Sovereignty (31)
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God is not at a distance from history, uninvolved and on the periphery, an interested spectator or distant 'first cause;' rather he is governing all things by his providence and wisdom.
People treat God's sovereignty as a matter of controversy, but in Scripture it is a matter of worship.
All the martyrdoms were blessed and noble, and they took place according to the will of God. For it befits those who profess reater piety than others to ascribe to God the authority over all things.Martyrdom of Polycarp, 2
In goodness and sovereignty God permits evil, punishes evil with evil, brings good from evil and redeems from evil.
In answering this question I have tried hard to maintain the free choice of the human will. But the grace of God prevailed. Augustine: earlier writings, Volume 1953, Part 2 (Page 370)
But, during all those years, where was my free will? What was the hidden, secret place from which it was summoned in a moment, so that I might bend my neck to your easy yoke and take your light burden on my shoulders, Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer? How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose and was now glad to reject! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honour though not in the eyes of men who see all honour in themselves. At last my mind was free from the gnawing anxieties of ambition and gain, from wallowing in filth and scratching the itching sore of lust. I began to talk to you freely, O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation. Confessions Book IX Chapter I
Every Christian who prays is functionally a Calvinist who believes in the sovereignty of God. Facebook Wall
Let us now amplify our definition of prayer. What is prayer? Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude-an attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. Prayer is a confession of creature weakness, yea, of helplessness. Prayer is the acknowledgment of our need and the spreading of it before God. We do not say that this is all there is in prayer, it is not: but it is the essential, the primary element in prayerhttps://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged
God has decreed that certain events shall come to pass through the means He has appointed for their accomplishment. God has elected certain ones to be saved, but He has also decreed that these shall be saved through the preaching the Gospel. The Gospel, then, is one of the appointed means for the working out of the eternal counsel of the Lord; and prayer is another. God has decreed the means as well as the end, and among the means is prayer. Even the prayers of His people are included in His eternal decrees. Therefore, instead of prayers being in vain they are among the means through which God exercises His decrees.https://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged
the Lord, according to his good pleasure, has most certainly
decreed both every thing and action — whether past, present, or to come — together with their circumstances of place, time, means, and end.
Our times are in God's hand. Whether they be prosperous times or calamitous times, it is He who has determined them.
No revolving world, no shining of star, no storm, no creature moves, no actions of men, no errands of angels, no deeds of Devil—nothing in all the vast universe can come to pass otherwise than God has eternally purposed.
But now the question arises, Why has God demanded of man that which he is incapable of performing? The first answer is, Because God refuses to lower His standard to the level of our sinful infirmities.
If God is not sovereign, then God is not God.
All Christians believe in divine sovereignty. On our feet we may have arguments about it, but on our knees we are all agreed.
New Quotes
It is not what enemies will, nor what they are resolved upon, but what God will, and what God appoints; that shall be done.... No enemy can bring suffering upon a man when the will of God is otherwise, so no man can save himself out of their hands when God will deliver him up for his glory.
To know that nothing happens in God's world apart from God's will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes the saints.
But why should we not place implicit confidence in God and rely upon His word of promise? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Has His word of promise ever failed? Then let us not entertain any unbelieving suspicions of His future care of us. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not so His promises.
There is no broader way to apostasy than to reject God's sovereignty in all things concerning the revelation of himself and our obedience
(a) sinful acts are under divine control and occur according to God's pre-determination and purpose, but only by divine permission, so that He does not efficiently cause men to sin - (b) that God often restrains the sinful works of the sinner - (c) that God in behalf of His own purpose overrules evil for goodSystematic Theology, 174
Not a single thing that has been made, or that will be made, escapes the knowledge of God. Through his providence, every thing has received its nature, rank, number, and uniqueness. Nothing has come about by accident or for no purpose. Everything has been made with exact appropriateness and by the exercise of transcendent knowledge.Adversus omnes haereses 5.22.2
make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has the right to do as He pleases with His own, and he may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.A Camaraderie of Confidence, p. 31
It is not freedom that is canceled out by sovereignty; it is autonomy that cannot coexist with sovereignty (see James 4:12).Chosen by God (29)
The next moment is as much beyond our grasp, and as much in God's care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is as foolish as care for a day in the next thousand years. In neither can we do anything, in both God is doing everything.
Augustine's view is frequently said to be that God saved people who are unwilling to be saved, or that his grace operates against their wills, forcing them to choose and bringing them into the kingdom "kicking and screaming against their will." This is a gross distortion of Augustine's view. The grace of God operates on the heart in such a way as to make the formerly unwilling sinner willing. The redeemed person chooses Christ because he wants to choose Christ. The person now wills Christ because God has created a new spirit within the person. Willing to Believe (Pages 65-66)
Who would wish to see the reins of universal empire fall from the hands of infinite wisdom and love, to be seized by chance or fate? Who would not rather be governed by a Father than by a tornado? If God cannot effectually control the acts of free agents there can be no prophecy, no prayer, no thanksgiving, no promises, no security of salvation, no certainty whether in the end God or Satan is to be triumphant, whether heaven or hell is to be the consummation. Give us certainty-the secure conviction that a sparrow cannot fall, or a sinner move a finger, but as God permits and ordains. We must have either God or Satan to rule. And if God has a providence He must be able to render the free acts of his creatures certain; and therefore certainty must be consistent with liberty Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II (301-302)
What a vain pretense it is to profess to honor God by a doctrine that makes salvation depend on the will of man! If it were true, you might say to God, "We thank thee, O Lord, for what thou hast done; thou hast given us a great many things, and we offer thee they meed of praise, which is justly due to thy name; but we think we deserve more, for the deciding point was in our free will." Beloved, do not any of you swerve from the free grace of God, for the babblings about man's free agency are neither more nor less than lies, right contrary to the truth of Christ, and the teachings of the Spirit. How certain, then, is the salvation of every elect soul! It does not depend on the will of man; he is "made willing" in the day of God's power. He shall be called at the set time, and his heart shall be effectually changed, that he may become a trophy of the Redeemer's power. That he was unwilling before, is no hindrance; for God giveth him the will, so that he is then of a willing mind. Sermon:
Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!' Kuyper, Abraham (1998). "Sphere Sovereignty". in Bratt, James D.. Abraham Kuyper, A Centennial Reader. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. pp. 488
That we should say, that God has decreed every action of men, yea, every action that they do that is sinful, and every circumstance of those actions . . . and yet that God does not decree the actions that are sinful as sinful, but decrees [them] as good, is really consistent. We do not mean by decreeing an action as sinful, the same as decreeing an action so that it shall be sinful; but by decreeing an action as sinful, I mean decreeing [it] for the sake of the sinfulness of the action. God decrees that it shall be sinful for the sake of the good that he causes to arise from the sinfulness thereof, whereas man decrees it for the sake of the evil that is in it. Miscellanies #85
The rulers of this earth plan, and scheme, and make laws, and change laws, and war, and pull down one and raise up another. But they little think that they rule only by the will of Jesus and that nothing happens without the permission of the Lamb of God. Holiness (Chapter 12)
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