Well, I want to also say thank you to all y'all for allowing us to be among you. It's been such a joy. The fellowship has been so sweet. Thank you for all your hospitality and true have the Lord I think has been blessing us this weekend. So it's good to be with you. Have you ever heard anybody ask the question, why do y'all heart so much about sovereignty? I'm going to talk pretty long with I get people ask that all time. You know, you guys just talk about sovereignty, sovereignty, sovereignty. Is there anything else that you can talk about? Whenever I was in the, uh, Coming out of the Southern Baptist, I grew up Southern Baptist, and as I came out of the Southern Baptist, I was an associate pastor at the church that I was in, and my grandfather was the only pastor that I ever knew. And they said, you know, I have some of the things you're saying, some things your grandpa saying, kind of two different directions. You ever thought about the health of the church being pulled apart, you know, because these things and I said, well, no, I really hadn't thought much about that other than I just hoping to share the truth and that the Lord gives somebody to believe it. And, uh, They came and they said, well, you know, we'd really like you to continue to be our associate pastor and preach and teach. We kind of like what you're doing here. But they said, is there any way that you can not preach about those things like that? And I said, well, what particular things? And they said, well, about, you know, sovereignty and election and predestination. I said, no, I don't think I can. I said, matter of fact, God's sovereignty pervades anything that I've taught. I mean, if you want to talk about, you know, the home, if you want to talk about any, whatever you want to talk about in scripture, God's sovereignty is going to be going through everybody. So I said, I just don't think I can do that. And they said, well, you might kind of consider that and everything. Of course, I went home and sucked the Lord in and everything ended up stepping down from any leadership there and continued to go there for a little while until the Lord opened up the opportunity for me to go to Joplin. But the question was always about sovereignty. Why are professing Christians so problemed with God's sovereignty? And that question had been on my mind for a long time. I was reading some passages over in Exodus and I actually found something that, unless the Lord gives us an understanding of it, sovereignty is the issue. It's the issue. Do you believe that God is God or do you not? Do you have a God that you fashioned in your own making? Or do you have the God that's revealed in here? In Exodus chapter three, Moses come across this bush that was burning, but not being consumed. And there was a voice that came out of this bush and it began to speak to him. And it was telling him he's going to have him go do some stuff. And, you know, I don't know, the Bible doesn't say necessarily, but if I was Moses, I'm sure I would have had to kind of check myself because I might have missed myself coming up on a bush burning and not consumed and all of a sudden talking to me and now he's going to tell me what I need to go do. I might have thought I might have got into some plant out there that I shouldn't have ate that's causing me to go a little cuckoo. But Moses, he came up and after hearing these things, He says in verse 13, he says, and Moses said unto God, behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them. Now brother, let me just stop right here before I go any further. A lot of times I've mentioned to our folks at church, the Old Testament is about Jesus. That's about as simple as I can make it. The Old Testament, while it is full of historical record, and I'm glad it's there, but we, if the Lord would grant us and give us to understand, we need to move beyond the physical and see what the spiritual is in all of that. While these people are running around doing all their things that God has ordained for them to do in all the historical activity that was going on and all like that. All of this is written for our understanding. And it's not for our understanding of what historically is going on necessarily, but our understanding more of Christ Jesus, our understanding of him, our understanding of our God. And so whenever we are reading these things and I'm looking at this about Moses saying, whenever I come into the children of Israel and wanting to know, what am I supposed to tell them? Who am I supposed to tell them is telling me all this stuff. And if I'm looking beyond the physical happenings here with Moses and I'm looking about what we're, what are we doing here today? Coming to the spiritual children of Israel coming and saying what about our God? What about him? You know, what are we saying about our God? Does it matter what we say about our God? Can we just come up with whatever we want and just kind of paint it? I mean, one of the brothers mentioned about all these creatures on TV. You turn on that, and whenever I hear all the stuff they're saying about God, it's something different than what I read. But Moses said, whenever I come unto the children of Israel and shall say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me unto you and they shall say to me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? I often ask that every time I get up in the stand, you know, what shall I say to them? Lord, what do you want me to say? You have to be my words. If not, it's just going to be a bunch of junk. The man's wisdom is concocted. And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. That's kind of odd. Mike, if I came to you and I said, hey, what's your name? And you say, I am that I am. Well, what's your name? You know, You know, most people would say, well, my name is Michael Smith, John Napier, you know, that's kind of odd that most of what, what, what, what, who did I tell them this is? And God said, I am that I am. That was kind of odd. The word I am that he told to Moses, is a word that I believe encapsulates who God is. I am means I am self-existent. It means nobody made me, nobody created me, no one brought me forth. I have always been. I'm self-existent. Nobody has made me God. Nobody has elevated me to God. Nobody has made me their Lord. I am self-existent. That word also means, and being self-existent means I have no needs outside of myself. I don't need anything. How many times have you ever heard anybody say that God created us because he needed somebody to love? Or God created us because he needed to do this or needed to do that or whatever. I heard that, you know, of course growing up and I used to preach this as well, you know, God give us free will because he wanted a reciprocal relationship with us so that would give us free will so we could freely do this and not by court. God doesn't need anything. The fact that I am means that I am. I am what I am. Nobody makes me what I am. Nobody has made me sovereign. I am sovereign. Nobody made me the king. I am the king. Nobody made me loving. I am loving. Nobody made me compassionate. I'm compassionate. No one made me merciful. I'm merciful. No one made me wrathful. I'm wrathful. No one made me almighty. I'm almighty. He is who He is. That's what that name means. It means that He is self-existent. He said, I am that I am. And tell the children of Israel, I am hath sent me. That word I am also brings to mind the fact that God is uncontrolled. Nobody controls God. I am. Does anybody control? You know, I do what I want to do. I am who I am. Nobody changes me. Nobody has influenced me. In any way, nobody has influenced me. Doesn't the Bible say that God takes counsel from nobody? Nothing influences me. I am who I am. I am uncontrolled. Nobody controls me. And I find a connotation in that word, I am. I also find the connotation that I do as I please. And doesn't He reveal that about Himself in the Scriptures? That He does as He pleases. So that means there's no outside influence. There's nothing pressuring Him, moving Him, influencing, coercing Him. Nothing is above Him. Nothing beside Him. Co-equal with Him. He is God. There's one God. And He is the only God. There are none other. And this God is the self-existent one. That's who he said to Moses that he was. And he said, this is who I am. Go tell the children of Israel that I am have sent me to you. But let's look a little bit further about this name. Look at Exodus chapter six. I think God opens this up a little bit more here in Exodus chapter 6. And look with me at verse 2. It says, And God spake unto Moses and said unto him, and here's this phrase, I am the Lord. Now if you'll notice in your English Bibles there, especially if you have the King James Bible, you'll notice that that word is in all capital letters. That word, all in capital letters, if you, if you, you may know this guy's in there, if so, just bear with me. The word in capital letters refers to God as Jehovah. It's, it's his, it's his name. The root of this word, this Hebrew word here behind this, is actually the same word as I am. Whenever you look at that passage that we just read that says I am, the root word behind that is the same root word as this. It's haya, it's I am and Jehovah are the same thing. And he says here, say unto him and said unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. So up until this point, God had never revealed the fact that he is the self-existent one who is uncontrolled, who does as he pleases. But he had revealed himself as the Almighty. He tells Moses, but by my, he said, I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name, and here's the word again, Jehovah, which is the same as Lord, it's the same as I am, I am not ours, was I not known unto them. So I hadn't revealed this about myself until now. Now let's think about this word Almighty. We know that the word Almighty means to have all power. He has absolutely all power. So now God has opened up to Moses, and he has said, not only am I the self-existing one, but I'm the self-existing one that's uncontrolled, and the one who does as he pleases, and I have all power. To everyone else, they knew that he had all power. But now he says, I have all power. And whenever we kind of look at that and put that together, what does that tell us? It tells us the difference between being the almighty, which he is, and being sovereign. Because the word sovereign encapsulates all of that in the fact that not only does he have all power, but now we are told he has all right. to use his power however he wants. To be sovereign means that you have the right to exercise your power any way you want to. And so God now has fully revealed himself to Moses in the aspect of what it means to be I am is to be all powerful and to be able to do with that power whatever I want to do. And he showed that to Moses by using Pharaoh as his tool, by using the people of Israel and the people of Egypt as his tool to reveal their whole entire 400 years that they were in Egypt. And then they came out, how they got to Egypt, and then how they came out of all of that life stuff that happened, right? But all of that was a picture. of our beautiful salvation in Christ Jesus. And here God has revealed himself as the self-existent one who has all power and the ability to control and do with that power whatever he wants to do. Look over to Exodus chapter 33 if you would. Exodus 33. I think this kind of reveals a little bit more about it. He says, and he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. So now Moses is wanting to see God's glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the, and here's that word again, Lord. He said, show me thy glory, But he said, I'm going to proclaim my name. Now, he did eventually go and put Moses in the cleft of the rock and covered him with his hand and let his backside go in front of him and everything. But before he did that, before he did any of that, he said, I'm going to reveal some more about my name. I'm gonna expose a little bit more about my name. Matter of fact, if you think about it, the word name itself, just using that phraseology, the name, it means authority. You know, we use the phrase in our vernacular, you know, stopping the name of the law, right? Well, what does that mean? Under the authority of the law, you need to stop what you're doing, you know, put your hands up, whatever. It's saying I've come in the name of the law. I come in the authority of the law. And so whenever we talk about name, we talk about God's authority. And he says here, I will proclaim the name of the Lord to you. And look what he says. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. So we see the glory of God is found in his name. The name displays his authority and his power. If you take that and you couple that with the fact that he revealed himself as I am, I am the self-existent one that is uncontrolled and that I do as I please, now we see why he says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Why? Because I have sovereign power to do anything that I want to do. And if I want to exert power to show mercy and grace upon a child that I have chosen before the foundation of the world, the very fact that he can choose before the foundation of the world, This is all wrapped up in His name. And that's His glory. That's His glory. Look back at Exodus 3.15 again. I want to show something here, if the Lord will help me. In verse 15 of chapter 3, he says, And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever. So he's reiterating the fact, this name that I've revealed to you, this is my name forever. It's not just an Old Testament name. It's not going to be just a New Testament name. This is my name forever. But look what he says here. And this is my memorial unto all generations. This is what I want to be memorialized as. This name is what I want to be remembered as. To be known as. To be told about in all generations. So here we see, if I'm not mistaken, God wants every generation to know this about Him. The memorial they said, not necessarily that God is love, although He is love. He's compassion. He's mercy. He's just. He's holy. He's righteous. But here He says, the memorial that I want to be told to every generation is that I am that I am. I am uncontrolled, I am self-existent, I do as I please, and I can take my power that I have as the Almighty and exercise it in any way that I want to exercise it. I can exert my God-headness, if you'll allow me that, oaky phrase, exert that God-head in any way that I see fit. And that's my memorial to all generations, that's how I want to be known. in every generation. This is what I want you to tell your children, and your children's children, and their children after that, and everybody else that comes down the pike. And preachers, that's what we should be telling our congregations. How sad it breaks my heart to see all the churches, professed churches around us, and the men get up and they lie on God. They lie on Jesus. They lie on salvation. They lie to their people. They give them a false hope that they can do something of their own, that by their choice or because they've made a choice or a decision or filled out a card or went through some water or joined up in the church, something has caused them to be a child of God all of a sudden, but that thing can go away easily. They can change their mind, go away. It's just amazing. In Genesis chapter 18, And verse 14, the Bible says, is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed, I will return unto thee, and according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. God caused life to be in a barren womb. But the question here that God asked is, is there anything too hard for the Lord? Is there anything too hard for the Lord? No, why? Because he's I am. Because he has all power. He has all authority. He can do whatever he wants to do. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. Look, if you would, Job, we was reading there last night in Job 42. Bear with me, brother. I'm not a fast turner sometimes. In Job chapter 42, in verses 1 and 2, it says, Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholding from thee. It's not just what God says, and it's not just what God shows that He does, but whatever God thinks. Whatever comes into God's mind, It comes in there because that's His pleasure, that's His will, that's His desire, and He can do all of His pleasure, right? In Isaiah chapter 14, we find something else about God as it pertains to His sovereignty. Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 24, The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand." God doing what He wants. Nothing can stop Him. Look through it, verse 29. Or excuse me, verse 27. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? I can't change God's mind. People think they can change God's mind all the time. I can't change God's mind. It says, and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? When God puts his hand to do something, ain't nobody gonna stop it. Ain't nobody gonna change it. Look over in chapter 40 of Isaiah. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord?" Man, we think we can control the Spirit. Man, them Pentecostals and Charismatics think they can just... Man, they got control. They got the Holy Spirit on a leash, don't they? who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him. With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way, understanding. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as a small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles of a very little thing, And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing in vanity. To whom then will ye liken God? Well, I can tell you what, after reading all these things, nobody else can do this, and so that means I can't liken him to anybody else. Or what likeness will ye compare him? I can't compare him to anybody else because nobody else can do this. The workman melteth the graven image and the goldsmith spread it over with gold and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooses the tree that will not rot. He seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that shall not be moved. Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Had it not been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing. Boy, everyone thinks that they can make this government something, don't they? Oh, we're going to get our government back into track, right? only as the Lord wills. He raises up princes and he brings them down, brings up kingdoms, brings them down. Hey, listen, America's nothing. The Roman Empire, it was a mighty empire. It was nothing. Yea, they shall not be planted. Yea, they shall not be sown. Yea, their stock shall not take root. Them are some hard shallows, brother Mike. And he shall also blow up on them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as double. To whom then will ye like in me, or shall I be equal? Sayeth the Holy One. In chapter 46. In chapter 46, look if you would at verse nine. Yes, verse nine. Remember the former things of old for I am God and there's none else. I am God and there's none like me declaring the end from the beginning. But not just that, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done. saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my, I will do all my pleasure. That means the end, the beginning, everything in between is all his pleasure. He didn't look down the corridor of time and see what the end was gonna be and then say, okay, I'm gonna work that to my good pleasure. No. In the beginning, The end of all this was his pleasure. From the beginning, what came into his mind, my thoughts, are now being manifested in everything going to the end. God can't look down the corridor of time and see anything, therefore he'd be counseled by something, right? Something would have taught him. He would have learned something. Nope, the end. The only foreknowledge that God has is foreknowing what he has already declared. He's ordained it, he's declared it. That's God's foreknowledge. It's not some fortune-telling thing looking down the corridor of time, right? My pleasure shall stand calling a ravenous bird from the east The man that executed my counsel from a far country? You mean God predestinates these events? He predestinates events? I thought it was just eternal salvation, right? Yea, I have spoken it. What does it say? Who's going to bring it to pass? Is he going to leave it to chance? You know, I used to hear God set everything in motion, just let it go. And now he's kind of like this big goalie, and anytime something starts getting out of his purpose, boom, he knocks it back into place. You know, boom, knocking it back into place. He's working everything out to the counsel of his own will, but he's doing it by any time somebody messes up, oh, I'm gonna get that, bend it back into my will. No, no, no, no. If it went askew, it went askew because he wanted it to go askew. If it started going south, he wanted it to go south. If he wanted evil and calamity, it was because he wanted evil and calamity. He says, I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will do it. Amen. Does he use people like Satan and Job? Yes. Yes, he does. But at the end of the day, I will bring it to pass. I will do all my pleasure. Look at chapter 55. Bear with me some more. Am I going too long here, brother? No. Look in chapter 55 in verse 11. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please. How does he know that? Because he's the almighty, he has all power. How do we know that? Because he's the I am. He can do whatever he wants to do. He's self-existent, none changes him. Nobody can change his mind and nobody can stop him. It shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it. See, that's the key. I used to preach this, and most Armenians preach this, you know, God's word will not return voided. Man, if you just get out there and if you'll just preach the gospel to people, one of these days, and you may not see it now, but you'll see it later, because God's word don't return void. They'll come around. That's not what that meant, because sometimes God's word goes out to hardened hearts. And it will accomplish what he sent it to do. Isn't that what he told Isaiah? Go preach to these people. I'm going to make their ears where they can't hear. That's a God that not only has the right to, but has the power to do. That's what it means to be sovereign. In Psalm 115, we find this about God's sovereignty. Psalm 115 in verse three, but our God is in the heavens. He has done whatsoever he has pleased. He's not in your back pocket, doing whatever you want him to do. Somebody said it a while ago, my grandpa used to use the phrase, somebody said it yesterday, I think. Santa Claus. A spiritual Santa Claus. He's not that. In the 135th Psalm, we read, verse six, whatsoever the Lord please, that did he in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all the deep places. He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He maketh lightnings for the rain. He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. We was talking about the wind getting the joke stuff there the other day. He brings the wind out of his treasuries. Verse 13 says, Thy name, O Lord. There's that name again and there's that word Lord in all capitals. Thy name, O Lord, endureth, how long? Forever. Forever. Remember we were talking about this last night, right? Some people think that this is what it's talking about when it says that word, that endureth forever. No, he's talking about a person. Amen. This endures forever because the person that speaks this word endures forever. Amen. That's right. Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever, and here it is, thy memorial, O Lord, throughout all generations. I think that ties back to what we were reading in Exodus. That memorial to all generations is what? The name, O Lord, the I am, Jehovah, I will be who I will be, I will do what I want to do, the self-existent One, the uncontrolled One, doing as He pleases, controlling all things, bringing all things to pass that He has declared from the beginning. That's what He wants His memorial to all generations to be. I am God and I am doing exactly what I have purposed to do. But I started this saying that the whole entire Old Testament is about Jesus. Have we been talking about Jesus? Preacher, I thought you were talking about Jehovah. Is Jehovah different than Jesus? I think I'm among like minded brethren. At least I hope I am. Look with me, if you would, over to 2 Corinthians. Look with me to chapter 4, verse 6. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, have shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Whenever we talk about Jehovah, whenever we talk about the Lord all uppercase, whenever we talk about I am, we are talking about the man, Christ Jesus. He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And the government shall be on his shoulders. The Almighty God. Not part of the Almighty God. Not just a Almighty God. He is the Almighty God. The Everlasting Father. The Wonderful Counselor. Nobody counsels Him. He's the one that does the counseling. He is the Almighty God. And in Philippians chapter two and verse 10, we read, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. God's glory is in his sovereignty. Why do you preach sovereignty? Because that's the glory of God that we're preaching. Why do you preach sovereignty? Well, because the Lord told us to. He told us that He wanted this to be the memorial to every generation. Why do you preach sovereignty? Because you can't preach Christ if you don't. You can't preach Jesus Christ without preaching sovereignty. Because God has invested all his fullness in the man, Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God. He is God in flesh. He is Emmanuel, God with us. And so if we want to preach the glory of God, can't divorce it from Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, and when you preach that man, you preach Christ. And him crucified, you preach him, and him redeeming all of his people that God, all that the Father hath given me shall come to me. Why? Because I have all power. You know, the conditionalists miss that. All that the Father gives me shall come to me. Now, I don't know how they are out here, out in Missouri and Oklahoma. They say that there's eternal saved people that may never come to hear the name Jesus, that may never hear the gospel preached, but they're gonna be in heaven because they've been eternally saved. That scripture, whenever it says, shall come to me in context, is believed. Christ used it interchangeably within that passage. And he said, all that the Father giveth me shall believe on me. They shall come. And they do that because God is sovereign. And he will give mercy on whom he will give mercy. He will show compassion on whom he will show compassion. But I haven't done it in quite a while. I'll close off on that.