+DEV+ By Grace: Sovereign Grace [19 of 27]

Date: April 3, 2013 1:14 AM
Topic: +DEV+  By Grace: Sovereign Grace [19 of 27]

By Grace: Sovereign Grace [19 of 27]

"I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing for joy, O heavens, for the LORD has done this..." (Isaiah 44:22-23a)
Scripture Focus: Isaiah 44; Matthew 13:20

Isaiah 44 begins with five verses affirming Israel's election as God's people by sovereign grace. Then, for the next fifteen verses, God (Yahweh) mocks the idols of men. With a holy sarcasm, He parodies what Dr. R.C. Sproul humorously calls "the Fig Newtons" of human imagination. A man cuts up a piece of wood. Half he uses to cook his food, and the other half he bows down to and worships! He "bows down to a block of wood" (vs. 19)! Can a block of wood help him? "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie" (vs. 20)?

Yahweh - the LORD God - is sovereign over His creation. He not only has all power, but also has the will to exercise it. No other "gods" exist! They are but out-workings of sinful man's desire to be autonomous - to be in control of his own circumstances, and to be a law unto himself. Only Yahweh, and neither human effort nor idol, can meet mankind's greatest need - to sweep "away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist" (vs. 22). Only the sovereign grace of God can do it.

Insight: If God isn't sovereign over everything - even the election of His Church - He isn't sovereign at all.




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