Clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with cries of joy. For the Lord Most High is awesome, the great King over all the earth. He subdued nations under us, peoples under our feet. He chose our inheritance for us, the pride of Jacob, whom He loved. (Psalm 47:1-4)
Tozer on God’s Sovereignty
In his book Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer illustrates the seeming contradiction between God’s supremacy and human freedom. Others have found it helpful.
Suppose an ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool, England. Its destination has been determined by the proper authorities. It won’t be changed. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty. On board the liner are many passengers. They are not chained and their activities are not dictated by the captain. They are completely free to move about as they wish. They eat, sleep, play, lounge on the deck, read, talk as they please. But all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port. Both freedom and sovereignty are illustrated here, and they do not clash. So it is, I believe, with human freedom and God’s sovereignty. The mighty ship of God’s sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history.1
Author Jerry Bridges comments: We must not misconstrue God’s sovereignty so as to make people mere puppets and must not press man’s freedom to the point of limiting the Lord’s supremacy…Prayer assumes the God’s sovereignty. If He is not in charge of His universe, we have no assurance that He is able to answer our prayers. Our prayers would become only wishes. But while God’s sovereignty, along with His wisdom and love, is the foundation of our trust in Him, prayer is the expression of that trust.2
This post builds on: God is Sovereign (Proverbs) (Part 1), and Christ’s Wisdom in Proverbs (Part 1)
God and Casting Lots
Proverbs says: The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord….Casting the lot settles disputes and keeps strong opponents apart.3
The Apostle Peter said: It is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of Christ’s resurrection.” So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, “Lord, You know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two You have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.4
God’s Better Way
I am often asked about these Proverbs. In the ancient world casting lots was a tool of “chance” to make a choice, like rolling dice or tossing a coin. It was sometimes used the Bible.5 But God general rule for guiding us is stated in Proverbs 3:5-6:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways submit to God,
And He will make your paths straight.
Notice that the first three lines are our duty and the last one is God determining the outcome. The point of the Proverbs, Acts 1, and the whole Bible is that God, not luck, controls our lives and destiny. What people call “chance” is under the Lord’s control. He unfolds His predetermined plans inch by inch, day by day, in His own way. Scripture teaches that God is the final Arbiter of the future. Human beings attempt to find out what the future holds, but the Lord is the One who decides it.
The Lord and Human Leaders
Proverbs says: The lips of a king speak as an oracle, and his mouth does not betray justice. Honest scales and balances belong to the Lord…Kings detest wrongdoing, for a throne is established through righteousness. Kings take pleasure in honest lips. They value the one who speaks what is right.6
Proverbs continues: A king’s wrath strikes terror like the roar of a lion. Those who anger him forfeit their lives….When a king sits on his throne to judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes….A wise king winnows out the wicked. He drives the threshing wheel over them….Love and faithfulness keep a king safe. Through love his throne is made secure.7
Proverbs continues: In the LORD’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that He channels toward all who please Him….There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD.8
Leaders in civil government, business, and Jesus’ churches never have absolute power and they must never be autocratic. They are always accountable to God as their Higher Ruler. They are never free to be arbitrary or self-willed. God’s standards for leaders is very high. The Lord warns that He will judge leaders more strictly by Him.9
But God is able to overrule even the bad decisions and bad actions leaders make. Scripture is full of these examples and I’ll just mention two. Near 1400 BC, Egypt’s Pharaoh tried to kill all the Hebrew male babies. But the Lord intervened and caused Moses to be adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter and receive a first-class Egyptian education and become powerful in speech and action.10 God then used Moses to lead the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. The Lord always gets the last laugh!
Centuries later, Caesar Augustus, decreed a census in the entire Roman world to raise taxes. The Lord intervened and used this census to bring Joseph and Mary back to Bethlehem where Jesus was born. This fulfilled Micah’s prophecy spoken 700 years before Christ that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.11
This is good news! God is sovereign over all the rulers and leaders on earth, and He uses them to accomplish His eternal purposes. Leaders on earth are never all-powerful. The Lord alone is!
Psalm 139 says:
Although Lord Jesus is most high, on lowly ones, He bends His eye.
But those who proud and haughty are, He knows them only from afar.12
To be continued
Notes (various Bible translations): 1 Adapted from Douglas G. Gerrard, Kingston, Ontario. Leadership, Vol. 6, no. 4. 2 Trusting God, p. 69, 107. 3 Proverbs 16:33; 18:18. 4 Acts 1:21-26. 5 See Exodus 28:30-31; Num 26:53; Neh 11:1; Jonah 1:7; Psalm 22:18. 6 Prov 16:10-13. 7 Prov 20:2,8,26,28. 8 Proverbs 21:1,30. 9 James 3:1. 10 Exodus chapters 1-2; Acts 7:22. 11 Luke 2:1-14; Micah 5:2-4. 12 Psalm 138B Book of Psalms for Singing.