Day 152: God Sovereign Over Kings and Rulers 1

June 1

Today's Connected Passages: 

• Psalm 2 [Acts 4:23-31] ; 48; 72 [1 Kings 10:10]; 87; 113

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. I want to personally welcome you to day number 152 of the Canon Connected. And right now in our series of connected studies throughout the entire year, we are studying a very big topic, both literally and figuratively. It's big in the its importance to understanding, you know, who God is, but it's also big because it's discussed, you know, a lot in Christianity. And the idea of the sovereignty of God is very important because God is distinct, set apart, different from us. I think that's his fundamental attribute, meaning he's holy. And I think the fact that he is sovereign is a huge reason why God is very distinct and different from us. Doesn't matter how you know independent you think you are or intelligent or how much control you want to have, life at some point is going to humble you and remind you just how little control you do have. Parenting has been the biggest lesson for that for me. Because no matter how hard I try to control things, sometimes the free will of my children, and sometimes even things just like sickness and and uh and health and things like that have just reminded me I'm not sovereign, okay? And God is. And I think this is something all Christian Christians can agree upon and should agree upon. That if God wants to do something, he's gonna do it. And God cannot be feet defeated, and no plan of his can be thwarted. He is entirely in control of every situation. Um, he is completely all-powerful. Um, he is God the all-powerful, I think is an appropriate title for him. And we've been studying things like how the Bible teaches that God and Christ are the name, not just the title, but the literal proper name, I am Yahweh. We've studied, you know, that God and Christ are both described as a warrior. We've studied for several days how God is the God of heaven's armies. And that last one, and really building off of the previous ones, I think there's significant overlap to all of these sub-series because they all do teach very emphatically and clearly, and I think very connectedly, if I can invoke that word, the sovereignty of God. And they lead in very easily, I think, to these next two days, and that is the idea that God is sovereign over all nations and rulers, all kingdoms. God is completely over, and they are all subjected to him. And if there's anything you can learn from the Bible, you know, you learn God's mercy, you learn God's grace, you learn God's sovereignty, but there's something you get especially from the Old Testament, but from the new as well, is that no empire can stand up to the Christian God. None of them can. And it doesn't matter whether they're invading armies or whether they're, you know, kingdoms that persecute, you know, on their own territory. God always wins. He always overthrows. They're all temporary, they all have their their short time. Even the Roman Empire, as long as it was, and was just a vapor, truly, compared to the the eternality of the reign of God, um, of our God. And so today we're going to take a look at the idea that all nations, governors, rulers, you know, kingdoms are subject to the sovereignty of our of our Lord through a series of Psalms and then one commentary from the book of Acts that is taken from Psalm 2. Um, so Psalm 2 again says it plainly. Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with feudal plans? Meaning, when it compared to God, again, what they're doing is not going to overthrow him. It is not going to deter him, it's not going to do anything other than exactly what he wants to happen or allows to happen in a manner of speaking. The kings of the earth prepare for battles, the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed ones. Let us break their chains, they cry, and free ourselves from slavery to God. But the one who rules in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them, and then in anger he rebukes them, terrifying them with his fierce fury. The Lord declares, I have placed my chosen king on the throne in Jerusalem on my holy mountain. And the king proclaims the Lord's decree. And this is again the psalm in which they quote in Acts chapter four, because they're being persecuted, and they know that they can trust the sovereignty of God to fulfill what he wants to happen. That doesn't always mean their protection, though often it did, but we do again see, you know, Christians martyred to death in the book of Acts, not just the original apostles, but even, you know, Stephen in Acts chapter 7. But they submit themselves to the sovereign Lord in verse 24, creator of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them, day one of our reading. You spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit to the our ancestor David, your servant, saying, Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with feudal plans? The king on earth prepared for battle, what we just read. The rulers on earth gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah. And then they go on to explain, you know, in their discussion here, in their teaching here, that even though the rulers of Jesus' day crucified him, Jewish and Roman, they were the ones who crucified him. They only did what God had ordained to happen. Okay? And this is definitely one of the interesting, you know, you know, facets of the Calvinist Arminian debate that I don't mind delving into here because I do believe, and I think there's probably a lot of overlap between Calvinists and Arminians on this, that one, God intended for Jesus to be crucified on a Roman cross, and he he planned that from eternity past. That was always his plan, okay, to redeem fallen mankind. I think Acts 2 confirms this in 27-28, and Acts 4 does it as well, or Acts 2, 23, and Acts 4, 27, and 28 both say this. So I think that God ordained it and God planned it, and it was God's sovereign will. Even Isaiah 53, I think, alludes to that. It was God's goodwill. You know, it pleased God to crush him. But also that the Romans and the Jews who had Jesus killed will be held accountable for their actions. I think both of those things are true. And of course, they lie in attention, which I'm not getting into now. And even if I had 14 hours, probably couldn't resolve to any any any level of satisfaction. But the idea here is though, for this study, though, we want to see clearly that according to again the apostles in the early church, what the what Pilate and what Caiaphas and all of all of the leaders did was only what God allowed them to do, what and what God ordained in some sense for them to do. And so the rulers of this earth cannot stand up to the Christian God. Even whenever it seems like they're winning, they're only doing again what God is working together for good, if I can say it in a Romans 8.28 way. And Jesus' death on the cross is the ultimate evil being used for good. Psalm 14 or Psalm 48, for the kings of the earth joined forces and advanced against the city, but when they saw it, they were stunned, they were terrified and ran away. It doesn't say who these kings are specifically in this psalm from the sons of Korah, but it is often presumed or guessed. I'm not sure how certain people are, but again, reading some commentaries and what some people interpret this to be, a lot of people do believe it's the same kings we've read about the last few days. Like in the stories of Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat, and whenever the you know the kings of these nations that were undefeated, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, you know, and the and the Moabites and the Ammonites, these nations which should have won when they came up against God's people, and the stories we read, because God is completely sovereign, and he did allow his people to lose sometimes for judgment, but when God wanted them to win, you know what happened? Every single time? They won. And the kings of the earth, that's the contrast to the God of heaven's armies. Um they lost, they ran away, they were terrified. And then Psalm 72, this is a psalm of Solomon, interestingly. We know a lot of them are from David, one from Moses, sons of Korah, Asaph, a lot of them. But we have a Psalm of Solomon here according to the title, either meaning he wrote it or somebody wrote it in his honor. And again, even Solomon says very similar things, and he understood what he's saying here from the Queen of Sheba coming. Refers to the king of Sheba, but I can't help but feel like there's an overlap because of what it says. Let's read it. All kings will bow before him, and all nations serve him. He will rescue the poor when they cry to him, he will help the oppressed, and who have who have no one to defend them. He feels pity for the weak and needy, and he will rescue them. This has some overlap with the next Psalm we're going to read. He will redeem them from oppression and violence, for their lives are precious to him. Long live the king, may the gold of Sheba be given to him. That's exactly what happens in for in 1 Kings 10 10, which we which I added late as in a late addition to the reading for today. Long live the king, may the sheep of gold, cob she be given to him, may the people always pray for him, for him, and bless him all day long. And so there's definitely overlap again here with with Solomon's actual interaction with Sheba in his story. And but again, he he makes the claim that all kingdoms are so subject to him. And in his story with the Queen of Sheba, it's definitely that she is impressed, and perhaps even came to have faith in the Christian God. I don't know. I've read that story a few times, but I'm not sure one way or another on that. But she definitely had a confession of the God of Christianity because again, it didn't matter how mighty or powerful she was, whenever she saw evidence of the Christian God through Solomon's wisdom, she yielded, she submitted, she said, I don't have anything like this because the Christian God has sovereignty that no ruler or nation or kingdom has. And Psalm 87. This is the sons of Korah again. It says, I will count Egypt and Babylon amongst those who know me, also Philip Philistia and Tyre, even distant Ethiopia. All of these nations that ruled and they reigned and they had they had these dominant powers, eventually, some of them they're gonna become again followers of the Christian God. They're not gonna rule instead of him, they're not gonna fight against him and oppose him, they are gonna yield to him. They have become citizens of Jerusalem. And this is definitely a testimony too to how all nations come to God, again, through the Abrahamic covenant and through the gospel and according to the New Testament, which we've studied many times. But this also does have a heavy overlap with the sovereignty of God, because the nations, the rulers, those who had power during the biblical times, they, many of their people, were going to yield to the Christian God and become followers of His. And that again is submitting, you know. And then Psalm 113, which again has, you know, some overlap to the two Psalms ago I meant to say. I should have said earlier. Who can be compared with the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on heaven and on earth? He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump. He sets them among the princes, even the princes of his own people. So God Himself and His sovereignty can make those in the garbage dunk the same as those who who are rulers and who are who are royalty. Because that's the sovereignty of our God. And so it does not matter how much power you know a king or a ruler or an emperor or a prime minister or a president or a congress or a dictator has. God trumps everything. And God absolutely will uh will be bowed down to by all of these people according to Isaiah 45 and Philippians 2. Everybody's gonna bow down to him, and that includes people from all nations and all the powerful nations, and it includes people who are royalty, and God absolutely will be worshipped by everyone and be confessed as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, because he is the only truly sovereign power in the history of the world. We're gonna see more of this in the actual literal kingdoms that fell. If you read through Daniel, you know this. This is a repeated theme, but it's in the other uh from prophets in the Old Testament as well. I was surprised by that doing this reading plan. But we're gonna see that more tomorrow. So we're gonna continue to study this this idea that God is sovereign over kings, nations, rulers, you know, um all authorities, you know, yield to him. And we'll see it again tomorrow in day two of this subseries under the sovereignty of God as we continue to read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections. Thank you.