inhabitants of the earth, and I think that's pretty explanatory, are counted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven.

So it looks like Daniel's saying that God has power and authority. Yeah, in contrast to man not having power and authority. Right. In heaven and on earth. So both locations. And among the inhabitants of the earth, that would be us and all of mankind, no one can ward off his hand, literally strike against.

No one can come against, ward off his hand. And if my understanding is correct, the word hand is often used as a sign of authority. How would you understand hand there? Yeah, it's talking about authority or strength or ability to do something.

It's one of those things where it speaks of a smaller portion of his body or a small portion of something in order to talk about the larger thing. So in this instance, it's saying no one can ward off his hand, which leads you to think of doing something or working or God's action, but not just his hand or his action, but his whole being.

No one can ward off what he does. Nobody can counteract what he is. He is no top dog. And it's not even really close because he's not, it's not like he's the greatest among entities or like people or like things.

He is by his very nature greater than we are. Right, right. And we can't slip by the fact that it says no one, no one can ward off his hand. Let's see what, let's see what our friend Tim has to say. Tim says a friend used to say as an example of the context for the word all is that all the, is that all the coffee, obviously not meaning all the coffee in the world, but all in our coffee pot.

Yeah. And that's determined by context. If I could, it'd be all the coffee in the world. I'm right there with you, but I am not all of the coffee. So, so I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about that, that phrase and no one can ward off his hand.

So we're, we're going back to our definitions and I'm thinking about our definitions and it fits with the first one that God has all power and authority. He's powerful and authoritative to the extent that no one can override.

And that's basically what that's saying. No one can ward off or thwart or stop his hand. And that goes along well with our definition. But as we're looking at it, I'm thinking about the other definition and how you, you tweaked it and talked about it.

And the definition that your person, your acquaintance made, God chose to, for a limited time. So that person would probably say with this verse, we're in that time period. So how would you answer that person?

Say that again. I had an answer for you and my brain turned off. So, so thinking about our second definition, that God has limited control in relation to man's freedom and their response to it. And an acquaintance of yours made the comment or gave an understanding of this concept to the, to the idea that God is sovereign.

He's in control. And with that power and control, he stepped back and he is, he is allowing man to reign for a period of time. So sure. I've got, I've got a couple of things to say. Okay. It all came flooding back.

Plus I got a new illustration in my head, so it kind of helps. Okay. I don't know how familiar you, I'm a, I'm kind of a sci-fi nerd. I enjoy a different sci-fi stories and whatnot. I don't know how many people would be familiar with the show Dr. Who, but Dr. Who is a story of a time Lord, somebody who traveled in space and time.

And they kind of go through and make sure that, that everything that happens throughout all of history is, you know, as it should be. And their understanding of time is that there are fixed points in time that can't be broken.

And then there are a lot of other things that can be broken or moved or changed or malleable. So certain events are going to happen almost like fate, while other certain things can be moved or changed or not happen, you know, in a linear fashion, or you could go back and change things.

Another way to understand it, if you've had someone try to give an example for time management, if you try to fit in for your, into your day, all the things that you need to do, you can fill up your, your time with a bunch of little stuff that doesn't really need to get done.

And you miss out on the big things. They call this the concept of big rocks and small rocks. And what they do is they'll take a jar or a vase or something, and they'll have several other jars of large rocks, small rocks, and sand.

And they'll say, well, the big rocks are the very important things that you want to do. The smaller rocks are the medium importance. And then the sand is, you know, stuff that is not very important. So if you go to fill up this jar and you put the sand in first, and then you put the middle little pebbles in, you won't be able to fit the big rocks.

So if you fit the big rocks in place, they're fixed and they're in the jar, then you can fit other things around them. So you fill up your jar. If you think of time like that, I think a lot of people think that God is sovereignly ruling over our time like that.

Like God has placed those big, important events as unmovable, fixed points in time. He was going to talk to Abraham. He was going to put Noah on the ark. He was going to have David reign. He was going to come and deal with sin in Jesus Christ during the first century.

The temple veil was going to rent in two. You go on, the apostle Paul was going to be a person. Now the big major events of history are set in time. And then he kind of just let humanity throw in pebbles and stones or pebbles and sand, wherever.

It'd be like the little rocks would be people of major influence. They get to drop their stuff in. And then the sand is, maybe I want biscuits and gravy today. Okay, cool. Throw my little sand pebble in there.

It'll fall in wherever it does in time. And great. It doesn't really affect anything. All the big things are in place, but we're able to, with our free will, help God fill up the fullness of time with our will while God is still in control of the big portion.

I think that's what a lot of folks think of when they view God and sovereignty in time. But what you see here in this verse in Daniel is that he does according to his will. And among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can restrain his hand or hold his hand back.

No way can say, what have you done? So what you're looking at there is not so much God only being in charge of the large things, but God being in charge of every single thing, being in control of the situation in every single aspect of our lives, big, small, indifferent.

We're working according to God's plan. Now people will push back against that and say, you think we're robots or puppets or something. We have no will. And that's just a foreign concept to the Bible, which we'll get to.

I saw your verse list. We'll get to that when we look at Genesis. It's actually probably be helpful to go back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3 real quick and then look at 50, but I'll let you control the, where we go, the big rocks, if you will.

Do you want to go there now or do you want to, Oh yeah, we can, we can do whatever. Okay. Genesis chapter one. Yeah. I'd start right at the beginning. Okay. As ask if you just read a couple of verses, ask yourself some questions and then look at what God does.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Yep. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Right. Now could, could, or would God create something that he couldn't control or that he didn't have authority over? You know, it's that thing. Could, could God make a rock big enough to where he couldn't move it?

Well, that's a logical, um, that's a logical, uh, uh, fallacy. Like it doesn't work like that. Like if you're all powerful, then you don't have the ability to do things that are illogical or inconsistent with, with reality, obviously, because otherwise, then that would be a new reality.

It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. So if God makes something, I mean, I just think about stuff that I make, um, no, I, uh, I've gotten into making my own fishing lures and, uh, and, and roasting, uh, my own coffee and stuff.

And if I go and put in the work, no, I mix the plastic, saw the little flakes and I mix it up. I'll put it in the injector, put it in the mold. If I pull my, my fishing lures out, then all of a sudden someone, um, comes up to me and says, well, Hey, you don't really have the right to take that fishing with you.

I'm going to say, get lost. I mean, I, I bought the material, I put it together. I'm going to go fishing. I'm going to catch the biggest fish you've ever seen. Just watch. Uh, and I don't see how it's much different with, with God and the entirety of creation.

There was nothing. God spoke it into existence. Why is it not his to do with as he sees fit? I don't think many people would argue with that in the broad strokes. Um, it's when you get down into the details.

Uh, so, and the details come pretty quick. If you look down at verse, uh, 26, yeah, 26. Uh, he says, uh, then God said, let us make man in our image. According to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over the earth, over the ever creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image and the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, of the birds of the air, every living thing that moves on the earth.

And people will say, Hey, look right there. God gave, um, authority to men over the earth. So God stepped back in his sovereignty in order to, um, give some of his authority to mankind. And I don't think that's what's taking place now.

God did give us responsibility and that responsibility is, is inherently moral because we have the choice to either obey or disobey our creator. We can live in the world that he's created as his creation in the way that he has put forth for us, or we can not, which they choose later on to not.

And it goes haywire. You know, we're still feeling the effects of that one. Uh, fairly, fairly strong. Uh, if you move on to chapter two, uh, verse 15, that it goes over this, the same concept says, then the Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to tend it and keep it.

So we were given responsibility and authority over the garden in order to take care of it and make sure that it was, it was a, it wasn't a autonomous authority. It was a, uh, authority that was underneath the authority of God.

So he was still in control, gave us the responsibility to take care of his, his, his things. And the Lord God commanded of the man saying of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

So even in our, um, authority over the garden, even in our responsibility to tend and care for it, even in with our, you know, authority that God had given us to take care of his creation, we were still responsible to God for how we did that and what we did.

Um, so we had a true moral responsibility. And in chapter three, we see where we, uh, ran afoul of that. Um, God said to us, no, Hey, Adam, where are you at? He said, I'm hiding. Cause I'm naked. He's like, how do you know that you're naked?

No, I didn't tell you about that. It was, he was feeling the shame of his sin. And then we see that God, uh, in his sovereignty as ruler and judge of the earth in verses 14 through 20, he goes to, to Satan, the woman and the man, uh, you know, all of humanity that would come from man and woman and to Satan himself, who was the father of lies and sin and deceit in the world.

Um, and he said, you all are cursed and here's, what's going to happen to you as you now live in my world, you're going to live under a curse and, um, you're going to do so because you have rebelled against me.

So what we see is we have a true moral responsibility, but God still retains that authority over us. He's still sovereign a ruler, a King over his creation. He has the right to tell it. Yes, you may do this.

No, you may not do that. He has the right to allow them to go into their folly or to restrain them from their folly, but he still maintains control over every single thing that takes place on the, on the planet.

And, uh, uh, yeah. And I think that's that it doesn't show that God gave, that God stepped aside to allow mankind to do whatever he wants to in the earth. It shows that he gave us true, real moral responsibility for our actions while maintaining his complete control over creation.

And now I could understand how people would just going through Genesis one through three may, may fight or buck against that idea a little bit. But when you come to Genesis 50, you see an actual situation where the same action of, of men would, was used by the men for one purpose.

And yet God allowed those actions for a completely different purpose, his own purpose. And the God's purpose wasn't evil while the men's purpose was evil. Yeah. Yeah. Just as 50, 20, um, as for you, Oh, go back to 19.

It's important to good stuff. But Joseph said to them, do not be afraid. Am I in God's place? And what is God's place? Yeah. If we look at it from Genesis one through three, he's the ruler creator. He's in charge of his creation.

He can be judged. Um, and that's what they're, they're saying they're, they're before him and they're like, Oh no, Joseph, you're going to, you're going to smite us. And he probably should have, or at least we would have in his situation been tempted to, I would say.

Yeah. Um, and then, uh, verse 20. Well, and I was just thinking too, but he's also thought about how he's, I guess the law would have been, uh, I for not two for two, um, in Old Testament economy. Um, but, uh, he, he didn't follow that.

He, he followed, um, you know, the teaching of the Messiah, teaching of Christ, um, where you have mercy and grace. He was, he was, um, he was following after the, the, the true nature of, of God's work.

You know, God is, um, God is just, but he also has, has mercy and grace. So you see that aspect. Uh, but also he's, um, he's echoing the sentiment of what we just read in Daniel, where that, that last phrase that says, um, no one can say, uh, you know, why did you do this basically?

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's what he's getting at. Yeah. And then you get to, uh, verse 20 as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive.

Right. Joseph is Joseph is saying, Hey, I'm not God. I'm not going to punish you or say that what you did was, was a punishable by me because this is bigger than, than the, what the 12 of us is, is bigger than that.

God is doing something here. You did something absolutely wicked, but you did it. Um, God meant those wicked actions of yours in order to preserve alive many people in the land. Remember the famine, it would have killed, you know, thousands of people.

I don't know how many people were in that area of the world at the time, but if you don't have food, the region will die. I mean, people would just collapse. We may not have heard of Egypt or at least the history would have been much, much shorter.

Uh, there would have been no Exodus, uh, because Egypt would have died out before the enslavement of the people. Um, there would have been no, uh, protective environment for the, uh, children of Israel to grow while they're in captivity.

Um, you see, Joseph says, you did this because you're wicked. You have true moral responsibility for your actions, but God is controlling what is happening in his world. And he's doing it in such a way that even your wickedness is God's goodness.

And that you don't want you on that one for a while, because it sounds like I just contradicted myself a little bit. Uh, but what, what they meant, you know, on purpose for evil, God meant those same actions, those same actions of sinful men for good.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do have to sit on and chew on that, that verse and what it's saying. You do have to sit and chew for a while, um, to let it speak to you. Let God speak to you about what he's, what he's getting at, what he's saying.

And to me, this goes back to, um, that question that we were talking about earlier about going to, to your acquaintance who was explaining, um, his definition of sovereignty of God, that, that God is sovereign.

God is in control. He believes that, but he's, um, in his decision-making, he steps back and lets man's will reign for a while as he steps back. And, but, but here, if you look at what he's saying there, I need to get in front of the camera so you can see my hands.

I really want to talk on my hands. Um, so you have his, his concept of, um, God stepping back so they can't coexist. Man's will and God's will, they can't coexist because one, one has to override the other.

Uh, but here, this is what God is showing us in scripture that you have, you have two intentions going on at the same time. You have man's intention and you have God's intention, but what we see is that God's intention is the one that is, has dominion over the other intention because it's the one that, um, has the results.

The, the, the ultimate, the ultimate conclusion, um, the, the intention that has the, the conclusion that, that comes out or that, um, I don't know how, what I'm trying to say, but it's God's intention that, that is the one that, that overrides, that has dominion, that, that shows the results.

Um, you know, they, Joseph says you meant it for evil. Okay. So which one out, which one in the end, was it the evil or was it the good? Well, it was the good because it was God's intention that had dominion over man's intention.

You know, they were, they were going simultaneously. And I think that helps us answer that question, um, to that, that person that thinks God stepped back. Well, no, he doesn't step back. Right. Both are going on at the same time and God has dominion over the other.

Right. We, we, we have to remember that God's will is a, is a determinative, determinative will. Whereas ours, it, ours is, is not determinative so much as is reactionary. God knows what he's doing in the world over the course of all history and in his creation that he's made.

We are not in that position where we made the world and this is ours to do with as we please. We, we, by, by our nature, no, I didn't show up at creation. I showed up, you know, six to 10 ,000 years later, however you want to date it.

Um, young, young earth, of course. And, uh, we'll talk about that one later if somebody wants to. Uh, but I, I showed up then I have to react because there's, there's history before me. There's going to be history after me.

Um, I'm, I'm reactionary. God's not reactionary. What God's doing is he is, he's being determinative throughout history. And what I really, uh, just hit me. Um, if what God's doing is reactionary saying, well, how can I use these evil actions for good?

Then, um, it's almost like he's trying to, uh, make, uh, make chicken salad. I'm sure you've heard that expression before. Um, you got to take, uh, uh, chicken, chicken poop. And what do you do with it and turn it into chicken salad?

Uh, you take, uh, lemons and you make lemonade, right? Yeah. That's probably a cleaned up version of the lemons and lemonade life. Life gave God lemon. So he made lemonade with it. Right. But that's not what happened at all.

And look at, look at, uh, verses 19 and 21, um, understanding that God meant those actions in verse 20 and verse 19, he says, I'm not in the place of God. Don't be afraid. Uh, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones.

So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. And why? Because he recognized what God was doing and what God was doing was through the actions of evil men, preserving many people alive. So Joseph's reaction wasn't that, well, God just made the best out of this situation.

That was, that was close. I don't know what happened, but God sure made it look good. No, God was doing something great and amazing. And Joseph, a true believer, looked at those actions and acted accordingly.

What was God's purpose in having these evil things happen that many people would be made a lot preserved alive. So what's his reaction to the whole situation? Do I want vengeance on this, this situation where many people were preserved alive?

No, I want to act like God did. I want to show kindness and mercy to those who are without food. I want my friends and family to be provided for, you know, because God is sovereign, because he's doing it like this, because he, he took those actions and made this happen.

So I would be here to provide food for, you know, half the world. I am going to do that. I'm going to provide food for my family. I'm not going to get vengeful. It's the same thing when we come up against things in our life, you know, what are these things that are happening to us?

And he says the same thing in Romans, the Holy Spirit through Paul says the same thing in Romans. Oh, what, he says, what can separate us from the love of God? Can peril or famine or sword or that is a no and all of these things and all of that wretched stuff is happening.

We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. So what are we called to do when we see persecution and we see evil pushed off against us? Do we react saying, well, I'm sure God will turn this into something.

He's a, he's a good guy. Or do we recognize that all these things work together for my good? And so what do I do? Because these things work together for my good. I'm going to take that goodness and love and show it to the rest of the world by pointing them to the God who can save people from their sins, but showing them the forgiveness that I have found the one who won't let me fall out of his hand because he is sovereign.

He can't lose me because he made that determination. He got me. I'm not going anywhere. Absolutely. Well, what I'd like to do is go through these other verses. I want to get through all of them because I think, I think they will enforce, they will encourage, they will help us to understand what we need to understand about God's sovereignty.

And I don't want to neglect looking at them before we run out of time. So let's, you know, let's make a brief comment on these verses. Isaiah 46, nine, remember the former things long past where I am God and there is no other, I'm God and there was no one like me.

Good stuff. That's even more incredible when you think of the, the section of Isaiah that's coming from Isaiah 40 through 48 is has been nicknamed the the trial of the false gods. He says he is the one who declares the beginning from the ending.

Um, no, what he did in ancient times, he's accomplishing his purpose. He's doing what he wills. Um, I think it's even back in chapter 40, um, he kind of, he kind of yells at him. He's like, Hey, uh, which one of these has ever done anything, you know, have them tell us what's coming up or, or even what happened in the past and why it happened.

It was like, they can't do it. Uh, but look at me, I'm the one who declares the end. No, I'm telling you what's happening. Then way back here, I'm going to tell you about stuff that's going on. I'm going to tell you my purpose, my reasoning behind it, and I'm going to accomplish all my good pleasure.