THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
[p. 504] THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
What I desire to dwell upon is the sovereignty of God, and I have chosen this Scripture because it intimates that God proposes to do everything on the ground of His sovereign rights. In this way it pleased Him to accomplish certain things on a certain mountain alluded to here. He chooses the place and the time. I think it will be found that in our hearts we quarrel with that. If you search your own heart you will probably find there a very quarrelsome disposition in regard to the sovereign rights of God. Even if you decide to come to terms with Him, you are disposed to do so according to your own thoughts. I wish to show you that for blessing you must come to God’s terms. God determines the place of blessing, and He determines the manner of the blessing, and He determines the character and the extent of the blessing. All must be left unqualifiedly in the hands of God. I hope to be able to show further that it is our wisdom to do that because we shall discover in result that God can do very much better for us than we can do for ourselves, or than we could propose doing had we a thought in the matter.
Now notice the setting in which this passage is found. You will observe that the chapter is a song. You know the saints of God of old learned how to sing. What I understand by that is, that they learned how to celebrate God’s ways, for a song is a celebration; they learned how to celebrate a divine intervention, and to celebrate it in a song. As Christians we too should be singers in this sense. The saints of God of old were singers; they appreciated divine interventions, and their appreciation of them was of such a character that they would [p. 505] celebrate them in a song. Now that is what should mark believers in Christ, for they are believers in the intervention of God for man, a wonderful intervention which involves the deliverance of man from all that is against him, and his introduction into blessings. If you are a believer in the gospel you can partake of the celebration, and you should celebrate it.
One could cite several instances in the Old Testament of the characteristic celebration of a divine act of intervention, such as the fifteenth chapter of the book of Exodus; there the people of God were in the enjoyment of deliverance from the hostile power and they celebrated it. In one respect it was the highest and proudest moment of their history, when in the full light and in the full enjoyment of God’s wonderful intervention for them, as in the presence of God on the banks of the Bed Sea, they were with God. He had borne them on eagles’ wings, wings of power, and brought them to Himself. There they were, the Egyptians destroyed in the waters of judgment, and they themselves were with God. A wonderful thing to be with God!
Now the gospel, rightly apprehended in your soul, sets you in relationship with God, and the effect of it is that you celebrate it, you celebrate God. “The Lord is a man of war;” “the Lord hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”. That is the song of the young believer; old believers or fathers are taken up with “him that is from the beginning”, 1 John 2, but the young believer celebrates God’s intervention for him in Christ. The gospel sets forth God’s intervention for you in Christ, and in the light of it you celebrate God, “the Lord hath triumphed gloriously”. If you apprehend that God has done something for you, you celebrate it; that is God’s portion. God’s portion is the responsive result produced in the heart [p. 506] of man by the light of His intervention on man’s behalf. God looks for a response in your heart to whatever He has done for you; however little you see of it, do not fail to celebrate it; that is the fruit of your lips, the sacrifice of praise giving thanks to His name.
In this chapter the prophet is engaged in that way. If you recall the teaching of the prophet in this book, you will remember that in chapter 12 there was a celebration, and then following upon that God undertakes to deal with the Gentile world. We are now in the midst of a world that is alienated from God; it is ruled by influences upon earth and influences in heaven; it is a very great system of things built up by long experience, the outcome of long and tried experience; it is a system of long and patient growth. We must not under estimate what it is; the world is a system built up by a master hand behind it. That master hand is the wicked one, and he has wonderful intelligence; in that sense he is the master hand behind the world system, and he has controlled its construction, he has designed and watched over it. You need not suppose for a moment that the world has been built up haphazard; the world is a growth, and it has been built up by the wicked one in order to annul and overthrow everything that is of God, and that is what is all round about us.
In Isaiah 24 we learn that God undertakes to deal with that, and the prophet is quick to discern what God effects. It is said, “The Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof”. That is what God does. The earth is full of people at the present time, there is probably the largest population it ever possessed, but the Lord “maketh the earth empty”. I cannot undertake to tell you how it will be accomplished, but the word is, “he maketh the earth empty ... turneth it upside down ... scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof”; and then in verse 3 it is said, “The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word”.
I always feel encouraged to turn attention to the world in preaching the gospel, because it is essential that you should see the character of the world in order to appreciate the necessity for the gospel. The prophet here sees God intervening; there is the world, and in his day the world was very powerful; the Assyrian was there, and the prophet sees God intervening; that is, God intervenes on the earth, He deals with things, and we believers, who have got light from God, ought not to be ignorant of the conditions that exist around us. Men are having their way apparently, but what do you see, and what do I see? I see that God is going to intervene in all this, and that is what the prophet sees here. Read on in the end of chapter 24. There God touches what is on high; in verse 19 we read, “The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again”. Now that is the outlook. Does it discourage you that such things are going to take place? Are your ambitions in connection with the earth? Are your hopes built up, are your cherished hopes in connection with this earth? If they are, that is a dark prospect for you; this is the end of the earth as it stands; but then. God is going to touch the higher influences: in verse 21 we read, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth”. There is the seat of the trouble; the [p. 508] seat of the trouble on the earth is on high; the corrupting influences are on high, and God is going to deal with them.
It is essential that young people should see this. If you set your hopes in connection with this present world, there would be no greater folly, for God is going to break it up root and branch: He touches the high ones, He punishes the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth, and “they shall be gathered together as prisoners in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited”. In that day “the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem”. I want you to think of the great end that God has in view in intervening in this world: “In that day”, says the prophet, “the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed”; think of those great luminaries in the heavens that have been the guide for things in the heavens, regulating things in the earth. What causes the confounding of the moon and the shaming of the sun? “The Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously”.
What a day, what strength to faith to look on for a moment to when the Lord Jesus Christ shall sit in His glory on mount Zion; He reigns there, and the greatest natural light hides its face in shame in the light of that glory. Well might the sun hide its face when Christ died; He was the great illuminator come out from heaven; the great moral light come into the world. He was the light of the world, but He died, He disappeared from view, and the sun, as it were in sympathy with Christ, the sun veiled its face; that great moral light had come into a world of darkness, disappeared in darkness, and the sun refused to shine. It was due to Christ that [p. 509] the great light in the heavens should refuse to shine as God hid His face from Christ. In the day when the Lord Jesus will come out, beaming with divine glory, and He sits down there in mount Zion before His ancients gloriously, the moon shall be confounded and the sun shall be ashamed; that which showed its light on the earth during the night shall be ashamed, and the moon shall be confounded, as if there was no place for it in the presence of that light, and the sun itself shall be ashamed. That is the end of the great intervention of God, and we can well understand the prophet’s celebration of it. Was it not worth being celebrated? He praises God, the God who has done all this. How much fruit does God get from you? God seeks fruit, and the fruit that He seeks is the outcome, the effect of the light of Himself.
One loves to think of Moses and David. David was called the sweet psalmist of Israel. “My heart” (he says) “is inditing a good matter”. The word is really “welling up a great matter”. What he spoke of was not a composition of someone else. The heart of every believer ought to have a psalm, Look at David. The secret of the volume of his psalms lies in this — that he knew God; the subjects were infinite; see the vast range of subjects covered by the psalms of David. He knew God. Then look at Solomon; where is the poet that can be compared with Solomon? His songs, we are told, were a thousand and five. Solomon was in the light of God. David says, “I speak of the things which I have made touching the king”. I do appeal to you as to where you are in regard to the light you have been given. God is looking for something from believers; He looks for a song — for fruit.
Now I want to go on to what I began with, that is God’s sovereignty. Every natural heart quarrels with God’s sovereign rights. What you see here is [p. 510] that God proposes to do certain things; He proposes to spread a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees well refined; that is a very great thought; God proposes that. The next point is, where is this feast going to be spread? The prophet says, “in this mountain”. On this mountain? Now do not begin to make terms with God; He will not remove the feast to your house. He will have it just here; “in this mountain” (says the prophet) “shall the Lord make a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees”, the feast is just there. Are you prepared to accept God’s terms? He has wonderful things for you; wonderful things. You are hungry, you need food, but what He proposes is a feast, if you will agree to His terms.
You remember Luke 14; the point there is not the sovereignty of God, but God’s delight in Christ as having accomplished righteousness; that is the feast in Luke 14, but it is God’s feast, and He sends out invitations in regard to it. Christ having accomplished righteousness through dying has gone into heaven; God has reached His thought in man — in Christ, and God celebrates it. The feast in Luke 14 is not your celebration. I have been dwelling on that; but here in Luke 14 it is God who celebrates it. God Himself celebrates the great end He has achieved in Christ, and He invites you to it. Nothing could be greater grace than that. He is indicating in that scene His infinite delight in Christ, and He invites you to it. Think of the hardness of men’s hearts to reject such an offer; they prefer the things on earth to that — the earth that is about to be turned upside down, they prefer that to God’s celebration of Christ as the accomplisher of righteousness.
In this chapter it is God spreading a feast in another place; it is another thought. The feast is just where God has placed it, will you accept it? Are you prepared to come to it? You may say. Why on [p. 511] that mountain? If you come you will find out. When I say that, I say it advisedly; you will not understand the mountain until you come; that “mountain” involves a great deal on God’s account; spiritually it is Christ risen, and when you come you will discover it. God has sovereign rights, and you must admit that He has God, as it were, will have nothing to do with you until you admit it; He shuts up all in unbelief until His sovereign rights are admitted. He says of that mountain the feast is there. Now when you come to that mountain what do you find? What have we believers found? What I have found on it among other things is this, it is God’s rest, “This is my rest for ever”, this mount Zion, “here will I dwell, for I have desired it”, Psalm 132: 14. When you come to it you will find that out. You may not think of God’s rest for the moment or of His dwelling, but you have some appreciation of “a feast of fat things”, for you need that, and if you come you will find what every believer has found in recognising the sovereign rights of God, that He has a place in which He rests, and that is in CHRIST RISEN, that is what the mountain means; it is Christ risen. God will not be diverted from that, He rests in Christ risen. “Here” (He says) “will I dwell, for I have desired it”.
Zion is the spot where God proposes to do everything. You remember the connection of mount Zion? It is the great central point in the history of David. The history of mount Zion is that everything was lost in the point of responsibility, and “The Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts, he put them to a perpetual reproach. Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved”, Psalm 78: 65 - 68. He chose that deliberately.
[p. 512] What it means spiritually is that God has raised Christ out of death and He will not be diverted from that. Christendom is all on wrong lines, it is really an endeavour to divert God from Christ, but God will not be diverted from Christ. That is the spiritual signification of mount Zion, it is the spot upon which God will act, and when you have reached that spot in your soul you will discover the wisdom of it. Everything God does He does in wisdom; wisdom is the handmaid of love, and therefore wisdom does everything perfectly; yon cannot add to it. Now, as I have said, mount Zion is spiritually Christ risen. In Him God sets forth His sovereign right to bless. Think of that! Is it not well worth your while to submit to the sovereign rights of God, when you see that His sovereign rights signify that He is going to bless you. Read Psalm 132: see the blessing that comes in there: “I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy”; and then in Psalm 133 also, “there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”.
Then we find in verse seven, “He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations”. Darkness prevails everywhere; Christendom is dark; it has more light than heathendom, but it is dark in regard to God. The “veil” is there. Why is that? It is because they do not recognise God’s rights. Why are souls dark? I believe the explanation of it is that they do not recognise the sovereign rights of God in Christ risen. Christ risen is God’s centre, and if you refuse to recognise that, you are dark, and you remain dark; but directly you recognise it in its true light, everything is adjusted for you, you apprehend God, and you apprehend everything in relation to God; the veil is gone!
Christians are the only people who have a right [p. 513] judgment about things; the simplest believer may have a clear judgment, and why? Because he recognises Christ risen. Is your heart dark in regard to God? Soul troubles are prevalent; the secret is that men do not submit to the rights of God; the will is active in some way or another; you are not submitting yourself to God. Submitting yourself to God is that you recognise Christ, and that involves the entire denial of yourself. If you are dark in your soul, it is just because the will is active; you are in your soul disputing the rights of God in Christ risen, and directly you submit to them it is wonderful what light you will receive. Look at Saul of Tarsus; see how he was illuminated; he was persistently refusing God’s rights, but directly he is brought down to submit to them, what wonderful light he received into his soul! I do beg of you, if you have soul difficulties, to go to God about them. I do not say that you do not need teaching and instruction, but if you go to God, your soul will be settled, you will have no longer any difficulties in regard to Him.
There is another thing. He swallows up death in victory. Where has He done that? He has done it in Christ risen, and in the future it will be done geographically in Zion. I have no doubt that God will revert to that mountain, and everything will radiate from that. It is there that He swallows up death in victory. Now see what gain there is in recognising the rights of God. You get a feast, and the veil is removed, and death is removed from your spirit. Christians are marked by these things, they are satisfied with food from God; they are not in darkness, the veil is removed from their hearts, and then death is removed from their spirits. If you are a believer in Christ you are not afraid to die; faith sees that death is swallowed up in victory. “I will swallow up death in victory”, says Jehovah; we anticipate that, as the apostle says in writing to the Corinthians. “Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”. We do not wait for it, we have it on the principle of faith. God has broken up death, He has swallowed up death in victory in the resurrection of Christ, and you come into the good of that as you recognise God’s rights in Christ risen.
Then He says one thing more, “The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from all the earth”. Now, these are things that are not far away from you; these things are all realised on the principle of faith now by the believer; you have abundance in the way of spiritual food; you have light, the veil is removed from your heart; death is removed from your spirit, and tears are removed from your face: that is what God does for you, He wipes away tears from off all faces, God Himself does that. We know that we are in the wilderness, in a world of sorrow, but in the wilderness the tears are wiped away from all faces. God brings us into that now, we come into it now in Christ risen. May the Lord grant that we may each enter into it.
I have great exercise as to the character of our superficial Christianity; we are very superficial. God looks for soul exercise; His end is to bring us into the reality of these things that we may be superior to everything here, even to the tears and sorrows. God grant that our souls may be in the possession of all this.