“So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.” Joel 3:17
The sovereignty of God is something that as Christians we often take for granted that everyone knows. We have always believed that He is all-powerful and all-knowing, so we assume that others have this same set standards by which they live their lives. The fact of the matter is, there are those that believe that though there is a mighty god who ruleth over all, he is just to busy to deal with the little things. So, they pray unto lessor gods, believing that it is the only way to be heard by something more powerful than man. So was the state of the people when Paul arrived in Athens.
We read in the 17th chapter of Acts that the city was “wholly given to idolatry . . . For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.” (vs. 16, 21). So the apostle’s “. . . spirit was stirred in him . . . Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him” (vs. 16, 17). When Paul was given opportunity to speak, he did not keep the truth from them, he did not candy coat his message, nor did he try not to sound different. The very first thing that he spoke to them was the sovereignty of God. The fact that it was God that created all things and all the worlds. It is God that judges mankind and that His judgment is righteous. Paul was not just speaking vain words, nay rather, he was shaking the very foundation on which they had stood for so many years.
As Christians, it is our privilege to tell others of our Great Savior and God. Not only our privilege, but also our duty. In doing so, we must remember that it is not just enough to tell them to believe that Jesus Christ is the almighty God, but that He is the only God, and that there is none like unto him. You see, we cannot even be saved with out this basic belief, for we are instructed that “ he that cometh to God MUST believe that he IS, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6). To believe that Jesus Christ is, means that we acknowledge that His word is true, therefore we understand that, “Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God” (Isa. 44:6). He indeed is the Alpha and Omega, He is that “I am”(Ex. 3:14), and His name is Jesus Christ. No wonder Paul wrote that He “ filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:23).
