King Jesus: The Lord of History

I just want to follow up on a few comments I made in our last gathering about current events, particularly as they relate to our understanding of God’s sovereignty

If you were a part of that gathering, you’ll recall that I gave a very brief overview of a more nuanced biblical view of God’s sovereignty than most of us have been taught in church.

What most of us learned was a simplistic, cartoonish view that if you wear the title “God” then you are actively creating or passively “allowing” every single event in every second in every place on planet earth. To suggest otherwise is often labeled heresy. This has become the pop culture, movie-television view of God as well.

The tragedy of this is that people are logical. And when we tell them “God is good,” they look around at all the horror and injustice in the world and say, “That can’t possibly be true.” And they’re not wrong. We have an entire generation of younger people who have rejected the Christian faith out of hand for this very reason.

This cartoon view of God’s sovereignty doesn’t take into account three, related realities about the way God set up the world. 1) God’s gift of free will to Man. 2) God delegation of dominion authority over the earth to man. 3) The warping of Creation itself by the fall of Man.

One aspect of that understanding I mentioned in our gathering was about differintiating between God’s “Macro Sovereignty” and “micro sovereignty.” Whereas, God legally delegated a large measure of micro sovereignty to individual humans from the very beginning through those twin gifts I just mentioned, He retained Macro Sovereignty for Himself.

By that I mean, God can, has been, and continues to move (captial “H”) History to the ends that He decreed long ago.

I declare from the beginning how it will end and foretell from the start what has not yet happened. I decree that my purpose will stand, and I will fulfill my every plan.

Isaiah 46:10 TPT

And God is so brilliant, He can do this while still respecting the God-given, free-will, micro-sovereignty of every individual. Although He will occasionally hardern or soften a king’s heart in order to accomplish His redemptive plans in the earth. (Exodus 9:12; Proverbs 21:1)

I won’t try to unpack all of that in this post. I’ve done that in a series of four posts over at my personal site. Get the full picture here: Tragedy: The Mother of All Bad Theology. (Parts 1-4)

The reason I brought it up—and I think I got sidetracked before I had a chance to make my main point—is because a lot of good people who care deeply about the nation; freedom (of speech, religion, assembly, private property, etc.); the defenseless unborn; the rule of law; and other key values . . . are deeply distressed about the outcome of the recent presidential election.

Some are swimming in social media feeds filled to overflowing with claims of voter fraud and election stealing. To be honest, I have no interest in trying to sort out the validity of those. I don’t need to. Here’s why.

Because I know God’s macro sovereignty is moving History to the ends He has predetermined and no Machiavellian machinations of human or demonic scheming can thwart them. God is playing Four-Dimensional Chess and His enemies are playing Candyland.

I am doubly confident of this given the levels of focused prayer that went out this year. There is a reason the Spirit of Jesus has consistently pointed us to Psalm 2, Romans 8 (especially verses 28-39), and Hebrews 12 (especially verses 26-29).

I mentioned Saturday night that I have a strong sense of excitement in my spirit. And I do. This is not because I expect to see my preferred election outcome. I suspect it’s because the Spirit knows things that me and my social media news feeds don’t know. That there are things going on that my senses can’t perceive.

The truth will set you free . . .

Truth: God is faithful to His people.

Truth: God is kind and redemptive, and He is working sovereignly and powerfully in History in kind and redemptive ways.

Truth: Jesus is ruling earth from heaven, and will continue to do so until every enemy except Death itself is a footstool for His feet.

Please understand, I’m not suggesting we should passively let events roll over us. One HUGE implication of the view of God’s sovereigny that I’m advocating is that: God wants and needs us to partner with Him in accomplishing His ends.

Maybe we need an updated, Holy Ghost version of the famous Serenity Prayer that people in Alcoholics Anonmymous have been quoting daily for decades:

God grant me the serenity to accept things that don’t make sense to me because I can rest confidently in your goodness and might. Give me the Holy Spirit insight to partner with you to contend for the things you want to change. And grant me the supernatural wisdom to discern the difference.

Amen.