Gooding, David: 1 - God’s Sovereignty

Now let us begin our meditations by reading from the book of Daniel in chapter four. Book of Daniel chapter four. To introduce our theme of the sovereignty of God, that God is on the throne and in control, we are now to read the words that express the experience of the great monarch Nebuchadnezzar, the rebuilder of Babylon City. His experience, how when his mind had cleared from its previous aberrations, he came to express what he had learned of the living God. It is Daniel chapter four and verses thirty four and thirty five. And at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me. And I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever and ever. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? The topic assigned to us then today is under the caption, God on the throne and in control. In the will of God, the next series of seminars that shall be held in March have as their title The Majesty and Holiness of God, from which you will gather that our topic today is strictly defined. We are to be concerned with the sovereignty of God, not so much with his majesty and holiness, but with his sovereignty, the fact that God is on the throne of the universe and is in ultimate control. This is an exceedingly glorious fact, and a fact calculated to inspire great comfort and courage in the hearts of God's people, amidst all the changes of life and the world's instabilities and its fears for the things that are coming upon our world. The believer may rejoice with settled conviction that this is God's universe. God sits upon his throne, and God is in ultimate control. So let us begin by asking how we know anything about God at all. How is it that we can come to this conviction that God exists, and that God is on the throne, and that God is in ultimate control? The answer to that question, briefly put, is that we do not start, as some say, from the bottom upwards. We start from the top down. That is to say, when we come to think about God and what God may be like, we don't start with our own ideas and begin to philosophize and argue on the basis of this bit of evidence and that bit of evidence, what God may be like. That is what the ancient Greek philosophers did. That is what a good many do still today. We don't start from the bottom up, trying to find our way through our minds and imaginations to what God may be like. We start from the top down, for the glorious truth is this, that the God who lives in light, unapproachable, whom no man has seen nor can see, has not waited for us to find him. He has come forth to find us. That is a glorious fact worthy of many a hallelujah. God no one has seen at any time, but the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has told him out, and we know about God because God has made himself known to us. His sovereignty, then, is to be our topic, the fact that he is on the throne and is in control. It stems in the first place from this glorious foundational fact that there is only one God. He is, as the New Testament phrases it, the blessed and only potentate, king of kings and lord of lords. There is one God. Now, this is a topic that had to be constantly addressed in the ancient world, where men and women had lost their grip on the knowledge of the one true God and didn't like to retain him in their minds. And having rejected the one true God, they found they could not believe in nothing, so they had to invent all kinds of gods on the basis of this bit and that bit and the other bit. They looked around on the forces of nature, the wind, the storm, the sun, the moon. They decided that they were gods, and they deified the worship- the the forces of nature. They felt great powers working in their own hearts and minds. The power of sex, the power of aggression, the power of hope. They made gods out of them too, and worshipped them, and came to believe in a multitude of god, of gods, with devastating results, of course. For these gods, based on people's imaginations and deifications of the forces of nature, were constantly at war with one another. You could see that, couldn't you? They were about deifications of the forces of nature. This man got angry against this man here, the other man got angry against him, and, uh, the others were friends of his, so which side did you take? This god favored the Romans, this god favored the Greeks, Venus liked the Trojans, Atheni liked the Athenians, and the gods themselves were in conflict. And if the great gods were in conflict, there was little hope for peace for the likes of ordinary human beings. They had a multitude of gods then, and it brought uncertainty, distress, and bewilderment, not to speak of slavery. There were some who taught about life, and they saw that in life there are good things, and then they saw that in life there are evil things. They decided there are two gods, two ultimate forces in the universe. There's the good god and there's the bad god, and they are in constant conflict one with another, and now one becomes superior, now the other becomes superior, but ultimately the contest will never be resolved. Two equal powers, the power of good, the power of evil. Oh, thank God we have been delivered from such monstrosities of imagination. There are not many gods. There are not even two gods. There is one God. And as Christians, we add, of course, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And as for the basic intention of this one God, it is written clear in scripture, is it not? This one God of all men, he would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. One God then, and there is no unrighteousness in him. Here is the basis of our hope, that one day all evil will be put down. There is one God. He is in ultimate control, and one day all his enemies shall be put beneath his feet. The sovereignty of God is built upon the fact also, the very foundational fact, that this one God is the sole creator. Now we need to get hold of that. He is the sole creator. In our modern day, when people turn from Christianity and the true God and are inclined to mysticism and to Hinduism and this, that, and the other, they will come across philosophies that teach that the great supreme God is not the creator. The great supreme God, they call him the world's soul or the great spirit. He, they say, is so pure, so absolutely pure, that he would never have dreamed of creating a world of matter, and still less would he have dreamed of creating people with bodies like yours, do you see? Oh, be utterly beneath his dignity. So that the, the great God, the supreme God, is not to be insulted by saying that he created you, goodness me, not. He never would have created anything. Well then, how did the world come to be? And how did people come to be? And the answer they give to that is, well, the God, the supreme God, he created lesser gods, do you see? They also had creatorial powers, and these lesser gods created still lesser gods, semi-demiquavers of gods, you see. A- a- a- and, uh, somewhere down the ro- line, one of these semi-demi-quaver gods, eh, that had creatorial powers, he went and did this stupid thing. He went and created matter, do you see? And then created human beings who are part soul and part matter. And that was an unfortunate thing. And if we were wise, we as human beings would make it our object in life to escape our material bodies and somehow or other get back into the poor world soul. That's a lot of nonsense, absolute nonsense, and very degrading nonsense. I'm happy to tell you that you are not the product of some demi-semi-quaver God. There is only one creator, and that one creator of all that is, is the God who very deliberately created you. And so we are to observe that this one God creator, he's not just the one of the forces of the universe, he's not even the biggest of the forces of the universe, he's not in that character, cat- category. He made all the other forces in the universe. All things were made by him, says John. Without him was not anything made that was made. And then we learn this marvelous thing. Well, then how did this one God creator make this universe? We are told that he made it through the second person of the Trinity, whom we call the Word of God. In him were all things created. Through him were all things created. And unto him were all things created. Three basic facts they now told us. Let's try and get hold of them and their implication. All things were made in him. He is the beginning. You come down the road and you see some enormous new factory. And if you should ask, where does this magnificent factory, where did it begin? You might answer, it began when they came with their bulldozers and dug out the foundations. But you wouldn't be right. It didn't begin there. But where did it begin then? Well, it began in the mind of some businessman who decided he wanted to have a factory, and he decided what he wanted the factory for, and therefore the factory would have to be this shape and that shape and, uh, be this big and able to contain these machines. That's where it began. It began in his mind. And then he probably called in an architect and got him to get out the plans. It was made then, first of all, in him, in his mind. And this vast universe, the Bible tells us, was made in the word of God. It was his idea. He conceived it, and conceived it not merely as a whole, but in all its detail. Uh, it gives me a wonderful kick, do know, I mean excitement, uh, uh, and encouragement to remember it, you know. You mightn't believe it, but I'm God's idea. Whose idea are you? Who thought you up? And the answer is, well, God thought you up. We are his thought. Mm. Made in him. And who did he get to make the universe? Well, he didn't get anybody to make it, he made it himself. It is made through him. And what is the purpose of the universe? What is the purpose of life? The atheist says, of course, there is no purpose. And if you young folks listen to teachers that happen to be believers in evolution and are atheists, they will tell you, of course, there is no mind, there is no intelligence behind the universe. And if that were true, then there would be no ultimate plan or purpose behind the universe. And that would mean, in turn, there's no purpose or plan or meaning or significance behind you. According to the atheist, you're just an accident that happened. Ah. No more significance than a pot of jam that happened to fall on the ground, and the glass got all mixed up with the jam, and there it is, but they come and sweep it away in the end and put it in a hole. So they'll do with you, says the atheist. There never was any purpose behind the universe, nor behind you either. Oh, what a miserable thing it is. What a bankrupt philosophy. The fact there is a purpose behind the universe, for the universe was not only made in him and through him, but for him. You say, let's bring it down to practical matters. Sometimes I used to tease my students, that's a good thing, isn't it? Uh, and get them to ask what, and ask them, what is life's summum bonum? What is its chief good? You know, the ancient Greek philosophers used to think about this. They thought about all the multifarious activities that we get up to in life, all the things we do, all the schemes we have, and they ask themselves, well, what are these schemes for? What is the purpose of life itself? And they said the purpose of life itself must be, uh, something that you seek for its own sake, an end in itself, and never as a means to some other end. And if there are many things that you seek as an end in itself, as ends in themselves, then the chief purpose of life must be the supreme end in itself. They called it the summum bonum in Latin. Yes, that raises questions with us as a thing that we should ask ourselves. For instance, why do you go to work, for instance? Hm. Well, don't be so silly. I have to go to work. I have to go to work to earn some money. Oh, I see. What for? Well, you said, don't be stupid. I have to go to work to eat. Oh, so why do you eat? I say to live, of course, what do you think? And to be strong. Oh yes, you've got to be strong, I can see that. W- w- w- why do you have to be strong? Well, say, if I weren't strong, I couldn't go to work. Well, wait a minute. You have to go to work to earn the money, to get the food, so that you can be strong and that you can go to work. Well, sounds a little bit like going around in circles to me. Does it you? You say, now there's more to that, I, yes, yeah, I, I, I, I go to work to get the money, to get the food, to be strong, uh, but you see, um, uh, uh, more than that, I want to get married and, uh, have children, you see. Uh, in fact, I am married, and I've got children, and uh, I have to get a lot of money to send them to school. Well, I see. Yes, you say, I need a good education. Oh. Why do they need to go to go to school? Well, you say if they don't get to go to school, they won't be educated. And why is that important? Well, you say they won't be able to get a good job. Oh, so you, you go to work to get the food, to be strong, to go to work, to get the money, to pay for your children to go to school so that they can learn and go to work to get the money, to get the food. It's going around in circles, isn't it? What is the whole thing about? What is it for? Oh, how many folks there are just going round in circles in life. When the unemployment, when the employment gets short, or the food is restricted, when health declines, then they've nothing to live for. God's answer is this. The world, the universe, and we within it, we were not only made in him and through him, but to him. Oh, what a glorious goal it is. Made by the eternal creator, for the eternal creator. Therein lies our significance. Therein lies the anchor purpose of our existence. Good, isn't it? We're not meandering through life. We're made by God for God, and for a God that is eternal, and to know him is eternal life. He is therefore, because he is the sole d- d- creator, he is the indisputable governor of the created universe. You will notice, please, that I said indisputable. I did not say he is the undisputed governor. For many there are that have risen up to dispute God's sovereignty, but ultimately, of course, their disputes come to nothing. In the ultimate sense, his governorship of the universe is indisputable. That is what Nebuchadnezzar learned and what he was saying in the passage that we have read. He says he, his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can say unto him, what doest thou? Notice Nebuchadnezzar mentions two realms. He talks about the army of heaven, and then he talks about the inhabitants of earth. The Bible shows us that there are many lords, many princes, many kings. There are many lords in the spirit realm. They are described in the New Testament as principalities, powers, mights, and dominions. It is the fact that God rules his universe by delegating power to his creatures. So that in the heavenly realms there are, I repeat, principalities, powers, mights, dominions. You'll read of them in Ephesians and in Colossians. They are the army of heaven. He doeth according to his will. He is not subject in any way to any of these great spiritual eminent powers. He made them. In the end, he controls them. Then Nebuchadnezzar talked about the inhabitants of the earth. And there too, God is the God of, uh, uh, the the prin- king of kings. He is the Lord of lords. Yes, there are many great powers in earth, are there not? Kings, dictators, parliaments, and all the rest of it. They are given delegated power by God, for there is no power but what is of God, says scripture. But ultimately, God is in control and will have his will done. That is what Nebuchadnezzar is saying. And Isaiah the prophet, in his famous chapter forty reminds us now and again to look out at the stars in all their vast multitudes. It's been one of the rejoicings of our heart, hasn't it, of recent years to get the pictures from the s- Hubble Space Telescope, for instance. Marvelous, aren't they? And the discovery that at the edge of the universe there are billions of galaxies, each one of them with its billions of stars. It's good, uh, on a clear night to get outside of the w- outside in the dark and look up at the heavens, just to get Earth's little things in proportion once again. And as we think of their vast numbers, to remember their creator. If you now look at it from God's point of view, if you could a moment, in a moment, put yourself in imagination up by the side of God and look down, we should look very small, shouldn't we? You do it when you fly on an airplane, don't you? You get up there at thirty five thousand feet and look down, and the great lorries look like dinky toys. And people look like ants. And looked at from God's point of view, he says all the nations are as nothing before him. They are counted to him less than nothing and vanity. They're like the dust that's left over when you've weighed the potatoes in the scales, and the shop assistants put the potatoes in your bag, and there's a little dust left in the old pan of the scales, and he tips it out. That's what it looks like to God. We do well to get life in its true proportion. It is wonderful to think that that God loves me. That I am so significant to God that I matter to him. So significant that my sin matters to him. But in all our self-centeredness, we should never forget the objective fact of the greatness of God, his indisputable governorship of the universe. It is that, that has kept freedom alive for mankind in many generations. The sovereignty of God, his un- uh- uh- uh, unshakable kingdom and throne. When men and women have believed that, they found the courage to stand up against dictators whose power was almost absolute. The story of the three young men who defied Nebuchadnezzar sends a thrill to our hearts, doesn't it? Ah, said Nebuchadnezzar, as he got all his satraps and governors and lieutenants and things together to try and infuse in them some solidarity, like Tony and his cabinet, eh, and and get them, uh, all agreeing to support him, you'll see. So he had all the satraps together, and he had the orchestra, and he commanded them when the orchestra struck up, they were to bow down and worship the image of his god. And if anybody doesn't worship my god, says he, who shall deliver him out of my hand? Nebuchadnezzar's God was but a substitute from Nebuchadnezzar himself, of course. So all the satraps bowed down, until it came to these three young men, and they stood before old Nebuchadnezzar and defied him until his mustache went up and down with rage. You'll see. They said that the God that we served is able to deliver us from your furnace, but if he chooses not to, for some reason or purpose or other, we tell you straight, Your Majesty, we will not worship your God. All three cheers for men and women that have dared to stand against the godless dictators of this world. They were thrown into the furnace, and in the furnace found the imperishable God, didn't they? One like a son of the gods, standing in the flames that undid the bands in which they had been tied. They found freedom through their faith in the sovereignty of God. I was in Georgia, not the American one, the European one, a while ago, and found myself entertained, uh, by a whole bevy of professors of the univer- uh, of the university. Very elegant, gracious gentlemen they were, and a marvelous dinner they put on. But you know how it is on these occasions, one thought borrowed another, and the conversation went on hither and thither. And, uh, some of these professors were telling me of what now they were publishing and the books they were publishing, uh, and, uh, what, uh, great acceptance they were finding in America and the United Kingdom. I eventually asked, I think I must have forgotten where I was for the time. I said, how was it under the bad old days that so many people kowtowed to the, uh, uh, totalitarian atheistic regime. How many professors of the university bow down? I said, you know, it was like it in ancient Rome, wasn't it, when under the bad emperors like Tiberius and company, even the Senate, the, the great noble senators, all must to a man bow down, lick the shoes of these boastful would-be gods, the Roman emperors. I said, how is it that intellectuals bow down? And then there came a kind of an embarrassed silence, and I remembered where I was. Men of the highest academic ability, that to save their skin, preached their atheism to their students. And if their students didn't accept it, they were thrown out. Yes, but you see, if you have no faith in the living God, and if this little world is all you have, everything a man has will he give for his life. And men become slaves to the next great dictator. There shall arise, according to the New Testament, in the end of this age, a dictator after that same mold, but unprecedented in his power. And all, save those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, shall bow down and worship him. The secret of freedom is a faith in the sovereignty of God. There is a God. He is on the throne, and he will have the last word. Not only did God create the universe, and therefore is sovereign in it, but he upholds it. Every moment, every second, every microsecond, he constantly upholds it. Of the word of God, it is said that he is before all things, and by him all things stand together. Since Einstein, we have learned, have we not, that time is different according to what part of the universe you're in. A day on Earth, by Earth time, could in fact be multi-million years in other parts of the universe. Time is relative. Gravity stretches time, so that for that reason too, time is not constant throughout the universe. Ah, but the Bible tells us, however different are the workings of time in different parts of the universe, he is before all things. All nothing happens and takes God by surprise. He never has to catch up with the news, not God. He is before all things, and it comes as a comfort even to our individual hearts. How do you know, sir, what's happened to your wife since you've been away? She's still alive or not? You don't know, do you? Whatever has happened, good or bad, what a marvelous thing to know that God is before, and because he has is before all things, then everything has to have his divine permission before it happens. He created the world. We understand it, says, uh, says, uh, the book of Hebrews, chapter uh eleven. We understand that the worlds were made by the word of God. And Genesis one is at pains to hammer home that message, is it not? In the beginning and at all stages throughout creation, it came to be as God said, and God said, and God said. The worlds were made by the word of God. Then Hebrews chapter one tells us that not only were the word worlds made by the word of God, but they are maintained by his word. He upholds all things by the word of his power, by his mighty word. Of course, he is sovereign. His word is encoded throughout the whole of creation at the physical level. Uh, the young people present will know what I mean when I talk about information theory. But let me try and explain it so that the likes of me, who are not a scientist, can understand it. We'll see. The Bible says that that the universe was made by the word of God. That's interesting, isn't it? He created it by a word of command. He said, let light be, and light was. But he made it by his word because he has encoded his designs into nature. Let me take an illustration. Just a few of you ladies present will be just about old enough, and then it's doubtful, but just about old enough to remember, uh, automatic washing machines in their early days. Uh, and they were interesting things. They look pretty primitive now, but they were sort of a plastic container affair. And in the top, they had a little slit on the top of the side. And each housewife was given a bit of plastic, you see, with notches down the side, uh, differently spaced notches down each side. And the secret was this, you see, if you wanted to do the linens, you had to have the linen program. So you got a hold of this square bit of plastic stuff and s- chose the right lot of notches, and you put th- that end into the old slit in the machine, and the old engine purred away happily and did your linens for you. Of course it did. And when you've done the linens and wanted to do the the woolen things, of course you had a different program, did you not? So you took the old plastic thing out of the machine, turned it round the other way to a different lot of notches, put those in, and once more the machine happily purred away, but with a different program, and did the woolens. Yeah. Now let me ask you a question. Can you... You say I never met such a machine. Well, of course you didn't, you're too young. But uh, I- I, I, I remember them. Uh, uh, you can imagine the bit of plastic, can you? Suppose I held that bit of plastic up in front of you and said, what is this? And you said, well, it's plastic. That's all it is. It's plastic. Well, you'd be right, wouldn't you? Made of plastic through and through, all it is. But then you'll be wrong. It is plastic, but it isn't just plastic, is it? Those notches on the side, you say they're plastic. Yes, I know. Ah, but they were put there at different intervals by the engineer. And what did he put them fo- there for? They are his way of telling the engine what to do. That's what the engineers mean by information. They're carrying the information from the engineer to the engine, those notches put there in order to tell the machine how to do. And even while the machine is purring away i- i- in your washroom, my dear lady, do see, and you are taking your morning coffee, the engineer is controlling your machine, making it do the colors and put out the soapy water and rinse it and spin dry it and goodness knows what. He's still controlling. How is he controlling it? By the notches on the plastic, by the information they carry to the machine. It's been one of the interesting discoveries of this last fifty years, isn't it, that every cell in the human body contains chemicals called DNA and RNA, a fantastically complex set of, um, chemicals. Impossible to think that they are there by chance. Chance. What's their function? To control the development of the human body from its conception, to supply all the material necessary. It's coming together in the right order. No good having an eye if you haven't got a head to put it in. To determine the time period to the birth, to determine the growth, to control that living organism until the day of its death. Marvelous bit of engineering, isn't it? That's information theory for you. And it's not only the DNA and the RNA in the cell, it's the cell itself that determines what kind of a, a being or animal the fetus shall be. And God put it there. This is God's information theory. He not only made the universe by his word, he upholds it by his word. Yes. And when the Bible says that he upholds all things by his mighty word, he's implying, isn't it, that God from time to time, as he pleases, puts in the necessary energy. I'm waiting till I can find a physicist who will explain to me what energy is. I've asked them many times, but they seem to regard it as a stupid question, but perhaps it is. Until they can tell me what it is and where it comes from, I'm going to adhere to this, that God is the source of the energy, and he upholds all things constantly by the input of his powerful word, the word of his power. He not only upholds it as though a man might stand and hold up an enormously heavy weight. The Greek word implies that he upholds it, but he carries it, and he's carrying it along to his, to its destiny. He is the author. He knows the end of the story from the beginning. He has his purpose. Christ, who is the heir of all things, the heir, therefore, of our planet, the heir of its history, and all the dividends of human progress. He shall inherit it all, for he made it and made it for himself. So let's now slay in our imagination the true great bogies that frightened the ancient world and made slaves of them. The one bogey was named Fate, F-A-T-E, and the other bogey was named Chance. You'll see the ancient Greeks, they the stuff of the universe. And while there was an all powerful God, or supposed to be, whom the Greeks called Zeus, and the, and the Romans called Jupiter, and the Aramaeans called Baal, and so forth and so on. Eh, while there was supposed to be the supreme deity, even he, the supreme deity, was subject to fate. Fate was some mysterious power behind the universe that had decided what everything would be, and the decisions of fate were irresistible, and even the gods were subject to fate. You'll find the same notion among people who don't know the Lord, and they'll sometimes say, ah, well, what is to be will be, ke se ra se ra, and all that nonsense. That's fate. And people try to comfort themselves with that, don't they? Among the scientists, you'll find people holding that same view. They say this universe is a system of cause and effect. Absolute, invariable cause and effect. There is no room for a God to put his hand in, they say. We can explain the whole workings of the universe simply by cause and effect. There's nothing we can do about that. And there's no room for God. That's nonsense. Of course, our universe works by cause and effect. But he who made the universe and set up the system of cause and effect is not himself subject to it. The laws of cause and effect are simply the way God normally does things and how he gets them done in our universe. But he stands above the laws of cause and effect. Just as he created the universe out of nothing and laid down its laws and principles of movement, so if it pleases him, he can put his finger in and alter things. And the Bible is witness to many a many a time when the living God has poked his finger in to make things work a different way because it so pleased him on the occasion. The other old bogey was chance. And it's undeniable that if you just look around on the universe, isn't it, that a lot of things happen by chance. Ah. The learned physicists, again, they will say if you observe our universe, it runs partly like a clock, you'll see, and uh, partly like clouds. The clock is determined by the engineer, and it runs, doesn't it, and we hope keeps time, yeah. But clouds, blow hard, and it moves over there. Don't blow, and it doesn't move. Well, who told you to blow? You don't know, uh, you'll see. They are, so they say, a stochastic system. They are run by chance. Yes, of course they are. That's not an accident. God made them to run that way. But, uh, that doesn't mean that chance has the last word of what shall happen in our universe. For God bounds the systems of chance. Let me use an illustration that the gentleman present will understand. Ladies, um, uh, forgive me for this, but I have to play to them occasionally, which you'll see. Take your motor car, sir, and the front wheel and the tire on the wheel. Uh, you have it pumped up with air now and again, and air is a gas, of course, and if only you could see it, it's millions and millions and millions and millions of molecules or something of gas. Yeah? You with me? Yes, of course you are. And these aforesaid millic- molecules, they don't stay still, not for one split second, do they? They are forever going all over the place, uh, higgledy piggledy. It's so random, is the movement. If you do say, I want to know where that particular particle is at any time, I'll have a job. Because the whole thing is a chance system. In fact, it might be that just at this split second, underneath that square inch of tire, there might not be many molecules. They might be the other side of the old tire. You say, why does, why does it act as a tire? Oh, because the engineer has got this rubber stuff that is the tire around all these particles you see. So while inside they're happening by chance and buzzing all over the place, you couldn't tell when and where, the tire binds them, bounds them, so that they serve the purpose for which the engineer devised the tire to start with. Yes, there are many systems in this world like that, the clouds, and many another that are subject to chance. But chance doesn't have the last word, for God has set the bounds that the thing as a whole serves his will. What a comfort that is, isn't it, to the believer in our lives. With all the thousand and one choices we make, to choose this or that or other or what depends on them, and many a seemingly ha- thing by chance happens. Uh, but then chance isn't the final power. It's God himself who has set the bounds, and the stormy winds fulfill his will. And thus we rejoice today in God's providential control. Our blessed Lord, Son of the Father, assured us that such is God's wonderful control of things that not one sparrow falls, but what the Father knows it, and the very hairs of our head are numbered. God has set the goal to which he is determined to bring his people. The goal is that they shall be conformed to the image of his son. And the God who made us and the God who redeemed us is so in control that he can assure us that all things, be they what they will, all things work together for good, for that good, for that purpose, that one day we shall be conformed to the image of God's Son. God likewise controls the wicked, doesn't he? He puts them on a long leash. They serve their own will very often, and their will oftentimes is wicked. But God in the end is in control. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, the Bible says. The supreme example is the death of his dear son. The rulers in Israel determined to have him crucified. They did it for their own reasons. They were going to put an end to his claims that he was the Messiah. They didn't do it because they thought it was serving the purposes of God. They did it for their own ends. And God? And God raised him from the dead. And now we look back and we begin to see how stupid those men were, weren't they? If they wanted to prove that Jesus wasn't the Messiah, the last thing they should have done was to crucify him. You say, why was that? Well, the Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah would thus die. But not knowing the scriptures, as Paul said, foolish men, weren't they? In their great wisdom, they went and crucified him to prove he wasn't the Messiah. And in the overruling wisdom of God, it proved the very opposite, that he was. So even his satanic majesty will be made in the end to serve God's purposes. Certain it is that before he can tempt any of God's people, he has to ask permission of the Lord. When Satan attacked Job, Satan showed himself to have power over politics and human greed and even the windstorms. But before he interfered in those things, he had to ask God's permission to touch Job. And before Satan was allowed to touch the apostles and sift them as wheat, our Lord indicated he had asked, he'd asked permission, that is, and had been given permission to do what he did, to test those apostles. Oh, we live in some sense in enemy's territory, don't we? But the enemy doesn't have the last say. In all of it stands the control of our blessed Lord, and if he allows his enemies, and Satan in particular, to test his people, it is only so far and no further. He shall not allow us to be tempted beyond what we could bear if we would. One day, the great day will come when the same word that created heaven and earth shall be heaven and earth depart, and the earth shall depart with a great noise, it shall be burned up, and eternity will dawn, and the Almighty God, the Omnipotent, shall reign, not only the indisputable, but the undisputed sovereign Lord of all.