Pastor Logan Ramsey
https://twitter.com/LoganRamseySDG
https://newharvestministriesneo.org/
New Harvest NEO
God is Sovereign
that moment. You, of course, already know that we are going to be looking at Psalm 33 tonight. I have, and I actually did this for both of my preaching engagements, both today and tonight, something that I don't think I've ever done, and that is at the very last minute change. My topic and my sermon text, I have done so in light of recent national events that we will begin discussing shortly, but please, if you would, turn with me to Psalm 33. At least for our purposes tonight, Lord willing, next Sunday night, I will actually be preaching again and we will finish our studies in the Lord's prayer, which just means we have the rest of the sermon on the Mount to go. I'm looking forward to that, I hope you are as well. But Psalm 33, I would ask, of course, that if you're able that you would please stand for the reading of the Word of God. Psalm 33, here now the Word of the Lord. Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the liar. Make melody to him with the harp of ten strings. Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of his steadfast love of the Lord. By the word of the Lord the heavens are made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap. He puts the deeps and storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The plans of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. The Lord looks down from heaven. He sees all the children of man. From where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. He who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive and famine. Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. Would you join me in a word of prayer? Dear gracious heavenly Father, let your power let your dominion be glorified tonight. Let our hearts tremble at your sight. Dear God, we pray that your holiness is revered in this time of worship. We pray that the truths of about who you are, you've taught us in your word, would be magnified, that we would look at these things and that we would not just believe them, but that we would apply these things to our hearts and to our worldviews and our lives as a hold your God. May your name be hallowed and honored in what is preached. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you and you may be seated. As most of you are aware, just last evening, it was we were all made aware of the fact that former President Donald J. Trump in one of his re-election rallies in just a few miles from here in Butler, Pennsylvania was grazed by a bullet. The information that we currently have is that there was a would-be assassin on a nearby rooftop who was shot down by security there. However, there is one innocent bystander who lost his life and as a matter of fact, I would just like to read his name. Corey Comparatori, the father, obviously, his name is not as well known to us as our former President's name, obviously, but his family right now is in tremendous grief and tremendous pain. From what I read, the daughter claims that this was a man of God who loved Jesus with all his heart and so there is a certain hope that that brings to all of us, a certain joy that that brings, but I want us to keep that family in our prayers as well. Now, I believe that we need to address this, not we need to be taught some things about our God from the Scriptures that would give us hope and that would give us encouragement during these times. It, you know, I don't claim to be some kind of prophet, right? I'm not the next Elijah, but just as I have looked at my world, the past number of weeks and I look at the nation, I look at the things going on, I can't help but just have a tremendous burden and if I feel that way, I know that I'm probably not alone. I know that some of you are probably feeling those same kinds of emotions, the same kind of stress, the same kind of discouragement. You look at what is going on with our southern border, you look at what is going on with child sacrifice in this nation, you look at what is going on with the various, you know, different kinds of sexual immorality that our culture perpetuates, which is just begging God to judge us and now you look at whether you were going to vote for him or not, that's not the point of this all, someone who used to be our president in, you know, not in Chicago, not in New York City, not in Baltimore, in Butler, Pennsylvania, small town and within inches of his life being taken. When you look at something like that and you think, well, that's the kind of stuff that happens in like communist countries, people assassinating, taking out their political opponents, but it's happened here. It is not the first time and the effect that that kind of have on us, even those of us who are strong Christians, who are strong in the faith, we know our theology, we know our doctrine of sovereignty and these different things, there can be just this tremendous way of stress and anxiety. It's like, what is going on in my world? What is going on in my nation? I want to sort of remedy that emotion tonight and I chose Psalm 33. It's one of my favorite songs. It, by the way, is wildly offensive to the sensibilities of natural man and we will touch on those things. But this morning, I was just kind of looking at the Psalm again and I sort of made a brief outline. It's something I like to do when I'm preparing my sermons and what you'll notice is the sort of progression in the themes that is discussed here. There are sort of three things that we are told about God that are very, very important. We are told first that God is good. We are told secondly that God is the creator of all things. Thirdly, we are told that God is sovereign over all things and what I want you to sort of see is that those three doctrines or those three attributes of the Lord build upon one another. They're related. We don't separate those things out. As a matter of fact, I believe, and I may talk about this, if we were to separate, say, the goodness of God from the sovereignty of God, we'd be left with a very inadequate, false understanding of who God is. Like most of the Psalms, and we sang this Psalm just a few moments ago, these were things that were composed for the ancient covenant people of God, our fathers in the faith, because God has one covenant people throughout all of history, that they would sing these for the purpose of praising and worship God. So it begins just how many of the Psalms do. Shout for joy, sing a new song to the Lord at all these wonderful things. But then we are told in verses 4 and 5, "For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord." What that is in verses 4 and 5 is a declaration of the goodness of God. He loves righteousness. He loves justice. There's a reason why, in Isaiah chapter 6, the angels looked at the one who sat on the throne and said, holy, holy, holy. He loves righteousness. He loves justice. By the way, if he loves righteousness in justice, it means he hates wickedness and he hates injustice. We are also told, and I think this is just a beautiful phrase, all his work is done in faithfulness. All his work is done with integrity, honesty, purpose. He is faithful with all things. He doesn't give up on any of the works that he has done. And he is true to those works. He is proud of those works. Many of us in this room have done works. We have done deeds that were not done in faithfulness. When we sin against God, for example, that is not a deed that is done in faithfulness. That's a deed that says, I don't trust the Lord. The thing about it, when you sin, what you're saying is, I don't believe that God can make me as happy as this sin can make me. Even though the Bible promises that we are to find our delight in the Lord, and those delights are greater than anything that this world can offer. But when we are not being faithful, we do deeds that are done in faithfulness and we trample under foot our profession of faith each time we sin. God does not do that. All of his deeds are done in faithfulness. And this is the person who loves righteousness. He loves justice and the earth is full of his steadfast love. Now right after we are told that about his word being upright, his work being done in faithfulness, we are told about some of the works of God. In verse 6 it says, "By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap. He puts the deeps in storehouses." This is talking about God as creator of all things. And we could talk about that by the word of the Lord. Obviously you read the account in the book of Genesis. God speaks all things into existence. Later on in the Psalm in verse 9 it's going to say, "He spoke and it came to be. He commanded, and it stood firm." We are told about how powerful the word of the Lord is. And many people point out the fact that in the Greek Septigint, that term word is translated as "logos," you know in the gospel of John Jesus is identified as the logos and it says all things were made through him. Just an interesting way to see the unity in the Bible there. But so not only is God good, he is the creator of all things. Well that means that the creation itself is going to have some flavor, some taste of the goodness of God. Many Christians are essentially gnostic. They don't believe that the created world is good. But God created the world and what did he say? It was good. He looked at what he'd done. He said, "This is good." Now the next truth that is built upon that, think about it in sort of a flow. God is good. He is the creator of all things. And then we are told about his amazing sovereignty. He spoke. It came to be. He commanded, and it stood firm. Verse 10 says, "The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The plans of his heart to all generations." We're to skip ahead to verse 13. "The Lord looks down from heaven. He sees all the children of man. From where he sits enthroned, he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. He who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds." In Christian theology, there are, depending on what theologian you read, some will use the term in gussing God. God's incommunicable attributes, meaning those attributes about God that can only be true about God. They cannot be true about the angels. They cannot be true about man, but they are things that only apply to God. And one of those attributes we actually read about in this text, and it's God's discriminating, powerful sovereignty. There is no angel of whom it can be said. He spoke and it came to be. There is no angel of whom it can be said. He commanded and it stood firm. No, not the mightiest saint, not the mightiest prophet or wonder worker has that power. And where does that power come from? Well, it comes from the very fact, let's see these things as being connected, that God is the creator of all things. If God is the creator of all things, that means that all other living beings are creatures. It's what the word creature means, by the way, something that is created. God, being in the position of creator of all, is necessarily the greatest and most powerful being that does exist. In order for some other being that God created to be more powerful than God, that being must be the ultimate creator. But by virtue of its own creation, this is a logical impossibility. Nothing can be more powerful than God, because God is the creator of all things. By necessity of that fact, all things that are in existence, all beings, including Satan, the devil himself, depend upon God for any action that they would wish to partake of. No one, therefore, can be more powerful than God. Now, think about this in verse 10, the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. There is a saying, and my uncle likes to say this, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Proverbs 19, 21 says, "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand." You can apply this in one degree to your own life. You can look back upon the history of your life and things that you probably did not recognize in the moment, but as you look back on your life, you see it's sort of like you can put all these pins and like tie a string around it, and you can see how God was using all of these different things to bring you to where you are now. And most of us, I think, have many things that we were planning or that we were purposing to do, that we are very thankful, God frustrated. We are very thankful that He brought those plans to nothing, that He frustrated our plans. I know that I have things like that that I can think of. Now, we can apply that on the very, very small scale, looking at our own individual lives, but the beauty of this psalm right here is that this is applied to the grand scale, big picture, international affairs. He brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the people. I sort of see a cross-reference here to Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage in the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then He will speak to them in His wrath and terrify them in His fury, saying, "As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, "You are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage." Notice that nations there is plural. As we say in Psalm 65 tonight, "All the nations of the earth will gather to give praise to Yahweh. In the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with the rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun, least he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. So prophecy about your Messiah. You look at His life and you look at the multiple different groups of people that conspired together. They were going to crush Jesus. And what is the prayer of the early church in Acts chapter 4? In this text we see just an obvious illustration of this truth that you all know so well. In Acts chapter 4 verse 27, this is the prayer of the early church. Quoting Psalm 2, "Why did the Gentiles rage in the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His anointed. For truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod, Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. That's four distinct parties. Verse 28, "To do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." You have all these different groups with all these different motivations. They come together. They all have one unified goal. And it's to kill Jesus Christ. It is to put to death the ministry that He began. And what is the prayer of the early church? Herod, Pilate, Jews, Gentiles. What you did was let His hand and His plan had predestined to take place. We read the psalm. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. Now, I would not expect you to appreciate the sovereignty of God if we were not also told that God is good. Right? That's why we want to see these things as being connected. It's not just that God is sovereign. It's also that His word is upright, it's that He loves righteousness and justice, because there can be people with sovereignty and dominion and authority who are not good. We are told that prior to Jesus casting Him out, that Satan had dominion and authority over the earth. Well, he had that this level of power, but it was bad. Satan, obviously, being evil. So it's not just that God is sovereign, it's that He is good and sovereign at the same time. And that is how we can have a balanced understanding of these things. Now, that does not mean that the natural man likes to hear that his plans and his purposes, if they do not align with God's, will all be thwarted. The great R.C. Sproul, how I miss him, once said, "God has free will. I have free will. Wherever my free will runs into God's, His wins." Saw a clip of a woman on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and the most popular podcast in the nation. And guess what they were talking about? Romans, chapter 9. And this girl was talking about just how horrendous that chapter was. She was so disgusted with the fact that it describes God as the potter, us as the clay. And she's just so upset about this, but you know what? She understood the passage, for the most part. She knew what it was talking about. She got it right. She read it. She believed the text. She didn't like it. Why? Natural men do not like to be told that they are but creatures. They do not like to be told that their plans will be brought to nothing. What does Psalm 33 say? Verse 13, "The Lord looks down from heaven." He sees all the children of man. From where he sits enthroned, he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. And what does it say in verse 15? "He who fashions the hearts of them all." There's a proverb that says the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. And like a river, the Lord turns it, whichever way it will go. I don't care if you don't like that. God fashioned your heart. He is in control and he observes all of your deeds. And you say, Logan, I thought this was to be a message of hope and encouragement. It is. It is if you trust in him. If you believe he is good, if you believe he is righteous, and that he is just and holy, oh, it is so pleasurable to know this. I love the fact that I am not a self-made man. I love the fact that my destiny lies not in my own hands. I love the fact that whatever plans and purposes I may have come up with in the past remain the future that the counsel of Yahweh will stand. Oh, how I rejoice. Charles Spurgeon said that the sovereignty and the providence of God was like a pillow upon which he would rest his head at night. So, beloved, when you look at the affairs of our world, you look at the nations and you look at all the crazy things that are happening. Don't lose hope because whose world is this? This is God's world. Thank you. Whose will will be done? Will we pray? Thy will be done. Excuse me for that. And if that is the case, those of us who take our refuge in him need not ever worthy. Need not ever be discouraged. I hope and pray that President Trump realizes that. I hope and pray that last night as he was going to bed, he did not think, or excuse me, he did not merely think the secret service or the security. I pray to God he did not pray mere happenstance or chance or luck or fortune that he was spared his life. Another thing Dr. Sproul liked to tell us is that there are no maverick molecules in this universe. Do you see the picture where you can literally see the bullet flying right past his head? Now he needs to repent, tremble in fear, the holiness of the God who spared his life. That is what he must do. The king is not saved by his great army. This is verse 16. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation and by its great might it cannot rescue. Loved ones do not think that what keeps you secure at night is your government, the military, even your own strength. There are gun owners in this room. Don't even trust in that. The king is not saved by his great army and a warrior is not delivered by his own strength. Verse 18 behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive and famine. It is so easy to be discouraged. But we are promised that if we fear God, by the way, as Dr. White likes to say, the Greek word for fear means fear. There is an actual sense in which we should look at God's power, where we should look at his mighty works. I mean it's amazing to me that we will have kids draw a little Sunday school picture of Noah's ark and all these smiling animals and it's like, what about the corpses? What about all the inhabitants of the earth that God decided needed to die and that only the eight that he chose would live, that his purposes and his decrees would stand. What about that? Is that the God that you worship? And if you say no, I can never worship a God like that. I can never worship a God who predestinates. You're right, you never will worship him. But that's the God of this book. That is the God whom we must fear. Our lives are in his hands. I understand something right now and that is that my heart is continuing to beat, but it will only continue to do so as long as he says, I can take all kinds of supplements, I can eat right, I can exercise, and I will die if Jesus Christ does not continue to extend his hand of mercy upon my mortal body. And so yes, we should fear the Lord. But this fear is a lovely thing. It is a lovely thing because not only do we fear him, we hope in his steadfast love. Do you ever think about that? Those are both emotions, affections that we have for God, right there in the same verse, right next to each other. And so if you think that that contradicts, well, I don't think the psalmist was that stupid when he was writing this. I think he knew that these things go together. We fear God, we tremble at his majesty, we tremble at his holiness and we hope in his love. That is the only option that we have. And so, beloved, politics is important. It is important that Christians be involved in all areas and aspects of life working for God's kingdom, but you need to know this. Politics is not the Savior. Doug Wilson likes to say politics is not the Savior, but politics will be saved. I believe that. I have a very optimistic view for the future. I really, really do. I mean, we've already read multiple psalms about all the ends of the earth coming to fear the Lord, but that does not mean that in the meantime, God will not call us into a time of great suffering. As a matter of fact, God, the Bible describes suffering as a gift. And so do not trust in these different things that they will save you, that they will save this nation. Now, the only thing that will save this nation, we are told right there in verse 12. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. Obviously, it goes without saying that there is a specific application to the covenant nation of Israel that was literally chosen by God. But that proposition, that the nation whose God is Yahweh is the Lord, will be blessed, that is something that we would apply to all nations. The law of God is the standard by which all men will be judged. And so you want to see your land secure. You want your family to be protected. We need to repent of our sin. And we were Bible study this weekend, and we were talking about it. And it's so easy, and I hope I don't make this mistake. It's so easy to look at the obvious sins in our culture, right? It's so easy to look at child sacrifice, homosexuality, and point our fingers there and say those are the bad people. But how many of you in the past few years watched a movie with nudity in it? Because God hates that, and he hates that you did it. All of us, I am sure of it, have contributed to this aura of sexual promiscuity in this land. You look at the popular media, you look at social media influencers, movies, music, whatever it is, the looseness and the licentiousness. And it's so easy to go. Yeah, but that's straight people fornicating. So it's okay. No, God hates that too. He sends straight fornicators to hell, just along with pedophiles and homosexuals in rapists. All of us, by contributing to this wicked culture, are contributing to the judgment that is being poured out upon us right now as I speak. It's true. All of us, we need to repent. That is our only hope. The king is not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. We must fear the Lord. Beloved, I am begging you to hear this. Fear him. Repent. And do not trust in these compromised politicians who will sacrifice children just to win elections. Okay? Now we need to pray to God for a change of heart, for us, for our leaders, for our neighbors. That is what we need. But do not, and perhaps I'm contributing to this, and if I am, I apologize, but the point of this message is not to leave us all sour and sour, right? We need to hear the hard truths. We need to feel conviction. But even when the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, it's not that we would just stay there all miserable. But if you look at the Beathet, if there's a progression, we're poor in spirit, we mourn, but then all of a sudden we hunger and thirst for righteousness and God sanctifies us and we grow and we're changed. And so you need to know something. There are no pessimistic verses in the Bible. There is not a passage in the Bible that the Holy Spirit wrote to make you, you know, lose hope or be discouraged. My point is that even if those of us who fear the Lord are few in numbers comparatively speaking, I mean, look at the prophets in the ancient times. You know, though they grew discouraged and we're looking at the state of Israel, God will say things like, "I have reserved for myself a remnant 7,000 that have not bowled the need to be all." And that's 7,000. Think how many Christians now inhabit the earth today. And so yeah, I know it's easy to lose hope. I know it's easy to get discouraged, but you need to know something. God hates wickedness because he loves righteousness. That's the opposite sign of it. And so when wicked men and wicked people conspire together to do wicked things, whose plans are ultimately going to remain firm in the end? God's. And so even if we go through adversity, even if we go through times of struggling or times of woe or sadness or hardship, we who believe in the sovereignty of God can trust and know and hold it that promise sweetly and firmly in our hearts, his purposes are going to stand. If you would turn with me to a Psalm 121, just sort of a lasting bit of encouragement. And I have at least one other point of application I want to make after this. Psalm 121, "I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Those who fear the Lord are promised his provision and are promised his protection. And as Jesus once said, "Do not fear those who can kill the body, but after that do no more." Fear him who can destroy both body and soul and hell. I want you to know that one of the greatest encouragements that we can have during times of world calamity or whatever it is that we face in the next few years, the greatest blessing of hope and encouragement that is going to keep you strong, fathers that is going to keep your wives and your children strong, is entrusting in your soul to the Lord. I mean, if we were going to trust our mortal lives to him, why would we not trust the most important thing that we have? And that is our eternal destiny and our eternal salvation. And the promise of Scripture is that Jesus Christ came into this world. He did so in obedience to his father. He said, "I come not to do the will of him who sent me." Excuse me, I've got not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent me that of all he's given me, I should lose none of it, but raise it up on the last day. He came to this earth in obedience to his father to save the elect, to save the church. From heaven, he came and sought her with his own blood, he bought her. His father gave him a mission to save every single one of those whom he had given him. Jesus is not going to let down his father. He loves his father with the love that is greater than anything any of us have ever experienced or intimate, sweet, delightful. Because of his great love for his father, he will not let him down. He is going to save every one of those. And you ask, "Well, who are they?" All those who believe in the Lord. That is what we are told. That is what we are promised. All who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I hope that our former president's near run in inches away from meeting his maker and his judge has opened up his heart to see these things, but the beloved, I can only speak to those who are in front of me right now. I know most everyone in this room makes a profession of faith, but that doesn't mean that we can't hear these truths and remain encouraged by them. And for those of you who love your neighbor, the most loving thing you can do for your neighbor is to tell them this truth. I pray that God would grant repentance and revival to our land, but I pray that no matter what happens on the television screen or on your news feed on Twitter, whatever it is, don't lose hope. Christians are to react to adversity in such a way, one of my favorite texts in 1 Peter. Peter says, "Honor Christ as Lord in your heart, always being prepared to make a defense for the hope that is within you." The point of that versus that, as we suffer, as we go through persecution and tribulation, Christians react in such a unique way that people literally are looking at us going, "Why do you have this hope?" The only way to answer that question is to be intimately familiar with this book. This book is the source of our hope for it is God's revelation and God's word to us. So believe in the promised Messiah who came, who gave his own blood that all those who believed in him would receive his righteousness and be kept secure forevermore. He's not going to fail in this work, for all his works are done in faithfulness. Would you join me in order to prayer? Our great Triune God, we thank you for your mercy. We thank you that you've taken an undeserving people and that you've called this out of darkness into your marvelous light. We thank you that we've been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, our paraclete. We've been raised to new life. Lord, we pray that you would continue to sanctify us that in a day such as ours, you would raise us up for whatever purpose it is that you've set forth an eternity past. Let us not lose hope. Let us not be discouraged. Oh, dear God, let us search our hearts. We'll search us, dear Lord, and show us if there be any false way within us, that we might repent of these known sins particularly, that we might exhort others to do the same. God, I trust not in the strength of my own hands nor my nation. I trust in you alone. You're all I have. You're all we have. God, please. Do with us what thou wilt. Christ's name, we pray. Amen.