God Is In Control Of You? Series

Is God in control of you? I mean, right now! Is He in control of you?

There are people who believe that, yes, it is all God’s doing.

Charles Spurgeon said, “I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes.”

What that means is that if I take a little pinch of cornstarch and blow it into the air like this … that God not only planned that eons ago but He was in charge of the distribution and where each particle would land. Not only that but what particles would be taken from the box and which would not and on and on.

Is God capable of doing that? Of course He is. Does He extend His sovereignty that far? Is He concerned with these particles as much as Heather is?

There are verses that seem to support this:

Psalm 135:6

“Whatever the LORD pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.”

Daniel 4:35

“All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does what He wants with the army of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. There is no one who can hold back His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

Romans 9:19-21

“One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist His will?’ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?

“Shall what is formed say to the One who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?”

And, you can see from these quotes where they’re coming from.

Here’s the thing that gets me, the thing that makes me wonder about that.

It is something that I just can’t reconcile in my mind and here it is:

It is a two word phrase and it is found 419 times in the NIV Bible. “If you …”

KJV was a little more complicated - if ye, if thou, if thy, if thine, if you …

KJV 371

NKJV 366

NASB 359

HCSB 410

NLT 609

Average = 422

Now, out of the 419 instances in the NIV 180 were used in casual conversation such as Jacob saying, “If you do this one thing for me …”

That leaves 156 in the OT and 83 in the NT for a total of 239.

Consequently, “if you” must be a pretty important statement! That means that it is used over 6 times in each book of the Bible. And, that doesn’t count when the “if you” is implied such as in John 3:18

“Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

Just imagine that you are witnessing to someone and you quote John 3:18 and they do not understand it. How would you explain it to them? You might say something like, “What this means is that if you believe in Jesus you are not in danger of spending eternity in hell …” “If you …”

Let’s just take a look at a few of the “if you” verses from the Bible:

Leviticus 3:1

“If your offering is a fellowship offering, and you offer an animal from the herd, whether male or female, you are to present before the Lord an animal without defect.”

Deuteronomy 28:1

“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all His commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.”

1 Samuel 7:3

“So Samuel said to all the Israelites, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve Him only, and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’”

2 Chronicles 7:19-20a

“But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from My land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name.”

Mark 9:43

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.”

Romans 10:9-10 (NLT)

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.