And 11 in verse 25, it says this,
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even
so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. What should our attitude toward
the sovereignty of God be? This was our Lord's attitude
towards God's will and God's sovereignty. Everything you do
is good in your sight. Even so, father, you hid it from
some, revealed it to others. That's good. I bless you for
that. You're the father. You're the
creator of heaven and earth. You know, God's Word and the
blessed truths in it are not for our information only, but
they're also given for our inspiration. They inspire us, they teach us,
they instruct us, stir us up. And the scriptures are written
not just for curiosity, but for the edifying of our souls, and
edifying to establish us, build us up in the faith, to establish
us in spiritual and eternal truths. And I tell you, that's what we
desperately need. And Baldwin, when he read, both
of me, and read tonight in the study, 1 Thessalonians 5, and
then he read 2 Timothy 2 tonight, and had to do all with about
what a preacher's to do, and what all is to preach, and how
he's supposed to conduct himself, and how he's supposed to deal
with the Word of God, and to be established in spiritual and
eternal truths, eternal truths, that things of God are eternal.
We're dealing with things not of time and sense, but eternal. We're eternal souls. And so eternal
truths is what we need, and eternal truths is what God gives us.
And the sovereignty of God is something more than just an explanation
of how God governs His world. You see, what it is is His revelation
of Himself in the Scriptures. When God reveals Himself in the
Scriptures, He reveals Himself as He is. And that's why anybody
that doesn't understand that God is God, and that He does
as He will, with whom He will, and does according to His will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and no man can stay His hand and say unto Him what He's doing,
he's not seen the God of the Bible yet. He's not had the revelation
of God Himself. But His revelation of Himself
in the scriptures moves us, moves us to a godly theory, creates
in us a godly theory. He reveals Himself to us to cause
us to desire to live to His glory and to bring our rebellious hearts
and wills into subjection unto Him. That's why He reveals Himself
to us, to make Himself known to us, to bring our hearts and
our rebellious wills into subjection to Him and to live to His glory.
And I tell you, beloved, a true recognition of God's sovereignty,
God being high and lifted up, that you're actually in the hands
of God to do as He pleases. A true recognition of God's sovereignty
humbles a soul like nothing else can or nothing else will. When
you see Him who He is, it causes our souls to rejoice in knowing
the will of God, causes us to rejoice in doing the will of
God, and giving our will up to His will. Not my will, but Thine
be done. So I'm saying to recognize the
sovereignty of God is to see God as Himself, to see His character,
to see His being, to see as all things as nothing before Him.
And the only reason you and I have any hope at all is because God
in sovereign mercy set us apart in grace to Himself before the
foundation of the world, sent the gospel to us, crossed our
paths with a man with a message. And then he sent the Holy Ghost
to our hearts and broke our hearts, subdued our wills, and brought
us into subjection to himself, and that was by his absolute
sovereign grace and power. And oh, what a humbling thing
it does to us. Oh, to know, to come into his
presence and to behold his glory. Moses said, Lord, I want to see
your glory. God said, do you really want
to see it? I said, I'll show you what it is. I'll cause my goodness to pass
before you. And where's the goodness of God
at? It's in the Lord Jesus Christ. And all you can see is my hindered
parts. And he hit him there in that
cleft of the rod. And he says, now Moses will show you my glory.
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. Now that's my glory, Moses. You
want to see it? That's it. That's it. And that's my goodness that causes
me to have mercy and compassion. And to come into His presence
and behold His glory, the Scriptures give us an effect that it has
when we have a sight of God and those who saw Him. And that's
what I said about our Lord Jesus Christ. He said at that time,
after He had pronounced woe and judgment upon place after place
after place after place. And then He turned and said,
I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You're the
Lord. The heavens can't contain You.
You're the Lord of the earth. The earth is the Lord's, and
Your fullness thereof. Because you will to hide these
things from people who know everything, and you turn around and found
people who are nothing and don't know nothing that are babies.
And made you of them to see them, and he said, oh, reveal them
to babes. And then he said, oh, Father,
because it seemed good in your sight. That's what it is. That's what I want to talk about.
Our attitude toward the sovereignty of God. And you go through the
scriptures, and you look at men who saw God as He is. You remember where Job 1a says
that God told Satan when he came to that prayer meeting, he said,
Have you beheld my servant Job? Said, Who fears God? Who's like
him on the earth? Who fears God and eschews all
evil? Well, you go for forty-something chapters and you hear Job and
them go through all these arguments and all that, and when it's all
said and done, when God said, Job, gird up your loins like
a man. Stand up and answer me when I
speak to you. Where was you when I hung the
foundation of this earth on nothing? Where was you when I put the
stars in the heavens? Where was you when the sons of
Orion were put there? And he said, Joe Benjamin, you
know what Joe said? He said, I heard about you with
the hearing of the ear, now that I see you, and I abhor myself
and repent and dust him ashes. That's what he said he did when
he saw it. And I said, when he saw the Lord high and lifted
up, do you know what he said? He said, whoa, it's me. I'm undone. I see God. I see His glory. I see His power. And in light
of Him, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. And,
oh, there ain't nothing I can do about it. Everybody around
me is unclean at the same time. And, oh, let me show you. Look
at Daniel with me. Daniel, right after the book
of Ezekiel. Look at Daniel chapter 10. Here's
a man. Here's a man where you find no
sin mentioned against him. Here's a man that... Joseph and
Daniel is the only two men in the scripture. As far as I can
tell that you could not find a fault against them. God never
charged them with anything. And look what he says here. Daniel
chapter 10 and verse 5. Talking about the effect that
the sin and the glory of God had upon them. God's sovereignty
is glory and His power. He said, Then I lifted up mine
eyes, and looked, and behold, a certain man, clothed in linen,
whose loins were girded with the fine gold of Euphus. His
body was also like the barrel, and his face as the appearance
of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire. and his arms and
his feet like colored to polished brass, and the voice of his words
like the voice of a multitude." That sounds like Christ in Revelation
chapter 1. And I, Daniel, alone saw the
vision. For the men that were with me
saw not the vision, but a great quaking fell upon them, so that
they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone and
saw this great vision. Now listen to it. And there remained
no strength in me. For my comeliness, my comeliness,
turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. Yet I heard the voice of his
words, and when I heard the voice of his words, then when I was
in a deep sleep, on my face, and my face toward the ground,
he said, I saw it, and everything about me turned into corruption.
And I fell, that's what John said, I said, I saw it, and I
fell as a dead man before him. And if these blessed saints were
brought to bow down before a sovereign God, down into the dust, and
owned what He is, and owned what they were, what should our attitude
be to the supreme sovereign of this universe? What should our
attitude be? Well, I'm going to give you a few things. First
of all, I believe it should be godly fear. I think that's the
first reaction to seeing God high and lifted up. The first
reaction to seeing God Himself is a godly fear. The fear of
God is the beginning of knowledge and the fear of wisdom. Now,
men today, they fear anything and everything but God. They
have no fear of God before their eyes. They're concerned about
everything but God. Lovers of pleasure more than
lovers of God. We see defiance of God everywhere
in His rule. Everywhere we look, we see defiance
toward Him. TV preachers preach against His
sovereignty, preach against His rule, preach against His rights. Jokes are made about Him. Movies
are made to ridicule God and any true conception of God. Every
hand that you look at and the way you turn about. And why is
it? Because there's no fear of God
at home. But if God has been pleased to
bring you to see God's true character, to see His awful greatness, to
see His power, to see His justice, to see His righteousness, to
see His holiness, to see His immutability, I tell you what
you ought to do if He's brought you to see that. See, he's a
true character. You ought to really be happy.
You ought to be thankful. And like, see, he said, David
said like this, as a father pities his children, even so the Lord
pities them. That what? Fear him. Fear him. Now, when we talk about fear
in God, this is the reaction we have. We're not talking about
a survived fear. We're not talking about being
scared. being afraid in the sense that we just cower? No, no, but
an awe and a reverence of His glorious being. You know, He
said, the heavens is His throne and the earth of His footstool.
And He says, you know, He said, you know who I'll dwell with?
I'll dwell with that man who's meek and lowly and of a contrite
spirit. That's who I'm going to meet.
That's who I'm going to meet with. And no, fear God and honor
the King, is what he said. And so the first attitude, I
believe, that we have is a godly fear. And a godly fear, beloved,
I don't know how to explain it except to say that a fear of
God keeps us from doing a lot of things, saying a lot of things,
acting a lot of ways. And also, it puts in us an awe
and a reverence that when we approach Him, we address the
first thing we do, we address Him right. We address God right. How many people don't address
God right? How many preachers you heard preach or pray or heard
people pray, and they don't address God right? They don't address
Him as His power and His glory. They don't address Him through
the Lord Jesus. They don't address Him as one
who has all power and authority in heaven and earth. They don't
understand that they're but dust and that they're speaking to
God, that God's in heaven, that God Himself, and here we are,
we're men on the earth, and when we come to God, we address Him
right and correctly and come softly into His presence? Oh, my. And then I'll tell you
something else. One of our attitudes is, as we
see God's sovereignty, is an obedience to Him. You see, a
godly fear produces an obedient walk. If you fear God, if you
fear God, that'll produce an obedient walk. I mean, he has
no rebels in his kingdom. He don't. He don't have no rebels
in his kingdom, I tell you. A true sign of God shows us our
nothingness. And what it does, it brings to
us an utter, utter and absolute dependency upon God. Absolute
and utter dependency upon Him. Are you dependent on Him tonight?
I'm dependent on Him. I was dependent on Him when I
got up this morning. I'm dependent on Him now. I'm
dependent on Him tonight when I go to bed. Lord, I need You
tonight. I'll meet Him in the morning.
I depend on His faithfulness. I depend on His goodness. I depend
on His righteousness. I depend on His power. I depend
on His grace. I depend on His mercy. I depend
on Him to be always who He is and take me as I am and keep
me as I am. I depend on Him. I really depend
on Him. You see, man naturally is filled
with his self-importance and his self-worth and his self-sufficiency. And the only thing that will
change him is to see God as He is. And what will it do? As old
Scott said, it will make him bake his headquarters in the
dust. Here's the situation, man will either glory in himself
or he'll glory in God. He'll either live to serve himself
and please himself, or he'll live to serve and please his
Maker, because no man can serve two masters. It can't be done.
That's what our Master says, that no man can serve two masters.
I mean, you're going to either serve and love your Master, or
you're going to serve and love yourself. If you're going to
glorify yourself, you're going to glorify God. There's no middle
ground. And that's what we're talking
about, an obedience, a dependence upon Him. And I know best that
with the people who are irreverent toward God, what a disobedience
it produces. When Moses went down to tell
Pharaoh, he said, I know not the Lord. I know not the Lord. I don't need your God. And how
many people have said that? Oh, I heard Mary read something
to me the other day that this woman said. She said, I'd be
afraid to say it, but it's right here, Sidney. She said it herself.
It was the awfulest thing that could be said. And she said it
about the Lord Jesus Christ. She said one of the awfulest
things you can imagine what she said about Christ. And here, reverence produces
disobedience. And where people are irreverent,
it's because of the ignorance and majesty and authority of
God. And I'll tell you something, if a man lives irreverent, They're
going to be irreverent throughout eternity. If you don't want God
here, you won't want Him there either. That's why folks don't
understand that our revelation of God and our need of God has
to start here. It ain't going to change after
death. If you're irreverent here, you'll be irreverent throughout
eternity. If you've got a bad attitude toward God, you'll have
it all the way through eternity. And I don't want that. Oh my,
I want to reverence God. I want to say the right things
about him, I want to think the right things about him. You know,
talking about a godly fear and disobedience, let me ask you
this question. When you think a thought that
goes through your mind, and the minute it goes through there,
do you, when it's not right, do you immediately say, oh God,
forgive me, how did that thought go through my mind? That's godly
fear. That's dependence on God. That's
what I'm talking about. Just a thought that nobody can
see. Nobody knows it went through
your mind. Just that thought. And then you say, oh God, forgive
me, have mercy on me. How'd that get in there? Because
you have a reverence for Him. And I tell you, true reverence
will produce obedience. You know, to know that the Word
of God This blessed book is the revelation of God, that this
is the revelation of God Himself. It's not some things about God,
but it is the Word of God, and it's about Him, and God Himself
makes Himself known in this blessed book. But to know that the Word
of God is the revelation of His will will make, that it is made
known to us, That is precepts, and the precepts are the Almighty's
precepts. And this is what God said. This
is the way God said to be. And so how foolish it'd be to
ignore, to ignore what God says. And I tell you, when we know
who the author of the Scriptures is, know who the author of them
is, that's what causes us to want to obey Him, all of them,
because He's the author of them. And we don't just pick and choose
what suits us. We take it all. I don't want
to leave any part of the blessed Word of God out to you. I don't
want to pick and choose what I want to believe and leave the
rest of it go. And I'll tell you another attitude that we
have. I believe we should have toward the Sovereignty of God.
I think the Old Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, is a complete
and entire resignation. to Him, a complete and entire
resignation to Him. Now, I know it's natural, it
is natural for us to murmur when things don't go our way. It's
natural for us to murmur when we're afflicted. It's natural
for us to... When we have a loved one that's
afflicted, for us to murmur, complain, worry. But if we truly,
truly see God's absolute sovereignty. We'll be like David, see it.
Be still and know that I am God. Job, after everything that happened
to him, and he thought it after God said that, told Satan, if
you consider my servant Job, there's no man like him on the
earth. No man like him on the earth. He fears God and eschews
evil. Now, if God was going to bless
a man, he would surely bless Job. Nothing would ever go wrong
with him. But when he began to get the
news, one after another, his cattle, his camels, his asses,
and then his children. He saw beyond the saviors. He
saw beyond the winds that killed His children. He saw behind the
fire that fell. He saw behind all that. And you
know what He said? The hand of God hath touched
Me. When God told His sons, and He
said to Samuel, He said, Eli, come back and ask of Samuel,
what did the Lord tell you? And he said, I'm going to tell
you. I'm going to tell you. He said, Eli, you ain't going to like it. But God
said, He's going to kill your boys. They're rebels, and they dishonored
me. They haven't honored me. They
dishonored their office, and he said, I'm going to kill both
of them. You know what Eli said? That ain't fair. There ain't nothing right about
you killing my children. I'll dare you after all I've
done for you. Who in the world do you think
you are going to come and take one of my children? No, you know
what Eli said? He said, it is the Lord. Let
him do what seemeth good. And that's the thing about it.
Everything God does is good. And I tell you, we'll bow by
His grace to His will and acknowledge that He's not given us half of
what we deserve. I mean, beloved, we'll... I haven't... He hasn't given me half of what
I deserve. If He gave me what I deserved, it would be awful
the condition I'd be in. If He gave me what I deserved... And I tell you, true recognition
of God's sovereignty will cause us to own God's perfect right
to do with us as He will. Lord, you're the potter and we're
the clay. And many times in my life, and
I'm sure you have in yours, that you said, Lord, please break
me and start all over. Put me down and raise me back
up again. But please don't leave me like
I am. Just crush me and put me back together. Because I understand
that I have so much flesh in me. But I do know that He has
the right. If our hearts are bleeding, And our hearts are aching and
our minds are reeling, we'll say, shall not the judge of all
the earth do right? Huh? We may struggle, struggle with it, but he'll speak
peace. And with a tear in our eye, we'll
go and say, Lord, thy will be done in heaven, on the earth,
even as it is in heaven. And I tell you, we make no plans,
and we always say, if it's God's will, we'll do this, that, or
the other. We'll go here, go someplace else.
And the end of my notes and letters, I put D.V. Dio volenti, God willing. Dio volition, God willing. You
see, it's to the Lord's will we bow. You see, He chooses our
circumstances. He does. He does. We don't choose Him. He does.
And, oh, God, how tired I... We really need to learn this
lesson. When we think we've learned a little something, we have to
learn over and over and over again. Lord, Your will be done. Your will be done. We'll bow
to it. We'll submit to it. We'll try
not to murmur against it. We'll try not to struggle. We'll
try not to charge you with anything, but what's right, good, just,
and holy, and true. Some through the water, some
through the flood, some through the fire, but all through the
blood, God leads His dear children along. And I'll tell you what
else an attitude we have. Our Lord said, I thank thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hid these
from the wise and fruited, because it seemed good in your sight.
It's deep, deep thankfulness and joy. Oh, how thankful, how
thankful to know who God is. How thankful the joy it produces.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that's within me. You see,
it's not just giving in. It's not being stoic. No, no,
it's not that. It's not just giving in, and
I can't do anything anyway. It's not a solid recognition,
you know, just gritting your teeth and getting through it.
Keeping a stiff upper limb. Making the best out of a bad
job, or making the best out of a worse situation. One of the
favorite things that this world says, you know, if God gives
you lemons, make lemonade. You know, God don't give us lemons. He gives us heartaches and troubles
and sorrows, and this flesh causes a lot of them. But we're not
just biting our lips and saying, oh, well, we just have to take
it. There's nothing else we can do. Oh, we can submit to the
Lord, and we can do it with joy, and we can do it with thanksgiving.
Look in Ephesians 5.20, just a minute. Let me show you what
I'm talking about. Oh, to submit to the Lord. to be truly, truly
thankful, truly thankful, thankful for the day. I tell you what I've got in my
later years, and as I've got a little older, I have got to
where I'm so thankful for a good night's sleep, to be able to
sleep a whole night through. I'm thankful for that. Boy, to
be able to sleep and not wake up two or three times through
the night, just to have a good night's sleep. To have a day when you get to
the end of it. It's been a good day. Say, Oh
Lord, thank you. We've had a wonderful day today.
And then if it ain't been so good, you can still get to the
end of it and say, Lord, thank you for the day you gave me.
We really can do that. Deep thankfulness, deep joy.
Look what he said here in Ephesians 5.20, giving thanks always for all
things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Giving thanks how often? Always. For what? Everything. All things. But I can't thank the Lord for
that. Oh, yes, you can. Yes, you can. You really can. And all this, this is the kind
of things that puts our hearts to the test. You know, when things
go well, we're really, really grateful. But, oh, when things
go against us, when our plans are tore all to pieces and our
desires are just cast asunder, when we've had plans for the
future and the future May not even have one. But I tell you what, our heart,
our God's blessed grace will find no real rest till we learn
to see the hand of God in everything. Till we absolutely learn to see
the hand of God in everything. God's hand in everything. God's
in everything. Henry sent us, and George gave
us a poem the other day, and Henry sent it to us again. Wish
I'd have brought it with me and read it to you. It's been good
right now. But it says, you know, that it's got three little lines
in it, and the last verse says that there is a reason. And then
there is a reason. And then the last line of the
last verse says, for God is the reason. I'll bring that and read
it to you for you to know. God is the reason. You see, our
Lord left us example in all these things. In godly fear, He said
He heard. Because of His tears, He was
heard for His much weeping. He says, My need is to do the
will of Him that sent me and finish the work that He gave
me to do. And in obedience, He said, I do always those things
which please my Father. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. No man takes it from me. I have the power to lay it
down, I have the power to take it up again. This commandment
have I received of my Father. So in godly fear, He's our example. In obedience, He's our example.
In absolute resignation to the Father's will, when He got in
Gethsemane, got in Gethsemane and prayed till His sweat became,
as it were, great drops of blood. And He says, Father, if there
be any other way, Take this cup from Me, but nevertheless, not
My will, but Thine be done." And oh, in faithfulness and joy,
I just read it to you there in Matthew 11, 25. He says, Father,
I thank You. I thank You. I thank you for your sovereignty. I thank you for your right to
do what you will. I thank you for the way you make
a distinction in men. I thank you that you do what
you do in this world. I thank you that you do this."
And look in Luke 10.21. Let me show you this, what he
said in Luke 10.21. So he's an example for us in
truth. faithfulness and joy. In Luke
10.21, in that hour, Jesus rejoiced
in spirit. You hear that? Over there He
said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. And
in this time, it said, in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in spirit
and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes. For even so, Father, it seemed
good in your sight." It seemed good to you. Oh, that's
all I need to know. That's all I need to know. And
then last of all, last of all, our attitude toward God's sovereignty.
I believe it'll be an adoring worship. I believe it'll be true,
true worship. You see, true worship's based
upon recognized greatness. You know, you can only worship
someone greater and more glorious. You've got to understand, somebody's
got to be much, much greater. And you recognize the greatness.
And nobody's more greater and has greater, more greatness and
superlatively seen in God's absolute sovereignty. And men, I know
this, men will never really worship but before a sovereign God. They won't worship before anybody
else. They won't worship before God that they got power over
His will. They won't worship a God who
is equal with them. They won't worship a God who
can't do anything with them. But when you see God high and
lifted up in His glory, you'll really, really worship Him. I
believe it was John Calvin, I think I said this before, that John
Calvin said when you begin to contemplate God, and you begin
to think about God, and then you get lost in the contemplation
of it, and until you're just lost in the wonder of who God
is, he said that's the truest worship you'll ever know. When
you begin to think about Him, and to contemplate Him, And all
of his character and his goodness, and many of you have done this
over the years. You've thought about God, and as you've thought
about it, you just get lost, and you just get, you can't get
to the end of who he is. And in your heart, just, oh,
that's the purest worship that's ever done. You see, the Seraphim
spelled their faces in his presence. And, oh, beloved, let me tell
you something in closing. God's sovereignty is not the
rule of a tyrant, no, but of an infinitely wise and good sovereign. Oh, my. See, God is infinitely
wise. Everything He does is based on
His wisdom. He cannot possibly do anything
wrong or make a mistake because He's infinitely wise. And secondly,
He's infinitely righteous, and since He's infinitely righteous,
He will not and cannot do wrong. Everything He does is based on
His righteousness. And here's the preciousness of
God's sovereignty, not just the fact that His will is irresistible
and irreversible, which causes us to fear. But here's what I
love about it, that God only wills that which is good. And that's what I can rejoice
in. God ever willed anything bad for you? Has He ever willed
anything wrong for you? God only wills that which is
good. I can rejoice in that, can't
you? I thank Thee, O Father. Lord of heaven and earth. You
hid these things. You hid them. You say, I don't
understand why that fellow can't see that. Targeted? The past revealed. Revealed. Undebattled. For even so, It seemed good in
your sight. Our blessed Savior, glorious,
glorious God in heaven, high and lifted up, there You are
in Your glory, there You are in Your majesty, There you are,
where the heaven of heavens can't contain you, your throne set
in between the seraphims. There you are, where that holy
altar is in glory, where your blessed Son took His own blood
and put it there before you. And there you are, our Lord Jesus,
sitting there at the Father's right hand, with all power and
glory vested in you. And Lord, every age that comes
from that throne, every day that comes from it,
every moment, every hour that you give us from that blessed
throne, it's a good one, it's a right one, it's a just one,
it's a true one. And Lord, we never want to find
ourselves you will. Oh, Lord, never want
to find ourselves doing that. Never want to find ourselves
murmuring against you. Never want to find ourselves
with a resistance even, a rising up
in rebellion in any way. So, Lord, take us in It's in people's hearts, I know
it's in you people's hearts to love you and serve you and honor
you, to call on you in reverence,
walk upright before you, and to take your will and do
it with thankfulness and joy. So Lord, we ask that you would
teach us these things. Make us those vessels of gold
and vessels of silver in that great house. Thank you for this day you've
given us, this day of worship, this day of meeting with the
saints of God. Lord, you're so gracious and
you're so good. Oh, how kind you've been to us. How forgiving. how patient, how
long-suffering. So, Lord, receive our prayers,
receive our worship, receive our offerings that we
offer in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.