The Majesty of God reveals His Sovereignty
(week 15/02)
Olubi Johnson
In our article on the majesty of God we saw how big and powerful God is. Relative to man, God is of the order of magnitude of 100100 times as big as man. This great and mighty God says the heavens are His throne and the earth is His footstool. To Him all the nations of the earth are as nothing in fact He has to humble Himself to behold the things on the earth.
Isaiah 66:1 KJV: Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
Psalms 113:6 KJV: Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!
I King 8:27 KJV: But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?
This means God has to reduce His size by using the angels of His presence to see and interact with men on the earth.
The majesty of the heavens and earth reveals to us the Excellency of the wisdom of our God:
Psalms 19:1 KJV: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Proverbs 3:19 KJV: The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
So we see that this mighty God that made the heavens and the earth is almighty in power and excellent in wisdom.
Now this revelation of God’s majesty revealing the extent of His power and wisdom shows that God can do anything, so making Him sovereign in His operation upon the earth. He can do whatever pleases Him as long as it does not contradict His written Word or His character, because the scripture says it is impossible for God to lie.
Psalms 135:5-6 KJV: For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.
Psalms 115:3 KJV: But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Daniel 4:32 KJV: And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
Daniel 4:35 KJV: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?
Hebrews 6:17-18 KJV: Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
How God operates sovereignly
Ordinarily God only does what men ask or think in their minds for Him to do based on the promises He has revealed in His Word. However when God does things without man asking Him to do it (or thinking it), then God is operating sovereignly.
Now it is a fact that God can do nothing legally on the earth except He does it through man, because He has given the authority of the earth to man when He gave Adam dominion over the earth.
Genesis 1:26 KJV: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Psalms 115:16 KJV: The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.
It would seem then that God’s sovereign acts would be illegal. But of course they are not, since “justice and judgement are the habitation of God’s throne (Ps.89: 14)”. How then does God legalize His sovereign acts? Through the corporate intercession in the spirit of His New Testament Church.
Ephesians 3:20 KJV: Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
That power that worketh in us is the power of the Holy Sprit working through the body of Christ corporately. That is why the scripture says, “working in us” (plural), not just ‘in me’ (singular). This power is released in the earth through men as they pray in the spirit, making it legal.
Ephesians 6:18 KJV: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Notice here that the prayer in the spirit is for all saints: past, present and future. Meaning God uses prayer in the spirit to pray for and so legalize all His sovereign acts for all His people irrespective of when they lived on the earth. This is an example of the manifold and hidden wisdom of God in operation, which “if the princes of this world had known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2: 6-8). This is one reason why Satan has fought praying in tongues with all types of prayer so much. He knows that without it God’s purposes will not be accomplished and finished legally.
So prayer in the spirit, in an unknown tongue inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the avenue through which God exercises His sovereignty. When we pray in the spirit God speaks through us whatever He wants to do that is above what we could ask or think in our understanding in addition to the details of what we have asked or thought.
So everything God has ever done or will do before the millennial reign of Christ sovereignly will be legalized by the prayer in the spirit of His New testament Church that is praying in the spirit.
What God is now doing through the New Testament Church to legalize His sovereign acts was the same thing He did through Jesus to legalize His forgiveness of sin under the Old Testament. God sovereignly forgave sins under the OT and used the blood of animals as a temporary covering for men’s sins until Christ came to pay the price by suffering and dying for us.
Heb 9:15 KJV: And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
God sovereignly caused a virgin to conceive to create a physical body for the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Is 7: 14)
In doing this God brought into the world, through His covenant with natural Israel, one Son who was to die for the sins of the world. In the new covenant He is impregnating with His Word spiritual virgins (Matt. 25: 1-13) to bring forth many sons after the image of the Lord Jesus who will now die by self-denial in fasting and prayer in the spirit for the life of the world.
John 1:29 KJV: The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Romans 8:29 KJV: For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
1 Corinthians 15:31 KJV: I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
Luke 9:23 KJV: And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
2 Corinthians 4:11-12 KJV: For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
Here we see God moving sovereignly (nobody prayed or asked (or thought) God to cause a virgin to conceive and it was the only way Jesus could be born sinless and so be able to die for our sins) to cause Jesus to be born of a virgin and die for our sins and then later on paying the price to legalize His sovereign act by the church that denies and dies to self daily to pray in the spirit to be conformed to the image of Christ and so release life for the blessing of humanity.
In our article next week we will see more examples of God’s sovereignty and how to exercise faith in God’s sovereignty.
