God's Sovereignty (Part 1)

No Compromise Radio. Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

Why We Ask God “Why” in Trials

Today in our passage it's going to be very interesting because many of us when it comes to God, we want to know the answers. We want to know the whys. We are a scientifically driven, empirically driven kind of culture and we, if we're not careful, want God to answer our whys.

Why did you let that happen? Why did you let that baby die? Why did you let cancer affect that relative? Why are you letting these things go on in the culture? Why are other people going to get atomic bombs?

There are a thousand why questions. And with Job, after losing all his children, asked, I believe about 16 times, why God? And God never answered the question why. He always answered it with, let me tell you who I am, but you just can't know the answer.

The Sovereign and Gracious God of Exodus 32 and 33

Let's turn our Bibles to Exodus chapter 32. As we're finishing today the topic of God is a sovereign and gracious God who will be there today and tomorrow to lead you through any trial that you'll ever have, up to and including death.

And we'll see this from Exodus chapter 32 where Moses needed God's sure confirmation that he would be there to guide Moses into the wilderness. Now, we're not Moses, but we have the same God and you need to know today that God is sovereign, utterly sovereign, and he's graciously sovereign.

He's just not a God who is a God who has fate or kismet or some kind of, that's just, it's just that way, but he is sovereignly, generously orchestrating things. And we're going to go to Exodus 32 and 33 and then move to Romans 9.

And if I haven't got your attention so far, then I'll just do it this way. We're going to end up in Romans 9 in the passage that many people call immoral because it shows the utter, naked sovereignty of God.

We say we want sovereignty, I want a sovereign God. I want to be sovereign over health, wealth, skin color, who my parents were, what country I was born in, but do we really want the sovereign God of this book who says, I not only am sovereign over all those things, Psalm 103, the Lord's sovereignty rules over all, but I'm also sovereign in determining who goes to heaven and who doesn't.

This will be very good for us as a congregation because we know these truths, but it's a good reminder because we're going to need this kind of God and this kind of future. Paul was troubled on every side in 2 Corinthians.

Trials are a way of life. Tonight, Eric will preach how to respond to trials, but this morning, my purpose is to remind you who the God is in your trials. So maybe the questions that are usually why oriented will at least end with who answers.

Guide me now, thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but thou art mighty. Hold me with thy powerful hand. This doctrine this morning is very comforting in troubling times. It's very comforting in troubled times, but it also troubles you because when you realize God is sovereign, you'll realize that you are not.

And you'll realize that this God in scripture is not some little votive God. You guys know little votive gods, little pocket gods. I love to go overseas and usually the last thing my wife says before she says, I love you, honey.

She usually says, don't bring home any little votive gods. Well, that's just like telling me, saved all those still with a sin hangover, time to bring home another little votive God. Because I like to sit him around the house so I can realize why would I want to worship some little pocket God that somebody made.

Now let's get a piece of wood and let's carve some of that for a God and let's carve some of it for fire and carve some of it for a toothpick. This God today that we'll see from this Bible and from Exodus 33 and Romans chapter 9 blows away all our thoughts about a God created in our likeness.

This God is great. This God is awesome. This God of Romans 9, you just think if it's not written the Bible, I couldn't believe it. You would even say if it wasn't in this Bible, I shouldn't believe it.

And this is a God who shows himself to be what evangelicalism and what the world and what Bethlehem Bible Church needs. The gracious sovereign God who rules, who reigns, who ordains, who's sovereignly in charge of everything, not just your past, but your future as well.

Calamitous times require a great God, not some little votive icon God made of ivory. Well, just to catch you up if you weren't here last week, Exodus 32, very simple. Moses is up in the glory cloud on top of Sinai for all to see, described in Exodus chapter 24 like God, a consuming fire.

He's been up there too long. The people can't wait any longer. We need somebody to lead us into the promised land. We need a God. We need a little votive God. And we need to represent Yahweh in such a way that they'll show some strength to it.

After all, how strong can God be if Moses is still up there? We have no leader. He might have got us out of Egypt, but we need to get into the promised land. This deal is only half done. So let's see, what's a strong votive God for the Egyptians?

A cow. That's right. And so let's just make a cow out of gold. And you know the story. They make this horrible, grotesque thing and they worship it instead of the creator. And God with holy, righteous anger judges them.

Now they all deserve to die, but God only killed how many? He only killed 3 ,000. Moses comes down. Moses has already been down there. The people are dead. And now Moses wants new reminder that God will lead him into the promised land.

An approbation on his leadership. And we'll pick it up in Exodus chapter 33, verses 12 and following, where Moses prays. We're leading up to the essence and nature of God. Certainly, God is holy, holy, holy.

But in this particular case, what Moses needs is a sovereign, gracious God to lead in the future. And I think that's what we need as well. In verse 13 of Exodus 33, Moses says, you see right in the middle of the text there, show me now your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.

Consider too that this nation is your people. So God, I want to know you. And we know from the context last week, I need your leadership skills. I need you to lead me. I can't lead these people into the promised land.

And then Exodus 33, 14, and he said, God said to Moses, my presence shall go with you and I will give you rest. With wonderful assurance and closeness, my face will be there. I will intimately be there to take you into the promised land.

Give you rest. I guarantee it. Verse 17, the Lord said to Moses, I will also do this thing of which you have spoken. You have found favor in my sight and I've known you by name. Then Moses said a very odd thing to God in light of the cloudy pillar being up there on the mountain, the cloudy pillar taking them out of Egypt.

He says, I pray you show me your glory. I want to be reminded again that you will guide me through this barren land. I can't go it alone. There are enemies there, these obstinate people. I need a renewed perception of your guiding, sovereign, gracious hands so I can lead the people.

He's not asking for some kind of mystical experience. He needs assurance. And then with great condescension, we see in verse 19, this is the verse that shows God for who he is. If you could boil God down to his nature and essence, what would you see if it was possible?

Verse 19, and he said, I myself will make my goodness pass before you. All my character, all my nature, I'll pass before you and will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you. And what is the nature and essence and substance of God?

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion. I am who I am, Exodus chapter 3, expanded a little bit. I'm just not self-existent. I'm just not I am who I am, but I sovereignly give grace.

I sovereignly give mercy. I reserve the right to extend mercy and grace to whom I please. In the context, you're 3 ,000 people. It wasn't wrong for God to withhold grace and mercy from the 1 ,900 ,000-some people, was it?

No. 3 ,000 were killed, but they all deserved it. And you notice how the action is repeated? This is a Hebrew idiom. I will be gracious to whom I'll be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.

Why didn't he just say, I will have grace and I will have compassion? Why? The answer is because in the Hebrew language, he wants to put focus, that I'm choosing, that I'm picking, that I'm selecting.

God selected 3 ,000 to be killed. The other ones all deserved it, but he didn't kill them. 1 ,900 ,000-some deserved it too, but he was merciful to them. He repeats the action. This is the free will of God is what it is.

He gives mercy. He withholds mercy based on his good pleasure. Boy, that kind of sounds, I want to start shaking my head, and all of a sudden, all these ideas that I've ever heard in my life, where God looks down the corridors of time and he sees your steps toward Jesus, therefore he picks you.

If I have to look at the character and essence of God, here in Exodus chapter 33, verse 19, somehow these things don't seem to be jiving too much. God does what he pleases, as he pleases, only as he pleases.

And if you're saying to yourself, what about this verse, and what about this, and what about that? Well, right now, I want you to just camp right here. What about this verse? God, I need that kind of greatness in you to lead.

I don't need a God that has external constraints. I don't need a God that has compelling forces outside of him that make him do things. By the way, do you? I don't know what the Lord has for you for this week, or for this year, or the next 10 years, but do you need a God who does as he pleases, only as he pleases, as often as he pleases, a God who has loved you in Christ Jesus, the risen Savior, or do you need a God to trust who can be controlled by anything or anyone?

If you've got a God that can be controlled, caged, then you're in trouble. God never has to give an account of anything about anyone to anyone. He answers to no one. Look at the rest of the verse. We'll pick this up before we go to Romans chapter 9, the rest of the passage.

Exodus 33, 20. But he said, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there's a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. While my glory passes by, I'll put you in a cleft of the rock.

I'll cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. Exodus 34, verse 5. The Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, Yahweh, the Lord, a merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

But who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation? And what is the only response to the God revealed in Scripture?

And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. If you'd like to know what kind of God inspires the most worship, I'll tell you it's the sovereign God of the universe. Now let's turn to Romans chapter 9 because Exodus 33, 19 is found in the New Testament.

And we're going to go to Romans chapter 9 to see how Paul uses Exodus 33, 19. And we're going to see this very, very clearly. That as sometimes temporal deliverance of the Old Testament is no longer talked about as temporal salvation, it's talked about eternal salvation.

They're rescued out of Egypt in the Old Testament. They're rescued out of the sin of the slavery of sin in the New Testament. So too here you're going to see God sovereign over who dies temporally and who lives.

And now eternally it's the same thing. Romans chapter 9, the passage that I called before that some people called immoral. Some people say this isn't Paul, this isn't inspired by the Spirit of God because it's too hard, it's too difficult.

Romans 9, 15, recognize it. For he says to Moses, Romans 9, 15, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. And just like the Hebrew, so too does the Greek say when you're repeating this, this linguistic kind of device, the focus is on the sovereignty of God.

The focus isn't on the people who receive, it's God choosing. I choose and I pick. I do what I want, when I want, as often as I want. With singular language, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.

Furthermore, if you just want to be blown away, look at verse 18. So then he has mercy on whom he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. Do you see the same kind of language, this repetition, this kind of parallel reinforcement?

We would never say somebody deserves mercy, somebody deserves grace. Deserving mercy is a contradiction of terms. You say, but this sounds like double predestination. This sounds like election. This sounds like unconditional election.

This sounds like God chooses who goes to heaven. That's exactly what it sounds like because that's exactly what it is. And you say, here goes Avendross' hobby horse again. Well, let me say this, R .C. Sproul said, we'll deflect it a little bit, R .C. was asked what's your favorite doctrine?

And he said, it's the sovereignty of God. And then R .C. quipped, and it's God's favorite doctrine too. And if you were God, it'd be your favorite doctrine. This culture we live in, and even in our heart of hearts, we will have no sovereign rule over us.

We want our independence. We are autonomous. Don't tell us what to do. In our creaturehood, in our fallen creaturehood, we've somehow constructed a God who is able to do things to us and for us and for that unsaved family member, only if that unsaved family member will let them.

Now, Jesus was often a gentleman, but when it comes to salvation, if you have a loved one that you're praying for, I challenge you to pray this prayer. Dear Lord, would you please have gentleman Jesus kind of knock on the door of their heart and be super kind, do what you do best, woo, and encourage, and kind of just beckon in?

With wooing and beckoning and that kind of stuff, do you know what your husband, wife, child, friend, relative says who's not saved? You ever seen somebody who plays football and they give a stiff arm?

This God here isn't the gentleman Jesus. And I forgot we're kind of stoic, half Presbyterian, half Baptist. But I want to say, hallelujah, this is the God who bulldozes depravity down, who says there's no external constraint, no greater power.

And if I want to show mercy to that person in spite of their own obstinate, rebellious sin, I'm going to give them mercy. And as 1 Peter 1 says, I will cause them to be born again. If the God of this Romans chapter 9 is, well, you know, I really voted for you.

And I know you're having Satan really vote against you. And I'm just begging you to cast the final vote. The bad news is you're always going to vote no. Your unsaved loved one is always going to vote no.

I want somebody who's stronger than Satan, stronger than sin, stronger than obstinate depravity, don't you? I actually want, and I know you want it too, a God who has grace upon people. He could say, I will have grace on none.

But he said, I'll have grace on whomever. He gives grace to people. And here's the argument, and then we'll look at it in detail. Paul is going to quote Exodus 33, 19, God has mercy upon whom he'll have mercy, has compassion on whom he has compassion, as an argument for the reason why God chooses one and doesn't choose another, the reason why God loved Jacob and hated Esau.

And that reason is, that's just the nature of God. Don't be surprised when God chooses Jacob and he doesn't choose Esau, because if you can boil the essence and nature of God down to something, it's a sovereign, gracious God.

That's just what he does. Why are we so shocked when it happens? Paul says, because that's who God is. Remember temporal salvation in Exodus chapter 33 and 32? It's the same now. From the human perspective, you might say it's arbitrary.

From God's perspective, it's anything but arbitrary. But out of his goodwill and his counsel, he chooses. And he chose to give grace and mercy to 1 .9 million people in the old. And now he does give grace and mercy to some people eternally.

Remember, he doesn't have to give it to anyone. How many people deserve to be killed as they were worshiping the cow? I mean, it really hits home when you go to India and you see these huge oxen just walking through the street.

And I remember acting, you know, asking stupidly as an American, I just said, you know, who owns those oxen? Where do they go at night? They just walk around and then they go back home. They know what to do.

And just imagine, I'd say to myself, oh, to think that you could worship a cow. And you go up to the cow and, you know, you sing a praise song to a cow. She is exalted. The queen cow is exalted on high.

And I just look at that and I go, if you worship less, a God who's less than sovereign over salvation, friends, it's like worshiping a cow. And I'm very thankful to be a pastor at this church because for us here, we've been taught by the Lord that if the Bible says something, it says it.

If the Bible controls the way we think about God and worshiping God with our mind, then that just is what we have to do. And we're going to see in Romans chapter 9, the mind is so smart. The mind is so insightful.

The human mind, although tainted by the fall and sinful, still will do everything it can to wiggle out of this universe. Because in this universe of Romans 9, God is sovereign. The best thing for us to do is speak, O Lord, as we come to you to receive the food of your holy word.

Teach me. I don't want to be an idolater. And I know you don't either. So since God is sovereignly gracious by definition, what are the implications? What kind of questions come out of that? Let's look at several.

Is God Unrighteous in His Sovereign Mercy?

Number one, God is sovereign. And since he is, is he unrighteous? Question one, since God is sovereign over everything, since he is king, sovereign, almighty, rules, reigns, predestines, ordains, foreordains, determines, decrees, maybe he's unjust.

And so Paul answers that question. Is God unjust? Well, if salvation was just determined by you come up with your faith and God looks down at the quarters of time and sees your faith, then the question would never pop up because Paul would just go, well, God's not unjust.

He just looks down the quarters of time and he sees your faith. And then he, he, he saw Jacob wouldn't believe and he saw wouldn't. But it's not like that at all. Look at Romans 9, 14, 9, 14. What then shall we say?

What shall we say then? I mean, this kind of teaching elicits response. This is kind of controversial. I just kind of want to stay away from that. But here Paul knows Paul needs to teach this church at Rome, the truth about the righteousness of God, but who Christ is.

What should we say then? And he anticipates the objection. You know, Paul was trained well. He knew these kinds of things and he anticipates the objection to what was going on in chapter nine, verses six through 13, basically God's sovereign.

And he loved Jacob and he hated Esau. I mean, think about it. If God elects with distinguishing sovereign grace, how can anybody be guilty? How can we know that's really all of God? Hey, God was unfair to Esau.

Of course, second Chronicle says there's no injustice or partiality with God. I like King James translation here. It's got unjust. God forbid. And you can see how sin creeps in. Sin creeps in this way.

God, you're not doing things rightly. Doesn't agree with me. It doesn't go down well. That kind of doctrine makes me want to have a few tums. It just kind of gives me an acid. And I mean, it doesn't give me acid.

It gives me acid. I'm in God's place. I'm going to tell you what's right or wrong. And nobody ever stops long enough to think, how do we even know what just and unjust is? Unless we have God. Lots of times people say, how can God be good and let this happen?

How could God be good and let my mother die of cancer five years ago? How could God be good? And the baby that was in Kim's womb between Haley and Luke had to get a DNC. How could God be good? Now, those kind of questions I don't think people should ask.

But there's a greater, more serious accusation against God than all those put together. And that is, God, you pick and choose who goes to heaven. You're unjust. It's a lot worse. Demanding that God tell us an answer about predestination, justifying himself, putting him on the witness stand.

Now you tell me the truth. Look at verse 13, as it is written. Scripture clearly says it. Jacob I loved and Esau I hated. In the context of Romans 9, right out of Romans 8, salvation. Say, well, you know, that's nations.

Well, number one, their personal pronouns that are singular in this passage. Number two, if they were nations. P .S. nations are full of thousands upon thousands of people. And so that doesn't get you out of your problem because nations are full of individual people.

I mean, it's just shocking for me to say, especially in light of our culture that says, you know, God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. Esau I hated. Esau I hated. And people go, well, that just means to love less.

It doesn't mean just to love less. But even if it did, your problem still exists. One is chosen unto eternal life. One is not chosen. And so this is going to kind of split a church up. This is we ought not to do this until this is like Wednesday night Bible study stuff, where we talk about it later.

Once we capture you into the church. How about Paul in Ephesians 1? You want to praise God? Praise God for election. The question for me is not. I can't believe how he could hate Esau. I can't believe how he could love deceiver, heel snatcher.

The mercy that God gives Jacob flowing back from Christ's life and death and substitutionary atonement, the redemption found in Christ is God's to give. He could have given it to no one. He could have given it to everyone or he could have given it to some.

Must a righteous God elect people on what they do? Must a just God pick people based on some foreseen faith that they would never come up with because they're depraved and faith is a gift of God? Whose definition of justice?

Ours, the moral majority, the culture. A Hodge said he has absolute right to govern and dispose of all his creatures simply according to his own good pleasure.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.