Posts Tagged ‘God is sovereign’

Thousands of unguessable ways God rescues

Posted: May 13, 2013 by Pam Larson in 1 Samuel, Devotionals/Commentaries, May
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The reading for today, 1 Samuel 29-31, brings us to the end of this book.  Bob Deffinbaugh offers this encouraging commentary at Bible.org-

God’s sovereignty is so apparent in the rescue of David and his men from military service, service to the Philistines and against Israel. God uses David and even his sin to achieve His ultimate purposes. God does not cause David to sin, nor is this sin excused. But in the end, God’s sovereignty (absolute control) is so great that He can even employ the disobedience and sins of men to further His own purposes. He used the sinful betrayal of Joseph by his brothers to save the nation Israel. So God uses sinful men in our text. He used David, as we have seen. He uses the naivet of a king like Achish and the foresight and practical wisdom of the four Philistine commanders. He will even use the Amalekite attack for a good purpose. I love what Davis says about God’s use of His enemies:

“We see it again. What instruments does Yahweh use to rescue his servant from his dilemma? The commanding officers of the Philistine army. It was not the first time Yahweh had turned enemies into saviors (see 23:19-28). Philistines make such unwitting but effective servants! Who has ever been his counselor?! (Cf. Isa. 40:13-14).”158

“What our text does teach is that even in our folly and fainting fits, we are still no match for our God, who has thousands of unguessable ways by which he rescues his people – even by the mouths of Philistines. He can make the enemy serve us as a friend. He not only prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies but also has the knack of making the enemies prepare the table!”159

I think we sometimes unthinkingly assume God is a saving God only at the cross of Calvary. The fact is that God has been and still is a saving God. He has been saving men from the beginning of history. God is a rescuer. He rescued Noah and his family from the flood (Genesis 6-9). He rescued Abram from Egypt and from the hand of Abimelech in Gerar (Genesis 13, 20). He rescued Lot and his daughters from Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). He rescued Jacob and his family from extinction as a separate nation (Genesis 37ff.). He rescued the Israelites from Pharaoh, and from the evil hand of many other kings and nations. He constantly rescued the Israelites from their surrounding enemies during the days of the judges. If God needed practice in saving men (which He most certainly does not!), He would be very good at it by now.

But all of these earlier deliverances do not hold a candle to the great and final act of deliverance that He brought about for men in the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He died for our sins, bearing our punishment. He not only takes our sins upon Himself, He offers His righteousness to us so that we may have eternal life and dwell with Him for all eternity. And God accomplished this through the sinful betrayal of Judas, the jealousy and scheming of the Jewish religious leaders, the cooperation of Gentile Roman rulers (who sought to be politically correct), and the passivity (and even participation) of the people. This He did so that sinful men might be forgiven for their sins and receive the righteousness which God offers to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

To read the rest of the commentary, click here:

God means what He says and does

Posted: May 11, 2013 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, May, Psalms
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Have you ever read Psalm 105 and counted how many times either God says, “I DID___” or how many times the Psalmist says, “HE (God) DID ______”   Try it today!

_joseph_brothers_Here is one example from Psalm 105:16-17  When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread,  he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.

Indeed, even Joseph proclaims to his brothers in Genesis 50:20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

C.H. Spurgeon, in the Treasury of David comments:

He sent a man before them, even Joseph. He was the advance guard and pioneer for the whole clan. His brethren sold him, but God sent him. Where the hand of the wicked is visible God’s hand may be invisibly at work, overruling their malice. No one was more of a man, or more fit to lead the van than Joseph: an interpreter of dreams was wanted, and his brethren had said of him, “Behold, this dreamer cometh.” Who was sold for a servant, or rather for a slave. Joseph’s journey into Egypt was not so costly as Jonah’s voyage when he paid his own fare: his free passage was provided by the Midianites, who also secured his introduction to a great officer of state by handing him over as a Slave. His way to a position in which he could feed his family lay through the pit, the slaver’s caravan, the slave market and the prison, and who shall deny but what it was the right way, the surest way, the wisest way, and perhaps the shortest way. Yet assuredly it seemed not so.

  • Were we to send a man on such an errand we should furnish him with money—Joseph goes as a pauper;
  • we should clothe him with authority—Joseph goes as a slave;
  • we should leave him at full liberty—Joseph is a bondman:

yet money would have been of little use when corn was so dear, authority would have been irritating rather than influential with Pharaoh, and freedom might not have thrown Joseph into connection with Pharaoh’s captain and his other servants, and so the knowledge of his skill in interpretation might not have reached the monarch’s ear. God’s way is the way. Our Lord’s path to his mediatorial throne ran by the cross of Calvary; our road to glory runs by the rivers of grief.

All things are ordered according to his eternal purposes

Posted: April 24, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Psalms
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The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;

the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.

Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

Your throne is established from of old;

you are from everlasting. Psalm 93:1-4

C. H. Spurgeon on Psalm 93 (Treasury of David):

Whatever opposition may arise, his throne is unmoved; he has reigned, does reign, and will reign for ever and ever. Whatever turmoil and rebellion there may be beneath the clouds, the eternal King sits above all in supreme serenity; and everywhere he is really Master, let his foes rage as they may. All things are ordered according to his eternal purposes, and his will is done.

God is sovereign over the lots

Posted: April 8, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Joshua
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In Joshua 18-19 we read that Joshua called together the people of Israel to divide up the land, the land that “lay subdued before them.” What method did Joshua use?  He cast lots.  Rolled the dice. Really? Yes.

“Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord. And there Joshua apportioned the land to the people of Israel, to each his portion.” (Joshua 18:10)

“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.“ Proverbs 16:33

God is sovereign over the lots and over the dice. Every decision is from the Lord.  Every decision. No exceptions.

How do we discern God’s will?

Posted: February 12, 2013 by Pam Larson in Acts, Devotionals/Commentaries, February
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    When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”    And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.” —Acts 21:12-14 ESV

Pastor Steven Cole discusses discerning God’s will, based on Acts 21:1-12, our passage for today’s Bible reading plan.  Here is an excerpt from “Discerning the Will of God”

But, then, how do we discern God’s will? The bad news (or good news, depending on how you look at it) is that there is no simple, mechanical formula in Scripture for discerning God’s will in specific situations. If there were, we would probably just apply the formula without seeking God Himself. So the good news side of it is that God primarily guides us through our relationship with Him, as we grow to understand His Word and learn to walk daily by His Holy Spirit. But since even the best of us (including Paul) are fallen sinners, it is an imperfect and somewhat uncertain process at best. But even when we miss God’s will due to our dim sight or sin, He is sovereign and gracious to overcome our mistakes.

The uncertainty of this process is revealed in the difference of opinion between godly scholars over whether Paul was right or wrong to go to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit had repeatedly revealed to Paul that he would encounter “bonds and afflictions” if he went there (20:23). Some commentators, such as Donald Barnhouse, Ray Stedman, and James Boice, argue (in light of 21:4) that Paul was either deliberately sinning or making a foolish mistake to continue his journey in light of these warnings. Others (the majority of those that I read) argue that Paul was right and that those who pled with him not to go were wrong. But our text and the history of Paul in Acts reveal some principles on how to discern God’s will:

We should walk so closely with God that we discern His guidance as we live in obedience to His Word, in dependence on His Holy Spirit.

With that as a brief summary, I want to work through seven principles for discerning God’s will, some of which are in our text, and others which come from Paul’s walk with God.

To continue reading, click here to go to the entire sermon in pdf form:

WHO made man’s mouth?

Posted: February 3, 2013 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Exodus, February
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“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” Exodus 4:11

John Piper, in a sermon, “Who Made Man’s Mouth?” from Exodus 4:

The first thing this verse means is this: Moses, the God you have been talking to, who has made you all these promises of success, who wills to grant you a share in his glorious deliverance—this God is the creator of the world, the inventor of the human body, mind, and emotions. He thought it all up out of nothing and designed it. But that’s not all. The most amazing, the most devastating, the most reassuring thing comes next: not only did God create the first man, but he also goes on creating every single person just as he sees fit—whether dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind.

The Bible always holds two things together that some theologians have tried to separate: God’s act of creation and his activity of sovereign providence, his initiation of the world and his superintendence of its on-going events. You may have heard the word “Deism.” That was a view popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, in which God created the universe, endowed it with changeless laws, and then withdrew, like an absentee landlord, to let the world run its own course. So if you trip over the box hockey game in the laundry room like I did Friday, you don’t concern yourself looking for God’s sovereign purposes in it. You just get mad at whoever left it there.

But you can’t read the Bible long with an open mind and keep that view. God is the creator. He made man’s mouth, and God’s providence rules over all things. Ultimately, it is he who makes a man dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind. One day Jesus’ disciples asked him in John 9, “‘Rabbi, who sinned . . . that this man was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be manifest in him.’” God always has a purpose for every event, whether we can see it or not. “Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”

Here was God’s last argument to Moses’ last excuse: “If it is not enough to hear me say, ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ and to see a bush burn and not be consumed; if it is not enough to hear me say, ‘I will be with you’; if it is not enough to know me as ‘I am who I am,’ and to hear me say, ‘I will bring you up out of affliction’; if it is not enough to see me turn a rod into a snake and make a hand leprous and clean; then listen to this, Moses. I made and I control everything. Now, go! And I will be with your mouth and teach you in the moment what you shall speak. No rehearsals, Moses; just the promise. And remember who it is who gives the promise!”

To listen to or read the remainder of this sermon, click here:

Joseph’s story: God’s plan, providence and purposes

Posted: January 21, 2013 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Genesis, January
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Sin.  Betrayal.  Evil.  Joseph’s brothers’ evil intentions to kill him shaped his life forever. The consequences from their actions are part of his history.  Joseph doesn’t excuse their behavior or act as if it never happened. BUT he sees God’s hand in his brothers’ treachery. He believes that God was working His purpose out through their sinful deeds.  Joseph states 3 times that GOD sent him to Egypt:

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

This is an example of the mystery of divine providence.  God is working his purposes out in spite of our resistance to His will.  Incredibly, he actually uses our resistance to accomplish his good purposes.  Mind-blowing,isn’t it?! And the greatest evil was done to Jesus.  Acts 4:27-28 states:

for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,  to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

God’s sovereign plan.  Herod and Pilate responsible, along with the people.  Greatest evil imaginable, yet it was God’s plan and purpose.

The grace of God in spreading the good news through persecution

Posted: January 20, 2013 by Pam Larson in Acts, Devotionals/Commentaries, January
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The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose,
(Acts 11:22-23 ESV)

John Piper preached a sermon, “He Saw the Grace of God and Was Glad,” from Acts 11:23. You can read or listen to the entire sermon at DesiringGod.org

The Grace of God Uses Suffering

In other words, the good news about Jesus Christ came to Antioch because of persecution. Barnabas saw this and called it the grace of God, and it made him glad. God’s grace becomes visible when it makes the anguish of persecution a means of spreading the good news of Jesus.

If anything is clear from the Bible it is this: the grace of God does not spare his people suffering in this age, but rather uses suffering to bring people to himself. The Son of God himself suffered to save people from condemnation. And now he turns suffering again and again for our good both in this age and in the age to come.

God’s Grace Among Koreans in the 1930s

God has been showing his grace in our own time the same way he did in Acts. For example, in the 1930s thousands of Koreans fled what is now North Korea when the Japanese invaded. Many of them settled in the USSR around Vlapostok. Many of them were Christians and so by the suffering of the Koreans the gospel of Jesus was being carried into central USSR. But the grace of God was just beginning to be visible.

Joseph Stalin saw the Koreans around Vlapostok as a security risk to the weapons manufacturing center. So he relocated them to five areas around the Soviet Union, spreading the Christians even farther into the Muslim areas of the USSR (just like the persecuted Christians that went to Antioch).

One of the places they were sent was to Tashkent the center of the 20,000,000 Muslim Uzbek people who had violently resisted western efforts to bring Christianity. Over the next decades these Koreans became an accepted part of Uzbek society. Then, with Glasnost and Perestroika, on June 2, 1990, the first open air Christian meeting in the history of Soviet Central Asia happened. God used this meeting to awaken the Korean Christians especially, and the upshot was that the decades of acceptance by the Muslim Uzbeks and Kazaks has allowed the spread of good news about Jesus far more widely than it could have with merely western influence.

In other words, the grace of God was at work in all this. God hasn’t changed. This is the same grace of God that used persecution to get good news from Jerusalem Jews to Antioch Gentiles.

Mathis: More than the magi knew

Posted: January 3, 2013 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, January, Matthew
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David Mathis, Executive Editor at Desiring God,  wrote at Desiring God, and preached a sermon with the title, “We Three Kings of Orient Aren’t”  that speaks directly to our text from Matthew 2:1-12 today:

When the magi came to Jerusalem asking, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?”, little did they know that they were asking for the very title that will be written above his head as he hung on the cross dying for sins not his own: “the king of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37). This true king of the Jews is not the usurping king, like Herod, abusing power, acting impulsively, employing deceit to bolster his crushing grip on the throats of his subjects. Rather, this king of the Jews is the one true king, the one who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28), the one who doesn’t merely demand our homage but wins it in his shocking self-giving on our behalf—all the way to death, even death on a cross. He is the king who demonstrates his love for his people in that while they are still sinners—while we are still stargazing in our astrology and wizardry—he dies for us (Romans 5:8).

This gospel—that the baby in the manger was born to die to save sinners like us—is not just icing on the cake for our worship; it is the very substance of the cake. That Jesus died for sinners, that this Lamb was slain for us, heightens, deepens, increases, and accentuates our worship, and is at the center of God’s revealing to us who he is and who is this Jesus that we worship.

This side of the cross we know more than the magi knew. Not only would this God graciously draw them and amazingly permit them to come near to his Son, but he would provide eternal salvation for astrologer-sinners like them, and like us, through the willing death of that very baby they came to honor, the one who will be the focus of our worship forever, as we rejoice exceedingly with great joy.

On a leash

Posted: December 16, 2012 by Pam Larson in December, Devotionals/Commentaries, Revelation
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   And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. —Revelation 13:5-8 ESV

Notice here in Revelation that the beast had authority given to it.  (We also read in John 19 today that Pilate’s power and authority was given to him by God, and Jesus submitted meekly.) It was allowed to do certain things.  This beast is on a leash, and God hold the leash.

leashSatan has been on a leash.  We’ve seen this as we’ve been reading through Job the last two months.

Satan is still on a leash. We’ve seen this in the tragic events in Newtown, CT this week. Unspeakable horror. Tremendous grief. Yet, God is still on His throne and Satan is on a leash. In times like this, people question, “Where is God?” John Piper preached a sermon on the anniversary of 9/11 in 2005, “Where is God? The Supremacy of Christ in an Age of Terror” that is very helpful if you are struggling to come to grips with the sovereignty of God and suffering.  In this sermon, Piper asks,

So we ask: Why, Lord? Why is the world you made like this? If you are God—if you are the Christ the Son of the living God—why is this world so full of terror and trouble?

Here is what I believe the Bible teaches in answer to this question. I will give two answers that are not the reason such a world exists, and then four answers that are the reasons such world exists. I deal with each very briefly and point you to the Scriptures where you can search God’s word for yourself.

Listen or download this sermon

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