It’s a false reverence that holds back some of the truth, lest stating it may seem to reflect on God’s character.  Such false reverence is a distinct hindrance.  It holds back from us some of the truth, and the strong emphasis that the truth needs to arouse our attention and get into our some-time thick heads.  We men need the stirring up of plain truth, told in plainest speech.  The Church has suffered for lack of plain telling of the truth.  The deepest, tenderest reverence insists upon plain talk, and reveals itself in such talk.

It is irreverent to hold back some of God’s truth.  For so men get wrong impressions of God.  It is unfair as well as irreverent.  Theology has sometimes been greatly taken up with adjusting its statements so as to defend God’s character.  But the plainest, fullest telling of truth is the greatest revealer of His great wisdom and purity and unfailing love.

God’s Sovereignty.

There has been a good bit of teaching about “God’s sovereignty”.  Behind that mysterious, indefinite phrase has crept much that badly needs the clear, searching sunlight of day.  God’s sovereignty is commonly thought of as a sort of dead-weight force by which He compels things to come His way.  If a man stand in the way of God’s plan so much the worse for the man.  It is thought of as a sort of mighty army, marching down the road, in close ranks, with fixed bayonets.  If you happen to be on that road better look out very sharply, or you may get crushed under foot.

I do not mean that the theologians put it in that blunt fashion, nor that I have ever heard any preacher phrase it in that way.  I mean that as I have talked with the plain common people, and listened to them, this is the distinct impression that comes continually of what it means to them.  Then, too, the phrase has often been used, it is to be feared, as a religious cloak to cover up the shortcomings and shirkings of those who aren’t fitting into God’s plan.

God is a sovereign.  The truth of His sovereignty is one of the most gracious of all the truths in this blessed old Book of God.  It means that the great gracious purpose and plan of God will finally be victorious.  It means that in our personal lives He, with great patience and skill and power, works through the tangled network of circumstances and difficulties to answer our prayers, and to bring out the best results for us.

It means further that, with a diplomacy and patience only divine, He works with and through the intricate meshes of men’s wills and contrary purposes to bring out good now—­not good out of bad, that is impossible; but good in spite of the bad—­and that finally all opposition will be overcome, or will have spent itself out in utter weakness, and so His purposes of love will be fully victorious.

But the practical thing to burn in deep just now is this, that we can hinder God’s plan.  His plans have been hindered, and delayed, and made to fail, because we wouldn’t work with Him.