Unveiling of God no 81
Sovereignty - In Love, Mercy and Grace
February 17, 2019
Brian Kocourek, pastor
1 Chronicles 29:11
"Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and
the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is
thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above
all"
This morning I want to continue in our study of "The Unveiling of God"
. This will be number 81 in our
series and number 15
in our mini-series concerning the sovereignty of God.
We have been studying the thoughts of God's
Sovereignty and took this mini series from quite a few paragraphs from Br.
Branham's sermon The
Unveiling of God. But we want to take our thoughts this more
specifically from something he said in his message "Who is this Melchisedec"
where brother Branham is bringing to us a mighty powerful revelation of Who
this Person of Melchisedec was and is. Without our understanding of Who this
Person is, we will never understand the Godhood of God and thus we will
misplace the Godhead or misappropriate it and place it where it should not be
placed. In other words, placing the Son of God in the Godhead instead of the
Godhead in Him.
Remember the three things we must not do that brother
Branham warned us would bring us into a false worship. Brother Branham said, Now, you must not misinterpret the Word. You say,
"Well, I believe it means this." It means just what it says.
It needs no interpreter. And you must not misplace the Word. And
you must not dislocate the Word. And if we would do either of these, it
throws the whole Bible in a confusion and in a chaos.
Now, I believe the reason there are so many people in
confusion and chaos concerning the Godhood of God is because they have
committed at least one of these three errors in assessing the Scriptures.
#1) We must not
Misinterpret God's Word: This means to interpret wrongly, to understand or
explain incorrectly.
2 Corinthians 4:2
"But have renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully;
but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's
conscience in the sight of God."
#2) We must not Misplace
God's Word: Which means to
put it in the wrong place. To wrongly place or to improperly place. To take
away from the proper, or natural position, time, or character.
Ecclesiastes
3:1 To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under the heaven:
#3) We must not Dislocate
God's Word: Which means to
upset the order or connection of the Word. The Apostle this is 2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Brother Branham also told us he only said what Paul
had said, and Paul said "We must rightly divide the Word of Truth,"
and in the Second Church Age, Ireneaus said; "there is an importance to the order and connection of the
scripture." Therefore, we must keep the True meaning of
Scripture, and not render our own interpretations to it, hoping we have found
some great deep secret of scripture that is not really there.
Who Is This
Melchisedec 65-0221E 32 "So He was not
just a priesthood order, neither was He a myth; He was a Person. And the Person
is eternal. If you notice, He had no father, He had no mother, He had no time
He ever began, and He had no time He ever ended. And ever Who it was is still
alive tonight, because the Bible said here that He had neither father, nor
mother, beginning of days or ending of life. So it would have to be an eternal
Person (Is that right?), an eternal Person. So it could only be one Person;
that's God, 'cause He's the only One that's eternal--God. Now, in I Timothy 6:15 and 16, if you'd like
to read that sometime, I'd like for you to read it. Now, the thing that I
contend is, that He was God, because He's the only Person that can be
immortal. And now, God changing Himself into Person; that's what He was: no
father, no mother, no beginning of life, no ending of days."
Now, notice that brother Branham said He was a person
and he is eternal. Then if He is eternal He can not change. Then He must be the
same yesterday, Today and forever.
Now, if we are to understand what Brother Branham is
describing here we must read for ourselves the scripture he is referring to.
I Timothy 6:15 "Which in his times he shall show, who
is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the
light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to
whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen."
Notice that He is called the Only
Potentate and we see that Paul was referring to the sovereignty
of God. Somewhere down the line we shall examine the Sovereignty of God
in Creation. But this morning I would like to further examine the sovereignty
of God from the perspective of God's Love Mercy and Grace. For our subject
however we will examine "the Understanding of the Godhood of God".
Without understanding "the
Godhood of God" we will never understand God's Sovereignty,
and without understanding God's Godhood we will never understand God Himself.
Who He is and Why He does what He does. Our conception then of God becomes only
one that is made up in the minds of men. The God of our imagination.
How different is the God of
the Bible from the God of the modern so-called Christian's today. The conception
of God and His Godhead that is most widely in use today, even among those who
profess to believe this Message, is but a miserable distortion of truth, and a
blasphemous mockery of the True message God brought by His vindicated Prophet.
The God of the twenty first
century church is but a helpless,
effeminate being who commands the respect of no thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the
creation of a over-sentimental sappiness.
The God that is
declared in most pulpits today, is an object of pity rather than of awe
inspiring reverence. To say that God the Father purposed the salvation of all
mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God is
now seeking to win the world to Christ;
well, all we have to do is to look at the sad shape of the laodicean church to
know this is not true. For if God wished to save the whole world you would see
the evidence of that in all nations. But that is what the church teaches, a God
who wishes to do one thing but has not the power to carry it out. As a matter of common observation, it is
apparent that the great majority of our fellow men are still dying in sin, and
passing into a hopelessly lost condition: and for them to say it is God's
objective to save the whole world by their confession, they are saying God is
not omnipotent enough to pull it off, and not omniscient enough to know what He
desires to do. There is no escaping the conclusion.
To think that God is "trying his best" to save
all mankind, but that the majority of
men will not let him save them, is to insist that the will of the God the
creator of all things is not omnipotent but rather impotent, and that the will
of the creature is rather omnipotent. To throw the blame, as many do, upon the
Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of
God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being.
To declare that God the
Creator's original plan has been frustrated by sin, is to dethrone God himself.
To suggest that God was
taken by surprise in Eden and that His plan of redemption was an after-thought
to the fall in Eden, is to make God just a bungling halfwit, who is now
attempting to remedy that unforeseen disaster, and it degrades the Most High God to the level of
a finite, erring mortal.
To argue that man is a free
moral agent and the determiner of his own destiny, and therefore he has the
power to checkmate his Maker, is to strip God of Omnipotence.
To say that the creature
has split open the bounds assigned by his Creator, and that God is now
practically a helpless spectator before the sin and suffering entailed by
Adam's fall, is to repudiate the express declaration of God's Eternal Word,
namely, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise
thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain" Psalms 76:10.
In other words, to deny the
sovereignty of God is to enter upon a path which, if followed to its logical
conclusion, is to arrive at blank atheism.
The sovereignty of the God
of Scripture is absolute, irresistible and infinite as we have shown throughout these past 15
sermons on the sovereignty of God.
It would do you all very much good to study these 15 sermons to learn
and understand God's role in all of Creation past and present and His role in
your predetermined resting place in Him.
When we say that God is
sovereign we are affirming to ourselves His right to govern the universe, which
he made for His own glory,
just as He pleases.
We affirm to ourselves then
His right as the right of the Potter over the clay, that He may mold the clay
into whatsoever form He chooses, fashioning out of the same lump one vessel unto honor and
another unto dishonor. We also then affirm that He is under no
rule or law outside of His own will and nature, and that God is a law unto
Himself, and that He is under no obligation to give an account of His matters
to no one.
In understanding the True Godhood of God we must come
to the conclusion that Sovereignty characterizes the whole Being of God.
For God is sovereign in all
his attributes. Thus…
#1. God is
sovereign in the exercise of his own power. His power is exercised as He wills, when He wills, and where He wills.
This fact is evidenced on
every page of Scripture.
For a long season His power
may appear to be dormant, and then out of nowhere he puts forth His power in an
irresistible might. God has His own timing, His own seasons to work.
Pharaoh dared to hinder
Israel from going forth to worship Jehovah in the wilderness — but what
happened? God exercised His power, and His people were delivered and their
cruel taskmasters were slain.
But a little later on, the
Amalekites dared to attack these same Israelites in the wilderness, and what
happened then?
Did God put forth his power
on this occasion and display his hand as he did at the Red Sea?
Were these enemies of His
people promptly overthrown and destroyed? No, on the contrary, the Lord swore
that he would "have war with Amalek from
generation to generation" Exodus 17:16.
Again, when Israel entered
the land of Canaan, God's power was very much displayed. The city of Jericho
barred their progress — so what happened? Israel did not draw a bow nor strike
a blow: the Lord stretched forth His hand and the walls fell down flat on their
own. But this miracle He never repeated! No other city fell after this manner.
Every other city had to be captured by the sword!
Many other instances can be
given to show reason of proof that might illustrate the sovereign exercise of
God's power. So let's take one other example; God put forth his power and David
was delivered from Goliath, the giant; the mouths of the lions were closed and
Daniel escaped unhurt; the three Hebrew children were cast into the burning
fiery furnace and came forth unharmed and un-scorched.
But God's power didn't
always interject itself on behalf of His people to deliver them. Why?
We read in Hebrews 11:36-37 "And others had
trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of, bonds and imprisonment:
they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the
sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute,
afflicted, tormented".
So why not? Why were not these men of faith delivered
like the others? Or, why were not the others suffered to be killed like
these? Why should God's power step in and rescue some and not the others? Why
allow Stephen to be stoned to death, and then deliver Peter from prison?
The
answer is that God is sovereign in the delegation of His power to others. Why did God endow
Methuselah with a vitality which enabled him to live 969 years while others did
not live so long of a lifespan? Why did God impart to Samson a physical
strength which no other human has ever possessed?
In Deuteronomy. 8:18 it is written, "But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that
giveth thee power to get wealth", but
God does not bestow this power on everyone alike. So why not? Why has He given
such financial power to men like Bill Gates, Carnegie, and Rockefeller? The
answer to all of these questions, is, because God is Sovereign, and being
Sovereign he does as he pleases.
#2) God is sovereign in the
exercise of his mercy.
And by necessity
this must be so, for mercy is directed by the will of Him that has the power to
show mercy. Mercy is not a right to which men are entitled. Mercy is that
wonderful attribute of God by which He pities and relieves the wretched. But
under the righteous government of God no one is wretched who does not deserve
to be so. The objects of God's mercy, then, are those who are miserable, and
all misery is the result of sin, hence the miserable are deserving of
punishment not mercy. To speak of deserving mercy is a contradiction of the
definition of the word mercy.
God bestows his mercies on
whom He pleases and withholds them as seems good unto only Himself.
A remarkable illustration
of this fact is seen in the manner that God responded to the prayers of two men
offered under very similar circumstances. Sentence of death was passed upon
Moses for one act of disobedience, and He besought the Lord for a reprieve.
But was His desire
gratified? No; in Deuteronomy 3:26 he told Israel, "The Lord is wroth
with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the Lord said unto me, Let
it suffice thee".
But notice in a second case
which we find in 2 Kings 20:1-6 "In those days was
Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him,
and said unto him, `Thus saith the Lord,
Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live'. Then he turned
his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, saying, `I beseech thee, O
Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect
heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight'. And Hezekiah wept sore.
And it came to pass, before Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the
word of the Lord came to him, saying, `Turn
again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, thus saith the Lord, the God
of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I
will heal thee: on the third day
thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days
fifteen years'".
Notice, Both of these men
had the sentence of death upon themselves, and both prayed earnestly unto the
Lord for a reprieve: the one wrote: "The Lord would not hear me", and died; but to
the other it was said, "I have heard thy prayer", and his life was
spared. What an illustration and exemplification of the truth expressed in Romans 9:15 "For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."
The sovereign exercise of
God's mercy, His pity shown to the
wretched was displayed when The Father tabernacled Himself in His Son, and came
down among men.
Brother Branham, in referring to the sovereignty of
God, often used the illustration we see in John
5:3-9 where we read, "During one
of the Feasts of the Jews, the Lord Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He came to the
Pool of Bethesda, where lay "a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind,
halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water." Among this
"great multitude" there was "a certain man which had an
infirmity thirty and eight years." What happened?
"When Jesus saw him lie,
and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt
thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the
water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another
steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked" Why was this one man singled out from all the
others? We are not told that he cried "Lord, have mercy on me."
There is not a word spoken
in this Story which tells us in any way that this man possessed some
qualifications which entitled him to receive special favor. Here then was a
case of the sovereign exercise of Divine
mercy, for it was just as easy for Christ to heal the whole lot of that
"great multitude" as this one
"certain man." But he did not.
He put forth his power and relieved the wretchedness of this one particular sufferer,
and for some reason known only to himself, he declined to do the same for the
others. Of course brother Branham explained that reason as doing what He saw
God do in a vision. So then we must ask the question, why did God pass up
healing all others and sent Jesus only to this one man?
Jesus understood the Godhood of God. In fact brother
Branham comments in the Message We Would See
Jesus 59-0422 E-24, that Jesus was so yielded
to the Fathers sovereign will is the reason He did not heal the others. He
said,
"Well, this man
was laying on a pallet, little blanket or something laying there. And when He
passed by, Jesus knowed that he'd been in this condition all this time, and
healed him, and went on His way. What if He did that here in San Jose tonight.
Tomorrow morning He'd have the same criticism He had then. Why didn't You heal
this one, that one, and this one, and that one. See? Jesus said, "I only do as I see the Father doing. The Father worketh, and
I worketh hitherto."
Again, we see in Romans 9:15 "I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."
#3) God is sovereign in the exercise of his love. Ah! as the Scripture says, "That's a hard
saying, who then can receive it?"
But in John 3:27 we read, "A man can
receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven". When
we say that God is sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He loves
whom He chooses to love. God does not love everybody; if He did, He would love
the Devil. Why doesn't God love the Devil? Because there is nothing in him to
love; because there is nothing in him to attract the heart of God.
Nor is there anything to
attract God's love in any of the serpent seed, for all of them are, by nature,
"children of wrath, and children of
disobedience". And even amongst the fallen sons of Adam,
who because of the fall live out their lives in a polluted body of death, there
is nothing worthy of Love. If then there
is nothing in any member of the human race to attract God's love, and if,
not-withstanding, he does love some, then it necessarily follows that the cause
of his love must be found only in Himself, which is another way of saying that
the exercise of God's love towards the fallen sons of men is according to the
scripture: "according to His own good pleasure."
We are told in Scripture
that God does not love us because we loved Him first,
on the contrary, His Holy Word tells us, "we
love him because He first loved us".
Then, in the final
analysis, the exercise of God's love must be traced back to His sovereignty,
or, otherwise, He would love by rule; and if He loved by rule, then He is under
a law of love, and if He is under law of love then is He not supreme, but would
actually himself be ruled by law.
"But", you may
ask, "Surely you do not deny that God loves the entire human family?"
and our reply would be, it is written, "Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated" Romans
9:13. If then God loved Jacob and hated
Esau, and that before they were born or
had done either good or evil, then the reason for His love was not
in them, but in Himself. In His choosing, according to His good pleasure.
That the exercise of God's
love is according to His own sovereign pleasure is also clear from the language
Paul used in Ephesians 1:3-5, where we read, "Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him. In love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will."
It was "in love" that God the Father predestined his chosen ones
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, Paul goes
on to say "according"
according to what? According to some excellency he discovered in them? No. What
then? According to what he foresaw they would become? No; mark carefully the
inspired answer "According to the good pleasure of his will."
#4) God is sovereign in the exercise of his grace. This is of necessity, for grace is favor shown to
the undeserving: in fact, to those deserving hell. Grace is the antithesis of
justice. Justice demands the impartial enforcement of law. Justice requires
that each shall receive his legitimate due, neither more nor less. Justice
bestows no favors and is no respecter of persons. Justice, as such, shows no pity
and knows no mercy. But after justice has been fully satisfied, grace flows
forth.
Divine grace is not
exercised at the expense of justice, but "grace reigns through righteousness" as Paul said in
Romans 5:21 and if grace reigns, then
is grace sovereign.
Grace has been defined as
"the unmerited favor of God";
therefore if it is unmerited, then no one can claim it as their inalienable
right.
If grace is unearned and
undeserved, then no one is entitled to it.
If grace is a gift, then no
one can demand it.
Therefore, as salvation is
by grace, the free gift of God, then God bestows it on whom He pleases.
Because salvation is by
grace, the very chief of sinners is not beyond the reach of Divine mercy.
Because salvation is by
grace, boasting is excluded and God gets all the glory.
The sovereign exercise of
grace is illustrated on nearly every page of Scripture.
The Gentiles are left to
walk in their own ways, while Israel becomes the covenant people of Jehovah.
Ishmael the firstborn is
cast out and not blessed in comparison to Isaac. Yet Isaac, the son of his parents' old age is
made the child of promise.
Esau the more generous
hearted and forgiving of the brothers spirited is denied the blessing, though
he even sought it carefully with tears, while the little shyster Jacob receives
the inheritance and is fashioned into a vessel of honor. And this even before
they were born God said I love Jacob and I hate Esau.
In the New Testament, Jesus
taught us that "Divine truth is hidden from the
wise and prudent, but is revealed to babes".
In the new testament life
of Christ we see that Pharisees and Sadducees are left to go their own way,
while publicans and harlots are drawn by the cords of love.
In a remarkable display,
Divine grace was exercised at the time of Jesus Christ's birth. The incarnation
of God's Son was one of the greatest events in the history of the universe, and
yet its actual occurrence was not made known to all mankind; but instead, it
was specially revealed in Bethlehem to shepherds and just three wise men of the
east.
And this was prophetic and
indicative of the entire course of his life in Galilee, for even today Christ
is not made known to all.
It would have been an easy
matter for God to have sent a company of angels to every nation and announced
the birth of His Son. But He did not.
God could have readily
attracted the attention of all mankind to the "star"; but he did not.
Why? Because God is sovereign
and dispenses His favors as He pleases.
Note particularly the two
classes to whom the birth of the Saviour was made known, namely, the most
unlikely classes; illiterate shepherds and Gentiles from a far away country.
No angel stood before the
Sanhedrin and announced the advent of Israel's Messiah!
No "star"
appeared to the scribes and lawyers as they, in their pride and
self-righteousness, searched the Scriptures daily!
These men searched
diligently to find out where he should be born, and yet it was not made known
to them when he was actually come.
And so is it today, His
Divine presence came down, not to the educated, not to the theological ranks,
but to a little Kentucky HillBilly who was born in a little old log cabin.
What a display of Divine
sovereignty. As it was back then to the illiterate shepherds He singled out for
peculiar honor, and the learned and eminent He passed by!
And why was the birth of
the Saviour revealed to these Gentile foreigners, and not to those in whose
midst He was born?
We see in this a wonderful
foreshadowing of God's dealings with our race throughout the entire Christian
dispensation for He is sovereign in the exercise of His grace, bestowing His
favors on whom He pleases, often on the most unlikely and unworthy it would
seem to the world.
Therefore, "Grace"
is more than "unmerited favor." To feed the homeless
who would knock at your door is "unmerited favor", but it is scarcely
grace. But suppose that after robbing me I should feed this starving homeless person, that
would be Grace, then, is favor shown where there is positive de-merit in one
receiving it? The answer is never.
Let us pray