Foothills Bible Church

“God Does Everything“

by Terry Simpson

“I form the light and create darkness,

I make peace and create calamity;

I, the Lord, do all these things (Is.45:7).”

This is a statement made by God to let us know that, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me (Is.45:5-7).” Only one is running the show, working all things according to the counsel of His own will (Eph.1:11) and bringing to pass all that He purposes (Is.46:9-11).

We say, “Jesus is Lord”, but what does that mean? Boss, CEO, manager, ruler. But what does all that mean? It means God does everything. The theological term is sovereignty. Sovereignty means God does everything. And He is either sovereign over everything or He is not God over everything. “I, the Lord, do all these things.” “Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver from My hand (Dt.32:39).”

You cannot possibly understand the Bible if you do not believe in the sovereignty of God. To the degree that you see the sovereignty of God in everything, to that degree you will understand the Bible. You will be unbalanced in its teachings and much of the Bible will remain a mystery until you come to grips with God’s absolute sovereignty. Every truth must be hammered out on the anvil of God’s sovereignty. God wrote the Bible for two reasons: to tell us everything we need to know about God and everything God expects of us. We need to know about God’s absolute control over all things or, whatever we know, we don’t know that much about the God of the Bible.

This truth will build stability into your life like no other truth. Kay Arthur says, “the single most powerful, liberating, peace-giving truth I’ve ever learned in God’s Word is the fact that He is sovereign. It has been a mainstay in my life. Resting in the sovereignty of God has held me through all the trials, all the pain – everything. God is in control, and therefore in everything I can give thanks – not because of the situation but because of the One who directs and rules over it. We find our joy not in the heat of the flame but in the fact that the Refiner is right there controlling it. The fire is a controlled fire. It isn’t a purposeless fire, and it isn’t a fire to destroy us. It’s a purifying fire. I can look back at every single trial and tragedy, at every hurt and every suffering in my life, and I can say, ‘God, You’ve used this to make me more like Jesus.’ From the picky little things like having to stand in line when some salesclerk is inefficient, to the piercing pains like my husband’s committing suicide or my father’s death – I can hold on to those things in the light of the knowledge of God’s sovereignty.”

She wrote of God’s sovereignty in the life of a Christian, but God is sovereign over unbelievers and everything in creation, to bring everything He has made to a predetermined conclusion – the glory of God and the good of His people.

The sovereignty of God is simply God doing whatever He wants, whenever He wants, wherever He wants, however He wants, with whomever He wants, for whatever reason He wants.

I. opening statements that need to be EXAMINED.

• Everything that happens is done by God. We shall see this in the Bible as we continue through this study. Hold on to your arguments. Logically, we may come up with all kinds of rebuttals to that statement, but remember, we are not going by logic; we are going by revelation. The Bible clearly and consistently teaches that “God does everything.”

• God works in and through every act of His creatures to the end that He might be glorified in everything. This is a most important truth, so our natural minds and Satan will seek to make this truth hard to grasp and hard to understand. The most precious jewels & minerals in the earth and in the sea are the hardest to get at. Costly pearls require deep diving and “mother loads” are in the hearts of mountains and require deep digging.
• God wills everything. If you want to know what the will of God is, watch what happens. Whatever happens is the will of God or it wouldn’t have happened. “Then I can’t get out of the will of God!” True. You may rebel against God and He may put you in hell, but you will not do that outside of the permissive will of God. God allots or allows all things. God performs or permits all things. And in the doing of these things He maintains control over everything.
• God does the Good and the Bad. I won’t take the time to explain God doing all the good that is done because Christians instinctively know that God does them. That is why when something good happens we always respond with, “Praise God.” (This is especially true in salvation.) But I will take some time to explain from the Bible God’s involvement in the bad things. That’s the hardest to see and so we’ll take some time to look at it.

Read the “Book of Woes” found in Isaiah 13-34. Does the Bible credit God with the terrible things that are to come upon these people? Absolutely. Read 13:3-6 and remember that God is speaking. (v. 9, 13, 17-19). God does the woes. “I can’t believe people could be so cruel,” you might say as you read these woes. I can, because I know people. BUT GOD? How can God say He is causing it all, bringing it all to pass? Because He puts it in their hearts to perform His will (woes). It’s time to delve, dive and dig deeper.

II. QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE ANSWERED

1. Does God Actually Do the Bad Things?

A. WHAT IS THE Worst Thing Done in the Old Testament?

How about the brothers of Joseph selling him into slavery? They were going to kill him but thought they’d make some money off him instead, so they sold him as a slave to a caravan going to a foreign country, dipped his coat in animal’s blood and told their father he must be dead. They watched their grieving father suffer for years thinking his favorite son was dead. That’s cruel. Yet, Gen. 45:1-8 says that God was acting through the brothers to fulfill His will. Look at Is. 45:5-7 and realize there are not two gods, a good god and a bad god duking it out. The devil is not God. There is only one God.

b. What is the Worst thing ever done?

Certainly that was the crucifixion of Jesus. If you think Joseph hadn’t done anything wrong to deserve such treatment by his brothers, Jesus was the unblemished Son of God who had never sinned once in His entire life. Yet Isaiah 53:4-7, 10 declares that God Himself smote His only begotten Son. The worst thing ever done is attributed to none other than God! That’s the reason He opened not His mouth (Jn. 19:11). Acts 4:28 tells us that the crucifixion of Christ was according to whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. On the way to the cross He told the women not to weep for Him. That was because He was in the middle of God’s will. “Not My will, but Yours be done.” He was drinking His Father’s cup. No one should cry for the ones suffering in the will of God.

The Bible is literally packed full of illustrations of God doing things we would normally never consider our God doing:

1. The Flood – Gen.6:5-7; 7:1-4

2. Sodom – Gen.19:23-25, 29

3. Curses – Dt.28:15-16,20-22,28

4. Canaan – Joshua 11:20

5. The Book of Revelation. (This book is heavy laden with the wrath of the Lamb being poured out on the inhabitants of the earth. He directs all that happens in Revelation.)

6. HELL – Mt.10:28; Rev.19:20; 20:10,14-15

2. What About The Devil?

Where does he fit in? The clearest revelation of role of the devil is found in Job 1:6-12, 20-22; 2:3-7, 9-10. The reason Job didn’t sin is because of what he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Shall we not indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” This is why Rm. 8:28 is true, and also 1Thess. 5:18! When we see this, we will (perhaps after much fighting the good fight of faith) bless the Lord at all times and be thankful in every situation.

John 10:10 is used by many to teach that there are in fact two gods: “The thief (devil) comes to steal, kill and destroy; but I have come that you may have life.” They assume that Jesus is not Lord over the bad things, because the devil does all that. In so doing they remove the sovereignty of God over the devil. What a horrible thought that is! Compare 2 Sam 24:1 & I Chron. 21:1. Did Satan cause David to number the people, or did God? Yes! God did it, using the devil to get it done. There are not two gods. God has Satan on a leash; He yanks that leash or gives it slack, according to His will. Picture a yoyo. God controls the yoyo. He is either letting it fall through the natural pull of gravity (sin) or He is pulling it up. Romans, chapter one, says three times that “God gave them up”. So we see the sovereignty of God in the wickedness of man, even the works of the devil. He allows and He allots. He permits and He performs. In everything He is in control. God does everything.

3. Why Doesn’t He Remove Evil & Suffering From The Earth?

If He can’t, He’s not almighty. If He won’t, He’s not good. He is both and He doesn’t, so what’s the problem? Better yet, what’s the answer to why He doesn’t remove evil and suffering from the earth? He fully intends to one day – for His people. In the meantime, He is using these things for His own purpose. Our job is to trust Him. We can’t understand why one suffers, but if we could see the whole picture we’d say, “Oh, I understand…” He’s much smarter than we are. Like Job, we are not called upon to understand everything, but to trust Him in everything. Knowing why bad things happen will not remove the pain. Trusting God will.

4. Are We Passively & Meekly To Resign Ourselves To Whatever Happens In All

Situations? No. He causes some things to happen to TRAIN us and build us up in grace & faith. He commands us to “rebuke the devil”. Do yourself a favor and memorize Dt.29:29. It explains a lot by simply declaring that God has hidden some things, but that we are responsible for doing what He tells us. God does not intend for us to sit idly and passively by while the devil runs roughshod over our lives, our family, or our church. We are responsible. When the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, we are to resist him. David goes down to battle Goliath, but God had engineered the whole challenge to bring glory to Himself and good for David and Israel. The God who guides our planet in its orbit around the sun guided David’s slung stone to the one place that would knock Goliath down.

5. Does This Mean People Are Not Responsible For Their Sins?

No. We will be held accountable for our choices and our sins. Look at Joseph’s brothers. Who sold Joseph into Egypt? (his brothers) Were they free in doing that? (yes, nobody made them do it.) Was it evil? (yes.) Were they responsible? (yes) Do you think they ever considered themselves to be puppets in the hands of God? (no) How do you know that? They felt guilty. Puppets don’t feel guilty. Man’s evil actions are within the scope of God’s sovereignty. God does everything.

III. AN EXPLANATION THAT NEEDS TO BE CONSIDERED.

An explanation for this can be found in the word ANTINOMY, which means two seemingly opposite things both being true. This is what makes all the things of God hard to understand? He simply does not think like we do (Is.55:8-9). We must learn to think like He does or we will never understand His word or His ways. What makes the truth that “God does everything” so hard to accept is that we want to understand everything and we can’t. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Rm.11:33) They are past finding out (completely) because now we see in a mirror dimly (1Cor.13:12) and we know only in part (v.9). We do not see how two completely opposite things can both be true. How can God be sovereign and yet man responsible? How can God be holy, sovereign and good, yet bad things happen that are under His control? We must go by revelation and not reason. Our own logic will mess you up every time. Let me illustrate.

1. The Bible. Was it written by man or by God? Yes! 100% plus 100% equals (not 200%, but) 100%. “Impossible!” you say. No, antinomy. By our way of thinking, it is completely illogical. But we are not going by our way of thinking; we’re going by revelation – what God has revealed about the way things are. The Bible was 100% written by men and 100% written by God.

2. Jesus. Was He God or man? Was He 50% God and 50% man? No. He was and is 100% God and 100% man. Again, “Impossible.” No. It’s God’s math, and it isn’t new math. It’s as old as He is. It’s His way of thinking. And that’s what we are going by. Jesus was 100% man and 100% God.

3. The Trinity. In the Trinity we have three 100%s equaling 100%. Why do we believe these things? Because of reason? No, because of revelation. There is only one God; yet the Father is 100% God, the Son is 100% God and the Holy Spirit is 100% God. Three one hundred percents equals 100%. Within the essence of the one God are three persons.

4. Sovereignty and Responsibility. Everything that happens, every deed that is done is in its entirety both an act of man and an act of God. “That’s impossible!” So is the Trinity. So are Jesus and the Bible. In current church teaching we’ve heard about the 100% act of the creature, but we haven’t heard that much about the 100% act of a sovereign God. We must know and tell the truth about this sovereign God.

For example, most of us have been taught that conversion is the responsibility of man. We must repent and believe. And so we must. God commands all men everywhere to repent. He won’t repent for you and He doesn’t need to repent. We are commanded to believe. But then we are told that we are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph.2:1). We are told to “look” but then told that we can’t see until we are born again, and no one can give birth to himself. The fact is, God must grant repentance (Acts 11:18), faith (Eph. 2:8-9) and sight. Jesus said, “You must be born again.” The Bible never says you can birth yourself. Peter never preached, “You can repent”, he preached you must repent. You can’t, so when you do repent, who gets the credit? Right, God gets the credit, the honor and the glory. But if you don’t repent and believe, guess who’s responsible? Right, you are. We are responsible and God is sovereign. That’s just the way it is. “God would never tell anyone to do something he could do,” I have heard many say. Truth is, God never told anyone to do something he could do! “Then why tell us to do it?” So we’d see our need of the grace and power of God. We need Him to do the things He commands.

If this is true, why is this so hard to see?

Because God is very, very careful to show that He gets the credit for the good, so we can say, “Thank you Lord,” and He can be honored. We don’t normally praise Him for the bad stuff that happens, but we do for the good. However, you will find that people in the Bible praised Him for His judgment and wrath. Read Rev.19:1-6 and you will see all of heaven rejoicing over the destruction of the false prophets on the earth. The Psalms are full of praises to God for the horrible (and yet righteous) judgments He performs on unbelievers. In Ex.15:1-7, 18 we find Israel dancing on the east bank of the Red Sea because God has drowned all the Egyptians and their horses.

But then on the other hand, God is not so careful about the bad things that happen being attributed to Him because He uses instruments to do these things and He wants the instruments to know that they are responsible. In viewing things, we tend to look at the instruments God uses (Satan, ungodly nations, diseases, etc.) and forget that God declares that these things are under His control. And we don’t like to think badly of God, so we ignore the hard parts of the Bible. We do this to our own spiritual harm. Anytime we leave out part of the truth about God we are only hurting ourselves. Then again, we don’t like to think too deeply and considering instruments and antinomies and the unfathomable ways of the infinite God are a stretch for our little minds. I’ve always heard that if you want people to like you make them think they are thinkers and if you want people to dislike you – make them think. I think this is true.

IV. LESSONS THAT NEED TO BE LEARNED

1. We are not gods. This is a big problem today in our world of self-esteem. And it has been a problem ever since Eden (Gen. 3:5). In Ps. 82:5-8 they thought they were gods. Jesus referred to this passage in Jn.10:33-34 and in so doing He was saying, “You have set yourselves up as gods. What’s one more god among you?” This was a quote that dealt with the condemnation of evil, wicked rulers. He was echoing the irony and sarcasm of that Psalm. Nothing is so humbling as an intense realization that there is only one God and I’m not He. God works and if He doesn’t those who labor do so in vain. I have lived long and I have made at least two discoveries. One is that there is a God. Two is that I am not He. There is only one God and He does everything. He is God and there is none other.

2. We don’t let God do anything. Fred Price said, “God does nothing on this earth without man’s permission.” Does this guy ever read the Bible? Just the opposite is true. Man does nothing without God’s permission. There is a big difference between me pulling my throne around letting God do things and the real God sitting on His throne commanding me to do things. There’s a big difference between me letting God save me and God commanding me to repent.

3. We should have a reverence for this sovereign God; a respect and love that makes us fear Him who does everything. What did Job do? He worshiped God. He realized that the Lord gave and the Lord took away and he said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job had a reverence for God when he went through his trials. He didn’t blame God for turning the devil loose on him; he blessed the God whom he knew did everything. In everything we should trust Him who controls all things. We should not murmur, we should trust.

4. We should love our enemies. No one can do anything to us unless God permits it. And if we love God and are fitting into His purpose He has permitted it for our own good and His own glory (Rm.8:28). Remember Joseph’s attitude. Jesus loved His enemies and prayed for their forgiveness.

So we see that, according to the Bible, God does everything. There is nothing outside the parameter of His sovereign will. His perfect, permissive, powerful will all make up His plenary will.

Our theology not only affects the way in which we live, but the success and effectiveness of the way in which we live our lives. If our God is sovereign and effective in all that He does and successfully accomplishes all His desired ends it follows that it will affect the way in which men lead their families, love their wives and raise their children. One of my great regrets is that I learned this precious truth way too late in life.

If one believes that the finished work of Christ on the cross simply made salvation possible based upon the decisions of fallen, sinful, unregenerate men rather than actually accomplishing everything God intended for it to accomplish…and that’s the salvation of every one of His elect then you have an impotent God and an ineffective gospel that produces ineffective and unsuccessful leaders in the home, ineffective and unsuccessful in loving their wives as Christ loved the church and an ineffective couples in raising their children, which of course results in an ineffective church, which teaches an ineffective gospel which in turn produces ineffective families, which is of course an endless cycle which only God can break when people begin to understand and embrace the truths who He really is.

On the cross, Christ actually conquered sin and death, and actually ransomed a people for Himself, a people to be called by His name. The cross was efficacious, and the evangelical church used to bear consistent testimony to that truth. When the gospel is understood, and husbands are exhorted to imitate Christ in His love for the church in their love for their wives, they undertake the imitation of an efficacious love. But in the last century, the church has slowly drifted away from this scriptural understanding of the cross. The power of the cross to save sinners began to be denied, but for evangelicals the cross still had to mean something. As a result the church began to emphasize the sentiment of Christ’s loving instead of the efficacy and power of Christ’s love. Softly and tenderly Jesus was calling, and evangelicals, en masse, began to leave home. You ask the typical Christian who Christ died for and they will immediately say that “He died for me”……In a very real sense that is true, however we were not at the forefront of Christ thinking. One song says “When He was on the cross I was on His mind.” Can you see how man centered that is? We were not the ones primarily on His mind, check out the scriptures and you will see that the FATHER was the one on Christ mind….primarily Christ died for the Father…and until we get our thinking and understanding of the cross God centered we will continue to have a man centered response to the cross and to the gospel. We must understand, as our Christian forefathers did, that before the cross can be for us it must first be for the Father. That is one reason we know that all that Christ did, from the time He left the portals of glory, took on our humanity, became obedient to death on a cross, was buried, resurrected and ascended back to the Father was effective and He successfully accomplished all the Father intended for it to accomplish.

The results of preaching and teaching an impotent God have been devastating on the church and on families. The efficacy of love was abandoned and the sentiment of loving was enthroned and when that happened men became impotent in their imitation of an impotent Lord.

What we must recognize and acknowledge is that our culture’s current revolt against the Most High was one that began in the families of the church, among those who professed the Lord’s name. Salt that loses its savor is trampled by men. Husbands who do not imitate the efficacious love of Christ will see their families trampled as well and that is what we have seen happen over the last century since the church has abandoned the doctrines of God’s Sovereign Grace.