“God doesn’t need your good works; your neighbor does.” – Martin Luther

“The Reformation leveled the playing field and revealed the janitor is as holy as the Pope.” – Jeff Rose

“[The elect] are gathered into Christ’s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense His grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God’s special mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death.” – John Calvin, Institutes, 3.24.10.

“In his unregenerate state man never adequately realizes his utterly hopeless condition. He imagines he is able to reform himself and turn to God if he chooses.” – Lorraine Boettner

“There are no loose threads in the providence of God, no stitches are dropped, no events are left to chance. The great clock of the universe keeps good time, and the whole machinery of providence moves with unerring punctuality.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” – Jonathan Edwards

“The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.” – John Calvin, A Calvin Treasury. Christianity Today, v. 37, n. 4.

“We must learn where our personal weaknesses lie. Once they are identified, we must be ruthless in dealing with them. Earlier generations called this the “mortification of the flesh,” that is, pronouncing the death sentence upon sin and putting that sentence into daily effect by killing all that sets itself against God’s purpose in our lives.” – Alistair Begg, Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 33.

“Sin cannot dethrone God. That is what sin aims to do, but it misses its mark. Sin brings guilt to a man, but it does not bring him one ounce of sovereignty. God rules even when men imagine they are defying Him.” – Tom Wells

“Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.” – Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings, ed. by Charles Wallace Jr, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 109.

“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“Bring your beliefs to the test of the Scriptures, and you are likely to discover that it is much harder and more painful to unlearn some things than it is to learn new ones.” – A.W. Pink
The sovereignty of God is not a secondary doctrine that is relegated to an obscure corner in the Bible. Rather, this truth is the very bedrock doctrine of all Scripture. This is the Mount Everest of biblical teaching, the towering truth that transcends all theology. From its opening verse, the Bible asserts in no uncertain terms that God is and that God reigns. In other words, He is God—not merely… in name, but in full reality. God does as He pleases, when He pleases, where He pleases, how He pleases, and with whom He pleases in saving undeserving sinners. All other doctrines of the Christian faith must be brought into alignment with this keystone truth.

The sovereignty of God is the free exercise of His supreme authority in executing and administrating His eternal purposes. God must be sovereign if He is to be truly God. A god who is not sovereign is not God at all. Such is an imposter, an idol, a mere caricature formed in man’s fallen imagination. A god who is less than fully sovereign is not worthy of our worship, much less our witness. But the Bible proclaims for all to hear that “the Lord reigns” (Ps. 93:1). God is exactly who Scripture declares He is. He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, whose supreme authority is over all. This is the main premise of Scripture.

Nowhere is God’s sovereignty more clearly demonstrated than in His salvation of the lost. God is free to bestow His saving mercy on whom He pleases. God says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex. 33:19b; Rom. 9:15). He is not obligated to extend His grace to any undeserving sinner. If He were to choose to save none, He would remain perfectly just. He might determine to save a few and still be absolutely holy. Or He could choose to save all. But God is sovereign, and that means He is entirely free to bestow His grace however He will—whether on none, few, or all.

From beginning to end, salvation is of God and, ultimately, for God. The apostle Paul writes, “From him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). In this comprehensive verse, God is declared to be the divine source, the determinative means, and the designated end of all things. This is most true in salvation. According to this text, every aspect of the operation of saving grace is God-initiated, God-directed, and God-glorifying. Every dimension of salvation is from Him, through Him, and to Him. This is to say, salvation originates from His sovereign will, proceeds through His sovereign activity, and leads to His sovereign glory.” – Steven Lawson, From beginning to end, salvation is of God and, ultimately, for God.

“You cannot expect to grow in grace if you do not read the Scriptures. If you are not familiar with the Word, you cannot expect to become like Him that spake it. Our experience is, as it were, the potter’s wheel on which we revolve; and the hand of God is in the Scriptures to mold us after the fashion and image in which He intends to bring us. Oh! be much with the holy Word of God and you will be h…oly. Be much with the silly novels of the day, and the foolish trifles of the hour, and you will degenerate into vapid wasters of your time; but be much with the solid teaching of God’s Word, and you will become solid and substantial men and women: drink them in, feed upon them, and they shall produce in you a Christ-likeness at which the world shall stand astonished.” C. H. Spurgeon

“God is not required to seek the sinner’s permission for doing with the sinner what he pleases.” – R.C. Sproul

“Being reconciled by the righteousness of Christ, God becomes, instead of a judge, an indulgent Father.” – John Calvin

“Take heed of those doctrines that come under the notion of “new light.” Those doctrines you ought to suspect as to whether they are true, which the broachers of them say are new, for truth is as old as the Bible. Many things go under the notion of “new light” yet they are but old darkness, old heresies raked out of the dunghill, and which were buried in former ages of the Church with contempt and reproach many hundreds of years ago.” – From the letters of Christopher Love when he was in prison awaiting martyrdom

If I find “God knows my heart” to be a comforting rather than a frightening thought I do not know my own heart. – R.C. Sproul, Jr

Belief in evolution is a denial of the gospel. For if Adam’s sin did not bring about the groaning, decay and physical death for all of creation then neither does Christ’s physical death provide redemption for it. (Romans 8:21-23)