Supreme Authority

"Supreme Authority" – Deuteronomy 4:39 God has no one, or anything greater than Him. He is absolute. He is the beginning and the end. Moses knew too well the natural tendency of the human heart, so he earnestly exhorts the people to pay close attention. They should be obedient to Him and enjoy "His continual blessing."

I. Their disobedience leads them to captivity.

A. The warnings of "God are not empty words."

1. There is no man or nation that can discard (reject) them with impunity (without punishment, let it go unpunished).

2. (1 Chronicles 29:10-12) David offered a magnificent prayer of worship and thanksgiving.

3. He blessed Jehovah as worthy of all honor and sublime (10-11) (excellent, lofty, extraordinary elevation) above all and as the Source of all riches and glory. (12)

4. He recognized that "he" and his "people" were unworthy to give to God (1 Chronicles 29:14), and that they offered only what they had "received" from His hand.

5. (Job 9:12) God is sovereign and does as He pleases.

6. No one can ask Him to account or resist Him.

7. Thank God, we have much more light!

8. Although, for the moment, we do not often know why God works in such a strange way, "we do know that everything He does will work for the good of those who love Him”. (Romans 8:28)

9. (Psalm 135:6) His power is absolute: He does whatever He wills.

10. In all places: heavens, earth, seas and abysses.

11. (Daniel 4:35) He goes on to declare God's manifold perfections.

12. All the inhabitants of the earth are regarded before Him as nothing, not because He is not interested in them, but because, compared with the Infinite, they are less than a drop of water compared to the ocean.

13. His power is irresistible, for He does according to His will with the host of heaven and in the inhabitants of the earth.

14. He is truthful (sincere) and faithful in everything He says and does and always fulfills what He promises.

15. (Daniel 4:37) "And His ways are righteousness, that is, they are in accordance with the standards of righteousness and equity to such an extent that they may be said to be "righteousness itself, as is God”.

16. He can humble those who walk with pride (haughtiness, pride, arrogance, vanity).

17. This is part of His righteousness and if He sometimes doesn't do it right away, it's because He gives rise to repentance.

18. (Matthew 6:13) God does allow His people to be tested.

19. This request expresses a healthy distrust of one's own ability to resist temptations to pass the tests.

20. It recognizes total dependence on the Lord for preservation = care, conservation, protection.)

21. "But deliver us from evil."

22. This is the prayer of all who desperately desire to be kept from sin, "by the power of God."

23. The power is in God to deliver you "from the power of sin" and Satan, it is the cry of the heart for "daily" salvation in one's life.

24. "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."

25. John Calvin: should "not only warm our hearts to press on toward the glory of God... but also to tell us “That all our prayers... have no other foundation than "God alone".

26. What you don't get in God is your lack of prayer, you don't pray, God doesn't hear prayer.

27. (Acts 17:24) "He dwells not in temples made by human hands."

28. The true God does not need anything from man, because He is the source of life and breath of all things.

29. (Romans 9:19) Paul's insistence on God's right to do what He pleases best, his quotation provokes (motivates, occasions, originates), the objection (against an opinion, a but, disagreement) that, in such a case, he should not reproach anyone; who has ever successfully resisted His design? (purposes, intentions, project, aim, plan, goal, objective).

30. To the objector (to oppose), man is a powerless pawn on the divine chessboard.

31. Nothing he can do or say will change his luck. Amen