• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Things Above Us

Missions - Evangelism - Theology - Sports

  • About TAU
    • Our Mission
    • The Gospel of Grace
    • Writers
    • Contact Us
    • Comment Policy
    • Attribution/Content Usage Policy
  • Resources
    • Before the Throne
    • From Death to Life
    • Our Tract
  • Articles/Blog Posts
    • Missions
    • Evangelism
    • Theology
    • Sports
    • Book Reviews
    • Kid’s Book Reviews
    • pSaturday Psalms
    • Movie Reviews
    • Go Therefore!
    • Something to Think About
  • Things Above Us Roundtable
  • Evangelio de Cristo
  • Store
    • Cart

Spurgeon: God is Good and God is Sovereign

April 20, 2020 by Allen Nelson IV

God is good and sovereign! The following is taken from Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s Sermon “A View of God’s Glory”.  The section below was particularly edifying to me (the remaining words are all Spurgeon’s):


“Do not be alarmed, my Friends, because I am going to preach about Divine Sovereignty. I know some people, when they hear about Sovereignty, say, “Oh, we are going to have some terrible high Doctrine!” But as it is in the Bible, that ought to be enough for you. Is not that all you need to know? If God says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,” it is not for you to say that it is high Doctrine.

Who told you it was high Doctrine? It is good Doctrine. What right have you to call one Doctrine high and another low? Would you like me to have a Bible with “H” against high, and “L” against low, so that I should leave the high Doctrine out to please you? My Bible has no mark of that kind! It says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.” There is Divine Sovereignty!

I believe some are afraid to say anything about this great Doctrine lest they should offend some of their people, but, my Friends, it is true and you shall hear it! God is a Sovereign. He was a Sovereign before He made this world. He lived alone and this thought was in His mind, “Shall I make anything, or shall I not? I have a right to make creatures, or not to make any.”

He resolved that He would fashion a world. When He made it, He had a right to form the world in what shape and size He pleased. And He had a right, if He chose, to leave the globe untenanted by a single creature. When He had resolved to make man, He had a right to make him whatever kind of creature He liked. If He wished to make him a worm or a serpent, He had a right to do it. When He made him, He had a right to put any command on him that He pleased. And God had a right to say to Adam, “You shall not touch that forbidden tree.” And when Adam offended, God had a right to punish him and all the race forever in the bottomless pit!

God is so far Sovereign that He has a right, if He likes, to save anyone in this Chapel, or to crush all who are here. He has a right to take us all to Heaven if He pleases, or to destroy us. He has a right to do just as He pleases with us. We are as much in His hands as prisoners are in the hands of Her Majesty when they are condemned for a capital offense against the law of the land—yes, as much as clay in the hands of the potter. This is what He asserted when He said, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”

This Doctrine stirs up your carnal pride, does it not? Men want to be somebody. They do not like to lie down before God and have it preached to them that God can do just as He wills with them. Ah, you may hate this Doctrine but it is what the Scripture tells us. Surely it is self-evident that God may do as He wills with His own! We all like to do what we will with our own property. God has said that if you go to His Throne in prayer, He will hear you—but He has a right not to do so if He likes. He has a right to do just as He pleases. If He chooses to let you go on in the error of your ways, that is His right. And if He says, as He does, “Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” it is His right to do so.

That is the high and awful Doctrine of Divine Sovereignty!

Put the two together, goodness and Sovereignty, and you see God’s Glory! If you take Sovereignty alone, you will not understand God. Some people only have an idea of God’s Sovereignty and not of His goodness—such are usually gloomy, harsh and ill humored. You must put the two together—that God is good and that God is a Sovereign. You must speak of Sovereign Grace. God is not gracious alone, He is sovereignly gracious! He is not Sovereign alone, but He is graciously Sovereign. That is the true idea of God. When Moses said, “I beseech You, show me Your Glory.” God made him see that He was glorious and that His Glory was His Sovereign goodness. Surely, Beloved, we cannot be wrong in loving the Doctrine of free, unmerited, distinguishing Grace when we see it thus mentioned as the brightest jewel in the crown of our Covenant God! Do not be afraid of Election and Sovereignty.

The time has come when our ministers must tell us more about them or, if not, our souls will be so lean and starved that we shall mutiny for the Bread of Life! Oh, may God send us more thorough Gospel men who will preach Sovereign Grace as the Glory of the Gospel!”

Allen Nelson IV

Allen Nelson IV

Allen S. Nelson IV is the pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. He and his wife Stephanie have been married since 2006 and have 5 children. Besides enjoying time with his family, Allen loves teaching the Bible, reading good books, and time outdoors. He is the author of From Death to Life: How Salvation Works and Before The Throne: Reflections on God’s Holiness He is an avid Dallas Cowboys and Arkansas Razorbacks fan, which means he's always excited about 'next year.' You can follow him on twitter @cuatronelson.

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Charles Spurgeon, Goodness of God, Sovereignty of God, theology

Liked what you read? Subscribe!


Views expressed in posts are those of their individual authors and may not be shared by all writers on Things Above Us.

Primary Sidebar

On Sale Now

  • Before the Throne $17.00 $14.99
  • From Death to Life $14.99 $13.99

Subscribe To Things Above Us

Sign up for our RSS newsfeed and stay up-to-date with the latest blog posts on Things Above Us!

Things Above Us Roundtable

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | Email | RSS

Pull up a chair to the TAU Roundtable as the writers from ThingsAbove.Us and other special guests discuss current events, theology, missions, evangelism, and sports!

The Bible Memory App - Bible Memory Verses
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Go, Therefore: Family Worship
  • “Antiracism” Deserves a Capital Letter: A Preview of Voddie Baucham’s Fault Lines
  • Rightly Understanding John 3:16
  • 2 Peter 1 in the Legacy Standard Bible
  • 5 Reasons Baptist Churches Should Associate

The Team

Michael CoughlinMichael Coughlin

Michael Coughlin lives near Columbus, OH, and leads local outreaches to glorify our Lord and reach the lost with...

Go, Therefore: Family Worship
Garrett O’HaraGarrett O’Hara

Garrett appears to have originated the term, but not the theology, "dispybapticalvinistic-expialidocious." He ...

“Antiracism” Deserves a Capital Letter: A Preview of Voddie Baucham’s Fault Lines
Chuck IveyChuck Ivey

By God’s grace, Chuck Ivey grew up in a Christian home and came to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior at a y...

The Living Logos and True Mythos: A Response to “Satanic Panics and the Death of Mythos”
Tim BatesTim Bates

Tim lives in Akron, Ohio with his wife, Melanie and two children, Calvin and Caroline. He serves as a deacon, teacher...

Reflections on a World Without Sports
Allen Nelson IVAllen Nelson IV

Allen S. Nelson IV is the pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. He and his wife Steph...

Rightly Understanding John 3:16
George AlvaradoGeorge Alvarado

George Alvarado is an almost retired member of our Armed Forces (yes, he's older than he looks). He has a beautiful w...

A Open Letter to Afflicted Saints

Click a term to see related posts.

Adoption atonement Bible book review Cessationism children Christ Christian Life Christmas Chuck Ivey church conversion Culture Devotional discipleship evangelism Foster Care From death to life Genesis gospel grace imputation Jesus Justification local church love Marriage mercy NFL preaching Psalm 119 Psalms reformed baptist Reformed Baptist Theology reformed theology Roundtable sanctification scripture sin sola scriptura Something To Think About Suffering theology Things Above Us worship

Click the image below if you got one of these cards.

Other Posts You May Like…

Lady at protest with sign, "We are better than this!"

Pray for Their [Eternal] Lives – Comments on March for Our Lives

March 24, 2018, will long be remembered as the day of the first national March for Our Lives event. My understanding is that over 1 million people participated in March for Our Lives events around the world making it one of the largest protests in history. Setting the stage Knowing that a crowd of people […]

Christianity is Supernatural

The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book — A Change of Heart Christianity is supernatural. Left to ourselves we do not fear God, seek God, truly understand God, or care about God’s glory at all. Without the Holy Spirit, we don’t even want to know the problem, much less possess the means or […]

TAU Roundtable logo with a gravestone left and lady praying on right

Ep. 028 | New Perspectives on Paul (Part 2) — TAU Roundtable

On this episode of Things Above us Round Table, George Alvarado and Chuck Ivey continue with Getting the New Covenant Right in Part 2 of their discussion on the New Perspectives on Paul (NPP). They help us identify how to understand the language of NPP teachers, and finish up with its implications on assurance, soteriology, […]

Psalm 34:1-3: “Bless the Lord!”

Introduction: Toward the end of Book 1 of the Psalms lies Psalm 34; an acrostic Psalm of David written during the time David feigned madness before the Canaanite king Achish. This was during his flight from Saul. David left his dearest friend Jonathan, and his father and brothers, to flee his homeland. He was the […]

Placebo Prayers

Last weekend, we had 6 men preaching God’s Word in our group. We split into two groups of 3 and separated physically. This allows us to always have 2 men preaching the mystery of the gospel. So we were able to achieve nearly 5 hours of street preaching in 2.5 hours, with each man carrying no more than about an hour of the load. But this week, I was the only preacher, and I was committed to filling the time. How God enabled that to happen is truly remarkable!

How To Make It Through Difficult Books of the Bible

A common refrain in my 6th grade Bible class around this time of year is “Ugh…we’re in the book of Numbers? It’s so boring. Do we have to read it?” In some ways, I totally get it. For the first 20 some years of my Christian life, I ignored 4/5 of the Pentateuch. Numbers is […]

2018 © Things Above Us

Copyright © 2021 · Things Above Us on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in