Daniel’s Dozen Number Twelve: Trust in the Sovereignty of God

An “Our Daily Bread” story illustrates both sides of God’s sovereignty over the details of our lives and introduces our final characteristic of Daniel that we should emulate. Daniel had a rock solid trust in the sovereign reign and rule of God over his life and over all the world. This final trait really serves to undergird the previous eleven that we’ve explored in this series.

Back to the story. A reader was scheduled to be on Flight 191 out of Chicago. He had an unexpected delay in New York and missed the connection. The flight crashed, killing all 254 aboard. The original article in “Our Daily Bread” celebrated the sovereignty of God in keeping this believer from boarding the doomed flight.

Then someone in Chicago, another reader of Our Daily Bread, saw the story and knew what he had to do. He wrote, “I just had to let you know about one of God’s great saints who ran to make Flight 191 …” Edwards E. Elliott, beloved pastor of the Garden Grove Orthodox Presbyterian Church in California, was that saint. His plane from Pennsylvania was late, and a friend who had accompanied him to Chicago said he last saw him “dashing forward” in the terminal to make his connection. And he made it.

The writer to the devotional asked, “was Divine providence operating only in New York and not in Chicago? At the time, Reverend Elliott didn’t know he was indeed running to Heaven…Mrs. Elliott and her four married children comforted the entire church. Their Christian faith and testimony in sorrow was most extraordinary.”

As Job proclaimed after losing all ten of his children – “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

A belief in the God of the Bible necessitates that we believe He alone ultimately reigns over all life and death. Certainly Daniel believed this.

In 1:1-2, the book opens with a horrifying realty – God’s city Jerusalem has been besieged by a pagan, foreign power. This wicked king then ransacked the Temple itself, walking right out in broad daylight with some of the vessels of the house of God and then he had the audacity to place them in the temples of his gods, showing at least in his mind that he thought his gods had whipped Israel’s God.

So where was God? “The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand …” God wasn’t watching from a distance. He was right in the thick of it, working out His justice on Israel and accomplishing His plan. Nebuchadnezzar was successful only because God ordained that it be so.

In 2:20-21a, we find the twin foundation stones that hold up the seat of Sovereignty – “for wisdom and power belong to Him.” Knowing what is always best to accomplish His greater purposes and having the power to bring about what His wisdom decrees is what makes God sovereign. No man can rightly question His wisdom nor withstand His power. Many have tried, none have succeeded.

In 2:44-45 we read history before it happens. How can God be so sure? Because God controls the future. If He did not, then prophecy is at best God’s educated guess of how things might turn out.

Finally, consider Daniel’s theme, a statement repeated in 4:17, 25, 32 and 5:21. God wanted the king to be humbled “until he recognized that the Most High God is ruler over the realm of mankind and that He sets over it whomever He wishes.”

How many variables are in play in a dictator rising, a president being elected, or a royal family preserving power? How many contingencies exist when one nation rises and another declines? Daniel 4:26 reminds us “that it is Heaven that rules.”

Paul Harvey told this WWII story: One of America’s mighty bombers took off from the island of Guam headed for Kokura, Japan, with a deadly cargo. Because clouds covered the target area, the sleek B-29 circled for nearly an hour until its fuel supply reached the danger point. The captain and his crew, frustrated because they were right over the primary target yet not able to fulfill their mission, finally decided they had better go for the secondary target. Changing course, they found that the sky was clear. The command was given, “Bombs away!” and the B-29 headed for its home base.

Some time later an officer received some startling information from military intelligence. Just one week before that bombing mission, the Japanese had transferred one of their largest concentrations of captured Americans to the city of Kokura. Upon reading this, the officer exclaimed, “Thank God for that protecting cloud! If the city hadn’t been hidden from the bomber, it would have been destroyed and thousands of American boys would have died.”

In Daniel 4:34-37 we read with great joy that ole Neb finally saw the light! He was a true hard head, but God finally wrestled him to the mat. Seriously, to think that puny man could “ward off” His hand or legitimately question God is height of foolishness and arrogance and very low view of the Almighty. What does “Almighty” mean anyway? A mere mortal would have a better shot at blotting out the sun or warding off a Category 5 hurricane than the hand of God!

Other examples from Daniel could be brought forth, but is it really necessary? Read the whole book and you will conclude – God’s sovereign reign is the resounding note on every page.

If God is not ultimately in control of all that comes to pass, then who or what is? Man? The devil? Is Sovereignty shared? Is anything ruled by fate, governed by chance, subject to luck? Is random real or the belief of pagans? I think not.

Christ believed in God’s control over all things, even the betrayal of Judas. “I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” What God said and ordained had to come to pass, while Judas remained responsible and accountable for his choices and God is never guilty of injustice or sin.

How can you live not believing that God rules over government, economy, health, wealth, weather, and the beginning and end of all life? How can we mere flesh and blood creatures survive if God is not dominate over demons? Wouldn’t they wipe us out before we could be saved? How can we imagine that His sovereignty has limitations? Do any of His other attributes have limits?

The clear truth is that God, for His own good pleasure and glory, ordains all that comes to pass and always does all His holy will, in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and among all created beings, while man remains accountable to Him for all his actions and choices.

Eph. 1:11 “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” All things here in the Greek means … all things.

God is hands-on active, with infinite energy working and turning, causing or permitting all things in all places so that it fulfills His eternal plan fixed before time began.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose” says Romans 8:28.

Did Christ trust in His Father’s sovereign control over all things, including even the salvation of His listeners? In Matthew alone, we find eleven indications that the answer is yes. Check out Matthew 11:25-30 for the capstone. Check out John 6 for the diamond on top!

The biggest test of all to this teaching is the greatest human injustice ever, the murder of Jesus Christ. How do we process that??? In Acts 2:23, we see how Peter, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did. Read every word slowly and thoughtfully: “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”

So rest completely dear friend in God’s reign of the entire universe, including every detail of your life. This does not give us a license to sin. This doesn’t open the door to charge God with sin. It does inspire us to trust and obey Him and rest our souls and days and minutes in His hands.