“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity” (A. W. Tozer).
“The sovereignty of the God of Scripture is absolute, irresistible, infinite. When we say that God is sovereign we affirm His right to govern the universe, which He has made for His own glory, just as He pleases. We affirm that His right is the right of the Potter over the clay, i.e., that He may mould that clay into whatsoever form He chooses, fashioning out of the same lump one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. We affirm that He is under no rule or law outside of His own will and nature, that God is a law unto Himself, and that He is under no obligation to give an account of His matters to any” (A. W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God).
We continue using some statements of Arthur Pink to illustrate to some degree some of what A. W. Tozer has written. What Pink has written is shocking to the modern mind, though it was written 75 years ago. The view of God in the present time is so utterly beneath the dignity of God that man thinks that what Pink wrote then is an archaic and perhaps vulgar view of God. Man much prefers to think of God as helping him be better and do good rather than the God who is Potter and man as being the clay. Man would not have control in that case and his vaunted free will would disappear as a vapor. Man does not like for God to be sovereign in fact because of the traumatic results it has on the way man perceives himself.
But God is indeed sovereign. God is not under any obligation to anyone to give an account of who He is and what He does. God is not obligated to do anything for anyone but what He has said He will do. In that case He has obligated Himself. However, to fulfill the conditions for these things is under the sovereign hand of God. God does obligate Himself to bless those who are poor in spirit, but it is not in the power of a man to make himself poor in spirit. God is the Potter and man is the clay. Man must realize that he must seek God in order to be poor in spirit.
God has also promised to give grace to the humble. But can man make himself humble in order to force God to give grace? Grace is always to the unworthy and ill-deserving or it is not grace. So can humility be something that man can do in order to earn grace and make grace to be no grace at all? Not at all, for if humility can be obtained by the works of man how can it be that works can obtain humility which is necessary for grace? No, humility itself is worked in man by God. Man must humble himself by realizing that he cannot humble himself and so turn himself over to the Potter who alone can work humility in the soul. God has the right to humble if He desires or not humble if He so desires and give no account to any because of that. How widespread is the view that man has the power to humble himself and so obligate God to give grace. What a dishonoring view of God and of His grace.
Does believing in the sovereignty of God earn anything before God? No, it is just admitting or confessing what is the truth. There is no merit in simply admitting the character of God as it really is. So does believing in the Reformed doctrines show that man is saved or that men who believe those things are being used in a mightier way by God? Well, this is a touchy point and needs another question or two to be asked. Can one believe in the Reformed teachings and not love the God of the teachings? Can one believe that the Reformed teachings are true and still not really believe from the heart that God is sovereign and glorious in that sovereignty? Can it be the case that some hold to Reformed theology as a way of figuring out God and having Him controlled to some degree? I think that it is possible and is true in many cases.
The above paragraph may shock people if they really read it. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty that is written on paper and believed as such is a different thing than God’s sovereignty in action in the human soul. How many Reformed people really believe from the heart when something hard happens to them that God is the Potter and that they are the clay? How many believe that in regard to their churches that they are pastors of, and will tell those things with kindness and gentleness to their parishioners? How many of us practice evangelism without shame of the sovereignty of God over the souls of all human beings? How many of us have wrestled with God’s absolute sovereignty over us? It is one thing to teach a creed or a doctrine, but it is quite another to submit to and love that same doctrine in the hard things in life. We have so much self-love and self-rule left in us that we don’t even recognize what rubbish is in our hearts hiding our true beliefs. God is sovereign over Reformed people too.
God Loves... Himself 
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