The Supremacy Of God # 1

 The Supremacy Of God # 1

In one of his letters to Erqasmus, Luther said, "Your thoughts of God are too human." Probably that renowned scholar resented such a rebuke, the more so, since it proceeded from a niner's son; nevertheless, it was thoroughly deserved.

We too, though having no standing among the religious leaders of this degenerate age, give the same charge against the majority of the preachers of our day, and against those who, instead of searching the Scriptures for themselves, lazily accept the teaching of others.

The most dishonoring and degrading conceptions of the rule and reign of the Almighty are now held almost everywhere. To countless thousands, even among those professing to be  Christians, the God of the Scriptures is quite unknown.

Of old, God  complained to an apostate Israel, "You thought I was just like you." (Psalm 50:21). Such must now be His indictment against an apostate Christendom. Men imaging that the Most High is moved by sentiment, rather that actuated by principle. They suppose that His omnipotence is such an idle fiction that satan is thwarting His designs on every side. They think that if He has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change. They openly declare that whatever power God possesses must be restricted, lest He invade the citadel of man's "free will" and reduce him to a "machine." They lower the all-efficacious atonement, which has actually redeemed everyone for whom it was made, to a mere "remedy," which sin-sick souls may use if they feel disposed to; and they enervate the invincible work of the Holy Spirit to an "offer" of the Gospel which sinners may accept or reject as they please.

The God of this twentieth century no more resembles the Supreme Sovereign of Holy Writ, than does the dim flickering of a candle resembles the glory of the midday sun. The God who is now talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday School, mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, and preached in most of the so-called Bible Conferences is the figment of human imagination, an invention of mushy sentimentality.

The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form gods out of wood and stone - while the millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a God out of their own carnal mind! In reality, they are but atheists, for there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God, and no God at all. A God whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated - possesses no title to Deity, and so far from being a fit object of worship, merits nothing but contempt!

The supremacy of the true and living God might well be argued from the infinite distance which separated the mightiest creatures from the almighty Creator. He is the Potter, they are but the clay in His hands, to be molded into vessels of honor, or to be dashed into pieces (Psalm 2:9) as He pleases. Were all the citizens of Heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth to combine in revolt against Him, it would occasion Him no uneasiness, and would have less  effect upon His eternal and unassailable Throne than has the spray of Mediterranean's waves upon the towering rocks of Gibraltar. So puerile and powerless is the creature to affect the Most High. Scripture itself tells us that when the Gentile heads unite with apostate Israel to defy Jehovah and His Christ, "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh!" (Psalm 2:4).

The absolute and universal supremacy of God is plainly and positively affirmed in many Scriptures. "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to You. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all. Riches and honor come from You, and You are the ruler of everything. In Your hand are power and might, and it is in Your hand to make great and to give strength to all." ( 1 Chronicles 29:11-12).

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 2)