Well, I want to also say thank
you to all y'all for allowing us to be among you. It's been
such a joy. The fellowship has been so sweet.
Thank you for all your hospitality and true have the Lord I think
has been blessing us this weekend. So it's good to be with you. Have you ever heard anybody ask
the question, why do y'all heart so much about sovereignty? I'm
going to talk pretty long with I get people ask that all time.
You know, you guys just talk about sovereignty, sovereignty,
sovereignty. Is there anything else that you
can talk about? Whenever I was in the, uh, Coming out of the Southern Baptist,
I grew up Southern Baptist, and as I came out of the Southern
Baptist, I was an associate pastor at the church that I was in,
and my grandfather was the only pastor
that I ever knew. And they said, you know, I have
some of the things you're saying, some things your grandpa saying,
kind of two different directions. You ever thought about the health
of the church being pulled apart, you know, because these things
and I said, well, no, I really hadn't thought much about that
other than I just hoping to share the truth and that the Lord gives
somebody to believe it. And, uh, They came and they said, well,
you know, we'd really like you to continue to be our associate
pastor and preach and teach. We kind of like what you're doing
here. But they said, is there any way that you can not preach
about those things like that? And I said, well, what particular
things? And they said, well, about, you
know, sovereignty and election and predestination. I said, no,
I don't think I can. I said, matter of fact, God's
sovereignty pervades anything that I've taught. I mean, if
you want to talk about, you know, the home, if you want to talk
about any, whatever you want to talk about in scripture, God's
sovereignty is going to be going through everybody. So I said,
I just don't think I can do that. And they said, well, you might
kind of consider that and everything. Of course, I went home and sucked
the Lord in and everything ended up stepping down from any leadership
there and continued to go there for a little while until the
Lord opened up the opportunity for me to go to Joplin. But the
question was always about sovereignty. Why are professing Christians
so problemed with God's sovereignty? And that question had been on
my mind for a long time. I was reading some passages over
in Exodus and I actually found something that, unless the Lord
gives us an understanding of it, sovereignty is the issue. It's
the issue. Do you believe that God is God
or do you not? Do you have a God that you fashioned
in your own making? Or do you have the God that's
revealed in here? In Exodus chapter three, Moses come across this bush that
was burning, but not being consumed. And there was a voice that came
out of this bush and it began to speak to him. And it was telling
him he's going to have him go do some stuff. And, you know,
I don't know, the Bible doesn't say necessarily, but if I was
Moses, I'm sure I would have had to kind of check myself because
I might have missed myself coming up on a bush burning and not
consumed and all of a sudden talking to me and now he's going
to tell me what I need to go do. I might have thought I might
have got into some plant out there that I shouldn't have ate
that's causing me to go a little cuckoo. But Moses, he came up
and after hearing these things, He says in verse 13, he says,
and Moses said unto God, behold, when I come unto the children
of Israel, and shall say unto them. Now brother, let me just
stop right here before I go any further. A lot of times I've
mentioned to our folks at church, the Old Testament is about Jesus. That's about as simple as I can
make it. The Old Testament, while it is
full of historical record, and I'm glad it's there, but we,
if the Lord would grant us and give us to understand, we need
to move beyond the physical and see what the spiritual is in
all of that. While these people are running
around doing all their things that God has ordained for them
to do in all the historical activity that was going on and all like
that. All of this is written for our understanding. And it's
not for our understanding of what historically is going on
necessarily, but our understanding more of Christ Jesus, our understanding
of him, our understanding of our God. And so whenever we are
reading these things and I'm looking at this about Moses saying,
whenever I come into the children of Israel and wanting to know,
what am I supposed to tell them? Who am I supposed to tell them
is telling me all this stuff. And if I'm looking beyond the
physical happenings here with Moses and I'm looking about what
we're, what are we doing here today? Coming to the spiritual
children of Israel coming and saying what about our God? What about him? You know, what
are we saying about our God? Does it matter what we say about
our God? Can we just come up with whatever we want and just
kind of paint it? I mean, one of the brothers mentioned
about all these creatures on TV. You turn on that, and whenever
I hear all the stuff they're saying about God, it's something
different than what I read. But Moses said, whenever I come
unto the children of Israel and shall say to them, the God of
your fathers has sent me unto you and they shall say to me,
what is his name? What shall I say to them? I often ask that every time I
get up in the stand, you know, what shall I say to them? Lord,
what do you want me to say? You have to be my words. If not, it's just going to be
a bunch of junk. The man's wisdom is concocted. And God said unto Moses, I am
that I am. And he said, thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. That's
kind of odd. Mike, if I came to you and I
said, hey, what's your name? And you say, I am that I am.
Well, what's your name? You know, You know, most people
would say, well, my name is Michael Smith, John Napier, you know,
that's kind of odd that most of what, what, what, what, who
did I tell them this is? And God said, I am that I am.
That was kind of odd. The word I am that he told to
Moses, is a word that I believe encapsulates who God is. I am means I am self-existent. It means nobody made me, nobody
created me, no one brought me forth. I have always been. I'm self-existent. Nobody has
made me God. Nobody has elevated me to God. Nobody has made me their Lord. I am self-existent. That word
also means, and being self-existent means I have no needs outside
of myself. I don't need anything. How many
times have you ever heard anybody say that God created us because
he needed somebody to love? Or God created us because he
needed to do this or needed to do that or whatever. I heard
that, you know, of course growing up and I used to preach this
as well, you know, God give us free will because he wanted a
reciprocal relationship with us so that would give us free
will so we could freely do this and not by court. God doesn't
need anything. The fact that I am means that
I am. I am what I am. Nobody makes
me what I am. Nobody has made me sovereign.
I am sovereign. Nobody made me the king. I am
the king. Nobody made me loving. I am loving. Nobody made me compassionate.
I'm compassionate. No one made me merciful. I'm
merciful. No one made me wrathful. I'm
wrathful. No one made me almighty. I'm almighty. He is who He is. That's what that name means.
It means that He is self-existent. He said, I am that I am. And tell the children of Israel,
I am hath sent me. That word I am also brings to
mind the fact that God is uncontrolled. Nobody controls God. I am. Does anybody control? You know,
I do what I want to do. I am who I am. Nobody changes
me. Nobody has influenced me. In any way, nobody has influenced
me. Doesn't the Bible say that God takes counsel from nobody?
Nothing influences me. I am who I am. I am uncontrolled. Nobody controls me. And I find
a connotation in that word, I am. I also find the connotation that
I do as I please. And doesn't He reveal that about
Himself in the Scriptures? That He does as He pleases. So
that means there's no outside influence. There's nothing pressuring
Him, moving Him, influencing, coercing Him. Nothing is above
Him. Nothing beside Him. Co-equal
with Him. He is God. There's one God. And He is the only God. There
are none other. And this God is the self-existent
one. That's who he said to Moses that
he was. And he said, this is who I am.
Go tell the children of Israel that I am have sent me to you. But let's look a little bit further
about this name. Look at Exodus chapter six. I think God opens
this up a little bit more here in Exodus chapter 6. And look
with me at verse 2. It says, And God spake unto Moses
and said unto him, and here's this phrase, I am the Lord. Now if you'll notice in your
English Bibles there, especially if you have the King James Bible,
you'll notice that that word is in all capital letters. That
word, all in capital letters, if you, if you, you may know
this guy's in there, if so, just bear with me. The word in capital
letters refers to God as Jehovah. It's, it's his, it's his name.
The root of this word, this Hebrew word here behind this, is actually
the same word as I am. Whenever you look at that passage
that we just read that says I am, the root word behind that is
the same root word as this. It's haya, it's I am and Jehovah
are the same thing. And he says here, say unto him
and said unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. So up until this point, God had
never revealed the fact that he is the self-existent one who
is uncontrolled, who does as he pleases. But he had revealed
himself as the Almighty. He tells Moses, but by my, he
said, I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, unto Jacob by the
name of God Almighty, but by my name, and here's the word
again, Jehovah, which is the same as Lord, it's the same as
I am, I am not ours, was I not known unto them. So I hadn't
revealed this about myself until now. Now let's think about this
word Almighty. We know that the word Almighty
means to have all power. He has absolutely all power. So now God has opened up to Moses,
and he has said, not only am I the self-existing one, but
I'm the self-existing one that's uncontrolled, and the one who
does as he pleases, and I have all power. To everyone else,
they knew that he had all power. But now he says, I have all power. And whenever we kind of look
at that and put that together, what does that tell us? It tells
us the difference between being the almighty, which he is, and
being sovereign. Because the word sovereign encapsulates
all of that in the fact that not only does he have all power,
but now we are told he has all right. to use his power however he wants. To be sovereign means that you
have the right to exercise your power any way you want to. And
so God now has fully revealed himself to Moses in the aspect
of what it means to be I am is to be all powerful and to be
able to do with that power whatever I want to do. And he showed that
to Moses by using Pharaoh as his tool, by using the people
of Israel and the people of Egypt as his tool to reveal their whole
entire 400 years that they were in Egypt. And then they came
out, how they got to Egypt, and then how they came out of all
of that life stuff that happened, right? But all of that was a
picture. of our beautiful salvation in
Christ Jesus. And here God has revealed himself
as the self-existent one who has all power and the ability
to control and do with that power whatever he wants to do. Look
over to Exodus chapter 33 if you would. Exodus 33. I think this kind of reveals
a little bit more about it. He says, and he said, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. So now Moses
is wanting to see God's glory. And he said, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name
of the, and here's that word again, Lord. He said, show me
thy glory, But he said, I'm going to proclaim my name. Now, he
did eventually go and put Moses in the cleft of the rock and
covered him with his hand and let his backside go in front
of him and everything. But before he did that, before
he did any of that, he said, I'm going to reveal some more
about my name. I'm gonna expose a little bit more about my name. Matter of fact, if you think
about it, the word name itself, just using that phraseology,
the name, it means authority. You know, we use the phrase in
our vernacular, you know, stopping the name of the law, right? Well, what does that mean? Under
the authority of the law, you need to stop what you're doing,
you know, put your hands up, whatever. It's saying I've come
in the name of the law. I come in the authority of the
law. And so whenever we talk about
name, we talk about God's authority. And he says here, I will proclaim
the name of the Lord to you. And look what he says. And I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. And I will show mercy on whom
I will show mercy. So we see the glory of God is
found in his name. The name displays his authority
and his power. If you take that and you couple
that with the fact that he revealed himself as I am, I am the self-existent
one that is uncontrolled and that I do as I please, now we
see why he says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.
Why? Because I have sovereign power to do anything that I want
to do. And if I want to exert power
to show mercy and grace upon a child that I have chosen before
the foundation of the world, the very fact that he can choose
before the foundation of the world, This is all wrapped up
in His name. And that's His glory. That's His glory. Look back at Exodus 3.15 again. I want to show something here,
if the Lord will help me. In verse 15 of chapter 3, he
says, And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto
the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, hath sent me
unto you. This is my name forever. So he's reiterating the fact,
this name that I've revealed to you, this is my name forever.
It's not just an Old Testament name. It's not going to be just
a New Testament name. This is my name forever. But look what he says here. And
this is my memorial unto all generations. This is what I want
to be memorialized as. This name is what I want to be
remembered as. To be known as. To be told about
in all generations. So here we see, if I'm not mistaken,
God wants every generation to know this about Him. The memorial
they said, not necessarily that God is love, although He is love.
He's compassion. He's mercy. He's just. He's holy. He's righteous. But here He says, the memorial
that I want to be told to every generation is that I am that
I am. I am uncontrolled, I am self-existent,
I do as I please, and I can take my power that I have as the Almighty
and exercise it in any way that I want to exercise it. I can
exert my God-headness, if you'll allow me that, oaky phrase, exert
that God-head in any way that I see fit. And that's my memorial
to all generations, that's how I want to be known. in every
generation. This is what I want you to tell
your children, and your children's children, and their children
after that, and everybody else that comes down the pike. And
preachers, that's what we should be telling our congregations.
How sad it breaks my heart to see all the churches, professed
churches around us, and the men get up and they lie on God. They
lie on Jesus. They lie on salvation. They lie
to their people. They give them a false hope that
they can do something of their own, that by their choice or
because they've made a choice or a decision or filled out a
card or went through some water or joined up in the church, something
has caused them to be a child of God all of a sudden, but that
thing can go away easily. They can change their mind, go
away. It's just amazing. In Genesis chapter 18, And verse 14, the Bible says,
is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed,
I will return unto thee, and according to the time of life,
and Sarah shall have a son. God caused life to be in a barren
womb. But the question here that God
asked is, is there anything too hard for the Lord? Is there anything
too hard for the Lord? No, why? Because he's I am. Because
he has all power. He has all authority. He can do whatever he wants to
do. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. Look,
if you would, Job, we was reading there last night in Job 42. Bear with me, brother. I'm not a fast turner
sometimes. In Job chapter 42, in verses
1 and 2, it says, Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that
thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholding
from thee. It's not just what God says,
and it's not just what God shows that He does, but whatever God
thinks. Whatever comes into God's mind,
It comes in there because that's His pleasure, that's His will,
that's His desire, and He can do all of His pleasure, right?
In Isaiah chapter 14, we find something else about God as it
pertains to His sovereignty. Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 24, The Lord of hosts has sworn,
saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and
as I have purposed, so shall it stand." God doing what He
wants. Nothing can stop Him. Look through
it, verse 29. Or excuse me, verse 27. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed,
and who shall disannul it? I can't change God's mind. People
think they can change God's mind all the time. I can't change
God's mind. It says, and his hand is stretched
out, and who shall turn it back? When God puts his hand to do
something, ain't nobody gonna stop it. Ain't nobody gonna change
it. Look over in chapter 40 of Isaiah. Who hath measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span,
and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath
directed the Spirit of the Lord?" Man, we think we can control
the Spirit. Man, them Pentecostals and Charismatics think they can
just... Man, they got control. They got
the Holy Spirit on a leash, don't they? who hath directed the spirit
of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him. With whom took
he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path
of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way, understanding. Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket, and are counted as a small dust of the balance.
Behold, he taketh up the aisles of a very little thing, And Lebanon
is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient
for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as
nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing in vanity. To whom then will ye liken God?
Well, I can tell you what, after reading all these things, nobody
else can do this, and so that means I can't liken him to anybody
else. Or what likeness will ye compare
him? I can't compare him to anybody else because nobody else can
do this. The workman melteth the graven image and the goldsmith
spread it over with gold and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that
he hath no oblation chooses the tree that will not rot. He seeketh
unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that shall
not be moved. Have ye not known? Have ye not
heard? Had it not been told you from
the beginning? Have ye not understood from the
foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers,
that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them
out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing. Boy, everyone thinks that they
can make this government something, don't they? Oh, we're going to
get our government back into track, right? only as the Lord
wills. He raises up princes and he brings
them down, brings up kingdoms, brings them down. Hey, listen,
America's nothing. The Roman Empire, it was a mighty
empire. It was nothing. Yea, they shall not be planted.
Yea, they shall not be sown. Yea, their stock shall not take
root. Them are some hard shallows,
brother Mike. And he shall also blow up on them, and they shall
wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as double. To
whom then will ye like in me, or shall I be equal? Sayeth the
Holy One. In chapter 46. In chapter 46,
look if you would at verse nine. Yes, verse nine. Remember the
former things of old for I am God and there's none else. I
am God and there's none like me declaring the end from the
beginning. But not just that, and from ancient
times the things that are not yet done. saying my counsel shall stand
and I will do all my, I will do all my pleasure. That means the end, the beginning,
everything in between is all his pleasure. He didn't look down the corridor
of time and see what the end was gonna be and then say, okay,
I'm gonna work that to my good pleasure. No. In the beginning,
The end of all this was his pleasure. From the beginning, what came
into his mind, my thoughts, are now being manifested in everything
going to the end. God can't look down the corridor
of time and see anything, therefore he'd be counseled by something,
right? Something would have taught him.
He would have learned something. Nope, the end. The only foreknowledge
that God has is foreknowing what he has already declared. He's
ordained it, he's declared it. That's God's foreknowledge. It's
not some fortune-telling thing looking down the corridor of
time, right? My pleasure shall stand calling
a ravenous bird from the east The man that executed my counsel
from a far country? You mean God predestinates these
events? He predestinates events? I thought it was just eternal
salvation, right? Yea, I have spoken it. What does it say? Who's going
to bring it to pass? Is he going to leave it to chance? You know, I used to hear God
set everything in motion, just let it go. And now he's kind
of like this big goalie, and anytime something starts getting
out of his purpose, boom, he knocks it back into place. You
know, boom, knocking it back into place. He's working everything
out to the counsel of his own will, but he's doing it by any
time somebody messes up, oh, I'm gonna get that, bend it back
into my will. No, no, no, no. If it went askew,
it went askew because he wanted it to go askew. If it started
going south, he wanted it to go south. If he wanted evil and
calamity, it was because he wanted evil and calamity. He says, I will also bring it
to pass. I have purposed it. I will do it. Amen. Does he use people like Satan
and Job? Yes. Yes, he does. But at the
end of the day, I will bring it to pass. I will do all my
pleasure. Look at chapter 55. Bear with me some more. Am I going too long here, brother?
No. Look in chapter 55 in verse 11. So shall my word be that
goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please. How does he know
that? Because he's the almighty, he
has all power. How do we know that? Because he's the I am.
He can do whatever he wants to do. He's self-existent, none
changes him. Nobody can change his mind and
nobody can stop him. It shall accomplish that which
I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent
it. See, that's the key. I used to preach this, and most
Armenians preach this, you know, God's word will not return voided.
Man, if you just get out there and if you'll just preach the
gospel to people, one of these days, and you may not see it
now, but you'll see it later, because God's word don't return
void. They'll come around. That's not what that meant, because
sometimes God's word goes out to hardened hearts. And it will
accomplish what he sent it to do. Isn't that what he told Isaiah? Go preach to these people. I'm
going to make their ears where they can't hear. That's a God that not only has
the right to, but has the power to do. That's what it means to
be sovereign. In Psalm 115, we find this about
God's sovereignty. Psalm 115 in verse three, but
our God is in the heavens. He has done whatsoever he has
pleased. He's not in your back pocket,
doing whatever you want him to do. Somebody said it a while
ago, my grandpa used to use the phrase, somebody said it yesterday,
I think. Santa Claus. A spiritual Santa Claus. He's
not that. In the 135th Psalm, we read, verse six, whatsoever the Lord
please, that did he in heaven and in earth, in the seas and
all the deep places. He causes the vapors to ascend
from the ends of the earth. He maketh lightnings for the
rain. He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. We was talking
about the wind getting the joke stuff there the other day. He
brings the wind out of his treasuries. Verse 13 says, Thy name, O Lord. There's that name again and there's
that word Lord in all capitals. Thy name, O Lord, endureth, how
long? Forever. Forever. Remember we were talking about
this last night, right? Some people think that this is
what it's talking about when it says that word, that endureth
forever. No, he's talking about a person.
Amen. This endures forever because
the person that speaks this word endures forever. Amen. That's
right. Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever,
and here it is, thy memorial, O Lord, throughout all generations. I think that ties back to what
we were reading in Exodus. That memorial to all generations
is what? The name, O Lord, the I am, Jehovah,
I will be who I will be, I will do what I want to do, the self-existent
One, the uncontrolled One, doing as He pleases, controlling all
things, bringing all things to pass that He has declared from
the beginning. That's what He wants His memorial
to all generations to be. I am God and I am doing exactly
what I have purposed to do. But I started this saying that
the whole entire Old Testament is about Jesus. Have we been talking about Jesus? Preacher, I thought you were
talking about Jehovah. Is Jehovah different than Jesus? I think I'm among like minded
brethren. At least I hope I am. Look with
me, if you would, over to 2 Corinthians. Look with me to chapter 4, verse 6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of the darkness, have shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Whenever we talk about Jehovah,
whenever we talk about the Lord all uppercase, whenever we talk
about I am, we are talking about the man, Christ
Jesus. He is the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And the
government shall be on his shoulders. The Almighty God. Not part of the Almighty God. Not just a Almighty God. He is the Almighty God. The Everlasting Father. The Wonderful Counselor. Nobody counsels Him. He's the
one that does the counseling. He is the Almighty God. And in Philippians chapter two
and verse 10, we read, that at the name of Jesus, every
knee shall bow and every tongue confess. God's glory is in his sovereignty. Why do you preach sovereignty?
Because that's the glory of God that we're preaching. Why do
you preach sovereignty? Well, because the Lord told us
to. He told us that He wanted this
to be the memorial to every generation. Why do you preach sovereignty?
Because you can't preach Christ if you don't. You can't preach Jesus Christ
without preaching sovereignty. Because God has invested all
his fullness in the man, Jesus Christ. He is the image of the
invisible God. He is God in flesh. He is Emmanuel, God with us. And so if we want to preach the
glory of God, can't divorce it from Jesus Christ. He is the
image of the invisible God, and when you preach that man, you
preach Christ. And him crucified, you preach
him, and him redeeming all of his people that God, all that
the Father hath given me shall come to me. Why? Because I have
all power. You know, the conditionalists
miss that. All that the Father gives me
shall come to me. Now, I don't know how they are
out here, out in Missouri and Oklahoma. They say that there's
eternal saved people that may never come to hear the name Jesus,
that may never hear the gospel preached, but they're gonna be
in heaven because they've been eternally saved. That scripture,
whenever it says, shall come to me in context, is believed. Christ used it interchangeably
within that passage. And he said, all that the Father
giveth me shall believe on me. They shall come. And they do
that because God is sovereign. And he will give mercy on whom
he will give mercy. He will show compassion on whom
he will show compassion. But I haven't done it in quite
a while. I'll close off on that.