"The Sovereignty of God"
Gen. 11:10-32
Oct. 27, 1996 

Text Comment

Ten generations are mentioned, perhaps to match the ten named between Adam and Noah. In any case, the growth of nations from individuals, as we saw in chapter 10, indicates that great intervals may lie between the individuals that are mentioned by name.

v.18 It may be that it was in Peleg's day that the tower of Babel resulted in the confusion of languages, for in 10:25 we read that he was given his name, which means "division" because in his time the earth was divided.

v.31 Why Terah left Ur is not said, though while the family was still in Ur, Abram had already heard the call of God (Acts 7:2-4). Joshua 24:2 tells us that Terah was an idolater and his name, and those of Sarai and Milcah suggest that the family was given to moon worship. Ur and Haran were both centers of moon worship and that may explain why the migration halted when it did. Only Abraham had the faith to venture on, as we read he did in 12:4-5. Though comparing v. 32 with v. 26, if, in fact, Abram was the first son -- though that has been disputed -- Terah would have been alive during most of what occurs in the life of Abraham through chapter 25.

Some years ago now [1975] a volume, edited by Clark Pinnock, a prominent evangelical theologian -- in those days teaching at Regent College in Vancouver B.C., was published with the title Grace Unlimited. Various scholars contributed essays

most of which espoused in one way or another and to one degree or another the theology commonly known as Arminianism. This is the view that salvation is finally a joint effort between God and man, God doing his part and man doing his part, with man, at the last, holding the decisive role. God makes salvation a possibility, but man finally must choose himself whether he wishes to avail himself of that possibility or not.

That view of salvation carries with it a very different view of the relation between God and the world. Not only with respect to salvation but with respect to most other things, God exercises a general kind of control, but the free decisions of man, now here, now there, alter God's plan, frustrate his desires, grieve him, and force him to take other measures than those he planned and preferred, or, contrarily, man delights God by deciding to do what pleases him, to choose to believe in Christ and follow him, for example. In other words, in the Arminian scheme, man is free to determine what he will be, a Christian or not. He is autonomous, the captain of his fate. And, at every point, far from following some plan of God, he chooses, thousands of times a day, either to accept or reject that plan.

As Prof. Pinnock argued in his own essay in that book, "...it is perfectly plain from the biblical story that men can and do reject God's will and plan for them." [p. 102] Now, I mention all of this because Prof. Pinnock argues that this is the plain teaching of the early chapters of Genesis that we have been studying. They are his proof text for his denial of the sovereignty of God. He argues that they reveal a human history that God in no way has planned but is, instead, the result of the choices that autonomous sinful human beings made. God gave them their freedom from his control and they have abused that freedom. In his essay he repeats the story from Adam to Babel and argues that what it shows is that this history is unfolding not as God intended but as man has decided. Even God's call to Abraham would have been fruitless had Abraham himself, by his free, uninfluenced choice, not decided to heed God's call and believe.

In a more recent work, The Openness of God, [IVP, 1994], Prof. Pinnock, in defending this view of human freedom as freedom from the control and rule of God, has now argued that God does not even know the future in complete detail. He must, as it were, find out what man will choose to do, before he can react to events himself. God's control of man is limited -- by his own choice -- to what he can persuade man to do. This was the same view the early Arminians came to in the 17th century. Obviously you cannot say that God knows the future in absolute detail and with absolute certainty and still argue, as they want to do, that part of that future is still open and undecided because men have not yet lived to make the decisions that effect and shape that future.

As one reviewer of that book commented, this God, this God who does not control, does not rule, and does not know the future, is a "user-friendly God who bears an uncanny resemblance to a late-twentieth century seeker."

He goes on. "They need not be so concerned about 'God's reputation.' They only need to let God be God." [Timothy George in CT, Jan 9, 1995, p. 34. -- photocopy]

Now, we, of course, believe that man is a responsible agent, absolutely. We agree that his sins are his own acts and when a man or woman believes in Christ that is his or her own act as well. We believe in the freedom of the will in the sense that man does what he pleases and God does not ride man's will as a rider rides a horse, turning it to the right or left as he sees fit. But, we also believe that everything occurs in this world according to the plan and purpose of God and that, even in the bitterness and hatred and folly of his rebellion against God, sinful man does not escape the divine rule. And we believe this not because it seems logical to us but because the Bible teaches it in a thousand places and in many different ways. The Bible also leaves us in no doubt that man's bondage to sin, his inherited corruption and his guilt both in Adam and for his own sins is so profound, so intractable that he could never escape it apart from the grace and power and working of God. The Bible speaks so clearly on these points, so repeatedly, and so emphatically, it puts this doctrine of the sovereign rule of God over the affairs of man, even down to the minutest details, so bluntly as almost seems calculated to offend. It does not wish us to miss this point! God makes, Paul was willing to say, of the same lump of clay, one man a vessel for honor and another a vessel for dishonor. Paul has much more to say about human freedom and human sinfulness and guilt, but about the divine sovereignty Paul was in no doubt and intended to leave us in no doubt.

This is one reason why there is no great, historically significant systematic theology, representing a Bible-believing stance, written from an Arminian viewpoint, the viewpoint of Prof. Pinnock and those who think as he does about human autonomy and the limitation of God. The Bible not only speaks too clearly about God's sovereignty, but reveals a God who is infinite in power and knowledge and is, in no respect, dependent upon the creatures of his hand.

This is why, by the way, you so often meet people who used to think as Prof. Pinnock does, but who do no longer because they have been convinced by their reading of the Bible that it teaches the absolute rule of God; and contrarily why you so rarely meet Christian people who used to believe in this doctrine but now think as Prof. Pinnock does. The Bible could hardly speak more plainly than it does in asserting the sovereignty of God. All things, as Paul put it, work out according to God's plan -- from the number of hairs on your head, to the death of every little bird in the forest, to the salvation of a human being.

And, I want you to see that this doctrine of divine providence, of the divine control of human history in its entirety and in its parts, this doctrine of the sovereignty of God is already plainly the teaching of these early chapters of Genesis. True it is that man is in rebellion against God. True it is that this pains God's heart. We have already spoken of that from Gen. 6:6. But, true it is also that all of man's rebellion, even that which causes God pain, is part of the divine plan and purpose for the world.

We have the proof here, even in the genealogies!

Remember in Gen. 9 we were told that, as a consequence of Ham's disrespect for and sin against his father, his descendants would serve the descendants of Shem. That is what God determined to bring to pass and he announced it beforehand. He explained how the future would unfold. Now, we come to Gen. 11 and the beginning of that narrowing of the family tree that is going to take us into the history of Abraham, and, eventually into the promised land where, several centuries later, the descendants of Shem would take possession of the land that then belonged to the descendants of Ham. We have, in other words, the plan that God had previously announced, beginning now to take shape, step by step. The genealogy concentrates only on Shem's line; and then, when we come to Eber in v. 16, if you compare 11:16-18 w/10:25-26, you will see that it takes up only Eber's son Peleg and his descendants leading to Abraham.

God has a plan, and that plan includes certain people, and the genealogy concentrates its attention on those people, leading finally to Abraham, whom God called -- that is, as the entire Bible makes plain -- whom God summoned by his almighty word out of a life of unbelief into a life of faith. As Jesus would have said, Abraham was one of his sheep, and, therefore, when he heard the shepherd's voice, he followed him. We need not get ahead of ourselves. All we need to see is that this history Genesis records is unfolding according to the plan that we have already been told God has for the world, a plan that is going to involve certain specific descendants of Shem. We were told already in Gen. 3 of the Savior who was to come to deliver mankind from the curse of sin. Now we begin to see the family history of that deliverer beginning to narrow. All of these lives and births and generations -- all of it, every individual, have place in that plan.

In other words God both knows the future and has planned the future, and history unfolds according to that plan, and every individual's history as part of it. Even the free acts, even the sinful acts of human beings, are part of that plan.

Now, unbelievers deeply resent that doctrine and we can appreciate that. It is not hard to understand that. They do not want to be controlled by a God they fear and whose holiness they resent and dislike. They scoff at the very idea that God rules over them and that they cannot escape his rule. But their bluster is whistling in the dark.

But the Christian does not resent this truth at all. He loves to know that his days and nights, his thoughts and deeds, his past, present, and future are all subject to the rule of his heavenly Father and that everything will come to pass as he has decreed and that nothing can frustrate his perfect plan for his children. He does not resent the fact that God already has in hand not only his own life but the lives and the fortunes of his children and grandchildren, because he knows he can trust God to do what is right and good. And she does not feel somehow confined by this divine sovereignty. She is glad to know that the world is under control, that it is not going who knows where. She has seen the blessing of that rule in her own life and knows that God will always have the blessing of his people in view.

Let's take an example that is somewhat parallel to that of the genealogy before us in Gen. 11 -- that is, the demonstration that God holds the future entirely in his hand and that it falls out according to his will and his plan.

Charles Simeon, the great Anglican preacher at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, sometimes took holidays to Scotland. Scotland was not a favorite destination of tourists in those days and the mode of travel was often quite primitive. Simeon's primary transportation was his horse, which carried him far over Highland roads and paths. One June he came riding, in the company of James Haldane, one of the famous brothers who gave their name later to the Haldane revival in Switzerland, France, and Germany, into the town of Moulin, in the center of Scotland. As was Simeon's custom, he paid a visit to the parish minister, an Alexander Stewart. Stewart was a learned man, had published a highly regarded grammar of the Gaelic language, and a man of high moral reputation. He preached a pure and high morality and held in a certain sense the doctrines of Christian orthodoxy, but he was at that time still a stranger to living faith in Christ and to godliness and its power and joy.

Simeon was invited to stay at the manse and preach at the communion service the following Sunday and then in the evening after that service Mr. Stewart came to see him in his room. They spoke at length, prayed together, and, as a result of that conversation, Stewart's eyes were opened to the gospel of Christ. Stewart's preaching immediately changed and some in the congregation were soon changed by it as well, and made true believers in Christ. One of those couples who later said "they owed their own selves" to their now converted minister, was the parents of Alexander Duff, one of Scotland's and India's greatest missionaries.

Now, there is just a glimpse of the sovereignty of God. A vacationing minister whose words God uses to convert a village pastor, through whose now lively and faithful preaching of the gospel, some parishioners are converted, who then raise their son in the faith of Christ and he becomes one of the Christian church's great missionaries. God had Alexander Duff already in his heart and view and plan when he sent Simeon riding into Moulin that June.

Or take this genealogy of the divine plan and purpose, this time not in persons, but in books that transformed persons. One of the early Puritan Richard Sibbes' greatest works was The Bruised Reed (1630). That book gave Richard Baxter "a livelier apprehension of the mystery of redemption," Baxter said. Baxter then wrote Call to the Unconverted (1657) which was instrumental in the conversion of Philip Doddridge. Doddridge's great book The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, brought William Wilberforce to faith in Christ and thus to become the champion of the anti-slavery movement in England. Wilberforce then wrote Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians...contrasted with real Christianity (1797) which was used of God to open the heart of Thomas Chalmers to the Gospel, whose life and work revitalized Scottish Christianity in the opening years of the 19th century.

And God had Chalmers in his plan when he appointed Sibbes, two centuries before, to write his book!

No, it transforms life to know that God is in absolute control of it and to know that God's hand is turning every page not only of world history but of each man or woman's personal history. It makes all the difference in the

world to know that; the world takes on a completely different appearance to know that; and events, both happy and tragic, seem altogether different when we know them to be, as they are, the plan and purpose of God.

You know the river crossing scenes of Pilgrim's Progress. The first of them is the most famous, at the end of Part One, where Christian begins to sink under the water and in terror thinks himself near to drowning until Hopeful pulls him up and finally Christian is able to find a solid bottom under his feet and walk easily and happily to the far shore and then on up to the City of God. I read that scene and all of the other river crossings in Part 2 to my sister in the weeks before she died. Others, family and friends, spoke to her of those same beautiful and helpful metaphors of death that John Bunyan has given the church in his immortal allegory.

In the days just before her death, Bronwyn spoke very little. She was very weak and hadn't the strength, and the morphine that she was being given for pain kept her groggy. She often indicated that she was hearing what others were saying, but spoke little herself. I had the last sustained conversation with her the night before she died. But her voice was so weak I could make out only some of her words and missed much of what she said, her voice was barely a faint whisper, though I felt that she heard and understood what I said to her.

The day she died she did not, could not participate in conversation, though it was clear, from time to time, that she heard what others said to her or were saying to one another in front of her. Hymns were sung throughout the day, Scripture read, Rossetti and Donne as well. But as the evening fell, her breathing took on a gurgling sound and became more labored. Her system was filling up with fluid, of course, and drowning her. Finally, she began actually struggling to breathe. She cried out a number of times, "Help me; Help me!" and those around the bed could hear the fluid coming up in the lungs and watch the color leave her face.

And at that moment, her husband and her daughter, helped her sit up straighter in bed in hopes that that would help her breathe. Her daughter mentioned Pilgrim's Progress once again, perhaps because the fact that she was drowning was so vividly present to everyone's mind. She told her that she was crossing the river just as Christian had done. And she told her mother that she would soon see Samantha, Bronwyn's stillborn baby and Papa. And then, in a voice as clear and strong as she had not had for days, Bronwyn spoke so that everyone in the room could hear her plainly. Before one had to have one's ear at her mouth to hear anything, and now all could hear her speak in a normal voice. "Everybody is here, she said. Jesus is here. Samantha is here. Paul, Mark...and Donne!" She said "Hallelujah" over and over again, and "Everybody's here!" And also, "I need to hurry!" Her daughter said, "Mommy, we won't be separated long." And she replied, "Hurry."

Everyone there tells the same story. The inflection in her voice, the look on her face -- full of wonder and then a bright smile -- and the perfect calm. Her friend Sarah Drexler said, "She looked like a child, like a child full of wonder." And after being unable to speak but a few words in whisper for days, her wasn't even breathing hard after 3 or 4 minutes of conversation.

They laid her back on the bed and the struggle to breathe did not return. She simply took shorter gasps, further apart, until the breathing stopped completely just a few minutes later.

Now, I do not tell you that to say what my sister saw in those last moments of her life or that those present were witnesses to her sight of the next world on earth, or even what she meant by the words she spoke about "everyone being here." No one will know that until we can speak with her on the other side.

What I want you to know and to see is that God had prepared long beforehand the way of her death. When he gave Bunyan his wonderful imagination and had him see death as a crossing of the river, an almost drowning but then a finding solid footing again, he already had my sister in his mind and plan. Her death would be a river crossing just like Bunyan described, a near drowning and then a finding of solid footing, through the help of her Hopefuls, her own faith, and the sight that her faith gave her of the other side.

Now, an unbeliever might well resent knowing that God controls all things and has planned the future down to the minutest detail. But I love that knowledge, because it gives me the right to see my Father's hand in all things and to know that my life and the life of others I love is not lived at a venture, at a risk, but that God knows where it is going and has already determined that my steps shall lead at last to the crossing and then on to the city of God. And knowing that, I find myself much more ready to make that crossing myself when the time he has appointed for me comes at last

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