One verse of Scripture which
you will hear quoted quite often on this radio broadcast is John
17, verse 3. John chapter 17, verse 3, the
Lord Jesus Christ is praying to God and says this, This is
life eternal. that they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." He says
this is salvation. This is what it is to have spiritual
life, or the new birth. To know thee, the only true God. For that is to know the only
one who truly is God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom God has
sent, who Jesus Christ really is, why he came and what he did. So Christ says this is life eternal,
this is spiritual life and understanding, to know the only true God, or
God who is God. You see, God is known by his
attributes or characteristics, descriptions in other words.
And there are clear descriptions of God throughout the Word of
God, clear descriptions which God gives of himself to describe
himself. And that's the true God. how
he describes himself in the Word of God. Now, it does not matter
what we think of God, but only what the Scripture says about
God. There are as many different opinions
of God as there are persons, but only what God says of himself
in the Scripture. All right? Now, the Scripture
says that God has a children. or a family. God has children. Not all persons are God's children. You'll find that in Romans chapter
9. Romans chapter 9 verse 8 says,
"...they which are the children of the flesh." These are not
the children of God, but the children of the promise. So contrary
to what the world says, that all men and women and young people
are the children of God, that is not what the Scripture says.
Romans 9, verse 8 clearly says differently. Well, and Christ
himself looked at some men and said, ìYou are of your father,
the devil.î So clearly, all men, all persons are not the children
of God. But God does have children, those
whom he has given spiritual birth to, or life to. And here's what
Christ says about those children. He says in John 6, verse 45,
they shall all be taught of God. And he's quoting from Isaiah
54, verse 13, which says, all thy children shall be taught
of thee. Taught of God. That is, they
know God, the true God. They know what He's like. They
know how He does things. See, all of God's children know
and believe the same God. They have the same Father. That's
what Ephesians 4, verses 5 and 6 say, that there's one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and one Father. All of God's
children have one father. Let me illustrate this. There
were four children in my family from the same father. Four children. Three boys and one girl. We all
knew the same father. We all knew certain things about
him. If you asked each of us, we would
describe him in much the same way. In his younger days he was
5'10", around 190 pounds, black hair, he wore glasses, and certain
characteristics, certain personality traits which we all knew and
witnessed and saw in him. Now, we were all the same, from
the same father, all children in that family. We knew the same
father. Now, what if someone said to
me, I know your father. Why, he's my father too. I say,
he is? Well, describe him. And that
person says, well, he is six feet five inches tall, weighs
around 250 or 60 pounds, and has red hair. goes on to say other things about
him. And I say, no, that's not my
father. No, it's obvious we don't have
the same father, because that's not my father. Those are not
characteristics or attributes of my father. Well, there are
many things being said about God today. Many things being
said about God or that one in Scripture whom men claim to be
God, or what they think of God. Many things being said of God
that are not true, and are not from the Scriptures, not in the
Scriptures. I want you to turn, if you have
a Bible, to Isaiah chapter 45. Now, God is going to give descriptions
of Himself here in the book of Isaiah 45. And unless someone
says, well, that's the old Bible, and that's done away with. God's
different now. No, no. No, no. Because God said in Malachi 3,
verse 6, He said about Himself, I am the Lord, I change not. That's another one of God's attributes,
is that He does not change. He's the same God yesterday,
today, and forever. God does not change. Anything
that changes, it either changes for the better or for the worse.
God is perfect. God does not change. So in Isaiah
chapter 45, we are going to see one attribute of God, or consider
one characteristic of God that is clearly spoken of throughout
the Word of God. I am talking about the sovereignty
of God. why the very name God implies
sovereign. God is sovereign. If you break
that word down, you'll find the word reign in there, or that
is absolute reign or rule of God. God is absolutely reigning
and ruling over all. God alone reigns. If someone is sovereign, If God
is God, He alone reigns. No one and nothing else is in
control but God. God reigns. God is supreme ruler. God is all-powerful and gives
power to whom He will. Isaiah 45, verses 5 and 6, he
says, I am the Lord. There's none else. There's no
God. beside me. I am the Lord, I am
the absolute ruler, controller. I girded thee, though thou hast
not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun and
from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and
there is none else." Now, God says that throughout the book
of Isaiah and throughout his word, that I am God, there is
none else. It seems pretty simple, doesn't
it? But men don't seem to think that. Men seem to think that
while man has about as much power as God, the devils have as much
power as God. But no, God says, I am God, the
only one who reigns and rules and controls all things. Well,
there are two things I want us to consider about the sovereignty
of God or the reign, the rule, control of God. Two things. God
is sovereign in creation. And number two, God is sovereign
in salvation. Creation and salvation. In creation, God created all
things. And all things are controlled
by God who created them. Look at verse 12 here in Isaiah
45. He says, I have made the earth
and created man upon it. I, even my hands, have stretched
out the heavens, and all their hosts, or the stars and the planets,
have I commanded." People, evolution is an out-and-out lie. Yes, it
is. It's an attempt. It's an elaborate
hoax, an attempt by modern man to disprove God. I'll give you
a couple of reasons why. Men, there's a concerted effort
to try to disprove God by elaborate hoaxes. They call it all evolution. If God, number one, if God created
all things, that means He owns all things. And if He owns all
things, He can do with it what He will. Well, men don't like
that. And so they try to disprove or
discredit the fact. And if God is the Creator, then
everything must answer to him. Creatures answer to the Creator. The Creator is the judge of the
creature. Is that not right? Well, it's
so. And men are willingly ignorant,
Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 3, of the creation because they
do not want to have an owner and a judge. Well, God made everything. Genesis chapter 1 says he made
everything after its or his kind. Everything is like it is. Every species belongs to the
same species. It's just like it is because
God made it that way. They'll not find any missing
link. They've been looking for a so-called missing link between
man and Neanderthal man, they call him. But they'll not find
it because God created apes as apes and man as man. There's
no ape man. People, the fact of the matter
is that all of the supposed fossil evidence that they have found,
you could put it all in a small wooden box, all of it that's
been found over the years. They have fabricated skulls from
a jawbone that they find and call it prehistoric man. That's
an absolute fact. Well, God made everything after
his kind. That means man. That means all
the species. And God controls all things.
Look at verse 7. God controls all things. He said,
I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. That's a strong statement, but
that's what the Scripture says. An old writer once said this,
and if you listen very carefully and think about it, he says,
God has a hand in the action where the evil is, but no hand
in the evil of the action. God has a hand in the action
where the evil is, but no hand in the evil of the action. There
is nothing evil that happens unless God Almighty somehow determined
it. That's so, or he wouldn't be
God. If something's out of his control, if he is standing by
idly and passively, then he's not God. Because God means absolute
ruler. And the second thing of the sovereignty
of God is a salvation of God. God is sovereign in salvation.
That means he decides who is saved, that he decides who are
his children, who gets in his heaven, because God chooses whom
he will. And he gave those ones he chose
or elected to his Son, Christ, who came to die for those chosen. And then, in time, he sends the
Holy Spirit to all those whom he chose and whom he gave to
Christ to die for. Salvation is of the Lord, Jonah
2 verse 9 says. In conclusion, God is God the
Father purposed salvation. God the Son purchased salvation. And God the Holy Spirit applies
salvation. It's true that all whom God purposed
to save, they repent, they believe, and they confess Jesus Christ.
But they do so because God determined before that they would do it.
Because God is sovereign in salvation. Creation and salvation. God Almighty
is sovereign. This is one attribute or characteristic
of the God of the Scripture. I'm going to show you a little bit of what's
going on behind the scenes here. It's good to be back in the business. It's good to be back in the business. It's good to be back in the business. It's good to be back in the business. It's good to be back in the business.